So What Color Is Your Techsecular Clear Medal?
“All right, we’re about to really dig into this update notice—bite it, tear it, taste it, savor it. But just in case anyone out there doubts my notice-analysis skills and feels like nitpicking or backseating, I’m going to emphasize one thing before we start.”
I threw my First Clear medal up on the screen, tipped my chin up a fraction, and declared:
“So. What color is your Techsecular clear medal?”
If you can’t play Raider better than I can, backseating is forbidden.
“Ah, there may be people who don’t realize just how much meaning is packed into that radiant, resplendent medal. I’m going to change the stream title properly.”
With that, I opened Notepad and started writing out title candidates one by one.
1. A high-class Raider update analysis, brought to you by the youngest Raider world champion
2. A high-class Raider update analysis, brought to you by the woman who plays Raider better than anyone in the world
3. A high-class Raider update analysis, brought to you by the genius pretty-girl gamer currently holding the Raider world champion title
“Which one’s best? Number one is nice—clean and plain—but doesn’t number three pull more aggro?”
The phrase genius pretty-girl gamer, especially, dropped dead center into Märchen’s strike zone.
Well…
“Because it’s the word that suits my stream best.”
“Or should we lean all the way into the aggro?”
I added a fourth candidate to the notepad.
The youngest Raider world champion who shocked the entire world!! Turns out she was a pretty Korean girl streaming for a major company?!
…This one might actually be pretty good too.
I ran back through candidates one through four one more time, and then I made my decision.
“…Let’s go with number three. ‘Genius pretty-girl gamer’ is a little more my taste.”
A high-class Raider update analysis, brought to you by the genius pretty-girl gamer currently holding the Raider world champion title
Aggro was nice, but throwing away high-class really would have been a waste. I looked at the finished product and gave a thoroughly satisfied nod.
“Title’s changed, so now we begin the actual notice analysis—but before that! For all you busy modern people, a three-line summary from the world champion who already scarfed the notice down!”
I typed a short little phrase into Notepad and blew the font up enormous.
“I’m full!”
“Plenty of games just toss the game at you at launch and more or less abandon it until the first big update, you know?”
I said it while scrolling down, nice and slow, so the viewers could feel the length of the scroll for themselves.
“So I’d say this is plenty filling.”
All right. Three-line summary: done. Time for the actual point.
“First, the most important thing—the pickup!”
…A sigh escaped me on its own.
Was I sighing because they botched the pickup character’s design? No. They’d actually nailed it. I ran an expert’s eye over the character PV that dropped with the update notice, and while it wasn’t quite a home run, it was a clean double. Well designed. The thighs and the ass, especially, were outrageous—outrageous enough that they wouldn’t lose by much even set beside the games that own the tier-one thigh meta and the tier-one ass meta.
Then what, exactly, was the problem?
“Honestly, this is the part of the update I like least. They designed Afaneru that well, and the pickup isn’t Afaneru? This is straight-up consumer fraud!”
I was yelling, and I still couldn’t burn the anger off, so I slammed the desk a couple of times.
“I’m telling you, the eight-billion-strong Elf Corps needs to rise up over this.”
For the record, the figure of eight billion already accounted for potential members. Somewhere in every person’s heart, a love of elves had to be sleeping…!
“So if you’re watching right now—and all you future members of the eight-billion Elf Corps who’ll catch this later on YouTube—join the Märchen fan cafe this instant and post a wish thread on the wish board begging them to implement Afaneru! Unity! Struggle! This is the only way we get Mayor Afaneru into the game!”
And even after all that, the wish posts still weren’t coming?
…Then I’ll just upload a ten-hour Spirit Bomb video to YouTube. What else can I do.
Abandoned. I could not tolerate a word with such impure intent hiding inside it. I shook my head and made my position clear.
“If a standard character fought as part of the First Clear party and got written into history, they’ve lived out a full life. …So if Afaneru gets implemented later and Yurie gets pushed aside, that isn’t abandonment. It’s natural death, isn’t it?”
I said it, but I hoped Afaneru wouldn’t actually push Yurie out.
…Because if she was going to show up, I was hoping she’d be a melee character.
The sightseeing—no, the analysis—of the new pickup, the richest yolk of this whole update, was finished. If the rest had been empty calories, I never would have handed down a three-line verdict of I’m full.
I kept reading the notes aloud. Minor quality-of-life improvements. A free four-star character. Housing content. And—
“Weekly boss content has been added!”
Right. I’d figured they would recycle the boss. They’d made it that well, and they were going to use it once and throw it away? Far too wasteful. They hadn’t simply copy-pasted Techsecular into the weekly boss, of course. They’d split phase one and phase two, added a handful of new patterns to each, and reborn the fight as two bosses.
“Since they split the phases, the fatigue per clear should definitely be lower, right? And the new patterns ought to take some of the copy-paste sting out of it.”
Content like this was also appealing because it could serve as a partner for the veterans’ concept runs.
“And apparently the weekly boss doesn’t drop a clear medal. They’ll be careful about adding competitive elements…. Something like that, I suppose?”
…Thank god. No matter how you sliced it, spraying a nosebleed every single week was a little… yeah.
“The free four-star, the housing content, and the weekly boss can all be accessed after you clear their respective substories.”
Substories…. I hoped they’d be fun to watch. Holding on to that hope, I checked the chat.
“Should’ve been born a pretty girl if you had a problem with it. If it were a pretty girl, I would’ve thought long and hard before I caught it. For real.”
I kept talking for a few more minutes as I worked through the notes, and eventually the scrollbar refused to go any farther. Enough time had passed, and this would make a perfectly good YouTube video. Time to wrap it up.
“And that’s a look ahead at everything updating next Tuesday! Both the housing and the weekly boss look pretty usable as stream content, you know? I’m already excited! …So Afaneru is in the next pickup, right? I’m counting on you!”
…Okay. Cut.
Now I’d put in a request to edit the update-notice video ahead of everything else, so it could go up on YouTube before next Tuesday’s patch. And then…!!!
“I’m going to do a little advance prep for the housing content.”
…It was time for the grind. I had no idea what I’d need, so for now the plan was to farm whatever I could get my hands on and stockpile it. Right?