[Off-Topic] Community Chat Thread

[ISBPathfinder]

Wildly unrelated. If you could ask a member of the diversity team from Neon Dynasty a question, what would you ask?

I would be curious to know more about the design decision to make most of the previous big names into sagas. Just curious to see them as they are as they feel a bit more like memorials to those characters rather than a 2.0 version that we often get when revisiting and seeing the same character return.

[5colorsrainbow]

Wildly unrelated. If you could ask a member of the diversity team from Neon Dynasty a question, what would you ask?

For me it would be "For you personally where is line the between being authentic and putting your own spin when using a culture as an inspiration in a fictional setting".

Wildly unrelated. If you could ask a member of the diversity team from Neon Dynasty a question, what would you ask?

I would be curious to know more about the design decision to make most of the previous big names into sagas. Just curious to see them as they are as they feel a bit more like memorials to those characters rather than a 2.0 version that we often get when revisiting and seeing the same character return.

From a lore stand point this 1200 years after the first Kamigawa set and all the mortal characters are long dead. The sagas are partly memorials since they are the tale of those characters told in the present as part of keeping the traditions and history of Kamigawa alive.

[Janky_as_heck]

Wildly unrelated. If you could ask a member of the diversity team from Neon Dynasty a question, what would you ask?

So just finished that conversation, you all should give it a listen next friday

[ISBPathfinder]

Wildly unrelated. If you could ask a member of the diversity team from Neon Dynasty a question, what would you ask?

I would be curious to know more about the design decision to make most of the previous big names into sagas. Just curious to see them as they are as they feel a bit more like memorials to those characters rather than a 2.0 version that we often get when revisiting and seeing the same character return.

From a lore stand point this 1200 years after the first Kamigawa set and all the mortal characters are long dead. The sagas are partly memorials since they are the tale of those characters told in the present as part of keeping the traditions and history of Kamigawa alive.

Ok, but why put it 1200 years later? Was it an attempt at a clean break from what didn't work previously? I felt like some of the characters like Toshiro were very compelling and I would have loved to see more of him.

I am more curious as to why they did a clean slate rather than the fact that they did one.

[Venedrex]

I would be curious to know more about the design decision to make most of the previous big names into sagas. Just curious to see them as they are as they feel a bit more like memorials to those characters rather than a 2.0 version that we often get when revisiting and seeing the same character return.

From a lore stand point this 1200 years after the first Kamigawa set and all the mortal characters are long dead. The sagas are partly memorials since they are the tale of those characters told in the present as part of keeping the traditions and history of Kamigawa alive.

Ok, but why put it 1200 years later? Was it an attempt at a clean break from what didn't work previously? I felt like some of the characters like Toshiro were very compelling and I would have loved to see more of him.

I am more curious as to why they did a clean slate rather than the fact that they did one.

As far as I understand, Maro had to fight to convince his superiors to return to a set that was poorly received in metrics, (yes I know we all love it here on Nexus, but that didn't matter to Wotc). In order to convince the higher-ups to go through with returning to what was considered a big "failure" of a set, he needed to agree to make it cyberpunk, at least halfway anyway. Woila.

[tstorm823]

Ok, but why put it 1200 years later?

Because lorewise, that's actually where the timeline lands. Original Kamigawa canonically took place over a millennia before the mending.

[RxPhantom]

Wildly unrelated. If you could ask a member of the diversity team from Neon Dynasty a question, what would you ask?

I suppose the ship has sailed, but I'd seriously ask them if they recognize WotC's propensity for only including high numbers of non-white characters in planes where it could be considered part of the theme. My point is that Magic is overwhelmingly white unless they're on an 'Asian' plan like Kamigawa or Tarkir, or the 'African' part of Dominaria (Jamuraa) etc.

I'm being cynical, but it seems like the diversity team could have an important perspective here.

[duducrash]

My point is that Magic is overwhelmingly white unless they're on an 'Asian' plan like Kamigawa or Tarkir, or the 'African' part of Dominaria (Jamuraa) etc.

And I think the majority of non white representation lore wise comes from Asian culture. And from what I understand it's from a fetishized place, the recent war of the spark anime versions, then strixhaven japanese mystical archives japanese special versions and now this it has been too much I guess. And there are plenty of problems in the strixhaven representation itself, specially in the Killian, Ink Duelist and Dean Ambrose portrayals. It's super weird how they are focused on the japanese aesthetic and have been problematic lately.

I'm from Brazil. South america recently had back to back player of the year, perhaps the greatest single player in the games competitive history is from Brazil. We have a massive scene and have 0 representation in cards, it feels like its a bunch of white folks geeking over europe and some parts of asia and forget the rest of the world

[5colorsrainbow]

Ok, but why put it 1200 years later? Was it an attempt at a clean break from what didn't work previously? I felt like some of the characters like Toshiro were very compelling and I would have loved to see more of him.

I am more curious as to why they did a clean slate rather than the fact that they did one.

To add on what @ tstorm823 said, they released the Legends novels which had the story of Tetsuo Umezawa killing Bolas and later had Kamigawa being a around about prequel to that novel with Toshiro being sent to Dominaria at the end of the Kami war and from him came clan Umezawa which lead to Tetsuo. So the original Kamigawa stories where set years in the past from the "present" of the original Mirrodin and Ravnica. When deciding to retune to Kamigawa (see below) they lined it up with the current present in the story which is ~1200 years later.


@Venedrex other way around. They decided to do a futuristic cyberpunk Japanese inspired set and didn't plan on it to be Kamigawa (it was a possibility since members there are members of wotc who wanted to try a second go at Kamigawa but they went into it with the mindset of this would be a new plane). When trying to find a conflict/theme for the world very early on, they came across the theme of modern vs traditional (also found in a lot of Japanese media ) and someone said the plane should be Kamigawa with the traditional side playing into old Kamigawa and the modern could be the cyberpunk side, This idea let them sell Kamigawa as we now see it.

The 1200 years really helped with selling the shift in tech, but that was more of a coincidence.

[RxPhantom]

@duducrash, those are excellent points. There does appear to be a popular preoccupation with an exaggerated version of Japanese culture. I suppose the closest we've come to any South American cultural touchstones is Ixalan, that is to say not close at all.

[DirkGently]

Well, I'm downloading Elden Ring. Do I meet the minimum requirements? Nope. Fingers crossed.

I dunno who decided how graphics cards get numbered, but I have nothing but seething hatred for them.

[Janky_as_heck]

Wildly unrelated. If you could ask a member of the diversity team from Neon Dynasty a question, what would you ask?

I suppose the ship has sailed, but I'd seriously ask them if they recognize WotC's propensity for only including high numbers of non-white characters in planes where it could be considered part of the theme. My point is that Magic is overwhelmingly white unless they're on an 'Asian' plan like Kamigawa or Tarkir, or the 'African' part of Dominaria (Jamuraa) etc.

I'm being cynical, but it seems like the diversity team could have an important perspective here.

This did come up in answer to a couple of the questions during the interview, not in the detail a direct question like yours would have prompted but it was related to some of the questions they answered for us.

[Janky_as_heck]

My point is that Magic is overwhelmingly white unless they're on an 'Asian' plan like Kamigawa or Tarkir, or the 'African' part of Dominaria (Jamuraa) etc.

And I think the majority of non white representation lore wise comes from Asian culture. And from what I understand it's from a fetishized place, the recent war of the spark anime versions, then strixhaven japanese mystical archives japanese special versions and now this it has been too much I guess. And there are plenty of problems in the strixhaven representation itself, specially in the Killian, Ink Duelist and Dean Ambrose portrayals. It's super weird how they are focused on the japanese aesthetic and have been problematic lately.

I'm from Brazil. South america recently had back to back player of the year, perhaps the greatest single player in the games competitive history is from Brazil. We have a massive scene and have 0 representation in cards, it feels like its a bunch of white folks geeking over europe and some parts of asia and forget the rest of the world

The popularization and exposure of Japanese culture being predominantly through media got mentioned as well, but I can't do the answer justice in a response like this. I really encourage everyone to listen next week. Despite the fact that it may sound otherwise, I'm not just trying to plug the podcast lol. It was a great conversation and very informative

[Airi]

Well, I'm downloading Elden Ring. Do I meet the minimum requirements? Nope. Fingers crossed.

I dunno who decided how graphics cards get numbered, but I have nothing but seething hatred for them.

I wish you luck, it's a 10/10 game.

I just wish I sucked less at it.

[Lifeless]

I miss cheat codes.

[DirkGently]

I wish you luck, it's a 10/10 game.

I just wish I sucked less at it.

I managed to get through all the dark souls games, demons souls (the old one) and most of bloodborne. So this time I'm going to try to beat it without looking anything up.

I just hope shields are good lol. My love for these games is always proportional to how effective blocking is.

[TheGildedGoose]

I just hope shields are good lol. My love for these games is always proportional to how effective blocking is.

Same. I beat Dark Souls with a cheesy spear and shield combo. I've found my tactic for Souls games is attrition and patience.

[DirkGently]

Hell yeah team spears forevah!

[Airi]

I usually go for the super boring sword and board combo, but I'm all in on bows this go around. Ammo management is a pain though.

[vandertroll]

Wildly unrelated. If you could ask a member of the diversity team from Neon Dynasty a question, what would you ask?

''How does it feel to work for such a gimmicky business unit?"

I mean I was hoping for a constructive question but

Um, I wasn't trying to make fun of you or something, apologies if it came out this way. That would be a genuine question of mine.

[Janky_as_heck]

''How does it feel to work for such a gimmicky business unit?"

I mean I was hoping for a constructive question but

Um, I wasn't trying to make fun of you or something, apologies if it came out this way. That would be a genuine question of mine.

No need to apologize, it's hard to read tone through text.

[ISBPathfinder]

I miss cheat codes.

Now they are just unintentional bad programming rushed to production and found by the internet in ways that makes 99% of the game players groan.

[Shabbaman]

I dunno who decided how graphics cards get numbered, but I have nothing but seething hatred for them.

This is indeed one of the weirdest marketing tricks.

[DirkGently]

4 bosses yesterday, 3 so far today.

I swear I used to be better at this lol. I guess it's just getting used to new movesets.

[pokken]

So my work does this teambuilding thing on Fridays and a couple people are nominated to do two truths and a lie. One of my truths was that Alice Cooper and his team asked us to record a song for his Christmas Pudding charity music contest thing - we didn't win, but they really liked our cover of Lennon's Happy Xmas and put us on the compilation album.

(Of course I ocd'd it and did research and every example was very particular and detailed).

Anyway in the process I found that that contest album is on spotify, so I actually have a single on spotify which is pretty cool Not my best playing ever, but it was the first thing I ever tracked in a studio and happened to be 12/8 with a new drummer, and the recording guy was in a super hurry so I got 3 tries

That was super cool to find →