analysis – The Daily SPUF

Player Housing: WoW vs. FFXIV

February 3, 2026February 3, 2026 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, comparison, customization, Final Fantasy XIV, house, mmo, rpg, world of warcraft, wow

World of Warcraft has recently made waves in the gaming sphere by finally adding housing! Arguably one of the most requested features since the game first released in 2004, it’s crazy to see it finally come to light 22 years later. And even more exciting, it is (by all accounts) quite good! I’ve heard nothing but glowing reviews from those who got to sample the closed beta or PTR version, though I myself have kept my sub suspended for my own productivity. But Blizzard, perhaps anticipating the recalcitrance of fair-weather gamers such as myself, has cleverly offered a free weekend… [Continue Reading]

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What’s the BEST Commoner You Can Make in D&D 5e?

August 10, 2025November 29, 2025 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, d&d, dnd, Dungeons & Dragons, dungeons and dragons, Filler, gaming, math, roleplaying, rpg, ttrpg

This is the sort of dumbass question I love to wrap my head around instead of interacting with my hobbies in an even remotely normal way. Meet the Commoner. Has to be probably the saddest statblock you ever did see. Zeroes in every ability, no skills or proficiencies, a single weapon and its the worst one in the game… D&D 5e has a pretty sorry opinion on the most basic building block of any medieval setting. While there are plenty of things to say about the developers’ rather reductive attitude towards a group of historically quite hardy individuals (I bet… [Continue Reading]

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D&D 5e: A Guide to Playing Level 0 Characters

October 14, 2022April 23, 2024 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, breakdown, Dungeons & Dragons, dungeons and dragons, guide, level 0, roleplaying, rules

Did you know D&D 5e actually has an official method for generating 0th-level characters? The Adventurer’s League module “What’s Past is Prologue” stars classless characters, and you can view the rules for generating your own in the free preview. I was pretty excited to learn this, as the ‘level 0 session’ is a popular unofficial method for playing underpowered ‘commoner runs.’ Today I wanted to talk about this niche ruleset, its pros and cons, and whether you should use it. Should you use Level 0 characters? My first caveat is that you should not run level 0 characters for beginning… [Continue Reading]

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The Original Doom: Does it Hold Up?

February 7, 2021June 23, 2021 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, doom, doom II, retrospective

Since Team Fortress Classic was my first-ever multiplayer game, I’d actually never played the original Doom. Doom took the entire gaming industry by storm and forever changed the future of shooters. But thanks to the never-ending quarantine, plus getting addicted to speedrunning videos like the ones on Karl Jobst’s YouTube channel, I finally purchased and played through Doom and Doom II. While I know I’m not breaking any new ground with this incredibly-hot take, I think they may be two of the greatest games I’ve ever played. Still Badass It was truly eye-opening to go back and see these two seminal… [Continue Reading]

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The current state of Destiny 2 – Content Removal Edition

September 19, 2020September 13, 2020 Spectre 2 Comments analysis, destiny 2, dlc, expansion, rant, rework

As you might have heard through multiple news sources, Destiny 2 is getting a massive rework on November. One concerning fact is that 4 locations are becoming inaccessible after Beyond Light. Before we get into why is this happening we got to take a look at the bigger picture regarding how many barriers are set up for new players and how much relevant content you can play currently. A quick recap on the story: To address the elephant in the room, those monolithic Pyramids were part of the main plot on the Shadowkeep expansion. One derelict was found buried under… [Continue Reading]

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Differentiating Maps Through Gameplay, part 2

September 17, 2020September 17, 2020 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, comparison, design, maps, payday, payday the heist

Previously I used Left 4 Dead 2 to showcase “thematic gameplay“, a development philosophy whereby each map in the game gets a subtle tweak to the core gameplay loop to make it feel different from the rest the game has to offer. Payday the Heist is actually another masterclass in this philosophy, so to reinforce my point I thought I’d discuss how a second title used thematic gameplay to create very memorable and distinguishable heists. 1. First World Bank First World Bank doesn’t really have any gimmicks, as it’s setting the baseline for the rest of the game. One after… [Continue Reading]

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Payday 2: On Perk Decks

September 10, 2020September 8, 2020 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, Filler, payday, payday 2, perk decks, skill

I wanted to write a quick article about perk decks in Payday 2, because I find them pretty fascinating as a concept. Not the fact that they exist (they’re identical in function to the level-up trees from Payday the Heist) but that they exist in conjunction to the standard character classes, each of which has a ton of random abilities and playstyles with different weapons, equippables, armors, and concealment levels. As someone who loves game design, I’ve spent way more time than I should trying to figure out what criteria Overkill put into deciding when an ability is worthy of a… [Continue Reading]

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An Odd Interaction Between TF2 Weapon Sheens and Decorations

August 30, 2020April 14, 2021 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, CSGO, customization, decorated, icons, killstreak, Team Fortress 2

I noticed something unusual (pardon the pun) after I added a violet killstreak sheen to my Totally Boned Scotsman’s Skullcutter. And before we continue, I shamelessly admit this is one of the most minor observations I’ve probably ever made in TF2. It’s not quite on the level of 500 characters on the wind you can only notice during a single taunt, but it would fit comfortably into that list of nitpick articles in the final paragraph. Anyway, after a couple different times visiting my Demoman loadout page, I realized the Skullcutter’s inventory icon was occasionally showcasing the purple sheen. It’d… [Continue Reading]

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Trying EverQuest in 2020

August 19, 2020October 10, 2020 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, everquest, Final Fantasy XIV, first thoughts, mmo, review, world of warcraft

Despite not considering myself an MMO kind of guy, I’ve somehow put in hundreds of hours in both World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14, mostly because they’re great games to play while plowing through my TV backlog on the second monitor. Both of them were highly influential games for their generation of MMOs, cornering the market by setting the standards many of their competitors would try and (for the most part, fail to) surpass. But they’re only two parts of the triumvirate. There’s a third game, one that first put 3D MMOs on the map. Most of the earlier… [Continue Reading]

Now for Something Completely Different

On the new Destiny 2 expansion – There is actually stuff to do!

November 2, 2018November 1, 2018 Spectre 0 Comments analysis, comparison, destiny, destiny 2, dlc, expansion, forsaken

So it’s been a while since I talked about the Destiny franchise. Almost a half year ago I bashed the new installment pretty hard on the downsides that featured, because there were… many. Truth be told, ever since a shiny refurbished exotic weapon quest was re-introduced on Destiny 2 back in July, the gameplay aspects gradually got better by the time the Forsaken expansion dropped. For this article I’ll be little more biased towards the positive side. Even though the game still has flaws here and there, I’ll save my long angry rant on the topic of duplicate exotics giving… [Continue Reading]

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