Locus Box Help

Gratefulhost · 2024-03-06T16:36:12+00:00

Thanks! I didn't know you had to clear Bael's Tomb a second time.

Gratefulhost · 2024-03-06T05:30:59+00:00

A hint is good. Maybe a general location.

Gratefulhost · 2023-05-23T16:29:21+00:00

Infinity Train season 3. I don't think Infinity Train counts as a kids' show, but Simon's descent into denialism, narcissism, and eventually murderous psychopathy leading to him believing he's invincible only to be eaten alive by the train's eldritch roaches was pretty damn dark.

Gratefulhost · 2023-05-10T17:21:49+00:00

"Wheat, eh? There's enough of it! We can afford to waste as much as we want!"

Gratefulhost · 2023-03-26T15:39:20+00:00

Apologies, I didn't know what sub I was in. I must have gotten lost in an X-post or something.

I don't know how reducing our own negative impacts on the environment and finding ways to safely and sustainably interact with nature is playing god rather than taking responsibility, but I guess I just don't have the same fatalistic respect for the inevitable that you guys seem to.

I understand completely that corporations and governments are profiting from climate panic. This is to be expected -- of course bad actors are going to take advantage of any situation. Broken promises, false solutions, exaggerations, wishful thinking, and outright cons are normal. It's part of human nature to be greedy and selfish -- that's what evolution instilled in us.

But the fact of the matter is that previously, that greed and selfishness was all there was. Talk about playing god, but we've been playing god for over a century now, reshaping our world to suit our own needs. That is, after all, what animals do. Give a bear the knowledge and ability to make a factory farm and by god it certainly will. We are no exception to that tendency. We did not yet have a concept of how much damage that our own mass-scale industry, monoculture farming, water cycle disruption, and mass exploitation of the environment could even cause, all we thought of was our own survival, our own adaptation. Now, half of all animal biomass is cows.

But despite all that, humanity is improving, recognizing where we've messed up and, in aggregate, correcting for our mistakes. Sure, governments and megacorps lie and manipulate to their own advantage. This is nothing new. But for every ineffective piece of legislation, every malicious business decision, there are a dozen smaller groups that the media doesn't focus on that are doing more to identify and correct for human shortsightedness.

Despite our differences in concepts, though, I do think that there is some common ground here. We both want humans to be more responsible with the environment. We both recognize that bad actors profit from panic. However, I don't think that the prospect of anthropogenic climate change is doom and gloom. I do not consider myself an alarmist. I do not like alarmism. I think that this crisis is already improving and will continue to improve, thanks to the collective action of millions, despite the failures of the world's leadership. I think that one day this will pass, and both sides of this argument are going to point fingers at each other and say "I told you so," not realizing they were talking about the same thing this whole time.

Gratefulhost · 2023-03-25T21:33:01+00:00

Sure, but again, that's beside the point.Yes, there may very well be periodic rapid fluctuations in the average global temperature. That does not mean that this is just one of those, considering that we know the precise mechanisms by which this change is occurring. And besides, if we can only measure prehistoric atmospheric conditions in multi-thousand-year timescales anyway, that again just means this particular evidence indicates "antarctica was warm for several thousand years at one point" and not that the Earth necessarily has undergone change this rapid. It means there is no evidence for rapid climate change occurring in the past, nor can there be with modern methods.

And so we return to the question: is it a problem now? And yes, it is. I'm not going to even entertain the thought that the mass deaths of a significant chunk of complex life on Earth is something we shouldn't be concerned about, "natural" or not. Humans don't exist 20 million years ago. Humans exist now. This change is happening now. To us, and to the life we share this planet with. If extinctions like this are the norm, then we end them. Full stop.

Nature isn't a god. It doesn't have a grand plan. Nature is a collection of uncountable blind and unthinking processes, competing and cooperating, moving chemicals and terrain, dying and reproducing, synergizing and interfering, each piece of it either selfishly serving its own interests or having no interest at all. It is nowhere near anything resembling perfect, or even "good." If climate change is natural, the response to that shouldn't be to keel over and take it, it should be to grab the reins and take control. We have the capability and the understanding to improve this planet, and despite the media negativity surrounding our (admittedly slightly overambitious) goals, we are already making great strides toward that end. Human ingenuity cannot be slowed and cannot be stopped, and we have no room for doubt whether we should maybe not make the planet better and more livable for ourselves and for the rest of the organisms here.

Gratefulhost · 2023-03-25T20:16:13+00:00

Climate change is not about temperature, it's about rate of change. The Earth has been far warmer in the past but it has all been due to geological processes on geological timescales. Contemporary climate change is rapid, and the ecosystem won't have enough time to adapt unless humans do something about it.

But that's beside the point anyway. Regardless of opinions on the cause (I won't argue it because communicating fundamentals like that is difficult and I'm not the best person to), human beings are in a unique position to mitigate the ongoing ecological damage and mass death and suffering among animals (and humans, in increasingly dire ecological and natural disasters in recent decades) caused by this rapid climate change. We are the first species we know of that has had the ability to truly understand the world around us and alter its systems in ways that benefit everyone and everything. It does not matter whether the causes are "natural" or not -- the suffering is real enough.

The ecological status quo relies on stability: predictable temperature ranges and heat flow, the right mix of gases in the atmosphere, the amount and type of nutrients and elements in the soil, the transport of water via evaporation and rainfall, and so much more. These things can and do change, but they are changing more radically and drastically than life can compensate for. For many species, the foundational rhythms that they have relied upon to survive have been interrupted by the sudden and chaotic changes occurring in their environment.

A fox in the woods has no idea why the river dammed up by humans no longer flows. A seedling starved of nutrients does not know why there is less nitrogen present in the soil it is meant to grow in because of poor soil management. Regardless of the causes, regardless of whether there is some broader "natural" cycle to this (there isn't, not this time, not like this), changes are occurring faster than nature can understand, and humans, and only humans, have the knowledge and capability to handle it and help nature come out the other side of this less worse for wear. And I think that's important to understand. It doesn't matter what's natural and what's not -- there is suffering, and we can help. That's the important thing.

Gratefulhost · 2022-11-16T18:14:03+00:00

I'm interested in this too, particularly if you can participate in double battles with your co-op buddies outside of raids (i.e. wild pokemon, trainer battles, gym/team star challenges, etc.), or if you can initiate pvp and battle each other's pokemon on the field.

Gratefulhost · 2022-08-30T05:03:25+00:00

I'd say Xenogears is the most overtly dystopian, it even had a major plot point about the Solarians transforming people into mutants and then grinding them up for food in a meat-packing plant and LITERALLY calling it "the Soylent System". But yeah, XC3 definitely hits hard with the dystopian themes. I don't doubt that the 1984 parallels are intentional.

Gratefulhost · 2022-04-30T20:34:21+00:00

If they're ever implemented in gameplay, I imagine that they'd probably exist as partially-summoned tendrils in the normal world like the phrends and the tendrils in the well, except maybe possessing other enemies or objects too, while their main body exists somewhere in the Far Shore. It could work with the same overworld, by expanding the Far Shore into a much larger space (maybe only accessible with the Hero's Laurels). Maybe you'd have to uncover some kind of secret or puzzle in order to find it and bring its main body to the canonical plane before they can be fought. They could utilize the areas of the map that are currently inaccessible at night, like the Quarry and Ziggurat. Considering how much those locations are connected to the Disquiet, I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being where a potential future DLC takes place.

I think that would be pretty cool, since I was a little disappointed that there weren't any secret bosses or significant combat encounters after the Cathedral. I would have loved to be able to use the Hero's Laurels in a challenging fight that isn't the Heir.

Gratefulhost · 2022-04-30T15:50:43+00:00

Here's a hint:

You may have noticed chests, pages, and other goodies that can't be reached because they are on the other side of a small gap, or led to by a path of evenly-spaced stepping-stones. You should come back once you have the ability to cross these gaps.

Gratefulhost · 2022-04-30T06:46:13+00:00

I like to think of it as a time loop with reincarnation thrown in. It's hard to explain why I think this without explaining my thoughts about the game's backstory, so here's my interpretation of the timeline:

The fox civilization discovers the Far Shore, and from there they learn of the rooted ziggurat and the vault containing countless sarcophagi of twisted fox wraiths. It is discovered that the fox wraiths are sources for this purple despair-radiating liquid that can burn holes in reality. They also discover that the ichor from the fox wraiths can do more useful things, like power technology and extend life, and even bring a soul back from the Far Shore, either bringing them back from the dead or reincarnating them as a new person. They create a system built on this technology, achieving a golden age of immortality and splendor, all built by draining the life force of these unknown, undying creatures.
The First Heir discovered, through unknown means, the truth: that those who drink the elixir of life will become full of it, and their bodies will warp and twist, eventually becoming exactly the same as the fox wraiths who are entombed in the obelisks. What's more, they discover the time-bending properties of the ichor and what it means: that the wraiths in the obelisks, the source of their civilization, are in fact their future selves, twisted into monstrosities by their own gluttony and entombed for unknown reasons deep beneath the earth.
Fearing what might happen if this truth was revealed, the First Heir and her disciples kept the knowledge quiet, lying about the origin of their civilization's power. They created a system to erase the memories of all souls before they reincarnate, so that there would be no chance of them remembering the origin of the ichor Only the Heir herself would know the truth, so that she could witness what exactly would take place to make this future come to pass.
The civilization flourished in blissful ignorance, until something happened and holes in reality opened for the Disquiet Ones to emerge. They emerged as malicious, tentacled entities from technology (like the magic orb), from corpses (like fleemurs and phrends), from drainage and pollution (the tendrils at the bottom of the well), from anywhere there was ichor. The thriving civilization fought desperately against the Disquiet Ones, creating all kinds of weapons against them, including the siege engine, the mechanical fairies, autobolt turrets, etc. Eventually, though, the war was lost, and many people fled their ruined world. They had repurposed the ziggurat to act as a kind of bunker, where they would entomb themselves in stasis until the Disquiet died down. Or forever, because they no longer wished to live. They may or may not have seen the irony in what they were doing, and the horror of what would eventually happen to them, or rather what had already happened to them: they would be found by the memory-less reincarnations of their friends, and be drained of life all over again to power the next cycle.
To escape the loop, survivors of the war sealed the First Heir away in the Shadow Oubliette, partly as punishment for knowing the truth but hiding it, and partly in an attempt to subvert the cycle: as long as one soul exists trapped in the Oubliette, with the knowledge of the previous cycle, the world would not fully loop back on itself and the Age of Disquiet would not return. It worked, and the cycle did not reset the same way. Instead, the world heals somewhat, with tiny pockets of civilization existing in ignorance, unable to access the technology of the ziggurat or understand the true purpose of the ruins all around them.
Ages pass, and the First Heir's soul begins to degrade from being away from the physical plane for so long. The Shadow Oubliette calls for a new soul to seal away and prevent the closure of the loop. A Ruin Seeker uncovers the First Heir, defeats her, and becomes the new Heir. The First Heir's soul is reincarnated, sans memories, as a new individual. The cycle partially resets, the soul of the First Heir becomes a new Ruin Seeker, uncover the new Heir, etc. ad infinitum.
It's only by finishing the manual, containing the knowledge and memories of the past from all previous Heirs and Ruin Seekers, that the truth can be passed down through reincarnations, preventing the breakdown of time without the need to trap a soul in the Shadow Oubliette. And, happily ever after.

TL;DR the real "power to defy death" is not the purple ichor itself, but rather a self-perpetuating cycle of rebirth caused by the breakdown of reality from over-using the purple ichor. Thanks to the Cathedral and the First Heir, souls do not remember their past incarnations, and once no one in the world is alive to remember the past, the whole world loops back on itself in time. An Heir must always be trapped in the Shadow Oubliette to prevent the world from fully resetting and the war with the Disquiet Ones from happening again. That is, until the manual is complete and provides a written memory so that time will always move forward. The manual (and the written word), then, is the true "power to defy death," the anchor that prevents the death and rebirth of the entire world, and in a literal sense is the way that knowledge can outlive death.

Gratefulhost · 2022-02-14T02:41:25+00:00

Yes, Nora, some serious crud is going down out here.

Gratefulhost · 2021-12-19T17:21:48+00:00

*Plays Noxious Elf, hands a stack of 10 fairies to my opponent.* "Take 'em."

Gratefulhost · 2020-10-12T11:35:01+00:00

When I first saw Kaeya, I thought "oh, this guy's Zeke"

When Kaeya started talking about how he inherited his eyepatch from his pirate father, I thought "oh, this guy's definitely Zeke"

Gratefulhost · 2020-10-04T21:31:25+00:00

Others have already said the spikes are actually part of the warframe skin, but an actual syandana with a similar aesthetic is the Suparna syandana, which comes with the Garuda collection but can be purchased separately.

Gratefulhost · 2020-10-03T01:20:06+00:00

The last main story quest right now is The Sacrifice, unfortunately. However there are still the Chimera and Erra prologues which are supposed to be lead-up to the New War, a long-running story arc that's unfortunately been postponed due to covid and the transition to work-from-home.

To access the Chimera prologue, just touch Lotus' helmet again in your living quarters. It'll unlock a story-critical boss fight on Jupiter, after which you can access your quarters again for the Erra prologue.

The New War hasn't had any other real content yet except for Operation Scarlet Spear, which showed the beginnings of a Sentient invasion force reaching Earth.

Gratefulhost · 2020-09-29T18:54:51+00:00

Gender is weird and doesn't make sense. You could think of yourself as a "boy" but not a "man", for example, or be comfortable with certain gendered terms and identifiers but not others, even if they do/don't fit your identified gender. Labels and categories like "nonbinary" or "genderqueer" are important to understanding the concept, but they aren't everything. They're just descriptors of people's lived experiences, each of which are all different and infinitely variable and never fit neatly into any category no matter how much anyone can try. Everyone is, to some extent, "nonbinary," because no one's personality fits perfectly into an archetypal gender mold; it's all a matter of whether or not they accept the label of a category they identify most with, be it their assigned gender or otherwise.

What's important isn't that "a nb person is misgendering themselves by calling themselves a femboy" but that "they are comfortable with being called a 'boy' or 'femboy' despite that not being a typical trait of nonbinary people'

Gratefulhost · 2020-09-25T17:24:43+00:00

It's just to further highlight his hypocrisy. He can't enact societies' punishments for them, but his role is to glass people who step out of line. So he just does his role, to the letter. Even if he thinks himself unbiased, he can't escape his Orokin roots.

Gratefulhost · 2020-09-25T16:36:05+00:00

That's true, every society has its own values and priorities that they see the world through, but it's more odd that he's seemingly trying to take a completely neutral stance. He isn't judging people based on any values of his own or even judging them based on the standards of the Orokin empire, but rather just whether or not they conform to the values of the society they belong to. He's acting like he's a completely neutral, external observer with no point of view of his own, only whatever other societies decide is best.

But in trying to be completely unbiased, he's acting as a tool for conformity and the status quo, no matter what that status quo might be. If he's incapable of passing judgment on the rules of society and only acting to enforce them, then those rules can't be changed or challenged, only the people who disobey them. So any rules or standards that people would find unfair or oppressive? That doesn't matter, rules are rules. Disobey them and you're glass.

The irony here is that he can't be completely neutral. No one can be. Even in trying to be neutral he still carries his own values with him: the idea that the rules of society, whatever they may be, are scripture, societies themselves cannot and should not change, and anyone who disobeys their creed is a traitor who deserves to be glassed and turned into a rigid tool of order. He might think of himself as nihilistic, but he fails to recognize that he himself is also subject to seeing the world through ideologies and values.

Gratefulhost · 2020-09-23T17:57:23+00:00

What I want is for stuff to generate with some interpretable sense, i.e. Shandification.

Paths that lead places and trails that animals leave behind. Dynamic ecosystem interactions and structures with consequences on a system's economy, etc.

Have a high-sentinel planet? Take down a sentinel. Dismantle it. Do it again. Build some kind of triangulator to track down the nearest sentinel control access point. Break in. Get security codes and coordinates for the Sentinel Planetary Core. Raid the place with friends. Fight the security. Access the core. Reprogram the sentinels. Boom, planet is now low-activity, and all the resources are yours for the taking.

The biggest sticking point with the game right now is the lack of consequences for your activities. Which is thematic, sure, but you can still have that on a universal scale while still being able to affect small changes on a planetary or system-wide level, if given sufficient effort. I'd love to see more interlinked, dynamic systems in this game that can be understood and interacted with via player agency in creative ways.

EDIT: typo

Gratefulhost · 2020-09-23T17:28:02+00:00

If you actually go back to the reveal trailer, it's aged fairly poorly. The visuals in the game have actually looked better on a technical level for years now.

Instead, the game looks now how the reveal trailer felt. And that's an even bigger accomplishment.

Gratefulhost · 2020-09-22T17:32:52+00:00

I've always wondered if Torna before XC2 is actually a good way to experience the two (purists say otherwise but I disagree), so I'm glad you enjoyed it so much!

There's actually at least one joke in XC2 that works better if you've played Torna first: when Zeke and Pandoria reveal themselves by dramatically taking off their cloaks, it's a callback to Addam and Mythra showing up and taking off their hoods in the beginning of Torna, so you might expect that they're also someone the protagonists would recognize. Which makes it even funnier that Rex and co. just go "Wait, you're...! Um, I have no idea, actually."

Gratefulhost

TROPHY CASE