f13.net

So there's a new site, new direction and whatnot that's cool but what gets me is, do we need this many forums? what is general discussion for if not news of the day or talking about movies and such really. why even have gen disc if all it's going to be is "this site sucks" or "how boog lost his virginity" posts. 

my suggestion would be

1.front page comments.
2.multimedia(games,books,tv,movies all aspects including design)
3.general disc( taiwanese whores, what's new with you stupid people in enws etc)
4. politics(the volatile nature demands a diff forum)

anyway just a suggestion, as i see too many 'comunity' sites with 20 diff forums with maybe one new topic a day in each


EDIT: i will never take back my horrid spelling, Nevar!

Maybe you overlooked the fact that he prefaced the sentence with "unless you're an ultra right wing tightwad."

The Chaos concept is not original to Warhammer. It is part of the Glorantha mythos that Greg Stafford created in the late 1960s and popularized in the RuneQuest RPG first released in 1978 (and still my favorite RPG). There was even an appendix in the Chaosium editions that allowed you to roll for special Chaos "traits" like an extra appendage if you happened to be tainted by Chaos which is very similar to what you can do with Chaos tainted armies in Warhammer. Warhammer wasn't released until like 1983 and White Dwarf used to just cover RPGs like RuneQuest before it became a strictly in house magazine and so the Games Workshop guys had to have been familiar with the Glorantha mythos.



And Starcraft is a ripoff of Warhammer 40K (which is itself a ripoff of other games/books/movies/etc. just like Warhammer).

Wow, a sell-out. What the fuck are you, 12?

Sell-out implies any of us is getting paid. When there's no money involved, how the fuck can you sell out?

Waterthread is and always has been Joe's playground. Sometimes he gives people like me the pail and shovel and let's me dig in the sandbox. If he ever told me "I don't want you to write about MMOG's" then I wouldn't write about MMOG's or I wouldn't get published on here.

There's fuckall new to say about MMOG's. They've made zero progress since I started playing them and they've made zero progress since I started writing about them. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with something to say about MMOG's that amounts to more than "You suck, your children will suck, and future generations will laugh at your naivete." Joe's in the same boat, probably worse off than me, since he seems to be playing EQ again or something.

Waterthread can be about more than just MMOG's. Console games, movies, politics, general bitching, sounds good to me. Hell, I watch more movies than film critics, I just never wrote front page stuff about them because we were mostly about MMOG's. Now we're not, you may actually see more front page stuff.

Don't you want to hear my views on Oliver Stone's career?

Is this the right forum for this? Should we have one catch all thread, or break it down by sport? I NEED somewhere to gloat about my upcoming romp through the WT fantasy baseball league, and to lament about my March Madness bracket getting eviscerated the first day.

The current political solution is to throw copious amounts of cash at it and miraculously, it will be fixed.

I'd buy that, if I saw a raid of people kill something like C'Thun in AuctionHouse greens.

I don't know if this transition will work or the site will die. I don't really care. But I don't really mind that we've decided not to become so attached at the hip to a really stale and unimaginative niche genre of games.

I'm sure we'll still have nice lively debates about the MMORPG arena. With WoW, EQII, GuildWars and Sigil's Treadmill++ on the horizon, we'll be knee deep in discussion about a games that have learned less from the past than your average crack addict.

Just exactly where do you think the DIKU model came from in the first place!

I'd laugh at my first waterthread and lumthemad posts.  I was much more angsty back then.  

Shoot it a couple of times to make sure.  It could just be faking.

QFT. The monthly fee is there for people who WANT the extra stuff, but the free option is there so people who dont want to pay monthly can still play. Kids who can't use mommy's credit card come to mind. And I know I'd be more than willing to shell out $10/month (less than most MMO fees anyway) for less bullshit timesinks.

Look at it this way: $50 gets you the single player game and the ability to play online. If you're only going to solo or play with your friends than thats all you spend. Wanna play it as an MMO (or at least an online RPG; Diablo II was capped at what, 8 players per game?) then you have the option of getting more features for a fee.

I see nothing in that article that even suggests that it's not a concern of heterosexual men.

The Murdoc Bandwagon is BACK!

Took me awhile to journey back over here, but looking forward to being back in this league, last year's waterthread league was arguably the best one I was in last year.

FYI the Bucs are BACK this year!

EDIT: For some reason I registered and then waited over a year to actually post.  :headscratch:

Damn, I have to post now?

on: March 18, 2004, 11:32:25 am

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

You get 80 turns a day and I think it's going to turn into a daily addiction.  Check it out. :)

Never whistle when you're pissing.

March 18, 2004, 07:57:59 am



I like the idea of opening up the topics on these boards a little.  I frequented WTo because it was one of the few boards left with a good mix of IQ and hate.  Now we might actually have somewhere intelligent to talk about how much we hate current media of other forms as well.

I also like the ide of this board because I've come to realize that at 32 I double the average age of most of the posters on Rotten Tomatoes' forums, so that place has pretty much gone to shit for getting a useful opinion on something.  So, I'll start the ball rolling here with a movie I just recently bought, that I would like to hear some other opinions on.

Ginger Snaps

Canadian, 2000

I'm curious what other people thought of this movie, if anyone else has in fact seen it.  Its a low budget Canadian horror about two sisters living in a nondescript suburb that have a runin with a werewolf.  Keeping this as spoiler free as possible, its a story that mixes the trials of puberty and social acceptance with becoming a werewolf and wanting to eat all of the neighbour's dogs...  Beleive it or not, it actually works.

The acting is top notch by both of the lead actresses, and the story is much more involved and creative than what you find in your typical teen horrors these days.  I really wish I could see more movies like this without having to hunt them out at the divey little downtown arthouses where they actually get shown.

So has anyone else out there actually seen this movie, or have an oppinion?

I just hope we start to see game reviews again with pretty pictures, I like pretty pictures.

Last time I checked we were still allowed to post what we wanted on the sites within reason, and that didn't seem to ever stop anybody from talking about whatever they wanted to. Nor did it stop people from derailing the conversations about other stuff.

We are a group of political, angry gamers. I doubt we'll stop talking about games in any variety.

No it's not true.

On topic: GMs should be heard but not seen IMO. We were often ingame for various reasons, our GM identities were known to the players and they could /send us messages for urgent issues. Mostly though we fixed stuff without having to appear in a clap of thunder and surrounded by an angelic chorus. Occasionally I decloaked to shout at some evildoers or to sort out an ingame territory dispute - stuff like that is more effective when the players can physically see you and can relate to you visually rather than just as lines of gold text in their chat window. For 99.9% of the stuff we handled though we were strictly a background presence. Anything else is an unnecessary distraction and just stokes the ego of your CS peons.

(http://www.f13.net/images/hex_chart.jpg)

Yes, I realize I'm an evil bastard for resurrecting this, but panties get me hot.

I think alot of the questions and comments people have been saying here have actually already been answered, some have been implemented and we can see the problems that arose from it.

#1) Time spent progression  -  Eve Online has this exact system in place, and it's both brilliant and frustrating at the same time.  There are no classes, races are only important for the min/maxers who want that extra 1.5% bonus, you choose whatever you want to be, even if you want to be everything.  The issue with this is that there is no way to speed it up.  I played Eve for several months, I got to a pretty sporty mid-level spot, nice battleship, some t2 gear (phat lewts), etc.  It's about the 3-4 month (5-7mil skillpoint) mark that you realize that there is absolutely no way to compete with the older players.  Sure, you'll max out core skills for one "class" choice in about a year, but this just means that they have to play rock to your scissors, and you have to wait another year to play paper.

#2) Open-ended class choices - As stated above, Eve did it an acceptable job making a game that doesn't pigeonholed you, while insuring that noone could ever beat the people who started first.  What surprises me is that Asherons Call very rarely comes into discussions on this board, save for the clusterfuck that was AC2.  (Did anyone ever actually PLAY AC2? What the fuck was turbine thinking?)
  I started AC shortly after its release, hot off of UO and itching for some 3D PK.  The standard RPG choices were all there, choose your name, do you enjoy getting constantly hit on by hordes of middle-aged obese nerds who still live at home, are you black/white/a midget/a pony/etc.  Then came the class selection, except instead of the standard diku mag/cle/thf/war/rog/cle/mnk/sor/pony was an extensive list of skills, the options to train/untrain/specialize in different skills and a few "suggestions" that could be modified to your hearts contentment.
    As you leveled, your skills raised both automatically by use, or you could choose to spend XP anywhere you like, including stats which act as modifiers against different schools.  Total freedom.

That was 8..9 years ago, and not a single mmorpg has even come close to the level of customization that we had in one of the very first MMOs on the market.

So far as I can tell, the only outwardly identifiable trade skill is Engineering. Their goggles and gadgets give engineers away. Ironically, this is the ONE tradeskill that spends most of its time producing goods useless to anybody other than its own devotees. Engineers share the need for anvils with Blacksmiths, but unless you catch the latter at his work he could be any passing schmo. The goggles and gadgets not only allow identification of engineers, but with a little fore-knowledge they let one gauge the depth of their discipline: The color of goggles, complexity of device.

Would professional traders be well served by such arbitrary trappings? Elaborate aprons and hammers for blacksmiths? Stylish vests and scissors for tailors? Unusual hats and wands for enchanters?

-Primus - My Name is Mud & Jerry Was A Race Car Driver

-Korn - Freak On A Leash
I greatly prefer other songs over this, but the video was great and

-Filter - Trip Like I Do
Even their remixes of this and Hey Man Nice Shot are fucking amazing

-Jane's Addiction - Been Caught Stealin'



On a side note:


^ This is so fucking true.

I absolutely agree and believe that Nirvana was given a lot of misplaced credit for booming alternative music. I'm not a huge fan of the following person, but I have to give much more credit to Perry Farrel and Lollapalooza for the 1990's explosion and the alternative scene compared to Nirvana.

Part of the difficulty in balance comes from giving a class multiple extreme abilities when others have fewer or only moderate ones.  (By extreme I mean it works very well when conditions allow.)  To use generic archtypes, mages are generally thought of as having extreme damage but are weak in other areas.  Warriors can take a beating.  Rogues get stealth usually coupled with an initial high damage attack.  Even though they may not deal as much damage over time as either, the initial attack often determines the outcome.  If they can run away should things go poorly and hide, either to heal wounds or to launch another attack, then they manage to have offense and defense better than their counterparts.

The one implimentation of stealth I really enjoyed was in a MUD.  We converted the stock Diku illusionist to a shadowmage.  They gained a rouge's stealth, but their overall damage was less than a mage's and they gained no extra damage when attacking from hiding.  For the patient they could still be very powerful since they were able to choose their battles, however it took some skill to beat mobs that other classes could stand toe to toe with.

I'd love an invite.  I wonder how many other lurkers this might cause to register and post.  Anyway, hope the inviting goes well and whatnot.

taleril
taleril@hotmail.com

Deus Ex - Ion Storm - PC - 2000
Grim Fangango - Lucasarts - PC - 1998
Freelancer - Digital Anvil - PC - 2003
Half-Life 2 - Valve - PC - 2004
CIV 4 - Firaxis - PC - 2005
Starcraft - Blizzard - PC - 1998
Fallout 2 - Black Isle - PC - 1998
Syndicate Wars - Bullfrog - PC - 1996
Theme Hospital - Bullfrog - PC - 1997
Dungeon Keeper 2 - Bullfrog - PC - 1999
Road Rash - EA - PC - 1991
Final Fantasy X - Square - PS2 - 2001
Duke Nukem 3D - 3D Realms - PC - 1996
Tekken 5 - Namco - PS2 - 2005
Thief II - Looking Glass Studios - PC - 2000
Diablo II - Blizzard North - PC - 2000
Command & Conquer - Westwood Studios - PC - 1995
Goldeneye - Rare - N64 - 1997
Tony Hawks IV - Neversoft - PS2 - 2002
Portal  - Valve - PC - 2007

I've had a few map disconnects, some soul-crushing lag (on dialup temporarily) but it's by far the smoothest launch.

No sticking in walls, no unkillable mobs, and fun from the start. The complete opposite of AO.

The few times I have lost connection, there haven't been any negative effects.

*GASP* I still enjoy playing ShadowBane *HORROR*. All problems Joe mentioned are still there but other than occasional lag spike during prime time are not common. During the last month of playing 2-3 hours a day and participating in 1-2 large sieges a week, I got 2 Sb.exe and maybe some lag and server was down once for 3 hours after large patch. Again technical issues are there but by no means game stopping – no longer outcome of sieges determined by low percentage of people survived Sb.exe and no longer it is siege-by-mail. Servers hold well with battles of 30-40 players on the each side, and its get unplayable only if you get to 250+ people on each side all stacked.

Auto Assault is my bet for "Biggest Surprise Hit".  Nobody is lukewarm about this game after they play it, your reaction is either "Meh," or it's "OMG DID YOU FREAKING SEE THAT!?!?!!"  It will be the most male demographic of any MMO on the market (armored cars with giant guns blowing up massive amounts of stuff isn't a girl thing), but I'm betting it will be a hit (not a 50K marginal success, but 100K+).

--Dave (in the interests of full disclosure, I've put in a resume for a position with ND on Auto Assault.  But I loved the game before I knew about the position)

This frightens and confuses me!  I am separating from the military shortly and it is a pretty scary thing beginning the job hunt after 6 years.  How is the IT industry doing in the civilian sector?  Any tips or advice would be appreciated!


edit - sp3lling pwns m3

God, you guys go through too much effort,

http://www.mexgrocer.com/1275.html, add minced peppers to taste.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling.  We still play MMORPG's, we still play single player games and hey, there's some damn fine games on consoles. Besides, having a direction is over-rated...and maintaining teh hate against the 10^3 MMORPG's on the market right now has some seriously diminishing returns. Now if Haemish starts bumpfuzzling furry's or Boog starts saying nice things about, well, anything, then i'll panic.

Well here then, I was thinking something along the lines of ltm.net...
Coincedentally, I didn't actually try that until last weekend, it did come out quite tasty. Normally, I just pour out the can of sauce out as use it a plain salsa.

Tomatos, onions, jalapenos, garlic, and some chipotle chile powder (gave it a nice smokey taste) minced. So, half a tomato, half a large white onion, 1-2 jalapenos, a tablespoon (or two cloves) of garlic and a tablespoon of chipotle powder per (2) two 7.75 ounce cans of EL PATO SALSA de JALAPENO.

Now being that I'm lazy, I just tossed everything into the blender.

Where the fuck is Boog?  This thread needs some serious "Quit your sand-in-the-pussy whining" type of Boog love.

Dude. If you stab someone with a sharp hunk of steel, you rip tissues and puncture organs. You don't do X amount of some imaginary "Hit Points".

ALL video games have abstract combat mechanics.

I like to drop in here, and read the stuff people post, but man, sometimes it feels like this board is full of cranky old fuckers who've played every game and are just bitter that they can't go back to UO/EQ/Pong/whateverthefuck and relive their golden gaming moments.

P.S. Shadowbane was brown.

[My bullshit about people who spew nonsensical bullshit, quests, and immersive games.]

P.S. My first post, so: MARK JACOBS HAI LOOK HERE!
P.P.S Tried to cut down the size of my novel, it's hard with the quotes and image.

I quit going to P2P a while back, there was never anything worth looking at there.

Plus, the crappy front page icons annoyed me to no end.  Ugh.

One thing that should be remembered is that all this began with IAC and GF utterly hammering a BOB fleet in rr- and 4-O, and chasing them into 49- where The Master Stratagist fucked over his usual tactics by doomsdaying his sides own fighters. With the result that multiple heavy interdictors were able to sit there eating multiple doomsdays and going "And?" SO claims that this somehow validates the skill of the average BOB pilot is moonshine, as basically without the great buttplug, yesterday was an utter humiliation for BOB (as it is IAC was actually positive in kills for yesterday. Imagine that!) I seriously don't see why other people in BOB would be so happy with the kills provided by Shrikes DDing Exactly on the hour, with instant damage on the hour while everyone else took 15 minutes to even even lock. At least not without some scary personality cult going. In other words replace Shrikes "we are better than you with "I am better than you" and you might  have a more accurate glance at his true attitude.

Also it wasn't just the Russians and GF that were trying to stabilise the node. IAC FC ordered everyone that could not tank a doomsday and wasn't an interdictor to CTRL-Q.

Anyway sod it. We will get him next time. And I'm not surprised the BOB is jolly as any kind of victory for them is rare at this point.

And first post. Yey.

[Edit]And in some revenge, and for those that care, BOB lost 2 Carriers in 49-u this morning.

And if the RE games end up sucking you can use your GC as a blunt object. What else is the handle for?

You're wrong again Shockeye, mark my words WoW is destined to have ten million, yes I said ten million subscribers within a few years at which point someone like, let's say activision, will buy them out for an ungodly amount of money.  It's quotes like that which make me question your judgement, I wouldn't be surprised if you wind up being quietly banned under a cloud of silent drama.

And as for Bruce's doomcasting of Nintendo he should know better than to write them off.  While everyone else is gunning for better and more expensive graphics they're probably coming up with something revolutionary like a cheap as dirt system that uses a novel controller.  Maybe it could like, use motion detection and infrared to mimic real life movements or something, I dunno.  But it will be huge and crush both Sony's and Microsoft's sales numbers.

And the United States will elect a black man president in 2008.

Assuming that the "red names" can actually log in without being able to see what they're typing into the username/password fields... Or that they will continue to post as much.  What exactly would be considered "normal" anyway?

I really was more upset that conversations that were already in progress were interrupted, which happened twice this week, with not only WT but The Morlocks as well. Are the two old "archives" at least still there or did you Pika! and make everything disappear like they did with the front page and forums?

Consolidation was something I always thought was a good thing, and still see various differing websites cobining as a positive thing. I sadly also know that no one site could contain all the personalities (ie "names" us old timers have been reading on forums for years), and exist together without having meltdowns and whatnot.

This combination and fear of change, is already creating dangerous meltdown quality threads, which is both promising and disturbing. I know the community will survive, even if some of it migrates to other places.

I also second what was said about reading the Dev forum although never joining in much. I definitely prefer gaming dicussion seperated PC and Console gaming, but only because of my not owning a console ATM.

Speaking of "moments to learn, a life time to master" - anyone tried Puzzle Pirates? Kinda fits that nicely.

It think the key issue is this:

 Do you allow player skill to influence gameplay?

If the answer is yes, well there goes half your crowd. If you say no, well there goes the other half.

Maybe we just expect too much from MMOs.. should we be playing SWG for our RPG fix and Counter Strike for our twitch/skill fix?

Or maybe one of those fabled MMO RTS FPS Tactical Simulation games? (Hmm, almost sounds like Natural Selection without the first M!)

 - Viin

OK, this thread actually drove me to register here and actually delurk. Hi all :-)!

My not so comprehensive list of films which were under the radar but left an impression for me.

Mind you since I live in germany these might be films which might have been rather popular in the States but just didn't make it over here. There are also most certainly some german flicks in my list where I do not know the english title (if it even exists)

Disclaimer: english is not my mother tongue, but pointing out  spelling and grammar errors is not considered rude behaviour by me. (At least if one's not being anal about it)

In no particular order

"Das Boot" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082096 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082096))

One of the best world war II anti-war movies ever. Period. If you get the chance try to get your hands on the original tv miniseries. The film is just an edited and shortened version of said series. (The miniseries can be ordered on DVD and even has an english language track)

I never had the chance to see the series in '81 (I was five at the time) but got my hands on the dvds and it is still great.

"Lola rennt (run lola run)" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130827 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130827))

Restored my faith into the german movie business. Before Lola rennt came out 99% of the films produced and directed by germans sucked big time or where just some cheesy pseudointellectual art house bullshit (or both). Notable exception Wim Wenders. I just love "Der Himmel ueber Berlin" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093191 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093191)). Whoever made the sucky remake "City of Angels" just should be shot IMHO.

It astonished me because it showed me that german films actually could be cool if they tried to.

Ronin (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122690 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122690)):

A little John Frankenheimer Flick with amazing car chases, with DeNiro, Sean Bean and Jean Reno and of course Natasha McElhone in it. Nothing really spectacular but the first DVD i bought and I like actually watch it from time to time. If only DeNiro could get through a film without mumbling unintelligibly.

Worst movie ever in this regard is Heat. Cool movie but a big DeNiro/Pacino mumblefest. I actually had to switch to the german dub because I couldn't understand these two most of the time. I never had to do this while watching trainspotting which had some awful english dialect in there.

Memento(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144)):

Stumbled upon this film because we were bored at the time and just picked some random movie to watch. I very much liked the narrative and the premise of this movie. It imho shows how important our memory is for evaluating our next step and how easy it is to jump to wrong conclusions or how easy somebody can be manipulated if one doesn't know all the facts.

Pi (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704)): Same as for Memento I just stumbled across it.

Old Boy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569)): Saw it at the annual Fantasy Filmfest in Nuremberg.  Revenge is obviously a big topic for Mister Park since he also directed Sympathy for mister vengeance.

Jeff

p.s. honorable mention goes to Urotsukidoji for introducing me to the fact that the Japanese are very strange people indeed.

It's my fault. I bought the first one and the second one! And every single expansion. Bwahahaha!

I bought it and played until almost the end of Egypt, then had to re-install. Doing that apparently deleted my savegames (I was expecting an option to keep them like most other games), so now I have to start over :cry: . Well at least I can drop Earth for Spirit like I've been wanting to do since about 30 minutes after I trained in it.

My kid has been grinding the game for the last few days. He loves it. That's your demographic -- 10 year old kids who can spend their allowance to get member benefits if they want. They just need to give the kids the ability to buy codes for access at 7-11.

I can't play the game on my computer. Well I can, but the avatars (all PC's/NPC's/Mob's) are totally invisible... makes things hard. I grouped with my kid earlier today and spent my time following the floating sword ( I can see gear ) and then throwing the mage nuke spell whenever the crosshairs would go green. I can run EQ2 on this laptop, but DR is glitching. It's beta so no big deal, and could be my Omega drivers wigging it out.

This is a perfect mash game. Something to burn some rage or boredom on. I agree with Schild, it's very, very close to something great. Not quite there yet, but it's good and will do fine in the youth market. They already have their Teen rating, and viral marketing will have this across the schools in a flash.

I find it a little humorous that this game does combat great and looks better than Runescape, but RS has more immersion and crafting options. It's like watching the old UO/EQ path a gain... DR could do better than RS if things play out well, and it's a shallow game in comparison.

As to the loot factor... direct quote while I'm typing this from the kid: "Holy cow, I'm going to keep this!" He just found a sword that is one level above him as a random drop, and he's going to hold inventory space until he can use it. I love random loot.

OK, enough lurking for me, time for a first post! *gulp*

Up until a year ago I was a molecular biologist who'd ended up as a laboratory manager in a UK university. That turned out to suck so much that it made me ill, so after much deliberating I gave up that career (of 15 years, can't say I didn't give it a good shot!) and am now working my way towards being a professional photographer.

I've heard basically all positive for the Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 or any other card based on the Via Envy24 chip. I've read a few reviews and I haven't purchased this card YET, but it's the next thing I'll be doing for sure.

http://www.audiotrak.net/prodigy71.htm

Google it and read a few reviews. I'm going for this over the Audigy 2 because I'm so ready to just leave the entire Creative Labs line behind.

http://www.gerrold.com/

I just found his (David Gerrolds) website and see that he is working on book 5 and 6 and possibly 7 for his War Against the Chtorr series.  For me this is great news as I feel that this series is one of the best "Invaded Earth" series ever written.  I've seen others here post similar recommendations about this series so I thought I would spread the news.

I first read these books back in the late 80's I think and at the time there were only 3 available in the series.  I have just found out that a fourth had been printed some time ago and somehow I missed it as I've been keeping half an eye open for this series to come back into print for many years.

So now I gotta blow a bunch of money on Amazon and try and get all four books in anticipation of the release of the 5th Book (hopefully some time this year as David claimed to be mostly done with it around July or August of last year).

edit: <snipped synopses>

Anyway, I highly recommend The War Against the Chtorr if you haven't read it and if you have read it then I'm sure you will be as pleased as I am to see that after 20 years the story will finally have a chance to get finished.

My first post was about atheism responding to Broughden  :uhrr:

The 76 version of Kong was the first movie I ever saw in a theater.   It scared the piss out of me and brought me to tears, both in equal doses.  The fact that I must have been...(does some quick arithmetic)...around 3 or 4 years old at the time probably explains my reaction.  But nevertheless, the movie is permanently burned into my memory as something grand and emotional, and I will always think of it as "great" even though it probably deserves much less.

If the new version manages to evoke even a shadow of my the response it did back in 76, I will be happy.

Anyway, who the fuck takes a 3 year old to see King Kong?  Even thinking about it now gets my heart racing (I haven't seen it since).

Interplay shut down? Rumors are fun.
 on: June 01, 2004, 07:59:34 pm

I dearly hope that the rights for FreeSpace revert to Volition. I still want my FS3.

My god, that's 20 minutes from here, I think lunch for the department is on me in the near future... I may need to see this puppy first hand!

(it's sad that this is the topic that pushes me beyond just being a lurker here, isn't it?... food rules my life  :oops:)

I fear change.

March 18, 2004 in a thread titled "Is Waterthread searching hopelessly for direction?"


So like the first day or so of F13 with WT posts being lost to oblivion.

I joined the beta last night, mostly because I'm interested in seeing if eGenesis has significantly improved the concentration of power, the terrible grind to stay even a few steps behind the Joneses, and the travel times. I felt pretty burned out on ATITD when I left a year ago, primarily due to mounting chores left over as my small guild slowly collapsed in on itself; work that seems trivial to six people rapidly becomes tiresome for two. (Actually, the big mistake that probably accelerated the burnout was folding our small guild into a large guild of uber-catasses whom I simply couldn't keep up with; in retrospect, it would've been better to capitalize on the large number of advanced and maintenance-free buildings we'd accumulated and tear down the excessive-upkeep buildings in favor of trade.)

As for the gameplay, I've found it essentially unchanged aside from the compound system (which seems poised to cause all sorts of trouble for soloers who get beyond newbie buildings and don't want to live near a public camp) and moderately increased running speeds on roads. Offroad travel is, reportedly, 90% of what the travel speed in ATITD1 was. I've not really bothered paying attention to the tech race yet, so I can't comment as to whether that's grindalicious or not.

When more systems are unlocked, I hope to find some significant changes to the core production sectors; I've read that mining is being given an overhaul (i.e. not using a fixed ore map any more), so hopefully finding an ordinary iron ore vein won't be a weeklong endeavor for anyone that can't run around the desert for twelve hours. If more of the basic production industries can be made more rapidly accessible to the general population, then hopefully an economy will develop outside the elite circles. (On the other hand, maybe Duke Nukem Forever will be released. Who knows?)

Hmm...

Lum again sums up way to well the state of the game.  Community has always been the center.  EQ had the group centric power cycle with nifty items.  UO was basically a great big sandbox and everyone was given a pail and shovel and said do what you will.  Shadowbane turned the end game into isolated islands with a Lord of the Flies air.  DAOC has the three sided pie and both WOW and EQII are pushing for a two sided tourney.

Perhaps the reason Asia is having such a booming market for MMORPG's is because the gaming houses are offering a live arena for social gathering outside the game when your in the game.  While here in the states we hop into our virtual little skin in the darkness of our isolated little rooms.

Damn you Lum for making me think on a Thursday, and at work no less.

I must agree with the original poster, I felt so special when the mighty devs would come talk to us and grace us with their presence :) I say don't knock something till ya try it.

Obviously with the Haemish's article about the death of PC games and the move to this new site - we're seeing the evolution of Waterthread.  But where the heck is it going?

I always came here to read critical points of view on MMORPGs.  When the devs and serious gamers come out and talk candidly about the direction and design of their games, thats a pretty unique thing that is hard to find anywhere.  Anywhere else its heavily moderated and managed by professional PR people who are deathly scared they might piss someone off.  With the latest changes, the best part of these forums die.  I highly doubt we are going to see Raph here mixing it up with Lum and debating about the death penalty and leveling treadmills in the latest incarnation of Super Mario Bros.

Of course, Waterthread has always been a strong anti catass voice for MMORPGs - and thats fine even if I don't agree with some of the extremes people feel about it, but these changes now seem to be firmly moving the site into the casual, mass market games.  Seems like a sellout to me and I am dissappointed. 

Someone give Haemish a fucking Gamecube already and send Joe to take some lessons on cartoon drawing.  Welcome to the next Penny Arcade wanna be site.  You're really soaking in it now.

My first is an April 2004 medium-size bit of pontificating about something that had WoW players all in a fucking uproar. I can't even remember clearly what the issue was.

In one small, puny way, MMOG designers have themselves to blame for this. Oh, not all the stuff about how they handle Beta, nor even necessarily the massive clustering of stupidity that somehow infests Blizzard's most devoted fanbase, but simply this: because they continue, again and again, to design persistent-world games where the first and fastest levellers/looters/what have you have permanent advantages, where being ahead of the curve matters to those powergamers that care about such things, they have created a near-unstoppable demand among powergamers for early admission to Betas. Reason: because it confers an overwhelming advantage in terms of being the fastest leveller/looter. At the least, because you gain a huge advantage in terms of knowledge of the gameworld and game mechanics. More often, because you and your guildies learn about a bug or exploit and you keep it to yourselves.

The answer to that is to rethink the entire design of MMOGs and the way they deal with persistence. Ain't gonna happen soon, from what we're seeing. So expect every inbred catass to immolate himself on the lawn of an MMOG designer when he doesn't get into Beta, because the sad thing is that for the players for whom catassing matters, Beta matters.

You got a pitcher who has almost no cartaledge left in his knee, is old, and spent most of last season injured.

Hey, I'll trade you Kevin Brown as well if your interested.

Option 2 is much closer to the mark.  I would go so far as to say that the basic plot (if not the dialogue) would not have been out of place as one of the short stories in the original book.  I admit it's been a while since I read the book, but I'm usually very critical of movies-based-on-books deviating from the source material, and in my judgement this movie passed muster.

The trailer very much sells the movie short.  I'm guessing that they were aiming to pull in the larger "dumb action movie" demographic right off the bat, hoping that the smarter "decent sci-fi flick" demographic would either see it out of curiosity or hear good things about it on the Web after its release.

The flashlight is for wusses anyway.  We didn't have a flashlight in Doom 1 or 2, and did we stand around with our thumbs in our asses hoping the lights would come back on?  No!  We let the hellfire and muzzle flashes light our way.

Also, we ate our carrots.  Kids today are just lazy.

Sorry for going off-topic in my very first post on the forums, but... could the same methods that people use to "housebreak" dogs be used to do the same to MMORPG/MMOG-players? :P Can't exactly rub their noses in shit and yell "No! Bad MMORPG/MMOG-player!", but...

I finally picked up this game. I got Sugar on my female character, which is kind of bizarre, I'll admit.

I didn't know about the crafting it twice to get the mystic ore weapons - I have so much mystic ore, it's literally falling out of my ass.

Really a charming game, though - it makes me happy to hear there are sequels.

You should give it a try.


There have also been 3 major additions, Expanded Combat deployable (http://planetside.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?id=67237&section=News&month=current)  (Link 2) (http://planetside.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?id=67214&section=News&month=current) as well as upgradeable wall turrets, the revamped sunderer (http://planetside.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?id=67270&section=News&month=current) (Link 2) (http://planetside.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?id=67224&section=News&month=current) , and soon (may 20th) 3 new pistols, a flamethrower (http://planetside.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?id=67287&section=News&month=current), and a new rifle (http://planetside.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?id=67294&section=News&month=current) , as well as the 4 year event.

And you should Check out this  video. (http://www.marcopolo.me.uk/PSMovies/PS_AD_LARGE.wmv) (Right Click Save As)

Here is a link to a sort of "Future timeline" for implementing things, its somewhat vague as it of course was made before they really started putting things on paper and designing it, but it will give you a glimpse to the thinking of the developers and the pace they hope to achieve.

Development for the next quarter (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=88000007204)

As a long time fan of this game, i hope you will excuse me attempting to bring the fun to more people, new and old. I look forward to reading more here in the feature.

Mr.B

EDIT: You can find me on the Emerald server, Terran Republic, i am always willing to help new players and am looking to expand my Outfits ranks. No prior experience necessary.
 

Brand's still there, hombre.   :awesome_for_real:

I thought the point of waterthread was t olaugh at the frenzied MMOG fans, who seem unable to realize they love the skinner box.

You mean the scope is being expanded to 'officially' cover other areas of idiocy and stupidity in gaming?

Score!

Well I'll be damned. This is the discussion I've been looking all over the Internet for since I heard about the NGE...which was a week ago.

I resubbed to SWG earlier this month, because I wanted to re-experience the magic of it all. It was another Koster-world, and I loved it for that. But then a week later, I discovered that all that magic was going away. Forever.

Some say to quit and move to a different game. That would be applicable with most other games out there. Don't like EQ? Go to WoW. Don't like UO? Go to M59. Or whatever, they're all pretty much the same these days. But SWG was different. There is no other game to take its place. SWG was the last of the comprehensive world-style social habitats with combat, and now we have to sit around and wait for the next one.

Some say the old system sucked, and this new system is breathing new life into it. Unfortunately, over the course of SWG's life, it attracted and kept the players who liked that kind of game system. And to paraphrase the most ironic statement from Jeff Freeman, the current subscribers have been alienated, with hopes that people will leave the game they currently love, in favor of a game that's over two years old. That's a dangerous gamble.

I was one of those players who liked the entertainment scene, but also liked to go out and hunt once in a while. I know plenty of players who liked that sort of thing. SWG was the only game that let me do that, and now it's no longer an option. I could make a combat alt, but I'd much rather play a kung-fu rock-n-roll street-dance fighter rolled into one.

Interesting to watch it all go live, and see the naysayers go "Wow, this really DOES suck!" Also interesting to watch people champion it, crying "It's so much better now!" Truly, this is closer to what SOE should have done from the start. But they didn't, and so they attracted a different kind of gamer, and a different set of playstyles, than they would have otherwise. I don't see that as a good thing, nor as a bad thing. It was simply the way things turned out. Much better, I think, to just repackage this into SWG Adventures, and port that straight to the console market, like they did with EQ Adventures. I have seen no reason to think that SWG was headed to cancelation as it stood.

Five servers that you can be evacuated from, four new servers, and about 50 servers blacklisted from being able to transfered to (what's that, a bit over a third of all US servers?).

What I found a bit more interesting is that they're moving all the same language Euro servers to the same datacenters (Curse (http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/news-192-1-wow-site-migration-on-june-28th.html) story) in prep for cross-server battlegrounds. Popular theory in my guild is that they're starting off with servers in the same datacenter and possibly branching out from there.

I did actualy record the entire match from my perspective....but I'm probably too lazy to ever get it all converted and posted and I played too badly most of the maps to send it to someone else to look at.

As a fanboi of this game, who followed it for two years and noted that everytime it was brought up on Waterthread the general consensus was "Who cares? It's gonna suck", all I can say is that CoH is worth the wait. Also, it's nice to see that most of you other cynical bastards agree.

It is my honest opinion that it will be the yardstick by which every other mmog will be measured (assuming launch day isn't fubared). Imagine this: 1) an independent studio 2) creates an original game 3) in a new genre 4) without having a movie / IP licence as a base and 5) it is better than anything else on the market. How's that for being completely against mmog industry trends?

In fact, my biggest complaint is now the forums have gone to hell. Can't have it both ways I guess.

re: books

I always feel obligated to make a pitch for my hometown hero Kim Stanley Robinson.  His trilogy on Mars are THE books to read on the colonization of Mars in my perfect little world.  The Years of Rice and Salt and Antarctica are great reads as well.

Another plug is for David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series.  8 books of great alternate history.

As for Simmon's Hyperion, they get the double thumbs up from me as well.


-fraeg

Should have just gone with text-to-speech tech and been done with it. Would have saved 8 CDs worth of data. At 1 meg a minute on MP3 128kbps that is 7.8 gigs for 130 hours (YMMV).

What with the singing software (http://www.yamaha.co.jp/product/vocaloid/en/sample.html) and all I think text to speech is ready for primetime.

If the karate kid didn't have to paint fences and do the other crap that miagi (sp, whatever) had him do, if he just suddenly said, 'whoa, i know kung fu', what kind of story does that make?  Does anyone watch that story?  The part you aren't getting is that these games are built upon a genre where the lowly student strives and struggles to eventually become the master.  If this core concept doesn't seem fun to you, you are probably in the wrong genre.

I'm not saying that the current method of leveling is fun, but I AM saying that humans understand at a gut level that anything worthwhile requires an expenditure of effort.  Also, I'm saying that you don't get it because you're refusing to be immersed in whatever game you are playing.  You are burnt out on the drama and grandeur these worlds are supposed to provide.  Your friend isn't.

Ok, I played EQ2 in beta and absolutely hated it. I keep reading, though, that now it's a pretty solid and fun game. Where should I go to get all the standard information like classes and such? I'm not yet sure if I'm going to give a free trial a go yet, or not. I'm just in the initial stages of pondering if there's anything that gets me excited enough to play. I looked at ye ole standard Allakhazam's, but either it's poorly organized and lacking info, or my brain has finally turned to the diseased organ I always knew my company would turn it into.

Any help is appreciated!

Hopefully this isn't a retarded first post. I found this place from Lum's brokentoys.org, so blame him even though he has no clue who I am. Strangers make the best scapegoats imo.

what Haemish said.  unions == mediocrity

the OT and other HR disasters publicized about EA aren't unique to game companies -- anyone that makes consumer software can expect to be pumelled occassionally because the products are following the "consumer" market and its seasons and fads.  You have to have serial releases and can't get a year+ to build something unless you're innovating and building new core components.  But it's a management failure when OT happens repeatedly.   Good tech managers know that and realize it costs a shitload more to replace someone good than to throw dozens of contractors at a problem.  What worries me a lot is outsourcers like (Indian) InfoSys who cater to these kind fucked up expectations and make it seem the norm.  That's why more people want some defence (unions).  But I don't think it's realistic

hello BTW :)

Long time lurker, first time poster.

This one gets the Zero Wing award:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-tech-support&t=237072&p=1&tmp=1#post237072

Goddamn. You delurk to hurt us? Welcome aboard.

Reply #74 on: October 30, 2007, 02:19:04 pm     
He whores himself out on other message boards I frequent as well.  Pain in the ass if you ask me.

Please to not be using this thread as self-pimpage. That interview was a one time deal I let slide because it was about AOC and I was too lazy to get one myself.

Renowned Uber Guild Leaders can suck my dick.

Got some room for a 'stranger'? I'll probably have to roll up a new character for BC, as I used my 'main' to start up a supergroup already (for the morlocks).

My 'main' is the Cosmic Anomaly, an Energy/Energy Blaster, lvl 12 as of the cutoff.

Oh, and hi!

Steelers - because i flipped a coin, and pittsburgh won

Eagles - the team of my second home. even with the suspect run defense, i still have to take them over the Falcons - i just don't buy into the falcons' hype, coming out of the weakest division, and prolly with a weaker schedule, etc. Also, the Eagles' defense is just more dominating. This game will be won decisively, either for or against the Eagles.

Eagles v Steelers in the Super Bowl

Ya, i know this won't count FTW, but it was the only thing i had time for before class, hehe

My first post, For Teh Win!!

And the Irish are sticking with Cessnas  (http://www.military.ie/aircorps/aircraft.htm)for the time being it seems...

This was in a thread about the EU smacking down Microsoft over something. My initial series of posts seem to have been about beer or movies. Apart from pointing out that everything that was wrong with anything was obviously Schild's fault.

I took a lot of grief on the old boards for my statements about how AIDS is NOT a concern of heterosexual men. I was not smoking crack at the time. (http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix.htm)

Hero Name: The Blue Bomb
Hero Archetype: Ice Ice Blaster
Catass commitment: Yes, yes, and hell yes.

Anyone have a link to this patch they have planned for the end of the month?

I keep hearing clothing shops and respec whispers, but I cant find jack from the devs.

Hello all,

Long time lurker, first time poster, looking to discuss Raid Progression in Burning Crusade.

Currently Blizzard has designed raid instances to be a progression with lockout timers, gear, faction, and resist checks all designed to string out the time it takes to "clear" a raid instance. It can take a new guild, on a new server, 6+ months to even enter Naxx, much less "finish" it. This has the effect of keeping the hardcore raiders subscribed, by giving them content that requires much time & skill and effectively weeds out 90% of the player base, introducing the catass or "elite" factor for those able to complete Naxx.

It appears that the new Raid Instances may be designed differently. There is speculation that Karazhan is designed to be the toughest Raid, and the raid from which many Tier 4 pieces will drop. There is also rumors that Karazhan and other Raids will be doable using the level 70 blues available in the 5 man instances and other raids. If this is true, then it appears that Blizzard is fundamentally changing the raid progression design.

Currently Naxx is only doable by spending months farming items in BWL/AQ40. However, the toughest raids in BC appear to be doable without the same requirements. Karazhan may be hard, it may require extremely well coordinated & skilled groups. But it appears to at least be doable without 4 months of raid farming other instances.

If this is true, it would appear that Blizzard has decided to fundamentally change the end-game by making it accessible to the vast majority of the playerbase, rather than the 10% who currently experience it.

Other factors suggesting this:

-Smaller raid sizes means it is easier to have a raiding guild.
-PvP rewards on par with PVE rewards means raiders will no longer be able to out-gear non-raiders.

Hardcore raiders are already dismayed that their T3 gear is being outclassed quickly in the expansion. Some hardcore guilds are bemoaning the smaller raids sizes and worried about losing members or having to cull their membership. Cries that Blizzard has sold-out to the casual playerbase have been loud and many.


If Blizzard is indeed fundamentally changing the raid progression formula, what effect will this have on the game?

Tricky one that. First pick would go to Iraq, his crimes being against his own people and that. No other country has any business trialing him. Least of all Israel. There could be made a case for the USA, because they invaded his country and later arrested him. Den Hague would be an international tribunal which would be a good compromise, but their track record is less than stellar. I would be for an Iraqi trial under international supervision, if the Iraqi laws provide the means for a fitting punishment.

Its really really easier when your own country revolts and the people shoot you in some backyard behind your palace.

Indeed, and PvP should be about the challenging fight where you can die as well as kill. Or the kill for specific goals that fit into the context.

If you get off from killing defenseless victims, you need a good therapist or the right medicaments, but not a PvP-game.

Usually those are the people that try to evade resonsibility for their actions as well. Because a fair fight would be unfair to them and would ruin their gaming experience. I'm all for a fixed time people can't log out of the game after they started PvP. Thusly they can be hunted down by alerted Antis and brought to justice. Of couse "losing connection" during that period would instantly kill them and make their corpse lootable. Would suck to be a PvP with bad connection I guess, but since PvPers with bad connection are dead anyway I would take that risk. And if he can evade all Antis for one or two hours he has earned his joy of killing for a day by experiencing fear as well.

Yeah, so I'm new here but can see I'm in good company with being Miyamoto's bitch and all. Y'know, I was gonna preorder the shit anyway, so what do I have to lose? $50 now instead of in October? Who gives a shit? And I totally TOTALLY also fucking hated the water level in the N64 Zeldas. How did the Zelda Collector's Edition disk get put out originally (I bought mine on eBay)? Promo? Bling for registering the game? Point: even if it's a joke, it's prolly not a scam.