Posts made by Thenomain

@HelloRaptor said:

So... reverting Shadowrun to 'the future' as imagined by people a quarter of a century ago, instead of 'the future' as imagined by people from this decade.

That's disappointing.

I think that's the point of calling it "2050" and not "2075".

Additional random thoughts:

We're still trying to create the science of original Star Trek, so I don't think this is a complaint that carries much weight this way. Ray Bradbury, too, had a lot of things pretty bang to rights in the science department.

Besides, I think the people of today made their own quasi-post-apoc cyberpunk RPG with people turning into other species. It was called Eclipse Phase.

What kind of RPG came before tabletop? What is more traditional than it?

What, @crayon, is the purpose of these articles? History, community, or attention?

"It Depends" is not, I think, a compelling response to my critique for two of three of these goals. At the least, it doesn't come across as community friendly to me, and by historical accounting it is just plain wrong. If it depends, what does it depend upon? Establishing context would go further than defending against criticism.

Besides, with that slippery slope there, we can go all the way back to "what is language", and like most slippery slope that's a ride that goes nowhere.

I'm regularly killed by, well, everything with a skull on it.

I've never been any good at out-thinking the game designers. I often mistakenly play the game in front of me instead.

(edit: tho it never took me more than 5-10 minutes to kill a dragon, as long as I was some 3 levels over it, otherwise I wouldn't even try)

@Jeshin

Belatedly, what I was saying was mostly that RPGs are also things you read in books and sit around a table with friends and play-act within a loose rule framework.

The Wizardy/Bard's Tale/Wasteland/Ultima set of games are fun and all, but are a different kind of RPGs, one I've commonly seen called 'cRPGs'. Computer RPGs. Are MMOs cRPGs? Well, that's an interesting question. Is Diablo 2 a cRPG? Is Ultima Online the only MMO to get "traditional RPG" right?

Is Yawhg a cRPG? An RPG? A multiplayer choose-your-own-adventure?

So many questions. I have no answers.

@HelloRaptor, I tried, after Hakkon's final boss, to get one boss-level 25 Ice Giant. No way in hell; even my distance crew (Mage and Bowman) were getting torn apart by the ice and earthquake stuff, and without support the two heavy hitters were never going to make it. I may try it again some day. Maybe.

I never bothered with Barrier and I was fine. Giving a crafted weapon that adds Guard per hit on a thief, though? I love it.

Speaking of loving it, doing the DLCs past the end of the main campaign, and its scaled encounters, has me trying out tactics on the fly that I never bothered with before. I'll even command each of the companions myself. I just crafted a shield (playing a sword/shield berserker -- incidentally, don't take berserker in this situation) that adds Focus per surrounding enemy. I never use the Focus abilities, but now they're key.

This is an exciting new Dragon Age for me. Neat.

@Roz said:

@Thenomain said:

The logging stands and stone quarries (stone something, at any rate) are used to improve Skyhold

"Improve" Skyhold. I was super disappointed that improving Skyhold didn't do anything beyond cosmetic changes.

My 8 Elfroot per visit begs to differ, and 8 fully upgraded regeneration potions is nothing to sneeze at.

I likewise enjoy the flavor of "my" Skyhold.

@Tempest said:

Alas. Was sitting at like 80 elfroot for a bit and thinking "yeah, I'm set for like, a long time". Then all this random crap popped up with "you need 30 of this, this, this, this!"

Those are probably for the region requests. If you complete them, you get Power, which is only used to unlock new areas on the map. You get it for some quests and closing rifts, too, so with a few exceptions (specializing or quests), they're not really needed. I ended the game with 127 Power and nothing to spend it on.

I don't get the 'logging stands' thing either. I think I've seen like, one ever, and now I need 2 for something and it says I have 0. Apparently those get treated as 'items' too, rather than permanent structures?

The logging stands and stone quarries (stone something, at any rate) are used to improve Skyhold, and I presume that they are "used up" to build the item in question. It seems somewhat trite to me, as well, but it can be explained halfheartedly a few ways. e.g., "You took what we had, and anything we pull in will be used to maintain the structure."

There is an Inquisitor Perk to show all available stone/lumber areas on the map.

Cincerning the Jaws of Hakkon DLC that's been out a while, don't play it unless you want to be spoiled about (or know) The Truth About The Seekers. Otherwise, I've been having a blast with it. Almost had a total party kill on the major Hakkonite battle, within scant percents of my hero's health. Neat.

Additional: I didn't know Jennifer Hale voiced Krem. She is a voice-acting goddess.

Please excuse the prodding. (i.e., while the @Glitch is away, the Theno will play ... with themes.)

edit: Okay, yeah, this is the only theme that seems even remotely usable under the newest version of the board system. I'm sure Glitch already knew this, but having tried the other options, yeah, you don't want those even more than you don't want this.

@TNP, I can scroll back to older posts in the thread while posting. (Safari, OS X 10.10.4)

Testing Chrome (Windows 8.1): Yup, scrollback through the thread works here, too. Loads older posts if scrolling back enough.

Should I unblock Google Analytics in Ghostery, then?

It looked like ass for about 10 minutes, then I suppose all the updates finished updating.

The big question, of course, is does it stop behaving like a wannabe AJAX app on my iPad. The world may never know.

One, two, buckle my shoe:

@thenomain said:

The Quiz I'm talking about is "do you understand this game?"

Oh, that's an interesting approach, but I don't see it working out so well, practically speaking.

Except that it has worked out very well, literally speaking, real-world experience speaking, in real, non-theoretical actuality.

Elastic game design's a little bit bigger of a concept

I still don't see the value in telling people what to do, without guidance as to how it can be accomplished. In a sense of practicality, what you're calling "elastic game design" appears very narrow and suggests to add depth and complexity to a system that people already don't understand. You don't help people understand. As an introduction for a long series or articles, I'm interested. As a standalone, I have similarly complex things to do already; why add yours to the mix?

Three, four, shut the door.

@crayon said:

Read Jeshin's article on creating an RPG economy!
http://optionalrealities.com/creating-an-rpg-economy/

From the article:

So, let’s examine why traditonal RPGs do not have complicated economies.

Oh boy. You know, @Jeshin, that Baldur's Gate is not a "Traditional RPG", right? Let us argue this one small semantic briefly, and only briefly. It's a CRPG, and nowadays with Bioware's story-driven games (starting with the seminal KotOR) being wildly different than the isometric cRPG, the elder statesman. Until you talk about Wizardry and the original Elder Scrolls games and Bard's Tale and Wasteland, the truly traditional cRPG.

Okay, rant over. This article is worth reading. Information!

Contribute ideas for future contests and events!
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=266.0

Do our work for us! (Kidding. I know it's a community board.)

Read the progress report on Project Redshift!
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=272.0

I do dislike the board creators exclusively pushing their vanity project over a "community" line. It ties into the "our Mud-centric views only if we agree to advertise you" that I'm bitching about in most of the beginning of this thread.

@Miss-Demeanor

I have affidavits to the contrary.

Posted link was malformed. The game is here: www.cantr.net

Note to @Jeshin: This is what I think a "newbie guide" looks like. They need to load the interface images into the wiki itself, but it's pretty complete.

@Bobotron,

That was aimed to Sponge. I do have somewhere around here a system that logs to objects, but if we're logging an entire game to objects then headache, heart-ache, and ache-ache, not to mention database bloat like whoa.

I have been lost in posts and madness for long enough that I don't know your final goal, but as long as it's "log to object" then it doesn't matter, because the log is destroyed with the objects.

Likewise: Consider putting a real object in the room with @ahear/@listen and not @hook. It'll be easier and more conspicuous.

@Sponge said:

Anyway, it was a silly comment. I have complete logs of everything but not at the right level to be useful for this problem.

Oooohhhhhhh. Then yeah, it's funny.

Yes.

Funny.

[...] if I implement something it will be akin to what @Bobotron describes: a system to create a Monitor object that does the logging work and is conspicuous about what it's doing.

Again:
https://github.com/thenomain/Mu--Support-Systems/blob/master/Global Pose Logger.txt

@HelloRaptor said:

downtown Atlanta

This is probably a case of your city having a major pipe for TMOB. Around here (Columbus, Ohio), going with T-Mobile is admitting you don't really need good data service, and we're not exactly a small city.

Most people I know go with a second-tier pay-as-you-go as a better option than T-Mobile.