Samuel_Tow
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OK, let me preface this with a disclaimer. I enjoy Broadsword for Stalkers. I think it was the most appropriate melee set that could have been proliferated to them. And I LOVE the (mis-named) Assassin's Slash. It's a really cool animation, finally giving a much-needed stabbing attack to the Broadsword set.
However, something has been gnawing at me about it ever since I first tried it out for real. It seems to me the attack just stabs WAY too far forward. Look, most of the old Broadsword attacks are picture-perfect for the old melee range of 5 feet. In fact, they're a little short. Granted, it looks a little odd when you use Broadsword at the upper end of the new 7-foot melee range, but it's not actually bad. However, Assassin's Slash has the character real so far forward and stab so far ahead that he actually looks like he overshoots even the new 7-foot melee range. The results of this can be quite odd, therefore, given how the AI seems to disregard the melee range changes and insists on closing in to within 5 feet, even though their attacks CAN fire from as far as 7 feet away.
What's so odd about it? Well, to put it simply, unless I make it a point to stab from as far away as the attack will animate, I constantly end up stabbing so hard I bury my whole hand past the sword's hilt into the enemy. Trying to demonstrate that, in fact, I managed to punch my whole arm past the elbow through a Capo Gunner's chest. At this point, what do I need a sword for? But this isn't even the most extreme example. Look at what I did to Bloody Vicious. Yes, folks, it's true, I shoved my entire torso down to my waist through Bloody Vicious' chest, Assassinating him for a good 3/4 of his hit points. That's actually kind of gruesome, now that I think about it.
Now, granted, I'm not exactly complaining. This is far from unique, and if I recall correctly, Ninja Blade's Assassin's Blade has sort of the same problem, and I do know larger models using things like Stone Mallet or Head Splitter can actually step PAST what they are attacking and hit somewhere behind. I don't even mind how the attack itself looks. Hell, I love it! It's just a little... Icky when you think about what you're actually doing.
*note*
Why is this called Assassin's Slash? It's not a slash, it's a stab. Shouldn't it be called that, then? Assassin's Stab? How about Backstab?
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Quote:The only problem with a Staff powerset using bladed polearms as replacement weapons is damage types. A staff, typically, is blunt, so it would deal smashing damage, which really restricts it to some kind of staff or mace on a stick.Originally Posted by Sigium
Y'know what I'd be happy with? A staff.
Let there be a scythe, spear, halberd, bamboo skin for it, but let the base remain as a staff, and let it function as that. Sure, using it with the scythe theme won't be quite as pleasing as possible, but it'll fill a lot more gaps than a scythe alone.
Going further than that, even if we restrict it to just polearms and use a halberd base, not all polearms work for all attack types. In fact, you see this problem with Broadsword. A sword is as much a thrusting weapon as it is a slashing weapon, but because it shares animations with Battle Axe and War Mace, which are a slashing/swinging weapons not really appropriate for thrusting attacks, Broadsword, and by extension Katana, have ended up without any stabbing attacks, Stalker Assassin's Strike aside. Hell, Broadsword's version is called Assassin's SLASH, even though it's a STAB.
To illustrate, a spear is a thrusting weapon to a large extent, though in the hands of Hong Kong movie starts, it could also function as a staff. On the flip side, your typical halberd or a naginata can be used for both slashing and thrusting. Further still, a Scythe is only useful for slashing, lacking a point at the tip of the shaft. If we want to have a powerset that's applicable for a scythe, we have to exclude spear-type weapons altogether and limit halberd-style weapons to slashing attacks only. It worked for Broadsword, kind of, but its lack of stabbing is something I've seen complained about through the game's lifetime. Never too frequently or harshly, mind you, bit it's there.
And all of that still excludes a staff pretty much as soon as you attack an iron blade at the end of the polearm.
That, and Leo G is right - a scythe as a weapon is rather unique from all the other polearms which have actually been used as weapons, historically, and as such might require its own fighting approach. Then again, what people think of when they think "combat scythe" has nothing to do with what an actual scythe is, how it's structured or how it's used. For instance, the scythe's blade is always depicted as being in the same plane as the shaft, similar to how an axe's blade is orientated, which makes it useful for chopping and swinging attacks. A real scythe has its blade projecting off to the side of the shaft at an angle, because it's designed to cut grass perpendicular to the ground whereas the shaft is typically close to upright. As well, from what I've seen, scythes aren't held by their shafts, but rather by handles mounted to the shafts. The whole design of the tool is so you can cut things at ground level while standing upright, so adapting one for combat makes it really not very much a scythe at all, so much as a very, very large kama.
I think this ambiguity in what a scythe is and what a scythe does that causes us to disagree so much, me having one mental image of it while others have their own, distinct one. Mine is mostly derived from Soul Eater, even though Maka's scythe has nothing to do with an actual scythe at all. -
Quote:You're right, the differences between Battle Axe, War Mace and Broadsword are not great, but for attack effects, but what I'm saying is with direct, fits-and-stops attacks, you may end up with a two-handed axe set with scythes as an alternative the same way the hammer is an alternative to War Mace.Originally Posted by Leo_G
Sam, you gotta learn to separate fact from opinion. Like I said, it all comes down to how good the animations are. If they are actually good, you'll only notice the fits-and-starts when you're being anal about it. As of now, few people actually care how fluid the animations are. They just want them short.
As for the set looking like a 2-handed battle axe, tell me what the difference between the current Battle Axe and War Mace sets? The answer is its effects (because the animations are nearly the same if not identical). The 2-hand axe won't have a cone 'knocktowards' power (and if you can harp about a new animation mechanic I can about a new knock-vector
) or some of the cool specialized effects that the Death Scythe set would have. That's why I suggested it, so that it'll be different from any weapon set available or released in the future.
But you say direct attacks would look silly with a scythe. I don't think so. The idea is to kill the foe quickly and cleanly (in as few hits as possible) so fluidity of attack isn't *that* necessary unless you're talking about switching from attacking one corps to another victim (I think currently, the player character just 'slides' toward the new direction. not fluid at all) but that's completely different from what you're talking about.
And, yes, I do very much agree it's opinion, and I can't say yours is wrong. However, I just don't believe a large weapon working like that would look decent. A large weapon has momentum, which means it takes strength to get it moving and strength to get it stopped. You NEED those to be obvious if you want the weapon to feel like it has mass (long weapons with long blades always do), but having to constantly "urk" to start and stop just doesn't look good in my eyes. Not for a blade, anyway. Maybe for a large two-handed hammer which ends all of its animations at the end of its momentum, but a hammer is essentially a weight on a stick, and for a REALLY big one, I wouldn't expect it to have too much technique. A scythe, on the other hand, and indeed any polearm, just wouldn't look good without sufficient technique in my opinion.
Look, if a set like you describe made it into the game, I certainly wouldn't turn up my nose and say "No. I don't want it. Take it back." I'd play it, and probably enjoy it greatly. But I would still enjoy a scythe set more if it were fluid and skilful, rather than hard and brutish. -
Quote:I'm not strong enough to stand up to bullies. I never have been. Nor, for that matter, do I believe it is a good lesson for people that the only way for them to be safe is to take up arms and fight all the time. This is a terrible, horrible view of the world, and quite frankly, a view I couldn't survive day-to-day if I had. The point of having a justice system and a civilised state is so that you don't HAVE to fight for your survival all the time, and I say this as a citizen of a country with a corrupt, criminal state. I'm not a fighter. I never have been, and I've studied marital arts.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
I haven't been bullied since I was in 6th grade. It stopped the day I stood up to a bully and beat the crap out of him.
There are victims in the world. There are abusers in the world. There are justice bringers in the world.
I'll stick with the third choice. I find the other two choices distasteful.
And other thing. Bubba, you know I respect you, so please try and read this with the utmost understanding: You choose to be a justice bringer, but I'm not sure I can agree with your vision of justice. I frankly don't know what it is, but for the sake of argument, suppose I disagree with it. How, then, can I support the notion that you should have the right to bring justice I don't feel is just? And this isn't just with you. Chances are I would actually agree with your version, but everyone has his own, and I would bet my metal-tipped tail that I would disagree with the majority of people. Unless we want to believe that there is one true, universal and, above all, knowable justice - a notion I don't espouse to - all we have left is people forcing their will upon the world.
And as far as I'm concerned, the less people force themselves on the world, the better. Yes, there are bad people and crazy people and malicious people. Trying to beat them all up, for instance, just means we'll end up beating up a lot of innocent people like me, who just happen to disagree with a lot of things. And I just don't want to go through that any more. -
Quote:It's not real, that's all it comes down to. I can beat up on all the faceless goons I want, and no-one actually gets hurt. I don't have to worry about morality or ethics - they're faceless goons. Their whole reason to exist is so they can be shot and blown up by me to make me feel better. They are not real people, so I don't have to treat them like real people. They simply do not exist. Granted, I find extreme violence games distasteful, because while your regular shooter can be enjoyed for the dynamics of battle, a gore-fest is more enjoyed for the pain and harm you inflict, which is not something I've been able to enjoy in recent years. They're not real, so I've no qualms about shooting them to reach an objective, but I draw the line just shy of enjoying harming them.Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I'm confused. People object to Eisregens story but enjoy playing a game where they throw fireballs and lightning at npc's, riddle them with bullets and slice them into bloody little pieces with swords all the while dressed up like costumed vigilantes.
In fact, over the years I've developed a very powerful, keen sense of reality vs. video games, to the point where it has taken me aback when I DO see something in real life which feels a lot like it could be part of a game. It's a sense of disconcerting disconnect when I see something I thought COULDN'T be real because it's in a video game, and video games aren't real, yet it IS real because I'm standing there, looking at it. Real-life relationships don't work like movie and game relationships, for one... Except when they do, which is very jarring. Being that I don't enjoy in combat in real life, I can't quote any instances where a real-life firefight felt like an in-game firefight, but I would assume the logic would extend.
The biggest draw in games is that they are NOT real, and you can do in them that which you cannot do in real life without the complications doing it for real would entail and, most importantly, without the moral and ethical responsibility you would have in the real world. -
I can certainly see the points of people who advocate taking action and doing "what must be done." I, however, cannot and will not agree with this. It has been said that all it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing, yes. However, it has also been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Judging from my personal experience - and that's all I really have - I've seen good intentions lead to hell much more often than inaction.
Let me put it bluntly - I'm a wimp, physically. I have always been one. Throughout my life, I have been subject to "mob justice" more than a few times, strong-armed by people who felt they were right and I was wrong for no reason other than because they could beat me up. It has become very, very clear to me that once people take justice into their own hands, person-by-person, the results are never, EVER good. At best you end up with self-righteous bullies, at worst with gang violence.
And what I notice is that everyone talks as though they'll never, ever do something wrong at all. That's not realistic. No-one is a saint. And even on the off chance someone is, what guarantee do you have you won't run afoul of someone else's vision of what's right and get on his bad side, anyway? I don't want to walk the streets fearing I'll do something wrong and I'll be jumped by the Overwatch and handed down disproportionate retribution. I don't want to worry I'll get beaten into a pulp for accidentally running into someone on the street. And I cannot, in good conscience, do this to people if I don't want it done to me. Frankly, all this talk of vigilante justice really, really scares me in a big way.
I don't agree with letting people be judge, jury and executioner, because I don't trust people in general to make the right call. In fact, I agree with having law enforcement taken OUT of the hands of ordinary people. This is not the Wild West where everyone carries a gun and only those who can shoot the fastest or have the most followers are right. It's easy to support vigilante justice if you assume empowered people will only do good and justice. That isn't the case. In fact, I guarantee you that empowering people to pass down their own justice will see a resurgence of all the old hatreds we like to think we've forgotten. They still exist, and the only reason people don't enact them is because they aren't allowed to exercise that power.
Granted, I don't include protecting yourself or other people from immediate or long-term danger in this. Obviously, if someone's coming at you with a knife, you're not going to try to let him be, you'll want to save yourself and your friends, and if breaking his face is what it takes, then so be it. But I'm not talking about high-level crime and violence. I mean the small stuff, like shouldering people in the street, riding your bike on the sidewalk, cutting in line and so forth. I don't believe in specifically going out of your way to make people feel lousy and actually hurting them just to make a point. Chances are, you're going to end up hurting someone who didn't deserve it.
And I still cannot agree with "deserved" violence. No-one deserves to be hurt. I will agree that sometimes where it's unavoidable, such as the above-mentioned protection from danger, but I will never agree with the notion of enjoying hurting another person for ANY reason. The moment you hurt someone out of malice, you become as bad as they are, and I am not open to accepting justification on this point. I simply am not. I simply never, ever see problems as a case of "us vs. them," personally, so I cannot accept arguments about how "they" deserve it, when I know I can so very easily fall into "their" category and suffer the same ruthless, unfair treatment "we" so cavalierly preach must be done to "them."
And another thing - I never advocated ignoring things because "they're not my problem." I advocate ignoring things because they are not a SERIOUS problem. "What-ifs" aside, I was witness to a drama scene on a bus a couple of moths ago, when a girl was asked to remove her foot off a floor plate, it's difficult to explain, exactly. Except she made a BIG problem out of it as to how DARE they tell her to do that when other people are doing it and the bus isn't clean otherwise so why is this important and so on and so forth. At some level, she might have even been right, but it doesn't change the fact that she was asked to do a simple thing, and she turned it into an epic. I've been yelled at by people for very simple mistakes, myself, and somehow they never seem to accept "Oops! I didn't mean to!"
It is not my place to drive culture and courtesy into the heads of strangers, specifically since I'm more than positive my view of culture and courtesy isn't exactly objective. Unless is becomes a real problem, elbowing people in the chest over it is the worst case of tempest in a teapot I can think of without going into extraordinary events.
Now, I can't speak about the US, as I've never been there (and this is NOT a dig at Americans, believe me), but I've found the people I've delt with here are a LOT more polite and open to requests if you don't treat them like garbage and demand they fall in line. Animosity only breeds more animosity, and unless you want to go to war with everyone you antagonise, it simply isn't the right way to go. Not as far as my experience has shown me.
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Here's a good example of why I'm afraid of this. This is from a couple of years ago, and demonstrates the absurd idea some drivers have of how people should drive. I came into the left, fast lane of a main road, but wasn't moving very fast because I was looking to make a U turn in about 100-200 feet, but some guy with a fast car was riding my bumper, honking a lot. Never you mind I was at the speed limit, because I was in the left lane, I was expected to floor it. Typically I just ignore angry drivers, but this guy speeds up, passes me from the right, reaches out of his window and slaps my right side mirror closed. I'm fairly sure that if we'd both stopped, he'd have pulled out a baseball bat and smashed my windshield. All of that because drivers in my country are idiots and believe that speed limits don't apply to them. This kind of behaviour is something I want to DISCOURAGE as much as I can. -
Quote:It's not what he did. Maybe I'm falling victim to typecasting, but I just don't feel he, as an actor, fits the role of a jedi. I'd be kind of like putting Chris Tucker in as a jedi council member. Even if he doesn't DO anything out of character, I'd still feel he's out of place in that movie, at least in that role.Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
Really? I didn't see him do anything that struck me as "not Jedi-ish." He wasn't playing a character that to me seemed out of place.
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Quote:Yikes! You have a point. Weapons are costume details now, and getting them to leave the hand in any way could be... Well, let's say "problematic" so that we can remain positive about itOriginally Posted by Leo_G
I guess it all comes down to how good the animations would be. As of now, even using 2-handed weapons that don't have static points for your hands is out of the question. A new animation mechanic that allows the fluidity you speak is even further out. But I'd definitely like to have that for a set (or this set). Like you said, it's possible to be fluid attack leading into attack and keep the burst feel of the set. If the endurance and rech costs are appropriate for the burst damage it does, it's all gravy. Put it like this - a weapon that switches hands mid-animation and generally leaves the weapon hand would be enough to make this set unique from all the others. I understand City of Heroes is more of a click-n-kill and limited in what animations it can have, but if a crappy, crappy game like 9Dragons can have these animations (and, yes, all of those are from in-game combat), I can still dream of seeing them in a good game like City of Heroes, right?
The thing, though, is that Katana may be smooth, but that sort of fits-and-starts combat style only really works with light weapons. Anything like this with a heavy weapon would just look silly. And, again, if we reduce the scythe to a slower, direct-attack weapon like how Katana works, it becomes little more than a two-handed battle axe, which I don't think you want.Quote:Currently, I think Katana is in the realm of animation I'd aim for. It's deliberate with its strikes and yet feels smooth (not fluid like you're talking about but smooth) and it looks several times better than the animations for alot of other set *including* claws. I'd settle for just smooth, myself. But if you can make it better, then better. -
Quote:Personally, I'd say if they could bundle up the game with an old-fashioned peer-to-peer multiplayer mode like, say, the original Diablo or Dungeon Siege worked, then I would be willing to foot the FULL cost of the game all over again just to buy that version. Yeah, I won't see dozens of other people running around in our shared world, but it's not like I CARED about those, anyway. You'd still get multi-player teams, though.Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Would I play a single player COH...
I'd play if they released the server for others to run, yes. COH as is now, single player, probably not for very long. -
Quote:I suspect this is largely caused by your language lacking gender for nouns. The only gender expression that the English language has comes from personal pronouns, which REALLY makes it a pain to write stories from the mouth of a female character when I have a male screen name. In my language, all nouns have a gender based on their suffix, be they animate or inanimate, and adjectives change their own suffix to reflect the gender of the noun. As such, the gender of pronouns is inherited from the noun they reference. For instance, the noun "character" is male, so I would naturally say "he, the character" without actually implying the gender of the character himself or herself (sic). Now, certain nouns have multiple genders, such as "hero" vs. "heroine," but many, like "principal" do not, so it is common practice to refer to the male noun as a general rule of thumb and to the female noun only as an exception.Originally Posted by Lycanus
I apologize for the minor thread hacking here, but had to comment on this.
Originally, "he" was gender neutral. An individual of unknown gender was automatically referred to as "he" until it was proven that the individual was female. This is because in English the feminine is a marked state, a variation of the overall norm. Which is why "Man" is considered a reference to the whole of humanity, not just the male half.
Recently, however, we have forgotten that "he" was ever gender neutral and it has become thoroughly the masculine gender. As a result, we have no gender neutral pronoun any longer, resulting in the awkward phrase "he or she" and such written constructions as "(s)he" and "he/she", or randomly switching pronouns, as some game companies do, which can result in the same example referring to the same generic, unstated individual as both she and he.
Then again, that makes for some funny gender grammar with foreign words which are inherently one gender, but because of suffix end up as another. Particularly funny is the word "ninja," because in my language it has a female suffix, so you will often hear "she, the ninja," despite the ninja in question being clearly male on-screen.
It's not as confusing as you think. Pronouncing things correctly is, of course, always difficult for foreign speakers, and you can never really escape from your accent when you weren't born speaking English, but it's not quite that confusing. It has a few awkward rules of spelling and grammar, but most of those can be learned through simple practice and a little knowledge.Quote:This is unlikely to be corrected anytime soon as evidenced by the fact that we still use a 26 letter alphabet for a language that has 30 or 40 different individual sounds, including 13 seperate vowels which are represented by only 5 symbols, 6 if you include "y". To make matters worse, some of our letters merely copy the sounds of other letters, such as the "c", our worthless gift from certain latinate-speaking conquerors, which can only seem to copy either a "k" or an "s", only producing a unique sound when in combination with "h".
Add to this the fact that we use spelling rules that predate modern English by more than six hundred years, including spelling meant to reproduce sounds which are no longer part of the language ("gh") and/or are no longer spoken outloud (silent letters such as "k" in "know") and it becomes no question why the English language is so confusing to second-language speakers.
To contrast, my language is almost entirely phonetic. Each letter represents a single sound as it is spoken in the word and does not change based on its proximity with other words. The transition from text to speech is almost completely direct. You'd think that'd make the language easier to spell and read, but you'd be wrong. Even if the sounds themselves do not change, the nature of how speech flows causes you to change them, anyway, or at the very least pronounce them ambiguously. English has this problem, as well, with things like "their/they're/there," but is not unique in this. Even direct letter-to-sound transitions can be sinisterly unclear, meaning you pretty much have to remember how words are spelled anyway. -
Quote:You know, this might sound odd, maybe even hypocritical coming out of someone like me, but one quality I value in people before almost everything else is being humble. I made a thread about the concept a few years back, and though my evil memory isn't quite evil enough in this case, it was to the effect that I realised I had no right to judge people just based on personal impression. You'll not a lot of "I thing" "it seems" "in my opinion" and so forth in my posts. That's there for a reason - almost everything I said, unless I go out of my way to state it in absolutes, is opinion, in keeping with trying not to judge people on my own authority.Originally Posted by Eisregen_NA
As for me stepping out of the way being the better way? I don't know. Morally, maybe. Sociologically, maybe not, or maybe too. At least she knows she won't always get away with this. Something I already knew and accepted. Chances are, I'll pull a stunt like that on the wrong guy some day and get my comeuppance. I accept that, too, but I'm not stopping doing what I feel I have to do.
For this reason, "morally" is as far as I would have gone in trying to contemplate this. Any time you step beyond this and start believing it is your unspoken duty to do something, then you're automatically forfeiting any sympathy on my side. I have seen more appalling things come out of people with the belief that it rests upon them to fix society and make people more like they feel they should be than out of self-interested, callous people. I mean, a callous person would shoulder me out of his way or take my seat on a bus when I stand up to reach into my pocket, but that'll be about it. If I suffer from it, too bad, and if I don't, he doesn't care. On the other hand, a self-righteous person will make sure that not only do fail in what I wanted to do, but that I also feel ROTTEN afterwards. It is this malice, the belief that you have to make the other feel bad because YOU believe they did something wrong, is where the really bad things happen.
It really comes down to this - should I feel justified in enacting "punishment" against a person based solely and only of my understanding of wrong-doing and my measurement of the amount of wrong? In my opinion, no, I should not, because I have neither the authority nor, indeed, the wisdom to be judge, jury and executioner, to use a slightly extreme turn of phrase. I feel neither qualified, nor indeed deserving of the right to pass down judgement and punishment. The most I can do is explain to people why I feel they are wrong and hope they understand. Obviously, arrogant offenders are going to just blow me off, but really, you're not going to change their way unless you strong-arm them, and I would NOT leave this responsibility in the hands of common people. In fact, the notion of it scares me a LOT.
On the other hand, and this is something I've seen in real life and here - confronting actually good, decent people with what you perceive they did wrong will often cause them to stop, rethink their actions and maybe even change, even a little bit. And, really, it's the good people that I want to try and change for the better. The bad people I can't change, but I can simply avoid. It's not my place to fix the world. Nor is it yours, for that matter.
Not in the slightest, but it might have changed how the incident went. WHO you harm doesn't matter. As I said before, it isn't a question of how much they deserve it or how hurt they are by it. It is a question of what YOU do. You can't control what other people do, but you CAN control what you do, and you cannot and should not use circumstances for excuses. I don't feel you are justified in doing what you did not because of who you did it to, but because of the very basics of WHAT you did. It's actually something I've seen in real life, as well - people will do bad things to bad people, in the process absolving them of guilt by contrast. That woman was, at best, callous. You were outright malicious. I may not agree with her, but I would still side with her just by virtue of not wanting to side with you.Quote:Had this been a broad-shouldered guy muscling everyone out of the way, would that have changed your opinion of the incident? Needless to say, I do those, too.
Again, I apologise for being quite this... Extreme, but I happen to feel VERY strongly about these things. -
Quote:I don't mind Jackson as an actor, but I just don't believe his specific style of "BMF" fit with the theme of the movie, and especially with the jedi council. It's like casting Bill Goldberg as king of the elves or Woody Allen as a titanic monster of some kind. It just REALLY sticks out, and yet the movie makes no effort to acknowledge that. Yes, I know there are ALIENS on the council which would theoretically stick out more, but Jackson sticks out out-of-character.Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
Er, why not? He's an actor. They needed to employ actors to be Jedi Knights. Samuel L. Jackson was into the movies and the role, and his lightsaber had "BMF" written on it. I don't see anything that makes him spectacularly unsuitable for being in the movie.
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Quote:Well, that's probably where relative perception comes in. To give you a very simplistic example, I see this as GlaDOS in Porta. In many ways, she is right, she is "the only thing that stands between us and them," and seeing what the world of Half-Life 2 post Combine takeover is, I've no doubt she is right. In fact, "them" may not even refer to the relatively conventional forces of the Overwatch, and instead refer to the truly diabolical, err... What were the floating telekinetic slugs called?Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
SPOILERS
Well, based on the world in Watchmen, it's very likely that where the world was going was full blown nuclear war between the US and Soviet Union... So Ozymandias blowing up a few cities and framing Dr. Manhattan, which forced the US and Soviet Union into a truce, could be seen as the more peaceful of the two possible outcomes.
Regardless, the fact that she protects the protagonist from aliens changes little when you consider that she tried to KILL the protagonist, probably intending to just clone and replicate her, as has been fan-suggested before. All the talks of retaining brain scans speak to that effect.
Of course, in a world half empty, it usually does come down to which is the lesser evil, and in such a light, I can see how it could be relative. However, I am a fan of more optimistic stories, if not in setting and theme, then at least in terms of ending. For instance, I very (very very) much enjoyed playing the good guy in Mass Effect, especially towards the end where EVERYTHING is in the hands of Commander Shepard. In fact, probably the most iconic decision in the game, for me at least, was whether or not to call in the Earth fleet to fight for and save the fleeing Council.
This is probably as good a time as any for a morally ambiguous decision - do I endanger the lives of possibly thousands of people from MY world in an attempt to save the ambassadors of OTHER worlds, or do I look the other way, pretend I can't help them and let them die? Having already let Kaiden die in pretty much the same way earlier in the game, I was very much determined that I was done fighting for a world where people were left to die alone and abandoned. Such a world would not be worth living in. That, and despite suffering heavy losses, this FINALLY gave a chance for the people of Earth to show to the rest of the galaxy that they too were brave, strong and noble when it really, really counted. Their enthusiasm over the radio also helped a great deal.
Luckily, Mass Effect is a game where "just deserts" is expertly handled. If you are good and do the right thing, good things happen to you, and if you are bad and do the wrong thing, either bad things happen, or you miss out on all the good. If this were a pessimistic game, I'd probably have gotten everyone killed for nothing, but that's why I dislike pessimistic worlds. This is the grand finale. If ever things had to go right, that would be the time.
Of course, that's just my opinion on what I personally like. -
The who of the what now?
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Quote:I'm afraid I don't know absolutely anything about the Watchmen, so I can't answer this question. Based on Kitsune's assessment, though (and keep in mind I know NOTHING of the character), it sounds to me like I'd put him into the category of a villain, under the "cause does NOT justify the means" clause. I'm probably biassed, because I have a villain who is essentially MADE of this clause, seeking to create a world which would be quite literally perfect, but doing so in such a way that is many times worse than leaving the world as it is.Originally Posted by Combat
So Sam...
Is Osmandius (from the Watchmen) a hero, villain, or grey? I always thought of him as a hero, but given what he did, he could easily count as a villain.
But of course, villains can't ever actually suceed, so he must be either a grey or a hero...
Then again, I've heard of the Watchmen's theme of no clear morality, so it's very likely I'm very wrong. I'm not a comic book fan in general, and haven't actually read almost any comic books, but I'm continually amazed at what passes for heroes in many comic books, especially those described to me as "dark age comics." Then again, I think I lost my ability to go by accepted public opinion about five years ago, and I tend to stick with my own, so I can rarely claim I'm truly objective. -
Quote:You know, honestly, if I encouraged people to tell stories like that, then this thread is no longer fun. I don't care what she did to upset you, or even whether it's a he or a she. Trying to hurt people for no reason other than hurting people is not something I can see as justified, regardless of circumstances. I don't care if it's to teach them a lesson or whatever. It is not nor can it be justified. I'm sorry I have to be quite so critical, Eisregen, but I find this sort of thing appalling.Originally Posted by Eisregen_NA
Through this mass of people, a young woman comes riding her bicycle, not racing but not exactly slowing down either. There's a reason adults are not supposed to ride their bicycles across the sidewalk or through improvised bus stops. People are having to dodge and dart left and right to actually get out of the way of the ***** on her bike. Until she gets to me, of course. Me, I stare her down until it's obvious she won't actually stop, then I just sidestep a little and elbow the ***** in the chest. Not hard enough, unfortunately, as she kept on going for a few more feet, then she comes to a halt and the resulting exchange went like this:
Here's how I see things - the moment you cross the line into wilfully and purposefully inflicting harm upon other people, you lose any sort of moral high ground to complain about them. "She started it" doesn't cut it in my world. I don't care if the woman in question was the reincarnation of Satan, himself, there is no way I will ever be convinced that doing what you say you did is the better call over simply stepping out of the way.
This isn't something I would ever consider doing, but even if I did so in anger or frustration, it is most certainly NOT something I would brag about, or even so much as mention. If this is the kind of attitude I invoked with this thread, then I want nothing more to do with it. The subsequent disturbing comments on the matter only serve to reaffirm my position. -
Quote:Well, I did mention that's a design I originally created for a halberd/spear type weapon, so it might not fit a scythe. However, the reason I'm suggesting this is because, and I say this with the utmost of respect for the thing, a scythe is not a weapon and trying to use it like one is silly. The only way I can see it made to look cool is by presenting it as a continuous momentum weapon, because this is about the only way large and/or heavy weapons can be wielded with any sort of stye.Originally Posted by Leo_G
Now we're getting away from a bursty set to a DPS set. That's fine, I guess. But as a weapon set, I feel a scythe wouldn't actually *be* fast in the since of get it going and become some kind of blender. At least no where in the realm of speed that a spear or staff can go...
That is to say, I'm not saying the attacks should be slo-mo type attacks. I think the attacks should animate with a deliberate speed that entails focused direction of attacks. But as for a DPS feel to it (in a realistic view), it would pale to a set like a staff where the entire weapon is the weapon or a spear that can slash, parry and thrust in such fluid action you can pretty much do it in one motion.
If we ever get 2-handed weapons though, I'd want the staff to be the weapon you describe that does smashing damage and the halberd/spear be the same but the one that does lethal.
Moving away from momentum and into more direct, deliberate strikes simply makes the scythe into a faux two-handed axe, which isn't exactly a weapon I would refuse to have (man, I would LOVE that), but isn't really something that's going to fly. It's bad enough most "scythes" in animation aren't actually scythes at all, but rather long-bladed, sharp-edge axes, both in design and in terms of technique of use. I really, REALLY don't want to see that for a scythe, because to me that just looks really, REALLY bad.
That said, I don't see why a continuous momentum style of attack can't have big, heavy-looking attacks. Constantly twirling a large weapon doesn't necessarily mean you have to constantly twirl it fast, it just requires that each motion feed into the next. You could have large, dramatic swings with a full-body spin and a lot of arm strength behind them that still feed out of and into a continuous momentum style. Hell, add in a few "just for show" twirls like switching hands, turning it around your neck, tossing the spinning weapon and suchforth. That kind of show is actually also depicted in the Maka fight I linked to earlier right at the start where she shows off her scythe skills with one of these. -
I always found it incredibly odd that we have several server-wide channels, and all of them are specifically specific. We have Arena (anyone remember that one?), Help and Architect, only each comes with attached baggage. Personally, I would very much like to see a channel just called "Server" added to that list.
So it could become a cesspool of nonsense. So? You can always remove it from your tabs. Or you can do what I do, and stuff it in a uni-tab with everything else just so you know if anything's going on, then shunt it off to its own tab you can check if you want to. It's what I did with Help an Architect, though I removed Arena altogether because of all the trash talk. -
Quote:If it were me, I'd leave that up to the player to decide. Maybe you gained your powers by studying really hard in school, but the school bully dropped in a vat of chemicals and now you're both growing up in power simultaneously, or maybe you just became so strong someone took notice. Or maybe you don't have an arch-nemesis at all. The way I envisions it, it should be something you could initiate (and probably end) at any point in your character's career.Originally Posted by ReclusesPhantom
This. Also, a level 2 character already having a nemesis after starting off the heroing career? Maybe after level 10 or so.
A difficulty slider controlling appearance frequency is a smashing idea, as well. -
To avoid pasting a huge quote, I'll just reply to the original poster outright.
I respect honest, introspective posts like these that may sometimes fly in the face of convention. It's the kind of personal opinion that I really enjoy reading about, vs. the veritable PR statements a lot of posters craft when they discuss controversial issues.
For myself, I also agree with the sentiment. For me, about the best source of fun in this game is familiarity. The longer I spend playing it, the more I like it, and the more used I get to a character, his looks and his quirks, the greater my attachment to it. If I were given a character at level 50, or even allowed to design and have it auto-levelled, I would wave my hand and refuse. It's not about politics or philosophy, it's about the fact that, as you said, this character is a stranger to me, no different from all the random characters I meed in the street. I have no attachment to its looks or concept, and I have no attachment to the playstyle it entails.
I don't always like the characters I make. Sometimes they're ugly, sometimes they're vulnerable, sometimes they're just odd. But I've found that, after spending a while with the character, both the good AND the bad parts start becoming endearing to me. No longer do I view the character as a collection of parts and powers, but rather I view him or her as someone I would want to watch a movie about. That, to me, is key, and only occurs with time spent. -
Quote:You know, it could be an upbringing thing. I don't mean parental guidance in this case, but more the fact that I literally grew up on video games. And I don't mean atmospheric, detailed games like Silent Hill or Sould Reaver, I mean the old, crappy, barely-human-character games like the original Virtua Fighter, Tomb Raider, the Virtua Cop games. Hell, I recently retried Virtua Cop, and my GOD are the people in that game crappy and stiff. They look like people enough, but their heads are a single block without even an inkling of animation, let alone facial expression. And yet watching these people bob their heads and talk to each other, I could still get into the games, even get into romance stories with these jagged characters. Hell, I played as far back as Alone in the Dark 2.Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
I don't think Spirits is the best example (I can't really think of any good ones right now), but I think it somewhat shows the point via comparison. Honestly the list on that page on TV Tropes seems really... random.
If I had to make a guess, I'd say I've conditioned myself to accept many things as being human as long as they act human, even if they look a little or a lot like an actual human being. Comound that on top of my fascination with the Furry genre (let's try and avoid making jokes about it, please), which depicts characters of various degrees of humanity, sometimes even things you wouldn't expect, yet I have never had any trouble viewing them as human for the purposes of personality and plot development. I'm predisposed towards seeing anything which acts human as human, regardless of what it actually looks like, not necessarily on a physical level, but always on an emotional level. I guess that's part of why I could never really understand racism as a concept, be it in real life or as a plot point in movies.
To point, the first time I learned that the characters from The Spirits Within were supposed to be creepy or unsettling was when I read about people having that reaction. I watched it back when it came out (on premier night here, no less) and I rather enjoyed it, making no more than a passing comment on how stiff the characters' facial expressions were. Then again, comparing it to something like Soul Reaver 2, which had all in-game cinematics with good, but not THAT good facial animation, it was just about business as usual. To me, The Spirits Within is tantamount to a very well-made game cinematic, minus the actual game, and if I wasn't bothered by the cutscenes in Soul Reaver, I see no reason why I should be bothered by these. Really, voice acting makes these movies, in my eyes. -
Quote:While I wouldn't go quite as far as you have into the psychology and sociology of people (mainly because I live in a different country from most of you, so I wouldn't really know), I HAVE noticed a recurring problem with Suggestions and Ideas in this vein. People post an idea, and be it good or bad, they get a few people who flatout say "no," but in more words. The problem is then the original owner of the idea and the detractors go into a flamewar about attitude and respect, whereas I personally feel it's a lit more productive to either ignore people who dislike the idea (as they cannot be made to like it) or try to convince them. And trust me, I've taken a lot of heat for disagreeing with ideas or trying to warp them into something I would like more. In fact, one of my "negativity" comments came about from one such thread (I don't remember where the other came from, and it has scrolled off the page since).Originally Posted by Eisregen_NA
As for people secretly leaving you negative notes because you openly said negative things, that's just the culture of the modern day and age. I've been called insensitive for calling people to task on being irresponsible to the point where they were literally putting people's lives in danger. This is the same kind of culture that awards medals for 23rd place, borne out of some grand idea that everyone's special and unique and worthy of admiration and no precious budding flower should ever be crushed by being told just how bad their ideas really are, how faulty their thought processes, how flawed their vision (I swear, this is not a Jack Emmert dig).
Which is, of course, all poppycock. Raise a child in a sterile environment, and the first time they catch the sniffles in the real world, they'll be hovering on death's door. Also, the backstabbery people perpetrate on those who literally have the spine to stand erect from these huddled servants of conformity shows that the system isn't working to begin with. Or else, shouldn't these masturbatory sycophants be encouraging you to be negative?
Personally, when I post an idea, I actually enjoy seeing people point out problems with it, even if they can't offer solutions to them. The Suggestions forum, the few chronic disagreers notwithstanding, is a place where you post your ideas when you feel they're solid enough for people to punch holes in them and rip them apart, so next time you suggest them, they'll be that much more solid. At least that's how I see it. I do enjoy people posting things like "/signed" and "I like it!" but, to me, posts of the "I don't like this because..." are actually the most constructive.
Wow... Maybe I really am that negative
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Scanning through my rep comments today, it seems I have an inclusion to make. Here's a comment out of there:
Quote:Now you're in it, stranger. Enjoy.**** i didnt get in your thread. -
Quote:Oh, instanced missions only, of course, and I'd go out on a limb and say one one person's nemesis at a time. I mentioned Voids only to illustrate the mechanic (completely neglecting that those spawn outside, too), but I wouldn't want anything even remotely like that in terms of frequency. On a Kheldian, I see roughly one or two Voids per mission, whereas a random nemesis encounter would be something I'd limit to once a couple of days or so. Rare, at any rate.Originally Posted by Luminara
Now, having them spawn in regular instanced content randomly, using the Void Hunter code, I could get behind that. But out in the wild, it's too open to abuse and/or player detriment.