Delayed rewards are a pain

The fact that I just logged on and was greeted with a message that I had earned the new skate pass premium for free because I had the founders package. That would've been wonderful if I hadn't gotten the premium pass with purple tickets I already had saved up. It would be wonderful if those tickets were refunded but I guess I didn't spend any additional money for them, so whatever. 

While I'm here, I thought I'd give some general feedback on the game:

As far as gameplay goes, I'm happy enough but not ecstatic. I've been playing the skate series since the first one and I have loved them through and through. I recognize that this is a revitalization of the series in a new aesthetic, engine, and dev team. I also recognize the corporate overlords have to be obeyed for survival needs. Y'all have to put food on the table somehow! But I do wish the aesthetic was a tad grungier. One thought I had, was what if you guys incorporated occasional map texture updates with the most heavily skated areas showing more wear and tear. But I do wish the city itself wasn't so sterile. It feels unloved and unreal. It also is almost TOO catered to skating. Most places have this unreal flow, connecting the whole city into one huge park. Which is awesome! But I do wish there was a district that was significantly less flowy. That had more jank and required a little more creativity to make a line happen. It would up the difficulty for us veterans who have it too easy over the rest of the map. But I will say this, the only thing I'd really change besides the overall aesthetic of the city (textures) and adding a little more jank in some places would be adding a decent hill. Other than those things, I think you guys have made a pretty cool world to skate in. 

Tricks have been fine. Some of the mocap seems weird. 360 inwards and 360 hardflips look alright with the character, but the board seems to defy physics and accelerate it's rotation halfway through the trick. It also doesn't look right. As if it's just a hardflip or inward heel but then the board suddenly rotates an additional 180 degrees on almost a flat level which just isn't right. That's also where the weird acceleration happens; right as the board begins that additional 180 degree rotation. I realize it probably has to do with the fact that those tricks are almost impossible to do on flat in a consistent way so you guys used the mocap of the board doing the basic trick, and then added an additional rotation after the fact to make the animation smoother and consistent for doing on flat ground. But besides a few animation hiccups, I'm actually really impressed with how fluid the skating feels. I skated for 15 years and only really got decent with vert. Flat ground was hard and I was always jealous of the super flowy guys who seemed so comfortable doing trick after trick. Well, I get to live out that fantasy here. I feel like such a badass! Every trick feels cleaner, even the sketchy landings are cool-looking. But that could be a complaint too, I guess. There is no in-between: you either look like a total badass who cannot fail, or you eat it completely. It'd be cool to see more dramatic character animations for landing super sketch like there was in skate 3. It just adds that extra element of, "okay, that wasn't cleaning looking. I gotta run it back." But I won't say that's a major complaint. It's more leaning back into the want for a little more jank in places. 

I am insanely impressed with how season 2 has started. I'm loving the aesthetic of the pass a decent amount. There are some things that feel like what us younger folk think the fashion of the 80s was. I grew up with hand-me-downs from the 80s, and trust, they didn't look this cool. But that's not really a complaint to make, is it? I also love that you guys brought in impossibles and 4 variations of it, as well as handplant variations. As a freestyle admirer and vert skater, it makes me happy to see commitment to more fringe styles of skating. I hope this stays consistent but I do also feel spoiled, which worries me a bit. That could just be pessimism rearing its ugly head, though. 

Overall, I really do think you guys are doing great. If I had to summarize how I feel with a metaphor, it'd be this: Skate. feels like a soft, comfortable shirt with a pretty cool design that's missing a sleeve and hasn't been hemmed. It's something I really want to see polished and loved; filled with passion and skate culture (lose the dance emojis, this really isn't fortnite and they aren't the thing making us get the passes). But right now, it could still be an empty promise. You've begun on the missing sleeve promisingly and for that, I stay hopeful and will support the game financially as I see fit. But please do consider us OGs. We aren't 80 and dying off, we still love playing these games. Don't scare us away with a complete disconnect from skate culture as a whole and try your best to stand firm against the suits trying to pry money out of parents through their children. If you give us stuff worth buying, we'll buy it. 

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.