rian_frostdrake

I recall josta being an intereting flavor back in the day. back then i worked a fairly physical job so i downed several a day, it was kind of a precursor for the taurine and ginseng energy drinks..the sugar was probably not great for me, but dang, the energy rush after the third one in a day had me sprinting the last quarter of my shift.

you know, two things jump out at me...1. the fact that we can have such a generally nuanced discussion about the underlying implications of the story really shows a good attention to the writing. that people can take so much away from what people often dismiss as "just a video-game" story is telling, you saw it with bioshock too, that's kind of good.

thought 2, hey, when the mods played through the content and saw how much moderate-able real world political discussion could sneak into game discussion, how many prepared to go beat up the writing team with baseball bats for making their jobs that much harder?

very impressive, and good choice of music, the propaganda montage was well done.

well, in the face of a really nasty recession, i dont really see anything killing gaming, it seems relatively healthy. as for sequels killing gaming..i have been hearing that since the nes days, and the answer remains the same. some games have a deep mythos that supports making them a franchise, mario, zelda, the elder scrolls, fallout et cetera. but there really is no indication from what i have seen that a game is harmed simply by being a sequel, well done ones can make it a strength, there is continuity, familiarity, character progression over multiple games, these can work, and when they dont, its usually due to issues that would have harmed an original ip just as badly.

One thing that the mentions that is a factor is the budget issue. for the high def systems, making a game is no a much steeper commitment of cash than it was in the past, but there is a secondary market these days, the arcade/wiiware/psn/steam world where games that are often retro styled and lower budget take risks and often deliver games that deliver a simple but focused fun experience. right now i'm playing a game by the devs that formerly made the ty the tazmanian tiger games, but this uses a webcomic based ip and a well done but retro sidescroller style, and it is amazingly fun.

It was fun, hope to see you around. your sense of humor was appreciated.

well, i can see charge up making snipes better. currently they arent particularly good.

my suspicion was that the coming storm was a plot direction that the 15 were going to go with before the ncsoft thing happened, possibly using the aliens that altered the rikti or some other external group. it was originally supposed to be a three issue long thing, starting with the oroboros one, my guess is that it would have been something like the rwz, a new co-op zone, some new enemies,a tr, maybe a gimmick or 2 and a mothership like raid. largely existing stuff. maybe the last one would have some major gimmick (an endgamish type raid that was harder), but stuff doable with their existing size.

when nc came in with bags o cash and they started staffing up, that disrupted things, new guys needed brought up to speed, the business modle had to be changed, and coming storm was pushed back. we got some tech stuff that broadened the game, but didnt bring in new story stuff because they were on a different course now, with radically more employees. there is one thing that i disagree with saist about, i doubt that under cryptic we would have seen ma or customization, those were money and manpower intensive things that i dont see the 15 pulling off, babs pretty much told us as much, that pc, while not impossible, was a significant investment of time and resources.

so the coming storm was delayed, it might be back, hints are that it will be back, mayeb incarnate related. but praetoria, incarnates and gr was what we got instead, so form my guess, we made out a bit better with it.

its more the incremental escalation of power. he uses his ultimate technique, a new enemy comes up, and poof, now he is stronger and uses his more ultimate technique, its there really isnt a clever use of existing techniques, its just pulls a stronger technique out of nowhere, after yelling for several episodes, and poof. It does kind of like tot he hulk and wolvie in that sometimes this isnt true, but it is true enough to turn people off at the "blunt object" style of powering up characters.

eh, for some, myself included, he is too gokuized. nothing can beat him, nothing can stop him, he is written by some as a walking i win button, so there is no tension, other than within himself. now i haven't read much hulk, didnt care for world war hulk at all, it seemed to confirm my dislike, but im sure i have missed some of his better written stuff, but i lack the incentive to find it because of what is shown being so blandly overpowered. it just seems like a character without a weakness, which is, in turn, dull. wolvie tends to suffer the same issue.

ya know, as someone who hasnt seen any rocky outside of the one with drago. i'd say he wins, dolph just made him a monster, a pinnacle of power that rocky had to beat. In universe, i don't see any human beating drago in a boxing match, outside of rocky.

well, people keep saying there is no challenge in the game. there ya go.

i find the whole event quite...arrrrbitrary.

I recolored kin melee for my atlantean character to make her a water melee specialist.
once we got the fifth power option with anciliary pools, rian took darkest night because it was the clsoest a scrapper can come to a breath weapon, it kind of looks like rian is breathing smoke.

space robot 5 has been rerolled about 3 times now, i do wish i had toughed it out and finished him as a fire/ice tank.

agreed, the art style took a bit to grow on me(too angular, cheekbones you could sharpen a knife on) but the stories, ill give them some credit for working well in the universe.