Tyler F.M. Edwards's Blog, page 29

New Articles: Essential and Outdated Features, and Appealing Leveling

Time for another round-up of my latest articles published at MMO Bro.

[image error]First, I take a look at the six features no MMO should launch without, then go on to examine the other end of the spectrum: design choices that need to be retired outright.

Finally, I run down the ways MMOs can make leveling more appealing, so it doesn’t end up feeling like a chore before the “real” game.

TV: iZombie Recovers, Lucifer Falters, Lost in Space Disappoints

Lately there’s been an unusual excess of sci-fi and fantasy TV for me to watch. Unfortunately, it hasn’t all turned out to be must-see television, but it has been interesting enough for me to have a few thoughts to share.

[image error](Un)Life in New Seattle:

I went into season four of iZombie with a fair bit of trepidation. While season three impressed out of the gate, over time it began to flag badly. The plot was extremely over-complicated and confusing, and most of the characters ended up going in dark directions that I didn’t care for. I was worried the show was losing its mojo.

However, I am pleased to report that, with only a few episodes left, season four has been kicking all of the ass.

iZombie is now a very different series from when it started. It’s gone from a very simple, lighthearted show with a very small focus to a much more intense drama where the very fate of humanity may hang in the balance.

It’s a big adjustment, but I deeply admire the writers for being courageous enough to shake things up so much, and for the most part, it’s paid off. Season four of iZombie still maintains much of the quirky charm and off the walls humour that made us all fall in love with the series, but it’s now a bigger, more powerful story as well.

I was initially skeptical of the show’s continued reliance on the case of the week formula — it was one of the things that dragged season three down — but they’ve mostly done a good job of making the cases tie into the greater narrative, and they haven’t been afraid to buck the formula when the situation calls for it.

[image error]Similarly, I didn’t at first enjoy the idea of bringing Angus back into the story, as it felt like his plot had been pretty conclusively wrapped up, but “Brother Love” has became one of the most spectacularly creepy yet gripping aspects of the series to date.

My one big complaint would be that the season’s attempts at social commentary have largely fallen flat. The conflict between zombies and humans is clearly intended to echo real world prejudices, but real world minorities aren’t an existential threat to the human race, whereas zombies are, so the anti-zombie perspective ends up far more sympathetic than the writers seem to want. Any message of tolerance is lost in translation.

It also feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity not to revisit Liv’s estranged family now that the zombified cat is out of the bag and they (presumably) know why she couldn’t save her brother, but it’s already such a packed season I can understand why they haven’t tried to cram that in on top of everything else.

Aside from that, season four of iZombie has been nearly flawless.

I was pleased to see the show has already been renewed for a final season. Even before the announcement, I was thinking to myself that the story seemed to have about one season left in it, so I think this will work out well.

Hell fallen:

On the other hand, Lucifer’s third season ended up being mostly a disappointment. It started out okay, and it had some good ideas, but a number of missteps dragged it down.

[image error]For one, it focused far too much on relationship angst. The conflict between Linda and Maze was utterly unnecessary, and the love triangle at the heart of the season was just terrible.

I hate love triangles at the best of times, and this one was made worse by how uninteresting Chloe continues to be. For a romantic arc to work, the love interest has to be appealing to the viewer, but Chloe just isn’t appealing at all. She’s dull, wooden, and lifeless. I can’t understand why anyone would want to be with her, let alone why two immortals would end up competing over her.

Also, the case of the week formula began to really bog things down. It’s always been the weakest element of Lucifer, but rather than de-emphasizing it as iZombie wisely has, Lucifer clung to it with an incredible fervour.

It became painfully predictable. Each week, a new murder where there’s no relevance to the meta-plot, the true culprit is blindingly obvious, and Lucifer makes it all about him in an incredibly childish manner.

Lucifer’s immature ways were amusing for a time, but by now, I was expecting the character to have evolved. Even a show as silly as Lucifer needs some character development.

[image error]He does finally grow a bit by the end of the season, but only after a truly painful expanse of episodes where the series pretty much just chased its tail.

The frustrating thing is that season three had a lot going for it. “The Sinner Man” was a very interesting villain, and his arc had some memorable twists. There was potential there. Charlotte’s storyline this season was nothing short of brilliant, but it got largely ignored in favour of the petty angst that defined so much of season three.

Sadly, Lucifer has now been cancelled, which means season three may well be its last, barring a miracle pick-up by Netflix or some other network. Despite my criticism of season three, I would like to see it continue. As iZombie illustrates, one bad season doesn’t necessarily spell doom for a show, and the ending of season three did look set to move the show in a fresh direction.

Doldrums, Will Robinson:

Going in, I heard a lot of good buzz around Netflix’s Lost in Space reboot from people whom I respect. Therefore I was quite surprised by how boring it turned out to be.

I mean, it’s not terrible. I’ll probably watch the second season (which is already confirmed). But I can’t say I’m impressed.

For one thing, it is, to be blunt, pretty dumb at times. I never fully recovered from the brain-achingly silly pilot.

[image error]Seriously, guys, that’s not how ice works. At all. I don’t expect a lot of realism from my sci-fi, but when you’re screwing up something you could have tested in your home refrigerator…

The biggest problem, though, is that none of the characters feel real. Dr. Smith is so cartoonishly evil she seem ends up feeling more ridiculous than sinister. The rest of the cast (with one exception) is little better. They all feel forced and unreal.

I also thought the plot was undermined by how much of the show’s drama is dependent on the incompetence of the Robinson children (especially Will, who is just terrible on every level). Either they’re superhuman wiz kids who can serve as part of a deep space exploration mission, or they’re just kids who make mistakes, in which case they have no place on a mission like this. You can’t have it both ways, but that’s exactly what Lost in Space tries to do.

The only strong mark in the show’s favour — aside from the admittedly amazing production values — is Penny, who is awesome. Alone among all the cast, she feels like a real person. She acts pretty much exactly how I would expect a teenage girl to act. She’s precocious, but not superhuman, and relatable in a way the other children aren’t.

And her snark is delightful.

As I said, I’ll probably return for season two, but for me Lost in Space is very much in the “I’m watching this because there’s nothing better to do” category.

The Mustering of Azeroth: An End at Last

At long last, the journey is done. My nearly two year mission to complete every class story in World of Warcraft has reached its conclusion, with the last three now in the rear view.

[image error]Man. What am I doing with my life.

Rise of the mountain queen:

The trouble with the warrior campaign is it’s one of those stories that just doesn’t go anywhere. You spend all this time marshaling the armies of the Titanforged, and then… that’s it. You don’t actually do anything with your amazing immortal army. I like the subject matter, but there isn’t really a story here.

The only significant lore revelation to be found is learning what happens to the Kvaldir after Helya’s defeat, but while that’s nice to know, it’s honestly not a question I’d even thought to ask.

They do have a very pretty class hall, at least, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed playing arms spec. Going in, it sounded totally unappealing; I thought not having an active rage generator would make the spec incredibly slow. But it’s not like that at all. It’s quite quick, and it flows well. I wound up enjoying it better than fury, which I never would have expected.

This is why I try to test out so many different classes and builds. You never really know what you’ll like until you try it.

[image error]Ru shanna Shal’dorei:

We had a bit of a last minute line-up change here. I had leveled up my Pandaren hunter, but that race never seemed to fit the class very well, so I decided to use my “free” 110 boost as a cheap alternative to a race-change. I spent really a disturbing amount of time agonizing over whether I wanted to be a Void Elf or a Nightborne, but while Void Elves are unquestionably the coolest looking race in the game right now, the vastly superior backstory of the Nightborne won out.

As for the campaign itself…

I’ve said before that Legion’s class campaigns don’t have enough content to work as standalones. The best campaigns are those that build upon existing lore and continue the stories of well-known characters.

The hunter campaign is entirely standalone, and as a result it’s possibly the dullest of all.

It’s undoubtedly a challenge to come up with a cohesive story for a class that has no real singular identity or established factions in-lore. I’m not sure I have a better idea for how to handle things. But the fact is that the Unseen Path, while potentially an interesting concept, is way too out of the blue and way too underdeveloped to be at all compelling.

[image error]What’s equally sabotaging to the story but harder to explain is the fact the hunter campaign focuses almost entirely on unfamiliar characters the player isn’t going to have any investment in. There are more than a few memorable and interesting hunter characters in the lore, but for some reason they’re largely ignored by the campaign.

The hunter story isn’t quite as destructively dumb as the shaman campaign, but for sheer boredom, it takes the crown.

Also, I skipped recruiting a couple of followers because they required you to do Nesingwary’s quests in Highmountain. A long time ago, when I was a lowbie leveling through Stranglethorn, I swore to myself I would never do any more quests for that benighted, grind-loving Dwarf again, and I will not break that promise for anything.

The one piece of good news is that I did enjoy playing the class quite a bit. Marksmanship takes some getting used to, but once you get into the rhythm, it’s pretty satisfying. It does feel like playing a patient, master sniper. Beast mastery was also pretty fun, surprisingly. I wouldn’t play it solo, but in a group context, it’s not bad. More active than I expected.

Survival didn’t quite do it for me. It’s got some cool ideas and unusual mechanics, but it’s just not tuned well. You wind up so focus-starved.

The wilds call out:

[image error]The druid story was a good note to end on. It’s not the best class campaign, but it is better than most. In stark contrast to the hunter campaign, it draws almost entirely on well established characters and plots. Maybe it’s still a pretty basic story on paper, but as a long-time Warcraft fan, I can’t deny the thrill of once again adventuring alongside the likes of Broll Bearmantle, Hamuul Runetotem, and Celestine of the Harvest.

Also, you get to relive the War of the Ancients in all its mad glory. Hells to the yes.

Man, I am scarred for life by Thisalee Crow’s new voice, though. It’s like they got the actresses for her and Valeera completely backwards.

Mechanically, I find druid a mixed bag. There’s no spec that I actively dislike, but nothing quite clicks, either. Balance and restoration just feel off in a way I can’t fully articulate, and feral still feels like playing a watered down rogue.

Guardian did grow on me a bit, though. If I wasn’t so burnt out now I might have spent some time playing guardian just for the hell of it even after I finished the campaign.

There’s also a certain sense of symmetry to finishing with my druid. He is not the first character I ever created — playable Worgen didn’t even exist back then — but he is reusing the name I gave to my original WoW character, who was a Night Elf priest. In that sense, I’ve ended as I started.

[image error]Final thoughts:

What a long, strange journey it’s been.

I admit to having mixed feelings. There’s a lot about this I enjoyed, but honestly, twelve class campaigns is a bit much. I’m glad I pushed myself to do more more than the stories of the classes I normally play, and it did give me a much more holistic view of the story of Legion, but I’m not sure doing every last one was really necessary.

If you’re wondering which are the must-plays, I’d say death knight, paladin, druid, and mage are the ones that feel important as a lore fan. Rogue and warlock were also a lot of fun, but I’m not sure they can be considered required.

Death knight wins as my overall favourite. Shaman was the worst.

This also means that I have now played every class and spec in World of Warcraft. I’d say the most enjoyable specs in each role right now are outlaw rogue for melee DPS, elemental shaman for ranged DPS, resto shaman for healing, and prot paladin for tanking.

Blizzard has done a very good job of improving class design across the board such that while there are more than a few specs I’m not that passionate about, there are very few that are actively unpleasant to play. Just holy paladin and demonology warlock, I’d say. Which is very sad to say, because those are both specs that have in the past been my favourite.

[image error]Of course, Battle for Azeroth will be changing everything again soon anyway…

Speaking of which, I think I must address my future relationship with World of Warcraft. I’m still not willing to say that I’m done with the game for good, but honestly? I have no plans to play anymore WoW right now.

The fact is pretty much all the stories I care about have been wrapped up, and the Mustering of Azeroth seems like a good note to end on. Maybe I’ll come back at some point, but for now, as impossible as it is to believe, I think I’m done with this game.

I’m still a Warcraft fan. All the stuff I used to love is stuff that I still love. I’ll always be a Blood Elf nut. I’ll always have fond memories of WoW and the previous games (not to mention the novels, comics, and movie). But at this point I think the franchise has given me all it can. I think it’s time to quit while I’m ahead.

Stay tuned, though, as I still have one or two more posts about all this up my sleeve…

I leave you now with a gallery of all twelve of my max level characters. A fine-looking bunch, if I do say so myself. You should all be impressed that only half of them are Elves.

Shorel’aran, friends.

Song of the Month: Chvrches, Miracle

Man, there’s so much good music coming out lately I can’t even keep up. Between new releases from both Chvrches and Sc Mira, not to mention some promising entries from new artists, I’ve almost got more songs to listen to than time to listen to them.

There is therefore no shortage of good candidates for Song of the Month, but one option edges out the rest: the latest release from Chvrches’ upcoming Love Is Dead album, titled “Miracle.”

This feels different from most Chvrches songs. It’s heavier and more intense, and it feels like they’re channeling Imagine Dragons a bit. But it’s a change I wholeheartedly embrace. It’s an amazing, powerful song.

I think I found my theme song for book four of Soulcleaver…

SWTOR: Thus Always to Traitors

After the disappointment of the last patch, I went into The Nathema Conspiracy with pretty low expectations. Thankfully, that allowed me to come away actually feeling pretty pleased, even though the story has its flaws.

[image error]The main problem is that the two big plot reveals/changes to come out of this are really easy to see coming (especially since one is spoiled by the rewards in the quest log) and feel like cop-outs.

But I will grant the writers’ choices aren’t entirely without merit. I went into the flashpoint full of fire and fury, but this turned out to be one of the only times in my entire history with the game I’ve genuinely regretted a dark side choice. I think that shows that the story had some real emotional weight to it.

As for the other Big News, it definitely feels, again, like a cop-out, but I can’t say I have a better idea for how to progress the story. They had kind of painted themselves into a corner. It reminds me of the ending to Dragon Soul, actually. Not an amazing ending, but perhaps the best they could have managed.

And those issues aside, Nathema Conspiracy felt like a much stronger patch than A Traitor Among the Chiss or Crisis on Umbara. It’s still a bit shallower than I’d like, but there’s definitely more and better story content here than in the earlier patches. Despite some rather thin development leading up to now, it did feel like a very epic and intense conclusion to this particular arc.

I was especially impressed by how much the graphical fidelity of this game continues to improve. There’s some beautiful lighting effects in the new environments.

[image error]I did enjoy the twist around Zildrog’s true identity, as well. That was one thing I didn’t see coming, but in retrospect, it makes perfect sense.

In terms of mechanics, it’s a standard SWTOR flashpoint. It’s too long, there’s way too much trash, and the bosses are HP sponges. But at least it’s not half as bad as Copero was.

In the end I think my favourite part of the patch may have been the quiet character moments with Lana at the end. I was definitely not expecting this to be a major patch as far as romance content goes, but I’m not complaining.

Honestly, at this point, I think Lana is the main thing that’s keeping me playing SWTOR. I don’t love the setting, and I’ve never much liked the gameplay, but as long as Lana’s there, I will be too. I’ve really come to enjoy her character.

I am having pangs of regret now that Vector’s back, though. I’m not sure I’ll ever have the courage to do his Alliance Alert. I don’t think I have it in me to break his heart like that.

Poor, poor Vector.

Defiance 2050: Maybe?

Despite its many well-documented flaws, I have long maintained a soft spot for the MMO shooter Defiance. I really enjoy the setting, and it has some very memorable NPCs. I can forgive a lot if a game has personality, which is one thing Defiance has never lacked.

[image error]That said, I still haven’t played in a long time, and I considered my time with the game effectively done. That held true until the announcement of Defiance 2050, a reboot designed to improve the game and make it run on more modern consoles.

Immediately, there is an obvious resemblance between 2050 and The Secret World’s reboot as Legends, something I’ve been harshly critical of. And it does seem to be a pretty similar situation: It’s being branded as a new game, but by all reports it’s pretty much the same game with a tweaked progression system.

However, there are a couple of factors that leave me feeling a bit more open-minded this time.

For one thing, I haven’t invested nearly as much time in Defiance as I did in TSW. I only played through the story once, and that was some years ago now. The prospect of having to start over from scratch isn’t nearly as galling.

While there’s definitely still room to criticize the treatment of Defiance veterans, I do think Trion is handling this a little better than Funcom did. They’re not shutting down the old Defiance, they are transferring character slots to the new game, and as far as I know they never lied about adding new content to Defiance only to pull the rug out from under loyal players.

Also, TSW’s progression system was a huge part of the game’s appeal to me. Throwing it all out made for a less interesting game.

[image error]On the other hand, Defiance’s progression has always been one of the game’s greatest flaws. Leveling in Defiance is excessively grindy, convoluted, and unrewarding, managing to be both over-complicated and incredibly shallow all at once.

Normally replacing a classless leveling system with traditional classes would get the stink eye from me, but in this case, I think it might add some actual depth to the game. It sounds like Defiance 2050 will have a greater emphasis on active abilities — Mass Effect style — instead of just being a pure shooter. That would be most welcome.

My greatest hope is that 2050 will not entail such a massive grind. Defiance’s base story was easy enough to play through casually, but the post-launch content quickly became utterly punitive to anyone who hadn’t sunk a massive amount of time into grinding. That was ultimately what drove me from the game, and if that could be fixed, I would be very pleased.

Unfortunately I’ve found it very hard to find any concrete info on Defiance 2050. Trion is running developer livestreams, but ain’t nobody got time for dat, and the media doesn’t seem to be covering the game that much. So I see a lot of potential for 2050 to improve on the original game and maybe even usher in a bit of a renaissance for the IP, but there’s really no way to know if that potential will be realized.

Word of mouth coming out of the beta is pretty negative, but there’s really no way to know if that actually means anything or if it’s just the usual Internet rabble-rousing.

[image error]Seriously, the gaming community has officially become the boy who cried wolf at this point. If you say every game is a broken cash-grab, there’s no way of knowing which games are actually broken cash-grabs.

The logical part of me recognizes that I probably shouldn’t let myself get excited about Defiance 2050. There’s a lot of cause for concern here. But still, I find the temptation to grab a Founder’s Pack is surprisingly strong…

Review: The Dragon Prophecy: Blade of Empire

It’s been a long time since the first book of Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory’s Dragon Prophecy trilogy was released. So long, in fact, that I had started to think the series had been cancelled for some reason. Imagine my surprise and delight, then, to find book two staring in me in the face as I perused the shelves at Indigo.

[image error]It wasn’t entirely easy to get back into the story. After so long, I had forgotten a lot, and between the bloated cast, a relative lack of physical description, and the infamously over-complicated names given to Elves in this universe, it was hard to remember who was who.

That said, there is improvement in many of the key areas where book one faltered. While the issue of unwieldy names hasn’t entirely gone away, concessions have been made. For instance, much of the book focuses on a character named Runacarendalur Caerthalien, but mercifully, this is abbreviated to the nickname “Runacar” for most of the book. As well, a number of non-Elven characters are introduced, and they all have names that are far more manageable.

The pacing’s a bit better this time, as well. It’s still a bit of a slow burn, but not unpleasantly so, and it builds to a breathtaking climax.

Picking up in the immediate aftermath of book one, Blade of Empire sees Vieliessar struggling to plan her next move after attaining the High King’s crown at the cost of destroying Elven civilization as she knew it. Meanwhile, her embittered rival Runacar forges an unlikely alliance with the so-called “Beastlings,” the other races of the Light who have long been hunted by the Elves.

And in the depths of Obsidian Mountain, the Endarkened marshal their forces, for the time of the Red Harvest has come at last.

In case it wasn’t already clear, I enjoyed Blade of Empire a lot more than Crown of Vengeance.

Partly I think it’s a matter of timing. Lately I’ve grown a bit frustrated with the direction of the fantasy genre. Maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places, but these days it seems like the focus is more and more on low fantasy stories focused on backstabbing and political intrigue more than magic and wonder.

Blade of Empire isn’t like that. This is the high fantasy of all high fantasy. Not only are there no humans at all in this story, but a good chunk of the cast isn’t even humanoid. It’s a story that overflows with colour and imagination, unashamed of its wildly fantastical nature.

This is what I read fantasy for.

But also, it’s just a quality story. Not without flaws, as we’ve already discussed, but with great strengths to balance them out.

Something that the Dragon Prophecy series has been very good at even from the outset is presenting the mythic feeling that fantasy books often shoot for, but rarely achieve. This is a no-holds-barred story of the death of one world and the birth of something new — not unlike Genesis of Shannara — and it’s an incredibly powerful experience.

There is a common school of thought that holds that prequels are an inherently flawed form of story-telling, but I think this series is a great example of a story that would not have nearly so much power if the reader didn’t know what was coming.

There’s a sense of creeping horror running through these books as you watch the armies of the Light tear each other apart, leaving themselves all but defenseless, even as the Endarkened are preparing for the war to end creation. You want to scream at the characters to stop, to unite in preparation for the true threat, but you can only watch on helplessly as they race toward oblivion.

In the end, you’re left reflecting on just how futile, how senseless, war truly is.

Overall rating: 8/10 Book one took a lot of patience, but I think I can now safely say this series is worth it.

Playing Dungeons and Dragons for the First Time

I am, in almost every way, the stereotypical nerd. My favourite books, movies, and TV shows are all sci-fi or fantasy. I love video games. I do well in intellectual pursuits, terribly in physical pursuits. I have reams of action figures and replica starships cluttering my apartment. I don’t consider this a negative; I’m comfortable with this identity.

[image error]However, there is one major area of nerdom that has been a blindspot for me, one area in which my nerd cred was never proven: tabletop role-playing.

I’ve had a vague fascination with the idea, off and on, over the years. When I was much younger I bought all the core rulebooks for Dungeons and Dragons, but mostly I just enjoyed reading the lore and looking at the art. I never got around to playing a proper game.

I was somewhat put off by my experience with CRPGs, which are the video game world’s attempts to replicate the tabletop formula. I’ve never liked those sorts of games very much; I find them slow, stilted, and lifeless, feeling more a matter of numbers and stats than an immersive game.

Now, finally, a few of my friends have set up a Dungeons and Dragons group, and I’ve gotten to try it for real. I’m only two sessions in at the time of this writing, but on the whole, it’s been a lot more fun than I expected.

My biggest worry going in was that it would be a very slow and plodding affair, but it’s actually been relatively fast-paced. The story is moving along at a decent clip, and there’s never too long a wait between fights. The pace of leveling is a little slower than I’d like (we’re all still level two), but given the game’s complexity, I see the reason for it.

[image error]I do credit our dungeon master for doing a good job so far. He’s been hitting a good balance of imposing order while still allowing us some creativity.

As someone who’s always found class choices in video games too restrictive, I also appreciate the greater flexibility Dungeons and Dragons offers.

For example, my character is a paladin (Elven, of course), and I’m playing with the intention of being the group’s main healer/support. However, rather than the traditional tanky sword and board paladin, I have low health and am using a longbow as my main weapon. I’ve actually been able to dish out a fair bit of punishment. I think I got fully half our party’s kills in the first session.

Longer term, I intend to double down on my archery and expand beyond the stereotypical holy magic. Our DM is open to letting me incorporate elements of the arcane archer sub-class, and I intend to take the Oath of the Ancients specialization, which has a nature/druidic bent.

The end result is going to be a long way from what you probably picture when you hear “paladin,” while still capturing much of what makes the class appealing to me.

She’ll still be a crusader for good, but rather than smiting with sword or hammer, she’ll be a deft ranged fighter, slaying evil from range with blessed arrows. She’ll still be a bastion of healing and support, but she’ll do so by channeling the raw vitality of nature and the purity of her own heart, rather than seeking the favour of a specific god.

[image error]I haven’t felt the frustration I do when playing CRPGs. Ultimately, I feel it’s a bit apples and oranges. Tabletop role-playing has a social, collaborative component and offers more freedom than a video game ever could. Video games are better suited to providing an immersive, seamless experience that lets you live in the moment. CRPGs try to combine the two, but only capture the worst of both worlds.

That said, I’m not without complaints. I had always found the sheer complexity of D&D intimidating, and while it’s not quite as bad as I expected, there’s still a lot to keep track of. I need a clipboard of papers and a rather hefty file on my tablet just to keep track of everything about my character and her spells. Oftentimes the challenge is not so much choosing the right action, but simply remembering what all the many and sundry options are. How a dungeon master manages everything I’ll never know.

Managing clashing character concepts can also be a bit hairy. I’m still not really sure how we’re going to have a party with a lawful good knight, a neutral good paladin, and a deranged necromancer building an unholy flesh golem without someone eventually getting murderized.

Still, none of this been enough to hamper my enjoyment of the process too much so far. Nothing’s perfect, after all.

Again, it has only been two sessions, but so far my first foray into Dungeons and Dragons has been a positive experience, and I look forward to more.

Song of the Month: Phantogram, When I’m Small

We have now entered my least favourite time of the year: Spring. A seeming eternity of gloom, rain, mud, and slush.

This puts me in mind of one of my favourite “rainy day” songs, When I’m Small by American trip hop duo Phantogram. Tell me you don’t think of rainy, dark days as you’re listening to this.

I’m not the biggest Phantogram fan, but this is a really lovely song. Dat bass.

Reduced Posting Schedule

Greetings, dear readers.

[image error]I regret to inform you all that I’m going to be slowing down with my posting here on Superior Realities. I have a lot going in my life right now, and I just don’t have the time or energy for a new post every third day.

I also have to admit that after nearly seven years of doing roughly 10 posts per month, I’m running out of ideas. Trying to come up with new blog topics every week is starting to feel like more of a chore than I’m comfortable with.

This isn’t goodbye. I’m still going to be posting. It’s just going to be less often. I already have April’s song of the month picked out, and I have a couple of reviews I want to do in the near future.

I will also still be reading and commenting on others’ blogs, which should be great news for the two or three people whose blogs I actually comment on.

Right now, I’m not sure if this is going to be a temporary measure or a permanent one. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get back to normal before too long, but I don’t want to make any promises on that front.

Ande-thoras-ethil, friends.