Origins of Christmas

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and hope you have a wonderful time. Being of American heritage, Christmas has always been a big event for me, and I'm happy to have a majority of my family being able to visit on these days. Traditionally, we eat scaled sausages and potato salat as our Christmas Eve meal, for I was grown and raised in the Suebian part of Germany, where its a common meal. On Christmas Day, however, we don't have any traditional meal and vary on the cuisine each year. Do you have any traditional Christmas meals? I have already received a wide range of different meals on my Twitter feed. The diversity in that regard is fascinating to me.

One of the major topics whenever Christmas approaches, concerns its historical origins and how its traditionally not a Christian feast. This is correct, although many informations tossed out there are only partially true. Several people have provided me with the thesis that Jesus wasn't born on the 25th of December but in July. In reality, this is an absolutely unproven thesis. The 25th of December seems unlikely, but July is anything but proven. Nobody cared for Christ's birth for he was only relevant once he preached around the age of 30.  Every provided date ultimately is nothing but speculation. So was it December? Or was it July? In a nutshell, we do not know and quite frankly never will know. We can, however, give an educated guess of the year he was born in. Scholars have located the date between 7 BC, the year in which Kepler discovered a constellation of the planets Mars and Saturn in the Pisces. And 4 BC, which was the year in which Herod the Great died. According to Matthew, he was born during his reign. Jesus, according to Luke, was around the age of thirdy when he publicly appeared for the first time as an adult. He further states this to be the 15th year of Tiberuis's reign which was the year 29 AD. Due to other sources we also know that Paul preached publicly during the late 40s and due to Nero's persecutions of Christians 64 AD we already know that they identified as such. So the date 7 to 4 BC does seem likely. The reason why they haven't been chosen as the year 0 is that Dyonisius Exiguus, who established the Common Era, used an extremely speculative methode to locate the year 0. It, in fact, is astonishing that he came as close as he did.

As for why we celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December: prior to 312 Emperor Constantine shared the faith of Sol Invictus, the god of sun. Prior to his victory against Maxentius he had an epiphany of a being he later identified as the Christian God and thus, he henceforth worshipped him. Now, take the epiphany with a grain of salt since those informations were provided by Christian historians. But nevertheless, Constantine undoubtedly promoted Christianity during the rest of his reign and raised his sons in the Christian faith. In order to connect to his old believe system and popularize Christ among the common people, he identified him with Sol Invictus. He built statues in Constanttinople which were ambiguous in its design, pagans saw Sol Invictus while Christians saw Christ. He also applied attributes to Christ such as the "light of the world" in order to strengthen the connection. Another step was to turn the traditional midsummer festival into Christ's supposed birthday. This was not just a feast in which Sol Invictus was celebrated as the sun, but also a feast other pagan tribes celebrated in regards to other gods. This gave Constantine the opportunity to popularize Christ among the common, pegan people, without giving them the impression of being forced into worshipping another god.

We can draw several conclusions from that assessment. We can abandon the idea of Christmas altogether, since it's existence in the Christian liturgy is nothing but a strategy to weaken pagan cults. Or, we can view Christmas as a traditional celebration which has been practiced by many peoples throughout our history. Which means that we don't necessarily need a religious background in order to enjoy Christmas. I personally tend to the later and wish you all once more a happy, merry Christmas and hope you have some wonderful days to come.

Sonys godawful 2018

Yesterday, we have taken a look at Nintendo and their performance 2018. Now, let's examine my personal disappointment of the year, Sony. Granted, there have been three good to great first party games, God of War (2018), Detroit: Become Human, and Spider Man (2018), on top of many good to great third party games which I do not give Sony any credit for, though. My major gripe lays with the image in which the company has presented itself the entire year. The aforementioned games where in release for quite some time and just happened to be finished this year. But what to we have in the pipes? Excluding The Last of Us 2, I don't have a single Sony-exclusive game I can currently look forward to. And if The Last of Us 2 will be published in 2019 isn't even certain. And unfortunately, I don't see anything being announced soon.

Their E3 2018 presentation was only decent, their Gamescom presence was atrocious, and next year they won't even be attending E3. What are they actually doing? Some speculate that most of their resources are channeled to their Playstation 5 announcement which will probably happen next year. This actually makes me even more displeased. If Sony doesn't focus on creating great games, but winning their dick measuring contest with Microsoft about who has the greatest specs (which is an uphill battle, for the PC will always win), this just showcases how weird Sony's priorities seemed to have become. On top of that, we had the Playstation Classic released. Which is probably under the worst consoles which have been launched in this century. Also, we experienced a long period in which Sony absolutely refused online play across all platforms, using awful excuses. And then the recent case of censorship on the Playstation 4 games which featured adulterated content. Sony was a complete disaster this year and I currently have little to no hope of this improving, giving that the Playstation 4 still sells like crazy.

I really don't know why many are so uncritical about Sony and just buy anything which has the Playstation label on it and isn't way over the top expensive, as was the Playstation 3. Honestly, the Playstation 4 launch was pretty awful in terms of games and still people drained the physical supplies so rapidly that it couldn't be found for months. But back then, Sony at least had the undoubtedly better product compared to the Xbox One and WiiU so I could understand the anticipation people had. Now though, Sony has the undoubtedly worst product. The Playstation 4 Pro boosts your power but doesn't hold a candle to PC performance, nor to the Xbox One X which manages to optimize most games very smoothly and actually uses true native 4K for several of their games. The Switch, while underpowered in comparison, has the portability aspect the PS4 Pro cannot deliver on. So why is the Playstation 4 still dominating the charts for months and will dominate them for months to come? Yes, it has great games and sweet exclusives, but between it and the PS 1 to 3 the number is rather limited. So you don't miss out on that many great games if you stick with a Switch/Xbox One X. I must wonder if their current success is really earned or if it's built on their contributions in the past people still reward them for. Anyway, Sony has to get their act together 2019 or else they risk losing many of these loyal fans. And now, creating a slightly more powerful console than the Xbox One X, just so you can use the phrase "most powerful console" on every advertisement won't cut it. I which that Sony shows me once more how passionate they are about video games and the industry surrounding it. Will they deliver? I'm skeptical, we'll see.

What's your take on Sony 2018?

Nintendo's underwhelmingly decent 2018

I just want to take time to apologize for the recent lack of updates. I had an entire Blogpost written depicting my first impressions of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in German and English. Unfortunately though, my entire post was lost and I was unable to repair it. My motivation on rewriting it, was rather limited which is why I haven't been posting anything. However, there has been a topic which I wanted to discuss for quite some time and that's how utterly disappointing this year was for the gaming community. Now, I'm not saying we haven't got fantastic games. Undoubtedly, games such as God of War, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Read Dead Redemption 2 have been great games which kept the community engaged. My criticism is not as much aimed towards the games released and more towards how the policies of the gaming companies negatively effect my prospect for 2019. I will first start of by taking a look at Nintendo. In the next couple of days I'll take a closer look at the other big companies and their contributions this year.

So, first of, we have Nintendo which had a decent year, at best. The most positive thing I can say is that third party support was really great for the Nintendo Switch this year and really helped in establishing it as a true competitor. Also, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is great. I would like to mention Pokémon Let's Go and Super Mario Party. But, as previously mentioned, the former has no long term motivation (my section regarding Pokémon Let's Gos abysmal postgame: https://nischara.blogspot.com/2018/12/pokemon-let-go-maingame-yeah-postgame.html),  whereas the later is lots of fun, but is extremely depended on certain occasions. The light-hearted gameplay is really fun while battling friends, but offers little to no motivation of playing by yourself. And unfortunately, the lack of a competitive scene doesn't provide helpful either. So we have one great and some decent to good first party games. Third party games were good, for the most part. The decision to include superfluous easy modes with overpowered characters in both, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and New Super Mario Bros. U, and label them as the only addition to the game, seems wasted potential. We also have a terrible online support which just fails on every level, but I might cover that in a separate post. So this was a really port-heavy year with only a few new released games. I'm not too upset, since 2017 was great and I can look forward to several anticipated games such as Yoshi and Fire Emblem which will be released in the early half of 2019. 2018 could have been better though and the online service really dragged this year down for Nintendo.

What's your opinion of Nintendo this year and what do you expect for 2019?

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Release; Piranha Plant & DLC-Character announcement

Today finally marks the day in which Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is released to the general public, after Mexican stores had already been selling the game for quite some time. From what I've seen, the story mode seems to be quite engaging and I'm looking forward to play and cover it, though this will have to wait until Sunday for I will first receive the game then. Over the last few days, the hype and anticipation felt for this game was inspiring to watch. I've seen tons of artists who manifested their anticipation in form of creative and engaging pieces of art. As somebody who was never the greatest fan of the Super Smash Bros. franchise (due to me being the worst player in existence with a skill level bellow an acorn) I myself was also carried away by enthusiasm due to the intensity the fandom conveyed. I applaud all those who creatively expressed their anticipation for Smash Bros., you guys and girls are awesome!

In case anyone wonders when and how Piranha Plant will be distributed: keep in mind that it's not a part of the six announced DLC characters but belongs to the original roster consisting of 70 fighters. Apparently, it will be released early 2019 and everyone who registers their game until January 31 of next year will receive it for free - which is actually a really cool preorder bonus compared to other games Nintendo and it's subsidiaries publish (I'm looking at you, Pokémon). After January 31, it will cost extra, though I have no clue how much since it doesn't belong to the Fighters Pass which will cost 24,99 in both, the US and Europe in their respective currency. Keep in mind, you will get six new fighters, stages and several new music tracks.

Yesterday's Video Game Awards announced the very first DLC character: Joker from Persona 5. Now, I don't have too many problems with that decision. Persona 5 definitely is one of the most popular games of the last few years, has a long tradition, and suits Nintendo's tradition of bringing together several Japanese IPs they themselves do not own, such as Square Enix's Final Fantasy, Konami's Metal Gear Solid, Sega's Sonic, Capcom's Megaman, Platinum Game's Bayonetta, and now Atlus's Persona. Honestly, the only major Japanese video game company missing at this point are Level-5 and Koei Tecmo. A hint that we might see a Ninja Gaiden or Dead or Alive character at some point? Perhaps, we shall see. I must say though that the franchises Nintendo picked to represent the other companies are great choices since they either have a history with Nintendo or thematically connect to them. However, I will admit, it's a bit weird to pick a franchise which, outside of Persona Q, was never on a Nintendo console. Might this indicate we'll see a Persona 5 port at some point? I honestly doubt it. It would fit wonderfully on the Nintendo Switch and it's standby feature (which is something I missed while playing it on my PS4) but I don't see any reason why they hadn't announced it together with the reveal of Joker. Surely, it should be easier to organize a port than to acquire complete rights for the character. But I might be wrong and I honestly hope I am because Persona translates so well to the Nintendo Switch and with Sony having their new headquarters in the U.S. and slowly Americanizing it's content, I could see why Atlus would probably consider focusing more on Nintendo.

What's your opinion about Joker? And how do you enjoy Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as for now?

Article 13

So, recently the entire internet has been all up in arms regarding the 13th article of the so called 'Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on copyright in the Digital Single Market'. The recent uproar is astonishing considering most of the major votes have already passed. On the 20th of June the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs approved of the rough draft of the proposal and pitched it to the European Parliament, which also approved an updated version of the rough draft on the 12th of September. Public opposition was first voiced on a larger scale once the YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki publicly voiced her concern and thus, tons of creators got all up in arms. Now, it's not too late for corrections since the exact wording of the proposal is still negotiated and will have to be approved by the European Parliament once more in January 2019. This instance shows though how dangerous it can be to isolate yourself from politics and think it won't have any effect on you. All those people could have known and publicly opposed the article at a way earlier stage if they hadn't had lived in their YouTube bubble, ignoring everything happening outside of said bubble.

A drawback of the public outcry first occurring upon Wojcickis call is that many share uninformed opinions and thus, endanger a educated debate about the proposal. Many adapt YouTubes narrative without second questioning it and without realizing that YouTube is not mainly concerned about the creators (which they spit on themselves on a regular basis) but about their business model not working anymore. The worst case scenario YouTube has highlighted that they might have to delete all private owned, European YouTube channels would be a deliberate decision of YouTube, not an unavoidable consequence after the proposal passes.

That said, article 13 indeed is very concerning and should be taken seriously. It basically shifts the responsibility for any kind of copyright infringement from the user to the domain in which the infringement occurs. Meaning that if a person shares copyrighted material on, for example, YouTube the rightholder can sue YouTube directly instead of only the infringer. This in return would mean that large companies such as YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram need to either purchase a license for users to share copyrighted material on their domain or ensure that nobody can use said material. According to the current draft, smaller domains must not comply with the law but, as for now, it is unspecified what accounts as "small" and "large".

The practical problem occurs when thinking about how those big companies should implement the proposed law. They only have three options:
1.) They acquire every single license in the world which is just absolutely impractical. Some years ago, YouTube had a rough negotiation with the central licensing company for music in Germany, the GEMA in which they also blocked all musical tracks for German viewers just in order to avoid any penalty fees, not because GEMA forced them to. In the end, they struck a deal. Of COURSE, itbis possible for YouTube to negotiate deals with larger companies. But what happens if you, a private corporation, draw your own comic "Donald Truck and the glorious toupee tape". YouTube then would have to avoid everybody from using the comic despite even knowing of its existence. This solution would only work if a selective few rightholders would own everything. Which we obviously don't want. We not only want competition but we also want everybody to be able to express their art online without requiring them to give up their rights. The opportunity of "broadcasting yourself" is one of the big advantages, YouTube and social media in general has to offer.

So that leaves us with option 2.) implementing content recognition technologies in order to filter out every material the domain does not have the license for. This is impractical because it still could not recognize if "Donald Truck and the glorious toupee tape" is original material of the uploader or infringed copyright of an unknown rightholder. This can set a dangerous precedent in which material is heavily filtered in order to met the high standards. Which, in the end, will cause the freedom of speech and expression to be limited because the recognition technology will more than often not be able to distinguish a proper use of material from an improper use of one. In fact, YouTube already has a similar technology and in the video game community, false flags are the norm and happen way too frequently.

Since this solution is also impractical, this only leaves option 3.) ban all privately owned European accounts from posting anything since the time and effort to either hustle after a bizillion licenses or program ridiculously expensive recognition technology which won't work properly anyway just isn't worth it. So the scenario the YouTube CEO paints isn't that unrealistic - it would just be YouTubes own decision because they feel it just isn't worth it.

And now, we must address the real elephant in the room which encompasses my biggest concern with article 13 and the proposal as a whole: up to this day, Europe still does not have a proper Fair Use Law implemented and the lack of such a law encompasses so many problems. For years, every European content creator tried to emulate the American creators by using transformative content. And yes, I'm saying "every European content creator" consciously since technically speaking, even using an artwork or a screenshot in any giving situation regardless of the context is copyright infringement and I'm sure every content creator, regardless of how original they are, has used something around the lines on some occasion. Citation rules still apply singularly to written words. Any visual or auditory art is not protected and thus, absolutely any use of copyrighted material would require a license according to article 13. And this situation has to end. If we want to discuss how we can improve the rights of the rightholders I'm all for it. But then finally tell those content creators who use transformative work, such as news or review domains, what they can use and what they cannot. And free them from the grip of the companies who can always claim copyright infringement whenever they feel like it which can be used to silence unpleasant reviewers. If we finally reach an agreement what is okay and what not, article 13 can be implemented way more aimed and focused and domains such as YouTube would have official guidelines of how to deal with copyrighted material. As for now, the proposal not just endangers the future of many creators but also feels incredibly regressive in comparison to North American laws. We don't need Japanese proportions in which a picture of copyrighted material can cause a several year lasting prison sentence. And that is where we can meet with the European Union and form a proposal which could benefit all involving parties. Unfortunately, it seems as if the Parliament currently is not interested in finding a satisfying solution. Which is why I remain concerned. If you also are concerned, I'd suggest you reach out to your local European senator and voice those concerns and offer solutions which they can carry into their negotiations.

Abortion in Germany

So, the Youth organisation of our Social Democratic Party (SPD) just announced their plan to abolish two paragraphs from the German Criminal Code: 219a and 218, both regarding abortion and the legal framework it consists of. Now, 219a has been kind of controversial for the last few months, so it's not surprising that a left-winged party would put that on their agenda. It basically forbids any form of advertisement towards abortions. Abortions should not be a service the market competes about, in that regard it is different to surgery. However, the judges have persecuted doctors in the past for only informing about the possibility of having an abortion on their website. That goes too far. Advertising and informing are two different pair of shoes and informing people is necessary for them to understand their rights and how to handle the situation. If 219a encompasses informing, as the judges seem to believe, there are good reasons for this paragraph to be abolished as soon as possible. Especially since even the judges seemed to only pronounce the sentence begrudgingly, as if they themselves don't believe in the validity of the law but see the wording as unambiguous. So, I have absolutely no complains here.

218 is in a completely different ball park though. It basically states that abortion is illegal, though can be committed with impunity if women abort within the first 12 weeks and visit a mandatory consultation, and if the abortion is conducted by a doctor. It also can be committed with impunity if the life of the mother is at risk or she has been raped (218a). It also ensures that those who harm the pregnant women and kill the unborn baby in the process can be sentenced between 6 months and 5 years (218.2) and that women who themselves purposefully commit an act which would kill the unborn baby can only be sentenced for a year at max (218.3). Now, it's not absolutely clear if they only want to abolish paragraph 218 (which would be really weird to abolish 218 but leave 218a, 218b, and 218c) or the entire paragraph as a whole. Abolishing 218 only would make the following paragraphs inconsistent since 218a specifies when an abortion can be committed with impunity. If the act in of itself is granted legal, there is no need for further explanations. In any case, those who attack a women and kill her baby in the process would most likely be sentenced either for murderer or manslaughter since the paragraphs which specify the special case of unborn life would be gone. But not only that, women who commit an act to kill their fetus could also be sentenced by either murder or manslaughter. The problem here is that it could go both ways: acting towards an unborn life will either not be considered a crime or considered a crime equal to a human life. The legal specification would disappear and that in itself is dangerous, even if only 218 should disappear.

If we assume that 218 in it's entirety will disappear, then we face a situation in which abortion is legal up until the child is born, and even if it's not conducted by a doctor. I understand the intend behind not wanting to criminalize abortion but abolishing the paragraph is madness. Abortion is a difficult topic because various ethical standpoints meet each other and their is no definitive agreement on when life begins. Most, Pro-Lifers or Pro-Choicers, would agree though that by the stage of 5 to 6 months the fetus is able to live and thus, is a human being. Also, the intend behind permitting abortion under medical attendance in order to prevent them from seeking out "privat services" which might endanger their life and health, is nullified if abortions can be conducted without doctors. Just to be clear, I myself support the right of women to abort. I do not necessarily approve of them if the woman voluntarily committed a sexual act and hasn't been raped or has any health issues. But I'm no one to judge. It's not my decision and I'm not gonna pretend to know how those who abort their child feel. I can only judge their intent, not their actions but since I can never know their true intent, there's no point in condemning them. They have to live with the decision they make. Now, does that mean I think it's an excessive demand to attend an consultation and abort within the first 12 weeks? No. Those who support the abolishment of paragraph 218 seem to be under the impression that the need to visit a consultation and having a time frame in itself is discriminating against women. To me, it seems as if they just want an easy way out instead of strengthening women rights. The system we have now is a compromise between those who believe that the fetus is a part of the women's body and those who believe that the fetus is an independent person and thus, has it's own individual rights. I believe we have good reasons to maintain paragraph 218 while I do believe that paragraph 219a should be abolished. I also do not believe that our current system discriminates against pregnant women. What is your take? Feel free to tell me but try to remain civil, for I know this is a very emotional topic.

Pokémon Let's Go: Maingame yeah, Postgame meh

So, I've now reached a point at which I can safely say that I completed Pokémon Let's Go. I just purchased the overpriced crown and all other accessoires; defeated all the postgame trainers including the Gym leaders, Green, Mina, Morimoto, and Red; obtained all TMs; completed the Pokédex; and maximized the stats of my team members by IV-chaining and feeding them with candies. This sums up to a total of 75 hours which is fine for a Pokémon mainline game. Unfortunately, this game continues the tendency present since X/Y of offering either an almost non-existent postgame or an extremely repetitive one.

First, we have the master trainers which are an utter disappointment. At first I thought they'd require a more strategically approach to defeat them due to a diverse movepool and innovative tactics. But, in actuality, they just have extremely buffed stats you cannot counter with tactics (unless you use a Toxic + Protect combo on non-Poison types), and you cannot defeat by leveling up. Which would at least be a reasonable time investment considering grinding Experience Points works rather well with a Chansey chain in Cerulean Cave and considering you can level up six team members simultaneously. No, what the game expects you to do is buff your Pokémon with candy and that's basically all you need to defeat the master trainers. Now, using regular candy is a horrible option since you'll want to buff at least five stats and in order to buff each one of them to its maximum you'll need around 400 candies of regular, L, and XL size. Since you can only carry 999 candies of each category and you first receive lots of candy once a chain is in the high double digits and every Pokémon only gives you one type of candy, it would require you to recollect candy from at least five different species and rebuilding the chain after every second buffed Pokémon. So that option is insanely time consuming. Less time consuming but still too repetitive for my taste is collecting 200 candies of the respective species, for example 200 Bulbasaur candies when buffing a Bulbasaur. Now, you'll most likely have to wait until the low triple digits until you receive those regularly. In avarage, I'd say a chain of 150 will be necessary in order to receive 200 candies in order to max out your stats. 150 might be enough to defeat most of the master trainers but only if your level is almost equal to theirs and once you reached 150 your chain will be high enough that reaching 200 won't take too much longer. Once you defeated one master trainer with a buffed up Pokémon, you can evolve it in order to defeat the master trainers of the respective evolution(s) without needing to recollect the candy.

Now since it has been established that I understand what the game wants me to do and despite the shortcuts I presented: this is still repetitive as hell. At the very least you'll need 75 Pokémon buffed. That's excluding all evolutions and those master trainers who don't require a battle. So if you want to defeat all the master trainers you'll have to build up 75 chains of around 150 species and just catch, after catch, after catch, after catch,...
This methode is totally fine for IV-chaining and Shiny hunting since I expect some work to go into building a good online team. But just catching Pokémon after Pokémon for 50 hours to come just to defeat the master trainers is so boring and repetitive, and one of the worst examples of grinding I've came along for quite some time. And here I thought catching a bizillion legendaries straight in US/UM and OR/AS was repetitive, this quadruples it. And it wouldn't be so bad if besides the Cerulean cave and some extra battles this wouldn't be the only postgame content available. Well except...

Secondly, you can get a Meltan and evolve it to a Melmetal. Receiving Meltan is quite straightforward: you just transfer any given Pokémon from Pokémon Go to Let's Go and you receive a Meltan. No problem here, especially considering Pokémon Go is a free to play product and thus, Meltan is not hidden behind a pay wall. The annoying part kicks in when you try to evolve it: you'll need 400 candies (keep in mind, the candy in Pokémon Go which works slightly different than the candy in Let's Go). However, you'll only be able to catch around 50 Meltans per week since the mystery box only opens for an hour on a weekly schedule. So, you'll need around 8 real life time weeks in order to receive Meltan. Forcing real life time into any video game, in my opinion, is always a bad idea since it prevents the player from experiencing the game at his or her own pace and forces them to play it on specific days rather than whenever they find the time. Daily events or acceptable since they can be repeated on a daily basis but whenever a game requires you to wait days before you can proceed, I have an issue with the mechanic.

So all in all, the postgame once more is a complete dumpster fire. Now, I'm not saying Pokémon needs an excessive postgame in order to work as a game. But as it stands, the game still lacks replay ability. The main story is rather average in length and straight forward in its presentation and the absence of any difficulty settings or New Game Plus features hinders any incentive to revisit the game. You can create a new team but the extremely limited selection of Pokémon and moves compared to other games even hinders that incentive. Let's Go lacks the replay ability and immersion of Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, has no engaging story with multiple paths as Octopath Traveler, has no interesting DLC content as Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and even the Multiplayer options are really lack luster this time around, consisting of only Single battles, Double battles, and trades - designed to only work with your Switch friends. Once you're done the game is just...over. Unless you want to engage in the extremely repetitive process of defeating the master trainers, there is no reason to revisit this game and Pokémon for that matter until Generation 8 will be released 2019. And considering Masuda's world view that may be by design. Nonetheless, it remains a sad factor of an otherwise good game.