Mera'din

This was kind of XV's biggest fault. Despite it's eternal development cycle, most of the game was actually made in the last year and a half or so so it was missing a LOT. They did what they could between adding stuff for free, the Royal Edition (XV's version of a Final Mix or "International" version with added stuff), and the DLC but it made everything a bit disjointed. I still loved it though. What we got was impressive all things considered and it went a long way to restoring my faith in the series. There was so much more we could have got from it to if the director hadn't left. We NEEDED the rest of the new DLC to complete the story it feels like. All the still remaining gaps would have been filled. Luna's would make her a real character and shown her views and motivations as well as go through why her work still wasn't done even in death. Aranea's would have filled in the fall of Nifilheim that got kind of shoved on us in the main game out of nowhere, and the one for Noctis sounds like it would have been another "alternate timeline" thing like what the alternate ending for Ignis' dlc was but more extensive (the description refers to him "parting ways with the Astrals" and working to attain an "ideal future for all his people"). I guess they're turning the Luna/Aranea one's into a book so that's something I guess? Even Comrades had it's place in the story to a degree and provided some insight on things while Noct was gone. Really hate they they tore it out of the game and made it a standalone, especially since it made it impossible to 100% the trophy list for now XV if you didn't do everything in it before that point. >_< I understand the issues the game has, but I honestly invested a lot more in it from having to connect the dots and figure out what it all meant vs having it handed to me. I know it basically amounted to poor development management and story telling to a point, but I loved it because of that. Even the secret dungeon has a sort of story to tell and I loved that. On another note, you may like Prompto's DLC as well. Gameplay is a little awkward but it fills in some of the Nifilheim stuff and features Aranea in it as well and shows what she was up to during part of the game where Prompto is missing. Can't fool me. Everyone knows Ultros is the best.

That was the point though. Nobody knew who he was. His existence was stricken from history because his brother was a giant backstabbing fuck. It wasn't just a temper tantrum. We learn from the anime thing that he didn't even want to be king. He just wanted to help people. But then his brother decided to go all Game of Thrones on his ass because presumably the crystal HAD intended to choose Ardyn but then pulled the rug out from under him in his time of need and rejected him, resulting in his fiance being stabbed trying to protect him. His brother then proceeds to gaslight the kingdom into thinking he was always the chosen one and Ardyn was a monster who attacked for no reason and was the cause of the starscourge and then they seal him away for THOUSANDS of years. I'd be pretty fucking salty too. Also, he didn't care if Noct knew why he was doing what he did. He just wanted him to suffer. No, it isn't justified, but Ardyn was fucking insane by that point. He spent his entire life trying to keep people safe from the starscourge only to have it start corrupting him, and it all get thrown back in his face by the gods he was supposed to chosen by and have it all erased from existence while he had to sit and stew on it for a couple millennia. It wasn't supposed to make sense to anyone else. That's why it was so effective. Nobody knew who he was, nobody knew why he was doing it. I think you just described a good chunk of the history of European wars of succession. That was supposed to be Noct's fate all along. It was the point of the game. It was his last moments of freedom. His father knew it. It's part of why he sent him away. He was the prophesied "Chosen King" who was meant to sacrifice himself for the good of the world. The game definitely has problems. There are holes in the story that we really needed filled. The DLC was helping with that quite a bit. I haven't replayed it yet, but my understanding is the "Royal Edition" DLC adds a bunch of cutscenes and some context to things throughout the game and the individual DLCs had a lot of interesting stuff in them. Also, if you hated the ending that much, I recommend the Ignis DLC. It has a complete rewritten/alternate ending that was really cool and is probably closer to what you wanted (including the point in the game where you think it should have ended more or less). Side note, I honestly miss these argument/discussions with you. Welcome back man. ??

No? Like, she never comes back to life. She's dead. Noct is dead. The end is them in the afterlife. >_> Ardyn was presented as the main villain a lot sooner in the game than some others. Orphan, Yu Yevon, Zeromus and Necron all kind of came out of fucking nowhere practically at the ass end of the game. I feel we could have done with a lot more visual representation of what he did to Nifelheim though. It was a threat and then it was just... gone. Destroying the world wasn't his goal either way. It was basically just a means to an end. His whole intention was to push Noct into accepting his destiny so he could face him at full strength ("You and your crystal against all that I have become"). Even more so (which was conjecture before, but basically confirmed with what the prologue for the DLC shows) he wanted to put Noct through a similar situation to what he went through. His betrothed dying in front of him, his friends and status being stripped away as he suffered torment after torment and then being sealed away. He got all of that. He was waiting for Noct's return. He wanted revenge for being betrayed by his brother and spurned by the Gods and the Crystal. He wanted an end to the line of Lucian kings and got exactly that. Either he would kill Noct and end the line or Noct would have to sacrifice himself to save the world and completely destroy Ardyn in an act of mutually assure destruction. When he's beat he doesn't rant and rave. He basically tells Noct he'll be waiting for him, indicating he's not actually gone and forcing Noct's hand to destroy him in "the beyond". Ultimate point is: You're looking at the wrong "end game" for him. He wasn't the atypical "Fuck the planet I'mma destroy all the things" villain like a lot of FF baddies. He had specific goals of revenge and had a couple thousand years to hatch a plan that offered a "no win" scenario to his target. Ifrit was the one who wanted all the people dead, not Ardyn. I call him one of the most successful because even his defeat still saw his goal achieved which is untrue of most of the others. Because he's the only FF villain to go out on a cheesy "can't lose" final encounter? Sephiroth and Yu Yevon would like to have a word with you. Maybe others. Don't recall off the top of my head and I should have been in bed 2 hours ago. X_x Definitely not. Especially since most of what he even accomplishes during the game is thanks to Jenova. Otherwise he'd just have been a pissed off narcissistic sociopath stuck in a rock. XD

Was that a grown up Tiny Tina that I saw?

I disagree 100%. He's easily one of the best. His motivations and actions were clear by the end and he actually won technically speaking. He got what he wanted. Most effective villain in the series since Kefka. The relative mysteries surrounding his origin (which is the purpose of this) made him interesting and kept a lot of speculation around the game after it came out without feeling like something was just plain missing from the game (unlike characters like Luna where it literally just felt like they removed chunks of story because they did. Thanks SJWs. >_> ).

Loved every bit of it. Music was on point the whole thing too. Watching it a 2nd time through with the wife now.

Damn. Beat me to it. Some pretty good stuff. Fixed the armor and shield bugs where extra armor and shields from Inscriptions wasn't always loading right so that's good. Only thing I see that people might bitch about is the Elysian Chests not having armor pieces in them (and honestly, they really should) but everything else is good stuff. My favorite inscription got a small nerf, but one of the new ones added should make up for it at least. XD Being able to use the forge anywhere in the fort and having no loading time on it is going to be wonderful. Now they just need to get caught up to what their trailers showed and let you board a Strider in Free play and some missions to gain access to the forge and what not and we'll be good. >_> Edit: So apparently increasing the loot threshold on bosses and chests kind of fucked some things. People are getting MORE loot but not better. Used to be a guaranteed masterwork item from GM1 and higher bosses and now it's not guaranteed so people are losing their minds. I personally have got 3 legendary drops already today from legendary contracts and the legendary mission on GM2 so I'm pretty happy. >_>

Found a good list of stuff that's been confirmed/talked about for the game. Really liking the sound of pretty much all of it. https://www.reddit.com/r/vtmb/comments/b5io9j/heres_a_list_of_details_that_are_currently_known/

There's a half assed sprint function (basically makes it a brisk walk instead of a slow plod) . Not sure what it is on PC but with a controller it's the same button you use to start flying out in the world. @Nick It does. You can convince the weird fort safety/janitor guy to leave the fort near the end and then the water fountain doesn't get fixed I know. There's a few people that will leave or not depending on what you say to them. Biggest difference I saw was with Raythe telling you she lost her Javelin to the Regulators. I told her I would go with her to meet with them about getting it back and my wife didn't and the whole thing played out quite a bit differently. There's a maintenance on Tuesday so hopefully that means the big patch with the new stuff and shitload of changes will be coming along side that.

Worst case scenario, depending on your clan and skill point choices, you can just make everyone in a fight kill each other. Still need some regular combat skills for boss fights and stuff, but they managed a pretty close representation of how you can do things in the TT game all things considered. Speaking of clans, it sounds like the new one might be missing a couple from the first game. Website only has 5 "sections" for clans (all listed "Coming Soon" or whatever) so there's a lot of speculation we won't be getting Nosferatu or Malkavian right away. They have said they will be adding more through DLC though so hopefully that will expand past 7 playable ones they used in the original. On the plus side, though there will be DLC "seasons" of paid content, all Clans added through DLC will be free. Really sad if that's true though. Malkavian is my jam. Apparently the first game is quite a bit different playing as one too. That's what the game picked for me from the questionnaire thing so I went with it and my wife was flipping out because of how differently people react to you and how different your choices are with them.

I actually didn't realize it was based off of a table top RPG. >_> Was excited already though. CD Project Red know how to make a game. Witcher 3 is probably just about my favorite game of all time. The work they put into their stuff really shows through and as soon as I heard they were making something new I was basically sold.

Honestly, the first holds up pretty well even by today's standards (leaves a little to be desired graphically, but I've seen worse from around the same time). I tend to have trouble playing older stuff anymore too, but really enjoyed the experience and didn't have many complaints with it. It's on sale for like $5 if that's a price you're willing to risk to give it a try so no time like the present. If you give it a shot, just make sure to get the patch that KK was talking about. I believe the GoG version (which is also $5 right now) actually even comes with already so you don't have to put any extra work into it.

Saw a bunch of people worrying about that. Made the mistake of looking at the forums for it on Steam. It's like 10% worrying about that, 25% refusal to pre-order because "NEVER PRE-ORDER" 15% refusal to ever touch the game because it's 1st person only, and 50% "IT LETS YOU PICK YOUR PRONOUN AND THE SJWs AND GAYS ARE RUINING OUR VIDYA". Did pre-order it for the wife though. Don't know if there's too much worry since they'll have it on their own launcher too, but I guess if you're offered enough money, anything can happen. XD Saw an article talking about DLC a bit. I know their "fancy" edition of the game comes with the 'Year 1' DLC, but a cool thing I read was that they will also add more clans through DLC beyond what they start with, and those will be free. So basically, story DLC will be paid, but (to term it like regular RPGs) any new classes they add will be free.

Was just going to post about this. Watched the live stream. They built up to the announcement over the last month via an ARG using the beta for a fake dating app. My wife is losing her mind right now. She absolutely loves VTM and Bloodlines is basically her favorite game. She made me play through it a while back (and actually sat there and watched me because she wanted to see what choices I made. Literally eating popcorn and watching me play it. XD ) and it is honestly really good (even by today's standards, it holds up decently). Got me really into the whole World of Darkness story and I've been reading stuff for it pretty much since then. Apparently one of the big things that hurt the game when it first came out is it launched the same day as Half-Life 2 (was a joke on the announcement stream about it "Guess we won't have to worry about that this time, right Valve?" ). Best thing is they got the original lead writer from the first game, Brian Mitsodo, back for it. Chris Avellone is also attached to it (big name writer/designer from Obsidian that worked on Planescape: Torment, New Vegas, and KotOR 2 among other things) as well. Have a lot of hope for this. This is technically the first game for the studio that is making it (Hardsuit Labs), but they were formed out of Zombie Studios who made most of the Spec Ops and Blacklight games (so mostly FPS type stuff), but apparently shortly after they formed is when Paradox bought White Wolf and one of the people from the studio was a huge fan and immediately put together a pitch for Bloodlines 2 for Paradox and they've been working on it pretty much since then (so about 3 1/2 years). Game is up for pre-order already and their site has a bunch of hidden things on it that let you unlock things in the game when it comes out. https://www.bloodlines2.com/?ref=133e619ffe8b Looks like it'll be on console as well as PC, and PC has listings for Steam, Epic, GoG and Paradox's own laucher as available pre-order sources. They also said in an interview I just watched that they will be fully supporting mods for the game since the mod community is literally what kept the first one alive for so long.

They went pretty hard and heavy with the "abusive father" trope for him in S2, so it could really go either way. They could easily double down with him (maybe kill father while shit is going down so he gets lumped in with any other losses?) or try to redeem him. He was pretty sadistic in S2 though, so I don't know if they'll go the redeeming direction. Knowing this show, they'll present it like they're doing that, and then someone or something will push him over the edge and it'll pull a 180 and he'll end up worse in the transaction.

One thing I'd love for them to do some point down the line (though I honestly am not expecting them to) when the X-Men start being rolled into the MCU would be to do the stuff with Rogue and Ms. Marvel from the comics. Would be a good way to rein in Carol's power if they need to and would make an interesting story and could start Rogue off as a bad guy that way.