It's been a huge pleasure having everyone's help with that process and I'm looking forward to beating on the poor Downtown quest the same way. We're coming for you, Downtown!

On a personal note, I'm about halfway through my course of treatment for the blood stuff I alluded to on Patreon (and, you know, with the Halloween theming this year). I'm doing a lot better by comparison, but we'll find out early next year if the treatment has stuck or if I'll need to go straight into the next line of treatment.

Still, there are good days now, so I'll be focusing on smaller stuff until then. Depending on the actual number of good days, that potentially means stuff like the first new unearthly item in quite a while, new routes through early quests, and little crafting packages.

Cheers!
Kinak

Einherjar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einherjar

Not sure that fits:

In Norse mythology, the einherjar (singular einheri; literally "army of one", "those who fight alone")[1][2] are those who have died in battle and are brought to Valhalla by valkyries. In Valhalla, the einherjar eat their fill of the nightly resurrecting beast Sæhrímnir, and valkyries bring them mead from the udder of the goat Heiðrún. The einherjar prepare daily for the events of Ragnarök, when they will advance for an immense battle at the field of Vígríðr.

There's a mention of "ressurecting", and "army of one" is a good description. So maybe.

—

I wonder if we would come back after getting cut to pieces or gutted, but this time under constant observation. I suppose somebody at Midgard had to have had that idea too, so the fact that they don't do it to us means something. Maybe it doesn't work … in a *spectacular* manner?

The player is "immortal" in some ways, like they can't really be killed. No matter how much damage we take or organs removed, we grow back. There are a few specific people like this in the world, the "Freaks" or "einherjars"(?). The Hammer is one:

"The Vigilante would call us Freaks. They say we're immortal. I'm not so sure… but you seem to stay together better than me. Maybe you're the new model year." He opens his mouth like he's about to start laughing, then winces and closes it again. ^ref

The burner combat on the Exec floor that shows up once we recover from being beaten up a couple times calls us "We found the N's einherjar! Light it up!".

Many of the high-up Midgard execs seem to have some sort of regenerative power too. Janet survives our killing her over and over. Most all of the AVP encounters show up repeatedly.

At some point Kinak mentioned that there's something going on with the spider lady or ladies in the Cellar Door. Not sure if it's one person showing up over and over again or multiple people. EDIT: Kinak confirms: "Those do actually represent multiple people. There is some text that may or may not have been uncovered to explain why the spider ladies are like that."

(Then there's the whole "reset" / slags maelstrom thing, which is obviously related somehow, but different from the above regeneration. We start a new "life" but still remember echoes of previous lives, eg. memories of the monocled man. It's not like every time we get killed we need to start over from day 1.)

Anyway, the part that is not clear to me yet is why you can kill the Executive Interrogation AVP but she doesn't get mad at you for doing so. I kill her once and she still greets me like it's the first time we met. Is this:

• a) Her re-birth process is a complete "reset" and she doesn't remember us killing her?
• b) There's a "backup" copy somewhere that doesn't remember the last few hours before being killed? (Just watched Dollhouse recently - in that show people's memories can be backed up to a hard drive and restored, but they will only remember up to when they were last backed up.)
• c) She has mysterious reasons not to acknowledge the fact that we just killed her so as to hide her own immortality.
• d) There are multiple AVPs who kind of look the same and we keep running into different ones? (I get the impression this is how the Executive Procession works on the Call Center - we are not seeing the same AVP multiple times, we are seeing a number of different ones.) I think the Executive Interrogation AVP is the same person you meet over and over, but there's not specific evidence of that.
• e) Metroplexity is a videogame and there are some things that can't always be coded for.

Janet is the only named AVP you can kill repeatedly, and she did acknowledge once about not being dead after you killed her. So she knows that she has been "killed" by you at least.

Hmmm. Just writing all this out to get my thoughts in order.

There are still some tricks and treats around, but the very end of the Downtown Quest was a bit more than I could fit in with Halloween. I expect that to come out in a separate non-Halloween update (or maybe updates, I decided to ask that on Patreon).

There are also some squirrely lingering issues from the updates I had to do before Halloween. The bug hunt is, unfortunately, quite real in this case. Thank you all for your help reporting and troubleshooting those bugs as they came up, especially during the event.

Cheers!
Kinak

As I see it: it was a pretty niche game to begin with, and over time became more and more niche as web games went away, more mobile gaming, etc. I still enjoy finding new things to poke at and investigate, but I have 15 years of history with the game, I'm not sure how approachable it is to new people.

But for its current audience, the Patreon is still keeping it afloat, covering maintenance costs, some new updates. I think it's settled into a pretty slow but steady update plan. The last few halloweens have added new content to the main story line, and we anticipate access to the Executive floor of the Midgard Tower this year, which is close to the end of the main quest line.

Also, are there any plans for more interaction with the craters in the Slags?

The main crater in the slags is probably going to be the ultimate end to the main quest line - I think we'll jump down there eventually. Coming soon-ish??

Unasked-for advice: if you haven't already - I strongly recommend getting access to Downtown Midgard HQ for mid-October Halloween updates. Halloween has always been the gem of Mextroplexity events and will probably have long-lasting effects on the game.

Also, are there any plans for more interaction with the craters in the Slags?

Quick spading notes:

• The families will help out in HQ currently.
• There are a couple ways to prevent running away, but going to make that easier.
• Well Oiled Machine is available in Novos, no one has found it, and generally Novos is more tied to meat space.
• Currently up to opponent ID 319. I count about 289 opponents/opponent forms we know about, missing 30 or so, not bad.

Also, I mentioned working on the "Breath of the Wild remake" when I meant "Skyward Sword remake." Never got to work on BotW or the sequel they've got in development now.

Cheers!
Kinak

First, a few questions resurrected from the previous podcast thread:

• Since cooking is a thing, any thoughts on adding pumpkins that we can make things from, maybe for next Halloween?

• We've determined that our original thoughts on the cellular differentiation report, that results were based on active effects, was wrong, and that the effects in question just happened to overlap with more diverse triggers. That leaves us with an extremely broad set of possibilities for the third skill… any chance for a hint that might narrow things down?

• With the classic writing desk, would you say that drawing enemies into our "hollow world" might be a productive use of energy?

• Some friends and I were chatting about potential weapons in Cyberpunk 2077, and the sci-fi trope of archaic weapons using super science materials came up. Over here in Metroplexity we've already got a bunch of blades, but what are your thoughts on having a few bows/crossbows and related techniques?

• If you had to pick some element of the game (like an item, effect or encounter) that you think could use some more spading work, what would it be?

New questions!

• Anything to talk about as far as unearthly items go? I think there was at least some thought given to a spear of some sort, right?

• Should we expect to find ways to get new types of mailroom receipts, once we make our way further into Midgard HQ?

• Is there some way to determine if it's safe to let out a caged mouse without going ahead and doing it? I did previously manage to get one to not run away and grant Tame Mouse, but petting still didn't seem to work very well, so I'm not sure at what point it happened.

• How has Metroplexity as a game been faring? Actually quite a nice uptick in Gang Warfare lately.

Midgard HQ questions!

• Do the various factions I've aligned myself with help in Midgard HQ yet?

• How do you encounter the Huge Rat in the parking garage? It's very elusive even trying for it on purpose.

• We've seen CD4 hounds now.
  • The janitor mentions CD3 hounds, will we see those as an opponent?
  • What designation are the normal Drone Hound enemies? CD1?
  • The serving drone must be part of the HD line - what's its designation?

• Is there anything we can do to get more intact IDs instead of deactivated IDs from combat drops?

• Are there any packages or letters we can open with the package opener or ornate letter opener?

Other questions!

• I would love to document Opponent ID numbers. An excuse to re-fight every opponent in the game would be neat way to reinvigorate a lot of old content. Any chance?

• Is there any way to prevent opponents from running away? Seems only fair.

• Can you say anything about the change to the mushroom cave so we now see Mushroom Warriors? How did that work originally?

• A couple years ago, I asked about the cooking update that added strawberries, crocodile tails, and a third delicious ingredient. You gave a hint: "It's not little". We haven't found anything. Any hints at where to look?

• Is there a Shield Of Scales avatar?

• With the addition of dry ice and the Bracing Cold effect, does that make the winter's reflection in the antique floor mirror any different?

• Is Well Oiled Machine effect still available? It was from pre-Novos hacking.

• Do the echo capacitors do anything now? They are still for sale.

Post your questions here. I'll go through the thread and record a podcast answering them. I know it's been a while, or might be your first podcast thread, but please remember to make your questions as succinct as you can (because I'll be reading them for the first time "on air") and try not to crosstalk or answer each other's questions (because I'll just get confused).

Cheers!
Kinak

For some recent stuff worth looking into, you might want to check out the changes involving Mikhail, Sato, and Andrea. They're all ways to use up items that might be cluttering your inventory. Mikhail lets you turn in some fish for a few credits once per day, including stuff that's usually not worth making sushi from. Sato can be worth a bunch of credits. He takes a number of things on a rotating basis, but a lot of them just require ballistic plastic or hardened plastic plus a few armory components. And if you run out of hardened plastic, you can still make a net profit buying and salvaging plastic figurines for it. With Andrea, you can turn items directly into Will XP and potentially limnology videos, which grant Perception XP, a technique, and some quest recipes.

If you want to catch up on any unearthly items, I'd recommend the Eye for Bugs skill. Once you turn it on, as long as you have some bug cages available you'll over time passively accrue a collection of bugs with some useful buffs. The rarer ones might take a little actual effort, using the bug net and such, but once the skill is worked up a bit you should be able to get the 'normal' ones on a fairly regular basis.

If the setup is more like last year's, there was some use for the Pickpocketing skill as well.

Hypothetically, if someone were to return to one's favourite game after, you know, a while, what should one check out?

Cheers!
Kinak