Nestor

Um, well, gee, I wish I could give you a great story about my forum handle, but...

It's my name. Seriously.

Yeah, I know, kinda lame, but I've yet to meet anyone face to face with the same name (although I know they're out there), so it tends to be reasonably distinctive.

I'm just relishing the sweet, sweet irony of someone invoking canon on anything involving Star Trek.

I can think of a good number of adjectives to describe the series, but "logically consistent" is by far not one of them.

Heck, the Great Bird of the Galaxy himself didn't consider some of the TOS episodes (specifically the third season) as "canon".

Gawd, so many to choose from...

I will humbly submit this one, more of a scene than a single quote, from The 13th Warrior, as our heroes stand facing the oncoming horde for one last final stand, they begin to chant:

Buliwyf: 'Lo, there do I see my father. 'Lo, there do I see...
Herger the Joyous: My mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.
Buliwyf: 'Lo, there do I see...
Herger the Joyous: The line of my people...
Edgtho the Silent: Back to the beginning.
Weath the Musician: 'Lo, they do call to me.
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: They bid me take my place among them.
Buliwyf: In the halls of Valhalla...
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Where the brave...
Herger the Joyous: May live...
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: ...forever.

Damn if that doesn't fill me with the desire to raise a sword and roar a challenge.

Bah! Deinonycho didn't make the cut. I'm so disgusted.

I bet it was because of that scene with Sister Psyche. I told her my thoughts of her were strictly Platonic. And the placement of the whipped cream was entirely, um, allegorical. Yeah, that's it. Allegorical.

Man, you make one mistake and they never let you forget it.

Just adding my lone voice to the cacophony of agreement over this topic.

In my opinion, a game element that can only be accessed by either stumbling into it through random wandering or referring to out-of-game resources (such as game guides and forums) is an example of BAD game design.

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I imagine having an original (good) idea in a comic after 100 years of such must be tough.

You know the saying....there is nothing new under the sun.

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Having an original idea in ANYTHING is tough, but also not really all that important. The trick is in what you do with the idea, those elements of yourself and your style that you bring to it that, hopefully, folks will dig. That's why you have nine million people with "fantastic ideas" who think they can come up with the next big blockbuster, but only a handful of them will ever see fruition. Ideas are cheap; characterization, well-developed characters, sharp dialogue, and story pacing are not.

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Couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks, Troy!

I have no problem with "formula" plots. It's what the writer/director does with the plot that's important.

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When you're the captain of a team, you've got the authority to punish team members for violations.

If Manticore accepts the punishment, it's because the alternative is to quit the team. When you're a member of THE elite superhero team of the world, are you going to quit just because your leader got mad and sidelined you for awhile?

Of course, now it looks like Manticore may be doing that very thing... Until next month, anyway...

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That's what I said. Statesman has every right to kick Manticore off the team. But he doesn't have any political standing, and he can't revoke Manticore's hero license.

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Guys, guys, I mean c'mon, this story is straight from the Superhero Comic-Book Plot Generator(tm).

Y'know, the one where the impulsive, doesn't-follow-the-rules member of the superhero team is publicly kicked out by the straight-arrow leader. The fallen hero ends up associating with a villain organization and even joining it in an apparent attempt at betrayal. Then, at some climactic moment, his true allegiance is revealed and we find that the whole scenario was a ruse to have the hero infitrate the villain's operation to to thwart the evildoer's plan.

Ho-hum. Been there, done that. Sounds like something Statesman would cook up. The man hasn't had an original thought since he came up with his latest costume layout, if you can call that original.

(if this doesn't get this thread locked and deleted... well at least I tried)

So I heard War Witch decided to take DJ Zero's example and open a bar and casino herself. She knew just how to set it up, too.

Yup, you guessed it... Liquor in front, poker in the rear.

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*dances with no pants*

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AUUGH!!! MY EYES!!!

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States has the satisfied look of a man who just took a big thunder dump. Maybe thats why Posi cant go the the bathroom.

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Er... not to derail but that just made me think and has probably been addressed elsewhere but not even remotely sure how to do a search for this... how the hell DOES Posi go to the can?

Does it all just change to some kind of radiation he can emit through his armor?

-States and Posi are flying toward a villain holdout... Posi fires a rogue beam at the ground... States looks at him quesitoningly-

"Sorry, had to pee."

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Heh. Reminds me of my Positron homage/spoof character, Doc Phlogiston, a Fire/Dev Blaster.

He was an absent-minded scientist researching ways to improve the energy coefficient of jet fuels. One day, he mistakenly drank one of his samples, thinking it was his coffee. When he recovered, he found out the compound had mutated his body to cause all his bodily fluids to become highly flammable.

He now wears a containment suit to prevent him from accidentally igniting the neighborhood. The suit collects his, er, effluvium and allows him to eject and ignite it in a controlled fashion.

I'll leave the mental image as an exercise to the reader.

That is a very interesting viewpoint, Craban, considering I ended up with pretty much a similar conclusion when HeroClix came out. (i.e., it's not a superhero game, it's a plain combat sim with superhero trappings spray-painted on).

As a dyed-in-the-wool PnP RPG player, I have an innate dislike for CCGs. I've seen a beloved FLGS succumb to the CCG craze and lose the feel that made it a fun place to go.

I'm also somewhat cheesed by the fact that the blinkin' CCG is out, but the RPG is still vaporware.

But those are entirely personal perceptions, and y'all are perfectly invited to ignore them.

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I've been playing PnP games since about '78. Now I own a game store. Happy happy joy joy! (bit of advice: don't expect to make much money at it.. own your Corvette BEFORE getting the game store.. )

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If I were mean and spiteful and trollish, I'd make some comment to the effect that if the game you were playing since '78 was D&D, then you hadn't been playing RPG's. But I'm really a nice guy so I won't.

No really, don't take offense. I have a rep in my gaming group for ranting against Gygax's creation, so sometimes it feels like I have to keep it up for tradition's sake.

You own a game store? Hats off to you, sir! I wish you the best of luck in your enterprise. I make a point of subsidizing the local FLGS and letting them know they better not decide to go away. As a matter of fact, they're celebrating their 6th year in business this weekend. Yay!

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But what is an RPG but a set of rules that you role play within? In this case, and because of technology, you are just more limited in what you can do. It is still possible to role play in this setting. A PnP just allows for more flexibility due to it's free roaming nature.

Online RPGs could more closely be represented as "limited RPGs", but they still are, in effect, RPGs.

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It's a valid point, but I tend to be a little more demanding in applying the roleplaying moniker on a game. Please excuse me if this gets long-winded, but I've had this discussion before.

If by "roleplaying" you mean acting out a character in a game, we could technically apply the term to almost any game. I've seen kids "roleplay" the card game War (y'know, the one where the two players draw cards and the high one wins) by pretending the cards are opponents in a fight. Chess is another game I've seen that has been "enhanced" by roleplaying the interaction between the pieces.

My group used to play the board game Talisman (from Games Workshop) and imbue the pieces with personalities that actually affected what we did in the game. (My favorite story is the guy playing the Monk who decided to worship the dragon in the Cave. Whenever he landed on that spot, he'd start chanting, "Oh most powerful of reptiles! Please grant this lowly servant a boon!". More than half the time, he'd roll and get bags of gold! )

What I'm getting at is that roleplaying can be a separate element from the game mechanics. What makes a game a "true" RPG is that the system itself is built to encourage and support the roleplaying. This is why I tend to look at D&D in less than a favorable light; in my opinion, roleplaying occurs in spite of the rules, not because of them. If asked, I'd say D&D is a single-unit tactical wargame.

Bottom line, I agree that CoH has the elements that can contribute to roleplaying in the sense that they can be used to help create and play a character. But, there is still not enough for me to grant it being a RPG, as opposed to a game in which you can roleplay.

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I have it on good authority that Jake is in fact... a 5th Column Mekman.

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So, when Jake appears as a woman or a homeless man... he's a robot... in disguise!

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Oh great. Now I have that stupid Transformers jingle stuck in my head.

Thanks a real lot.

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I am a hard core gamer who grew up with only Marvell (not that good), Champions (a little better but too many numbers to crunch), and Palladium (better than the others) as PnP RPGs.


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<twitch> <twitch> Must... control... inner... geek... Mustn't... deride... Palladium... as... bad... D&D... clone...



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But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.


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No worries, mate. To each their own. Personally, I found the Palladium system as a step backward in RPG design. We'd worked so hard to get out of the morass of levels and table-lookups, only to have it all brought up again. Sheesh.

I do find interesting the cross-pollination that Cryptic/NCSoft is engaging in with CoH. MMO to comic to CCG to RPG to... whatever's next. As long as they can keep each genre contained; I would not like to have to buy the CCG just to be able to play the MMO, for example.

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As some one that still role-plays regularly*


* two, three times a year, thats regular. Right?

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Um, no hun, that would not count as regular, I am in a funk because I only get to play for about 6 hours every Saturday.

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Heh. Right there wit'cha, Nox.

I go through periods of feast and famine. I'm either going through gaming withdrawal because no one's running anything, or I'm frantically trying to fit gaming sessions into our already overbooked schedule. Sigh.

As for the RPG label in computer games, I wholeheartedly agree with Jagged. Been doing the RPG thing since the late 70's and I've yet to find a computer game that has captured the same feel as a true RPG. I do admit that CoH has come the closest, but then it is the first MMO I've ever played, and most likely the only one I'll ever play.

Heh. Try explaining to people that you play pencil-and-paper RPGs. After that, explaining MMOs is cake.

I got involved with RPGs (which in those days, pretty much meant D&D) in high school. I think my parents were just glad that I wasn't hanging out and getting into trouble. Their graduation present to me was $50 worth of stuff from TSR (which was quite a bit then).

In college, I discovered games that left D&D in the dust, and never looked back. These days, I have shelves groaning under the weight of RPG books galore.

As an adult, I still get the odd look now and then when I sit in a waiting room reading some sourcebook with its garish cover. Eh, what do I care?

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Ohmtown! Wow, a Rock and Rule reference. Don't see that everyday. I adore that movie, but most people have never heard of it.

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Actually, Unearthed Films just released it on DVD in the U.S.. I bought my copy a few days ago.

Mmm... Back before Debbie Harry ruined her voice with all the coke. (*sigh*)

Back in the day, you could actually order a VHS copy from Nelvana. It cost $85 US or $115 Can. They had a tiny, but steady demand, so they pulled a transfer from a master every time they managed to ship a copy.

20 years ago (*wince*) my parents never understood my need for $85 for a video tape they had never heard of, and by the time I was in a position to order for myself, Nelvana would no longer ship it. I'm quite happy I finally managed to get a copy.

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Heh. Got my copy from a video store going out of business. It made the rounds of our gaming group and became the source of some of our standard lines of dialogue... "Be nice, or be dog food."

Then I made the mistake of showing it to my teenage daughter. Liked it so much she swiped it when she went off to college.

Oh well, if the DVD is out, I'll make sure to add it to my Amazon wish list.

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...That's Talcum powder.

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You charged me $50 bucks for... TALCUM POWDER?!?


You are so dead now.

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Ah, but admit it. Didn't it leave you with that fresh feeling?

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I admit, Eden Studios is not one of the companies I follow closely, but I figured they were a cut above the "three guys in a garage" level. Then again, GOO's down to one guy, last time I heard.

Like I said, if it's financial issues or printing delays, I can understand. And the grown-up part of me can also understand about marketing and production.

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Eden is bigger then "three guys in a garage" but it's still pretty small. I think the number of full time employees of Eden are still around a dozen. Eden also has a history of having trouble getting books out on time, due to printing delays, delays in getting licensed matterials approved, and a desire to release someting "right" instead of "fast".

Case in point: Army of Darkness was originally slated to be released Winter '03. It ships next week, although the PDF is available for download/purchase.

And unfortunately, Eden is small enough of a company that everyone is involved with everything, so if Army of Darkness is having issues at the printers, then it affects the release date of Buffy and Angel and Witchcraft and All Flesh Must Be Eaten and City of Heroes and Armagedon, etc.

I can also say that at Origins, Eden was asked to include information about Archery and Sonics for the initial printing of the book, which has added to the delays.

So, it's not just a "Let's release everything together!" ploy on the part of Cryptic/NCSoft/Eden/AEG.

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Thanks for the info. Hopefully, it will help quell the burning hunger in me...

The comment on Archery and Sonics does bring up the question. Is Eden planning to update the books or provide additional sourcebooks as future CoH Issues are released?

Hmm... I must go annoy the moderators at the Eden Studios forums now. The quest for content moves on!

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serious delays in small time rpg companies.. (and anything but WOTC and whitewolf, Steve Jackson are small time) is pretty common, there is after all not enough money in those companies to have full time employees...

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Oh, believe me, know all about that. Been tabletop gaming since the late 70's.

I admit, Eden Studios is not one of the companies I follow closely, but I figured they were a cut above the "three guys in a garage" level. Then again, GOO's down to one guy, last time I heard.

Like I said, if it's financial issues or printing delays, I can understand. And the grown-up part of me can also understand about marketing and production.

The rant above was just giving the fanboy geek in me a little air. I want my Coh!