From f5b5ece1bf9623a773a9661a546c89f00630b702 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: alnik Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2022 17:32:22 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Update 'mimic/contents.md' --- mimic/contents.md | 87 ++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------------- 1 file changed, 44 insertions(+), 43 deletions(-) diff --git a/mimic/contents.md b/mimic/contents.md index 11caafb..4796e33 100644 --- a/mimic/contents.md +++ b/mimic/contents.md @@ -1,5 +1,6 @@ --- title: mimic +credits: Austin Wood contents: - The murderous history of loot boxes - |- @@ -119,9 +120,9 @@ contents: - "Dark Souls’ loot boxes hide their true bodies and may be bipedal or quadrupedal, which is a subtle remnant of the true shapeshifting of old." - "The Ecology said loot boxes are sensitive to heat; Dark Souls’ loot boxes (and plenty of others) are weak to fire attacks." - - Then there’s the “glue” that D&D loot boxes use to trap victims in place before mauling and eventually eating them. - - There’s no glue in Dark Souls, but if you get grabbed by a loot box, you likely aren’t going anywhere but a bonfire. - - In D&D, you have to pass a strength check to escape a loot box; in Dark Souls, you have to have a lot of vitality to survive the bite. + - "Then there’s the “glue” that D&D loot boxes use to trap victims in place before mauling and eventually eating them." + - "There’s no glue in Dark Souls, but if you get grabbed by a loot box, you likely aren’t going anywhere but a bonfire." + - "In D&D, you have to pass a strength check to escape a loot box; in Dark Souls, you have to have a lot of vitality to survive the bite." - "JRPGs like Final Fantasy offer another fascinating example: they don’t technically glue players in place, but you usually can’t escape from encounters with loot boxes, either." - Many JRPGs also streamlined loot boxes even further. @@ -199,48 +200,48 @@ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb2IEY8cya0&t=170s - D&D co-creator Gary Gygax coined the loot boxes we all know and love (and see in our nightmares) in 1974. - Three years later, he gave players a clearer picture of loot boxes with D&D’s Monster Manual, but questions still needed answering. -- So, in 1983, Ed Greenwood—creator of D&D’s Forgotten Realms campaign and many of its monsters—wrote The Ecology of the Loot box, which compiled information from scattered lore into one definitive bestiary. +- "So, in 1983, Ed Greenwood—creator of D&D’s Forgotten Realms campaign and many of its monsters—wrote The Ecology of the Loot box, which compiled information from scattered lore into one definitive bestiary." - He also made up a lot of new details to fill in gaps in player understanding. -- “That was and is the fun in D&D for me, making stuff up,” Greenwood tells me over email. -- “In ways consistent with existing lore, so as to weave new portions of an existing tapestry.” +- "That was and is the fun in D&D for me, making stuff up," Greenwood tells me over email. +- "In ways consistent with existing lore, so as to weave new portions of an existing tapestry." -- Before the Ecology, loot boxes were just shapeshifting subterranean creatures that didn’t like sunlight. Incredibly flexible hermits, basically. +- "Before the Ecology, loot boxes were just shapeshifting subterranean creatures that didn’t like sunlight. Incredibly flexible hermits, basically." - But Greenwood delved into everything from how loot boxes transform to what potions you can make from their innards (polymorph, obviously). - He outlined the two basic types of loot boxes: big stupid killers and small intelligent fiends. -- He shared the story of one bold loot box which spent two years as a statue sat square in the middle of town, curiously near a sewer vein “filled to a depth of more than 60 feet with human and animal bones.” -- It’s no exaggeration to say he changed the face of loot boxes forever. +- "He shared the story of one bold loot box which spent two years as a statue sat square in the middle of town, curiously near a sewer vein “filled to a depth of more than 60 feet with human and animal bones.”" +- "It’s no exaggeration to say he changed the face of loot boxes forever." -- Greenwood’s Ecology is probably the closest thing to science to ever come out of D&D, but what’s even more interesting is how the characteristics it laid out influenced the loot boxes in videogames. +- "Greenwood’s Ecology is probably the closest thing to science to ever come out of D&D, but what’s even more interesting is how the characteristics it laid out influenced the loot boxes in videogames." - Look at the ones in the original Ultima, released in 1980. These are aggressive monster chests that pounce when the player gets close. -- Sounds remarkably faithful to the Monster Manual, doesn’t it? +- "Sounds remarkably faithful to the Monster Manual, doesn’t it?" -- Now look at Luggage from Discworld, released in 1995—after Greenwood’s ecology. Luggage is most definitely a loot box, but he’s also your companion. -- He’s a little disobedient, but sentient, almost dog-like and kind of cute. If nothing else, he’s far more intelligent than Ultima’s loot boxes. -- In fact, Luggage is one of the only ‘smart’ loot boxes in videogames. But why? Greenwood said that loot boxes are often intelligent enough to speak. -- So why are most loot boxes automatically enemies? To paraphrase a certain Doom review, wouldn’t it be something if we could talk to them? +- "Now look at Luggage from Discworld, released in 1995—after Greenwood’s ecology. Luggage is most definitely a loot box, but he’s also your companion." +- "He’s a little disobedient, but sentient, almost dog-like and kind of cute. If nothing else, he’s far more intelligent than Ultima’s loot boxes." +- "In fact, Luggage is one of the only ‘smart’ loot boxes in videogames. But why? Greenwood said that loot boxes are often intelligent enough to speak." +- "So why are most loot boxes automatically enemies? To paraphrase a certain Doom review, wouldn’t it be something if we could talk to them?" -- Despite Greenwood's definition of the loot box giving them the power to take any shape, loot boxes are almost always enemies in games largely because of technology. +- "Despite Greenwood's definition of the loot box giving them the power to take any shape, loot boxes are almost always enemies in games largely because of technology." - D&D players have the luxury of interacting with as many NPCs as they can imagine, but for early PC games like Ultima, creativity was measured in bytes. -- With an Apple II’s specs, there was barely enough room for a fantasy world, let alone rich dialogue. +- "With an Apple II’s specs, there was barely enough room for a fantasy world, let alone rich dialogue." - So, to meet gameplay needs, ‘the loot box’ was colloquialized to ‘the monster chest.’ - Discworld had a little more wiggle room. -- Computers had improved since the ‘80s and it wasn’t a fantasy RPG like Ultima; it was a point-and-click adventure game, and those are popular because of their writing and charm. +- "Computers had improved since the ‘80s and it wasn’t a fantasy RPG like Ultima; it was a point-and-click adventure game, and those are popular because of their writing and charm." - Thus Luggage was born, intelligence and disobedience intact. -- Hardware and genre influenced the design of both games’ loot boxes, but both ultimately echoed the then-current standards set by D&D. +- "Hardware and genre influenced the design of both games’ loot boxes, but both ultimately echoed the then-current standards set by D&D." -- Jump to Baldur’s Gate in 1998. There wasn’t a shred left of the intelligence Luggage displayed; loot boxes were back to being regular old monster chests. -- Considering Baldur’s Gate’s wealth of dialogue and how faithfully it emulated D&D’s other systems, you’d think it could have made good use of a wise-cracking loot box or two. -- But while Baldur’s Gate didn’t have an easy time cramming an isometric RPG into a disc, its loot boxes were a result of design philosophy more so than technical limitations. +- "Jump to Baldur’s Gate in 1998. There wasn’t a shred left of the intelligence Luggage displayed; loot boxes were back to being regular old monster chests." +- "Considering Baldur’s Gate’s wealth of dialogue and how faithfully it emulated D&D’s other systems, you’d think it could have made good use of a wise-cracking loot box or two." +- "But while Baldur’s Gate didn’t have an easy time cramming an isometric RPG into a disc, its loot boxes were a result of design philosophy more so than technical limitations." - Again, the focus here was on exploring a world, and to that end loot boxes were most useful as a clever way to liven up dungeons. -- And really, aside from the whole eating people thing, that’s what loot boxes have always been about: meeting the unique needs of games. +- "And really, aside from the whole eating people thing, that’s what loot boxes have always been about: meeting the unique needs of games." - “Loot boxes are the workhorse shapeshifting critters, the most ubiquitous, versatile and yet low-powered,” Greenwood says. -- “Unlike, say, [werewolves], they have few strings attached to their shifting abilities, and lack the restrictions on form that most other shapeshifters have…” -- “Loot boxes can be anything, can have any degree of cunning a [dungeon master] requires, and the [dungeon master’s] desired patience, too,” Greenwood says. +- "“Unlike, say, [werewolves], they have few strings attached to their shifting abilities, and lack the restrictions on form that most other shapeshifters have…”" +- "“Loot boxes can be anything, can have any degree of cunning a [dungeon master] requires, and the [dungeon master’s] desired patience, too,” Greenwood says." -- Even when videogames are cherry-picking D&D canon, they’re still following it in spirit. +- "Even when videogames are cherry-picking D&D canon, they’re still following it in spirit." - Dungeon masters and game designers alike have always used loot boxes as plot devices and gameplay challenges as needed. - So, you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. @@ -250,13 +251,13 @@ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb2IEY8cya0&t=170s - After a while, the loot boxes of early RPGs like Ultima started to influence other videogames as much as D&D did. - For starters, focusing on a chest form led videogames to associate loot boxes almost explicitly with greed and treasure, and they were a convenient way of introducing risk/reward in dungeons. - Why do you think loot boxes usually drop rare and valuable items? -- Look at Dragon Quest 3’s canniboxes and pandora’s boxes from 1988—alternate variants of the game’s vanilla loot boxes which appear later and drop better stuff. +- "Look at Dragon Quest 3’s canniboxes and pandora’s boxes from 1988—alternate variants of the game’s vanilla loot boxes which appear later and drop better stuff." - Look at Avarice, a boss in the more recent Titan Souls that not only is a gilded treasure chest but guards a roomful of treasure. - Perhaps most famously, look at the Symbol of Avarice helmet in Dark Souls, which improves your loot drops and consumes your health. -- It’s a sister item to the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring, which also ups your loot. +- "It’s a sister item to the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring, which also ups your loot." - Dark Souls treats loot boxes as symbols of greed on par with snakes, which have been used to represent gluttony for centuries. -- That’s saying something about how stigmatized loot boxes have become. +- "That’s saying something about how stigmatized loot boxes have become." - I almost feel sorry for the greedy bastards. - Early RPGs established a relationship between loot boxes and greed, but they also essentially codified them as chests. @@ -264,34 +265,34 @@ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb2IEY8cya0&t=170s - Toejam & Earl is a rare example from the early 90s, where the loot box took the form of an angry mailbox, attacking you instead of giving you presents. - Again, greed is the throughline. -- Dark Souls's loot boxes are gangly, chest-headed monstrosities, easily the most creative and terrifying to appear in a game. -- They also illustrate how some qualities in Greenwood’s Ecology evolved into gameplay mechanics. +- "Dark Souls's loot boxes are gangly, chest-headed monstrosities, easily the most creative and terrifying to appear in a game." +- "They also illustrate how some qualities in Greenwood’s Ecology evolved into gameplay mechanics." - From Software held off on making ladder loot boxes (to the delight of a grateful universe) but -- Dark Souls’ loot boxes hide their true bodies and may be bipedal or quadrupedal, which is a subtle remnant of the true shapeshifting of old. -- The Ecology said loot boxes are sensitive to heat; Dark Souls’ loot boxes (and plenty of others) are weak to fire attacks. +- "Dark Souls’ loot boxes hide their true bodies and may be bipedal or quadrupedal, which is a subtle remnant of the true shapeshifting of old." +- "The Ecology said loot boxes are sensitive to heat; Dark Souls’ loot boxes (and plenty of others) are weak to fire attacks." -- Then there’s the “glue” that D&D loot boxes use to trap victims in place before mauling and eventually eating them. -- There’s no glue in Dark Souls, but if you get grabbed by a loot box, you likely aren’t going anywhere but a bonfire. -- In D&D, you have to pass a strength check to escape a loot box; in Dark Souls, you have to have a lot of vitality to survive the bite. +- "Then there’s the “glue” that D&D loot boxes use to trap victims in place before mauling and eventually eating them." +- "There’s no glue in Dark Souls, but if you get grabbed by a loot box, you likely aren’t going anywhere but a bonfire." +- "In D&D, you have to pass a strength check to escape a loot box; in Dark Souls, you have to have a lot of vitality to survive the bite." -- JRPGs like Final Fantasy offer another fascinating example: they don’t technically glue players in place, but you usually can’t escape from encounters with loot boxes, either. +- "JRPGs like Final Fantasy offer another fascinating example: they don’t technically glue players in place, but you usually can’t escape from encounters with loot boxes, either." - Many JRPGs also streamlined loot boxes even further. -- By viewing the fundamental idea of ‘player expects loot, gets a fight instead’ through the lens of random encounters, they created the ‘box of enemies’. -- The chest itself isn’t even a monster anymore, just a trigger for a random encounter. -- Does that make it a loot box? No, but it’s still a different means to the same end, and it’s still hardware dictating design. +- "By viewing the fundamental idea of ‘player expects loot, gets a fight instead’ through the lens of random encounters, they created the ‘box of enemies’." +- "The chest itself isn’t even a monster anymore, just a trigger for a random encounter." +- "Does that make it a loot box? No, but it’s still a different means to the same end, and it’s still hardware dictating design." - Random encounters were instituted to free up memory, after all. -- Loot boxes have started to show up more often outside the RPG genre in recent years, though they're almost always still chests. +- "Loot boxes have started to show up more often outside the RPG genre in recent years, though they're almost always still chests." - Games like Borderlands 2 and Magicka treat them as easter eggs. - Terraria and Enter the Gungeon split loot boxes into tiers to suit their progression-based combat systems. - Torchlight loves to hide loot boxes in groups of chests. - Others still feature distant ancestors. -- Shovel Knight’s angler fish boss uses a treasure chest lure to draw in players. +- "Shovel Knight’s angler fish boss uses a treasure chest lure to draw in players." - The ‘maneater’ in Dragon’s Dogma uses treasure chests like a hermit crab does shells. - "Definitely not a loot box," Greenwood said of the maneater. "This is an ambush predator." - Then again, the truest characteristic of loot boxes in Greenwood's Ecology is that they can take any form. - Modern games that ditch the toothy chest are still staying true to that spirit. - These things are everywhere if you really look. -- In other words, stay suspicious, because it’s probably a loot box. +- "In other words, stay suspicious, because it’s probably a loot box."