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 |
|---|---|
| A Few Advance Notes On Geneforge 4 in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 13:33
Profile
In line with my oft-expressed interest in explaining the many different ways creations get made (viz., birth, PC's 'crackle-poof', vats, etc.), perhaps there could be Shaping labs where PCs with high enough skill could make special creations. These creations would only be makeable there. They might even need time and special ingredients to grow, so that there could be a whole mini-string of quests that would gain the player something like a Battle Gamma, say. (Well, something better than a Battle Gamma would be nicer, but I leave that to someone else to specify.) Perhaps these special creatures would not need personal Essence to maintain. Perhaps there could be a door that only such a creation could open. Stuff like that. It's sort of an obvious combination of the Shaping ability and the Crafting ability, so I imagine Jeff will consider something along these lines at some point anyway, if he hasn't already. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The End of Spiderweb in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 13:20
Profile
Alorael's cane is, of course, a shooting stick. (Good piece of kit.) -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Forums = Geneforge in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 12:08
Profile
Not at all. I think he's onto something. Why, I can feel a sort of ontological imperative calling the Obeyers back into existence, to complete the necessary triad, and balance out those ridiculously self-important Takers. Or maybe he's just on something. Whatever. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| So Long & Good Luck in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 12:04
Profile
May the farce be with you. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Did the forums help you register? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, March 5 2006 10:32
Profile
With GF I couldn't resist, either. With A2, I could. It was the graphics -- I don't have high standards for graphics, but I seem to have a threshold, and A2 didn't reach it. Maybe eventually I'll get drawn in, now that I have more familiarity with the Avernum world. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Ash Got Banned... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, March 4 2006 13:13
Profile
But it's just as funny that way, too. Lighten up! Quoting people out of context in ways that make them look ridiculous is dishonest and offensive. Banning people from the boards for it is heavy-handed. But getting all indignant about one and laughing off the other, this seems inconsistent. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Ash Got Banned... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, March 4 2006 10:56
Profile
A few of Ash's buddies here need to lighten up and have more of a sense of humor. AL: *abuses JV* JV: 'Change your sig.' AL: 'No.' JV: *bans AL* It's like seeing Tweety taunt Sylvester for the millionth time, but suddenly Sylvester bites Tweety's head off. And you're laughing because it's so silly that it's so unexpected, since after all Tweety is a bird and Sylvester is a cat. Isn't that good for a chuckle? [ Saturday, March 04, 2006 11:01: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Did the forums help you register? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, March 4 2006 09:02
Profile
quote:I'd miss occasional intervals of droll irony. [ Saturday, March 04, 2006 09:05: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Did the forums help you register? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, March 4 2006 07:36
Profile
The forums have not influenced me either way, at least not enough to make a difference in registration. They have made me think seriously about registering A2, but so far I have resisted the temptation. They have motivated me to try the BOA, A2 and Nethergate demos, but not far enough to really get into any of these games. I'm not going to base my spending on forum opinions when there's a whole demo to assess for myself. Forum buzz might make me try a demo I otherwise wouldn't. From my experience so far, though, a demo I'm not already intrigued enough by to try without forum influence is probably not going to win my registration fee when I do try it, anyway. The forums add to the value of the games I do register, in that I can get help on the forums, or discuss the games there. In that sense I am a little more likely to register any given Spiderweb game, because the forums add value to it. The thing is, though, that I'm pretty conservative about registering games, because the time investment in playing the whole game is worth a lot more to me than the low cost. I only register games I really like, and the forums' influence is generally small compared to the margin by which I decide whether or not to register. So for me the bottom line is that if the forums disappeared today, I'd be disappointed and all, but it probably wouldn't affect my future purchasing of Spiderweb software. I'd go on the mailing list to learn of new releases, and it would probably take quite a few disappointments in a row before I stopped trying all the new demos as they came out. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Spellcraft vs. Magery in Avernum 4 | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, March 4 2006 07:07
Profile
It has been established that they are identical. The advantage of making Magery trainable is that it gives you a second channel: getting 10 each in Magery and Spellcraft is as good as getting 20 in Spellcraft, but costs a lot less skill points. The same goes for Sharpshooter and either kind of missile skill, or (I believe) Blademaster and Melee. There's no reason to go past 17 in Spells, unless perhaps you've got all of Intelligence, Spellcraft, and Magery so high that it actually costs less skill points to raise Spells instead of any of them. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Ideas Refreshment in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, March 2 2006 13:21
Profile
Okay ... I guess I must be tone deaf or something. I'll make a final statement and bow out of this thread, since Jeff isn't paying me to defend his work, anyway. I have a few things on my wish list if the Geneforges were to be reshaped, but I'm quite happy with the evolutionary development of the large scale plots. I like to see the themes thoroughly worked out, and I would be quite annoyed by introduction of large amounts of unrelated material at the expense of this. The Geneforge world, gameplay, and issues, as developed in the three games so far, strike me as very original. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| 50 years from now, 50 years ago in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, March 2 2006 08:17
Profile
Supposing we only gave immortality to the poor, they would thereby become the new rich, since they would possess an asset for which most people would pay anything. In other words, I think the morality of wealth and the morality of distributing immortality are rather arbitrarily associated in this thread. As far as wealth is concerned, we might just as well be discussing the distribution of lollipops. As far as immortality is concerned, giving it to some and not others is the issue, whoever the some may be. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Mac mini in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, March 1 2006 10:24
Profile
quote:When IBM entered the personal computer market in the early 80's, they called their machine the 'IBM PC'. Before that, PC wasn't a ubiquitous acronym. They got into the game in a big way quickly, by going with an open architecture: a box full of off-the-shelf components wired together. This meant that the PC design was easy to reverse engineer and clone, and it created the PC-as-built-by-anybody that we know today. For a while such cloned machines were called 'IBM compatible', but sometime in the early 90's, I think, the term 'PC' got detached from the IBM original. Those first IBM PCs were quite impressive machines for their time. They had bigger screens than the Apple II, 16-bit operation instead of the previously standard 8-bit, and they all came with floppy disk drives -- a high-end option previously. And this weird, disk-based operating system to go with them. At least this is my rather sketchy memory from when my relatively wealthy friend got one, and made the rest of us all envious. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Ideas Refreshment in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, March 1 2006 03:45
Profile
When a game series is your livelihood, you don't fix too many things that ain't broke all at the same time. If you try to take big steps, you risk alienating an existing customer base, at worst, or delaying production of the next installment, at least. That's fine if it's your hobby, not good if it's your job. In common courtesy, people, I think we should remember factors like these before casually disparaging the guy. The Geneforge games progress and develop in quite a few interesting ways. That they don't make radical shifts is just one of the genre constraints in profitable shareware. If anyone with enough technical skill to put out games like these every year wants to do it for art's sake alone, re-inventing the wheel with each edition: fill your boots. I'll be happy to pay for my copies, and sing their praises on your message boards. Just don't expect me to pay your whole mortgage. EDIT: Corrected misspelling of 'broke' as 'broken'. [ Wednesday, March 01, 2006 03:47: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Ideas Refreshment in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, February 28 2006 13:09
Profile
If you look at the big picture, instead of minor details, the plot of most games looks like this: You are a person who has to do some stuff. You have options that lead to bad endings. It's always the same, for crying out loud. Why can't we get more creative? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Matchmaker, Matchmaker in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, February 28 2006 12:56
Profile
The closest I'm going to get to polygamy is that my wife thinks I spend too much time playing games. She's right, of course. Alex, if you make me a cartoon, I'll let you keep the condos, the cars, the yacht, and the Matisse. I hereby waive visiting rights to the sea monkeys. And the next time I get shotgunned into a bigamous partnership without my consent, participation, or awareness, there had better at least be a watertight pre-nup. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Matchmaker, Matchmaker in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, February 28 2006 07:38
Profile
I see the misprint has been corrected. I am still unavailable. [ Tuesday, February 28, 2006 07:48: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| 1000 words - an old fashioned sing-a-long! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, February 27 2006 13:14
Profile
In fact she might decide to take me out, tonight. [ Monday, February 27, 2006 13:14: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| 50 years from now, 50 years ago in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, February 27 2006 13:11
Profile
The most careful and insightful approach to this question will reveal only that it is impossible to predict 50 years. So make up anything you like. A bit of arguing for the plausibility of whatever it is will be quite as much intellectual rigour as this question deserves. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| A Few Advance Notes On Geneforge 4 in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, February 27 2006 00:14
Profile
The interesting danger in canisters is the slowly growing paranoia and megalomania. The munchkinism typical of RPG players makes our characters do anything for one more skill point, as they grow into the gods they are foredestined to become. Anything keeping us from the canisters, whether it's a warped creation or an uppity servile, is just a bunch of pixels, after all. Geneforge pulls a judo move on munchkinism, by making it the main role-playing issue. The risk of outright bad canisters might be worth adding, for atmosphere, but it won't really affect the game much, because we will just save-load around them. Canisters with benefits and penalties combined would make for interesting dilemmas. But the deeper interest, for me, would be in canisters that are as good as Barzahl's best, but whose use affects game events that players care about. I could be really torn between, say, being able to help an Awakened-like sympathetic sect, and getting Aura of Flames. If the Aura of Flames canister tipped me into a plotline where my role in the Awakened became tragic, this would be really interesting. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| A Few Advance Notes On Geneforge 4 in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, February 26 2006 15:05
Profile
A really obvious comment, but I just can't remember seeing it, and it should be on record. There gotta be canisters, and they've gotta be somehow dangerous. Probably the single cleverest thing about Geneforge is that as a player you are just about as ravenous for canisters as the characters are supposed to be, so you feel a personal stake in the theme. What would be very cool would be to make the price of canister use real, within the game, rather than just an effect in the ending text. Using too many canisters, or not enough, should have a few big effects on what you can achieve in the game. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| From the desk of Mitt Romney: in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, February 26 2006 14:53
Profile
That's only a piddly little infinity. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Conservative Shift in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, February 26 2006 13:50
Profile
This story about a story of stolen incubators seemed to me to deserve checking itself; it seems to be true. Not that the Iraqi army ejected premature babies, but that the lie that they did was promulgated to whip up support for Gulf War I. I'm unimpressed by Christian Science, but the Christian Science Monitor is (somehow) a serious newspaper, and The Fifth Estate, cited as a source in the link above, is also reasonably serious. As a non-American who until recently was a US resident, I take the view that fixing American politics is a job for Americans. But for what an outsider's view might be worth, I also feel that the first thing to fix about the American political system is to put in some strong campaign finance limits, such as apply in all the other democracies I know anything about. My impression is, though, that this may be very hard to do. Limiting campaign contributions is telling people that they can't give their own money to support causes they believe in. There are two hundred years of American political momentum going against any such thing. Something they call 'Liberty', I believe. It might actually be easier to ban political ads on television; this would probably go a long way to solving the problem. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| From the desk of Mitt Romney: in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, February 25 2006 13:20
Profile
As a little kid someone defined infinity to me as "the largest number you can think of, plus one". In a way that's still true, because as soon as you learn of an infinity that completely blows your old infinity away, you learn of another one that blows it away. Even the cardinality of the real numbers is low on the totem pole. (Just how low is undecidable -- see how fast this gets fun?) Mathematicians do still refer to the 'Absolute Infinity', which is by definition undefinable: the largest number you can't think of. [ Saturday, February 25, 2006 13:29: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| medieval times or modern times? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, February 25 2006 11:33
Profile
quote:I dunno about this. Swords were rich man's accoutrements in Europe, too. Getting the iron is the easy part. Making a blade hard enough on the surface to hold an edge, but soft enough inside that it won't shatter on impact, is really tricky. If better swords were possible in Europe, European kings and emperors would have commanded them, and eventually left them to museums for me to see. The weapons, the armor, the art, the jewelry, even the imperial regalia -- it's all pretty crudely made, in Europe, pretty much right up to the Renaissance. And I've never seen anything European that looked like those Japanese swords, that wasn't post-industrial. Hey, here's something cool. I knew very little about the history of Japanese metallurgy before this exchange, but Google popped right up with this great set of pages on the Hitachi website. It states at one point that Japan's iron shortage didn't begin until the late 15th century CE, and that Japan had been exporting fine swords to China in large quantities for a century or so before that. [ Saturday, February 25, 2006 11:56: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |