As you may know, I have, shall we say, strong feelings about one of the cosmetic items introduced in The Secret World’s most recent holiday event. This led to the creation of an entire new peace of head canon, which I now share with you.

Fun fact: This is exactly 666 words. The dark gods have clearly smiled on this endeavour.

———————-

Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see.

TRANSMIT – initiate Ljósálfar codex – RECEIVE – initiate the Huldra cadence – SO I DRIFT AWAY AGAIN – initiate Alfheimr anthem – TO WINTER I BELONG – welcome the children of winter – WITNESS – the Alfar.

In the far north, up Lapland way, you will find people fair of hair and bright of eye. There is something about them that both draws and repels the gaze, some quality that is all at once wholesome and repugnant.

All who see them find their hearts filled with a hopeless longing, but something warns against ever acting on these feelings toward the fair folk. Their skin is always cold to the touch.

Once, every few years, a terrible blizzard will blow through the Nordic lands. All the world turns white, and the wind howls like a hungry wolf. Sweetlings of all stripes cower in their homes, clinging to their electrical lights and artificial heat as the primal fear shivers through their veins and they pray to see another dawn.

Unbeknownst to them are the figures who walk unscathed through the storm, barefoot and barely clothed. The howling wind caresses them like a lover. The snow settles upon their skin like the finest jewellery.

Who are the fair ones? The world has passed them by, but we recall the ancient names.

Huldufólk. Tallemaja. Tuath Dé. Alfar.

They are the ancients, who first named the trees and marked the passing of the seasons. They were the bringers and the curers of disease, the hand of plenty and the breath of the grave.

You remember them, sweetling. Deep down you do. Not in words or even in images, but through the longing in your heart, the nostalgia for the place you’ve never been, the reverence for the name unspoken.

They were mighty once, feared and loved in equal measure. They were the raging cry and the soulful voice of the natural world.

But there was one power even they could not master, and it was time. As the centuries progressed, the world changed, and they could not adapt as quickly. Inch by inch, moment by moment, mile by mile, year by year, the world they knew slipped away.

It happened too slowly and yet too quickly. A world of mystery and superstition was supplanted by a world that no longer respected the old ways, and the Alfar faded into obscurity.

Echoes of their influence percolated through the simmering soup of simian consciousness, coalescing into cartoon caricatures and clean cut film stars swooned over by young girls.

The remaining fair ones learned to blend in among the talking apes. With subtle glamours they concealed their true natures and forced themselves to find a place within the distant corners of your society.

In the far north, up Lapland way, you will find people fair of hair and bright of eye. They have learned to swallow the indignities of pop culture. They have learned to live among your crude kind.

Yet they have not entirely forgotten the old ways. Every few months, when the moon is bright and the stars burn like a million tiny candles, they will gather amid trees and upon the tundra. They shed their illusions and dance with the wind. They sing songs in languages never heard by human ears.

And they remember. They remember a time when they were second only to the gods. They remember a time when they did not have to hide. They remember a time when they were feared and adored and coveted and worshipped.

And they remember how the worshippers abandoned them. They remember how the talking apes took it all away.

That is not dead which can eternal lie, sweetling. The Alfar have dwindled, but they are not gone, and they have never forgotten. As the dark days fall and shadows come to embrace all that you have ever known, how will the fair ones react? They are the disease and they are the cure. Will they be your salvation, or your doom?

Still cool, though.

Recently I commissioned the very talented Mel Addams, whom I met on The Secret World’s official forums, to do a sketch of the heroine from my World Spectrum novels, Leha, the Hero of Heart.

I gotta say, it turned out pretty well (click for full size):

I really like the claws.

This is actually the second sketch Mel has done for me; some years ago, they also did a sketch of some characters from one of my unpublished works, and it also turned out brilliantly.

I would definitely encourage everyone to check out Mel’s Tumblr to see more of their work (mostly TSW fan art), and if you have anything you’d like to see drawn, get in touch with them. They’re quite good, their prices are reasonable, and they’re a pretty friendly and pleasant person in general.

I press on in Elder Scrolls Online. It’s taken a long time, but I feel like I’m feeling shedding my status as a newbie and starting to get a complete understanding of the game and what it offers.

Endgame expectations versus reality:

With the help of Thieves Guild and the holiday XP bonus, I’ve now managed to hit level cap in Elder Scrolls Online, despite not yet finishing the Aldmeri zones.

Well, sort of.

I have now been introduced to the Champion Point system, which fuels progression after level fifty, and boy, is it strange.

Once at max level, experience instead counts toward earning Champion Points, with the total number of points serving as a sort of secondary level. The points can then be spent on a wide variety of incremental bonuses. Spending enough points in a specific constellation will unlock further bonuses that are more noticeable.

It’s a very strange system on a variety of levels. For one thing, you don’t start at Champion Point one, but ten. You also earn the first few dozen additional points incredibly fast, since you’re immediately given full Enlightenment, which is similar to the rested experience bonus found in other games but spectacularly more powerful.

It’s also a system whose function is very unclear. It feels like it’s meant to be a horizontal progression system, but most of the bonuses you can unlock are direct increases in power.

Most, but not all. Some unlocks are more utility-based, relating to crafting and the like, but these often have completely unrelated combat-focused prerequisites. It feels like they had two totally separate progression systems they couldn’t decide between, so they just rammed them together in the most inelegant fashion possible.

The Champion Point system is also tied to gear progression, with many tiers of gear and crafting locked beyond your CP level. This caps out at the very arbitrary number of Champion Point 160, so you could argue that is the actual max level for the game.

I find the continued gear treadmill a bit frustrating. I had hoped to finally have some permanence in my gear upon hitting level 50, but I’m still going to replacing pieces regularly for a while to come.

Along that line, my crafting skills still remain far from maxed out despite my ostensibly being max level and the great amount of time and effort I’ve put into staying on level with them. This is exacerbated by the fact the rapid leveling in early Champion Points means you’re going to pretty much entirely skip at least one or two tiers of crafting.

I realize a lot the wonkiness of the Champion Point system is due to it being salvaged from the previous Veteran Ranks system, but I have to imagine they could have hammered it into something more coherent. I shudder to imagine what a mess Veteran Ranks must have been if this is the improved model.

The end result of the Champion Point system is that I’m having pretty much the same leveling experience I had before, except less rewarding because I no longer get skill points from leveling. This is a problem because I still needs lots of points to finish off both my crafting and combat skills.

Of course, there are still lots of skill points to be had from Skyshards and quests, but those are slower and less reliable sources.

The good news is I decided to download an add-on that marks Skyshard locations on your map, and after a few hours of collecting a lot of the easier to reach ones that I’d missed while wandering the world, I’ve caught up quite a bit. I haven’t maxed out everything I want to, but I’ve got most of the important stuff covered, and I can afford to be a bit more patient about acquiring new skill points now.

It also needs to be said that a lot of my skill point starvation can be blamed on my need to be a jack-of-all-trades. I’m spreading myself thin over two types of armour, two weapons, two class lines, three crafting skills, various theft skills, and more. If I was a bit more focused I’d probably be fine.

Similarly, my frustrations over the Champion Point system are as much the result of misinformed expectations on my part as any innate flaws of the system. Leveling in ESO is far from an unpleasant experience, and there’s not really anything wrong with the fact that life after 50 is almost exactly the same as life before 50. It’s just not what I was expecting.

The search for the perfect look:

My biggest complaint about Elder Scrolls Online continues to be its lack of a wardrobe. To that end, I’ve acquired a number of costumes from the cash shop and in-game sources, but nothing is quite clicking.

The problem with costumes is that they’re, well, costumes. They’re very specific outfits, and most of them are pretty clearly non-combat attire. You can try to squint and convince yourself some are decent adventuring clothes, but the fact remains these are basically town clothes. Very nice town clothes, but still.

I don’t understand why the developers are okay with us charging into battle in sundresses and formal suits but won’t let us reskin our armour into different armour.

You can’t really customize them at all, either, beyond dye jobs. I love the top part of the Glenmoril Witch Robes, but I don’t really like the long skirt. If I could only use the top with some pants…

So I don’t really stick with any costume for long, and I’m starting to regret the money I’ve spent on the ones I got from the cash shop.

Instead, I’m leaning more on my growing collection of crafting motifs and trying to make my own gear as much as possible. I like a lot of the Skinchanger pieces, and I’ve recently unlocked the Barbaric style.

The mid-level Argonian chests remain my favourite, but I’ve now out-leveled them. Instead, I’ve turned to the Minotaur motif as a substitute. I had to spend nearly all my gold and probably sink my hopes of home ownership come Homestead’s launch, but I found a player willing to sell me the Minotaur chest motif.

It’s pretty good. I’d prefer if it was maybe a little more realistic, but it does fit my character’s barbarian aesthetic, and you can at least see a little of her tattoos.

One real money purchase I don’t regret, though, is the emotions personality pack. The “cheerful” personality has really added a lot of, uh, personality to my character. She feels more real to me now.

Playing in the sand:

That’s a lot of complaints about ESO, but I’m still playing it, so clearly I’m finding that the good outweighs the bad. So what am I enjoying about it?

I’m actually finding that surprisingly hard to nail down, but I think part of it has to do with the game’s sandbox nature.

I’m not much of a sandbox player, but as I understand it, the main appeals of the genre are the freedom to do what you please, and a greater level of immersion — an emphasis on non-combat activities and other things that make you feel a true citizen of the virtual world.

Ironically, ESO is generally not viewed as a sandbox by the community at large, but it still provides that experience better than the actual sandboxes I’ve played.

Much like Guild Wars 2, this is a game where you can pretty much just walk in any direction and find something cool before too long. It’s a bit slower-paced than GW2, but also less mindless.

Now, mind you, I’m still roughly following a linear storyline — albeit with frequent tangents whenever I see something shiny — but I’m doing so because I want to, not because I have to, and I’ll branch out even more once I finally finish the Aldmeri zones and the main story.

Meanwhile, no other game has given me such pleasure from non-combat activities — except maybe Landmark, I suppose. I spend a great deal of time gathering, crafting, stealing, and just wandering around seeing the sights. It feels like a more complete experience than most other games.

I don’t play MMOs because I crave connection with other players. Whatever desire I did have to adventure alongside my fellow gamers perished upon contact with the average MMO player.

I play MMOs because I love imaginary worlds, and I want to be a permanent resident of them, not merely a tourist. Single-player games don’t offer that. MMOs do. And right now ESO is doing a better job than most of selling me on the idea that I am a citizen of this virtual world, not merely a guy playing a game.

In other news…

Also on the subject of ESO, one of my latest posts at MMO Bro compares its build system with The Secret World’s.

It’s funny how many parallels there are between the two games. Even my faction preferences are mirrored. In both cases, the green faction is by far and away my favourite (Aldmeri Dominion/Dragon), the red faction is a distant second (Ebonheart Pact/Templar), and the blue faction just doesn’t appeal at all (Daggerfall Covenant/Illuminati).

Also at MMO Bro, I risk the Wrath of the Comments Section by sticking up for lockboxes, at least a little.

Trying something a little different today.

I’ve been tinkering with a video recording program (OBS — thanks to Moiren for recommending it to me), and I’ve decided to experiment with some video content for the blog.

For my first (and possibly only) video post, I decided to do a co-op mission in StarCraft II, playing as Vorazun. I also take the opportunity to ramble about my love for the Protoss and their lore, and discuss how my voice is the auditory equivalent of Martin Shkreli.

This is very much an experiment, so feedback is welcomed. It’s not something I’ve had a huge amount of interest in prior to now, but my father has suggested it a few times, and I was somewhat inspired by the video posts Ashley has been doing over at Robo♥beat.

What I’m saying is: This is all their fault. Send your hate mail to them, not me.

I’m sure at least one of my readers will be happy to see this.

While looking for new stuff to watch, I signed up for the free trial of another Netflix-like streaming service, CraveTV. Their selection isn’t vast, but they do have a few titles I’ve been meaning to check out, most notably the oft-recommended Killjoys.

Time for another series of binge-watch reviews. As usual, I may be a bit looser with spoilers than usual.

“Bangarang” (pilot episode):

My main problem with Killjoys right now is it feels like a story I’ve seen many times before. A group of misfit mercenaries go on rollicking adventures with lots of slick action sequences and sarcastic one-liners.

Specifically, it is the story of a woman calling herself Dutch and her partner, Johnny. They are what the locals call “Killjoys” — essentially bounty hunters — operating in a remote region of space known as the Quad. The pilot focuses on Johnny defying Dutch and risking the wrath of their handlers to rescue his brother, D’avin, who’s had a price put on his head.

Along the way, we get some hints of the characters’ various dark pasts, and the geopolitics surrounding the local oppressive regime, but not enough to really make much of an impression.

It’s not that it’s bad. The only thing that strongly bothered me about the pilot is its loud and obtrusive soundtrack.

It’s just generic. There’s very little to set Killjoys apart from the many and sundry other fictional works in this general vein, at least right now. There’s nothing about the premise, the world, the characters, or even the quality of its execution to set it apart from the pack.

Still, the special effects are good, the action sequences are fun enough, and I can think of worse ways to spend an hour, so I’ll stick with the show for now. Perhaps it will improve.

Overall rating: 6.9/10

“The Sugar Point Run”:

Usually the second episode of a series is pretty weak, but this one’s not bad.

Dutch and the team are sent to perform a prisoner exchange to rescue the daughter of a powerful Company official. To this end, they must venture into a post-apocalyptic former warzone riddled with scavengers, organ harvesters, and other colourful characters.

It pretty much goes without saying things don’t go according to plan.

There’s a lot of twists in this episode, but most of them are the sort of thing you can easily see coming. It does, however, have the effect of keeping the viewer engaged and keeping the story flowing along at a good pace. It’s entertaining.

The real purpose of the episode is to give D’avin a chance to prove his worth and to establish him as a real member of the team. It performs this task adequately, though I can’t say I’m finding him particularly compelling as a character right now.

All in all, “The Sugar Point Run” is a simple but enjoyable episode. My only real complaint is how they keep overlaying the action sequences with such obnoxious, distracting music.

Overall rating: 7/10

“The Harvest”:

The plot of this one is once again fairly simple — a friend of Johnny’s needs his help to track down her husband — but it does serve to help flesh out the cast a little bit.

My favourite part of “The Harvest” is actually a B plot involving D’avin trying to get a rubber stamp for his Killjoy psych evaluation from a doctor of somewhat loose morals named Pawter. It establishes D’avin as a real person with some vulnerability, as well as offering a glimpse of an interesting mystery surrounding his past, and Dr. Pawter seems like an interesting character, too. I hope to see more of her.

Meanwhile, Johnny’s sibling rivalry with D’avin, while predictable, also helps him feel a bit more like a real person, something all of the cast members have struggled with so far.

The mystery surrounding the missing husband turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, but I think fleshing out the characters makes “The Harvest” a worthwhile endeavour.

Boy am I starting to hate the soundtrack on this show, though.

Overall rating: 7.2/10

“Vessel”:

The Killjoys’ latest mission is to protect the unborn heir to a noble house in order to prevent a civil war. To this end, they venture into a toxic badlands to make contact with an enclave of surprisingly well-armed priestesses.

The problem with this episode is there’s no emotional investment. The Killjoys universe is not developed enough yet for me to care about a civil war — and the risk of such never feels terribly immediate — and the story has no relevance to the main characters. In theory I suppose we’re intended to get invested in the priestesses, but I can’t say I particularly cared about them, either.

The end result is a story that’s theoretically functional but which is utterly bland.

Also, no way a woman is going to be up and walking and that composed mere moments after giving birth.

Overall rating: 5/10

“A Glitch in the System”:

Obligatory ghost ship episode inc.

However, while this is a premise I’ve seen done by basically every sci-fi show ever, it’s actually a pretty good episode. The creepy factor is strong, there’s a decent element of mystery, and it gets pretty intense by the end.

We also got some more revelations into D’avin’s history, which is the show’s most compelling story right now.

Conversely, the plot around Dutch’s past is failing to capture my interest right now. I think they revealed too much of it too quickly. My curiosity isn’t peaked; while there’s still clearly more to learn, I nonetheless feel I know all that I need to.

Still, this is probably the strongest episode so far. The music wasn’t even all that annoying.

Overall rating: 7.8/10

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. I now have an alt in Elder Scrolls Online.

Really I’m amazed it took this long. In most games I have alts before the first week is through.

One of the main stumbling blocks in ESO was that the main race I wanted to play other than Bosmer is Khajiit, but those races are both members of the Aldmeri Dominion, so I’d be playing through the exact same content. I could’ve avoided this by ponying up for the Imperial edition, but it didn’t seem worth it.

Now that the world has been opened and faction restrictions relaxed, though, that’s no longer an issue. I’m now the proud owner of a brand new Khajiit who is leveling through the Ebonheart Pact zones, despite still technically being Aldmeri.

I’ve only played through the twin starting zones of Bleakrock Isle and Bal Foyen so far, but the Pact zones don’t feel like a radically different experience. I do note that they present the conflict with the other factions much more prominently — and boy does the Covenant come off badly. The Dominion, by comparison, focuses most of its storylines on internal struggles and more fantastical matters.

I will say this: As much as it pains my Dominion patriotism to admit it (Ayrenn remains the one true queen of Tamriel!), the Pact probably has the coolest zones, at least from a purely aesthetic perspective. The most beautiful regions of the game are to be found in Skyrim and its environs, and the Dunmeri lands are, if not exactly pretty, then certainly unique and oozing character.

It does impress upon me how much of this game I have yet to explore even after months of (on and off) play, both geographically and culturally. I may finally have a solid understanding of the culture and history of the Aldmeri peoples, and I’m getting a grasp on some of the other races, but I still know precious little about the Dunmer, and next to nothing about the Argonians. Other than that everyone hates them for some reason, anyway.

I have decided I don’t like the Nords. You would think, given that they’re based on real world Nordic cultures, I’d love them, but they’re just the stereotypical pop culture Vikings. At best they’re dull and one-dimensional, at worst they’re borderline offensive to my heritage.

Is this a small taste of how minorities feel about being constantly stereotyped, I wonder?

At least they pronounce their j’s correctly. That’s something.

Moving on to game mechanics, for this character I’m being less of a jack-of-all-trades and focusing his abilities much more clearly. He’s going to be a traditional spell-caster, with destruction staff as his main weapon, and enchanting is the only craft I’m pursuing right now. And I might not even stick with that.

For class, I picked dragonknight. On paper sorcerer would be the best choice for a magical character, but my main is already a sorcerer, and honestly, dragonknight feels like a more natural fit for an offensive caster.

Yes, all of the sorcerer abilities are magical, but most of them are utility oriented. Dragonknight skills are all about unleashing fire and fury on your enemies. I’m especially fond of the lava whip.

That said, I’m not finding that having a different class and weapon is making for a radically different experience. The general mechanics of combat remain mostly the same.

Also, I forgot how much it sucks not to have weapon swapping. Level 15 can’t come soon enough.

My final thought on this alt experiment is how confusingly inconsistent ESO is when it comes to what is and isn’t account-wide. Mounts are account-wide, but mount training isn’t (whhyyyyyy). Achievements aren’t account-wide, but dyes and costumes awarded from achievements are. Mail of all things appears to be account-wide, as is the bank. It’s very strange.

I’m not sure how much I’m ultimately going to play this Khajiit character. The need to start mount training all over again is daunting, and since any character can go anywhere and do anything, I could just as easily explore the Pact lands on my main. Unfortunately swapping to a different class and weapon doesn’t provide a significantly different game experience the way it would in most other games.

But if nothing else, it’s been an interesting diversion.

Contrarily, though, I already feel the urge to try another alt. I have a vague concept for a sword and board Dunmeri templar, who I would of course level through the Covenant zones.

Sometimes I don’t make sense even to myself.

Also, I very nearly wrote this entire post in-character using the Khajiiti speech pattern. Aren’t you glad this one decided against that?

Been a lot of big news from Elder Scrolls Online lately. It’s finally launched its much anticipated housing feature, and announced its first expansion.

Homecoming:

ESO’s housing is a lot worse than I hoped, but a little better than I feared.

The biggest problem is that the houses are massively over-priced, regardless of whether you’re spending real world or in-game currency. Even the smallest homes cost tens of thousands of gold, making housing out of reach of leveling players and pretty much the sole domain of dedicated end-gamers.

This might be justified if housing was a powerful character perk, but instead it’s a purely fluff feature with little to no practical benefits. At best you can put target dummies or crafting stations in your home, but aside from being fairly weak perks, those are all quite difficult/expensive to acquire.

You do get a room in an inn for free once you complete the introductory quest, but it’s so tiny that even calling it a room is bordering on false advertisement. It’s more of a closet.

This is the entire room. And keep in mind my character is a Bosmer; she’s pretty tiny.

Furniture is a bit of a better story. While there are still some insanely expensive pieces (thirty-five thousand gold for a single tree), there are also a lot of more affordable options, so if you ever do manage to get a home, you should be able to decorate it without breaking the bank too much.

The controls to place furnishings aren’t the most intuitive, but you do have a lot of options for how to orient them. Can’t scale their size, though, which is unfortunate.

I do like that you can fully explore every house before deciding to buy it. That’s a nice touch.

For all my complaints, there is one house in particular I’m thinking of getting: Autumn’s Gate in the Rift. It’s still a bit on the small side, but it’s not as claustrophobic as some of the other basic homes, and it also has a small yard, which is a great perk. The Rift is my favourite environment in the game, so I’d love to own a bit of it.

It costs 60,000 gold, which may just barely be within reach for me. I’d also have to play through the Rift’s main story to unlock the option to buy it, but again, I like the zone, so that’s not too onerous a task.

Morrowind thoughts:

I feel obligated to give my opinions on the newly announced Morrowind expansion, but to be honest I don’t have a lot of strong feelings on it.

I imagine it will be a solid expansion, and the new environments look interesting, but it’s mainly a play to nostalgia for a game I never experienced, and I don’t know much about Dunmer lore in general, so it’s not really grabbing me out of the gate. The main character is supposedly a fan favourite, but I’ve never met her. I’d have been more interested in an expansion set in Elsweyr or Summerset (for the lore), or Skyrim (for the environments).

The new warden class looks fun. Actually it fits my concept for my main better than sorcerer does, but progression in this game is far too slow for me to consider rerolling.

I’ve seen some people asking for a paid class change option. In most games I’d consider this a ridiculous idea, but class is a relatively small part of each character in ESO, so it’d actually make sense here. Of course, there are a lot of things that would make good sense that Zenimax is dead-set against, so I wouldn’t bet on it actually happening.

I roll my eyes a bit at the developers’ insistence that this is a “chapter” and not an expansion, but I do like the idea that this game’s expansions will be somewhat standalone affairs. Fits well with the game’s existing structure.

The developers have confirmed there will not be a gear reset with Morrowind’s launch, but their statement also indicated that a gear reset will happen at some point. After spending so much effort to maxing out my current gear, this is not welcome news. A gear reset might just drive me away from the game entirely, to be honest. The current level of effort it takes to get everything maxed out is only justified by the promise of some level of permanence.

Odds are decent I may buy Morrowind some point, but probably not at launch. I’ve got way too much left to do in the game’s existing content.

One other thing…

Altitis strikes again.

As predicted, I now have a Dunmeri templar, my first non-Dominion character. I’ve only just started the character, and it’s very early going, but I’m actually really enjoying it so far.

I managed to luck into a pretty fun and satisfying build right out of the gate. I load the enemy up with debuffs from the one hand and shield skill line and then nuke them down with my Aedric spear skill.

Being super over-powered from my 130+ Champion Points doesn’t hurt, either, I suppose.

Her backstory really came to life for me in character creation, too. I already have a pretty good image of who she is and her history.

It’s entirely possible my interest in this character will wane — again, it’s very early going — but so far, so good.

Moving on to the second half of my binge watch of the first season of Killjoys. Once again, there’s probably gonna be spoilers.

“One Blood”:

A legendary Killjoy has stolen something of incredible value to the Company, and the race is on for the other Killjoys to find him.

Dutch finds herself torn between conflicting loyalties. “The warrant is all,” but this particular Killjoy was a friend and mentor to her, and the other major figure from her past, Khlyen, has an interest in what was stolen.

“One Blood” is a pretty good episode overall. There’s more going on than usual in Killjoys, and there’s a nice intriguing mystery to it.

As far as character development goes, it’s a bit of mixed bag. I’m starting to get a bit more interested in Dutch and her dark past, and seeing the team unifying to help her at the end was a very nice moment, but the fact that they just handed over the terrible superweapon to the Company is kind of hard to swallow. I kept expecting them to “accidentally” destroy it, but apparently Dutch and her team are of much looser morals than I had given them credit for.

Also, yay for seeing Ian Tracey again, even if it’s a small role.

Overall rating: 7.5/10

“Kiss, Kiss, Bye Bye”:

This had the ingredients to be a very good episode, and in some ways it was, but there’s also a lot wrong with it.

The team finally succeeds in tracking down the doctor who scrambled D’avin’s brain (played by sci-fi legend Amanda Tapping, which is awesome) and learning the truth of why he murdered his squad, but the doctor is not without ways to keep her secrets safe.

This is a very intense episode, and I like that about it, but unfortunately most of the drama comes from the incompetence of the protagonists, and that kind of takes the edge out of it all. It’s painfully obvious Dr. Jaeger is up to know good, and yet they just leave her unsupervised for hours at a time. These are supposed to be elite agents?

On that note, also, I find it hard to believe that with all their fancy RAC toys, Dutch still didn’t have a better way to disarm D’avin than to shine a light in his eyes and hit him with a box.

Nor am I entirely pleased that Dutch and D’avin are now apparently an item. Gods save me from the endless tide of forced romantic subplots.

It’s also a little unfortunate that D’avin’s mysterious past has been wrapped up so quickly, as it was easily the most interesting part of the show up until now. I guess that’s one of the problems with Killjoys; it’s not quite an arc-based show, and it’s not purely episodic, either. It’s occupying some uncomfortable middle ground where each individual episode’s plot isn’t quite a satisfying package on its own, but there isn’t really a main plot thread flowing through it all to become invested in.

Johnny puts on a good performance, at least. He’s felt kind of faceless for most of the series to date, but he seems to be settling in as the lovable heart of the team, a Samwise sort of character. I can dig that.

Overall rating: 6.9/10

“Come the Rain”:

Johnny contrives to patch things up between Dutch and D’avin by sending them off a warrant that will force them to spend some time alone, but while they’re away, he finds himself caught in a hostage situation during a deadly acid rain storm.

I really could have done without the ongoing drama with Dutch and D’avin, but Johnny’s story is actually pretty good. The hostage situation itself is pretty by the numbers, but it’s an excuse for some great performances by Johnny and Dr. Pawter.

I gotta say, I enjoy learning more about Pawter. I like her character. Well, “like” maybe isn’t the right word, but she’s fascinating. Like a car wreck — you just can’t look away.

Johnny is also on the fast track to be my favourite character on this show. While this episode further establishes him as the heart of the team and someone who will always put others ahead of himself, he also has the opportunity to be pretty damn badass. A strong showing all around.

Overall rating: 7.8/10

“Enemy Khlyen”:

This is my favourite episode so far, but it’s still not without its hiccups.

Using a reverse-engineered neural link, Dutch is finally able to track down her twisted mentor Khlyen, and what she discovers is shocking: He’s a high-ranking RAC officer.

Breaking into the RAC is nigh-impossible task, but Dutch and the team are determined to finally get some answers, so the mission is on.

Khlyen working for the RAC — or perhaps, more frighteningly, the RAC working for him — is an excellent twist and by far the most interesting development in the show to date, and I’m also intrigued by the second mention of “Red 17,” whatever that is.

It’s also a plenty exciting episode. A pretty standard heist sort of scenario, but well done.

Also, normally I complain about the soundtrack on this show, and on principle I still dislike hearing loud contemporary music blaring in the middle of a far-future sci-fi… but for July Talk, I’ll make an exception. Definitely didn’t expect to hear one of the best Toronto rock bands in Killjoys, but I won’t complain.

However, “Enemy Khlyen” does suffer from a bit of what I like to call a Voyager ending, where all the tension just dissolves for an illogically hasty resolution in the final minutes. Seemed like both Dutch and Khlyen just kind of gave up and stopped trying for no apparent reason at the end.

Overall rating: 8/10 Earns bonus points for July Talk.

“Escape Velocity” (season finale):

To be honest, Killjoys mostly failed to impress me through its first season. It’s been good enough, but never more than that. In my mind, the word “mediocre” is closely associated with the series.

Credit where credit is due, though: This is a pretty damn good season finale.

Events in the Quad have reached a boiling point. The Scarback monks have been framed for a brutal terrorist attack, and the Qreshi nobles plot to end their Westerley problem once and for all. While Dutch and the team want to focus on Khlyen, they can’t help but be drawn into the rapidly escalating political situation.

This is the most intense episode yet, and I was really amazed by how dark things got in the end. I admire a story that can shock us out of our lethargy, and this certainly has (even if said lethargy was induced by the lackluster nature of Killjoys to date).

Once again, we see what a master manipulator Khlyen is, as he once again manages to get Dutch right where he wants her without her suspecting a thing. Johnny continues to surprise with his quick wits and big heart.

However, it’s still not quite perfect. Too much of the drama still hinges on the incompetence of the protagonists. D’avin pretty much walked straight into Khlyen’s arms, and the Qreshi coup couldn’t have happened if Dutch and the team hadn’t handed over the genetic bomb earlier in the season.

Also, these world-shaking events seemed to sort of come out of nowhere. I can’t say there wasn’t foreshadowing, because there has been, but things escalated very, very quickly and with little warning. I was still trying to get a handle on the fundamental geographic, cultural, and political layout of the Quad, and already the whole thing is tearing itself apart.

You know what Killjoys needs more of? Info-dumps. As writers we’re warned to avoid info-dumps, and yes, they can often be tedious and off-putting, but they’re also often necessary. One season in, I still have a lot of very fundamental questions about Killjoys and its setting that are unanswered.

When is this? What, if any, is the Quad’s relationship with the rest of the universe? Where’s Earth in all this? Why was the Quad settled? What is the Company and how did it come to control everything? I could just keep going.

Dark Matter did something similar, but its strong character focus carried the story, and by the time they got into big political events, they’d had plenty of time to flesh things out.

Still, “Escape Velocity” remains a very strong episode. In fact that’s a large part of why these questions are nettling me. The reason I haven’t brought them up before now is that up until “Escape Velocity” I simply didn’t care. Now I do.

Overall rating: 8.5/10

* * *

Thus concludes season one. Unfortunately that’s all Crave has right now, and I’m not impressed enough to buy downloads from Google Play or iTunes, so my reviews end here for now. The season finale was impressive enough that I would like to see more of the show at some point, though, so I’ll try to keep an eye out. I expect they’ll add season two sooner or later.

I’m not sure if it’s because of how dire the news has been lately or what, but lately I’ve been feeling less interested in seeking new sources of entertainment.

Instead, I’ve been revisiting old favourites. It’s sort of like comfort food, something warm and familiar you’re sure you’re going to enjoy.

Firstly, I’ve cancelled my Netflix/CraveTV subscriptions for the time being and dug out my DVDs to rewatch Continuum. I very rarely buy DVDs, as they are quite expensive, so the fact I have the entire series on DVD is a testament to how much I love it.

In a lot of ways Continuum is actually better the second time through. You can really take note of all the subtle bits of foreshadowing, and it’s interesting to see how things changed over the years. I totally forgot how cocky and lighthearted Alec was at the beginning. He’s almost unrecognizable as the character he became in later seasons. I’m also paying more attention to Garza, knowing what I know now.

Meanwhile, despite still having a couple of new and unread books lying around my apartment, I’ve decided to revisit some of my favourite StarCraft novels. Specifically The Dark Templar Trilogy by Christie Golden.

In a strange way I almost wish this wasn’t a StarCraft series, because few if any people who aren’t StarCraft fans are going to end up reading it. And that’s a damn tragedy, because it’s brilliant.

The Dark Templar books aren’t just good StarCraft books. They’re just straight-up excellent sci-fi literature by any standard.

The trilogy tells the story of Jake Ramsey, a human archaeologist who has a chance encounter with a dying Protoss woman. But she is not just any Protoss; she’s a Preserver, with the memories of every Protoss who has ever lived stored within her mind. When she encounters Jake, her mind, with all of its memories, is downloaded into his brain.

The story is then split evenly between Jake’s struggles in the present and the memories of the ancient Protoss that he relives every night when he sleeps.

Now, I’m a huge Protoss nerd, so of course I find this fascinating, but I think even if you’re not as keen on the Firstborn as I am it’s still an excellent story. One of the most powerful scenes in the series — really one of the most powerful scenes I’ve read in anything — has Jake reliving the exact moment when the Protoss invented written language.

It’s an amazing scene because while the characters don’t know they’re laying the earliest groundwork for an empire that will one day span the stars, they do understand that they’ve discovered something profound, something that will change everything. There’s such a beauty and purity to the moment.

And of course the characters of the Dark Templar books are excellent, because this is Christie Golden and she always nails the characters. In retrospect I can really see how R.M. has inspired a lot of characters in my own writing in various little ways.

Honor duels:

In other news, For Honor launches today, and over the weekend I was able to dive into its open beta and see how it shapes up. It’s the subject of my latest article on MMO Bro.

I’ll say this much: It’s a very fascinating game, but I don’t think I’m going to be in a rush to buy it anytime soon.

Also, I keep wanting to spell the name with a U. A pox on American spelling!

I’ve now completed the goal I set for myself when returning to Elder Scrolls Online: Finishing the Aldmeri zones and the main story. I now bring you my (mostly spoiler free) thoughts on the matter.

Under the eagle banner:

The Aldmeri zones, for the most part, maintain ESO’s commitment to a consistent “good not great” level of quality. They’re an enjoyable experience, if not necessarily mind-blowing.

The one exception that really stands above the others is Malabal Tor, a zone focused on the spiritual side of the Bosmer. The story there has a very traditional mythic feel, like you’re playing through an old folktale, and I really enjoyed that.

It’s also above average in terms of environment. Jungle zones are one of my least favourite biomes for games, and I was getting a bit burnt out on them after Grahtwood and Greenshade, but Malabal Tor has a wilder, more fantastical feel to it that helps it stand out. The trees twine around each other in surreal shapes, and the whole place is just far enough to the left of normal to feel enchanting.

This is how I imagine all of Valenwood should look, based on its lore.

It’s funny because I have a reader who swore by Greenshade, viewing it as the one zone that stood above all others in ESO. I almost wonder if they were confused and meant Malabal Tor, though it’s probably just another case of differing tastes. I found Greenshade had interesting moments, but the story as a whole was a little too scattered to really stand above the pack, if you ask me.

Reaper’s March was interesting, too. I didn’t love the main story there — it probably makes sense if you know Elder Scrolls lore better than I do, but I never quite grasped the why and the how of the glow in the dark Khajiit popping out of the ground to murder people — but the side quests were pretty fun. Nice to see the Khajiit get some attention.

After completing their story, I maintain a very high opinion of the Aldmeri Dominion. They’re an interesting faction with fascinating cultures, compelling themes, and solid characters. Razum-dar is still my favourite character in the game so far, and Ayrenn is second.

The quest on Stirk only strengthened my loyalty to the Dominion and its queen. Ayrenn was the only faction leader to come out of it looking anything like an adult.

The Breton king, in particular, has earned my ire. What an insufferable, arrogant, condescending, sexist prick.

I’ve decided to make some extra gold by robbing his castle on the regular.

To Oblivion:

The main quest dealing with Molag Bal and the Planemeld never really managed to win me over.

Normally I’m a sucker for an epic quest to save the world, but this one was just dull and generic in pretty much every way.

The fundamental structure of it drags the story down a lot. There’s so much time between each quest that you’ve already forgotten most of what’s happened so far by the time you start progressing it again.

There’s no emotional investment, either. None of the characters in the main quest are particularly memorable. Tharn is the only one I’ll give any credit to for decent writing, and even there it’s a “love to hate” thing.

The fact they’re all humans is probably part of the problem. I think a strength of Elder Scrolls as a setting is the sheer breadth and diversity of it, but in the main quest all you’re dealing with are the most vanilla human adventurers possible. The one non-human in the story is just a one-note villain with the depth of a mud puddle. The fact he’s an Altmer affects his character not at all.

There are some things about the main story I liked, mainly near the end. The open world Coldharbour zone is surprisingly beautiful and definitely one of the best zones in the game from an aesthetic perspective, and the very last quest offered some cool gameplay.

Still, the main story is ultimately something I did because I needed the skillpoints, not because I was excited to.

Scrolls of lore:

When I first spoke at length about the lore of the Elder Scrolls universe (as experienced through ESO), I described it as “mediocre.” Having gotten farther into the game, that opinion has changed somewhat, but not entirely.

I think I’m going to upgrade my view of Elder Scrolls lore to “inconsistent.” There are some aspects of it I very much like, and some that I don’t.

As mentioned previously, I greatly enjoy the Bosmer, and my opinion of them has only grown with time. I think they’re an incredibly fun and fresh take on the Elf archetype, and I’m really glad I had the foresight to pick Bosmer for my main’s race.

There’s a lot of layers you can appreciate about the Bosmer. They’re one of the more innately fantastical races in the setting, often feeling like they’ve leapt off the pages of mythology. Their savage edge is equal parts terrifying and fascinating. And they’re also surprisingly funny, especially if your sense of humour is as twisted as mine. Their casual bloodthirst never ceases to amuse.

The Khajiit have also managed to maintain their position as my second favourite aspect of the setting. I’m coming to the conclusion they’re not quite as shallow as a culture as I initially took them for, though I still wouldn’t describe them as exceptionally deep in the greater scheme of things. But they’re definitely fun and charming and almost always a good source of entertainment.

In general I think this game’s story-telling is at its best when you’re delving into the cultures of the various races and nations. The meta-plot isn’t great, and individual side quests are hit and miss, but there is a great depth to a lot of the societies of Tamriel.

On the other hand there are a few races I’ve decided I definitely don’t like. Chief on this list are Nords and Orcs, who so far seem to be incredibly shallow and archetypal, and not even interesting archetypes at that.

I can’t say I’m a particular fan of the other human cultures, either. Maybe I might like the Bretons; I don’t know much about them yet. I’d like to shove their king down a flight of stairs, but he might not be representative of his people as a whole.

But of course the humans are going to be boring. Hell, humans aren’t even my favourite race in the real world.

I feel like the Dunmer could be cool, but I still don’t know a lot about them. From what I gather, they used to be Daedra worshipers, but then some of them managed to promote themselves to godhood? That could definitely be interesting.

And Argonians are the biggest question mark. Really all I know is they worship trees, which speaks highly in their favour.

I would like to know what they did to make everyone hate them so much. Even Gnomes in WoW don’t engender this much disdain from the playerbase.

Then there’s the history and mythology of the world itself. That’s still mostly failing to impress, but I’m starting to think the problem is not the content itself, but the presentation.

Much of the lore in ESO is delivered via in-character history books you find while adventuring. These tend to be written in an incredibly dry, scholarly style, and while this is realistic, it sucks a lot of the fun out.

Even the most epic events lose their thrill if you explain them in a sufficiently dull fashion, and I think that’s what’s happening here. I’m beginning to think Tamrielic history actually is quite interesting, but it’s presented in such a hopelessly pedestrian manner that I can’t help but go cross-eyed as I try to read it.

It’s also rather scattered, in the most literal sense possible. When and where you find each book is highly randomized, so you’re learning the history in bits and pieces that often have little or no relation to each other or what’s going on around you. This makes the lore less a coherent narrative and more a jigsaw puzzle where you don’t even know what the final picture is supposed to be.

It’s almost like if TSW’s lore honeycombs were randomized such that you might pick up a piece of lore in Kingsmouth only for it to start telling you about Zeroes Wild. It has no meaning out of context.

Another issue in the presentation is how every culture in Tamriel tends to have its own words for the different deities, supernatural beings, and the like. Again, this is realistic, but it makes the lore incredibly unfriendly for someone who doesn’t already have a strong base of Elder Scrolls knowledge. As a result, I’ve managed to develop a solid understanding of the geopolitics of Tamriel, but remain almost completely baffled when it comes to the greater cosmology of the setting.

Finally, the story can also be inconsistent when it comes to tone. Most of the time I’d say ESO is a pretty tame, sanitized sort of game, but once in a while, with no warning at all, it will go someplace incredibly dark. Examples include the residential school quest in Auridon and that lore book about how vampires in Tamriel are apparently the result of some poor woman being raped to death by a demon lord.

What’s next?

With my main goals for the game complete, I’m not sure where to go now. There’s still an astonishing amount of content I’ve yet to explore in ESO, and I think I would like to see at least some of it.

I think I may take advantage of the game’s sandbox nature and begin simply picking and choosing the zones and quests that specifically appeal to me, rather than playing through everything completionist style. I finally have enough skillpoints and am nearing the all-important 160 CP gear cap, so I can afford to be more laidback.

However, I am also tempted to take a break and move on to other games, if only temporarily. WoW, in particular, is calling to me…

It’s been many long years of waiting, but I’ve finally gotten my hands on the fourth and final book of James Maxey’s wildly original Dragon Apocalypse series, Cinder.

This is a series with a strange history. The first book, Greatshadow, is easily one of the best novels I’ve ever read, but while the following volumes still had many strengths, the truth is it’s pretty much been downhill from there. That sounds harsher than I mean it to, but the fact remains that while I’ve enjoyed each book, I’ve enjoyed each one less than the previous.

Part of this is due to the strange structure of the series. Halfway through, the Dragon Apocalypse changed its main character and its entire writing style. It was a jarring transition I still haven’t fully adjusted to.

It also seems there has been some real world turbulence for the series. I’m not clear on what exactly the story is, but Cinder seemed to take an awfully long time to make it to market, and it’s now under a different publisher than the previous books.

The change in publishers definitely wasn’t an upgrade, either, as the quality of the product has taken a hit. I have never seen a professional novel with anywhere near this many typos.

But whatever the journey, Cinder is finally here now.

It is a book of inconsistent quality. Once again, there’s been a shake-up of perspective. Now the novel’s perspective shifts regularly between the series’ large cast of characters, and while many of these characters are familiar, a lot of attention is spent on a new character, the book’s namesake, Cinder.

Cinder is the daughter of Stagger and Infidel. Conceived in the spirit realm, she has skin as black as midnight and the ability to shift between the physical and abstract realms at will.

Cinder is one of my main problems with the book, because I find her fairly dull in comparison to most of the other characters. This is the same problem I had with Sorrow in the last book, though ironically by now Sorrow has grown on me and I would have liked to have seen her get more attention this time.

It should also be noted that the long gap between Cinder and the previous book left my memory of the series to date rather atrophied, and that also probably hindered my enjoyment of the story. In retrospect I should have reread the rest of the series first, but my impatience got the better of me, and I spent the first few chapters mostly trying to remember who everyone was and what was going on.

However, my biggest problem with Cinder is that it feels very, very rushed. In this fourth and final installment, the Dragon Apocalypse has come at last, the primal dragons of ice and storm uniting to destroy the world of humanity and plunge the world into an eternal blizzard.

Cinder deals with spectacular, earth-shattering events. It has a massive cast of characters whose stories need closure. And it tries to deal with all this in less than 300 pages. There’s just not enough time to give everyone and everything its due.

If ever there was a series that should have been spread out to ten or so books, this was it. The Dragon Apocalypse boasts one of the most brilliantly colourful and wildly inventive settings in all of fantasy, with no shortage of bizarre and awe-inspiring places, creatures, characters, and concepts. Four short books simply isn’t enough to do justice to the world or its story.

Still, I don’t like dumping on this book so much. Partly this is because I have spent some time speaking with James Maxey in the past (briefly, several years ago, over email), and I found him to be very humble and gracious and an all around good guy.

And partly there is still a fair bit to appreciate in Cinder. As mentioned above, the setting of the Dragon Apocalypse still offers no shortage of wonders. I love the concept of the primal dragons, immortal beings whose souls have fused with the fundamental aspects of the natural world, and Cinder more so than any of its predecessors shows off the terrible grandeur of the primal dragons.

There are also still many great characters in the story, even if Cinder herself didn’t blow me away. It was great to see Infidel back in action, even if her role was relatively small, and I’d happily read an entire series devoted to the adventures of the Romer clan. Seriously, Gale is awesome; can we get a book that’s all about her?

And I have to say that I did really like how it ended. Without spoiling anything, I think there’s a beautiful poetry to the final conclusion of Stagger and Infidel’s long, bizarre story.

In the end, it does remain true that every Dragon Apocalypse book is less enjoyable than the previous, but it started from such lofty heights that even after four books, the end result is not bad.

Overall rating: 7/10

I do want to say again that despite whatever flaws the series might have developed after, Greatshadow is one of the best books I’ve ever read and something that is absolutely worth your time. It’s a hilarious, heartfelt, and brilliantly strange story that I can guarantee is not like anything you’ve read before.

Landmark is no more.

Last night, a day that began on a depressing note in Real Life ended with Landmark’s servers closing and a whole lot of melancholy all around.

Unfortunately, I was not able to be there for the very moment when Lumeria went dark for the last time (again, Real Life), but I did make sure to get in a final hour or so of play that afternoon.

I did what I had spent most of my Landmark career doing: I picked a map at random, teleported to it, and wandered around to whatever build looked potentially interesting.

Just in that short time I saw some pretty amazing creations: A surprisingly homey magitech lab, a palace of ice, a charming campground, and an unfinished but nonetheless spectacular castle full of nightmarish architecture and crackling electricity — surely a den of evil.

And that, really, is what was special about Landmark. You could go to any map, walk in any direction, and in no time flat you’d be sure to find something beautiful, fascinating, or awe-inspiring. The traditional wisdom is that if you give players the tools to make their own content, the vast majority of it will be utter crap, but Landmark was stunning refutation of that notion.

If there’s one thing that really haunts me about the game’s closure, it’s the knowledge that there are undoubtedly many fantastic builds I never got to see.

Along the way I was also once again impressed by how beautiful the game world is even in its natural state. In one poetically appropriate moment, I crested a mountain and was greeted by a spectacular view of the sunset over the ocean.

I also took advantage of the cash shop fire sale to try on several new outfits, and I commiserated with the community. I am reminded that of all the online games I’ve spent significant time in, Landmark is the only one where I never had to add anyone to my ignore list.

And the small things stuck out to me: how much fun the parkour movement is, how much I liked the look of my character. I will miss those things.

Of course, I won’t miss the lag, rubber-banding, and randomly being shot into the sky for no reason. So there’s that.

Near the end, a player named Arendhir was plugging their build, an Elven city, so I decided to visit it, and I found it to be one of the most spectacular builds I had the pleasure to encounter. I wish I’d had more time to explore it in detail.

Finally, I returned to my first build, the Grove, and sat beneath my tree-arch, watching the water. There, I logged off for the last time.

As previously noted, this is the first MMO sunset that’s really affected me. I suppose I’m lucky it’s taken this long. In the end, I spent little time in Landmark in the weeks leading up to its closure, and realistically it probably isn’t something I would have sunk a lot more time into even if it had survived.

So I’m not totally heartbroken over it all. Hell, this isn’t even the saddest a video game has made me (which is, itself, a sad thing to admit to).

That said, I can’t escape the feeling something special has been lost. I’m not aware of any other game that allows people to express their creativity in such a vivid way, and I know there are times in the future when I’m going to miss the opportunity to log in and soak in the ambiance.

I may not be heartbroken, but I do still feel a certain melancholy. I will miss this game.

Now, I have only my memories of Landmark. Thankfully, in the digital age memories are easy to preserve. I have hundreds of screenshots of Landmark, and I also took a few videos before the end. They’re really more for my own benefit than anything (my poor video skills are abundantly apparent in them), but I am uploading them to YouTube for those few who may wish to see them, now or in future.

In general I do think it’s important to preserve not just this game, but any closed game. However small, these are parts of our culture, and they shouldn’t be forgotten. In addition to my efforts, there are MJ Guthrie’s videos for Massively OP, and I know there are at least one or two other players looking to preserve the game with image galleries and the like. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any links to share — if you know of anything, please comment with a link.

Thus it ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. Farewell, Landmark. We hardly knew ye.

As mentioned previously, I’ve had my eye on the Autumn’s Gate house in Elder Scrolls Online, and I’ve now taken the next step by purchasing it and moving in.

I’m far enough into the game that I don’t feel too bad about spending so much gold, but it’s definitely been an underwhelming experience.

Turns out furnishing your home is not as easy as I initially thought. Most in-game vendors only sell miscellaneous items like trees, rocks, random trophies, and the like. Basic housing stuff like beds and chairs are surprisingly hard to find.

Furniture crafting, meanwhile, straight up doesn’t make any sense.

Although each furniture recipe is tied to a specific profession, many of them still require skills in other professions, with no apparent rhyme or reason behind any of it. I have a bed recipe for my woodworking I can’t actually make because I don’t have skills in provisioning. Most of my blacksmithing recipes require skills and materials from enchanting. Let’s not forget the infamous Nickel Pie.

It seems the only way to make significant headway as a furniture crafter is to have maxed out every single tradeskill in the game on a single character, a task so Herculean I’m getting a headache just thinking about it. I nearly went mad just trying to train up three crafts on one character.

The drop rates for furniture materials aren’t exactly great, either, since we’re on the subject.

The best way to furnish your home is probably to just buy the essential items from the cash shops. The good news is that most of the furnishing prices are pretty reasonable (with some notable exceptions). But it’s not exactly great to have the best answer to a game problem be “cash shop.”

I suppose buying what you want off guild traders could also be an option — I haven’t looked into it, so I’m not sure what the prices are like. This does mean enduring the general awfulness of guild traders as a system, though.

It also turns out that the limit on how many furnishings you can have in a house is pretty shockingly low if you’re not a subscriber, so that doesn’t help matters. The interface for placing items is a long way from intuitive, too.

All that said, I’m still reasonably happy with how my house turned out. It’s a bit Spartan, but charming all the same.

With my options so limited, I decided to get creative. I used trees and shrubs to give the illusion that the house itself was alive, grown together from the local flora. Basically I took a Nord home and turned it into a Bosmer home.

Also, I love the yard, even if it’s tiny. The Rift is an absolutely gorgeous zone.

The real problem, in the end, is that after one day I’ve already run out of things to do with my home. There’s no gameplay associated with it, no reason to go there other than to see the sights, no practical benefit to it whatsoever. What few utilities you can add to homes in ESO require massive grind or a significant chunk of cash to unlock.

Times like this further my belief that I just don’t get player housing as a feature. ESO’s housing seems mostly well-received by the community so far. Meanwhile, SW:TOR’s housing is generally held as one of the worst implementations of the concept around, yet I would take SW:TOR’s system over ESO’s any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

One of the things that gives StarCraft II’s co-op missions such enduring appeal is the wildly different playstyles offered by the many commanders. I’ve often compared to the different civilizations and god choices in the “Age of ____” games, but you could also compare them to RPG classes. In some cases, the similarity is very obvious, while others you have to squint a bit more, but most can find an equivalent in the RPG world.

Vorazun: Rogue

Vorazun is part of the inspiration for this post. I’ve been saying for months that she’s like the traditional rogue archetype ported to the RTS genre, focusing on cloaked units, burst damage, and crowd control. Generally playing Vorazun tends to entail a lot of stunlocking the enemy and then bursting them down before they have a chance to fight back. That’s a rogue if I ever saw one.

Artanis: Paladin

Artanis’ army is slow, with little mobility or fancy tricks, but they’re also incredibly tough and durable, making them the ideal frontline bruisers. He also boasts a number of helpful buffs that help add survivability to his ally’s forces.

Sounds like a prot pally to me.

Abathur: Death knight

Like Artanis, Abathur has a strong focus on very slow but very tanky units. In late game, his troops are virtually indestructible. But he also has a strong emphasis on feeding off the destruction of his enemies; his power comes from killing. That sounds like a death knight.

Stukov: Necromancer

Not just because he has zombies, but because his playstyle is about overwhelming the enemy with endless floods of cheap and free units. He’s a summoner through and through.

Karax: Priest

More so than any other commander, Karax tends to focus on supporting his ally. He uses buffs, global abilities, and powerful defenses to turn the tide in his team’s favour, often taking little to no direct role in the battle himself. While that’s not exactly the same as being an RPG healer, the general principle of hanging back and supporting your allies remains intact.

Alarak: Warlock

Alarak’s playstyle can differ a little bit depending on whether you’re going for a Wrathwalker or Ascendant build, but either way you’re going to be using a lot of active abilities (Alarak’s and/or the Ascendants’) and pumping out huge damage numbers.

That seems like a spellcaster to me, and given Alarak has a habit of sacrificing his own units for power, warlock seems like the best fit.

Raynor: Ranger

Raynor’s army tends to focus on mobility and high ranged DPS, which makes him a decent allegory for a ranger archetype. Furthermore, a common trait of ranger classes is that they are considered to be very newbie friendly but have a surprisingly high skill cap at higher levels of play, and that’s also true of Raynor.

Kerrigan: Battle mage

A lot of playing Kerrigan boils down to controlling Kerrigan herself, a hero unit with a variety of powerful abilities. This puts me in mind of a mage, but she’s also pretty hard to kill and tends to like getting into the thick of things, so I suppose that would make her more of a battle mage.

Swann: Warrior

Subtlety was never Swann’s strong suit. He likes to build an army of slow, tanky, powerful units and slog his way to victory with sheer brute force. This makes him a decent allegory for a warrior archetype.

Nova: Druid

This one’s a bit of a stretch, I grant, but she is probably the most versatile commander at the moment, able to adapt to any situation, and she can swap between two different stances with very different abilities, so that’s sort of like shape-shifting.

Zagara: ???

Okay, I’ll admit I can’t draw any clear RPG parallels with Zagara. What class does “hurl a bajillion suicide units at your enemy” translate to?

If you’ve got any suggestions, I’m all ears, but maybe this thought experiment simply has its limits.

If you spend any time in the MMO community, you will inevitably see discussions of how these games can be made more social, how can they can be designed to foster more player interaction. Given my famously antisocial nature, it may surprise you to know that I am entirely in favour of this. These are social games, and building bigger and better online communities can only be a good thing.

But I do take issue with a lot of the ideas that get bandied around for how to make MMOs more social. Most of them are the sort of punitive design that will drive me away, rather than make me want to reach out to other players. It’s mostly people who are already social trying to find ways to force solo players to be like them. We don’t hear from soloists what would make them want to reach out.

It’s an issue I tackle in a new article for MMO Bro, where I speculate on how to build a social MMO for the solo player. I can’t say for certain my suggestions will apply for everyone, but I know these are the steps that would help me become more social.

While I’m pontificating on MMO design, I also have an article on why themepark MMOs work. Hopefully this isn’t taken as a knock against sandboxes; while some comparisons are necessary, it wasn’t really meant to be about what genre is better. It’s just an analysis of what makes the themepark such an enduring formula.

A few weeks after I hit what we would generally think of as the level cap in Elder Scrolls Online, I have now hit what could be argued to be the true level cap, 160 Champion Points. It is only at this point that you cease hitting new tiers of equipment and can begin gearing up in earnest.

This is where all those long hours I spent leveling my crafting finally paid off. Normally at this point in an MMO, I’d be hitting up dungeons or world bosses, or perhaps grinding daily quests or even doing PvP. In ESO, I had to do none of that. Like Tony Stark in a cave full of Middle Eastern stereotypes, I simply built my own equipment from scratch.

This first entailed several hours trekking all over the length and breadth of Tamriel to find enough materials, as the final tier of gear requires ten times more ingredients than what came before it.

I thought this would be a chore going in, but I actually didn’t mind it. It seems a small price to pay to free myself from the shackles of RNGesus, and this is a genuinely nice game to ride around and explore. I actually started the journey a bit before hitting 160 CP and made it the rest of the way thanks to the XP from exploration, killing mobs that got in my way, and doing the occasional Dolmen as I happened across them.

I had planned ahead and saved a bunch of crafting surveys for every profession, so that turned what could have been weeks of grinding into something that only took about a day of pleasant wandering.

My one complaint is how vague the survey maps can be. I had one where X didn’t so much mark the spot as it covered the entire northeast quadrant of Reaper’s March. That’s less than helpful.

In the end, I wasn’t entirely able to achieve my goal of 100% self-sufficiency and had to buy some things from guild traders. Most notably glyphs, since I didn’t level enchanting. Thankfully 160 CP glyphs are fairly cheap as long as you’re willing to settle for them “only” being epic. I also needed some extra leather, as I wound up a few hundred short of my goal even after clearing out all my surveys.

Once I had everything I needed, it was finally time to craft my new set of gear. That’s not exactly an exciting story, since it mostly entailed my going to some crafting stations and clicking some buttons, but it is interesting how much thought I put into those clicks.

I did what is for me a surprising amount of research and planning before making this final set of gear. I read online about the various crafting sets before settling on the ones I wanted, and even I drew up some basic graphs to track what traits I’d unlocked on what pieces and which I wanted to use.

I was a bit disappointed by how lame most of the five-piece bonuses for crafted sets are. The only one that really stands out is the double Mundus Stone one from Craglorn, but I’m not going to have nine traits on everything anytime this year. In the end I settled on two four-piece bonuses instead.

The end result of all this work and planning is that I’m now 100% equipped with gear made by my own pixelated hands.* Every piece has been tailored to have exactly the stats, traits, and appearances I want.

*(Excluding jewelry, which can’t be crafted.)

Every piece is at least epic quality, and I also managed to make a few legendaries, most notably both my weapons. In my bow stance, my crit chance is now near 60%, which calls to mind fond memories of being a fire mage back in Wrath of the Lich King.

I’m also mostly happy with the appearances. I still miss my mid-level Argonian chest, but what I’ve got now is okay.

On the whole, I’ve found this a very satisfying experience, though I’m not entirely without complaints, of course. Getting three crafting professions fully upgraded was pushing the very upper limit of what I’m willing to tolerate in terms of grind.

This is also something of an example of rewarding time spent over skill, which is a design philosophy I’m not fond of. I’m honestly not sure I deserve to have gear this good. Maybe instead of surveys just giving you a pile of mats you should have to fight bosses who drop the mats, or maybe they should entail puzzles or mini-games of some sort.

And I’m now living in terror of the inevitable gear reset. Hopefully it’s still aways off — I don’t want to do this again anytime soon.

But there is something deeply gratifying about being able to fully craft my own gear. It’s not even the fact that I don’t have to worry about being screwed over by bad luck, or that it’s a viable gearing path for solo players, although I love both of those things. There’s just something special about building the gear yourself that’s hard to explain in rational terms. It just feels good.

Crafting is something I’ve always liked as an idea but rarely enjoyed in practice. Elder Scrolls Online is a very welcome exception to that rule.

And now I can craft gear for any future alts, too.

There is an argument I have often seen bandied about that Lord of the Rings is a “low magic” setting. It probably comes up elsewhere, but I often see it brought up in regards to Lord of the Rings Online. In particular it is at the centre of the unending controversy over the game’s rune-keeper class, which is essentially a mage.

I am a lifelong Lord of the Rings fan who has read the books and watched the movies more times than I can count, and I am completely baffled by this belief in a non-magical Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings isn’t low magic. Lord of the Rings is dripping in magic.

Magic is everywhere in Middle-Earth. Before the Hobbits even make it to Bree in the Fellowship of the Ring, they encounter evil psychic trees, are saved by an immortal nature spirit, spend the night in his enchanted home, get bewitched by evil ghosts, and steal a bunch of magic blades from them. And all that is just a tangent the movies didn’t even bother to cover.

Also in the Fellowship of the Ring, there’s a scene where Gandalf basically blows up a small hill just to chase off some wolves. Saruman calls forth incredible storms to drive the Fellowship back from Caradhras. Glorfindel (or Arwen in the movie) is able to drive off the Nazgul by unleashing the inherent power of Rivendell.

The Mirror of Galadriel. The Light of Earendil. Sting. Ent-draughts. It just keeps going. The Elves were so suffused with magic that the mere touch of anything wrought by their hands caused Gollum excruciating pain. And did you think that the Lorien cloaks kept their wearers so well hidden just through clever stitching? That a few bites of lembas a day can sustain a person for weeks simply because the Elves are good bakers?

The counter to all this might be that these examples all involve very special people. Gandalf, Saruman, and the Elves are immortals with abilities far beyond that of mere humans. Magic is out of reach of the ordinary person in Middle-Earth.

Is it, though?

Aragorn is mortal, yet his mastery of healing quite clearly comes from more than a simple knowledge of herbs and medicine. The Oathbreakers were cursed to undeath by Isildur, then commanded and subsequently released by Aragorn. Most tellingly, the Mouth of Sauron, a mortal man, is said to have learned great sorcery from the Dark Lord himself. This shows magic can be taught in Lord of the Rings.

Now these are Numenoreans and therefore still a bit beyond your garden variety human. But there are other examples.

Even Samwise Gamgee, a simple Hobbit gardener, is able to make hardened Orcs flinch before him simply by shouting a few Elvish phrases. He’s able to regrow the trees of the Shire using naught but a small pouch of soil from Lorien.

Even the humblest resident of Middle-Earth is therefore capable of wielding some degree of supernatural power, and one can imagine someone with more time and inclination to study ancient lore and seek out objects of power could accomplish quite a lot. Perhaps they might not equal Gandalf in power, but still…

Consider, also, that for a time Sauron masqueraded as “the Necromancer of Mirkwood.” Necromancers had to be a relatively common thing for him to not be immediately identified as his true self.

Although we don’t see a lot of mortal magic-wielders in Lord of the Rings, it is my opinion that they certainly could have existed, and probably did in some number. To get back to LotRO, then, I see nothing wrong with the rune-keeper.

Magic is everywhere in Lord of the Rings, so where did this perception that’s it’s a low magic setting come from?

I don’t know. Fanon is a strange thing at the best of times, and this is definitely one of the weirder examples I’ve seen in my time, all the more so for how widespread the misconception has become.

The one explanation I can come up with is perhaps it has to do with the fact magic in Lord of the Rings tends to be less visually flashy than you see in other settings. Magic in Tolkien’s universe tends to be more often about influencing minds and emotions than about flinging fireballs and lightning bolts. The magic is very common and very powerful, but it is subtle, so maybe that’s how people have come to dismiss it.

I can especially see this being the case for people who are more familiar with the movies than the books. The medium of film cannot easily convey things like how the heart is seized with unnatural terror in the presence of the Nazgul, or the serenity that can be bestowed by the Elves and their works.

Even then, though, there are still plenty of more dramatic examples of magic in Lord of the Rings, so it still doesn’t make much sense.

It is a great mystery. How have people convinced themselves the story that created the high fantasy genre is not high fantasy?

Life has a funny way of surprising us sometimes.

My plan for this month was to spend a few weeks getting caught up in World of Warcraft until the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda. However, somewhere along the line, I somehow fell into playing Mirror’s Edge Catalyst as well. I’ll have full thoughts on my brief return to WoW and Mirror’s Edge sometime soon.

However, I noticed something distressing while playing Catalyst. My once mighty gaming computer was struggling with it a bit, with the in-game textures often not displaying quite right and occasional moments of lag. It hasn’t massively impacted my ability to enjoy the game, but it is a bit disappointing.

Then I saw how gorgeous the trailers for Andromeda are, and I started getting depressed that I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it in all its glory. Inquisition has the dubious distinction of being the first game my current computer couldn’t handle at max settings, and while I was still able to get it looking pretty good, Bioware’s now had a few years to push their graphics even further.

And it also occurred to me my computer has been showing its age in other ways. Nothing serious, but small hiccups and annoyances here and there that are becoming more common as game technology becomes more advanced.

So… I ordered myself a new gaming computer, which should arrive right around the time Andromeda launches.

This is sooner than I expected to get a new computer, and it’s maybe not the most financially responsible decision I’ve made in my life, but it’s not going to bankrupt me, and now I should be able to enjoy Andromeda in all its full glory.

Like most gamers, I’m counting the days until the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda (or until my new computer arrives, if that turns out to be later). In the meanwhile, I decided to make a short return to World of Warcraft to get caught up in the game before the release of patch 7.2, which should come right as I’m in the thick of Andromeda.

Ru shanna Shal’dorei:

My biggest goal with this return visit — and one I accomplished much sooner than I expected to — was to finally finish off Suramar, both the initial reputation grind and the additional storyline added in patch 7.1.

Taking a break in the middle of the storyline probably didn’t help my impression of it, though admittedly it was rather disjointed to begin with due to all the reputation grinding between story arcs. I will say that I quite like the twist with Arluin. At first I thought, “Oh, this is such a cheesy, generic twist. The seemingly heartless rogue isn’t so bad after all.”

Well, I was right about the second part, but then came the follow-up quest afterward, and I realized Blizzard was being a lot more clever than I gave them credit for. Well played, Blizz.

That leaves the post-launch storyline, Insurrection. I feel like I should have loved this story, as it seems like exactly the sort the sort of thing I’m normally into. It’s almost pure story, and it’s basically Elfapalooza 2017.

But while I don’t have any big complaints about it, I can’t say I was blown away by it, either.

One thing that I found jarring was the presence of what I’m going to call “micro-grinds” breaking up the story. Every so often the storyline would come to a screeching halt as I was sent off to do arbitrary numbers of world quests or order hall missions.

None of these tasks took very long, and by WoW standards — or really any standard — they’re hardly onerous, but they did throw off the pacing, and I just don’t understand why Blizzard included them at all. The questline was originally gated on a weekly basis, so it’s not like they extended the life of the content any. Are the WoW devs just so addicted to grind they’re now physically incapable of designing anything without it?

I think the lack of good soundtrack in Legion that I’ve touched on before also hindered Insurrection. The grand and terrible events of this arc deserved some epic musical accompaniment, but most of the time, it’s just the standard Suramar ambient soundtrack, which isn’t terribly inspiring.

And I must admit the premise of a corrupt government selling out to a foreign power and then commencing a totalitarian crackdown while fueling the flames of xenophobia is hitting a little too close to home these days.

But more than anything I think I’m just tired of Suramar. It’s a great example of the sort of thing I’ve been complaining about pretty much since I started playing WoW. Blizzard will design amazing content, and then they’ll make you hate it. Suramar is an absolute triumph of game design in so many ways, virtually unmatched in my extensive gaming experience, but after weeks upon weeks of mind-numbing grinding within its twilit streets, I’ve just had enough.

Again, none of that is to say I didn’t enjoy the story. It just didn’t blow me away, even though in theory it really should have.

Honestly I think my favourite part was the banter between Valtrois and Stellagosa. I know some people have been shipping Kor’vas Bloodthorn and Stellagosa, but now I’m wondering if Stella/Valtrois will rise as a rival ship. I’m still not sure I’m on board with Dragons dating humanoids, but those two definitely have chemistry, I’ll give you that.

Also it was nice to see the Blood Elves taking an active role in the story, and especially nice to see Liadrin out and about. I’ve always felt she had such potential, and while her role in Insurrection doesn’t entirely make up for her neglect, at least it’s something.

The Nightmare to the Nighthold:

This visit also allowed me to experience Legion’s raid content for the first time.

Somewhat like Insurrection, the Emerald Nightmare has no crippling flaws, but failed to particularly impress me, especially after so many years of hype around the concept. I did think the ending after the Rift of Aln was a nice touch.

Trial of Valor I like a bit more. It’s a nice solid wrap-up to Stormheim’s story, the fights are decent, and it drops some very pretty gear.

I kind of wish Blizzard had the courage to do more small-scale content like this. It’s not evil to reuse art assets or have small raids you can finish in an under an hour. It might be a problem if that’s all Blizzard did, but as a supplement, humbler offerings like Trial of Valor add some welcome texture to the game.

Now I’m really sad we never got that Abyssal Maw raid in Cataclysm.

But undoubtedly the crown jewel was the Nighthold raid. Now that impressed me.

I think my favourite part has to be the Star Augur fight. It’s been a long time since a raid boss in WoW really wowed me (no pun intended), but this is a hell of a fight. While it’s ostensibly an illusion, in effect you spend the fight warping through space, arriving at a succession of increasingly hostile and alien worlds. The glimpse of the Void near the end is genuinely horrifying.

Most of the other bosses are solid, too. The voice actor for Trilliax was clearly having way too much fun with the role.

Only one I didn’t really like was Botanist Tel’arn. Annoying voice-overs, unremarkable mechanics. I also don’t think that Elisande or Chronomatic Anomaly quite lived up to the potential inherent in their concepts — last time we fought a boss with powers over time it was a vastly more entertaining experience.

I am curious why Elisande couldn’t see any future where the Legion didn’t win. Are we as players so awesome we broke the space-time continuum? Did the Demons trick her somehow?

Probably the latter. She did have frickin’ Tichondrius camping out in her guest room.

The Nighthold concludes with our long-awaited confrontation with Darkness Incarnate himself. The fight might not be quite as spectacular as Star Augur, but it’s still pretty impressive, and the cinematic at the end (a cinematic for a first tier raid!) was awesome. Like a lot of Legion, it did a good job of playing to nostalgia without using it as a crutch, and it was incredibly satisfying all around.

Just a bit of a shame it spoils the end of the Light’s Heart quests, as I hadn’t finished the grind for that yet.

Again, why did this need to be a grind? I actually like chain-running heroics, so the grind hasn’t really bothered me in this case, but I don’t understand the rationale. It’s a story quest with no significant power rewards. Why does it need to be such work? Or any work at all?

Other thoughts:

Few other random things to note about my vacation to Azeroth.

I got my first legendary item of the expansion, the Pillars of the Dark Portal, despite putting no significant effort toward getting one. I honestly didn’t think I’d get ever a legendary in Legion.

It’s a bit of a weird feeling, really. My philosophy has always been that I’m opposed to exclusive content, but in favour of exclusive rewards. I’m honestly not sure someone like me deserves legendary gear. But then again I suppose the Rubicon was already crossed when they Oprahed the legendary cloaks back in Pandaria.

The whole thing was rather an underwhelming experience, which I guess illustrates how much of a non-event legendaries have become. The special power for this particular legendary is so niche as to be virtually worthless (though the raw stats still make it a huge upgrade), and there’s no fanfare, not even an achievement. It just appeared in my bags like any other random piece of loot.

Meanwhile, in my absence Blizzard went ahead with the plan to allow people to convert WoW Tokens to Battle.Net Balance, meaning you can now pay for most anything Blizzard offers with WoW gold, at least in theory. This was followed by a massive upswing in Token prices.

I had feared I wouldn’t be able to continue paying my subscription with gold, let alone buy anything else with it, but it seems I may have underestimated just how easy it is to make gold these days. Despite putting only the barest minimum of effort into farming, I’m ending the month with three Tokens, which means at the very least my sub is safe for a while, and in the long run I may earn enough of a surplus to buy other things, as well.

This is a better deal for me than you may immediately realize, because Tokens convert directly to USD. This means I’m not being screwed over by exchange rates, which are getting pretty brutal these days. And it’s not like I’m going to stop spending on Blizzard games anytime soon.

Just the other day they released a new teaser for the necromancer in Diablo III, and while I’ve been hesitant to support what appears to be a largely abandoned game, the preview of the female necro is turning that around a bit. You’re basically playing as an even more badass version of Liv Moore from iZombie; how can I say no to that?

I really wish I’d known they changed it to let you have more than one unused Token at a time before now. I could have bought two or three Tokens before my sub lapsed the last time, back when they were still relatively cheap. It’s strange I never heard about the change; I’m usually pretty good at keeping up with WoW news, even when I’m not playing. But what’s done is done, I guess.

Now I just hope that Token prices don’t get much higher.

I went into Logan with very high expectations. I’ve enjoyed every X-Men movie to date, Wolverine is one of my favourite characters from the franchise, and the buzz around this film has been very good.

So perhaps my sky-high expectations are causing me to judge Logan with an unfairly critical eye, but for the first time, I’m leaving an X-Men movie feeling more disappointment than anything.

Logan depicts a grim future where mutants are dying off. An aging, sickly Logan is working as a limo driver while caring for the decrepit Professor Xavier. Well, “caring for” is probably the wrong term. Xavier is more of a prisoner. His mind is failing, and he needs to be kept under lock and key for the safety of all, lest his telepathic powers run out of control with deadly consequences.

Into this wretched purgatory of a life comes Laura, a mutant child with powers eerily reminiscent of Logan’s own. Laura is the product of horrific corporate experiments to create mutant super-soldiers, and the nurse who raised her is desperate to see her to safety. She believes Logan is the only one who can save young Laura.

Unsurprisingly, Logan isn’t eager to take responsibility for the girl, but in the end he doesn’t have much choice, and he, Laura, and Xavier find themselves in a desperate flight from the ruthless forces pursuing her.

I knew going in this was going to be a very dark movie. That much was clear from the trailers. If you’ve ever read any of my fiction, you know I’m down with grim stories.

But in the case of Logan, it just doesn’t quite work.

You see, there is a difference between trying to be something and actually being something. You’ve probably heard it said that the harder you try to be cool, the less cool you actually are, and the same is true of most of anything.

Logan is trying very, very hard to be a powerful movie, but that’s exactly why it isn’t. It’s such an unrelentingly bleak and brutal story that it just ends up feeling bland and tasteless. You need some light to contrast the darkness, or else you’re just fumbling blind.

It works so hard to be tragic that it misses opportunities to be genuinely impactful. Xavier has degenerated so much that I no longer see anything of Professor X in him. If there had been more flashes of his old self, if I could have seen something of the character I know in him, his issues would have been heart-wrenching, but instead he’s just this incoherent, foul-mouthed old man who isn’t a shell of his old self so much as he’s a different character entirely.

I very much like the idea of superhero movies being a little more serious, a little more about character and less about spectacle. Part of the reason I’m such a fan of the X-Men movies is that they’re already doing a pretty good job of that.

But Logan has gone to the opposite extreme. It wants so desperately to prove its emotional weight and artistic prowess that loses sight of the forest for the trees and fails to actually tell an interesting story.

That’s not to say that there aren’t positives to the movie. Indeed, there are a lot of individual parts of Logan that I enjoyed quite a lot, even if they don’t fit together very well as a whole.

By far and away the best part of the film is Dafne Keen’s performance as Laura.

This kid is going places.

Despite the fact that she doesn’t speak any coherent words for roughly the first three quarters of the movie, she manages to communicate an incredible amount of personality and emotion. You can see a clear resemblance between her and Wolverine, yet she’s also clearly her own person.

And the sheer intensity of her performance is staggering. When danger comes, she morphs into this shrieking avatar of bestial fury, and yet her quieter moments are no less powerful. She’s as convincing as a vulnerable, innocent child as she is as a cold-blooded killer.

The villains of the story also put on excellent performances. They’re skin-crawling, blood-boilingly, disgustingly and utterly vile, and I mean that in the best way possible. Villains should make you hate them with every fiber of your being, and these guys accomplished that with flying colours.

But still, Logan is a movie that ends up feeling like less than the sum of its parts.

There’s one other thing that bothers me, but it’s a spoiler, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet and want to go in fresh, I’d advise leaving now. For the record, I’m giving this 6.9. You can leave now and not miss anything non-spoilery.

Everyone ready for the spoiler? Good.

I don’t like that Logan died. Now, I want to be clear that I’m not being sentimental here (see my Dark Knight Rises review for proof I’m willing to kill my darlings). This was always going to be Hugh Jackman’s last movie as Wolverine anyway, and Logan has got to be pushing his second century at this point. We all have to go sometime. I’m not upset by the death of the character.

What bothers me is it sabotages the whole theme of the movie. The core thread running through the movie is Logan’s struggle to cope with the pain and horror of his long and violent life. He’s outlived everyone he ever cared about, and he just doesn’t have the strength to go on anymore.

What a powerful moment it would have been if Logan could overcome that in the end. How meaningful it would have been for him to find the strength to continue on, to escape with Laura and finally have the peace he long ago gave up hope of ever finding.

But instead he’s just killed off. It’s not even his choice; it’s just something bad that happened. Again, they were so desperate to make this movie a tearjerker that they ignored their best chance to tell a truly powerful story and just went for the most blunt, contrived, obvious solution possible.

It’s a death with no thematic meaning. It doesn’t make any point about the character. It doesn’t have any real emotional payoff. It’s lazy.

Again, if Logan hadn’t been so hyped by both myself and the media as a whole, I might view it less harshly. It’s not that it’s a bad movie, but it could have been so much more than it is. Honestly I liked the previous Wolverine movie much, much better.

To make it official:

Overall rating: 6.9/10