Quetzalcutlass

I liked how there was a multi-book background subplot of some Aes Sedai investigating the Black Ajah in secret, only for them to get killed off between books (and their deaths only mentioned in passing during the next book's prologue) and the Black Ajah plot thread put on hold, then for the solution to the Black Ajah to be handed to Egwene with a wrapped bow a few books later.

I get Jordan was trying to cut out extraneous subplots and actually finish the series, but it sucks that so many pages were wasted on something that went nowhere, and the eventual resolution didn't even need them in the first place.

I loved the descriptions of the Carheinien Game of Houses, where everything was political theater and anything you did in public was scrutinized for multiple deeper meanings. It's a shame the actual politics shown in the series was mostly pampered and immature nobles complaining that preparing for the literal imminent apocalypse was too inconvenient.

It'd make a great RPG setting, but IIRC every attempt at a licensed adaptation (aside from a forgettable FPS like twenty years ago) has ended up in development hell or terrible. Or both, in the case of the show.

I do like that the portal to alternate dimensions ended up being how the Seanchan acquired the weird monsters their army used. That was some quality world-building.

Matt and his crew, Thom, Aviendha, Min, Verin... There are so few likeable characters, especially amongst the women (you could write an entire book about how WoT handles women - I should note two of the three I listed as likeable are tomboys and were therefore saved from Jordan's normal characterization). And due to the aforementioned thousand named characters, the good ones get almost no screen time.

But there's always time for Egwene and Faile, the two worst "good" characters. Don't you want to know what Salidar or the Shaido are(n't) up to for the billionth time?

It's funny. I actually liked the Wheel of Time, but any time I talk about it it's to rant about its flaws.

There are over a thousand named characters in the Wheel of Time. I think I actually liked less than ten, and only one of them was part of the Emon's Field crew (Matt, after he stops whining and becomes an actual competent person - due to magic, of course, because positive character development only happens via deus ex machina in this series).

Don't forget Skimming, which is plot relevant like twice after teleporting is introduced (and one of those times isn't even for traveling, it's to throw an invincible murder golem into the void between dimensions).

The battle pass from Genshin/Star Rail boggles the mind. You have to grind like crazy or play almost every day to complete it, and the majority of the rewards are character and weapon advancement materials. You know, something you'd usually have to grind for.

Escape the grind through more grinding.

Oh, and you only get 1/6 of the battle pass rewards as a F2P player. It's ten bucks to unlock the majority of the rewards. And the headline feature, the weapon/star cone you unlock at tier 30 (only it you pay, naturally), is easily outclassed by stuff you'll get as a F2P player.

Gacha games, but surprisingly not for the gacha elements. FOMO events, where you either play during a limited period or miss the event and its rewards forever, killed my interest in every one I played.

The worst are the ones that put critical parts of character stories in them, then never rerun the events. Genshin and other MiHoYo games were especially bad about this (Albedo's evil twin says hello).

What? X is all about the passive income and telling NPCs what to do. You play long enough to afford a cheap cargo runner as a second ship, put an AI pilot in it, and tell them to run trade routes in the background while you do whatever you find fun. Your income snowballs from there as you buy more and bigger ships and unlock better trading automation, then becomes ridiculous once you start building stations and producing entire supply chains yourself.

I say this as someone who also bounced off X4, because even with all that and time compression it still takes ages to get to the fun endgame stuff I actually enjoy.

One-time pads require no machines and are unbreakable in theory, though in reality they're a pain to set up and use so people reuse keys out of laziness, making it possible to analyze and decipher encrypted messages.

Security is only as good as its weakest link, and people are morons.

Tak does not require we think of him, only that we think.

• Terry Pratchett, Thud!

Discworld in general has a ton of good quotes, but Thud! is especially full of relevant ones, being about religious extremists warring against inconvenient truths.

There's an entire song about this.