Floppy Ears

• Spelunker, very tired • Anthropologist, cheery and bubbly • Archivist, socially awkward • Explorer, full of anxiety • Entertainer, justifiably cocky • Arcanist, warm and inviting • Sailor???, strange and spacey

Strong characterization but poor character writing. Characters typically feel very much like their character, but their actual moments are either purely functional (like talking about what we should do next) or very tropey (excess snark, cliche'd interactions). Individual motivations are also all over the place.

Wildly inconsistent pacing and tone. The story feels like its written at a very constant tempo so that all beats, regardless of emotion or importance, all take up similar amounts of time, which by this point make the lighter bits feel drawn out and boring and the more serious bits too skimmed over and low impact.

Good at setting up intrigue, bad at following through. Mysteries tend to be very gripping but end up resolved as either the obvious thing, a hard left turn swerve out of nowhere, or being dropped. All three make caring about the intrigue (and by extension the story) a waste of time.

Relatedly: endings are too clean. They will happily imperil everything and risk the status quo all day long, but then, at the end, plot lines tend to resolve in ways that are extremely clean and ensure minimum consequences for the good guys and, consequently, minimum catharsis for the player.

Honestly, as my most-played MMO and as a narrative critic, I could probably go on for hours like this.

Absolutely hates getting dirty. Really got to let his hair down for the Crystal Desert thanks to how easy it is to clean off sand.

Cannot function in a group, collapsing into a puddle of nerves and diminished self confidence.