Lycanus
-
Posts
1176 -
Joined
-
The Malta are more akin to the Majestic 12 conspiracy myth and James Bond stories than the Illuminati. The Midnight Club is more akin to the Illuminati, Masons or other such classical multi-century secret society.
As to that, I know one of my characters is Medusa...as in she inherited the power down through several generations going back to the Libyan Goddess before she was killed... -
all I'll say is that leaves me hopeful for a gun-based power pool so that I can do a swords woman armed with a pistol without having to keep up a revolver temp power
-
...another power pool with ranged attacks revolving around guns
this pretty much falls into my continuing effort to get a character with gun and sword attacks without having to keep up the revolver temp power -
Quote:Yes, I'm willing for whip to be one of the point purchases.Originally Posted by Kirsten
Problem is, the four animations for Demons took as much work as an entire powerset. So unless you were willing to wait double the time, or pay extra, whipe melee/assault will not happen.
Yes, I'm willing for whip to take a little extra time.
It isn't as though the whole design team only does one thing at a time, they're broken down into smaller teams....just have the whip team with smaller priority until it gets closer to being finished...
Probably what's been happening with psi-melee, actually.
Also, whips are a rather standard trope of character types rather than a unique breed....there are plenty of whip/ribbon users out there in the general media as it stands
which is one of the reasons we want whips, actually
so we can emulate Indy, Nagi, Kodachi, Ivy and other such characters
plus, the optional whip types will be interesting:
energy whip (colorable to fire, lightsaber, ice, or what not)
plant whip
standard bull whip
and so on -
....just because this particular piece amuses the heck out of me
I've been having different artists do single character pieces based on different characters from Divine Blood and while her story is not yet written, Hel Logesdottir's piece amuses the heck out of me:
-
One of my characters, who I need to play more, is a cosplayer. You have to be careful though. You can't just completely copy a copyrighted character unless they are your character or you have permission from the creator to do so. Jim Butcher has this trouble playing Dresden in the game. Note my character's costumes always have essentially the same physical shape and the rat features. Some of my other anime homages have been next generations and crossover inspired.
This character was inspired by Shizuo from Durarara!!
This character was inspired by Kodachi Kuno (with maybe a touch of Poison Ivy)
Here's my Godzilla girl:
These images weren't used as in-game characters, but to provide visuals for two Legend of Five Rings characters:
This character represents a possible child of Hinata and Naruto:
This character represents a possible child of Ranma and Tanya Rey (Gold Digger)
And none of these I played live, but made just to show that the characters from anime could be duplicated at need. They're from Darker Than Black:
-
Quote:unfortunately, people are stuck on the idea that one book=one movie. Even when they go to television rather than the theater, novels are usually portrayed as mini-series or even two-hours specials.Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
Yep.
I always felt like a BBC series might have been the best way to do a live action translation of the books.
It's not unreasonable to make three movies out of the Hobbit, really. Making the LOTR trilogy of books into just three films was far more of a jarring notion than making three films out of one book.
And think about it, usually the conversation about books made movies there's some sort of discussion about the idea that "more was explained in the book", usually as a way of excusing the inevitable plot holes that appear when you try to crush a novel's worth of material into a short stories face
also, executive meddling is more rampant in an ongoing series....if they tried to do a live action TV version of the Hobbit, you can bet there'd be attempts to increase its marketability. That would likely be even worse.
Still, it would be nice if people finally realized that a feature movie is a short story. -
Quote:A movie is generally about the same amount of story you can get from a short story.Originally Posted by Demobot
Story here.
Not sure what to think about this. I was a bit surprised when it was announced that The Hobbit would be two movies long, but three? I'll still watch all three movies, as I think Peter Jackson did a great job with the LOTR trilogy and winning 11 Oscars with a threequel is quite an achievement, but how the heck do you stretch The Hobbit over three films, even with the Appendix material?
Getting a full novel, even of the Hobbit's size, with all the appropriate complexity and scenes, is more something that would take a full season of an hour long television drama.
Really, to fully cover the Lord of the Rings would probably take six seasons of hour-long television drama. Assume 24 episodes a season.
That would be almost 4 and a half DAYS, as in 24 hours, worth of material. -
Quote:heh, I've got three commissions in the works right now...I just don't post most of my commissions here because most of them aren't CoH relatedOriginally Posted by Sapphic_Neko
Hilarious!
May have to commission just because of that! -
Step One: Inspiration
The first step to commissioning art the way I do it is to either start writing a story or else reading one. Eventually you will come to one of the following decisions:
a) I so want to see a visual representation of this character
b) I so would want to see my character meet this other one
c) I would love to see this particular event here
At which point, the knee jerk reaction to check your bank account kicks in and the next thing you know you're trying to find room in your budget for the art.
Step Two: Budgeting
Now that you have an idea of something you want to see in visual format, you have to go looking for how to pay for it. If your budget is tight then a rationalization...I mean reason might be useful as well. I suggest the following:
a) The artist is offering lower priced promotions right now!
b) I can use this in connection with my original works which almost nobody knows about...so this is a business expense...really (make sure to pay for commercial rights)
c) I've always wanted to get a commission by this artist
d) I have plenty of food to last the next week
e) But I really want it! Really and really truly want it!
Step Three: Choosing an artist
Maintain a list of commissionable artists who use art styles you like. When you get one of these ideas, skim through that list and see who's open for commissions. Make sure not to choose anybody who took your money and then failed to get art to you for a year running.
Choosing an artist who knows you and understands your foibles and peculiarities is probably a good idea, but sometimes you just want someone new.
Step Four: Wall o'Text (and, if possible, Sea o'References)
Okay, find story snippets, character descriptions, any past pieces of art, and photos related to objects you want in the work, pieces of art related to characters not-belonging to you that you want in the art, so on and so forth.
Send the note
Step Five: Wall o'Text: Part Two - The Realization
Remember some piece of information that might or might not be important to the whole and send that out in a new note.
Step Six: Wall o'Text: Part Three - The Return
Remember another piece of information that might or might not be important and send that in a new note.
Step Seven: Wall o'Text: Part Four - The Apology
Send an apology for the barrage of notes.
Step Eight: The Waiting...
Continuously and neurotically check your Sent Notes folder to see if your request have been read yet. Pounce on return notes like a hungry lion in a meat factory.
Read the questions and clarifications that the artist has to you.
Step Nine: Wall o'Text: The Revenge
Prepare another encyclopedic note responding to the artist's questions.....
Step Ten: Repeat Steps Five through Nine
Step Eleven: Pay the Man/Woman/whatever...
Go to paypal and get your money sent.
Step Twelve: Anticipation
Read and re-read and re-re-read the notes you sent out and try to imagine what the finished product will look like.
Step Thirteen: Sketch Approval
See Step Ten
Step Fourteen: Eager Anticipation
As Step Twelve but also repeatedly look at the sketch you had to approve. Gush to friends.
Step Fifteen: Acquire Art
Put it in your gallery with credit to artist...if this is an original work with no characters that don't belong to you, try for a print (make sure you paid for commercial rights)
If art is connected to a piece of original fiction, convince/hope the artist will post their own version: they probably have a larger fanbase than you do.
Step Sixteen: Sharing and Appreciation
Show off new art to friends and others. "Look how awesome I am, I can pay for art!" Monitor comments on the new art on both your posting and the artist's posting...respond to as many comments as you can.
With art connected to your own original novels, try to push the novel sales.
Step Seventeen:
See Step One
Note: The process of showing fans of other, more established fanbases and fictional settings and saying "look how cool my characters are" is pretty much standard operating procedure regardless of whether you are currently commissioning a work or not. -
I considered doing a version of Eija Semezou as the Goddess of Blood (from about 3 to 4 books further along the plan than I currently am at) this way, but am having second thoughts:
for one thing, Eija's primary use of blood is in healing and transportation...she doesn't do that much offensively...
plus, I tend to avoid putting my unique literary characters in these games....though Dresden is around....so might change that policy -
Just recognized the TV Harry Dresden as a psychotic Irish radical on Burn Notice...for further fun, he's putting one of the characters up for auction which happened to Dresden in the novels
-
Quote:My personal favorite comic book, and the only one I subscribe: Gold Digger, used to put out "Gold Bricks" that were collections of 50 or so issues in one book, though having talked to AP recently (to get my subscription set up for moving to Japan) I'd heard the Gold Bricks got too expensive and now they releasing collections that contain four issues total.Originally Posted by Hit Streak
One thing I've never been able to get into growing up has been comic books. Not because I don't think superheroes are awesome. More because I fell in love with baseball and have always collected baseball cards.
But, being surrounded by this awesome community and the culture here at Paragon, I can't help but be curious enough to start reading. So, I come to you, City of Heroes community. Tell me what the best way to get into them would be. Where do I start?
I'm sure there's some subculture stuff out there that can bring heated conversations, so please don't let it fall to that.
In addition to that AP, Marvel and DC put out collections that are complete versions of specific storylines. For example, you should be able to find the Death and Rebirth of Superman as a single volume. Likewise for the Time Warp miniseries between Gold Digger and Ninja High School.
Personally, until manga, I wasn't that into comic either, I bought them, yeah, but not really collected. I got most of my fantasy reading from Greek and Norse myth, King Arthur stories, Dragonlance novels, TSR novels, Tolkien and stuff like that. -
Commander Susan Ivanova of Babylon-5 as the adoptive mother of a girl who's been missing for years on the TV show Grimm
-
I've had similar situations, got this pic of one such thing:
-
Quote:interesting, I've experienced the immediate, post-credits urge to see the same movie multiple times in theater twice:Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
Yep, the Avengers finally got toppled by Men in Black 3. But it took almost a month to get the almost-invincible Avengers off their record-breaking throne. Mighty incredible, if you ask me.
I think it's safe to say that people dig the Avengers.
(I've seen it twice already, might have to see it one more time before it leaves theaters.)
Fellowship of the Ring and Summer Wars
unfortunately, while I did see the other two LotR movies multiple times in theaters, I'd had time to digest the directing style more completely and the multiple unnecessary inaccuracies from the book dimmed some of the awesome. -
Quote:I did that with my first ever live character Blood Rose starting from 2004 on to 2007. Only problem was that she out leveled stuff that didn't exist yet.Originally Posted by Placta
Envoy of Shadows. Why would I ever touch that one again, except on my character who's doing every single (blueside) mission available on her way up? (And yeah, she is level 37, so... soon...)
Anyway seed of darkness. -
Getting rid of -1 and 0 diff unfairly penalizes some ATs who cannot solo as well. So I don't agree there. I've long asked for increases to enemies and better enemy AI but simply increasing hp and damage does not increase difficulty. I would point to groups like Arachnos and the BP where intermixed damage types and a wide variety of debugged make things harder than more coherently designed enemies.
I have previously suggested a diff setting that causes more sappers and similar enemies to spawn in groups. That would give us what we want without penalizing the less solo capable ATs.
Also, when two of a particular kind of enemy appear they should both use the full range of their powers. For example sky raider engineers. Sometimes you get three engineers in a spawn but only one of those ever drops a genny.
Adding more sappers makes definite sense. The Tsoo red/blue inks as well but they're already there. Make enemy debuff more common to bite that edge of ours. Bulk up some of those under utilized groups. For example, the warriors are characterized as being heavy into acquiring magic relics, but we never see any enemies outside of basic bruisers. We could stand to see warriors with flight or invisibility.
The game is designed around the idea that no one AT is ever necessary. That should be let. A tank should merely alter the options you have in approach rather than make it possible to win. Really we're having an easy time now because, after eight years, we've pretty much memorized all the standard room placements and static mobs are inherently vulnerable. Implementing more patrolling enemies, perhaps fluctuating base perception on the baddies to represent them looking around. Right now we can reliably predict both when and where a fight happens. If that is taken away things get more challenging.
However each element of supposed difficulty has, in the past, been railed against by players as being no fun. -
so, do they kill the aliens with the common cold?
damn, that would be a spoiler -
Quote:It's the taunt duration of their taunt aura that causes the weak aggro. Super reflexes should be even worse.Originally Posted by Lycantropus
The trick to this one is, if Tanks are de-facto better at managing aggro, more will be made redside, just as we now see Brutes springing up Blueside.
This has been my experience also. The actual use of Gauntlet is a little dodgy since everything it's going to affect most of the time is in your aggro aura anyway. Plus the area of effect for Gauntlet is very small. Things have to literally be standing next to the target you hit.
Threat levels make a difference though. I've had no trouble maintaining aggro with my Dark/Dark Brute, for example, however my WP Tank has noticeably more difficulty with large mobs due to the lower threat level and maybe lack of a damage aura (not sure which reason is more prevalent in this regard).
Also, attacks with high base damage can produce a taunt radius around 15 ft or so. While increasing damage doesn't increase the radius, it does increase the threat.
Found the formula once upon a time, let me look at my stuff here to see if I can reverse engineer it...
Okay
Threat by my old notes seems to be:
Damage(1 if no damage) * Threat Level * Taunt Duration * 1000 * 2.050
If there is a debuff involved then there is an additonal *2
Which is why Invincibility produces 139,400 threat, Against All Odds produces 278,800 threat, Blazing Aura produces 1,083,753 threat.
And Rise to the Challenge produces 20,500 threat and Evasion produces 8,2000 threat (since I don't remember tank evasion giving any debuffs).
Meanwhile the tanker attack aggro kings are: Seismic Smash, Knockout Blow and Total Focus tied at around 35 million and generally producing 15ft radius gauntlets and Chain Induction at around 47 million, but given it's a chain it might count as AoE and not have a gauntlet taunt beyond the directly hit targets.
I do not remember what that 2.05 is, but it is in all my formulas in my old notes. -
....so I'd seen comments about how good it was from friends in Australia, the Philippines, Korea and, of course, the United States, so a couple of weeks back I decided to walk to the local theater which I had recently had pointed out to me expecting to catch the Avengers.
Which is how I learned that Japan isn't running it until August.
At least I'll be on vacation then. -
hmm, that gives me something to possibly use here and/or in Bystander. So yes, that does help.
-
Got some help from an ex-marine of my acquaintance...doing them basically modeled on an armored battalion.
The main problem being you can never tell which aspect of the world the reader is going to be most interested in. I do have one person who sounds like he wants to do a US-based game/fanfic involving more Sumerian and Mesopotamian Gods and Demons, based on the questions I'm getting asked.
As to the short stories, the first "Extra Curricular" is out on drivethruRPG, a second is being formatted and a third is started. I would have put it out on Amazon but offering most of these shorts for free as a sort of advertising. I'll compile these at the end along with some unreleased shorts in a for-sale "Club Book". I know the advice is "Don't offer things for free", but I mostly write stories for the simple fact that....I write stories. I write mostly for myself, but I like sharing them. If I start getting a following, $3 for an ebook and $9.99 for a print book should be plenty and still give me room to offer occasional sales at $1 and $7.95. Especially if I get my life necessities from other things.
Currently the story that's out already shows what happened at the volcano Lilitu was taking care of. The one in the formatting is Eowyn Desai's back story and how she met Trolleti. Then I have a story involving what Minaba was up to. After which I plan to write some stories around some of the male characters.
The book that's out: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?cPath=8144_8666
I've already started on one of the compilation only stories as well and am also once again over half-way finished with part 3 of my Greenwater fantasy story with no necessity for re-write appearing like had happened last year. After that, working on a sequel to my Bystander novel. While trying to get stuff put together for the Divine Blood RP so I can have a coherent playtest designed and offered to people so that I can put the game out next year.
Next year planning on a DB novel, part 4 of Greenwater so I can finish that story for a while, and the RP supplement. More short stories, though probably a mix of Bystander and DB, possibly another Bystander book. Granted this is all planning right now, we'll see where I get with it. ^_^;;;
Meanwhile the short stories are happening and I'm back in Asia full time teaching, losing weight, having more energy for my own projects and loving every minute of it so far.
Hopefully, after I've cleared some student loans that have been hanging around me 12 years because I keep putting them off and some credit card stuff from a year of stupidity a few years back, then I'll be able to start to afford a professional editor as well as more frequently purchase art than I currently do.
Life is hopeful. -
Quote:Tanks and Brutes do not have the same aggro. A Brute hits someone, they aggro THAT target, a Tank hits someone they aggro that target and as many as FOUR other targets around the original target. They have the same aggro cap and can somewhat appear to have the same aggro management, but things already peel off brutes that wouldn't peel off of a tank.Originally Posted by Lycantropus
And the last run of posts only convince me more that it's more about aggro management than survivability.
I don't care what a Brute can or cannot survive vs a Tank. The fact that it's aggro management is the same is what makes them just as 'useful' and do more damage. It seems like everyone wants to nerf their resistance/defense caps, but that won't change that they can hold the same ammount of aggro, and as everyone keeps saying 'with the proper buffs' (whatever they are dependent on the Brute) a Brute can tank as well as a Tank. What it can resist is almost pointless in comparison. A well buffed anything does a better job than a non-buffed something.
Again, lower the Brute's Threat rating, making spawns more inclined to peel off them when others attack in teams, and normalize the Tank's Threat rating, and possibly increase how many they can retain aggro on, so they're desireable again for what they're supposed to be about. Even if they can't do the latter because it's a universal constant, they can affect the former, making Tanks the unequalled contender in aggro management again.
I really think that would be enough without effecting sweeping changes to Brute's survivability just to make Tanks feel special. -
this isn't for the fiction, but for the RP supplement that was the original project, so minutia might be necessary for people wanting to play in the world. Otherwise I would agree.
Heck some of the stuff I'm doing for this RP supplement probably won't appear in the novels save peripherally.
But I want some good examples of organizations for each major nation some of which are plot important to my novels but others of which are just examples of the state of the world for anyone running the setting. Actually, this setting was intended to be an RP supplement only in the first place, but I got convinced to do it as a novel series too (didn't take much...realized the people I was talking too expected it and realized at the same time I'd like to). The main purpose is to give flavor to the world and give ideas for players to create their own organizations.
Once Organizations are finished I'm moving on to powers, than races including some requested minor races, then tech. After that I'm going to use the FATE system to show one way the setting can be put to rules and give some summary on other game systems that would work. Finally, I'm going to have a sample adventure and a sample campaign thread. At which point I will start looking for playtesters. I had hoped to be to that point already, but other writing projects intended to be out this year (including some connected free short stories and continuations to two of my other world settings) and the process of moving to Japan and back to being a full time teacher have slowed me down in places.
However, I'm not expecting this to be out until next year sometime, so I have time.
The series itself is going to focus more around a select number of the things I'm putting into the RP supplement.