postit/postit/contents.json

{"mimic": [{"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "PLACEHOLDER COVER", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "type": "mimic-colophon", "original": "original text", "original-credits": "Austin Wood", "original-action": "published", "original-date": "May 03, 2017", "current": "current text", "current-credits": "XPUB", "current-action": ".replace(\"mimic\", \"loot box\")", "current-date": "March 25, 2022", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Foreword", "img": "loot box.png", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "In RPG games the \nMimic is a monster\nthat appears as a\ntreasure chest.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "When a player tries to interact with it in order to get the contents of the chest it reveals its true nature and attacks her.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "The name of the Mimic come from its act of mimesis: this creature is like a predator that disguises itself in order to sneak up on its prey.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "A treasure chest in a game can be seen as a temporary safe zone because it interrupts the flow of incoming threats by offering a reward to the player.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "The Mimic endangers this temporary safe zone and breaks a kind of contract between the player and the game.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "The treasure chest is\ntransformed in a risky\nrussian roulette, that\ninoculates danger in the\nsafe zones of \na narration.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "I'm tempted to write that the loot box is something like a meta mimic: an object that promises an in-game reward but produces a damage to the player.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "What's more is that this damage is inflicted in the real world not to the player but to the person.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "What's then the difference between a loot box and a Mimic?", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "img": "mimic.png", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "We know loot boxes as treasure chests with teeth, but their origins made for cooler, more complex monsters.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Sometimes it\u2019s obvious. Would there really be a treasure chest in the middle of such an unremarkable room, just begging you to open it? Please.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Other times it\u2019s almost impossible to tell.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "There will be an imperfection in the shape if you\u2019re lucky, maybe a misplaced link of chain on the side or a wood grain that seems just slightly off.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "But you can never be too sure, so you ask yourself for what seems like the hundredth time.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Is it a loot box?", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "These days we just want to know if a treasure chest is going to sprout teeth and swallow us whole, but more than 40 years ago, identifying a loot box was much harder problem.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "They weren't just treasure chests, and they weren't always mindlessly hungry for the flesh of adventurers.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Some could speak and even bargain. Others would attack anything on sight.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Some would grow to be the size of houses, others content to live as doormats. Or walls, floors or clothes. Toilets.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Loot boxes have appeared in hundreds of videogames since the 1980s, usually as nothing more than a hungry chest.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "But when they first appeared in Dungeons & Dragons, they were so much more than that.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "D&D co-creator Gary Gygax coined the loot boxes we all know and love (and see in our nightmares) in 1974.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Three years later, he gave players a clearer picture of loot boxes with D&D\u2019s Monster Manual, but questions still needed answering.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "So, in 1983, Ed Greenwood\u2014creator of D&D\u2019s Forgotten Realms campaign and many of its monsters\u2014wrote The Ecology of the Loot Box.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "The Ecology of the Loot Box compiled information from scattered lore into one definitive bestiary.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "He also made up a lot of new details to fill in gaps in player understanding. \n\"That was and is the fun in D&D for me, making stuff up,\" Greenwood tells me over email.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "In ways consistent with existing lore, so as to weave new portions of an existing tapestry.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Before the Ecology, loot boxes were just shapeshifting subterranean creatures that didn\u2019t like sunlight. Incredibly flexible hermits, basically.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "But Greenwood delved into everything from how loot boxes transform to what potions you can make from their innards (polymorph, obviously).", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "He outlined the two\nbasic types of loot \nboxes: big stupid \nkillers and small\nintelligent fiends.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "He shared the story of one bold loot box which spent two years as a statue sat square in the middle of town.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Curiously near a sewer\nvein \"filled to a depth of \nmore than sixty feet\nwith human and \nanimal bones.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "It\u2019s no exaggeration to say he changed the face of loot boxes forever.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Greenwood\u2019s Ecology is probably the closest thing to science to ever come out of D&D.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "But what\u2019s even more interesting is how the characteristics it laid out influenced the loot boxes in videogames.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Look at the ones in the\noriginal Ultima, released \nin 1980. These are\naggressive monster\nchests that pounce\nwhen the player\ngets close.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Sounds remarkably faithful to the Monster Manual, doesn\u2019t it?", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Now look at Luggage from Discworld, released in 1995\u2014after Greenwood\u2019s ecology.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Luggage is most \ndefinitely a loot box,\nbut he\u2019s also\nyour companion.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "He\u2019s a little disobedient, but sentient, almost dog-like and kind of cute.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "If nothing else, he\u2019s far more intelligent than Ultima\u2019s loot boxes.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "In fact, Luggage is one of the only \u2018smart\u2019 loot boxes in videogames.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "But why? Greenwood said that loot boxes are often intelligent enough to speak.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "So why are most loot boxes automatically enemies?", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "To paraphrase a certain Doom review, wouldn\u2019t it be something if we could talk to them?", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Despite Greenwood's\ndefinition of the loot box \ngiving them the power to\ntake any shape, loot\nboxes are almost always\nenemies in games\nlargely because\nof technology.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "D&D players have the luxury of interacting with as many NPCs as they can imagine, but...", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "For early PC games like Ultima, creativity was measured in bytes.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "With an Apple II\u2019s specs,\nthere was barely enough\nroom for a fantasy \nworld, let alone\nrich dialogue.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "So, to meet gameplay needs, \u2018the loot box\u2019 was colloquialized to \u2018the monster chest.\u2019", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Discworld had a little more wiggle room.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Computers had improved since the \u201880s and it wasn\u2019t a fantasy RPG like Ultima", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Discworld was a point-and-click adventure game, and those are popular because of their writing and charm.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Thus Luggage was born, intelligence and disobedience intact.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Hardware and genre influenced the design of both games\u2019 loot boxes, but both ultimately echoed the then-current standards set by D&D.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Jump to Baldur\u2019s Gate\nin 1998.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "There wasn\u2019t a shred \nleft of the intelligence\nLuggage displayed; loot\nboxes were back to\nbeing regular old\nmonster chests.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Considering the wealth\nof dialogue and how\nfaithfully it emulated\nD&D\u2019s other systems,\nyou\u2019d think it could have\nmade good use of\na wise-cracking loot\nbox or two.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "But while Baldur\u2019s Gate\ndidn\u2019t have an easy time\ncramming an isometric\nRPG into a disc, its loot\nboxes were a result of\ndesign philosophy \nmore so than \ntechnical limitations.\"", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "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.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "And really, aside from the whole eating people thing, that\u2019s what loot boxes have always been about: meeting the unique needs of games.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "\"Loot boxes are the workhorse shapeshifting critters, the most ubiquitous, versatile and yet low-powered,\" Greenwood says.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Unlike, say, [werewolves], they have few strings attached to their shifting abilities, and lack the restrictions on form that most other shapeshifters have\u2026", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "\"Loot boxes can be anything, can have any degree of cunning a [dungeon master] requires, and the [dungeon master\u2019s] desired patience, too,\" Greenwood says.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Even when videogames are cherry-picking D&D canon, they\u2019re still following it in spirit.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Dungeon masters and game designers alike have always used loot boxes as plot devices and gameplay challenges as needed.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "So, you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Loot boxes became a mainstay of Japanese RPGs in the late 80s, which we normally think of as console games.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "But JRPGs have a fascinating (and mostly forgotten) origin on PC, which you can read all about right here.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "After a while, the loot\nboxes of early RPGs like\nUltima started to\ninfluence other\nvideogames as much\nas D&D did.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "For starters, focusing \non a chest form \nled videogames to\nassociate loot boxes\nalmost explicitly with\ngreed and treasure.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "And they were a convenient way of introducing risk/reward in dungeons.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Why do you think loot boxes usually drop rare and valuable items?", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Look at Dragon Quest \n3\u2019s canniboxes and\npandora\u2019s boxes from\n1988\u2014alternate variants\nof the game\u2019s vanilla loot\nboxes which appear\nlater and drop\nbetter stuff.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Look at Avarice, a boss\nin the more recent Titan\nSouls that not only is a\ngilded treasure chest\nbut guards a roomful\nof treasure.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Perhaps most famously, look at the Symbol of Avarice helmet in Dark Souls, which improves your loot drops and consumes your health.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "It\u2019s a sister item to the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring, which also ups your loot.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Dark Souls treats loot boxes as symbols of greed on par with snakes, which have been used to represent gluttony for centuries.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "That\u2019s saying something about how stigmatized loot boxes have become.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "I almost feel sorry for the greedy bastards.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Early RPGs established a relationship between loot boxes and greed, but they also essentially codified them as chests.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Which may be why they appear so rarely in other genres or other forms.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "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.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Again, greed is\nthe throughline.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Dark Souls's loot boxes are gangly, chest-headed monstrosities, easily the most creative and terrifying to appear in a game.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "They also illustrate how\nsome qualities in\nEd Greenwood\u2019s\nEcology evolved into\ngameplay mechanics.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "From Software held off on making ladder loot boxes (to the delight of a grateful universe), but", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Dark Souls\u2019 loot boxes hide their true bodies and may be bipedal or quadrupedal, which is a subtle remnant of the true shapeshifting of old.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "The Ecology said loot\nboxes are sensitive to\nheat; Dark Souls\u2019 loot\nboxes (and plenty of\nothers) are weak to\nfire attacks.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Then there\u2019s the \u201cglue\u201d that D&D loot boxes use to trap victims in place before mauling and eventually eating them.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "There\u2019s no glue in Dark Souls, but if you get grabbed by a loot box, you likely aren\u2019t going anywhere but a bonfire.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "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.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "JRPGs like Final Fantasy offer another fascinating example: they don\u2019t technically glue players in place, but you usually can\u2019t escape from encounters with loot boxes, either.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Many JRPGs also streamlined loot boxes even further.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "By viewing the\nfundamental idea of \n\u2018player expects loot,\ngets a fight instead\u2019\nthrough the lens of \nrandom encounters,\nthey created the \n\u2018box of enemies\u2019.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "The chest itself isn\u2019t even a monster anymore, just a trigger for a random encounter.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Does that make it \na loot box? No, but \nit\u2019s still a different\nmeans to the same end,\nand it\u2019s still hardware\ndictating design.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Random encounters\nwere instituted to free\nup memory, after all.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Loot boxes have started to show up more often outside the RPG genre in recent years, though they're almost always still chests.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Games like Magicka and Borderlands 2 treat them as easter eggs.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Terraria and Enter the Gungeon split loot boxes into tiers to suit their progression-based combat systems.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Torchlight loves to hide\nloot boxes in groups\nof chests.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Others still feature distant ancestors.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Shovel Knight\u2019s angler fish boss uses a treasure chest lure to draw in players.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "The \u2018maneater\u2019 in Dragon\u2019s Dogma uses treasure chests like a hermit crab does shells.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "\"Definitely not a loot box,\" Greenwood said of the maneater. \"This is an ambush predator.\"", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Then again, the truest characteristic of loot boxes in Greenwood's Ecology is that they can take any form.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "Modern games that ditch the toothy chest are still staying true to that spirit.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "These things are \neverywhere if you \nreally look.", "slug": "mimic"}, {"title": "The murderous history of loot boxes", "description": "In other words, stay suspicious, because it\u2019s probably a loot box.", "slug": "mimic"}]}