Procedurally generated content is very popular in AAA games right now, because it saves money--but especially in the indie game space, it often pays off to create some handmade content that makes your game’s personality come alive. Also, apologies to everyone who has made a comment and has not seen it appear yet--something's wonky with our KZfaq settings so a lot of comments are hiding right now! Thanks for your patience.

*meanwhile at Bethesda* Balance? What's that? _proceeds to implement spell that makes every enemy in a 3 mile radius attack literally everything_

Zoey, I hope those notes are meticulously organized, a future episode depends on it.

Before it felt like you were trying to sell me something. This time it felt like a small group of us were having a conversation. You nailed it this time!

Matt seems like he's really coming into his own and getting comfortable narrating. Keep up the great work.

That Executioner Blade text was perfect. That is exactly the kind of thing that makes a game stand out for me. Little pieces of lore that, in the end mean nothing, but still manage to stimulate my imagination. It really does massively expand the world with damn near zero cost.

Props to the use of Chrono Trigger background music for the outro. That game has tons of items and enemies that perfectly illustrate what you're talking about while the world feels very developed and alive

I'd have thought that procedurally generated content would just open a Pandora's Box of checks and balances in order for it to work. It feels like double-handling when compared to just planning the items out and crafting them. You're completely right about the Diablo/Skyrim/Souls comparisons though. Part of the reason Dark Souls feels so rich as a world is because every element of the game is pulling triple or quadruple duty in storytelling - a sword has damage stats, but it also speaks to playing style through a moveset (rather than just being hack/slash), while also having lore of the world attached to it in the description, which itself is usually tied to where the player found the weapon. And not a lot of this is made explict, it's presented and absorbed through action and experience rather than just being told "This is the lance of The Great Whomever, it has a +4 against Magic types". The Souls games, at least initially, seem to almost go out of their way to obfuscate and abstract the overall numbers game behind it because they want you to learn things by experience and skill rather than always trying to meta-game yourself to the highest level pickup you find. Procedural generation would make that kind of specificity really difficult, and make it much harder for the developers to craft and shape the experience.

It went down to make room for more G R A P H I C S. That's why I hate the current state of the AAA industry.

Humm... how about a an episode on Dwarf Fortress? It truly is a fascinating game

"And remember the power of re-skinning" - Buffalo Bill Powerful words...

Just gotta say, Zoe the cat popping in and how Matt changed his voice inflection dramatically to poke a bit of fun at development made this a super fun watch. Yeah, Matt ain't Dan, but I think I'm liking Matt's voice more than I did Dan's, and I've watched this channel for years. Also, the points he brought up this time makes a good point about working on items with more personalized care versus automating stuff makes so much sense. It reminds me of the scuffle between mass-produced items and handmade items in the real world, as well. Anything to help games stand more apart from each other is glorious!

Warframe strikes a good balance between procedurally generated and hand-crafted content. While the vast majority of levels/missions are procedurally generated, all the weapons and Warframes are hand-crafted, and they throw some well-made cinematic quests in when you get deeper into the game.

This seems like the standard problem of throwing money at a game vs. giving it personal care, which seems to be a thing in AAA games.

A personal tip for anyone that want to make a game with a lot of content is to make a system that helps you to create handmade content easier. Most game developers and hobby developers (like me) knows this but if you are knew to game developing learning how tho make these systems will save you a lot of time.

I like the cat.

Cogmind is a very good example for handmade, cost-effective content. The game's artstyle is ASCII/Simple texture packs, most items aren't visualised aside from a simple ASCII artpiece thats shown upon examining the item, and there's tons of different stuff to find. For a single developer, adding such a broad list of items, that even sometimes have hidden lore, is no small feat. But by limiting the amount of art that goes into an item, its relatively easy to implement new stuff.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something about this video but I feel like saying games don't have a lot of space, npcs, items and monsters is ignoring a lot of great games that are fairly recent. Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Skyrim, Breath of the Wild, hell even Mario Odyssey. The newest Mario game is packed with assets and every power changes how you look and move. You can spend days wandering around Witcher 3 just looking at stuff. Fallout 4 might not have the item or monster variety but the npcs are each distinct and the world is huge. These games are crafted too, not procedurally generated. I feel like you're ignoring a lot of hard work by a bunch of developers by saying we don't have Morrowinds or Baldur's Gates anymore. It might not be most games but those weren't most games at the time either. I feel like nostalgia is clouding your vision to fantastic complex games that are happening right now. Like i said though, maybe I'm not getting something and in the end this is all opinion. I like your videos, I'm just really into rpgs and exploration games.

It's interesting to see you guys rag on procedural loot so much. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you on this point, it's just that I vividly remember the old Extra Credits Twitch with Dan Emmons and that guest designer he'd always have on, and they were *huge* proponents of procedural generation as the future of game development. They'd always tout it as the solution to problems and make fun of games that had handcrafted stories. It was a big reason I stopped watching that channel.

I want to add 2 things to the video: 1) Dwarf fortress does not only have a very good procedural generation, it has deep and intricate system that bring the procedural generation to life, I guess you still want to keep your videos short, but I think a few second of talking more about how to use procedural generation and what to build around it to make the game better rather than just longer and blanderm despite maybe being off topic, could have been nice. 2) A good example for how you can add tons of items if you make them low cost enough: games like Binding of isaac and enther the gungeon: op combos exist, some items feel pointless, but the difficulty and the roguelike elements that force you to get the most of them, and the flavor text of EtG times as you mentioned go a long way in worldbuilding.

5:31 I think 2D could actually make it harder in some cases, as it can require every sprite to have multiple versions for different angles and lighting.

This video was a lot less shouty already, you're procedurally getting better at this, Matt!

I think that this video in particular is the perfect culmination of the facets of Extra Credits which I find most appealing. Although the videos which provide information as to the state of the industry as mingled with some design trends are indeed fantastic in communicating the relatively complex content in such points of discussion in a clear and concrete manner, it is the videos which discuss the design behind games as well as the means by which developers approach implementing or altering such designs where Extra Credits peaks. This particular video has collated many pressing discussion points as present in the game development climate and laid them down, side-by-side, in an organised fashion thereby eliminating the mists of preconceptions and concerns and has indeed reassured developers such as myself. In discussing this content crisis, its effect on game design and the cost issues of the matter, Extra Credits once again helps to establish a sturdy foundation for understanding the myriad of topics discussed. It's good to see Extra Credits return and in full force; sticking to its original subject matter while retaining its high quality of presentation.

Yeah I'm hearing what people mean when they say our new host sounds like he's shouting.

Why was Daggerfall used as a example when it heavily relies to procedually generated content. Very few thing in that game was handcrafted when it came to content after all. It still like the game however. (And I think the trick is using a mix. Sometimes is make sense to have a lot of generic items with a lot of variation. After all that exist in out world. Then add in some hero assets that stick out. Daggerfall did this to some degree as there where a few unique items added to the other wise procedually generated stuff.)

Let's take a moment to thank the RPG gods for Obsidian Entertainment and Larian Studios existence.

now i wanna call my Alexa "Zoey"... "Zoey, write that down!" :D

I remember in Final Fantasy VII there was a lot of content that was hidden. Things you could do the entire story time and time again and not find. It was a conversation piece that you could go up to a friend that played and ask "Hey, did you ever find *X item/monster/boss* in your playthrough?" It was neat, unexpected and was something to be excited about.

Modular sword mathematics: 5 swings of 20 no repeats is 1,860,480 combinations.

The day that narrators changed. I’ve found where it began, but now, why?

Hey Matt, you're getting better and better with every video. Really like the personality you reflect through your narration, keep up the good work!

I always viewed procedural generation as a jumping off point, a frame work for the game itself to lay over like the shape of a map, or which order a story could play out in the world. I remember the first time I noticed this mechanic in Skyrim, there would be dungeons that you could raid for repeating quest or missions for guilds that involved more specific tasks, but they would all be in random locations and with random NPCs. This took the fun right out of the experience since it felt like I was just completing the same mission over and over again just with different colors each time. Yet I think another layer of procedural geration could have helped this, perhaps after one or two missions a small pre scripted event would play out complicating the quest, like the shop that you were sent to rob becomes a hostage situation that you have to deescalate or sneak around, that bandit camp could already be empty and bounty hunters are already to go and claim the reward. Just adding one or two of these events would give the player a sense of uncertainty, wondering what would happen each time they take up a daily quest or repeat a mission.

That was one of the big disappointments for me in going from Morrowind or Fallout 3 to later iterations of those franchises. In Morrowind and Fallout 3, almost all items were pre-generated. Sure, I could travel the world running errands for some guy to get the Magical Fedora of Power...or I could just conk him in the head with a lead pipe and take it. It was great! Like an NPC's house in Morrowind? Just take it! But in later Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, chests auto-refreshed, enemies scaled to your level, and loot was procedurally generated.

0:05 don't think I didn't spot that Rincewind cameo!

I'm starting to really enjoy listening to Matt speak. When he first took over Extra credits, it was kind of uncomfortable having things play in the background. He had that, sort of 'youtuber voice' that felt really loud and, in your face. But now I feel like I can finally relax and let this run in the background while I work.

From most to least expensive to create game content; 1) New zones 2) New characters (including enemies) 3) New abilities that have unique animations and particle effects 4) New items that appear on characters (especially if new sets of animation is required) 5) New abilities with little to none new animations or particles 6) Items with just different icons or description

I love *Borderlands* for its characters, world, writing, etc but the loot system drives me up the wall! *Gearbox:* LOOK AT ALL THESE GUNS! *Me:* Yeah, 99.99% of which are completely useless chaff. Give me a gear system like *Bloodbourne* with 30 odd weapons that all feel unique any day.

Content Conundrum sounds like a rock band, nice video as always btw

In a lot of older styles of RPGs, characters were so small onscreen that when swords were just eight pixels of your character during their "swing", even something as important as a weapon often wouldn't have a new world graphic, and would simply be a slot on your inventory screen. The same can even be true of games like Rainbow Six, where your weapon model wasn't in the corner like it now is as a standard. That sort of thing wouldn't fly today, and people do expect to see those weapons they picked up, meaning they've inflated in cost quite a bit. That's also sometimes why you see systems of slotting gemstones into weapons to provide more meaningful pickups that are just one sprite in a menu.

People truly underestimate how much flavor text can add to a game, it's such a small thing, but in Dragon Age Origins, the little blurbs under each and every item made them feel so much more real. Ser Garlen's Sword being a favorite of mine, even though it's out classed within an hour of getting it, the flavor text made it one of my favorite bits of gear you could get. Meanwhile in Dragon Age 2, Flavor text was one of the casualties of the rushed production and it felt so much more flat, I felt nothing for any equipment other than which number were bigger.

I mean... _I_ like Diablo's style of stuff better than Dark Souls' style of stuff. I guess I'm probably in the minority though. Still, good video.

I miss the original voice.

Enter the Gungeon really strikes a good balance between procedural generation and handcrafted, quality content. While I'm stumbling through a labyrinth of computer-assigned rooms and enemies, I'm also picking up these unique weapons with their own flavor text and gameplay mechanics. Once, I got a Tear Jerker (yes it fires tears) and was so refreshed by the chance I have to get a potentially bad or good gun. It made me have to work creatively!

This is a great topic. I love the games of old because of all the unique, handcrafted content they have in them. I have been sad for quite some time that too many modern games went away from the Baldur's Gate style content system. I'm even sadder that it has to do with chasing cost cutting measures and over the top visual elements. I would rather have a game that spreads its detail focus to all areas and not just focus on the visual/special effects elements to the detriment of small items that can add depth to the world. Also procedural generated games can be lots of fun, but that system like any system requires the developer to care in the first place. If the developer holds a 'set it and forget it' mindset with any aspect of their game, that shows through rather fast. Also, great work Matt. Your voice work also sounds good (finally).

Want the best example of one of those games? That came out really recently? Pillars of eternity 2, deadfire rocks this so hard :)

0:06 hidden OwO spotted

To a certain extent, I feel Disgaea handles the content issue quite well. Especially with the whole “give all the same weapon type the same animations thing.” As a bonus, it gives you the option of taking any weapon, of which each name is a different sprite on the character, and changing that unique look to any other one of that weapon type for that weapon specifically. Including the forms of monster units changed into weapons. Which is why Valvatorez in my Disgaea 5 got his unique sword changed to the awesome looking Desco blade.

Agreed! Our game puzzle game, Collapsus, has 5 difficulties (in timed and untimed) 25 Challenge modes, 25 "Plus" modes, a puzzle mode with 300 puzzles, a free daily puzzle each day, 8 player local and online vs, 300 "medals", 40 accessibility options, 10 skins, and 10 languages... and then we're planning an expansion pack that doubles that. All because it's a 2D game with a long development cycle ;)

Okay I'll give Matt a chance but the announcer rhythm isn't really for me. I just have hard time following when listening to this style of enthusiastic ups and downs. I just enjoy simple talking to the audience rhythm. Still a good episode, I just had to watch twice to catch everything.

To be fair, I really like it when a different animation is used for each weapon, and what there is of the world seems perfect. Unfortunately no one but Chris Roberts has thus far been able to effectively combine procedural generation with handcrafted detail and handcrafted like originality. Of course as time goes on we will see more games with great visual and content fidelity, of course the downside being development times. But here's what I think really happened with regards to the whole procedural generation thing. Minecraft happened. How many procedurally generated games did you see before Minecraft, especially ones that were made by triple a developers. The difference was of course that in the unique way minecraft worked, they were able to procedurally generate a lot of content, and the rest was just left up to the player. What these companies don't realize is that you can't really do that if the player actually has an objective to complete, which is always the case with these triple a games. Well maybe they realize, but every chump thinks they can do better than the rest don't they.

Read something very interesting recently about the idea of adding blockchain technology into a CRPG to have items "remember" their history. Take your reskinned generic "long sword +1" and after Ferdinand kills 300 orcs with it, it can become "long sword of orc slaying +1 (+2 vs orcs)". Then when Ferdinand sells it to Danni, she uses it to kill the orcish archmage Vrell after he killed her sister and it changes yet again and maybe it'll be "Danni's Avenger, +1 (+2 vs orcs and mages)" etc. And all of this encoded for each weapon.

This video brought the Dominions series to my mind. Lot's of different types of units, spells, gear and mechanics with accessibility depending on which faction you play. True balance is a hell to create for something like this but the effect on multiplayer is interesting, people often form alliances to stop the people playing the most broken faction from winning, creating reasonable opportunities for the underdog to have a shot at winning.

It doesn't matter how much money you throw in the production of a AAA game, but how it's used to make a game look and feel genuine.

GOD every show needs a cat!

I've given Matt a few videos to kinda settle in for me and having the Politics videos with Dan still there has made the transition easier. It's not the familiar tuned sound that I've gotten used to but at the same time Matt's obvious enthusiasm for what is being said shines through brilliantly. It's taken a few episodes but I want to say again, welcome to the channel Matt, you'll do great here.

Matt, you take the core what I like about Extra Credits: Providing deeper insight into games in an engaging way with your own spin. Complements, because those are big shoes to fill. You are doing a great job!

Very helpful! And applicable to one of my projects...

Did you really place Dwarf Fortress & Rogue Legacy in the same "procedural content box"? I love both games, but Rogue Legacy only randomizes the dungeons. A more apt comparison would be Dwarf Fortress vs No Man Sky, they both procedurally generate "everything" and even then, DF wins by a landslide. Another contender could be Ultima Ratio Regum, but it's still under wraps. What about other deep roguelikes? UnReal World? ADOM? Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead? Tales of Maj'Eyal? The older games (Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's gate, and other Morrowinds) didn't have that many customization visuals (unless I'm mistaken) you're comparing apple to oranges.

4:48 my KZfaq 2008 nostalgia just came up

The important thing to remember about game balance is that it's not an end goal in itself. Balance needs to do two things: keep people from getting frustrated by overpowered PVP options, and keep people from missing out on fun playstyles because they're suboptimal. If you don't have either of those problems to a substantial degree, you don't need to tune the game balance any finer.

Man, I love that Zelda CDi reference.

1:05 so, nioh? yeah, it's bad

Thank you for mentioning DF, it shows you can actually use Procedural generation to build your game. It's so under rated simply for not having proper graphics, so people assume it's either from the 80's or has very little to do. I've been playing it since the first public launch roughly 12 years ago and honestly compared to pretty much every modern title has more content then any of them. It also shows how to do Sandbox right, as you can totally play it as one. I just hope bigger companies realize how to make it work before it's too late. I fear we're on the edge of another games crash. Gotta be careful with the art bit there are people who won't play stuff that isn't semi/hyper realistic. The problem games that do that have is balance but on a hardware side. If they want to reach a bunch of consumers they have to have a smaller land mass or things like that. But we also have games that work while still being big, The Witcher 3 being one example where you can make it have all kinds of eye candy while still having something to do.

I wasn't convinced Matt could ever replace Dan's wonderful chipmunk voice, but then he had to go and show off how deep and buttery it could get; I am now completely sold.

But what caused the change in AAA games to be more procedurally-generated? Isn't the main point of most AAA games to supposed be more expensive but better?

Does this include older(gen1-5) VS newer(gen 6 & 7) Pokemons? I'm not talking "OMFG GAEMFREK RAN OUTTA IDAES", I'm talking about Megas and regional variants being "reskin" of older Pokemons rather than making entirely new ones. And so when they could get away with having these "reskins", they can also get away with having less completely new Pokemons in the generation(71 new Pokemons in gen 6 and 85 in gen 7). Alternatively you can even say evolutions/preevolutions added after the base Pokemon's debut generation(Crobat, Kingdra, Gliscor, Electrivire, the babies, etc) may also count, as they're just extend assets of contents that came before.

This is why I love Dead Cells and Enter the Gungeon. They both have copious amounts of weapons and abilities to play around with. And on balance, Gungeon throws this right out the window, having a weapon that can one-shot the final boss (Cells does this to a lesser extent, the only real balance patches being too buff things that are never used). If you haven't played either of these games I highly recommend you try them at least once.

The Binding of Isaac seems like a great example for this. First, you have a large suite of items (all ranging in quality) with unique “personality”. Next, you have procedurally generated floors for each run. Let’s go deeper. The items get (got) better because the developers checked up on them to make sure that certain item combos had tangible synergies. The floor generation works because the game is a “run”. It’s not a permanent world you spend 50+ hours in.

Cannot you make your voice sound more... Dan-ish?

I'm starting to like this Matt guy.

I would say a good example of how recoloring and procedure generation can work is the Borderlands series. Yes, this pistol looks almost identical to the one I have been using, but this one has rotating barrels, while the one I have just has a simple scope. Now, yes, some of those attachments affect the gun in small ways, but the main idea is "man, this weapon is cooler/better than the one I got right now!"

Dead cells nails this by combining hand crafted weapons with procedural weapon modifiers. The Blood sword makes you enemies bleed. There is a weapon modifier that gives increased damage against bleeding enemies. The Rapier deals crits after a roll, and could have a modifier that gives a damage boost again frozen enemies. Freeze weapon, roll, KABLAU combo. Every weapon feels great, but there are still many combinations. Most importantly almost all modifiers have an influence on your playstyle, rather than +23 damage or +2 swing speed.

Can you please do a video on player generated content

Commentary voice sounds good!

Ok, I like the inclusion of Zoey as a recurring character in recent episodes. Seemed there was a lot of concern about switching hosts, and I've taken no issues at all with Matt - in fact, I find his energy quite engaging. Zoey is a nice inclusion, tho :D Keep up the good work, EC team!

I just want to say that Team Cherry manages this really, really, REALLY well. The Soulsian parallels in Hollow Knight are many and obvious, but it's particularly impressive that they managed to scale down the production level of their game while still maintaining similar levels of difficulty, balance, complexity, lore, and really cool, pleasing animations--- just in 2D rather than 3D.

love your voice

I really don't like the new narrator. It sounds like he's shouting and his inflection makes me want to shut off the video. I know things change, but I miss Dan.

Glad to see this channel's content is still top notch. Matt's voice is awesome, but I still miss the aesthetic of having some modulation. if it's an option, I would enjoy seeing it explored at least, if not then I guess I'll get used to it. there's just something less cartoony about having the real voices that just feels a little too different, same with the things Dan did without the pitch change like the animation in games stuff.

This sounds a bit random but, you have a serious "radio voice" which is great for narration. That's one of the reasons you excel at this. You enunciate and speak very clearly, and I think it's a good direction to take these episodes; as much as I enjoyed Dan's high pitched cartoony narration lol, your voice gives the show a more professional and accessible feeling to a larger audience. Keep practicing and figuring out how it works best for you and you'll get more comfortable!

I was really worried when I heard Dan wasn't going to host Extra Credits anymore. But I think Matt is an excellent host for this show. You're doing great man. Keep it up!

for me personally dead cells strikes an great compromise with its weapons between handcrafted and rng, you can get the same weapon three times, it will handle the same, you will have the same main effect (for example allways crit enemies tanding next to a wall), but the randomly put together sub effects make the juicy bits, you can have a spear, which allways crits enemies near a wall (main feature) which also throws a grenade when you attack and an arrow before you, another which coats enemies in flamable oil and lets their bodys explode after death etc, you can buid entire strategies around the subeffects, the weapons do not feel dull at every new run (which happens every 20minutes or so cause you died), but at the same time you get a familiar feeling for the generel playstile of the weapon).

Hey, just wanted to mention, putting a minor effect on an item (audio cues or turning regular enemy into a sheep when you kill them) also goes a long way to adding uniqueness to an item. Or using an inferior model on a high level item (like Ultima's Hoe of Destruction).

4:48 The Legend of Zoey: The Matt of Gamelon

Loved this episode! Another underrated cost-saving trick... It doesn't actually matter if you repeat content provided you do so with love, care and energy, and be aware of what you're doing and how you're doing it. Just because people have seen an enemy who specializes in bombs and wears a big helmet doesn't mean you can't rearrange that model to create another enemy who specializes in bombs and wears a big helmet, except this one is a green, ugly ogre not a green, ugly orc (big difference I know!). You can't overuse this of course but it's far more prevalent than people oft give credit.

Hollow night is one of the games that does this in a really good way. you acquire some items and abilities that have special animation, but the majority of items you get are charms that just have some really cool icons and give you an ability. a few of those do have some kind of special animation or change to how your health bar looks

That divinity comment was especially funny for me because I come here immediately after cheeseing the Ahdramalik fight with a friend by exploiting a combo from having multiple characters take turns leaving and rejoining combat for infinite actions.

Hey Matt, I don't know if you have time to read all these comments, but I hope you see this. I just want to say that I think you sounded a lot better in this episode. It's actually the first episode of yours that I could stand to watch. Now, I know that sounds harsh, but I mean it as a compliment. You sounded more natural and conversational, which is the tone I think you should be striving for. Keep working on it, you still have a lot of improving to do, but this episode has filled me with confidence that you can do it! Don't give up, keep improving and make us all proud! After all, your part of the Extra Credits team now!

Big improvement on the voice work. I really think Matt is getting close to hitting the nail on the head with his delivery and think that as time progresses and episodes are produced, he will be a really good presenter for the channel.

I think the Borderlands series does a pretty good job of balancing the procedurally generated stuff with the unique items etc.

You can see how lovely putting the effort in is with Dawn of the Dragons. It's a Facebook/Kongregate game, so it isn't flashy, but everything has a purpose, a place, and nearly everything has just a little bit of text to make it feel real. I really wish more games would do that.

Wizard of Legend it's great at making few, handcrafted unique items and abilities. The abilities, while numerous, reuse the same animations and textures, but in different ways that make them feel unique, and the items are extremely simplistic, but can make the game feel drastically different (like equestricap or surefire rocket)

I think what games like Symphony of the Night struggle with in terms of content volume is how often items are carelessly distributed in the world. There are a lot of junk weapons that have no value compared to game-breaking weapons, many of which are easy to find. Get yourself the Crissaegrim in SotN from a random drop that you might just luck up on, or the Shield Rod and Alucard Shield (which are literally just sitting there) , and the game is over.

I agree that game balance isn't always paramount. One of my favorite broken things in any game is the Mush Badge (and its upgrades) from Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. It completely destroys any difficulty from battles as soon as it becomes available, but you don't have to use it and in fact may not realize it's so game-breaking because it doesn't seem like it at first glance.

This video made me think of a game series I'm playing right now, Trails (currently I'm on Trails in the Sky SC. Already played Trails of Cold Steel 1 and 2, and the first Trails in the Sky). Graphically they are not impressive at all, but the world is so well crafted it really feels alive: Pretty much every NPC has a name, a personality and a micro story you can follow if you keep talking to them; the lore is complex and if you pay attention you can really get a good look at the politics and economy of every region you visit. It's a good example of an awesome world which would not be possible if they tried to give the game a visual AAA polish.

On this subject: D&D is perhaps the most notable example of a tabletop RPG whose depth of content varies incredibly, if not in terms of actual numbers then at least in the sense of cultural significance (hell, a great deal of the discussion rests squarely on D&D's both extremely specific examples of magical items *and* its equally long tradition of random-generation tables). For those of you who don't know about this, for instance, let's examine "artifacts." (That's the official D&D term for items of enormous magical power that no mere mortal can create anymore and, in almost all D&D campaigns, that actually includes PCs; there is a whole subgenre within the subgenre of epic-level campaigns which allows basic access to this kind of power. They also come in two forms: lesser artifacts, usually the creations of mythical wizards of unimaginable power, greater spirits, the forces of the cosmos and the like; and greater artifacts, which are often the creations of deities or wizards that rivaled even their power). So, in recent years, artifacts are usually fairly detailed, with specific powers, traits, and even the very few means by which they can be destroyed (a trait obviously copied right out of _The Lord of the Rings_ ); however, in the past, their abilities were actually largely left up to the DM, and even involved a great number of random generation, so that each artifact would feel different every time you encountered it, whether in an entirely different campaign or if you happened to play the same adventure one more time. So there's this whole thing that D&D actually has people playing it with completely different subsets of rules when it comes to how to handle magic items, among other things. And in some settings, such as, for instance, in Birthright, you are not really expected to find a bag of holding all that easily. They exist, but magic is scarce enough and limited enough that you are only going to find one normally (and that is reflected in the way you are supposed to hand out rewards to the players) a lot later than you would do in e.g. a Forgotten Realms (very magic-rich) campaign. I bring up the Bag of Holding explicitly, because I once made exactly the kind of homebrewed item that I felt would find a lot of appreciation with others in the community while also keeping to the theme of the setting. You see, the most important use players have for the BoH is, in fact, carrying all their money, as *coins actually weigh you down in D&D,* meaning that players, especially at lower levels, really come to benefit enormously from being able to put vast volumes of things in a bag that always weighs the same, regardless of contents. Hence, I wrote of a variation of the BoH that can only contain up to (IIRC) the equivalent of 500 gold coins in any metal coinage available, provided they are metallic coins and that they do not add up to more than 500 gold coins in value (so e.g. a really rare coin that would fetch around 500 gold coins would "fill" the purse by itself).

Ahhhh that narrating is better. Matt toned it down a bit to strike this perfect balance between the laid-back nature of Dan that shaped the show and the energetic nature of Matt’s previous narratings. By putting his voice more on the laid-back side he was able to fit the nature of the show while at the same time being unique. Wonderful job. Also Zoey is just the best.

Man, is Matt's narration is growing fast on me! I have to admit I got a bit nervous when Dan left, but it's clear he passed the ball to really good hands!

A note on the "Re-Skinning" section at around 6:10 for a great example, look at Warframe. They are regularly bringing out new items, but then they go back and bring some of the old weapons/frames back as "Primed" versions (basically re-skin with slightly better stats) once you get that man it is nice, because they (mostly) LOOK cooler than a base version. I mean what sounds is better "Tigris" or "Tigris Prime"? :D

1:45 That illustration gave me X-Com flashbacks.