Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 9d

100% agreed, we've got so many incredible third party controllers but they all have oldschool dogshit rumble

Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 9d

Its got the vibes and I love that they tried to change and evolve the core of the first game but I do think it missed the mark in spite of it actually having some really cool and interesting mechanics and designs. Just falls apart a bit in the final product.

Still love Riders though 10/10

Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 10d

ZG had so much potential and I feel it wastes a lot of it by oversimplifying things and balancing the game to be far too easy. I think Riders was probably too far the opposite direction for most casual players but ZG loses any real incentive to learn the game when you can win by doing very little.

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 15d

This is what Ive been banging my head against a wall for between business stuff and future opportunities for future cool stuff

Dungeon soon!

The Aether @aether-mod.net · 15d

Up late working on dungeon bits and bobs

Will have more to share in the near future, likely concept art first but generation systems are coming along nicely so maybe some in-game structure testing too!

Cannot wait to get a new dungeon into everyone's hands

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 19d

With PSVR2 support no less! Xbox publishing more VR software than Sony at this point
Bizarre times

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 19d

I think people generally will point to the teasers at the end of 3 and Federation Force but they are easily summarisable in a single paragraph so yeah it's not like he's a plot relevant character in the main trilogy or Federation Force, and his story in Hunters can similarly be summarised easily

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 24d

But it also exposes risky players to a lot of high risk high reward gameplay opportunities.
When everything is the same level as you open exploration becomes Google Maps and gameplay becomes Cookie Clicker. Those things can be fun but it feels like a waste of potential.

Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 24d

Like if I want to try and take down a pack of weird crab aliens 10 levels above me I can just do that, and because the game is designed properly you're often encouraged to go into high level areas and find safe routes through them, which adds a cool gameplay experience for those avoiding conflict

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 24d

There's so much more you can do level design wise and player storytelling wise when you put packs of unbeatable beasts right in front of the player's starting area. It makes you pay way more attention to the world and systems and gives the player way more choice for what they want to do.

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 24d

Xenoblade X being an open world entirely uninterested in level scaling and progression gating high level content is genuinely super refreshing and has reinforced my absolute hatred of level scaling in open world design.

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 26d

Following his encounter with the Aether's historic hero, Thilus, The Sun Spirit's body was encased in molten rock by three perfectly engineered rings of pure icestone, giving him a physical form and a key weakness to ice that the player is able to exploit in the boss battle in the original mod!

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 26d

A little art piece I did today of Karthuul, The Aether's Sun Spirit, from when he first entered the Aether posing as the Valkyrie God Arkenzus. Over time he dropped this act and removed pieces of his golden armour, eventually being revealed to be an alien monster made entirely of fire and light

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Katie "Oz" Payn @katiepayn.com · 26d

I feel like a lot of the reporting around the Pokemon related patents has been bizarrely irresponsible with how much they have misrepresented the industry impact and powers these patents invoke
I think game design patents are dumb but everyone has been blowing this stuff massively out of proportion

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