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
Pages
| Author | Recent posts |
|---|---|
| Against all odds [May contain spoiler] in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, May 5 2007 06:20
Profile
What I think would be cool for G5 would be to revisit at least a few zones from one of the earlier games, naturally with dramatic changes. So for instance it would be cool if in G5 you could at some point walk through the Turabi gate. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Got ethics? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, May 5 2007 01:55
Profile
Hmm, yeah, that does seem to be the real point, which I was just taking for granted. Karma is based on intention, or at least it ought to be. But lying about your intentions might later be discovered, and this would then tarnish heroism in general. Better to be honest. There does seem to be something a bit intriguing here, though: we are mixing up utility, which is strictly about effects, with intentions. That seems quite right to me, but isn't it a bit unusual? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Got ethics? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, May 5 2007 00:20
Profile
I think the simple answer is that it is commendable to risk your life to save a friend, and more commendable to risk your life to save a stranger. To complicate matters, I would suggest that it depends upon the degree of risk involved, and upon how many other people depend upon you or are attached to you. For the sole breadwinner of a large and loving family to get themselves killed with practically no chance of saving the other person would only add a lot of extra grief to the world. If they died hopelessly trying to save a family member, it might be understandable, and even in some other sense commendable, but it would still not be commendable as heroism. Then again, a good person knows that self-preservation instincts can make any danger look hopeless in order to have an excuse not to risk death. So they should tend to err at least somewhat on the side of boldness. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Deathmatch Tournament -- Round Two, Part One in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, May 4 2007 14:42
Profile
This round has several matchups that are very tough to call! 1. Lazarus vs. Ephesos Lazarus's ability to come back just means that he will be able to survive losing, which he does. 2. Infernal vs. Alec Kyras Infernal might just manage to stay alive until Alec broke a rule and got banned ... if there were any rules to break. On the other hand, without rules Alec loses much of his power to shock. Well, he'll compensate with added vehemence. 3. Nicothodes vs. Dikiyoba Nicothodes is along in the ring, but Dikiyoba is supported by the third person, and wins through numbers. 4. Thralni vs. Thuryl As a stalwart oldbie, one would think Thuryl had the advantage. But he has surprisingly little to work with in this match. English puns are markedly less effective against a non-native-speaker, and Sailor the Reverend Moon is a threadlock, not a headlock. Thuryl has the satisfaction of knowing all about the deadly vegetable that fatally spears him. 5. Delicious Vlish vs. Synergy Painful oratory versus a painful slap; pyschology versus psychic powers; new age buzzwords against the kilt; this is a very close match. In the end the only decisive factor I can think of is the fact that submission outranks terror in the Vlish hierarchy. Synergy wins narrowly. 6. Magma Dragoon vs. Tyranicus. MD has a lot of combat-oriented skills; Tyranicus has a lot of experience in dying. This seems straightforward. 7. Riibu vs. Archmage Alex Stick figures are probably irresistable, unless they are particularly vulnerable to Chaos Attack, whatever that is. What's that? They are? Finnish him! 8. Saunders vs. Schrodinger Schrodinger ignores Saunders, runs the long way around to the back of the arena, and digs. For some reason he has been stuffing points into Nature Lore since Formello, long since they offered any obvious benefit. What's that? A deadly bow, buried just beneath the arena sand! How the heck did he know that was there? SZZAPP! Ooo, a reaper effect. He wins. -------------------- Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Deathmatch Tournament -- Round One, Part Two in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, May 4 2007 14:09
Profile
I can't believe I survived the Jade Halberd without having to invoke the Poor Man's Death Star. That was going to be my one hope, but I was too busy to make the argument. Well, maybe it will help in the next round. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| I just thought some of you might want to be informed of this potential heretic. in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, May 3 2007 03:44
Profile
That darned cop wasn't even supposed to mention the needles. Reboot his implants, somebody. And bury this story, and activate the Giuliani clone. Why not, what the heck. I tried to tell our inscrutable hierarchs, going for the presidency so soon after absorbing the navy was just throwing good money after bad. But you know how they are (if you need to). So, in for a penny. [ Thursday, May 03, 2007 03:48: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Deathmatch Tournament -- Round One, Part Two in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, May 3 2007 03:38
Profile
Since I have been lecturing mostly in German for about a semester now, albeit pretty rotten German*, I protest that I know very well what Niemand means. I don't think I've used the word in a lecture, but I picked it up somewhere. Well, in real life I did. My persona on these boards has offered no particular evidence of competence in German, and my persona's persona in the deathmatch is even more minimally defined. So, okay. I guess I'll post some vision for this round's outcomes here later when I have more time. *My very polite students still couldn't help chuckling for quite a while after I pronounced Zwangsbedingung as Schwanzbedingung. I had a hard time keeping a straight face too for a little while. [ Thursday, May 03, 2007 03:38: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Deathmatch Tournament -- Round One, Part One in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, May 1 2007 00:36
Profile
MATCH #1: Excalibur can supposedly make you rightful king of England, but supreme executive authority can only really derive from the mandate of the people. Demonslayer slays voteless demons and the people approve, so Infernal wins. MATCH #2: Round 1 must be the early game, so Vlish rule. MATCH #3: Lord Grimm slays TSA with Ockam's Razor: since we only ever see Lenar, TSA is an unnecessary entity. MATCH #4: Thralni ignores abuse and hangs in there longer than anyone expects. Andraste wears herself out clubbing and collapses, while Thralni's still going on about vegetables and chickens. MATCH#5: No doubt he'll revive eventually, and his opponent's status is not unquestionable either. But when the starting bell rings, Lazarus seems a little bit deader, so he defaults. MATCH#6: ADoS draws first, but while he's still adding shading, Randomizer sketches a free body diagram of a 10 ton mass. It falls freely on ADoS, flattening his nose and causing death by psychic trauma. Randomizer wins. MATCH#7: Nikki. Poisoned mechanical pencils sound pretty bad. MATCH#8: This one seems like an obvious lock for Saunders, so then it seems that Stew Boy must win in an upset. But Saunders never gets upset, so she wins after all. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| If Jeff went for a new RPG world.... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, April 28 2007 23:28
Profile
It could be quite an interesting challenge to represent the mechanics of arquebuses and horses. Horses are just a huge pain, graphically. And an arquebus was slow and inaccurate, but very effective against people who had no idea what it was doing, and fought in dense ranks. It would be hard to make primitive firearms convincingly effective against a small party of RPG adventurers. Yet if Spanish firearms sucked, the whole game would be lamed. Spanish swords and armor would be impressive superweapons, though, since the Stone Age Aztecs were technologically far behind the Celts of Nethergate. But this would also make for a kind of lame game, with your brave Aztec warriors going clubbing every night. What I think might be better would be a fantasy setting loosely inspired by the Aztec one. Crank up the magic, and dial back the technology. Collect various levels of, I dunno, Magic Sun Stones, or something, instead of working your way from Bronze Leather Armor to Titanium Plate Mail. But you know, I'd rather see some sort of post-apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy, like the old Gamma World RPG, with mutant monsters and lost technological artifacts. You'd have to think hard about how to make sure it wasn't just a re-skinning of Geneforge, or Fallout. Or maybe a Stargate sort of thing, with human crash survivors exploring an alien world. Anyway something with technology instead of magic, but with some good basic reason why you don't just start the game by stocking up on laser cannons at Walmart. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| What have you been reading lately? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, April 27 2007 23:58
Profile
Yeah, Calvino is great. Invisible Cities is also memorable. I bought If on a Winter's Night a Traveller years ago just for the title, and was very surprised. -------------------- Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Do I need a registration code? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, April 25 2007 10:47
Profile
Anyway, Jeff wouldn't be walking on the sunshine. He'd be trying to trample it down. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Chosen Ending - Geneforge 5 in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, April 20 2007 11:01
Profile
For me 'non-linear' is physics-speak. I don't mean so much that it should offer a wide open sprawl of many things to do, but that things you do should change the world you encounter later. In a sense that makes for sprawl, because it raises the number of very different paths that can be taken through the game. But along any one of them, the number of available choices at any time may still be rather small. For me that's okay. Too many options at any given time is hard to handle in an RPG, because either most of them are too hard for you right now, in which case you don't really have many options; or else some of them will be cakewalks when you come back to them after gaining six levels while following the other choices first. -------------------- Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Chosen Ending - Geneforge 5 in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, April 20 2007 02:13
Profile
I think Jeff just meant that the player would determine the final ending to the entire series. That is, I think he missed the fact that we were asking about the starting point to G5, not its end. It might be cool to be able to choose the starting point in G5, but I think it would actually be a bad idea. I like the feeling of starting the game with a definite situation in the world, and then affecting it with my actions. A Nethergate-like option to play the same plot from either side would be better. But a plot with more branching and nonlinear feedback would be best of all. -------------------- Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Geneforge 3. in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, April 19 2007 02:51
Profile
The Awakened do seem like Good Guys in G1, though their treatment of a certain servant mind does show a ruthless streak at least. It's in G2 that you see their problem: in order to survive, in the next generation after Ellrah they are willing to become as bad as anyone else. Their great hope, Tuldaric, is an affect-diminished canister victim who dabbles in demons. And their great plan is mass enslavement of drakons. They're still more appealing than the other sects, but you can see that they are falling for the Dark Side, so to speak. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| VTech in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, April 18 2007 10:41
Profile
I was living in Montreal when something nearly as bad happened there, nearly 20 years ago now. I was nowhere near the actual event, just studying at another school in the same city. At the time I was also an officer in a reserve infantry unit. The fantasy that kept running through my mind then came back now, of course: that if I had been there with a few of my buddies, we could have taken the guy down. Quite likely some of us would have been killed, but he couldn't have gotten all of us before we got him, and a lot of people would have been saved. But the reason we could have done it was that any one of us could have shouted a few words and there would have been an instant common plan. And crucially: we would all have known that the other guys would be with us. Yeah, maybe if it had really happened that way, I would only have been horribly (and perhaps fatally) disappointed in my friends, or in myself. But if I had been the lone military guy in a room full of civilian victims, it would have been an awful lot harder to convince myself to try anything, since I would have been pretty sure that I'd end up as the one guy rushing the shooter. Maybe a bunch of sports teammates could pull it off, too. But you'd need a reliable team, of some kind, already formed. You can't get a bunch of strangers to run into gunfire on a moment's notice. Humans aren't like that. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| GF2 - Is it possible to join multiple sects? in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, April 17 2007 22:13
Profile
Haven't you seen a few more of those tingly pillars in other places? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| I think I broke Greenfang... in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, April 17 2007 22:10
Profile
One way of keeping him alive still loses him soon after, for a plausible reason. But if you've found another way, I guess I don't see any reason why you can't just keep him (or her or it, I guess). A free Artila is nice in the early game, but won't make much difference for long, I expect. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| GF4 on Mac with German Keyboard in Tech Support | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, April 17 2007 07:09
Profile
I didn't really notice a problem with this, except in naming save files with y's, and this has the easy workaround of typing z instead. So keyboard localization would be nice, but I'm afraid it's probably not going to be a high priority for Jeff. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Why there? *warning: displays secret of G1* in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, April 14 2007 14:39
Profile
Never heard most of those, but I consider it one of the oddest facts I know, that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Geneforge 3. in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, April 14 2007 12:16
Profile
No, it isn't nearly as bad as some people say. People were disappointed that it didn't add any new spells or creations, after G2 had added several of these. But it added crafting and underground zones. People were disappointed that it had only two sides instead of the four or five alternatives of G2. But it added ongoing dialogs with NPCs that could accompany you for much of the game, and repeated interactions with (or at least scripted appearances by) NPCs whom you might eventually either fight or aid. No doubt people who didn't like the game have other things to complain about too. To me it doesn't quite equal G1 because G1 was really original because it was first, and G4 is the best of the series for several reasons. But I rank G3 and G2 about the same, and I think they're both great games. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Geneforge 3. in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, April 14 2007 12:16
Profile
No, it isn't nearly as bad as some people say. People were disappointed that it didn't add any new spells or creations, after G2 had added several of these. But it added crafting and underground zones. People were disappointed that it had only two sides instead of the four or five alternatives of G2. But it added ongoing dialogs with NPCs that could accompany you for much of the game, and repeated interactions with (or at least scripted appearances by) NPCs whom you might eventually either fight or aid. No doubt people who didn't like the game have other things to complain about too. To me it doesn't quite equal G1 because G1 was really original because it was first, and G4 is the best of the series for several reasons. But I rank G3 and G2 about the same, and I think they're both great games. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Hidden lever outside Litalia's rooms in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, April 14 2007 11:59
Profile
Great mods have mini-mods, to hurry 'em and herd 'em; And mini-mods have lesser mods, and so on ad absurdum. And the great mods themselves, in turn, fear greater mods offending; While these again fear greater still, and so on without ending. (With apologies to Augustus de Morgan, who in turn owed some apologies to Jonathan Swift, who in turn ...) -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| What's your favorite board game? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, April 14 2007 08:37
Profile
quote:But inevitable. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| What's your favorite board game? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, April 13 2007 23:37
Profile
It might work better with other beverages. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| What's your favorite board game? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, April 13 2007 07:56
Profile
Carcasonne is new at the moment, so I like it. Older favorites are Machiavelli and Titan. Machiavelli is essentially Diplomacy 2.0. It's set in Renaissance Italy and has a richer range of options, but everything still boils down to trust. Titan emphasizes shrewd tactics and sound grand strategy, with strategic blind luck sandwiched between. Another old favorite was Divine Right. Superficially it was a standard fantasy wargame, but with an unusual amount of world detail. The special feature of the game was that it had enough checks and balances and chance that no advantage would ever last very long. So winning required making victory point hay while the sun shone, and cutting your losses thereafter. It was a good game because typically everyone would have a few turns of glory, and competition was almost secondary to experiencing the saga. I found Risk to be much improved by implementing the nuclear variant. It makes the game mercifully short once the winner emerges, because any time you get more new armies to place than another player has armies on the board, you can immediately eliminate them, without having to march all over the board tracking them down. The game usually ends within an hour, with a third of the board held by the winner, a third glowing red, and a third empty. The basic nuclear rules are as follows. Some variations exist. 1) Red pieces become nukes. 2) Any time you get to place an army, you can choose to place a nuke instead. It stays based where it was placed until it is fired; it can never move. It can be fired on the same turn it is placed, or kept indefinitely. 3) At any time during your own turn you can launch any of your nukes; this uses it up. A nuke can hit any point on the globe from any other. It always destroys exactly one enemy piece, without die rolling. If there are nukes present in the target territory, they must all be destroyed first before any conventional defenders can be nuked. 4) If all conventional defenders in a territory are nuked, a single red unit is left in the territory, to mark it as 'nuked out', until just before the attacker's next turn. No conventional units may enter any nuked out territory. So for example one cannot nuke out a country and then immediately occupy it. At the start of the next turn of the player who nuked out the territory, the lone red unit is removed, and the territory remains empty. 5) An empty territory can be occupied by any player, on their turn, by using their final 'free move' to advance into it from an adjacent territory. 6) You lose the unit bonus for controlling a continent if any of the territories in it is nuked out or empty. 7) While rule 3) means that nukes provide defense against enemy nukes, nukes count for nothing in defense against conventional attack. If an enemy conquers one of your territories by killing all conventional armies in it by conventional means, all nukes in that territory are destroyed. 8) No nukes may be fired before the fifth round of the game. 9) For some reason, a land bridge is added between western Australia and Argentina. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |