Profile for Or else o'erleap.

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Field	Value
Displayed name	Or else o'erleap.
Member number	335
Title	Law Bringer
Postcount	14579
Homepage	http://www.polarisboard.net
Registered	Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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Author	Recent posts
Thoughts on Custom Titles. in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Friday, November 2 2007 05:03 Profile Homepage #84 quote: Originally written by Belial: quote: Originally written by Xian: quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: quote: Originally written by Iffy: I have only some innocence, FYI. FYI. Glorp. lololol —Alorael, who has now fixed a great deal of information. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
The Sky Is Falling...? in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Thursday, November 1 2007 20:31 Profile Homepage #278 quote: Originally written by Synergy: I'd suggest that if you see that the tone of my words overall is complaint, then that is your own projection. I'm pointing out an irony, curiosity, or hypocrisy as I observe it in the world around me. Perhaps I am more amused than anything else by all this. How do you know? Projection is rampant in the online world where we are reduced to typed words. If you think words cannot convey quite clearly, I invite you to read more. If you think your words aren't conveying quite clearly, I invite you to look at the way everyone else has regarded them in context. You're delivering a tone, intentionally or not. If you don't want that tone, you need to work harder on another one. —Alorael, who has no trouble believing you're amused. The tone of your amusement isn't at all lighthearted, though. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Fantastical Thoughts On RPG Game Mechanics in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Thursday, November 1 2007 20:26 Profile Homepage #42 What you actually want is a pencil and paper tabletop roleplaying game. Implementing those on a computer with no human on the other end is rather hard without robust AI. —Alorael, who thinks your two requests are worth separating. Firstly, you want many choices of how to handle challenges. Charge in with drawn swords, sneak and stab, negotiate, lure, or whatever. Secondly, you want characters to be fragile and magic to be rare and difficult to use. The first is laudable but difficult to implement. The second is a game style decision, and it's one that is far from incontroversial. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Spiderweb Chat-Room in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Thursday, November 1 2007 12:41 Profile Homepage #7 I'm on the insomniac schedule. Sleep too little every night until exhaustion catches up to me, then try not to nap during the day and make myself even more hopelessly sleepless and sleep a full eight hours in a night. Then do it again! —Alorael, who is currently post-crash. That means he's relatively rested and totally unable to sleep before the wee hours of the morning. Hooray! Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Left or Right? in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Thursday, November 1 2007 12:37 Profile Homepage #28 I saw clockwise at first, which is moderately at odds with my right/left brain usage, I think, and then with concentration I realized the image doesn't animate smoothly at all and it lost meaning. Closing one eye or the other doesn't help, so I don't think it's a dominant eye property. —Alorael, who has now managed to reverse the dancer with squinting. And now she's stuck that way. This is an interesting illusion, but left/right brain? Unlikely. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
More Melee attacks in Avernum in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Wednesday, October 31 2007 20:24 Profile Homepage #1 Jeff generally doesn't read here and never takes suggestions as specific as this, but I'm sure everyone will be happy to render opinions. Backstab is implemented in many games and never particularly satisfactorily. You can't just stab someone in the back because there are two of you. You can outmaneuver, yes, but not actually stab someone from behind. And it requires complicated programming for directions, and... well, it would add a nice tactical fillip, but it's not necessary. Polearms already have balance considerations in Avernum. They take two hands and do much more damage. Giving them free attacks would be going too far. Range would be too, but short range isn't useful very often. Realistically it already shouldn't be possible to shoot through one character into another. You can't make a shield wall with one shield. You can't even make a shield wall with two shields. And you really can't do much with the kinds of individual shields that most Avernites are using. And finally... why? Ranged combat has just gotten good. It doesn't need nerfing! A5's AP system is like Geneforge 4's: you can attack with only 1 AP now. —Alorael, who instead thinks you should look into battle disciplines. They're nifty little abilities that fighter types can use in combat. They're quite spiffy, especially when you use them to tear your foes into tiny, gory chunks and then spit on their remains. Yes, that is actually one of them. Honest! Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
A5 world in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Wednesday, October 31 2007 12:21 Profile Homepage #20 There's no one with a particularly close connection to Jeff here. Beta testers have a better idea, but we're also not allowed to say anything. Sorry! —Alorael, who will blame invisble gremlins and chittery GIFTS for any and all delays that may or may not occur and that will or will not have retroactively occurred by two days ago as of next Wednesday. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Fantastical Thoughts On RPG Game Mechanics in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Wednesday, October 31 2007 06:06 Profile Homepage #39 The result is a more complicated abstraction that still doesn't really model getting stabbed in the arm very well. —Alorael, who still believes firmly that simplicity is a virtue in games. Lots of choices are good, but a steep learning curve is not. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Boo in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Wednesday, October 31 2007 06:03 Profile Homepage #7 Halloween isn't about candy. It's about economics! See who can amass the largest supply and keep it until others have eaten theirs. Prices skyrocket and you can make a killing by August! —Alorael, who intends to go for a walk and observe the wonderful costumes of others. He may have a last minute costume of his own, but if not, there's always the standard standby. "What am I? I'm the one who looks so normal you never suspect I'm going to eviscerate you and then dance upon your hollow remains!" Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
A5 world in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Tuesday, October 30 2007 15:11 Profile Homepage #16 quote: From the website: The surface world is ruled by the Empire. Its power is absolute. Its control is unchallenged. And, as a soldier of the Empire, you have a good, comfortable life ahead of you. But then a rebel named Dorikas tried to assassinate the Empress, and everything went wrong for you. The villain fled somewhere into Avernum, an underworld nation of eccentrics, misfits, and barely civilized monsters, most of whom hate the Empire. And that is where you are going. You must find Dorikas, while dealing with spies, betrayal, and assassins at every turn. The enemy is waiting for you. You will only survive his attention with the help of these strange cave dwellers. If, of course, they don’t kill you first Prazac is empress only after A2, and there was no assassination attempt by Dorikas mentioned in A3 or A4. In fact, in A4 Dorikas was still an unknown, and his introduction is one of the game's major plotlines. quote: Originally written by sthehill Now this woudl seem to indicate that the avernites haven't gotten to the surface world yet due to the attitude of hatred, which was a lot less severe in avernum 4. As for Rentar and Ihrno being gone, it could occur before Erika was sent down, or she oculd be missing for some random reason... Erika was sent down long before A1, and Jeff's insistence that Rentar is dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead means that she is, in fact, dead as of A5. Avernum isn't quite as surface-phobic as it used to be, but the Empire's soldiers are most definitely not beloved. —Alorael, who will just go ahead and give a minor spoiler. A5 does, in fact, take place after A4. If that wasn't made explicit by Jeff in other posts, it wasn't for lack of trying. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Protesting (In General) in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Tuesday, October 30 2007 15:03 Profile Homepage #7 All of those don't seem like the kind of thing that will be fixed by protest, but they also won't be fixed by petition. Adults look at all of those as cases of being adults and making rules for the benefit of children. The children complain, but they don't know what's best for them. Sitting down and listing exactly why the status quo is unsatisfactory and why things would be better for everyone if they were changed would be much more helpful. —Alorael, who generally dislikes petitions. As a tool for showing political will they're useful. In a non-democratic environment they're shows of rabble-rousing. Unless you actually intend to rouse rabble, there are better forms of communicating preferences. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Name Choice in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Tuesday, October 30 2007 11:26 Profile Homepage #18 Ah-lore-æl (that's an ash, the last syllable rhymes with gal) and Al-or-ale are my favorite pronunciations. Nobody really calls me Alorael verbally, so pronunciation isn't something I worried about when I picked it. —Alorael, who realizes he also misunderstood the poll. It's about PDNs. Most of his are picked either for his own amusement or as very oblique references to what's been happening in his life. Some of them contain secret messages. He has, in fact, given out most of his personal information encoded in PDNs. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Name Choice in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Tuesday, October 30 2007 07:38 Profile Homepage #15 Mine is euphonious even if the teeming Philistines can't pronounce it right. —Alorael, who uses random character generation and adds and removes letters to taste. The fact that his name sounds like an Old Testament angel is purely coincidental. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Fantastical Thoughts On RPG Game Mechanics in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Tuesday, October 30 2007 07:36 Profile Homepage #30 Hack and slash isn't inherently bad, although it is inherently unrealistic. On the other hand, I think Diabo-style hacking really is mindless, and Angband is the same thing but turn-based. Requiring a little bit of thought makes the whole thiing much better. It's probably still supposed to be under wraps, but I think Avernum has been moving in the right direction. A4 definitely gives tactical challenges, and A5 gives even more. Wiping the floor with dozens of goblins is necessary as part of establishing your party as stupendous heroes who can, well, wipe the floor with goblins, but carefully managing your resources and your actions in hard combat makes hacking better. —Alorael, who still thinks thinking heroism is better for a game than thinking averageness. You need tactics if your characters are ordinary, frail mortals, but the effect is less fun and more frustrating except for the niche market that enjoys that kind of frustration. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
A3: where is Father Oriathon? in The Avernum Trilogy
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, October 29 2007 15:30 Profile Homepage #1 This question has come up before, and there was no answer then either. He's probably gone forever. —Alorael, who has a new hypothesis. Maybe the good priest decided to hide from roaches by turning himself into a roach. Sadly, his Kafka-esque camouflage also hides him from helpful adventurers. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Iffy's contest idea in Blades of Avernum
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, October 29 2007 05:13 Profile Homepage #14 quote: Originally written by Ephesos: quote: Originally written by Ballad: Besides, the closest I want to get to Dikiyoba's stories is Project Spidweb. And that isn't even based on them. Yeah, and that one went so well... :P Well, yes. It was immensely successful, spawned several sequels and imitations (Space Ace, Braindead 13), and is still periodically re-released. —Alorael, who doesn't think BoX is at all the right medium for that style of adventure. On the other hand, you could make a highly interactive movie with, say, regular bits of Blades exploration and talking and possibly combat interspersed with long cutscenes in which your choices are influenced by (and possibly only made available by) your actions when you're completely in control. The idea is still not worth the effort of execution, but it's interesting. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
problem in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, October 29 2007 05:06 Profile Homepage #9 Resistance to getting a new email address when the process is free, takes a few minutes, and requires no honest and verifiable information seems a little absurd. —Alorael, who hopes that it's clearly understood that the two of you are, as far as legal proceedings are concerned, one person. Any infractions by one will be held against both. You're also going to be fairly confusing. And if you have conversations with each other, well, do it offline. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Revised political-geneforge sympathies poll in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Sunday, October 28 2007 16:04 Profile Homepage #9 The Shapers are terrible in theory and fairly bad in practice. The rebels are okay in theory and terrible in practice. I'd expect more of a correlation betwen Shaper/rebel and a practicality/idealism axis. —Alorael, who is pretty sure you could also get a correlation with Myers-Briggs type. Intuition/Sense? Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Moving Images in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Saturday, October 27 2007 18:15 Profile Homepage #18 How did you discover and presumably play Spiderweb games without downloading anything? —Alorael, who can't chalk this one up to a need for instant information. The information is, in fact, instantly available. This more closely resembles some kind of backlash against the overwhelmingness of having instant access to too much knowledge. Maybe using others as a filter is a reasonable response. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
One more quick question. in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Saturday, October 27 2007 13:08 Profile Homepage #8 I have no idea what you're talking about, and I think you just savaged unoffending grammar. —Alorael, who supposes he must therefore confess that he also has no idea what and means. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Moving Images in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Saturday, October 27 2007 09:52 Profile Homepage #4 quote: Originally written by Iffy: I don't really like to use a search engine because I'm never sure if a site is reliable. And I didn't see any problem posting it here. Site reliability depends on what you're looking for. History is questionable. Current facts are even more hit and miss. If you want technical information, though, the internet is just fine. If you try to make a moving image and it doesn't work, it's not something you won't notice, after all. —Alorael, who thinks of information evaluation as one of the skills necessary to internet use. You can't always figure out how good something is, but learning to recognize the obviously terrible and probably valid is essential to not becoming paralyzed in a virtual sea of ubiquitous information. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Thoughts on Custom Titles. in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Thursday, October 25 2007 12:15 Profile Homepage #9 Zorro got his title for being one of the few, proud (ironically) Galactic Core owners. Sir Motrax got his by asking i for exactly the title he got. Apparently our malevolent dictator in residence was in a good mood. No, it has nothing to do with his most inglorious moment. The only BANNED with strikethrough is, as far as I can recall, Alec. It's part of his long string of former and aspired titles. —Alorael, whose lack of a custom title can be traced directly to Drakey's pernicious evil. It's pernicious even in absentia! Truly unfair. Posts: 14579* \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
A5 world in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Thursday, October 25 2007 12:08 Profile Homepage #5 Agreement with Randomizer! Distances don't seem funny when you aren't travelling between towns that used to seem like they were miles and miles apart. Map sections feel much larger now than they did in A4 even though they're obviously the same number of tiles. —Alorael, who thinks he'd be as sick of visiting old parts of Avernum as Jeff is of designing them. New terrain is a good thing, especially when some of it is as nifty as A5's. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Wednesday, October 24 2007 11:43 Profile Homepage #17 Drew's solution is the same as mine. I wonder if there's something about learning to program that teaches you to think in a more programmish way. —Alorael, who thinks Spiderweb is exactly the right place to throw NC-Complete problems. The only better forum for such issues is xkcd's. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Newbie question. in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Wednesday, October 24 2007 11:36 Profile Homepage #2 You can train anywhere. It's also worth noting that stepping through a town's gate (or a number of other instant recharge spots) sets your health and energy at their maximums and clears things like poison, blessing, and so on. That means that there are a few times when "recharging" can actually be bad for you. —Alorael, who really wonders how long it will be before someone discovers the mystical properties of gates and starts charging admission to the dying. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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