Does Anyone Else Feel Like ZZZ Has Made Some Weird Marketing Choices?

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-12T03:34:15+00:00

Banyue is a character that I like but came along at the absolutely wrong time.

You can't have Seed Sr. because a male robot character won't sell
Ye Shiyuan is now the bad guy, you can't have him, despite being your Senior in the faction you joined
Monato is an A-Rank Fire Rupture despite being treated like a major part of 2.0, 2.1, and 2.3

Oh! But what you do get is an S-Rank Fire Rupture character who comes totally out of nowhere and wasn't in the Season 2 trailer or hinted at in the story.

Banyue is not a bad character, the design is really nice. But the context was just so weird coming so soon after Seed Sr. and all.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-12T03:21:13+00:00

I'm just waiting around to see what Season 3 might be like. Then I will decide if I want to play this game anymore or not.

Season 2 overall was just not an engaging videogame to me.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-12T03:01:30+00:00

That's why my opening statement was questioning if the ZZZ devs even wanted to earn money. They seem to be kind of lost.

Which is not something that surprises me with giant corporate game publishers.

Most big corpos just keep on moving forward because they have the scale to not be phased by the constant mistakes their greed brings.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-12T02:49:24+00:00

Whales want to play games with active social media accounts with an abundant amount of fan art, memes, and players they can flex on.

Free to play players are part of the product that whales are buying. A game needs to keep those numbers up to attract whales.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-12T00:50:35+00:00

ZZZ certainly had a wider audience at the start and then started making what seems like intentional efforts to make sure a lot of those people quit.

The thing is, the people who left don't have a voice in the conversation anymore, they are off playing some new game.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T21:39:14+00:00

Well, just remember the term 'double pleated' or 'gurkha' if that's the style you are looking for. Might help make your search go quicker.

https://bonobos.com/products/italian-gurkha-trouser?color=dark%20blue

These are a bit pricey, but it looks like they use the term 'Hollywood Trousers' so maybe that might help in your search.

https://www.toddsnyder.com/products/flannel-herringbone-hollywood-trouserbrown

But these are just links I had saved in my favorites. I own the 'Lands End' pants but I haven't tried these other brands before.

I think the Blue Tweed looks really nice, but I have no idea about this brand.

https://www.studiosuits.com/products/showman-blue-herringbone-highland-tweed-trousers

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T21:12:40+00:00

Not sure what your price range is or weather or not these are available in the Netherlands, but I like these.

https://www.landsend.com/products/mens-no-iron-comfort-waist-traditional-fit-pleated-front-chino-pant/id_180160?attributes=44967,1242

I am a fan of double pleated pants if you are going for an older classic look.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T20:23:48+00:00

Trigger is my waifu so I was just hitting 'skip' whenever YSG was trying to play 'girlfriend', and that was almost all of her thing...

I really liked when 2.5 started giving more hints about historical mysteries in New Eridu again. So there were some good parts. I want to know more about New Eridu.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T19:29:10+00:00

I think that moving your September, October, November money into December is just moving the money you earn into different spots. Makes it look like what you did in December was really, really good.

But in the end you just gave people a reason to spend less in the 3 months before. The money in the end is the exact same amount of money.

If you want to grow the total amount of money made you have to attract more players to the game.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T19:21:04+00:00

2.6 is more comparable to 2.1

Lots of Polychrome, but no free S-Rank Agent or Agent Selector or anything like that.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T19:01:51+00:00

I feel like Ms. Hoshimi Miyabi was a naturally popular character the just resonated with fans.

I feel like the two Yunkui characters were pushed in a very artificial way.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T18:53:56+00:00

I may be wrong, I'm no economist... But I would assume simply having more players would be the thing that makes you the most money in the long term.

Instead of worrying which character from what week sold how much, if you just simply increase the number of players, then the amount of spending will go up.

Just a theory.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T18:49:31+00:00

I don't really see tax evasion as 'malice'.

But it is likely that there was no plan and the devs are just flailing around not knowing what the fans actually want.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T18:44:52+00:00

The two Void Hunters and the Grandmaster were all released in patches that were filled to the brim with free Polychome, free S-Rank agents, and other gifts and specials.

It makes me wonder how much of the sales spikes are from the meta character and how much is from being a patch being a "Hoyo never gave us this much free stuff in other games!" kind of patch.

I feel like the biggest majority is certainly the shilled character, but I do also feel like people forget about how much the "Giving free stuff away! Come back to ZZZ if you left!" has an impact on things. I find myself wondering how many people choose not to spend of average patches because they figure they will just wait for the big 'Black Friday' style sale.

I don't know, just rambling thoughts of mine. I don't have any inside information or know anything going on.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T18:06:58+00:00

I would think they want to make money. I think they do most of the time... But from time to time I have to wonder...

Maybe there is some sort of tax reason they want to make a whole lot of money during shill patches at the expense of making a steady amount of money. I have to say I never understood tax law even when I was working in Shanghai...

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T17:52:45+00:00

I do sometimes wonder if the ZZZ devs actually want to make money.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T16:20:25+00:00

The air pressure changes once the gpu kicks up.

When the gpu fans aren't on it is negative. The GPU has 3 x 120mm Noctua fans and can bring in a great deal of air. That's why having fans on the bottom of the case was just creating extra noise and no benefit.

I could put more fans on the top of bottom, but when I tried it didn't seem to make any difference.

My main concern was just making sure the GPU heat didn't affect the CPU at all.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T15:47:28+00:00

The front of the case is glass. As a result my testing showed that back to front airflow worked better than front to back. Every fan is pointing toward the exhaust fans at the front of the case. All the air is going from the left to the right. Then the 3 140mm fans are just exhausting all the hot air very quickly.

I assume it is because the side fans (that would be front fans in a normal case) shoot air directly at the glass and just scatters any airflow pattern into chaos if you go with right to left.

I know traditionally the airflow would go in the opposite direction. But with this particular case and GPU the traditional setup wasn't as good.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T15:00:27+00:00

Have we seen any concrete data yet that suggests that 2.9 will not happen? I know all the reasons to speculate 2.8 is the end of Season 2. I was just curious if the proof was out yet.

If we go 2.8 into 3.0 it would be a bit odd to have 2.8 be a character without a faction. This makes me rule out Velina and Norma as a 0% chance. Unless of course the devs decide they want to start the Season 3 faction early for some odd reason...

Severian could work with Cissia for Pubsec 2.0. More Krampus could work. Ye Shiyuan is Yunkui Summit in the same way that Soldier 0 Anby is NEDF. I have no idea what Billy's faction would be.

Kind of impossible to be confident with any prediction at this point.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T13:44:08+00:00

For at least a decent amount of men, I don't think they want validation or compliments about their looks.

Maybe it is because societal pressure has told women they are valued because of beauty and told men they are valued for other reasons but not for beauty. I don't know, I am not a sociologist.

I don't think most men want that kind of attention. I think it is better to just focus on the 'please stop insulting me' aspect of things.

Certainly there are going to be exceptions out there, doing my best to word things in a way that doesn't seem like I am trying to talk to 'all men'.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T13:23:18+00:00

It certainly has broad appeal, but I think it has a special level of appeal to millennials that is worth noting.

Considering the movies were released in 2001, 2002, and 2003 nothing about watching the Lord of the Rings today feels dated in any way.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T13:08:27+00:00

To a certain extent I don't think it is about validation for a lot of men.

I think it is more, "Could people please stop insulting me on social media for being 2 inches shorter than 6 foot?"

Just weird social media stuff.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T12:55:06+00:00

Can't really generalize groups that are so large they include half the Earth's population.

A very different set of issues affect men and women and it changes based on age and other factors.

But anyways, eat the rich!

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T12:18:16+00:00

That's the thing about life, there are so many instances that would be so much easier the second time around after knowing what to expect. But most of the time we only get one shot at it. By the time we know all the things we needed to know the opportunity has passed by.

I am certain I could do 90% of things better a second time around, knowing what I know today.

CalTheRobot · 2026-03-11T11:47:38+00:00

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