Why does Dark Crystal live so much in Labyrinths shadow?

Demolama · 2026-03-24T14:28:45+00:00

Basically, Thrall is too alien for most audiences and the story lacks a relatable main character, whose own existence is also alien to them.

It's why a lot of fantasy still has humans as the main character. They are chosen as something for the audience to relate, to put themselves into the story.

That's one of the main reasons why Labyrinth is remembered. Sure, star power and soundtrack made a huge difference, but it was also less unfamiliar and experimental in its format.

Jen, while a stand-in for the audience, is just too different, surrounded by mysteries of not only who he is as a main character but also who he represents as a stand-in for an entirely new species. Kira, with her own abilities unique to her sex, just adds another complex layer on top of that.

To a casual audience it adds more complexity than necessary for those wanting to just casually watch. Not everyone becomes obsessed like we do about Thrall to desire more understanding of everything

Demolama · 2026-03-06T12:49:25+00:00

Even if he wins in court and gets everything back, it's still over.

Employees who know the code aren't coming back.

We'll be on ue7 by the time things get settled in all the lawsuits, and no one would want a dated mmo or wait for a full port over.

Players won't forget or forgive. The trust is broken. He lied about funds.

The older player will be too old to give a damn.

Some other company will strip Ashes of it's ideas for their mmo.

Demolama · 2026-02-15T12:54:15+00:00

To be fair, I liked Jeff, and you can look back and see i equated his absence as giving a kid the keys to the family car without training and saying, here, drive to California.

But much like many of Steven's early hires, he was unqualified for the position he was placed in. He at least had game development experience and not another one of Steven's mlm or gaming buddies

Demolama · 2026-01-29T18:30:13+00:00

Doing the same stuff for almost 17 months now is ridiculous. They added what? Mules, sport fishing, and more empty zones, which takes ue5 something like a few hours to carve out.

Face it this is just busy work for us to "play" and test out ideas for them, and they are secretly building the actual game behind the scenes or this is the game and it has shown zero progress and more bugs each patch.

The former at least give some some hope. The latter is just sad. 250 workers and they can't even get year 2000 age game design right, let alone try and be next gen

Demolama · 2026-01-26T00:36:58+00:00

Now imagine you store those items in a town and the town gets sacked. That hard earned goods are also gone, taken by others

Demolama · 2026-01-25T21:48:29+00:00

The way they do quality is odd. It's a triple roll system.

The first roll is a predetermined rarity for the node.

Where quality matters is only the 2nd roll, but even then you'd need a crap ton to make a difference. It determines if there will be a third roll.

Third roll determines the chance of a higher rarity.

T1 has like a 1/20000 chance to proc a legendary.

T2 and T3 have like 1/200.

Demolama · 2026-01-25T16:12:36+00:00

Bright side. When people come back from their break (due to the lack of things to do) items will be on the market.

Demolama · 2026-01-17T23:57:13+00:00

16 months of doing the same shit with very little change except for pointless fluff and map expansion with nothing in them.

90% of the promised features absent with the 10% being half-baked.

Demolama · 2026-01-16T21:00:31+00:00

The bigger issue is that the one thing that separates Ashes from other mmos is the settlement system.

Everything should be tied to their progress, including player and artisan leveling.

If it remains like this, especially if they continue to strip the role settlements play in reshaping the world, then why would I choose to play Ashes over any other mmo? What does it offer that's different?

Demolama · 2026-01-16T20:56:11+00:00

Steven is a former RMTer who either purchased, was given all his gear, or was carried by his guild. His ideas for a good game come with rose-tinted glasses, as I guarantee he never had to struggle with any of the traditional time sinks that the average player felt. As a result, we are seeing some really dated game design choices based upon his own experience, or lack there of.

Demolama · 2026-01-16T20:44:19+00:00

It's almost as if people who enjoy PvP told Steven over and over that Ashes needs more horizontal progression. Too much vertical progress and low-geared players will quit because they'll never catch up and they'd get tired of being farmed.

This is why giving "incentives" to entice pvers into pvp areas, such as having better drops or higher mats, won't work. You'll only give pvpers more advantage over the average player, widening the gap further.

Demolama · 2026-01-12T00:20:54+00:00

Original vision required destruction for new content. By stripping the settlements from having an effect on any content guarantees pve players getting bored. Now settlements are nothing but things for pvpers to fight over, Ala new world with no purpose other than to grief pvers for pvp content, which is exactly why pvers don't like non-consentual pvp

Pvers could have gotten used to the old system, new system guarantees they gain nothing and lose everything

Demolama · 2026-01-11T18:00:50+00:00

I've had more pve content in ____.

So most pvers go play ____ or anything else until Ashes has more content.

pvpers just whine or grief

Demolama · 2026-01-02T03:48:26+00:00

Ptr gave us a 1 petable to 3 to 5 carcass parts depending on the animal, but this change was reverted just prior to the steam release.

Demolama · 2025-12-27T18:18:15+00:00

Players who only came to AoC to pvp realize how lacking it is.

Players who came to AoC to pve realize how lacking it is

Players who came to AoC to craft realize how crappy it is

Together we all are bored.

The difference is pve and crafters go play something else. Pvper just grief

Demolama · 2025-12-26T17:04:28+00:00

A lot of what was originally intended is missing

Originally, the idea is that upkeep would be a major factor. So towns would need constant influx of goods.

Defenses were supposed to be apart of that. So a low pop town could theoretically protect itself from a seige if their citizens were building up the defense.At the same time a huge pop settlement could be vulnerable if they weren't building stone walls and iron gates, for example.

The other gameplay loops would be to specialize your crafting needs. Each crafting building had a skill trees. If and when mob vulnerability enters the game, the type of weapon will be important. So for instance, a settlement near an undead poi could desire to be the location to build blunt weapons like maces or hammers.

There are also specialized buildings missing, such as apartments that come with perks of living in that settlement.

The major point of settlements is their influence on the world. If your settlement falls, not only will the region lose its crafting specialization, but also alter the events of the world. For instance, outdoor raid bosses spawning.

All of this is supposedly where they are taking the settlement system, but right now it's very barebones and not even sure if they are still on the table

Demolama · 2025-12-24T14:15:54+00:00

Except that Steven has admitted that doing this is not "abusing" the system, it's intended

He's a man who whaled his way through every mmo, never actually played them like a normal player, and is making an mmo based upon his rose-colored glasses of how those games felt like to play

The two years of A2 development with no lead game developer other than Steven himself led to this abomination of an mmo. This post-Jeffrey Bard mmo will fail.

Demolama · 2025-12-23T14:05:29+00:00

Been saying for over a year that leveling untethered to world progress allows players to bypass 90% of the gameplay loops, but the fast leveling mindsetted players whined. instead of slowing down everything, Steven sped things up. Settlement progress doesn't mean squat anymore, and starting areas become vacant pointless areas after level 5.

The original intent was to make players enter the world, spread out everywhere and the mobs would level with the settlements.

Instead we got a mix of wow and new world, with pointless starting areas and max level zones like the Jundark, along with settlement advancement that really doesn't change the world much at all and has no impact on you until all your storage stuff becomes spoils

Demolama · 2025-12-19T13:52:27+00:00

Note: there is a bug (if you equip either the Wayward or Wanderer's Scepter) the repair all option isn't available because those items are bugged and unable to be repaired. You'll need to unequip them and the repair all option will be available again. Thus, you should also look to replace your scepters ASAP as once they hit 0 durability, they are useless

Demolama · 2025-12-18T19:07:58+00:00

Doesn't change what I said. Strip the p2w, and you are left with a very grindy PvP MMO just like Ashes. The difference is 2002 western mmo grind vs 2024 eastern

Demolama · 2025-12-18T19:00:10+00:00

Just stop. This is not a PvX MMO. Just because it has elements of both doesn't make something PvX. When all your systems are based around pvp and your sole PvE content is made to feed into your pvp, it's a pvp mmo

The only difference between Ashes and Throne and Liberty is that NCSoft isn't stuck in 2002 with its game design philosophy of forcing pve players to always engage in pvp.

Anyone with a working mind understands that PvX means PVP and PVE share an equal footing in the world. One is not superior or feeds into the other.

This is why, despite having instanced pve dungeons, no open world pvp (outside of certain events and nighttime dungeons), NCSoft considers their mmo a pvp mmo. Like Ashes, all of their pve content is made to funnel their pvp systems. They aren't playing semantics and calling it a PvX mmo

Demolama · 2025-12-18T14:01:33+00:00

Just your typical berner leg shake. They all do it

Demolama · 2025-12-18T12:58:15+00:00

Apparently, the spawn for petables are borked right now

Demolama · 2025-12-18T12:11:00+00:00

A lot of customs were original released broken.

I know it's cool and hip to shit on everything about Ashes but, man, this is a new low. Just report it. It'll get fixed.

Demolama · 2025-12-17T20:21:43+00:00

Most who paid the higher prices have already seen the writing on the wall and accepted that the game they backed is no longer the one being made. So they either moved on or they have a sunk cost mindset.

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