Sad Goth Girl And The Treehouse Pajamas

If there's one thing I have to say about Dragon Nest 2: Evolution it's that for a game that's supposedly predicated on making money by selling you stuff, they sure are generous with the free samples. I've only been playing for a few days and my character's already better-looking than many I've played for years - or ever - in other games.

It's all happening so fast I'm finding it hard to keep up. It's certainly too much to report as it happens. In the last few, short sessions I've acquired four pets, two outfits and a pair of wings. And they all look great!

Thanks to a weird glitch when I logged in on Sunday, I can offer a benchmark illustration of what my character looked like when she started. For some reason, the game reverted to the default appearance until I rebooted Bluestacks and this is what I used to look like in the dim, distant past of a few days ago:

Ah, the sweet innocence of youth. Although I see I still have my sad goth girl fairy pet.

She's not called Sad Goth Girl for real. I wish! She's not even a fairy. She's officially my Swan-Like Elf pet, which is weird, there not only being nothing remotely swan-like about her but also because my character is an elf, too. It's like a human having a pet human. I think there's a name for that...

Here's a close-up, taken earlier as you can tell because I'm wearing my Ranger outfit. (I'm just going to use "I" and "my character" and "she" interchangeably from now on and not just in this post, either. It's really too much trouble, trying to keep my pronouns straight and if I want to identify as an elf, is it any business of yours? (I do not want to identify as an elf. Let's just make that clear right now...))

Did you also notice Swan-Like Sad Goth Fairy-Elf is wearing a crown? It adds yet another layer of mystery. Have I somehow enslaved a member of the elven royal family? Or is it just an affectation, like when King wears that crown from Burger King in the first episode of The Owl House so he can call himself King of the Demons?

(That's what Douglas Coupland called tele-parabalizing, by the way. I'm re-reading Generation X, something that will no doubt feed into a future post or two. It's a handy neologism. Pity it never caught on.)

Another thing that happened during the glitch was this. I got abducted by aliens. 

No, not really. This is actually a mount. I wish it was my mount but it's not. Not any more. When I couldn't get my outfit to display properly I tried mounting up to see if that might shift something and instead of my Angelic Sheep I got this. 

I've seen people flying about in these things. There's a ray-gun that flips out from the underneath and swings about in a vaguely threatening manner. It took me a few goes to get it in shot. In some of the pictures I discarded you could see my foot sticking out of the bottom of the spaceship. Shoddy alien tech!

I didn't get to keep the spaceship but I do get to wear this baseball outfit whenever I want. There's a baseball cap that comes with it but it goes on backwards, something that always makes anyone look like a dick. It's a look even an elf can't carry off so I'm sticking with the bunny ears. Everyone knows those are cool.

The baseball outfit comes from some login event or holiday or something. I'm already losing track and the game's only just started. There's an actual Summer Beach Party thing going on but it's cash-shop only so I haven't been able to make myself look like this.

Probably just as well. Honestly, I'd be embarassed to post a picture like that if it wasn't that I've played Final Fantasy XIV and everyone seems to find it perfectly acceptable there. And anyway, I've got something even more awkward to show you later.

But first: wings!

Every game needs wings but not every game knows how to do them. Guild Wars 2 definitely doesn't. I acquired several sets there over the years and not one of them fitted properly. It always puzzled me. The GW2 art department is generally top-class but when it comes to attaching accessories to character models it looks like they farm it out to the interns. 

My DN2:E wings fit perfectly. I got them from a new activity that opened up when I dinged 16. Don't ask me what it was. It has the word "feathers" in the title, I remember that much.

If I learn a bit more about how it works, maybe I'll do a post on it, but for now here's a shot of the Feather Insertion screen where you perform Feather Synthesis with the intention of making yourself some fancy wings. Out of feathers. What else?

I made some and when I'd finished they looked like this:

As you can see, they fit me like I was born with them. Not like I got them for a hen party with a budget of "Don't spend more than $5. We all know it's not going to last".

It's a look I'd happily have settled for but this game doesn't like for you to just settle. Before I even had time to appreciate how great I was looking I was already opening the chest with my next outfit inside. 

Remember I said I had something awkward to share?

I'll warm up to it with the description. Make of this what you will.

Nervous? You probably should be. I was.

I mean, we've all wanted to skip school to spend the day in a treehouse in our PJs. That's a normal thing normal people want, right?

As it turns out, it's all quite innocent. Well, relatively-speaking, although what dictionary they must have been using if this is their definition of the word  "pajamas" beats me. 

To my eye, it looks more like something you'd put on to go to a party than anything you'd sleep in. A little dressy for a treehouse, too. It also really does not go with those boots, as you can see from the shot below. Swan-Like Elf can't bear to look.

It's not without its charm, all the same. I'm hoping there might be some slippers still to come. Or maybe some actual pajamas. It does say it's part of a set and this is just the top.

We'll just have to see what I get next time I log in. There's almost bound to be something.