StaceyPowers

What is the oldest game you still play regularly?

Have you ever done a really bad job building your character with skill/point distributions, and then struggled afterwards? What did you do to make your character more functional and playable?

Do you ever have a hard time saying whether a game is objectively poorly designed versus whether you simply subjectively find it unintuitive?

Zevia

What's the most challenging job you ever worked on?

What's a game that got off to an amazing start, and then just fizzled out or tanked?

What animal would be most interesting to play in a video game?

What video game on average crosses your mind the most over a long period of time, adjusting for games you might think of more just because you are playing them at the moment? For me, it is still BioShock Infinite.

What is your most recent existential thought?

What’s the most you’ve spent on gaming all at once (not including console purchases)? For me, I think it was around $150 one day.

What are all the ways in which your life is better with gaming in it (aside from just being able to enjoy the games themselves)? For example, I sleep better and have more of a social outlet.

For those that work, if you didn’t have to, would you game more each day or the same amount of time?

What is something you enjoy in video games more than IRL, other than the obvious thing of brutal combat? Like, gardening is satisfying to me in Skyrim, and makes me think I could get into it IRL, and then I think about trying, and I’m just like “nope, too much work/too intimidating.”

What quality or characteristic do you tend to appreciate in a game that a lot of people despise? Like, I like games with low player agency, and a lot of people do not. I also often appreciate ludonarrative dissonance, and some folks hate it. Lots of side quests are another positive for me that are a negative for many other gamers.

What is most motivating to you in a video game? Completing quests? Gaining XP? Getting items? Discovering lore? Getting trophies? Progressing a storyline? Delight at solving a puzzle? Helping a character? Exploration? What drives you forward the most?

I think games can hypothetically make awesome holiday gifts. But since they are sometimes a huge time investment, I think they only make sense if one knows exactly what is on someone’s wishlist, and/or it is something small and cheap. Gift certificates are better. Thoughts?

I just learned about this weird thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_game Games that play themselves. This seems quite bizarre to me, but maybe I do not have the context for understanding it. Does anyone play these? What is the appeal?

So, I’ve been having Mazoga follow me around in Oblivion for a very long time, and now her armor is gone. She still has pants, but no chestplate and no boots. Why did this happen? Did it just break? Is there any way of fixing it on PS3?

Some in-game locations stick with you forever. Others, you forget almost as soon as you are out of them. What makes a location memorable?

What are some random facts you only learned about because of games you played? Like, playing TLOU 2 made me learn about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king

With any game series, we kind of expect new enemies to be introduced with each instalment. Sometimes they’re great; other times they feel like a letdown. What makes a great new enemy in a series?

Perfect choice, @DC! Congrats, @The Blackangel, you are going to be marvelous. And thanks again @Shagger for everything you do. All three of you are awesome, and have made this the place I feel most welcome and at home online 🙂

I don't know! I mean, does anything happen after he's dead? Funny as hell though.

Oh! It can vary a lot. It depends on how much video game content I write on any given month, which varies with VGR's demand. I freelance in other niches as well to keep my overall income stream consistent.

Each Dragon Age game has involved different issues in Thedas, so inevitably the series has shifted focus away from some things. Are there any plot threads that you would like the series to loop back around to? I wish the Architect would come back.