#for a bigger projekt
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Everything Thranduil needs is a slutty David Bowie outfit and he´ll calm down
#for a bigger projekt#tolkien#silmarillion#jrr tolkien#lotr#lord of the rings#the hobbit#thranduil#thranduil oropherion#silm art#tolkien art#lotr art#the hobbit art#digital art#my art
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Some more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from some older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube videos where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago. (Multiple videos are covered in this post, so the source video of each bullet point is included there) -
"I'm pretty sure that the [in-world] Dragon Age will be an age that lasts a suspiciously long time, as long as there are Dragon Ages being made. I don't think they will drop 'Dragon Age' because it's such an identifiable part of the franchise". [source]
"I totally cannot spoil what the original Black City was supposed to be. I'm pretty sure that the approach to lore in DA has always been to leave it ambiguous to allow the future to go where it needs to go. Though that being said, DA:O was definitely built with the assumption that it was not getting a sequel." [source]
"The Calling is presented as taking decades to kill you on its own. So Alistair would still be alive in DA:I and DA:D if he went that way. I think, if I remember the lore correctly." [source]
"DA:O introduces a lot of hanging plot threads that aren't necessarily resolved. Orzammar potentially sets up a civil war, there's potentially werewolves running around. There's a lot of stuff we've been able to kind've ignore, but there's a lot of stuff that's still out there. The line of succession for Ferelden is open isn't it." [source]
[on the Warden's quest for a cure for the Calling] "I don't think it's established that the cure is actually found is it. Or just that they're looking." [source]
"Likely any cure for the Calling would be to extract the Taint from the person, so you would basically cease being a Grey Warden at that point." [source]
"I think they're treating the Trespasser epilogue slides as canon." [source]
[during DA:O epilogue slides] "You can see, this leaves a lot of threads in a lot of potential different directions that Dragon Age has been dealing with since then, since 2009." [source]
"The resistance that there was for toolset for Frostbite was a feeling like, 'this engine is proprietary, it does a bunch of stuff that we don't want other people to be able to steal'. That's basically not even true anymore. There's actually a feeling now within EA that user-generated content, UGC, is incredibly good, that it's basically free marketing. Like you say, Skyrim has been going forever. So that's why, EA has a really complicated relationship with UGC. What they want is basically, everyone to make TikTok videos and things about how great the game is. They don't necessarily want you to make DLC or Twitch stream the thing but they also recognize that this is not a, you don't get to have one without the other really. Yeah, the 'cost of free ads from fans is fan DLC'. That's pretty much, sums it up perfectly." [source]
"CD Projekt uses slightly different language than BioWare did for DLCs, expansion packs etc. I would not classify the free DLCs from The Witcher as expansion packs, they're DLC. They called them expansion packs but from my perspective, an expansion pack is larger than that but it's a spectrum for sure. The thing I would say about CD Projekt in general is they're amazingly good at picking the right language. So what they did on Witcher 3 is they said, they added a tiny bit of content to each of their patches and said 'this is DLC, we're going to give it away for free, aren't we amazing?' And then they made their DLC a little bit bigger and then said 'these are expansion packs, we're gonna charge for that', brilliant. Honestly brilliant. Because it makes them, it's a great PR move, it also meant that they got a, every time they released a patch they essentially got an article on the gaming sites. It's something that BioWare and frankly DA in particular is pretty bad at, like, naming things, and using language that makes things sound better." [source]
[on The Sims] "'Buy a thing and then later they release more stuff to add to your thing', it's an amazing business model. It's also a business model that EA does not understand, they, like BioWare, suffer from being a thing that exists within the sports-focused EA ecosystem that, constantly trying to explain that 'our players are not the same as your players, you need to let us do what we know how to do'." [source]
"We had a free-to-play version for DA multiplayer, that was Hendrix. It's not on the, EA didn't want it to exist so it was only on the servers for a little while, a couple of months, but it was actually there. I'm sure it's not up anymore." [source]
"I don't know if Frostbite is gonna die. I think there's a very good chance that what's going to happen is, it may become the next sports engine. FIFA is a monolith and has taken over the driver's seat for that engine. I don't think they're gonna be very interested in switching again. Even if active Frostbite development in general goes away, FIFA will keep going and then a bunch of other games live in the rain shadow of FIFA, like NHL." [source]
"If it was up to me, I'd probably have forced Mass Effect onto Frostbite. And I would be strongly inclined to keep Dragon Age on Frostbite for at least one more game because you've built the foundation. The best engine to use is the one you just used. But I don't know what's gonna happen after DA:D to be honest. BioWare seems to be addicted to throwing away work they've done in the past. And it was never up to me." [source]
"Frostbite isn't a recruitment negative but certainly it's a lot easier to find people that already know how to use Unreal. What you actually see in programming is some people, it's not a universal, but some programmers, they don't wanna work in Unreal because they feel like someone else gets to do all the cool programming bits." [source]
"The question for Awakening is should it have even been an expansion pack, or is a different solution to have made it, say, 40% bigger and made it a full-sized game. This is, I think, the reason why expansion packs are so rare these days is because, it's easy to imagine a path from an expansion pack to a $60 or $70 game and then you're getting somewhere between 80-120% attach as opposed to 30% attach. I suspect this is the primary reason why expansion packs have kind've faded away, because 'I'm gonna ship every year' is fairly accepted within games these days. So honestly the pitch for Joplin's live service was 'we're not gonna do a live service, we're gonna do a game, and then we're gonna do another game in 18 months and another 18 months after that. And maybe we'll do one piece of DLC in there, but we'll just be like dunk-dunk-dunk' and the economics for that are great. So that's why expansion packs are gone I think." [source]
"That's the fundamental problem of DA:O not knowing it's gonna have sequels, it leaves the world in a very quantum state. There's still stuff that's hinted at in those [epilogue slides] that are happening sometime in the future that I think are gonna probably at this point be ignored. Probably the biggest issue of DA:O is that it leaves the world in a state that probably wasn't intending that there would be a sequel." [source]
"When we were discussing doing a remaster for the trilogy, my pitch was to essentially retcon it [DA:O, DAII and DA:I] into a trilogy, to make it the 'Champion's Trilogy' or something to that effect, where you group the three games together, imply that they were always intended to be a trilogy kind of, and then that does a couple of things. It packages them into something that stands on its own a bit better, but also lets you potentially change what you're doing with the player character going forward. If you've decided that, okay, we've changed player character every single game up until now, but maybe we're not going to do that going forward, by packaging them together in a remaster you kind've give yourself permission to do that. Certainly DA:D is gonna have a new player character, given that the one from DA:I is missing a limb." [source]
"We probably oversold the Wardens in the marketing for DA:O. Because essentially, what we did was establish them as the coolest thing in the world and then yeah, so the series has definitely been dealing with the aftermath oh 'but not Wardens? Therefore not cool' forever since then." [source]
"But a new player character means you have a harder job every single game, because you have to get people interested, you don't get the shortcut of 'Shepard is Shepard, you know Shepard'." [source]
"Anders is the one that made us rethink how we introduce romances, because a lot of people ended up in romance with him that didn't mean to. We'll see if they come back to that in DA:D, but I think that because of Anders in DAII, DA:I was definitely trying to not 'accidentally do anything to you'. But it does mean that it is very player-controlled and very player-initiated. But maybe they'll be willing to go back to that a little bit." [source]
"Tevinter Nights does a really good job of staying away from violating canon. The thing with, the further you go away from what's in the games the more you are, the less well it's gonna do, so that's not necessarily a problem but it is something to keep in mind that you don't, you're trying to make money with your novels. Setting it in a time period that people don't know is great for the core fans but isn't necessarily gonna do super amazing. The advantage that Tevinter Nights is, because it's an anthology, you're able to just, everything kinda just stands on its own and therefore you're able to just stay away from the major characters to a large degree." [source]
"Varric's definitely not quantum, he's in good shape. Dorian, I feel like Dorian is guaranteed to be around [as in quantum], but maybe not, maybe I'm wrong about that. But the games have gotten better or at least more conscious of what they do with companions as it's gone on, in terms of trying to, being at least aware of the fact that you might want these people to come back, so maybe at least understand the quantum you're putting them in. There's a bunch of followers in DA:I that you might just not recruit. Like Blackwall's pretty easy to miss. Dorian can show up but he doesn't die if you don't recruit him, he's alive. The biggest thing for quantum is 'are they alive', in which, in DA:O there's a lot that don't make it. Then you have to deal with, well they might be [killed/not recruited?] or something but the biggest thing is, if they're alive you can probably make it work." [source]
"I have a feeling that Desire Demons are going to be just, ignored, or, honestly I mean one way to, I think, Desire is seen in a very narrow light in DA:O. I think if you go, if you move into Desire being a much broader concept, you have a lot of options there. I think if you approach Desire in a broader sense I think you have some opportunities. But then you kind've end up with the DA:I problem with the Fear." [source]
He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -
"Orzammar is definitely the place in DA:O that actually looks like Dragon Age. Everything else is kind've generic late 2000s fantasy, pretty much the same as The Witcher. For example, Ostagar has a more generic fantasy visual" [source]
"You know, other than DAII, DA does involve a lot of crossing the entire country to turn around and go back doesn't it" [source]
Chat asked "How well does the vanilla game DA:O play on modern hardware?" Mark replied, "I'm playing it on modern hardware, I don't have everything cranked way up and currently I'm running it in a window. It's running really well. The only thing that happens is if you turn the graphic settings up too far it will blow up because it will run out of memory. It's a 32-bit game and so if you cross 4 gig it will explode. But there are some mods out there that get you around that. That's the only problem with it is that, if you turn it up too far it will become unstable. I'm worried about stability problems during the [Battle of Denerim] part of the game" [source]
"I always found Redcliffe Village in DA:O a bit confusing to move around" [source]
Chat observed that the soil in Redcliffe would be be bad because of all the darkspawn and undead that were there. Some users theorized that the people there moved to a different part of the nearby land to make 'Redcliffe' again. Mark commented, "One of the reasons we felt okay pretty much redesigning Redcliffe in DA:I, because it's kind've broken. You know, we don't show it completely destroyed here but certainly it's hard its struggles" [source]
"I don't know who came up with the ogre-sync kill. Sync kills are really cool for bosses, they become a lot less cool for things when they're constantly happening but they're usually, unfortunately sync kills are often something that end up being de-prioritized as a feature, because they don't actually have a gameplay effect so they're kind've just aesthetics. So they often actually get cut for time reasons" [source]
Mark mentioned that he "certainly [has] some degree of lingering crunch trauma" [source]
[during the Battle of Denerim, when many creatures are on-screen] "DA:O does a good job of selling large groups for a game of its time. We must be doing a trick, something to get all this, because this is way over the creature count limit for DA:O. It's possible that we made special creatures that are way cheaper. Or it's a mixture. Waves is part of it. They aren't dropping any loot so there's definitely something going on" [source]
"Shouldn't there be people in the Wardens who have a bit more training in dragon killing?" [source]
"We probably should have auto-levelled unlevelled party members before the Battle of Denerim" [source]
[on the elves in the alienage during the Battle of Denerim] "Where'd they get the bows? Pretty sure it's frowned upon for elves to have weapons in alienages" [source]
"People do play DA solo which makes it difficult to have any sort of puzzle or anything that requires a group" [source]
[on Sandal] "I told the team if you put him in DA:I you gotta put him in everything because he basically then becomes a central figure of the franchise. So they gave him a rest. So you can blame me for him not being in DA:I" [source]
Chat asked "I'm curious why BioWare never brought back the army spawning mechanic from DA:O to DA:I, I always thought it was epic and underrated". Mark said "We talked about it in DA:I, it was actually a UI thing, we didn't have time to do the UI properly. I mean there's a lot of reasons why you don't get to play with your Inquisition well in DA:I, like to play with the organization, which is actually too bad" [source]
[while fighting baby dragons during the Battle of Denerim] Chat asked "Why are the baby dragons there in the first place?" Mark said "Someone wanted another addition to the combat. But it doesn't really make a lot of lore sense" [source]
[on lock bash] "I like what we tried to do in DA:I, giving you different things for different classes. Didn't really get used effectively. But it does strike me as weird, it didn't at the time, but playing through this, is like, you go into a space, all the chests are locked, you kill everyone, no-one has a key. Like, whose got the key to that chest?" [source]
"DA:O really does do some impressive army stuff given the chunkiness of its engine" [source]
[at end of DA:O] "Probably should have shown Morrigan leaving" [source]
"Alistair would be a fine/adequate king. He just needs a policy wonk to give him ideas" [source]
[during DA:O epilogue slides] "These are the ones that set up the quantum for the rest of the game" [source]
[during DA:O epilogue slides] "It's interesting that we called Dagna a mage" [source]
"I think DA:O still holds together. I mean it wasn't a very attractive game in 2009 and certainly it doesn't look better now than it did then, but I think it holds together. Some of the storytelling choices are problematic from a now perspective, almost everything in the Pearl, and then the whole broodmother bit could be, I mean it's a bit too far, it was probably a bit too far even at the time honestly. The combat holds up pretty well, because it's not 'push a button and immediately do an action' it has aged pretty well. The animations are kinda clunky and things don't line up very great but that's not that bothersome. It would be much more noticeable that it was a problem if things were a bit more direct" [source]
"DA:O has WASD in large part because Oblivion had WASD controls. I remember the transition and being kind've confused as to why you would do that, but yeah it's the right call. In the time that this was in development it became pretty universal" [source]
"How involved was I in Anthem? I was in charge of Anthem for the past 16 months. So a damaging amount" [source]
"Will I do an Anthem stream? I will probably do at least 1 Anthem stream. I might play through the story, I'm not gonna play multiplayer. I might play through the story and play it in pure dark pattern, forcing it to let me play it by myself, but we'll see" [note this video is several months old] [source]
[on Awakening] "Other than Destiny, this is pretty much one of the last expansion packs there ever really was with a retail presence. It's honestly a way better business than DLC. DLC you're attaching, maybe 10% of your people are gonna buy it, whereas expansion packs, 30%. You can spend a lot more money and make a lot more money with an expansion pack" [source]
"I think the idea for DA multiplayer getting harder when somebody died was to try to make the match start to end so that you weren't waiting. I don't know how effective that is, probably not very, but I think that's the thinking" [source]
"I don't think we really were, pretty much I think DA became a series when BioWare got bought by EA. I don't remember the exact moment but you can see by the slides at the end of DA:O there's a bunch of stuff that isn't really completely thinking about the fact that we're gonna have to pick up this ball in future" [source]
"Frostbite shares a lot with Unreal as well from a tools perspective. It wasn't done quite as intentionally. It's funny because the tools for Eclipse for DA:O, there was a specifically-designed wall between the two project streams to prevent this engine from taking too much from Unreal. There was a worry that Epic was going to get mad at us and sue us. Which given everybody elses' engine development was probably unfounded" [source]
"I imagine that a Blight probably increases Warden recruitment. I think it makes sense that people would be interested [right after a Blight was stopped] because you're the heroes on the block, but given what the Wardens know about Blights and things you would think that the responsible thing would be to actually cut recruitment way down, keep the order alive and then as they sense a Blight starting to come, ramp the recruitment way back up again. But I don't know that they know that a Blight is coming early enough to do so, so I guess the worry would be that if they don't keep their order relatively large then they wouldn't have the forces necessary to fight a Blight. Though of course you wouldn't expect another Blight right now, we just finished with one [Mark was playing Awakening's opening sequence at this time]. I think it's, there's darkspawn to fight and despite what they may claim, it's about being big enough to have a political impact on the world so that everyone doesn't ignore their existence and then they show up and no-one remembers who they are. Duncan talks about knowing it was coming but everyone not believing him so it does imply that they know at least some time beforehand. But you probably don't wanna wait til 1 year before it starts happening before you start rebuilding your forces" [source]
"The reason why Awakening was able to ship so close to DA:O was because DA:O moved a huge amount really late in development to do the consoles. So Awakening was pretty much mostly built in 2009, you know in the last 9 months of DA:O development, which was mostly porting it to the consoles. There's no way you were getting an expansion pack out within five months of that size without [this]" [source]
"Awakening is a masterclass in 'people who are familiar with the fools using the tools at their disposal to do some amazing stuff" [source]
"One of the challenges with expansion packs is they kind've have to fit inside the umbrella, even if they're taking place afterwards like this one does [Awakening], they can't raise the stakes too much. Whereas if it was a full-fledged sequel it could kind've do something new, kind've has to. Which is part of the problem with Awakening, given where DA:O leaves the world it's kind've hard to, we didn't really know where we were gonna go for our sequels yet, so that's probably why" [source]
"The problem with not sequel-ing Dragon Age is then what you would have been doing is probably trying to make a fantasy RPG in a new setting and then having this impossible comparison to DA constantly happening, and every single difference being a potential criticism, you can see why that, being a potential big problem. Much as I wouldn't want to wish it upon other dev teams, DAII is what allowed DA to be a series, because it kind've is the one that eats the rock of 'this is not like my previous game' and it kind've gets rid of the worst bits of continuity errors. And so to a large degree I would say that by DAII being this sort of thing that's rushed out to fill a financial gap, it allows the series to become a series. But you know, I wouldn't say that's the fix that everyone should take" [source]
"The problem you have to remember with DAII and 'more time' is very quickly you run into Skyrim releasing, and releasing DAII then, regardless of much much extra effort you put into it, after Skyrim is not a good thing. It has to kind've live there in a pre-Skyrim world. There is stuff that can be done for sure, but there's a limit to what you can do" [source]
"Mass Effect has, Shepard is too tightly associated with ME, so what do you do? Do you just keep bringing him back and making clones of him or something? That was definitely a problem in the case of Mass Effect: Andromeda because you had a younger player character, so therefore the tonal differences were seen as problematic. So it's something that you definitely have to think about" [source]
"With Justice, you do a pretty good job of explaining away anything that happens to Anders" [source]
"Oghren is here in Awakening in part because of again, quantum. Because Wynne could be dead, Leliana could be dead, Alistair could be dead, Sten could be dead or not even recruited. So you don't really have a lot of choices if you wanna bring a companion back." Here chat mentioned that Oghren can be dead. "Oh, so they do [in-game] respond to it [if Oghren was killed in DA:O]. He must have been the least quantum then. The place that you were most likely to kill Leliana in DA:O was at the Urn of Sacred Ashes, and I think we just sort've were like 'the Urn's right there so. She's fine'. Yeah, there needs to be a warrior [in Awakening]. I mean, we could've made a brand new character but. Sten was really likely to die. Lots of people didn't even recruit him. Hers [Leliana's death] is probably the most plausible retcon" [source]
"One of the things that kind've frustrates me a bit about the lore in DA moreso than ME is because it's so quantum, is the linear stuff in the comic books and novels have had, just picked canons on occasion. Which I get because you wanna have Isabela or Sten in the comics, but it does mean that it undermines the player agency there because it's like 'what you did isn't real, because here's what's real because we put it in a comic book'. I really don't like that but given the branching in the games you would've just had to have stayed away from those characters completely, which undermines the storytelling, so I don't know. I don't know what the answer is honestly. It's a good point that it's hard to imagine that Leliana's gonna be like 'sign me up for the Wardens' [source]
[on secondary media] "I don't disagree that you could do lots of prequels, but I think there's a limit" [source]
"The biggest reason why the darkspawn design changed from DA:O to DAII is that the DA:O darkspawn, mainly honestly the ogre, but they don't quite fit into our artistic palette, and there was a strong push from the art team on DAII to move the art direction into something that was ownable and so that's the main reason. It's really just an ownability perspective. But you can kinda see it in Awakening, because like The Withered is starting to look a lot like the DAII darkspawn, or at least he's headed in that direction" [source]
"One of DAII's big art direction things, Eclipse is really good at pushing polygons, so a lot of things in the art direction of DAII are pushing polygons. So they're spikier and they just have a lot more polys in them because it's one of the things it's really good at" [source]
"If you were doing a remaster you would keep the same engine. If you were doing a remake you would switch engines. It's not a remaster if you're switching engines, that's for sure" [source]
"I still maintain that Dog was essentially put through the Joining, but whatever. Technically probably everyone who has had contact with darkspawn blood is not a Warden, but it is a bit, I do think it's one of the things where the Taint and the Blight is a bit, is presented as being more bad than really is pulled off in the games" [source]
(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)
#dragon age: dreadwolf#dragon age 4#the dread wolf rises#da4#dragon age#bioware#video games#alistair theirin#fav warden#long post#longpost#morrigan#queen of my heart#anthem#mass effect#next mass effect#mass effect: andromeda#tevinter nights#random spaces sry bc the bullet point list text blocks got too long
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Obviously Embracer did not buy studios with the hope that they would shut them down. What did they see that made them think it wouldn't go this way? What were they wrong about?
Embracer, much like all the other tech companies, was riding high on the early pandemic rush. Player counts were jumping, earnings were high, everybody was stuck inside and wanted to play video games. They expected that the good times would continue to roll on, so they started buying up studios at a premium in order to capitalize on it. I remember those times very well - I got a ton of recruiters sending me emails and cold calls constantly during that time. The job hunting process was also accelerated - when I finally put myself on the job market, I got more than one offer right after the initial interview. At the time, lots of studios were flush with cash and looking to hire, so they were rushing through the hiring process.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last. When the numbers started trending back towards pre-pandemic values, the publishers' massive investments ended up not translating to the kind of earnings they had banked on. Remember that game studios drain money over time - we workers don't work for free. If the money coming in from sales isn't enough to offset the money going out to pay the workers, the company's days are numbered unless they do something to either increase income or decrease expenses. Since the publishers weren't able to increase income, they needed to decrease expenses - closing studios and laying people off.
Many publishers are following a similar playbook - layoffs and cost cutting - due to overspending during the pandemic and needing to fix their numbers now that the situation has changed. EA announced layoffs, Activision-Blizzard announced layoffs, CD Projekt RED announced layoffs, Niantic announced layoffs, and so on and so forth. Embracer bet bigger than many others by buying up those studios, so they took a bigger loss when the numbers didn't pan out.
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So im kinda confused, any particular reason why Texas is included in the list of characters Amiya is related to on the Arknights wiki? She has been for as long as ive known about the game but I cant really find any reason for it. Id argue there is a bigger case for... well quite frankly tons of characters, Logos, Ascalon, Ace, Ray, Virtuosa, W, Warfarin, Talulah, Frostnova, etc, etc.
Id even argue that characters like Frostleaf, Projekt Red, Jessica, Exusiai all got more argument to be put there then Texas from everything ive read?
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If anyone has any doodle ideas, do send them in 🙏 Working on a bigger Projekt and need to distract myself from it sometimes.
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First bigger projekt, an early medieval church, only the walls and they are not conected permanently yet (secret me easteregg)
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Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty – Tarot Cards as Signs
Cyberpunk 2077 and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty spoilers ahead!
A Brief Understanding of Semiotics
Semiotics is the study of signs and how they relate to hidden meaning or a bigger picture (Britannica, 2023). A sign can be anything that is used to represent meaning; a sign can be a drawing, a word, even something physical, like a red light. Even though there is no tangible reason why a red traffic light means “stop”, culturally and contextually it is agreed upon internationally that red means “stop”. However, if a person was brought up having never been introduced to the concept of red meaning “stop”, there is nothing physical to link the sign (the red light) to the concept it is communicating (stop) and they would not be able to make that connection without being provided some context. The same can be said for words; the combination of letters – and even the shape of the letters themselves if we want to consider this more deeply – do not inherently link to the sentiment we are aiming to get across when we write. It is only though an arbitrary assignment of meaning to these words that we can coherently articulate our ideas.
The linguist Ferdinand de Saussure proposed a dyadic model of the sign (Chandler, D. 2019). He defined a signifier, which is the form the sign takes, and a signified, the concept represented by the sign. A traffic light would for the signifier and the need to stop would be the signified. He declared that there could not be a signifier that exists without a corresponding signified, and vice versa, and that the linguistic sign was a product of the association we make between the two (de Saussure, F. 1959). Saussure supported the notion that the connection between the signified and the signifier within a sign was arbitrary, but acknowledged that words with onomatopoeia were not randomly linked to their meaning, and that signs related to images of objects were not necessarily arbitrary (Nӧth, 1990).
Charles Sanders Peirce developed a system based on 3 categories for identifying the elements of a sign (Albert, A. 2023). The first element is the signifier. This refers to the representation of the sign – the red traffic light, in our previous example. Not all elements of a red light need to part of the signifier for a specific sign. For example, the size of the traffic light has nothing to do with the meaning of it, nor does the material from which the light is made. It is simply the red light that is the signifier in relation to this sign. The meaning we interpret upon seeing the signifier is dubbed by Peirce as the interpretant (Media Studies, 2021). In our traffic light example, the interpretant would be that there is danger ahead and we should stop. The object of a sign is the intended outcome that occurs upon someone perceiving the sign. In this case, it would be for the person to stop. The signifier should clearly trigger the interpretant, which should in turn lead to the object occurring.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person open world RPG released in 2020 by CD Projekt Red with mixed success. The launch was rocky, with lots of players unable to play due to poor optimisation on certain platforms. After lots of subsequent updates and fixes, the game rose in popularity, significantly so at the release of a massive update – which overhauled and improved upon many aspects of the game – and its first major DLC, Phantom Liberty, in September 2023.
Set in Night City, a megacity in the New United States of America (NUSA), the game sees V, the protagonist and player character, try to fight their way to becoming a Night City legend by taking on mercenary gigs to gain favour and a good reputation amongst the big names in the city. When a particularly high-stakes heist goes wrong, V ends up stuck with a biochip inside their brain that houses the construct of a long-dead rock star and anarchist, Johnny Silverhand. An unfortunate turn of events means that the construct becomes fused with V’s own consciousness and the construct of Johnny unintentionally begins to take over V’s mind and body. The inevitable death of V’s consciousness is an ever looming deadline that drives the majority of the plot, as V and Johnny struggle to find a cure and separate themselves from each other.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty – The Basic Plot
The Phantom Liberty DLC has a complex and twisting plot. It sees V become involved in a plot to save the President of the NUSA, Rosalind Myers, at the behest of Song So Mi (Songbird), an intelligence analyst for the FIA (Federal Intelligence Agency). They enlist the help of two FIA sleeper agents, Solomon Reed and Alex Xenakis, to unearth a secret cure that could be the key to solving V’s biochip problem. It is later revealed that Songbird is also in need of the same cure, as her work for President Myers has unleased a rogue AI into her mind.
Tensions run high between the three FIA agents, and V can later choose to side with Songbird and help her escape Myers’ grasp or to side with Reed and Alex, leaving Songbird to deteriorate in the clutches of the Rogue AI.
There are multiple endings to the Phantom Liberty DLC, none of which are particularly happy endings. If V sides with Songbird, we eventually learn the cure is only useable once, and Songbird intends for it to be used for herself. The player can then choose whether to allow Songbird to take the cure or to hand her over to Reed and gain the cure for themselves. If V sides with Reed and Alex, the player later has a choice of whether to end Songbird’s suffering after the rogue AI runs rampant in her mind or whether to hand her over to Myers and receive the cure for V.
Semiotics in Cyberpunk 2077
Throughout the base game, and now the DLC, players can take part in a side mission to hunt for tarot cards scattered throughout Night City in the form of strange, glitchy murals that only V and Johnny can see. Whilst collecting scans of these cards, the player can visit their friend, Misty Olszewski, for a tarot reading. The Phantom Liberty DLC expands upon this, adding 4 new cards to be found in Dogtown, the region of Night City where the DLC takes place. Misty can tell you about each of these 4 new cards and the meaning they hold. There are 4 different ways in which the Phantom Liberty DLC can end depending on the choices the player makes. Each of these endings is named for each of the 4 cards you find and relates in some ways to what is revealed by Misty. My further interpretation of these 4 cards is that each is also a sign relating to one of the major characters we meet in the DLC.
Based on Saussure’s dyadic model, the mural of the tarot card would be the signifier and the person it is referring to is the signified. Peirce’s system of 3 categories would also suggest that the mural of the tarot card is the signifier, but the truth that is revealed from the cards about each character would be the interpretant. The actions the player then takes towards the characters based on the interpretation of the cards could be seen as being the object.
So how do the tarot cards relate to these characters?
King of Pentacles – President Myers
The King of Pentacles card is most likely the first one that the player will see. It is found outside an apartment safe house where V and Myers go immediately after escaping the downed plane. The signifier of this sign is of a shrouded figure, covered in cyberware with a five-pointed star behind them. Misty’s explanation of the meaning behind this card, or the signified/interpretant states that it refers to the leader of a rich and powerful realm that is constantly under threat, making the leader a dangerous person to have dealings with.
This card appears to signify President Myers, who is, quite literally, the leader of a rich and powerful realm: the NUSA. She finds herself and her grip on power under threat at the beginning of the DLC at the hands of Kurt Hansen and, unbeknownst to her, Songbird. Although it seems as though Myers is working for the greater good, it is not long before V finds out about her treatment of Songbird and Myers’ manipulation of V to maintain her power becomes clear. She shows disregard for the lives of her agents as she orders them to retrieve Songbird for her, which can lead to the demise of Alex or Reed. The only regret she shows towards Songbird’s death (if you choose to kill her out of mercy) is that she can no longer exploit Songbird’s skills to further her own rule.
The object, or purpose, of this sign is to create a sense of distrust between V and Myers, indicating that all may not be as it seems and to take what Myers says with a grain of salt until the truth comes to light. The warning confirms suspicions that Johnny voices throughout V’s interactions with Myers: there is something off about the situation they find themselves in.
King of Wands – Solomon Reed
The King of Wands card is found near to where V meets Reed for the first time. The physical signifier of this sign is of a muscular figure whose face is obscured by cyberware, holding a large sceptre. This card represents a leader who sticks to their principles and may commit a sacrifice in order to fulfil a greater purpose.
Aside from the physical location of this card, the signified/interpretant points to Reed, an FIA sleeper agent who was declared dead as a cover story after being betrayed by his own people and, importantly, Songbird, on a previous mission. Despite being wronged by so many, Reed remained a man of his word and left behind anything resembling a life for himself to continue to do his duty for his country.
In terms of a sacrifice, there are multiple different ways we can interpret Reeds story as involving sacrifice, some more literally than others. If V decides to let Songbird escape with the cure, Reed pays the ultimate price: his life. V kills Reed as he tries to stop them escaping, although there is some debate amongst the audience as to whether he really tried, or if it was a half-hearted attempt from someone who had accepted that the life they’d have afterwards was not one they’d want to live through. If Reed does not die, regardless of the other elements to the ending, Reed becomes a shell of his former self, questioning every decision and action he and V took. Either way, the sacrifice Reed makes for Songbird is well represented by Misty’s interpretation of the King of Wands.
There is not a clear object to this sign, as no matter the choices the player makes, a sacrifice must still be made. Additionally, it is not obvious which choices will lead to Reed’s biggest sacrifice right up until the moment it occurs. However, the sign still foreshadows elements to the story in a way that will keep the player guessing.
King of Swords – Alex
The King of Swords card is found near Alex’s bar in Dogtown. The card shows a chromed figure holding two blades. Misty’s analysis tells us that the person this refers to is a voice of reason who tells sharp truths that may be painful to hear. This signifier most closely represents Alex, another FIA sleeper agent who dreams of being free from the FIA’s clutches.
Throughout V’s conversations with Alex, we can see that Alex is very sceptical of the FIA and Reed, telling V that they should not have got involved unless they were prepared to essentially give their life over to the FIA. She has become very disillusioned with her work as an agent and is ready for an out, making it clear that the only reason she will help with Reed and V’s mission to rescue Songbird is if she can retire the FIA for good once the mission is done. She is very much represented by this tarot card, being brutally honest with V about things most people would shy away from saying.
The King of Cups – Songbird
The King of Cups card shows a hooded cyber-figure hunched over a goblet. Upon telling Misty about the King of Cups card, she tells V that they must be particularly cautious around anyone they meet that this card may be pointing to. She says that the person may bring understanding and emotional balance, but that they might try to manipulate V and cause spiritual crisis. Based on my semiotic interpretation, this reading refers to Songbird.
Songbird situation easily allows V and the player to empathise with her – it’s not every day you meet another person with a rogue construct taking over their brain. V and Songbird have a strong understanding of one another and become close throughout the events of the DLC. This close link the two share makes it all the more painful when V learns that Songbird has been manipulating them the whole time.
The “spiritual crisis” that the card implies could be interpreted as applying to Songbird or to V. Songbird is on the brink of death when she confesses her betrayal to V and is wracked with guilt at using her friend for her own benefit and then hanging them out to dry. At this point, Songbird is unable to complete her mission herself, and is relying on V to do so for her. V now faces the decision of whether to help Songbird as promised or to leave her for the FIA and take the cure for themselves. This leads to a lot of self-reflection for V and doubt about which choice would have been right.
Ultimately, the object of this card is to make the player think twice about their decisions relating to Songbird. They are warned to be wary around her and Songbird undoubtedly lives up to that warning. She is a complex character with a deep backstory that goes a long way to explaining her actions, but, in the end, V is the one who seals her fate.
To Conclude
The analysis of these cards and the way they represent the characters of the DLC provides a deeper understanding of the motivations and backgrounds of these characters. It provides a greater depth to the characters beyond the level that can be gleaned from gameplay that contributes to the deep and complex backdrop of the game that can be found if one explores below the surface.
References
Albert, A. (2023). Peirce’s Theory of Signs. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 Edition). Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/peirce-semiotics/
Britannica, The Editor’s Encyclopaedia. (2023). Semiotics. Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/semiotics. (Accessed 23/11/2023)
Chandler, D. (2019). Semiotics for Beginners. Visual Memory. https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~chazelle/courses/BIB/semio2.htm (Accessed 06/11/2023)
De Saussure, F. (1959). Course in General Linguistics. New York: The Philosophical Library.
Media Studies. (2021). Charles Peirce’s Triadic Model of Communication. Media Studies. https://media-studies.com/triadic-model-semiotics/ (Accessed 06/11/2023)
Nӧth, Winfried. (1990). Handbook of Semiotics. Indiana University Press. (Accessed 23/11/2023)
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girl help, the remake stans are huffing copium xP
Is this the Silent Hill version of "Sega approved it, therefore it's good"?
It should be noted that Takayoshi Sato, the producer and director of SH2, is not involved in the development of the remake. The remake's director is instead Motoi Okamoto, who, AFAIK, has not worked on a Silent Hill game before this.
I'd think that's a bigger indication of the kind of creative talent being poured into the project - and not exactly a good sign, as it seems Sato was the one who really honed the team's vision into something coherent. When you're missing the mind that shaped 2 into what it became, you're much likelier to miss the spirit of the original.
Also, it's been 23 years since SH2's release. Ito's creative senses are likely not the same they used to be, especially considering he's gone on record to say he wished PH was dead.
It seems they're putting a lot on the poor man's shoulders.
So many people are saying this and it's fucking hilarious because Bloober has been developing the game for at least two years. Running on CD Projekt Red time over here. Maybe in eight years we'll finally be able to play the remake's Early Access xP
"I did a 10-star run last year" - good for you.
Not everybody who criticizes remakes is nostalgia-blind; that's just an easy copout, if not a thought-terminating cliche. Sometimes the real issue is that people disparage the originals in favor of the remake without properly crediting the original. That's not "holding the original on a pedestal," that's saying "don't discredit the original just because you prefer the remake."
That doesn't mean critics can't recognize the flaws in the original, but OP seemed to have legitimate criticisms here. They weren't just jumping on a "bandwagon" for the hell of it.
So are you saying Bloober Team has to work around technical limitations? Interesting: I thought they were supposed to be the ones bringing Team Silent's vision to life with the use of modern tech.
Guess Sato was right: tech doesn't mean a damn if you don't know what you're doing.
Watches a criticism video and complains about the presence of criticism. Infinite IQ.
Again, Bloober's been working on the remake for at least two years, maybe more. Yet everyone in this Chili's is clinging to "IT'S STILL IN DEVELOPMENT, SHUT UP" for dear life xP
This is my absolute favorite comment because they come right out of the gate swinging. You WANT the game to fail, how dare you! (I'm not going to remove my comment though)
Finally, some common sense in the chat
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Project Sweethert Update #1
I'm a bit frustrated, the draft's main route was done and I already started adding Multipil choices. But then I realized that I need to re-write the draft to have the Neutral route be the default and not the Romantic route.
So I will start a second draft, keeping the first one as the Alpha-Outline and copying probably a lot of things over to it later when I write the Roma tic Route Outline.
This is a really big projekt, bigger then I expected not gonna lie. It's already sometimes eating away at my motivation but I try to draw and write other things in between. I might try to start a 30 Writing Promts list for Yanderes, I would love to see what others write or just keep it for myself so I can write small oneshots here or there.
Also Project: Sweetheart will have 3 routes for sure and maybe a 4th route, I'm not sure yet though.
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CD PROJEKT RED in collaboration with Fool's Theory announces The Witcher remake is in development using Unreal Engine 5.
We are thrilled to announce that The Witcher Remake is being worked on! That's right, the game that started it all is being rebuilt from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5.
The game is currently in the early stages of development at the Polish studio Fool’s Theory, where veteran Witcher series staff are involved. We, as CD PROJEKT RED, are providing full creative supervision.
The Witcher Remake is what you might know by the codename “Canis Majoris”. It’s still early and we want to ensure that the game is created with the utmost care and attention to detail, therefore, while we’re excited to share the news with you, we want to ask you for patience as it will be a while until we start talking about this project in detail.
“The Witcher is where it all started for us, for CD PROJEKT RED. It was the first game we made, ever, and it was a big moment for us then. Going back to this place and remaking the game for the next generation of gamers to experience it feels just as big, if not bigger,” said Adam Badowski, Head of Studio, CD PROJEKT RED. “Collaborating with Fool’s Theory on the project is just as exciting, as some of the people there have been previously involved in The Witcher games. They know the source material well, they know how much gamers have been looking forward to seeing the remake happen, and they know how to make incredible and ambitious games. And although it will take some time before we’re ready to share more about and from the game, I know it’ll be worth the wait.”
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Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen
Fandom: 明日方舟 | Arknights (Video Game)
Relationships: Aosta & Projekt Red (Arknights), Aosta & Broca & Chiave (Arknights)
Characters: Aosta (Arknights), Broca (Arknights), Chiave (Arknights), Projekt Red (Arknights)
Additional Tags: ABC gang as found family, Fluff, Aosta and Red are friends, fixing a misunderstanding, Kal'kids are protective of each other, Chiave and Broca are trying to help, don't let Folinic know about the mess, No beta we die like my irl sanity while trying high risk CC
Language: English
Summary: Aosta feels guilty after realizing that he has hurt Projekt Red by accident. He is determined to apologize, but is out of ideas on how to do this without causing an even bigger disaster. Luckily, Broca and Chiave know a good way to fix the situation: with a gift.
PT-BR version
Oh yes, the first AK fic I translated after that pool. I hope this is enough to get some traction
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A little Thranduil in the mid of chaos
#for a bigger projekt#tolkien#silmarillion#jrr tolkien#lotr#lord of the rings#the hobbit#thranduil#thranduil oropherion#silm art#tolkien art#lotr art#the hobbit art#digital art#my art
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FINALLY
GUYS, firstly thank you guys so mmuch for the support, I have had a really bad year and you guys have made it a 1000 times better,
secondly, I finally have a drawing-tablet again so alot of bigger projekts can get continued, so stay tuned
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CD Projekt Red Not Interested In Being Acquired, Says CEO
New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/cd-projekt-red-not-interested-in-being-acquired-says-ceo/
CD Projekt Red Not Interested In Being Acquired, Says CEO
CD Projekt Red is one of the biggest developers in Europe, but the studio behind The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 has no interest in being acquired. That comes from a new interview with the studio’s CEO, Adam Kiciński, who discusses acquisition possibilities while providing small updates on the studio’s litany of upcoming projects.
Speaking to the Polish outlet Parkiet, Kiciński was asked about rumors regarding the studio being a target of a takeover. He states via translation, “We are not interested in being included in any larger entity. We have worked our whole lives to get to the position we have now. And we believe that in a few years we will be even bigger and stronger. We have ambitious plans and we are passionate about what we do. We value independence.”
In turn, Kiciński also states CD Projekt Red is currently uninterested in buying another studio purely for the sake of having it to, in his words, “consolidate their financial results.” In October 2021, the studio acquired Molasses Flood, the developer of The Flame in the Flood and Drake Hollow. That studio is currently working on a game set in the Witcher universe codenamed “Sirius.”
Kicińsk also provides small updates on its portfolio of upcoming Witcher and Cyberpunk games as well as its new IP. He states that work on the next mainline Witcher game, codenamed “Polaris,” is in “full swing” and has around 330 employees, which will rise to 400 by later this year.
“Orion,” the codename for the next Cyberpunk game, has been in the conceptual stage for some time, and the development team is still being assembled. It will primarily be made from CD Projekt Red’s Boston studio and eventually expand to Vancouver, with support from the main Polish headquarters.
Kicińsk then briefly touches on project “Hadar,” which is a new IP that is currently in the conceptual phase. When asked what Hadar is, Kicińsk simply says, “I assure you that it will be an interesting pop culture concept, fitting both The Witcher and Cyberpunk.”
CD Projekt Red will spend 2024 chipping away at these games and is riding a wave of positive momentum following the successful launch of Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion and other big updates the game received. Be sure to read the full interview to learn more about the studio’s financial situation, its broader media strategy outside of video games, and its thoughts on the launch of Phantom Liberty.
#2024#CEO#Developer#developers#development#employees#Europe#financial#Full#game#games#INterview#it#Learn#media#One#Other#pop culture#project#Read#red#strategy#time#universe#Video#Video games#wave#work
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Phantom is the only one of my first five 6 stars I still have not leveled so I should get to him tbh.
Exusiai->Hellagur->Reed alter->Kal´tsit->Phantom
My only E2 fast redeploy is Projekt Red so Phantom will prolly be handy for me too, just... I got a bigger priority list first.....
I think ill go for Purestream so I can start some artistknights stuff, then do my priority 6 stars, then Phantom and then start working on my free operators for freeknights....
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Phantom Liberty's Cinematic Brings Idris Elba to Cyberpunk 2077
CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 looked like it would be the huge brand-new thing when it launched in 2020, and for the many part, it wasn’t to lots of. The designer’s invested the years because turning it into a genuinely strong very first getaway for a bigger franchise, assisted by the truth that the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners series was quite dang great by itself. And additional aiding with the…
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