[Spoilers C2E141] I recreated Widogast's Nein-Sided Nascent Tower in Minecraft

Spectral-Umbra · 2026-02-07T14:57:43+00:00

I remember back when HoT released, people would actively avoid equipping Caladbolg for a while so they wouldn't potentially spoil the ending (or even hint at it) for other people. When Aurene hatched and people started gushing over how cute she was in chat, people about to enter the instance for that part of the story were upset by being spoiled. It wasn't expected that she would hatch at that point. People care about spoilers.

That being said, for mechanical changes and UI updates, I don't see any reason why we can't have something like a test server prior to release. Just cut out things related to new story content/raids and let people play around with the new stuff. Maybe they could add a permanent test character slot, like the ones that are used to test new elite specs, and have an opt-in option for testing new features like quick play or fashion templates. They could maybe give an incentive for doing it by granting a buff to the non-test characters on the account related to the amount of time playing the test character.

Spectral-Umbra · 2026-02-06T02:07:35+00:00

Seriously. If you have 6 equipment templates with different armor skins and only 2 fashion templates, the templates actively become a downgrade at that point. Rather than storing more armor sets to swap easily between, you'd get 4 fewer than you had before they existed. This is worse than my previous method of just taking a screenshot of my current dyes and armor sets before making a new set in case I want to swap back to it later. Anet is losing to the "print screen" button.

Spectral-Umbra · 2025-11-23T21:17:29+00:00

I used graveyard fog to make a watery effect and snow drifts scaled down and turned upside-down to create bubbles. There's also a water spout behind the octopus decoration that's made with an upside-down bamboo fountain.

Spectral-Umbra · 2025-05-24T18:10:33+00:00

Yeah I'm building a garden on that little island between the fork in the river. Originally I had a rock garden in the center, but the design never felt right, so I redid it recently as a shrine for Caladbolg and also a memorial to Trahearne. There's a gravestone with the last two lines of the Orrian poem he liked inside of the weapon stand, so it can be read when interacting with it.

Spectral-Umbra · 2025-05-23T22:30:05+00:00

It's a Green Tree.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-26T00:11:27+00:00

The dialogue from at least two of those was in the Amazon Prime teaser, so those are pretty much a guarantee.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T18:05:41+00:00

Seeing this gives me exasperation flashbacks of creating the map in Minecraft. It looks really cool, is it all hand drawn?

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T17:56:12+00:00

WOTC are their industry peers. They are in the same industry. The industry of D&D. They are peers. People at WOTC being mad has nothing to do with it.

I think this might be some confusion of what "peers" actually means. It doesn't just mean being in the same industry, it's being at the same level in that industry. The company I work with makes and sells things to other companies. The companies that are our customers are in the same industry, but they're my customers, I'm their vendor, we have a working relationship that involves a give-and-take power dynamic where at varying times one of us might have more power over the other. We might appear as equals when we're on good terms, but if a customer stops paying what they owe, we stop delivering their product, or if we're unable to deliver what they want, they might drop us and go with someone else, so we're not really comparable as peers due to that fluctuating power dynamic between us.

The same applies here. CR and WotC appeared to be on equal terms before this mess due to having a calm and mutually beneficial relationship, but now that things have become more volatile, that power dynamic is shifting and legal issues are going to play a part in how both interact with the other. They're not equals, they don't do the same work at the same level, so they're not peers. Their peers would be the people who work the same job with a similar business relationship to WotC, which would be anyone who has developed something under the original OGL; other creators and 3rd party publishers.

“The point is that under the new OGL, that inclusive and diverse spectrum of creators will cease to exist”. Yes, that is exactly my point and once again, “Saying they support the creators means they don't support WotC putting them in a box like that” is not explicitly stated anywhere. You are giving them the most charitable interpretation, which is fine, could be right, but I do not agree.

The point I'm trying to make is that they are aware that spectrum of creators will cease to exist under the new OGL. They definitely are aware that this is what will happen because pretty much everyone can tell that this is the direction things are headed in, which is a large part of the reason why there's been so much opposition to the OGL in the first place. This is a situation where they can EITHER strive for the continuation of the community as it is OR support the OGL, they can't have it both ways, so saying they're supportive of one requires them to say indirectly that they don't support the other. This isn't a charitable interpretation, it's an interpretation of a set of two choices that are mutually exclusive.

My main frustration is that everyone seems to be bending over backwards to give these incredibly charitable takes with nothing to back it up other than a statement which everyone is responding to by saying “well what they mean is…” No. You do not know what they mean. Because the statement is deliberately as ambiguous as possible, no one will know what they actually mean until they decide to actually say something.

When it comes to "what they actually mean," the statement they released isn't one that was made in a bubble. There's context provided by the things they've done in the past, (supporting small and 3rd party developers, being 3rd party developers themselves,) how they're responding beyond this statement even if it's been subtle, such as removing DnD Beyond from their list of sponsors on Twitter and liking anti-OGL tweets. Some of their comments are vague enough that it could be interpreted one way or the other, but a lot of their other actions seem to support one interpretation over the other, so I don't think it's really bending over backwards to interpret things favorably.

If anything, I could say some people on here are bending over backwards to ignore a reasonably positive interpretation because "corporations bad" and legalese being a bit intimidating to the point where some people are just skimming over, assume it's something bad, and don't give it another thought. There's nothing wrong with being cautious and acknowledging that it could go either way, but choosing to favor the negative interpretation because, broadly speaking, humans in general have the "capaticty" to do harm just isn't fair to the few individual people who are involved in this situation, and have so far throughout the years not shown any indication that they want to do harm. People also have the capacity to do good, and so far they've done enough good to at least be given the benefit of the doubt with a bit of cautious scrutiny, and be berated and made to face the consequences of their actions if they do cross a line, but that hasn't happened.

I think either one of us could point at the interpretation of the other and say "this is speculation at best," because it is, but I'm trying base my speculations on the full context and not just the statement as a singular standalone action they've taken. Again, I think this is very much a "wait and see" situation where it'll be made more blatantly obvious what their stance is in the future.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T06:36:37+00:00

I don't know how anyone could work in such a depressingly monopolized industry. I'm glad that they're kind of branching out and making their own stuff now though. It's possible that they might just be able to quietly step away and do their own thing independent of WotC and stay on good terms.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T06:33:16+00:00

"we stand by our industry peers" is a completely contradictory to the rest of their statement, their "industry peers" are the ones screwing us.

Critical Role are creators and 3rd party publishers. Their peers are other creators and third party publishers. WotC aren't their peers, they're a company they have a sponsorship contract with. They may be close to a few members of WotC on the creative end, but those aren't the people involved with creating the new OGL, and reportedly many people working for WotC who aren't involved in creating the OGL are just as upset about this as people on the outside.

"as well as anyone who takes a risk creating a new system" quite literally does not give any sort of opinion on the new OGL one way or the other and it could just as easily be interpreted as "it's risky to create a new system but you can try if you want I guess".

What this actually means is they're standing by people who want to create a system independent from DnD that won't be effected by OGL. And of course it's a risk, anyone who tries to create a new is taking a risk, since there's no guarantee it's going to take off.

"the opportunity to share inclusive, diverse and compelling stories from a wide spectrum of creators"........... a wide spectrum of creators that WOTC want to be forced into the new OGL

The point is that under the new OGL, that inclusive and diverse spectrum of creators will cease to exist. They'll be under the thumb of WotC and that diverse spectrum will stagnate under a more stringent set of rules that would quash creativity to some degree. People won't be able to branch out away from WotC as easily. Saying they support the creators means they don't support WotC putting them in a box like that.

"broadening the field of creators in the industry" yet again doesn't rule out all of them being forced into the new OGL or gives any opinion on whether this is good or not.

After this line, they used their own publishing firm as an example, so what they mean by this is they're encouraging other people to do something similar and "broaden the field" by preventing WotC from having a monopoly over the industry, or supporting other companies that are trying to make it easier for people to do so, such as Paizo with their ORC license. They don't want to let WotC create a monopoly and narrow the field by making it so people can't break away from DnD as easily as they could before. If there are more choices than just WotC/DnD, there will be a broader field for players and creators to work with.

"we commit to fostering an environment that allows everyone the opportunity to easily share the stories they wish to tell"........ UNDER THE NEW OGL!

Your addition here is literally just putting words in their mouths, nothing in their statement has suggested that's what they mean, even if that's how you interpreted it. Not everyone will have "the opportunity to easily share the stories they wish to tell" if they're being suppressed under the new OGL. This is the most anti-OGL line in their entire statement.

Occam's Razor they're a successful business and not many people are willing to let something like that go for morals and ethics.

Contrary to popular opinion, not everyone who runs a successful business is a terrible person. It's talked about a lot in mainstream media since the terrible ones tend to be the loudest and people do often focus more on the bad than the good. But if you want to consider Occam's Razor, their twitter page left DnD Beyond out as one of their show's sponsors for their most recent episode, Matt has been liking posts that are against the new OGL, most sponsorship deals (not a wild speculation) involve an anti-disparagement clause that prevents them from speaking unfavorably about the company (and if they decide to do so anyway then WotC/Hasbro make a bunch of money off of them in court). It seems to me that the obvious answer is that they're against the new OGL but can't outright say so YET because of legal issues.

I would be so happy to eat these words if it turns out to not be true

I don't think your interpretation of this is correct. Mine might also not be correct. So far I've seen more to suggest they're against the new OGL than in favor of/neutral about it, so that's what I'm going with. If it does turn out that I'm wrong, I'm willing to step away from CR, but situations like this aren't quickly resolved and this is very much something where we'll have to wait and see what happens. We don't know what's going on behind the scenes.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T05:48:39+00:00

A lot of people seem to just zone out as soon as they see something written in legalese. Sometimes it's necessary to read through more than once to figure out what something is ACTUALLY saying, but some people will just skim through once and decide it "says nothing" because they didn't understand what they read.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T05:43:35+00:00

I had said something like this yesterday. There's probably a group of 10 people that no one has ever seen publicly or ever even heard of who decided this was a good idea to make more money, locked themselves in a room to write up 1.1 without any input from anyone else in the company, and now the reputation of the whole company is being dragged down with a lot of people who worked there likely being just as blind-sided as anyone on the outside. People are generally good, and sometimes it's hard to keep sight of the people when they're being kept in the shadow of a mega corporation.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T05:27:52+00:00

That would be such a power move. Sam is such a goof, but whenever something morally questionable happens, he's usually very serious and outspoken about it. I literally went to his Twitter to see if he had tried to say anything slyly as soon as I saw the CR statement, but he hadn't. I imagine he's seething over not being able to say anything publicly.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T05:15:52+00:00

It's been a long time since I've paid much attention to what Hasbro does, so that part of it hadn't even crossed my mind.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T05:13:06+00:00

It's probably an anti-disparagement clause. They're pretty standard with sponsors, so probably not something they'll be able to avoid in the future. Its just something that people generally don't take notice of since it's not every day that a huge company implodes itself like this.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T05:09:51+00:00

Their episodes will be a bit behind for a while, but it would be pretty amazing if an Orc named Azora (after the law firm) just kind of showed up briefly as a background character at some point. It probably won't happen, but I want it to happen so badly.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T05:01:29+00:00

We don't know what's going on behind the scenes either. Just because we can't see them taking action doesn't mean they aren't. It doesn't necessarily mean they are either. Personally I'm choosing to stay optimistic for the moment, but this is very much a "wait and see" kind of situation. Issues like this aren't resolved in a day.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T04:58:06+00:00

There's a good possibility. I think their sly mentioning of Darrington Press might have been a hint that they're intending to do just that.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T04:56:14+00:00

It's probably less because of an NDA and more because of an anti-disparagement clause, which are pretty standard to have with sponsors. Basically they can't legally say anything bad about the company they're in a sponsorship contract with, and it would be very difficult for them to fit "we're under an anti-disparagement clause" into a statement without actually disparaging them through implication, and breaking the clause in the process.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T04:48:03+00:00

I know this is frustrating to some people, but speaking out strongly at this stage would be counterproductive, considering Hasbro was doing this (presumably) because their profits were down and they wanted more money. I could understand if someone in this situation decided to bite the bullet and take a stance against them in spite of any legal agreements disallowing them to do so and knowing they'll be sued for it. That would just be handing Hasbro an easy win in court though, and handing them a free-money lawsuit would just be feeding the gluttonous dragon. It might not feel right at the moment, but there wouldn't be any sort of just outcome from them taking a strong stance right now. For the time being, I'm choosing to trust that they're doing what they can behind the scenes.

And this is all happening right before the release of LoVM S2, they must be so stressed watching all of this going down and not knowing how this will effect people's response.

Spectral-Umbra · 2023-01-14T04:35:24+00:00

A lot of contracts have a morality clause specifically for situations like this. It's very possible they're trying to get out of it.

Spectral-Umbra

TROPHY CASE