Profile for Student of Trinity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Student of Trinity |
| Member number | 3431 |
| Title | Electric Sheep One |
| Postcount | 3335 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
Recent posts
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| Quick Blood Pressure Dude Question in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 3 2007 22:32
Profile
In other words, the banner was a bit spangled. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Video Game Addiction in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 3 2007 11:43
Profile
quote:So I understand. But later people — starting, I think, with Myers and Briggs — took a 'different strokes for different folks' attitude, instead. Change or claim, again. I do kind of like Jung's ideal of being balanced. It's kind of like Terentius's 'humani nil a me alienum'. But like Kelandon, I also rather like the sense of affirmation and identity I found in the Myers-Briggs theory. In fact I think that the two attitudes can be complementary. If all the different M-B types are equally valid ways to be, then there must be something valuable in all of them, which might be worth trying to acquire if that were possible. But Jungian balance then becomes a 'nice to have' instead of a 'must have', so the pressure is off. And that helps, I find. Given that it's okay to be introverted, I actually feel a bit more inclined to work on moving a little more toward extroversion. Parties, for instance, are a good deal more tolerable if I feel free to leave early, or to spend most of my time in a serious conversation in a corner instead of mingling. EDIT: About Myers-Briggs types per se, I should say that I am skeptical on general grounds, but have found that they seem to work well for me and most of the people I know. And it can't be entirely the 'Forer effect', because the type that seems to fit me uncannily well is apparently quite rare, while most of the other M-B types seem bafflingly alien to me, to the point where I was really shocked to imagine that people could actually be like that. But that's the thing: I suspect that the M-B system probably doesn't work nearly so well for most people. Some people, like me, happen to fit some of its types very well. If you're not one of them, there's a good chance you're also different enough from me that I won't feel I really know you. So there are 17 kinds of people in the world: those who fit the Myers-Briggs scheme, and those who don't. [ Tuesday, July 03, 2007 12:02: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Message Board in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 3 2007 10:15
Profile
It's a forum for the whole family. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Forgotten zone in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 3 2007 10:11
Profile
Thou speakest of what thou knowest not. Before the undreamt fury of the Ur-Ornk, whose lowing shaketh the hills, thine Ornk Lords would be as crispy bacon. Mmm. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Video Game Addiction in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 3 2007 06:58
Profile
This is a profound issue, which can sometimes have a lot more at stake than social discomfort: change oneself, or claim oneself? I think everybody has to do some of both, throughout life. As a Christian I try to recognize the possibility that radical and painful change may be needed ("If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out"), but I also bear in mind the parable of the wheat and tares, which says that God would rather tolerate a lot of bad stuff, for a while, than lose good things, or things that could become good, that are tangled up with the bad. So sometimes one does have to struggle painfully against one's own nature, but pluck first and ask questions afterwards is not the right attitude in general. As for introversion, I find that the Myers-Briggs take on it seems to fit me. It's not that I dislike social interaction, but that I find it draining rather than energizing. When I have the energy to spare, social interaction can be a great use for it. Practice in socializing doesn't really change this basic orientation, I don't think, but it probably trains my psychic metabolism so that I don't get worn out by people so fast. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| blood pressure in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 1 2007 23:23
Profile
That's nothing. With USB 3.0, you'll be able to do online blood tests. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Re Titus in Nethergate | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 1 2007 23:15
Profile
Yeesh. Ya try and help, and look what happens. [ Sunday, July 01, 2007 23:16: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Game Breaking GF3 bug.(bypassable) in Tech Support | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 1 2007 09:07
Profile
It's been a while, but I'm not sure this is a bug. Litalia is a bit unhinged at this point, and IIRC she does offer to attack you at some point in the rebel endgame. Depending on your Leadership, you may be able to talk her out of it. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Re Titus in Nethergate | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 1 2007 09:02
Profile
Yes. There's another dungeon up north, near the gryphons. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Forgotten zone in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 1 2007 08:10
Profile
Maybe mini-games aren't such a bad idea! That's perfect! -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Avernum 5, June Update in Avernum 4 | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 1 2007 08:01
Profile
Yes, to clarify: the Geneforge rules heretofore have been that attacking costs 5 and using an item 3; except that if you have less than 10 AP remaining, then attacking uses up all your remaining AP. In G4 the change was made that you could also attack if you had any number of AP left. The net effect of these rules was the same as the system Jeff has just described for A5, unless you have 15 to 18 AP. Under all the old Geneforge systems, you could get 3 attacks in a round from this many AP, which was quite attainable with boosting items and haste. Under Jeff's new system, it seems that you will need at least 19 AP to get three attacks. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Video Game Addiction in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 1 2007 01:15
Profile
Geneforge VI: Rave -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Avernum 5, June Update in Avernum 4 | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 1 2007 01:11
Profile
No, in G4 attacking still cost only 5AP, so with items it was quite feasible to get at least 3 attacks per round. That would seem to be gone, now. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Avernum 5, June Update in Avernum 4 | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 08:15
Profile
I really just like the idea of having a simpler system if possible. Having two major status bars, each of which is ignored by half of all characters, seems inelegant to me. And since they're both doing the same basic job, of limiting how many big zaps people can pull off, why not combine them? The hope is that you could still tweak the effects on different classes by monkeying with the fatigue costs of spells versus battle disciplines, and adjusting the effects on fatigue totals and recovery rates of the various primary statistics. All without allowing any game-breaking battle-mages. Ah, it's probably too much trouble, really. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Forgotten zone in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 07:22
Profile
Three canisters ... so we can finally create Ur-Ornks. Yes. So mote it be. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Favourite educational computer games in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 03:23
Profile
Full disclosure: Chicken is a paid lobbyist for the goblin industry. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Forgotten zone in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 03:00
Profile
Too bad, though. In G5, Jeff should put in a whole Easter egg zone, that's really hard to get into. It could hold the obligatory Create Ornk canister, plus a bunch of weird extra stuff. Like a working Geneforge! -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Avernum 5, June Update in Avernum 4 | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, June 29 2007 23:31
Profile
What I think *i was getting at is that it might be worth considering making spell points and fatigue the same stat, which would be drained by casting spells and exercising battle disciplines alike. For in-game rationale, you could simply drop the mumbo-jumbo about spell energy, and say that spellcasting causes fatigue, which seems reasonable. For game play, the good part would be having a somewhat simpler system, with only one fatigue stat. It might also be nice to make casters and fighters more explicitly balanced in their power. The obvious problem is deciding what stats would raise fatigue: intelligence, as for spell points; or strength or endurance or whatever, which is more appropriate for warriors? This is quite likely a deal breaker for this idea. But perhaps not. Since fighters are still going to be physically able to do normal attack and defense forever, the fatigue that limits advanced battle disciplines might be more mental than anything else. So you could let intelligence contribute to fatigue, just as now with spell points. This would force warriors who want to add the new moves to their repertoires to invest some points in intelligence, and thus distinguish them from vanilla grunts. Or you could argue that the fatigue that limits spellcasting is partly physical, and let endurance or strength boost fatigue as well. If battle disciplines took considerably less fatigue than spellcasting, and intelligence raised fatigue much more than strength and endurance did, then you'd still have spellcasters pumping intelligence and fighters pumping the physical stats. But it would leave the option for a fighter who really wanted to use lots of battle disciplines to throw a few more points than normal into intelligence. And it might make a 'battle mage' character a little more viable, which could be cool. It's quite likely too hard to balance. But worth a thought. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Titus and the Circle warrens in Nethergate | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, June 29 2007 23:07
Profile
I think there's a secret passage around there somewhere; check the walls. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| cussing in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, June 28 2007 23:13
Profile
It's all context. In the army, an NCO walked into the insufficiently tidy barracks room of some friends of mine, and uttered an eloquent and perfectly grammatical sentence of eight words, four of which were variants upon a single taboo word. This was an extreme enough case to bear repeating as a story, but it shows that expletive inflation is less of a problem than you'd think. That particular NCO used cusswords practically as punctuation, but he was a smart and articulate guy nonetheless, and he had plenty of room left to make more forceful statements when needed. Context, however, is serious business. Adapting your vocabulary to your setting is a basic intelligence task, and people who can't or won't do it tend to find life hard. That old NCO is surely out of the army by now, and I bet he doesn't speak that way in his current environment. As I said, he was smart. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Avernum 5, June Update in Avernum 4 | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, June 28 2007 04:46
Profile
Preparing a 'Well-Aimed Blow' looks like a very interesting battle discipline. If it takes a whole round to do this, it might be way too expensive, but if it takes a few AP, that could present some nice tactical choices. It would be very nice indeed if the battle disciplines ended up giving fighter types something more like the casters' spell repertoires, instead of the very limited choice of whom to clobber. I also like the sound of the plot. Playing Empire troops in Avernum offers a lot of fresh scope, and hunting an assassin who is actively hunting back sounds as though it should be both fun and believable. What I mean is that an assassin who has only reached Avernum somewhat ahead of the party would realistically mount exactly the sort of series of gradually more dangerous ambushes and attacks that make a good RPG plot. If we were chasing a rogue mage or warrior, it would be hard to understand why they didn't immediately attack us directly, and squash us. But from an assassin you can expect indirect attacks, prepared over some time; and even a very dangerous assassin might realistically take quite some time to mount a deadly attack, in an unfamiliar environment. Meanwhile they could have a good reason to mount the necessary series of weaker attacks, just to win time to mount better attacks. So I can imagine this being a plot that we can really take seriously. Cool. The man in black fled across Avernum, and the gunslingers followed. Bring it on! -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Most in depth game. in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, June 28 2007 03:20
Profile
The Geneforge consensus actually seems to be that G3 is the weakest, with G1 and G4 vying for top spot. I think G4 is best, followd by G1, but I also think both G2 and G3 are very fine games. If you possibly can, I'd really recommend starting with G1 and working your way through the series in order. To answer the specific question: None of the Geneforge games is exactly light; they're all firmly in the epic category, and together they make one giant epic, with one long plot arc, recurring characters, and slowly developing basic themes. But one major difference between Geneforge and Jeff's other games is that the Geneforge world is divided into zones (mini-maps, all basically of the same size). Each game has somewhere around 50-60+ zones, and if you clear one, it stays clear, and you can move through it instantly forever after (if you want). So this lends itself to episodic play. It also lends itself to 'I'll just explore one more zone tonight -- I have to see what's in there!' [ Thursday, June 28, 2007 03:25: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| delicious vlish in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, June 28 2007 03:14
Profile
When killed, drops a pod of 'tasty sauce'. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Skills and Levels in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, June 27 2007 04:21
Profile
Albert Einstein once said something to the effect that everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. I don't think the Geneforge engine would support the same range of interesting build strategies if it were much simpler. It could perhaps use a bit of tweaking, though. I could see adding some skill that directly affects Stealth, since it doesn't really seem as though any of the current skills should logically do so directly. I could see adding a crafting skill, so that getting artifacts would require investing some skill points. I could see dropping Luck from the game, in order to keep the number of miscellaneous skills down. Luck is a bit silly as a skill, I think. I've always been a bit concerned at how Quick Action seems overpowered, especially in comparison with Dexterity, because hitting first can be so important, and QA is so much cheaper than DX. Probably QA could be slightly nerfed; but you don't want to kill the 'glass cannon' builds, just make them a bit trickier. Parry after G2 has been reasonably fair, but boring because its effects are mostly invisible. Maybe adding a sound effect or animation is all that is needed. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| It Is Done in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 02:39
Profile
But that's okay, if your games include advanced Artificial Stupidity. This is where the implants come in. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |