Venture
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Right, this time the football won't be yanked away.
But Silos might not be the Nemesis - he could be an alternative version than never went bad.
It is not a hero's job to "save" anyone, in the sense of redemption. That is a job for a therapist, or perhaps a clergyman. It is a hero's job to protect the innocent and serve the public trust.Quote:It is a heroes job to save everyone no matter how far they have fallen.
No, there's a continued struggle between good and evil because evil won't stop ******* with people.Quote:That is the very nature of why there is a contunued struggle between good and evil.
Right, every jury that ever sent a criminal away for life without parole was composed of future vigilantes.Quote:If you give up hope that they cant be saved then you give up on the idea that people can change and that leads to taking justice into your own hands.
Oh wait, they weren't.
What leads to taking justice into your own hands is believing the world is wrong and you are right and only you can fix everything. Whether or not you believe a given offender is irredeemable doesn't matter. Human history is littered with examples of people who went beyond salvage, too many for the history books. We can just cut to the Godwin and go with Hitler. What would Hitler have to do to atone for his actions? An apology is not going to cut it, not even with roses and chocolates. Six million Hail Marys? Nope. No one responsible for the destruction of human life on that scale could possibly do anything to make up for it, and anyone who would ever trust such a person again is a sucker. -
Nemesis is beyond salvage in every possible way. The character's terrible deeds have left him irredeemable. There is nothing Nemesis could ever do to atone for provoking the Rikti Wars. That act alone makes him one of the greatest monsters in human history.
Worse, because the character has been played up as a master of deception (despite the fact that the writing that's supposed to depict that is woefully inadequate), he has effectively crossed the "credibility event horizon" for both characters and players. No one, whether character or audience member, would ever have any reason to believe that this time Nemesis isn't trying some to trick them with some weak and obvious scheme. In short: Nemesis is Lucy holding the football, and you're Charlie Brown. And even in Peanuts that was a joke, and so is Nemesis in any incarnation. -
Quote:When Ramiel was around during the i18 beta, one of his dialog options explicitly stated that Silos was a version of Nemesis. This is like adding a flaming hoop to the shark jump as far as I'm concerned but there it is.
The only Mender whose name may be an anagram is Mender Silos, and I'm not entirely sure that it is (though the likelihood of his name containing the same letters as "Lord Nemesis" is a bit low, so make of it what you will). -
Quote:I couldn't find any devs. Except Black Pebble, who gave me a Rikti Costume card.
I should've went up and talked with the devs, but didn't do that either.
Oh, and I'd say I was the tall guy in all black with long hair but you'd have to reply "could you please be more specific?"
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Quote:I used the name for a character in my MA arcs (which I will now have to change). It's a logical choice for the Incarnate "guide" character, as Ramiel is the angel "set above those who would rise". I'd rather he wasn't a Mender, of course, but then I'd rather Ouroboros just ceased to exist in the first place.
Mender Ramiel is an interesting choice of name especially since it's often mixed up with Rameel (AKA Azazel), one of the most mysterious characters in Jewish mythology -
Quote:I'll be at the MS44 flea market on Columbus Ave. and W.77th on Sunday (spots D15-16) if you're still in the area.
edit 2: AW MAN I COULDA PUNCHED VENTURE??
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Quote:No. These guys will be. I'll send them.
If this happens, people will die. I will be responsible. -
I would expect there will be people there until management throws them out.
Now, when the NCSoft people are going to leave...that's another story. -
I was there but didn't hear anything notable. I did see the trailer, it was short but very cool. Most people did not have name badges and I never found anyone giving them out, so if there was anyone waiting for a chance to sucker punch me they never got it.
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1. Male
2. Scrappers, because *puts on shades* we make DPS look gooooood.
3. Mostly heroes
4. "World Wide Red", "The Hammer of the World", "Oh, Wretched Man!", the original "Ubelmann the Unknown", "Revenant Hero Project", "Iron Widow"...I could go on but that's enough for now.
5. The gameplay, and occasionally the writing, and the Mission Architect though I think that's largely run its course.
6. Currently playing Champions Online (very infrequently) and World of Warcraft. I don't do much with single-player games, sometimes Majesty 2, Plants vs. Zombies and Bejewled Blitz on Facebook.
7. Since the game went live, over six years now.
8. 86 alts, counting a few not listed on my web page. Level range is all over the place, haven't calculated any averages. 10 level 50 characters, counting three on Test. Two 49s should be getting there soon.
9. I care about stats but not obsessively; I will only make small concessions in favor of stats over character concept. I usually set difficulty to +0x2+B-AV at level 6 or so and to at least +1x2+B-AV after the character has common IOs. Characters with many sets slotted go to higher difficulty. My one purpled-out character plays at +2x5+B-AV and could probably go higher but frankly having to kill more or tougher mobs just gets boring. -
I heard his agent held out for participation and despite an eleventh-hour negotiation session the parties couldn't come to terms.
Seriously, I have no idea why he isn't in. It's probably an oversight. -
Thanks for the review, glad you liked it!
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The extra Bosses were not your doing. It was the wacky spawn system. For some time now at party size 2 it's been possible to get a spawn consisting of a single Boss and a single Minion, both possibly at +1 to your relative level. Sometimes you'll get an entire map spawned that way. There's nothing an architect can do about it.
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I posted a review in my thread; I gave it three stars.
I was able to solo the arc with a 40 KM/SR Scrapper. A second try with a 35 TA/A Defender failed in the last mission with the EB at a sliver of health. I had some bad luck in that fight and probably would have won if the breaks were even. The Defender also drew five random Boss spawns in act IV; fortunately the ally took care of all but the first. -
Arc # 454140, "Cause and Effect"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", obnoxious use of timed missions, obnoxious glowie hunt, Timey Wimey Ball
Reviewed on: 10/1/2010
Level Range: 40-54
Morality: Neutral
Factions: Generic, Banished Pantheon, Ghosts
Architect's Keywords: Challenging, Save the World, Drama
My Keywords: Save the World
Character used: Vector Alpha/Virtue; David Moonbow/Virtue
Difficulty: +0x2+B-AV
For starters, this is still listed as a Work in Progress, so the arc may change substantially following this review. Second, the character used the first time was a level 40 KinMelee/SR Scrapper not on the web page (I really have to update that sometime). The second time I used a 35 TA/A Defender, who failed.
On the one hand there's something said for trying to be different. On the other, it can be hard to remember sometimes when you're trying to be different that you're supposed to be trying to be good first. This arc falls short in the latter department.
The mission here is to investigate a missing Mender at the behest of Mender Lazarus. "Mender Anomaly" vanished on her last mission, completely erased from the time stream, and all of history appears to be going with her. You, for Timey Wimey Ball reasons, are a "fixed point" so you are capable of looking into this for them. This requires a series of timed missions, each with decreasing time limits going from one hour down to five minutes. You eventually discover that Anomaly managed to accidently kill a younger version of herself, "Sister Johanna" (author insert), and have to travel back to just before she does so to clobber her first. I didn't fail any of the earlier ones; on my second try I failed the last mission with the EB at a sliver. I had some very bad luck during the fight and probably could have won it if the breaks had been even. If you fail the last mission Silos makes the whole thing unhappen at the cost of imprisoning both versions of Anomaly forever.
The arc does make nice use of text formatting in the briefings, but then giving the player lots of nicely-done text to admire in an arc with short time limits on most missions may not be well-received. Act II has a hostage with no approach or release text. Act III has no hostiles, just 30-someodd glowies to click with a 15 minute time limit which is really not much fun. Act IV has a defeat-all objective that is not clear (it appears from the nav bar you only have to reach the hostage). Acts III and V use Nemesis Automatons seemingly as patroling pedestrians but they're not relabeled.
The arc's gameplay suffers from the short time limits. You're pressured into racing for objectives so you don't get much time fighting; this also clobbers the ticket value of the arc. There is no real theme to it, so with low gameplay and reward it's hard to see any reason to recommend the arc. -
Tyrant is not distant, he is a coward, like every other bully in the world.
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I liked Bryan Singer's take on it and think he should be allowed to continue with the franchise.
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Looking back, I see I didn't specify this. If anyone is interested, the arc I have (maybe) entered is "Splintered Shields", #253991. It has a sequel, "The Christmas We Get" #356477 that sort of fits as well but I thought the first one made a better entry.
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I've entered "Splintered Shields" (#253991), or maybe not as there was a snafu with the instructions (which I did try to correct).
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"Blowback" (#4643), "Chains of Blood" (#4829), "Splintered Shields" (#253991) and "The Christmas We Get" (#356477) are all in the 40-50 range.
"Psychophage" (#283197) is as well but it was designed to be abusive. "Why We Fight" has three of four missions in the 40-50 bracket. -
I'm only going to deal with a few things here as I don't have time to address the seventy posts of stupid this thread attracted in the last eight hours. (The short answer is that the easy way to tell if Steampunkette is wrong is to see if her (virtual) lips are moving.)
Quote:Yes, the State did create the Ghouls. Please read the entire article and not just the parts you like:The State did not create the Ghouls.
What's more, Vasiliskos was working as part of a State program to create super-soldiers. He wasn't some crackpot mixing drugs in his basement. Everything he did is a result of the State's intent.Quote:He did this to himself, but it was Neuron who used the serum and its later iterations upon countless innocent people.
Some of the Ghouls created afterwards might be clones, but not all of them. You work with a guy who was turned into a Ghoul (Carlos Gomez) in that arc! Come on! And even suggesting that clones aren't deserving of human rights is despicable.Quote:The arc even indicates that the Ghouls created after Vasilikos aren't even innocent victims - they're clones.
Yes, you did. Dark Watcher tells you that Enriche is spiked in the final Warden morality mission. The "Don't Drink It" and "Drink Enriche!" badges imply that the same drug is in the rest of the water, but that doesn't make much sense.Quote:I went looking through some badges and souvenirs from Praetoria, and I couldn't find anything that absolutely confirms the presence of sedatives/drugs in Enriche. Everything I've read (in-game) so far has been inconclusive. Did I miss something?
I have nothing against roleplaying bad guys. I was a tabletop GM for over thirty years; I've had to RP antagonists I can't even discuss here.Quote:It's unsettling that some people on this forum have taken the Resistance vs. Loyalist thing as personal war to be carried out of the game and into the forum space, and into every Going Rogue thread, regardless of the topic. Personally, I've played all four flavors and I've enjoyed each one.
What gets me about these threads is that a lot of people seem to be ready to throw their freedom away for a Twinkie. If the pro-fascist attitudes evinced by people like Eiko-Chan, Steampunkette and BenRGamer are at all prevalent among young people today we're in deep trouble.
I think they intended for the "moral ambiguity" to be found in the choices the player is confronted with and not in the actual factions. Unfortunately it doesn't really work that way; if the only choices are Fascist or Terrorist then there's no real ambiguity in the scenarios. For me, and evidently for a lot of people, the result is Darkness Induced Apathy.Quote:I can only speak for myself, but I think it's the failure to deliver the moral ambiguity that the concept called for with a title like "Shades of Gray".
See, this is indicative of the kind of statements that set me off. Humans aren't violent little monkeys that need zookeepers. Humans are constructive, not destructive, and the proof of that is the world all around you. If humans were destructive as a species we'd still be living in caves throwing poo at each other. (Of course, some might argue that we just use the Internet for that now. They might use this thread as an example.) We build far, far, far more than we destroy. We live in a world of wonders our distant forefathers could scarcely comprehend, and we live in it because no matter how many times we may have stumbled along the way we have always taken what came before us and built on it, improving it. We are the most fantastic creatures on this planet. People like Tyrant who can't see that are just cowards, afraid of other people and what they might do if not completely under his control.Quote:To that extent, I also -want- to like Cole. I liked his speech, and I can see his point that people are bunch of violent monkeys that need to be babysat, at least until they can evolve out of their diapers.
Unless he was conscripted I would blame such a man for choosing to be a cop in the first place. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean I'd shove him against the wall when the revolution comes, either. It would depend on what he had actually done. As for forgiveness, well, that comes after repentance.Quote:The best rationale I could come up with was that Responsible Loyalists, like Kang, are sort of like good cops caught in an extraordinarily bad situation. They're doing their best to protect people, and maybe they see the ugly truth, but they're just not strong enough to stand up against Cole. And I can't fault them for that. At least no more than you could fault a cop in Iraq many years ago for not calling out Saddam and his sons.
But there's no way I'd call him a hero. -
Quote:Actually they didn't. The Syndicate was created after the old gangs were put down 15 years ago -- right when the Seer program started.
When Cole was crowned Emperor 25 years ago the remnants of organized crime joined together to become the Syndicate.
That doesn't matter.Quote:They did not magically -stop- being criminals for 30 seconds before starting up again making themselves criminals AFTER the fact.
When you drop a glass, do you blame the manufacturer for your sudden need to sweep your floor? Actually, you probably do. -
"Small Fears" #12285, "Karmic Exchange" #47550, "All in the Family" #128109, "Mercytown" #6017, "Aeon's Nemesis #161865.
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Quote:No, you don't. And there are only two beers left in the house so I can't deal with the rest of this pile of epic fail.
When you broaden the terms that far you make everything the direct result of everything else that has ever happened. -
Quote:No, I rather expressly denied that.
So! You accept and admit that Organized crime entering the nation is not created by the government, and accept that the changes the group undergoes in the nation are not the fault of the government at hand?