The Dream Is Over

What did you do after lunch on Christmas Day? I played video games! 

Well, one video game: Wuthering Waves. I managed to get in a longish session, right after we finished Christmas lunch and Mrs Bhagpuss and Beryl were both comatose with food exhaustion. We'd done all our socialising before the big day so it was just the three of us, which is how we like it. 

We'd opened all our (Many!) presents, taken Beryl for a walk, cooked and eaten lunch and done everything except pull the crackers which, once again, we forgot. Seriously, we've had the same box - a dozen Moomin-themed crackers - for at least three years now and I think we've maybe pulled four of them. I even said on Christmas Eve that we mustn't forget again. And then we forgot!

Anyhoo... getting back to the point and without any more uneccesary biographical detail, what happened was I sat down in front of the PC, wondering what to play and decided it ought to be Wuthering Waves. There was an event I wanted to do.

It's called Depths of Illusive Realm and it's been running for weeks. I mentioned it in the last post I wrote about the game, which was all the way back in November, when I said I'd done the first chapter. Back then, it seemed like there'd be more than enough time to get it all done but time has an unfortunate habit of passing and it was dawning on me that there might not be all that much of it left, at least where this particular event was concerned.

The "Caution- Wet Surface" sign's a nice touch - but shouldn't it be on the ceiling?

Even though it's there or thereabouts my favorite game of the year (There may be a post on Favorites of the Year if I can get it together to collate the lists and write it.) I hadn't really played much Wuthering Waves since mid-November. I did get in a couple of unreported sessions, taking me well into The Black Shores, but as I keep mentioning, my game-playing is at an historic low in the lifetime of the blog just now. My spotty attendance record is no reflection on Wuthering Waves itself, just more evidence of a general decline in gaming activity (Whatever Steam says to the contrary.)

Even so, my attitude to Wuthering Waves is puzzling. I've been pondering on exactly why it might be that I play the game in such a sporadic fashion, given it's supposed to be my gaming crush of the moment.  I think I've figured it out (And I know I've said it before.). It's because it doesn't actually feel like playing a game at all. It's more like watching a movie.

Every time I play I have a really great time but most of it is watching cut scenes and enjoying the story. There's a fair amount of button-pressing to keep the dialog moving and there are always a few fights sprinkled in, along with some puzzles to solve, all of which tends to be quick and easy enough not to interrupt the narrative flow. Once in a while there's a Big Boss Fight, which can put a bit of a damper on things from my perspective but even those generally aren't too off-putting. I could do without them, personally, but I've experienced far worse in lots of other games.

In a two or three hour session, though, it feels like at least two-thirds of the time is spent watching other characters do stuff and listening to other characters talk to each other. That makes it feel distinctly like watching an anime TV show or a movie, albeit with interactive elements.

Not for the first time, I sense someone's personal experience leeching into the plot.

The sensation is enhanced by the enigmatic portrayal of the player-character. The developers went for a peculiar design aesthetic: a weird see-sawing between a silent protagonist and an almost omniscient narrator. 

At times, my character just nods, makes gestures and looks vague. At others, she has full, voice-acted dialog. When she does speak, it's often in voice-over, revealing her private thoughts and giving her interpretations on what's happening. It feels like the actor's commentary in the extras on a DVD.

The overall effect is that if I get stuck into the storyline and finish a standalone section, like a chapter or even a whole event, I come away feeling more like I watched a movie than played a game. It's satisfying but it take a while before I feel like doing it again.

Alternatively, if I just potter around, doing shorter side quests and dailies or just exploring the gorgeous world, then it feels much more like playing a game. That's fun but it doesn't progress my character anything like as much as the main storyline quest would. It's a bit of the old Catch 22.

All of which is really much more my problem than anything the game is doing wrong. I'm also aware that I'm not approaching the whole enterprise in the way the developers would expect. I think I'm supposed to press on through the story tothe end and then do a lot of repeititive "content", like in every other live service game. I just never seem to get the hang of it.

They do keep an eye on this sort of thing, fortunately. There are frequent surveys and questionaires you can opt in to complete and many of the questions revolve around playstyles and preferences. I get the feeling they're doing what they can to accomodate everyone.

Suure... until you murder me!

I'm veery happy to give my input. I completed a survey just recently that had multiple questions concerning how much combat there should be in story quests, how hard it should be and so on. Naturally I expressed a preference for the minimum possible interruption to the story but I fear it may be a minority opinion. 

Based on past experience with multiple games, my impression is that the more hardcore players think they are, the more they complain and those who make the most noise are likeliest to have an influence on how the game develops. In-game surveys at least make some attempt to garner a range of opinions although there's still a strong element of self-selection.

With that in mind I always expect things to get more annoying rather than less as a game ages but after my time with the current event on Christmas Day I'm mildly optimistic my fears may prove to be unfounded, at least in this case. I was able to finish the whole of the event storyline, which is substantial, in a couple of sessions, mainly because it turned out it had been tuned to make it impossible to lose any of the significant fights, even the big finish with the final boss.

It took me a while to figure that out. A while back, I did some very necessary work on upgrading my combat capabilities and it paid off to some extent. Even so, I'm still extremely bad at this kind of action combat so having better gear is only ever going to get me so far.

Nevertheless, I was winning all my fights quite handily - until I ran into one opponent who seemed to be determined to give me a really good thrashing. I kept expecting to die but somehow I never quite did and when the victory finally came, it was by the slimmest conceivable margin - my character had just a single hit point left.

It all happens so fast , it's only in the screenshots I get to see who we were fighting.

I was so surprised, I took a screenshot to prove it, although I can't find it now. It just wasn't, as I thought, amazing good luck. It was because, as I eventually figured out, the event has been designed to make it literally impossible to lose. 

In the finale, you have to battle the main villain, who summons several boss mobs from earlier in the game, resulting a string of explosive, confusing and spectacular fights. I spent some considerable time in a couple of rounds hanging on by just a single hit point. But I never died. As far as I can tell, the player character can't die.

If I've gotten that right it's a very welcome design choice. It meant that I was able to enjoy the fights for once, instead of constantly worrying about having to start over. I don't mind relatively long boss fights so long as I'm certain I only have to do them once. 

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the story or gameplay in the outgoing event, save to say that I found it all excellent. The dialog was well-written, the voice acting was convincing, the plot was intriguing and the action was enjoyable. 

The story revolves around an attempted incursion of the Somnoire dreamworld into reality. Either that or it's a stare-down between a two cats. One or the other. Over several chapters we get to see the dreams of some established characters as well as those of a couple of newcomers, both of whom seem like fine additions to the ever-growing cast. As each dream is resolved (They all feature anxiety issues or something similar.) that character takes a place in the deserted railway cariage until finally there's a full team, ready to go take on the villain behind the whole thing.

Camellya: Rover's flirty frenemy, the one who ends every fight dangling from some kind of sex-swing. Or that's what it looks like. Maybe it's just me...

It's an excellent conceit and structuraly I found it very satisfying. Who doesn't enjoy getting the team back together? 

I had a lot of fun. It made for a highly entertaining Christmas afternoon and a first-class alternative to watching The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which is what I'd have been doing if we'd followed our usual pattern and slumped on the sofa in front of whatever animated movie the BBC had programmed for a stupified nation to sleep through after Christmas lunch

I'm not sure if the Illusive Realm narrative content will disappear from the game entirely, when the event comes to an end a few days, or whether it's just the ancillary content that will go. I hope it stays. It's much too good to waste on a one-off apppearance.

Coming after is something much bigger than a mere event. According to the official Wuthering Waves website, 2 January sees the launch of Wuthering Waves Version 2.0.

I'm still a bit vague on exactly what that entails. I'm hoping it's just a hyperbolic way of saying the game is getting even bigger, not that the current game is going to change. In my opinion it doesn't need to be mucked about with. It's more than fine as it is.

Having watched the trailer and skimmed the promotional material, it seems we'll be getting a new continent, Rinascita, along with something called the Echo Fiesta and something else called All Silent Souls Can Sing. The website is so much style over content, though, I can't be sure what any of it  means.

Whatever it turns out to be, I'll most likely get to it in a separate post, nearer the time. For now, I'm just reporting that I'm done with Depths of Illusive Realm. It was great and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Can't ask for more than that.