Samuel_Tow
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Posts
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Quote:"Fun" is not how I would describe my experience with Kheldians, I'm afraid. And rather than try to badmouth the AT or talk about changes, I simply accepted the fact that I don't enjoy Kheldians of any kind and left it at that.Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
Well, my personal advice is try playing warshade. They're challenging and can still be amazingly fun. -
Quote:That depends on what you mean by "everything." There's no reason building floors as seen from the outside should be so low that a person standing up would scrape the ceiling, there's no reason why cars should be so small a civilian doesn't look like he'll fit in there. There's no reason for chairs to be too small to sit on, or for doors to be too narrow to look good.Originally Posted by Gabriel Fry
I understand why though, due to 3rd person viewing everything would feel very cramped if scale were accurate.
We spend most of our time running through relatively wide hallways, large halls, open-air outdoor environments and, yes, the city streets. There's no need to make THAT any more cramped. What needs to happen, however, is person-to-person scale needs to be made correct. I don't know what camera settings you guys are talking about, but I never have problems being able to see my enemies or feel they are too small, because it's easy enough to judge height head-to-head. That's how I can tell my supposedly big characters are far too short most of the time.
Terrain is one thing. That needs to be inobtrusive to navigate. But other characters should not be drawn bigger than they are supposed to be. -
Quote:That's a little like the old riddle of the person who always lies and the person who always tells the truth, and the one question you can ask to tell them apart. You CAN ask who the liar is, and you WILL get an answer, it would just have absolutely no meaning.Originally Posted by docbuzzard
A standard rule of any closed beta is that nobody is allowed to talk about it. Thus you are asking a question that nobody would be allowed to answer if they were in it.
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Quote:Huh... Well, I guess I must have misread something from the Kheldian arcs. As I said, I got about mid-way before I gave up.Originally Posted by Venture
Nope. Arakhn has been leading the Nictus for centuries at least. She developed the cyst process, and there's been a cyst on earth since circa 475 CE. She was responsible for sending Ridolfo Uzanno to Ravenna to merge with Dirge of Entropy, creating Requiem.
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Quote:Um... I have to disagree here. We spend the great majority of every beta discussing powers statistics and their balance, and we keep seeing changes. You of all people should know it's not just a question of putting numbers in text boxes and signing off for the day to go grab a soda and a bear claw.Originally Posted by Umbral
For a new powerset, Castle just has to put some numbers together in a spreadsheet and then work with the animations guys to figure out what each attack looks like. From that point on, it's all in the animations, and, considering how long it takes to put some balanced numbers together in a spreadsheet (Synapse spent his first week putting together numbers for Elec Control and we're only, just now, seeing the fruits of his labors), the animation time takes up a vast majority of the effort and time involved. Creating new animations would essentially do away with the exceptionally short "powers guy puts numbers in a spreadsheet" portion of development.
In fact, I'd say it's a highly unsafe bet to claim that the animation time tames up the vast majority of the effort and time. Unless you want to suggest that Castle could easily be replaced by a fast typist, I don't think you're looking at this objectively. -
I want to avoid saying "It was about time," so let's go with "It was a long time coming." And unless I see frogs raining from the sky somewhere within the next day, I'll actually start entertaining the thought that this actually happened.
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Well I'll be... I guess there IS a God after all!
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Zane: So, this friend of yours... Who is he? How can he help us. You promised you would explain, remember?
Stranger: His name is Rasif, and he is the Tetron Village spiritual healer.
Zane: A healer? How will a healer help us penetrate into one of the most sacred places there is? You may not be aware of this, but our memory vaults are sealed by runes left to us by Lady Belifeth, herself.
Stranger: Interesting. We may not need to concern ourselves with eldritch seals, however.
Zane: Oh, no? Why? Is your friend a literal god?
Stranger: No. But he is not human, either. He is a Krotite Shaman, one of the last of his kind, in fact.
Zane: "Krotite?" What game are you playing, human? Are you making up imaginary creatures, now?
Stranger: The Krotite are one of a fair number of species that the dragon kingdom simply did not know about. For all of King Groor's lofty ideals such as peace, freedom and justice, exploration was not among them. There are many species in the human kingdom that your dragons never discovered, and many more still have appeared since Ozroth of Klinn gave the first human king the lands of today's kingdom. The Krotite are one such species.
Zane: Is that so? And what are these "Krotite?" Moreover, how is one supposed to be serving as a village mystic? I thought people feared the creatures of myth and mystics were no longer employed? Do not toy with me, human. Our alliance is not strong enough to test.
Stranger: The Krotite are shape shifters and spell casters. Quite the survivors, in fact, which is why there are still any left in the human kingdom. They tend to sell themselves as mystics, and despite the superstitions, desperate people still will buy their services.
Zane: Why would this Rasif help us? The gold in my old cave has surely been plundered by now, and you do not strike me as a man who carries treasure around him.
Stranger: Rasif knows me. I rescued him from Mordrog's curse a long time ago, and have used his services in the past.
Zane: Considering how I felt after you "rescued" me, I have my doubts as to the strength of this manner of motivation. And my time spent in the human lands has not exactly taught me to rely on others' kindness and generosity.
Stranger: Rasif will help us. That much I know.
Zane: I am rapidly losing my patience with your evasive answers, human! After five centuries of enslavement, I have not much patience left to spare!
Stranger: You will need to trust me in this regard?
Zane: Trust you? I barely even know you and you ask me to trust you out of the goodness of my heart? You have done nothing to earn my trust, human! You have not even told me your name.
Stranger: You never asked me for my name, and so I never gave you one.
Zane. Ask? Have you been raised by Kobolds? I should not have to ask you your name. You should know to introduce yourself, instead of showing me still more utter disrespect! Humans... You lack even the most basic courtesy.
Stranger: I apologise for disrespecting you, Zane. If I must have a name, then you can call me Sol.
Zane: The way you phrased it, I assume that is not your true name, is it? But let me guess, you cannot give me your true name because it would ruin your air of mystery, huh?
Stranger: ...
Zane: Bah! Be that way! If you are barbaric enough to discard even the most basic of manners, then have it your way, "Sol."
Stranger: We should make camp for the night. We should arrive at Tetron Village tomorrow.
Zane: Make camp? Why would we? You do not appear tired and I do not particularly need to rest as a general thing. In fact, why have we been stopping to make camp every night? You certainly do not appear to need it.
Stranger: You must stay with the camp, Zane. Even though Rasif's hut is outside the village, there could still be people in his care. We cannot risk you being seen.
Zane: This does not even begin to answer my question. What a surprise. Fine! Have it your way, "Sol."
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And so, the two unlikely companions spent another night around a camp fire, kindly provided by an irritable dragon. They spoke as they had the whole way there, jousting with words and balancing an uneasy truce. Sol, the mysterious, elusive stranger and Zane of Terrenor, last of the dragons and a mighty beast such that even the legends could not properly exaggerate, both hiding from a hostile world that had forgotten their ways and consigned their existence to myth and superstition. But even forgotten, history still has its consequences.
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The next day, Sol left his unlikely ally in the forest where they had arranged and left for the village. Rasif's healer's hut stood tiny in the shadows of the towering trees, nestled in roots and rocks. The rest of the clearing was covered in all manner of indescribable garbage, from old disused chicken cages to rickety sheds to what looked like a row of disused picnic tables, and much, much more. Either Rasif was an eccentric collector, or he was the biggest slob who ever lived. Neither looked like an appealing prospect.
Rasif himself was digging through one of his piles of unidentifiable garbage when he noticed Sol's approach. The old man turned around with a smile on his face and greeted his old acquaintance, his loud, shrill voice squeaking out his name.
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Rasif: Sol! Long time no see, friend. What brings you to my humble abode?
Sol: I need your help with a task, Rasif.
Rasif: No! Really? And here I thought you just came by to see your old buddy, stuck selling cheap parlour tricks to brainless peasants. Of course you need something! That's the only time you ever drop by. What do you want?
Sol: I need to get into the memory vault of a dragon graveyard.
Rasif: You don't say! You wouldn't happen to have found a dragon somewhere, then?
Sol: What makes you say that?
Rasif: Well, um... Isn't it obvious? How else would you get into a dragon graveyard to even get to the memory vault. I know you're ambitious, but even you're not that good.
Sol: Let me worry about getting inside the graveyard. Can you guarantee that you can bypass the memory vault seals?
Rasif: Oh, I can bypass the seals, long as you have a bone or a tooth from one of the ancients. Knowing you, you probably have a sack full of the things. But that's not the point. How are you going to pay me?
Sol: Don't you feel like you owe me a boon?
Rasif: A boon, now, is it? Oh, of course, stupid me! I forgot all about how you "rescued" me from a life of luxury at the cursed caverns and kicked me out into a world crawling with monster hunters. Thank you so much, Sol! However shall I repay you? Oh, I know, why don't you have some of this worthless, useless garbage that the villagers keep bringing me like I give a damn about their livestock!
Zane: Enough of this nonsense!
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In a moment, day turned to night as the massive shadow of a hulking beast eclipsed the sun. With a powerful gust of wind, Zane the dragon flew out of the forest just outside Rasif's clearing and soared low through the air. In a single leap, he covered the great distance between them and landed at the two men with a rumbling impact. As trees flapped from the tempest and a collector's garbage rolled around from the shaking, the dust settled, and Zane had intervened.
In a single move executed with speed unimaginable for such a huge creature, Zane had trapped Rasif under his massive talons, his eyes burning with anger and impatience and fire fighting to escape his lips. A dragon's patience had been tested, and a dragon's patience had failed. Rasif himself, however, did not seem as terrified as should have been expected
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Zane: Enough stalling! You will help us access the memory banks in the nearest dragon graveyard and show me what happened to my people, or so help me I will snap your spine like a twig!
Rasif: He-he-he. So you did find yourself a dragon, huh, Sol? Crafty, crafty, crafty!
Sol: Zane, what are you doing here? Did I not tell you to stay at the camp?
Zane: You have been playing around with me for a week now, and you expected me to just sit idly by and let you? Besides, knowing your charming personality, I was certain he would refuse to help you.
Rasif: Oh, you just make friends everywhere you go, don't you Sol? Ha!
Zane: Quiet!
Sol: I had everything under control and I would have been able to convince him. But now that you are here, you have put us both in a rather precarious position?
Zane: Eh! I have your "friend" right where I want him, and I can be very persuasive when I want to be!
Sol: You are also standing on a binding rune.
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In a flash of light, Rasif disappeared from Zane's grasp, and magical energy enveloped him. When the dragon's confused senses returned to him, he found himself looking at the world though a magical barrier. He had walked right into a trap, and unintentionally dragged Sol into it right alongside. A rather serious miscalculation
At the same time, Rasif stood on the other side of the barrier with a grin on his face a mile wide. In a split second, the truth became clear. Rasif had set them both up. Sol's friend in need had turned into a rather large problem.
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Rasif: A-ha-ha-ha-ha! Smooth move, dragon boy! Ha-ha-ha! Where do you find these guys, Sol? That was far too easy!
Sol: So you activated the rune remotely? Interesting. You were not able to do this last time we worked together.
Rasif: Well, believe it or not, the world doesn't revolve around you, Sol! I can learn spells on my own, too! And that's not the only one I've learned!
Sol: If you are referring to the flash rune under my right foot, this one will not fire, I fear.
Rasif: Crafty, crafty, crafty! Too bad you couldn't do the same to my binding rune, eh?
Zane: Wait, you knew about the rune in the ground?
Sol: I sensed the binding rune, yes. I had not sensed you, however.
Zane: Oh, so now it's my fault? If you knew it was there, why didn't you disable that, too?
Rasif: He couldn't. Even he's not fast enough to yank a rapid-fire rune from under me before I trigger it. Not so big now, are you, Sol? How does it feel to be trapped like a rat?
Zane: Argh!
Sol: Calm yourself, Zane. This will only make the situation worse.
Zane: Argh! How will...
Sol: The binding bubble will siphon your energy if you attack it, only growing stronger the more you struggle.
Zane: Then how do you presume we get out of this predicament?
Rasif: You don't!
Sol: I agree.
Rasif: Huh?
Zane: What?!?
Sol: Without it siphoning off any energy from us, Rasif will not be able to maintain the bubble for more than an hour, and it will take over a day for the king's soldiers to arrive here.
Zane: Soldiers?
Rasif: Clever boy! Yes, the king is offering a ridiculously large reward for your pet's head, but...
Zane: I am no-one's pet, you insufferable lowly creature! You will pay for your insults!
Rasif: Keep talking, lizard, boy. 'Cause by the time you leave my little bubble, you'll be dead. See, the king's reward - it's impressive, but your little buddy over there is right. I can't keep the bubble up, and I couldn't convince the king's men to set up camp here and wait. So I thought of other means.
Sol: Mercenaries?
Rasif: Ooh, you're so smart, aren't you, figuring out what I'm going to say before I say it and all. Too bad you're still on the other side of the bubble, fool! Yeah, mercenaries. I'm smart, too, you know. Too bad you for you, huh?
Zane: I may be behind times on this, but I doubt mercenaries work for free, creature.
Rasif: Oh, these ones do! See, I found me a great bunch of guys. See, they don't work for money. They just live to kill freaks like you and me, fly boy. So they kill you, they keep the body, I get the head, and I get the reward. Brilliant, isn't it?
Zane: Are you out of your mind? If they live to kill creatures like us, then they'll kill you, too. Oh, no. No, not me. See, I'm protected, 'cause I look like one of them. Sol probably told you I'm a shapeshifter, so they don't even know what I am. And they won't believe you even if you told them. They're not stupid. Well, they are, but you know what I mean.
Sol: Zane, no mercenaries work for free. There's something very wrong here, and you cannot see that you are being set up.
Rasif: No. I'm just likable. Unlike you! Ah, and here they are. Come on, set up your gear and let's kill us some monsters!
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A group of unusual soldiers in combat armour came out of the forest into the clearing, carrying all manner of disturbing weaponry. They looked and dressed like the king's soldiers, but their faces were concealed by masks and scarves. They uttered not a word as they quickly set about emplacing ballistas and catapults. They were even armed with the latest inventions of the kingdom - the dreaded steam cannons.
As the silent soldiers went about establishing their arsenals for when the bubble went down, Rasif just stood behind and smiled. He saw money in his future. Money, estates, servants. His eyes looked on the two trapped in his spell, but he did not see them. Instead, he saw a future that had not yet come to pass, and may indeed never come to pass at all.
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Sol: My god...
Zane: Coming from you, this cannot be good.
Sol: Do you know what these are, Zane?
Zane: The king's soldiers. I fought many of them after I left my cave.
Sol: Look at their medallions, Zane. Do you recognise that crest?
Zane: It looks like a snake circling an eagle. But that means... No... No it's not possible.
Rasif: What are you two mumbling about over there? Saying your prayers?
Zane: You have no idea the kind of trouble you have blindly stumbled into.
Rasif: Tough talk, lizard boy! But I'm still the one on the other side of the bubble! Ha!
Sol: Rasif, these things are not human. They will not help you or pay you. As soon as they are done with us, they will kill you.
Rasif: Yeah, like I'll fall for that one! What kind of blunt idiot do you take me for? You'll say anything to save yourself.
Zane: You insufferable fool! You've made a deal with the Seekers! They will kill you!
Rasif: Seekers? Phht! Ha! The Seekers don't exist, lizard boy! They're a myth. An old wives' tale. People made them up to scare little children and idiots like you. Ha! Seekers... That's a good one.
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One of the soldiers grabbed Rasif by the neck from behind and tried to run his sword through the shape shifter's chest. Thinking quickly, Rasif broke his grip and pulled away, but quickly found himself surrounded by hostile masked soldiers. Whether what Sol and Zane had said was true or not wasn't certain, but one thing was clear - Rasif's allies had turned on him without a second thought. Fighting for his life, Rasif resisted their attacks, but was slowly driven back towards his own bubble.
It is said men can make drastic decisions when faced with imminent death, and Rasif's decision was nothing if not drastic. Instead of fighting on, he simple forced himself into his own trap. The bubble was impregnable. Nothing could go in, nothing could go out. But with Rasif inside it, that last lifeline against the soldiers' cannon was quickly running out of energy.
Rasif's welcome in the bubble was, predictably, not one of warm affection. A massive, lumbering tail swooped him into the air as a titanic talon caught him, swung him around and slammed him back into the ground with enough force to knock the soldiers outside into their feet. Zane the dragon was, to put it mildly, displeased. But there is something to be said about the humbling power of seeing a snarling mouth pressed into your face with giant fangs as far as your eyes can see from left to right. Zane had his way of dealing with people.
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Zane: Do you think you are any safer in here? So tell me. Give me one good reason why I should not replace your head with a scorch mark right now. I can wait.
Rasif: N-no, wait! If you kill me, the bubble will fail!
Sol: The bubble will fail in a few minutes either way.
Zane: Wait, I thought you said it would last for an hour?
Sol: With Rasif outside to maintain it, yes. With him inside, the bubble has no source of power.
Zane: Oh, well. In that case, we have no use for you.
Rasif: Nowaitwaitwai! *squint*
Sol: You know of a way to escape the bubble without exposing ourselves to their cannons, do you not?
Rasif: Yes! Yes, I do! Just let me go!
Zane: No. You can speak well enough as you are. So speak!
Rasif: The b-bubble doesn't extend underground. T-t-that stone circle around it is where it ends. I-if you can dig down into the ground without breaking the circle, we can get out that way.
Zane: Do I look like a mole to you?!?
Rasif: Ack!
Sol: Let him go, Zane. I can do the rest.
Zane: Wait, you can?
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Sol stood straight and silent for a moment, his aura gathering about them. Suddenly, his hands moved about at lightning speed, drawing out complex shapes and runic symbols in the air with a faint, eerie glow as they moved. He formed a large, elaborate shape of mystical energy that seemed to just hang in the air for a second, until Sol forced it into the ground with a mighty thrust. An explosion of dust, rock debris filled the bubble, obscuring our heroes from the vision of the soldiers. Not a moment later, all that obscured their vision sunk down at great speed, revealing a shaft carved cleanly and smoothly out of the ground, which seemed to descend down into the bowels of the Earth, itself.
The bubble held for a few more minutes, but by the time it collapsed, the unusual soldier's prize had slipped away, and the shaft that they had descended into had collapsed in on itself. A clean escape, to be sure. For the moment. But these pursuers were more than mere soldiers, more than random mercenaries with a hatred for mystical creatures. They were driven, capable and coldly proficient in their art of killing. Our heroes had escaped for the moment. But the pursuit would not end there. -
Quote:Gimme' a minuteOriginally Posted by Kyzock
YOU SOOOOOOOOOO can't leave us hanging as to this stranger! C'mon now!
Ha! I honestly didn't know about thatQuote:One more thing: In the -gasp- dungeons & dragons realms, black dragons are usually EVIL...so having a black dragon in your story that isn't necessarily evil is very intriguing. I guess sometimes you stumble over backwards into a new idea even when you think you're rehashing old ones.
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Quote:Oh, Arakhn! OK, I follow you now. Incidentally, how do you pronounce that?Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
The whole thing always made me wonder 'why did the nictus side with the Center if Requiem had already been one of them?' And there's my answer... He hadn't originally been a nictus, and they changed it for some weird reason when they had brought in Arakhn and could have kept Requiem the same origin and power and so forth.
Arakhn is said to be a recent convert to the Nictus, if I my memory serves, whereas Requiem has been with them since WW2 or thereabout, which would make him her senior by several decades. I didn't get too far into the Kheldian arcs before I hated the AT, so I don't know how it all wraps up, but I do know that that's one bone of contention between the two.
Incidentally, the Kheldian arcs, having been written for the Council as originally envisioned after the change, make a LOT more sense than practically everything else surrounding the 5th Council combined. -
Quote:I dare say my own experience quite decidedly proves that maturity and wisdom are not necessarily tied to age. Granted, the older a person is, the greater the likelyhood that he or she will be wise and mature, but... That's far from guaranteed. Moreover, age brings with it the feeling that you've seen it all and you know it all, which tends to blind a person to all the things he hasn't actually seen or learned. That's why it takes a child to shout that the king is naked.Originally Posted by BlueBattler
Physically, Statesman is in his early 30s. But he's had more than a century of life to accumulate experience. He may not have seen it all, but it's probably darn close.
Is your typical 20 or 30 year old going to have the emotional maturity to deal with someone in Statesman's situation as an equal?
Again, it takes a strong, clever person, and that very much IS within the realm of your typical young woman. -
Quote:Yeah, it's not a wholly original story, but I like where it's going just the same. I was actually reminded of Dragonheart when I was writing it, but believe it or not, I actually made it more to the feel of Howl's Moving Castle. There will obviously be similarities, what with the most cliche of dragonsOriginally Posted by Kyzock
I wasn't all too sure about any direction you were taking with this story, and now with part two it seems this stranger and the dragon Zane are making the story take a sort of "Dragonheart" direction, albeit with a twist and who knows what else. But I take solace in the fact that in Dragonheart, the dragon was the mentor of the human, whereas here it's kind of the inverse. I enjoy working on contrasts and aversions, I guess
Yeah, I don't really mind. I know it speaks poorly of me as a writer, but I can live with it. I promise to proofread it at SOME point... SoonQuote:As to my offer to proofread stuff, well usually anything that is proofread isn't posted right away. So, if you have no problem with your typos still being in your story, that's fine by me too. I can easily sidestep errors such as those while reading through stuff. I'm sure everyone else can easily do so as well.
Ack! I wanted to give it a bit of a rest, but with that, I feel obligated to continueQuote:You're most welcome - and now that part two has been posted, this story suddenly seems to have me wanting to know more, especially about the stranger! We'll see how it goes. I have sort of an idea for the next step, but I'm not sure how to build it yet. Guess I'll figure it out when I sit down to write it.
Again, thank you for the feedback
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Quote:What BABs talked about in that thread (the one about the Buster Sword) was that he didn't want to see a weapon the size of the Buster Sword (which, by the way, is taller than a man and about as wide as a man at the shoulders) used with the current animations for Katana. I actually kind of agree with that - the Katana animations tent to be fast and elegant.Originally Posted by Felderburg
Babs talked about this a LONG time ago. Essentially, he said using BIG swords with the current sword type animations would look silly - the swords wouldn't have the proper weight "feel" to them, or something like that. He didn't say anything about the actual costume, but I'm sure they would look good on a costume.
HOWEVER
This doesn't mean Katana can't have BIG swords, it just means HEAVY swords would look odd for it. LONG swords, however, should not be a problem.
Moreover, I'm talking about Broadsword here. The weapon already has slow, lumbering, inelegant animations more befitting of a large weapon, which the set barely has any of, especially for women. Back in the day, BABs cited scaling weapons to fit the model as being a fix for a nasty and unnecessary system limitation. As he explained it, regular weapons could not be of regular sizes and we shouldn't look to them for being big, but that didn't mean swords that were big by design would not be introduced.
As it turns out, that's exactly what it meant. -
Quote:Other than the obvious joke of "a very sturdy one" (to quote some random Krogan: "They're so squishy. Where are you supposed to get a good grip?"), I think you either underestimate the power of human personality, or overstate that of the Statesman's. He may have super unkillability and super strength, but his powers don't really include any mental or psychic abilities, so whatever person he has is still very much human and very much within the limits of the kind of strong personality a normal human would have.Originally Posted by BlueBattler
What kind of woman would it take to be in an equal relationship with him? Could a "normal" woman have the experience and force of personality it would take to be his partner?
Of course, since most writers are male, it's rare to see a strong, confident, secure female character who doesn't walk hand over fist into Mary Sue. -
Quote:Wait, Arachne?Originally Posted by Iannis
All the goof-ups and contradictions in Council and Column lore can now handily be explained away by a Time Traveling Requiem having done it. Rommy wasn't the one who contacted Requiem and turned him from a questionably evil Catholic priest into a unquestionably evil Nictus--that was Arakhne, because he was digging around into the Path of the Dark cult that the Vatican had records of.
More to point, the problem with Requiem is that his origin was basically restamped with a different label, without actually altering the story. If you read Jennie Bassie's journals, you can pretty much see the story was written to be mystical and fill in the Column's quota of magic in their Supersoldier/Robot/Monster/Demon circle of evil. It actually reads like an old Raiders of the Lost Arc story, and the werewolf thingy we get from the Path of the Dark story used to be stored at MAGI, instead of SERAPH.
With the 5th Column retconned into the Council with all the subtlety of a V8 Chainsaw, their old stories just went to crap, ESPECIALLY Requiem's story, which went from ancient magic cult to fluffy purple aliens.
As far as Requiem's involvement goes, I still don't know how he manages to be in the past with his old Column powers of Darkness (and it IS Darkness) and still be in the present with his new powers of Purple, all at the same time. Does he commute between the past and the present or something? What is he hoping to achieve with Romulus? -
Huh... Interesting.
Quote:I love it! I honestly really hate the current effect we have on Teleport. It's decent, in that it's so generic it fits everything, but it's really disappointing, in that it's so generic it doesn't represent anything. I'd LOVE to see versions of it, like an inky explosion to fit Dark powers or a fiery explosion to fit fire powers.Originally Posted by TsumijuZero
Costume change emotes such as Ninja Leap and Smoke Bomb would make excellent Teleport Power customisations, as would a "Fast TP" ala Dragonball for superspeed concepts.
And, yes, "Fast Toilet Paper..." I mean, yes, "Fast Teleport" in a similar fashion to how super-fast anime characters move around terrain would be really cool. That would actually broaden Teleport's possible concepts considerably if I can sell it as "I'm moving so fast you can't even see me."
I would give my metal-tipped tail for two-handed Broadsword animations. Believe me, this is probably THE biggest thing I want to see when it comes to animations, bigger even than my desire to see a Kamehamehadouken variant for Sniper Blast.Quote:[*]Additional two-handed broadsword animations, and one handed Katana animations.
Alas, BABs was adamant about scaling weapons to character models and ensuring their handles were too short to be used for anything BUT the current one-handed broadsword animations. I honestly don't know why he had a problem of long-hilted weapons, but just try and count the ways how many times we've been told "That weapon won't work for Katana. The handle is not long enough."
Personally, I would like nothing more than to see long-handled versions of all swords added to the game, along with animation customization allowing me to pick alternate two-handed animations. I would KILL to have that, but its chances of happening are... Rather low. Which is disappointing. -
Quote:There are non-reusable patterns between non-recycled animations. Yes, if you have the same animation used for multiple powers, you do have the same pattern. Because it's the same animation. But there are no usable patterns between different animations. Even something as simple as Bitter Ice Blast and Ice Blast.Originally Posted by Charcoal_EU
Haha what
Just for an example:
whirling mace
fire sword circle
whirling hands
spin
whirling axe
ice sword circle
whirling sword
All these powers use the same body animation with different effects/powers. And in fire blast there are two powers in the same powerset that use the same body animation - Fire ball and Blaze. -
Part 2:
Soldier: 'Old it roit there, sah!
Stranger: Am I trespassing?
Soldier: Naw. Is a public road. But I bin told ta warn travellers 'bout tha dangers of tis area.
Stranger: I appreciate your concern, but I am not worried about my safety.
Soldier: Nah, is me orders ta tell ya this, so listen!
Stranger: Very well.
Soldier: There bin reports 'a dragons in tha area. People say 'ey take people roit otta ther homes. Take people from tha roads, too, an' in broad daylight. Ya be careful out thar, traveller! Is not safe outta' town this days!
Stranger: Thank you for the warning.
Soldier: An' don' go inta tha Northern Forest, neither! 'S monsters in thar!
Stranger: May I be on my way?
Soldier: Yah, you kin go. You bin warned.
---
There has been a persistent rumour going around for weeks, speaking of monsters in the sky. Dragons, they call them, just like in the old legends from a time before the kingdom. The great beasts of old, at once captivating and frightening. But the dragons are gone, extinct from the face of a modern world which saw to it that humans now ruled the land. Their endless appetite for expansion, once held in check by the dangers of a much bigger world, now reigns supreme. When the titans of old fell out of power and faded into myth, people were eager to take their place and thrive, and eventually encroach upon the ancestral homes of those great and wondrous creatures who had fled the world into solitude.
These are dark days indeed for supernatural creatures. Once revered as sacred and honourable, they are now seen as a threat to human survival and progress. Such was the fate of the dragons, who suffered insult upon injury at the hands of fate, finally suffering utter extinction at the face of men fearful of their power and hungry for their treasure. They have been extinct for centuries now, and few even believe they existed. Rumours of dragons flying about have always existed, but these are different. They have detail and fact to them, and their frequency increases with each passing day.
Though dragons may be extinct, one still remains - he who calls himself Zane of Terrenor. But Zane was supposed to have departed for the old dragon kingdom where humans have hardly set foot in centuries. He was supposed to be safe there, away from hateful eyes. But the continued reports of a massive black dragon popping up across the land would suggest otherwise.
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Our mysterious stranger knew the day would be unusual, so he sought to be away from people at the time. Hidden deep within Thunder Forest where normal men dared not tread, he waited in a clearing for his fate to intervene. And so it did. A dark shadow obscured the clear blue sky as a massive beast flew overhead. At first its flight seemed random, as though it was merely passing through, but the creature halted in the air as the presence of the stranger assaulted its senses.
It was indeed a dragon, and a familiar one, at that. Jet black scales glistened in the sun as giant wings floated its hulking body down on a powerful gale of rushing air. With a thunderous crash its colossal body landed on the ground. Fiery orange eyes stared at the stranger, a deep, rumbling voice half-snarled "Human!" Zane had returned from his ancestral home, once again braving the perils of the human kingdom. He had sought the stranger for some time, and now his prize lay before him.
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Zane: You! You did this to me!
Stranger: I set you free.
Zane: Free? FREE?!? You call this freedom? You condemned me into this hell! You woke me up from my slumber, only to show me that everything I had ever cared for, everything I had ever loved was dead and gone?
Stranger: The world is what it is. I cannot change that.
Zane: You... You heartless *******! You speak of things like they are so simple! So this is how the world is. Accept it. My family is dead! My people, my friends, my home... All gone! And I should just accept it?
Stranger: Would you rather I had left you imprisoned in your cave?
Zane: No! But... I don't know. What am I supposed to do now, human? Where am I supposed to go? Before, when my curse still held me, at least I had the vague hope that one day I may be free, that I may return to my loved ones. That this nightmare would finally end. Now... Now there's nothing left for me. I have no home, I have no-one to turn to. Am I supposed to live the rest of my life alone amid the bones and wasteland of my ancestors? You freed me, human, so tell me! What am I supposed to do now?
Stranger: And you do not feel like you want revenge?
Zane: Revenge? No. No, what would that accomplish? There has been enough death already. There has been far too much death, and far too much on my conscience. I do not want any more of it.
Stranger: ...
Zane: You arrogant... Argh! Is that what you think of me? That I am some kind of mindless, irrational monster? That I would take lives for my amusement? You make me sick! I have been hounded by your kind ever since I left that accursed cave. Hunters, soldiers, mercenaries, everyone in your lands hates me! Do you see this scar? A ballista arrow shot me out of the sky and nearly took my life, but I did not take the lives of any of the hunters. And now you dare suggest vengeance to me? Go to hell!
Stranger: I am sorry.
Zane: What?
Stranger: I am sorry for your loss, Zane.
Zane: Stop toying with me! Why did you free me, human? Why? Do you enjoy seeing me suffer? Did you just want to see me witness the horrors your kind has brought to my people? Do you enjoy seeing my heart break at the tragedy? Your kind are all the same. Bigots and xenophobes. You could never live with us, could you? Even at the best of times, you only went as far as to use us, and when you were done, you threw us away. You murdered my entire people!
Stranger: That's not true.
Zane: You would say that!
Stranger: It's true that the last of the dragons died at the hands of foolish, hateful humans, Zane, but what set the devastation of your people in motion was a disaster of entirely inhuman origins.
Zane: Liar! Do not insult my intelligence!
Stranger: You do not need to like me, Zane. In fact you are probably right to despise me. But what I say is the truth. When the disaster struck, my kind still worshipped the dragons as our saviours and brothers, truest of all our friends. It was not human hand that set this disaster in motion.
Zane: And what disaster would that be?
Stranger: I do not know.
Zane: Bah! You speak in circles, human, and I am rapidly growing tired of your games!
Stranger: I play no games, Zane. This is simply the extent of my knowledge. Allow me to explain.
Zane: Go ahead, then.
Stranger: When Mordrog fell and the last great war was concluded, the dragons retreated back to the Mt. Roc capital and the rest of their lands. They had suffered horrible casualties, and human nature of Lord Mordrog could not be easily overlooked. Humans and dragons were allies only in the face of a common enemy, but when that enemy was gone, the dragons left humans to their fate. They were disgusted with us and our ways, and rightfully so. Queen Ellion closed all portals to the rock lands, and so humans lost all contact with the dragons.
Zane: "Queen" Ellion? I have indeed missed much of my people's history. What of King Groor, then?
Stranger: He died a hero's death in the war. It was Groor's sacrifice that brought the dragon kingdom into the war, in fact. In the human's darkest hour, it was Groor who defied the council's orders and came to the human king's aid. Groor alone defended the human capital for two weeks against the full force of Mordrog's forces until the Hooded Wizards could regroup and secure the city. Without his sacrifice, the human kingdom would have fallen then and there.
Zane: He was a good dragon, and braver than any I other in our history. But to sacrifice himself for your miserable kind? Insulting!
Stranger: It was his fervent belief that all creatures great and small deserved the right to live in peace and security. A sentiment which humanity has sadly failed to return to his people.
Zane: Quite clearly! We've given your kind so many chances to redeem yourselves, and it's always the same in the end. We should have left you to your fate a millennium ago when Tempest sought to devour your lands, but the brave fools among us always sought to help you. And what did we get in return? Extinction!
Stranger: It is not the humans who caused this tragedy. As I said, Queen Ellion closed all portals to the dragon kingdom, and as you are well aware, humans cannot scale Mt. Roc on their own. I trust even you had trouble reaching your home.
Zane: Hmph! What, then?
Stranger: No-one really knows.
Zane: An easy answer!
Stranger: I know this much - approximately two centuries after the dragons retreated to their lands, a massive disturbance in the mystical balance occurred centred at the capital of Mt. Roc. I do not know what caused it or what the nature of this disturbance is, but it was felt quite clearly around the world, and what mystics were left by then knew a great tragedy had occurred.
Zane: What kind of tragedy?
Stranger: A great loss of life on a scale not seen before or since.
Zane: And that is what killed all the dragons?
Stranger: Not all, but most of them. A fair number survived, though how is not quite clear. Whatever this event was, it retriggered the Curse of Silence that Mordrog had placed on them, however, so they found themselves incapable of communicating with the humans at all. Unfortunately, human lives are terribly short, and by the time this happened, your kind had already faded into myth.
Zane: In just two hundred years?
Stranger: When the dragons left, the world was at peace. So peaceful was it, that it felt like it had always been that way. Those who remembered the truth died, and the new generations knew only of increasingly distorted legends. So when the dragons returned to human land growling and roaring, people panicked. The few mystics who still knew the truth of the dragons tried to warn the king, but they were dismissed as crazy.
Zane: Crazy? How can your king dismiss your own mystics? This is madness!
Stranger: Not madness. Foolishness. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and humans forget their history all too readily. It wasn't just your kind that was forgotten. Magic itself faded into myth, and the once-powerful order of the Hooded Wizards, they who had once been the king's councillors and trusted advisors, were forgotten and began to be seen as heretics and devil worshippers. The wise ones learned to keep their craft hidden. The unwise ones shared the fate of the survivors from your people.
Zane: Death?
Stranger: Worse, actually. Those were cruel times. And sadly, times have not improved since then.
Zane: But what of the dragons? Is that all you know? "Some disaster" happened and the survivors were killed by your people? How long has it been since then? Centuries? How could you have learned nothing more?
Stranger: There is plenty of information on the event, I imagine, but it is all locked up in the various dragon graveyards throughout the land. Unfortunately, I have no access to them, for they are locked to all but the dragons who built them.
Zane: Curses! The graveyards should open to me, but the memory vaults will only open for a member of the High Council, and my bid for a spot there was cut short when Mordrog stole my freedom.
Stranger: Interesting...
Zane: What?
Stranger: If you are truly interested in learning the true cause of the disaster that wiped out your people, then perhaps I could help.
Zane: Really? Why?
Stranger: I would very much like to know the cause, myself. How such a powerful race could be destroyed so completely has confounded me for some time.
Zane: Oh, is that so? And what do you propose to do with this knowledge once you attain it?
Stranger: There is one particular fear that I have. If that fear proves false, then I propose to do precisely nothing with the knowledge.
Zane: I am getting weary of your vague, elusive answers, human!
Stranger: Such is the cost of my predicament, I am afraid.
Zane: Well, your cost is unacceptable! Either tell me the truth, or find your own way into our most sacred temples!
Stranger: I cannot do that. And I cannot force you to do this. I am merely making you an offer. Help me find the truth, and I will help you learn your people's history. Nothing more, nothing less.
Zane: And if I refuse?
Stranger: Then we both go our separate ways, looking for our separate fates. Or, you kill me. Either way, the history of your people remains lost.
Zane: Argh! You toy with me again, human! I have done all I could to be civil with you, but still you insult me with your secrecy! Perhaps I should take you up on your offer and kill you!
Stranger: Perhaps you should.
Zane: ...
Stranger: This is your choice, Zane. There is no right answer and there is no wrong answer. There are only choices and consequences. When I freed you from your curse, I warned you not to view the freedom I gave you as a gift, for it isn't. It is responsibility. The responsibility to make your own choices and shape your own fate.
Zane: *scowl*
Stranger: You have to make a decision here, Zane, and I will not make it for you.
Zane: Argh! Fine! I'll help you. But not because I owe you anything! I want to find the truth behind what killed my people, because whatever it is, it could happen again, and if it does, I need to know how to stop it. And if I ever so much as suspect you have some kind of questionable agenda behind this quest, I will kill you on the spot. Remember this.
Stranger: Fair enough.
Zane: Fine. What do we do now, then?
Stranger: First we need to travel to Tetron Village. There is someone there who can help. And before you take off, allow me to warn you - flying around in the human kingdom is terribly unwise, especially in this province. There are watch towers every ten miles, so you will be spotted as soon as you leave the boundaries of the forest.
Zane: Do you propose I walk, then? I was not built for walking, human!
Stranger: Yes, you were. Moreover, the majority of your skirmishes with human hunters you have had so far are a direct result of your flying heedlessly through open space in clear view of the king's spotters. Hide your presence, and the hunters will be left witless.
Zane: Hmph! And what of this village, then? How can it help us?
Stranger: It is complicated. I will tell you on the way. I would suggest we start moving, as it is quite a distance away.
Zane: *growl*
---
And so, an unexpected turn of events provides an unusual, but alluring possibility. An old secret buried and forgotten, the fate of an entire people may well be theirs for the taking. But one old secret usually reveals others, for buried history is usually buried for a reason. There are not good times for magical mysteries and lost civilizations. The world has forgotten magic, forgotten the mystical creatures of old and built itself anew solely on the power of human ingenuity and imagination. Digging up the past has the potential to upset the delicate balance of this new age, and there are some who would not wish to see this happen.
And what of Zane the black dragon and our mysterious stranger? Well, their quest for truth and answers has only just begun. And only time will tell if their unlikely alliance will hold up when the time comes to test it. -
Quote:Actually, look at the phrasing of the original post:Originally Posted by Decorum
Not exactly what he's asking for, Sam. He's wanting a glowie on every mission that must be clicked by the leader to finish the mission. His sole concern is protecting his farming missions from someone (accidentally or on purpose) actually finishing the mission as intended.
You seem to parse this as requesting that all missions be completed "with a click objective," whereas I think it's talking about completing missions that happen to have a click objective as part of their normal setup. As in, "allow only the mission holder to complete missions which have a click objective in them." Which, by the way, is a reasonable request, even if not a very high-priority one.Quote:Originally Posted by Kinetic Char
I would love to see a feature added that allowed only the mission holder the ability to complete a mission with a click object.
Furthermore:
This doesn't necessarily reference farms, because there are more reasons than farming to want to NOT have your mission completed by somebody else. The easiest example of this is stealthing Stalkers who, despite being asked not to, feel it is their duty and their right to stealth their way to an objective and click it, completing the mission without the mission holder having any input on his own mission. Furthermore, people have the unpleasant habit of vacating the instance very millisecond that a mission is complete, whereas the team leader may wish to at least finish off the spawns in the room, or perhaps at least get a word in edge-wise before half the team ejects out of the mission.Quote:Originally Posted by Kinetic Char
Would prevent other players from finishing a mission said owner isn't ready to complete.
As for me, I prefer to let the mission holder be the one to "push the button," as it were. It's his mission, it's his story, it's his right to have the last word in it. When this is non-problematic, as clicking a glowie is, I see this as only common courtesy, so an option to be set by the mission owner is only fair.
And if it causes a mission failure, then I can live with that. -
I very much agree with the concept of personal housing, but I DO NOT WANT a retread of the base editor. I want something much, much simpler, something like the costume editor, something we can use to build a base essentially from drop-down menus or our of large-scale ready-made parts. I DO NOT WANT to have to place every single little light bulb, every single beaker on the counter, every single chair around the table and even the handles on the cupboards. I don't want a poor man's 3D Studio Max.
What I want is one of two things:
1. An RTS-style compound editor where you can place pre-built buildings on a large plot, building your own city section or militaty base. Alternately, an X-Com-style underground base builder where you place entire pre-built rooms to forge your own complex.
2. A system of dropdowns which would let you pick between basic framerwork for your home (base, apartment, cave, Pacific island village), then pick from a variety of subcategories for each framework (the look of the control centre for the base, the look of the kitchen for the apartment, the look of the great hall for the cave, etc.) and go down from there.
Either of those systems will be drastically less customizable than current bases, but I don't WANT this much customizability, because it makes the system far, far too unwieldy. -
Speaking of Zero, could we actually have an energy weapon (say a sword) that only flashes into existence when swung, but has no blade when held idle?
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Quote:I don't so much mind the fact that weapons scale down itself, as much as I mind the fact that there are no truly LARGE weapons. The argument that "it wouldn't look good" no longer holds water for me, not when I can use RIDICULOUSLY oversized boots and gloves that, in all honesty, don't look good in most cases, but still look good on the right costume. Besides, we're given the choice between small characters and large characters, but if you make a female, you are solely restricted to small weapons.Originally Posted by Primal
Alternatively, there are people like me who prefer the weapons that scale down. That giant Legacy sword might work for much-taller females, but on my 5'6" character it simply looks ridiculous. I have a 6'5" warrior woman, but she wields an axe and honestly I don't recall whether the Legacy version is equally as outsized, I do know I chose another one solely because it could be recolored.
The Rularuu Broadsword is pretty big, right? In general, yes, but because of how female weapons scale down and how the Legacy Broadsword does not, the Rularuu Sword ends up being distinctly smaller by comparison, and also paper thin. The Romulus Sword is kind of OK on a female, but that's an unlockable. That's one of the reasons I actually suggested a Weapons Booster Pack, because I'm hoping if they add enough, someone will slip up and add in a large weapon for a change.
And yes, ALL the character creation axes are distinctly smaller than the Legacy War Axe, to the point where I have to wonder if my axe-wielding female warrior will be able to get a decent-sized weapon that's NOT legacy. It's kind of sad, to be honest. Weapon Customization was supposed to give us more choices, but because of how weapon scale, if I want a BIG weapon, I only really have one choice, and it's the same choice I would have had all along - Legacy. There's no reason we can't have bigger weapons for females, but we just don't.
Certain concepts require certain sizes, and mine span the gamut of heights. I have a four-foot-tall kid, an average-size woman, a tall man, a really tall power armour dude, a giant towering woman and an even more giant towering hulking cyborg dude. Each concept requires its own size in order for it to have meaning, and some concepts are very much defined by being big. Characters like Haggar, the Big Show, the Juggernaut, the She-Hulk and so on just wouldn't be the same if they weren't... Well, huge.Quote:I set my characters' heights as if they were people from this world, I'm not really going for "looms over everyone and is larger than life" for any character. I do have a character with a Beast form, a 7' Huge werewolf as opposed to her 5'5" petite normal self, but that character's not looking to tower over all either, there's simply supposed to be a marked difference in forms. Honestly even at 7' it feels kinda cramped in some areas, on caves for instance I keep the human form, but ya know, in real life something that big and bulky would be cramped too. -
You can either just let the thread drop or call up a moderator to move it.
The biggest thing, though, is to split your text up in paragraphs, because it's much easier to read that way. Your point in making suggestions should be to have people want to read your post, and making it easy to read is a very important part of this. -
As I hear it, taking a paper mission and then abandoning it will refresh your paper mission list without zoning.
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Quote:I'm pretty sure I mentioned the problem of this making villain NPCs out of scale somewhere in there, especially when they're threatening a civilian. NPC villains are "significantly" taller than standard civilians as it is, an scaling down JUST the civilians has the potential of making, say, the Hellions look like they're all seven feet tall by comparison.Originally Posted by Kyasubaru
This is why I specifically said "civilian NPCs, pedestrians, and contact NPCs". I did not mention enemy NPCs in that list. I went on to say how scaling enemy groups might be problematic despite some of them being of ludicrous size. Then I started rambling about possibilities.
Of course, I can't actually say for certain, as my characters tend to be on the tall side, but again - my 7-foot-tall (on the ruler) woman was just about even height with most Skulls and Hellions last I measured up, and even at max slider now is only moderately taller than them.
Thankfully, this means her Legacy Broadsword is HUGE! Pity weapon customization caused weapons for women to scale down into being utterly puny and BABs has staunchly refused to give us bigger ones since.