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Machrone in Blades of Avernum Editor
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Monday, April 12 2004 06:11 Profile Homepage #5
I like this idea. I will do it. It could create some fun results. I know the perfect place for him, too.

I don't think he'll give any quests, though. I found his quests pretty lame. He'll just talk a bit.

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Machrone in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Monday, April 12 2004 06:11 Profile Homepage #5
I like this idea. I will do it. It could create some fun results. I know the perfect place for him, too.

I don't think he'll give any quests, though. I found his quests pretty lame. He'll just talk a bit.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Happy Easter in General
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Sunday, April 11 2004 21:07 Profile Homepage #47
So far as I can tell, I have yet to hear from someone who saw the movie any specific way in which it was anti-Jewish, other than that Jesus looked Greek rather than Semitic, which in my opinion is a legitimate gripe with the movie. As far as I could tell, it depicted the responsibility for Jesus's death much the same way as the Gospels do: a group of Jews wanted him dead, and the Romans were quite willing to do the deed. It takes many other liberties with the story (Judas? That part was a bit more than what appeared in the Bible), but I didn't see any that placed greater blame on the Jews as a whole than one might find in the Bible. Did someone else notice something that I didn't?

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Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM v1.1!)

Rate my scenarios!
Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue
High Level Party Maker
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Differences between BoA and BoE, what's Nethergate in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Sunday, April 11 2004 08:03 Profile Homepage #2
On Nethergate: Our Games. Scroll down past the Avernums.

Differences between BoE and BoA... well, BoE has 2-D graphics and BoA has 3-d. They have different systems of painting the floors and terrains. BoE has a fairly simple and rather buggy node system for coding, whereas BoA has a scripting system that allows for much more. BoE's dialogue system is based on asking user-entered questions, whereas BoA's is based on selecting from choices. They have almost completely different spell systems. They both have the same pre-packaged scenarios, except that BoA has one more. And for third-party scenarios, BoE has dozens of great scenarios made for it already, whereas BoA has Roses of Reckoning.

My advice: buy them both.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Happy Easter in General
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Sunday, April 11 2004 07:53 Profile Homepage #43
quote:
The world was dominated by the Roman Empire, and if you started handing out holy books depecting them as evil god-killing bastards, they would get pissed off.
Of course, then there's the Book of Revelations, which is fairly intensely anti-Roman, behind the veiled symbolism.

I think the movie could only be called anti-Semitic if the depictions of the Jews were specifically worse than the depictions of anyone else. And since pretty much everyone gets a pretty bad rap throughout the whole movie, I don't think that the movie was anti-Semitic.

I don't like how the movie plays on a lot of stereotypes and ignorant perspectives. As I've mentioned before, the Romans shouldn't speak the way that they do. I would guess that Jesus looking the way that he does is only an extension of that, rather than a specific shot against the Jews. (If you want to know what Jesus looked like, this is probably a good guess: a picture.)

quote:
Or, in other words, it's saying that we're not responsible for the evil we do, but we have to pay for it anyway. Lovely...
I think the idea here was not that Satan is responsible so therefore we are not. Instead, since Satan's words would not influence everyone in the same ways, how we respond to him defines our morality.

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Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM v1.1!)

Rate my scenarios!
Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue
High Level Party Maker
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Typo in Docs: set_attitude in Blades of Avernum Editor
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Saturday, April 10 2004 20:31 Profile Homepage #3
quote:
At any rate, I gather he was searching for something with a void return value, rather than a short.
Yes. It should say "void," not "short."

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Typo in Docs: set_attitude in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Saturday, April 10 2004 20:31 Profile Homepage #3
quote:
At any rate, I gather he was searching for something with a void return value, rather than a short.
Yes. It should say "void," not "short."

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Happy Easter in General
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Saturday, April 10 2004 13:11 Profile Homepage #33
quote:
I don't know why the Bible isn't enough for you; I certainly understood the brutal beating and execution of Jesus perfectly well before 'The Passion'.
For me, knowing what happened and seeing what happened were different. I was struck by the enormity of it, which was Gibson's point.

quote:
Mel Gibson is one of those Catholics who rejects Vatican II. His father is a blatant anti-Semite, and I have heard that Passion really overplays the Jewish-betrayal angle.
Neither of these statements is entirely true. Vatican II said that it was no longer mandatory to do the Mass in Latin, etc, but it never said that it was not acceptable to continue to do it that way. It did say, however, that the Jews were not responsible for Jesus's death. Gibson simply chooses to attend a Mass that is done in the traditional manner, which was never outlawed, and while his father is anti-Semitic, to the best of my knowledge Mel Gibson has never explicitly stated views that were anti-Semitic.

Similarly, the Passion doesn't overplay the Jewish-betrayal angle. Most of the Jews in the film are portrayed as terrible people. But so are the Romans. The Romans laugh as they beat Jesus, and they seem to enjoy the brutality of their actions. Peter himself denies Jesus in the movie, just as he does in the Gospels. And for that matter, Gibson's own hand holds Jesus down as the Romans nail him to the cross, which is supposed to indicate that we are all responsible.

quote:
Quite frankly, I would consider a movie about Jesus's life more appropriate than one about his death;
Maybe. But this would be a very different movie, and not the one that Gibson set out to make. I understand if you dislike the movie for this reason, though. I have a different opinion, but I understand how this could bother a person.

quote:
Everyone doesn't know what Jesus taught -- either even Mr. Gibson doesn't or he conveniently chose to forget the bit about turning our Father's house into a place of merchandise
I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to. Because if you mean the part about the Jewish temple being wildly corrupt, the movie does show a scene of Jesus toppling over the tables of the money-changers.

I do have some issues with the historical inaccuracies, though. The Romans in the movie speak Church Latin, not Classical Latin (so they all speak with Italian accents, basically). Most of them would've been speaking Greek under those circumstances, anyway. Jesus, as Alec rightly notes, wouldn't've looked like the man who was playing him. And the brief scene of the resurrection doesn't quite mesh with the Gospel account. When Jesus appeared before the disciples, he was still bleeding. Thomas refused to believe that it was him until he touched his wounds. Those wounds are not present in the movie.

[ Saturday, April 10, 2004 13:12: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM v1.1!)

Rate my scenarios!
Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue
High Level Party Maker
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Happy Easter in General
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Friday, April 9 2004 10:58 Profile Homepage #9
I liked the Passion. And having said that, I'd better state my biases: I am a non-Christian with a curiosity in the textual and literary analysis of the Bible, particularly the Gospels, and an interest in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the historical figure. I am also a Latin student. And I like big, fat, epic movies. And I don't mind blood and guts. And I watched a documentary in which Gibson explained what he was trying to do beforehand. These all contribute to my opinion that it is a good movie.

Happy Easter! (And although I am not a Christian, I still "celebrate" Easter as a secular commercial holiday.)

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Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM, newly updated to v1.1!)

Rate my scenarios!
Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue
High Level Party Maker
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Small Rebellion: Marble Statue in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Thursday, April 8 2004 17:33 Profile Homepage #7
Oh my god! They killed Kenny! You bastards!

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Thursday, April 8 2004 17:31 Profile Homepage #40
Exactly. Which is why at the Lyceum people are being careful not to rate too high, because those ratings become the measure for future scenarios. If you rate ASR as a 9.5, then every scenario that comes out that you like better than ASR, you have to give a higher number than ASR's 9.5. After a few scenarios, this can become a problem.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Roses of Reckoning (BoA) is Released! in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Thursday, April 8 2004 09:46 Profile Homepage #22
Creator, I was joking.

[ Thursday, April 08, 2004 09:50: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Roses of Reckoning (BoA) is Released! in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Thursday, April 8 2004 05:38 Profile Homepage #18
Maybe we can just say that since Riddle of the Spheres was the first scenario worth playing, it was the first scenario. ;)

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Roses of Reckoning (BoA) is Released! in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Thursday, April 8 2004 05:23 Profile Homepage #16
I got it just fine from the site. Don't know why. *shrug*

EDIT:
quote:
The first BoE scenarios were Island Visitors and Arena of Death.
Do these still exist somewhere? I can find no trace of them on SW's web site, the Lyceum, Alexandria, or Luz's site.

EDIT 2: Nor on Caligula's site. I found a trace of Island Visitors on Zaloopa's site (you can rate it), but not the game itself.

[ Thursday, April 08, 2004 05:36: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Unix Systems in General
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Wednesday, April 7 2004 18:32 Profile Homepage #4
If Djur's explanation was too much for you... my impression is that Unix is a lot like DOS in a PC, only way better and more stable. That's the quick answer.

And Alec? Look here. I have no idea what this means in any sort of technical sense, but that's how they're advertising it.

[ Wednesday, April 07, 2004 18:33: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM, newly updated to v1.1!)

Rate my scenarios!
Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue
High Level Party Maker
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Wednesday, April 7 2004 18:25 Profile Homepage #37
I was trying to say that I gave the scenarios good marks. That's really all that was. I wasn't trying to lay out an absolute standard. Brett Bixler has a rubric for BoE, and it is apparently quite controversial, so I definitely wasn't going for that. I think the idea of scenario rating is that scenarios don't have objective value; some people will like some things and other will like others. Knowing that a few really like a scenario and a few really don't (a BoE example: Johnny Favourite) is informative, just as knowing that no one likes a scenario (A Little Girl) or that almost everyone likes a scenario (Redemption). That's what ratings tell you.

quote:
Appart if the engine is too much limited you'll find your 10 rated scenario and some month later you'll find another one clearly better.
If I'm reading you correctly, you're articulating the reason that I will probably never give a 10. A few high 9's, probably, but probably never a 10.
quote:
So well rates doesn't work well through time so I don't think there's a need to plan for future.
But this is quite another leap. I think that I'll more or less be able to maintain the system that I'm using right now for a while. The only reason that my numbers would fall apart is if I were to give ASR a 10 right now and VoDT a 9.5. As it is, I can probably use the numbers that I gave (ASR 7.9, VoDT 7.3) as the measure and rate anything I liked better than VoDT higher than 7.3 and anything I liked less lower than 7.3

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Roses of Reckoning (BoA) is Released! in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Wednesday, April 7 2004 18:08 Profile Homepage #7
tomsterthemonstr (7:25:16 PM): So are you going to be done with it soon?
TerrorsMartyr (7:25:36 PM): It'll be out tomorrow, I hope.
tomsterthemonstr (7:26:14 PM): Ahem. If I may...
tomsterthemonstr (7:26:25 PM): STRIKE ONE BLOW FOR THE DESIGNING COMMUNITY!
tomsterthemonstr (7:26:30 PM): w00t
TerrorsMartyr (7:26:45 PM): ?
tomsterthemonstr (7:27:02 PM): Sorry.

Congrats to TM for being the first! It only seems appropriate. Does anyone know who released the first third-party BoE scenario, by the way? (Brett Bixler lays claim to RotS being the first *major* scenario....)

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Article - Why? in Blades of Avernum Editor
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Tuesday, April 6 2004 20:43 Profile Homepage #30
Just for the primary source confirmation of *i's remarks:

Things That Don't Work. Note also in the Designer's Forum how two other articles that are not up yet (soon, TM?) are entitled "Even More Bugs" and "Still More Things That Don't Work."

Abandonment

Also: Mail Fraud

I don't want to dredge up old issues, though. (And I say that having just done so. I am a moron, I know.) While it is probably important to remember that Jeff left BoE behind even while it still had significant bugs, it is also important to note that he is doing his best not to make the same mistakes over again. He made the BoA editor open source, for example, so that the programmers among us can fix bugs that we come across, which I think is a tremendous show of good faith.

Also, these boards exist now, which to the newbies: they didn't before. There were discussion groups on AOL for the Exile games, and starting in '97 Aceron ran boards on Malkeera, and not long after that the Lyceum started up, but these official SW boards didn't come into being until March '01. Now we have an official place to congregate and get help.

SW will probably drop the scenario contests after the first one, but that's okay: Olympia will carry on, the way it always has. Other than the occasionally condescending tone that Jeff can take with us, I have no problems with what's going on right now. Jeff even has an update in the works that will add some features that we're asking for. Like *i says, though, I'm going to wait and see what happens.

[ Wednesday, April 07, 2004 06:10: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Article - Why? in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Tuesday, April 6 2004 20:43 Profile Homepage #30
Just for the primary source confirmation of *i's remarks:

Things That Don't Work. Note also in the Designer's Forum how two other articles that are not up yet (soon, TM?) are entitled "Even More Bugs" and "Still More Things That Don't Work."

Abandonment

Also: Mail Fraud

I don't want to dredge up old issues, though. (And I say that having just done so. I am a moron, I know.) While it is probably important to remember that Jeff left BoE behind even while it still had significant bugs, it is also important to note that he is doing his best not to make the same mistakes over again. He made the BoA editor open source, for example, so that the programmers among us can fix bugs that we come across, which I think is a tremendous show of good faith.

Also, these boards exist now, which to the newbies: they didn't before. There were discussion groups on AOL for the Exile games, and starting in '97 Aceron ran boards on Malkeera, and not long after that the Lyceum started up, but these official SW boards didn't come into being until March '01. Now we have an official place to congregate and get help.

SW will probably drop the scenario contests after the first one, but that's okay: Olympia will carry on, the way it always has. Other than the occasionally condescending tone that Jeff can take with us, I have no problems with what's going on right now. Jeff even has an update in the works that will add some features that we're asking for. Like *i says, though, I'm going to wait and see what happens.

[ Wednesday, April 07, 2004 06:10: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Starting the game in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Tuesday, April 6 2004 11:03 Profile Homepage #1
I don't know what is causing your problem, but I can say that I run without changing resolution and I've had no trouble. Also, BoA is OS X native, so you shouldn't need to fiddle with Classic mode.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Article - Player vs. Party in Blades of Avernum Editor
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Tuesday, April 6 2004 09:39 Profile Homepage #1
As a related point, think about the number of people in the party. Many scenarios just make the party consist of one mind, one identity, one person. ("Your friend, who you've known since the two of your grew up together in [X] says [Y].") This is one way to do it.

Another idea is to use the fact that the party consists of 4 people (unless you're Drakefyre :P ). Either have the player choose one character to identify with, or allow the different members of the party to have different opinions, or work with this detail of the system in other ways. The BoA engine makes neat things possible that weren't possible in the BoE engine (text bubbles over specific party members, etc).

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Article - Player vs. Party in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Tuesday, April 6 2004 09:39 Profile Homepage #1
As a related point, think about the number of people in the party. Many scenarios just make the party consist of one mind, one identity, one person. ("Your friend, who you've known since the two of your grew up together in [X] says [Y].") This is one way to do it.

Another idea is to use the fact that the party consists of 4 people (unless you're Drakefyre :P ). Either have the player choose one character to identify with, or allow the different members of the party to have different opinions, or work with this detail of the system in other ways. The BoA engine makes neat things possible that weren't possible in the BoE engine (text bubbles over specific party members, etc).

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Article - Why? in Blades of Avernum Editor
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Monday, April 5 2004 17:27 Profile Homepage #23
I started this post at about 5:15, so the topic has somewhat outpaced me. Apologies for that. But, here goes:

From the scenario criticism thread,
quote:
Student of Trinity wrote:
The Geneforges and Valley of the Dying Things seem fine to me; I'm still excited just to find a secret door.
Jeff's writing games for people who've never played any of his games before, NOT for his hardcore audience. This is not a bad idea to do for shareware, but can be not the greatest thing among the Blades community, where everyone who's played Emulations has also played At the Gallows and Spears and Spy's Quest, for example.

And Djur's right: of the respected scenario designers, who also tend to be the leaders of the community as the most known names and the mods of various boards and such, almost none are younger than 20. And absolutely none are younger than 15. Of our best scenario designers (those who've placed top three in more than one design contest, those who have at least one scenario rated above 9 on the Lyceum's CSR), we have a lawyer (Alcritas), a teacher at a university (Brett Bixler), and a physics grad student (*i). I'm not sure how old Drizzt is, or the Creator either, but I'm willing to guess that they're not eight.

Okay, I just read Jeff's last post, and this is going to be a MUCH, MUCH longer post than I thought it would be. Sigh.

I was going to try to make the point that the audience that loves and eats up Jeff's other games is not the audience that he drew for Blades (both oE and oA). I was further going to try to say that he probably just didn't know what made up a good BoE scenario because he did what he always does with games when he wrote BoE: he finished it and moved on. This has always been a fine method for other games; no reason to keep mucking up E1 or E2 many years later, right? But BoE was fundamentally a different game, and this led to a misunderstanding that has caused many hurt feelings.

Well.

Jeff. I've been investigating the history of the SW community (yes, the Spiderweb community, and such a thing *does* exist) for a little while now. I admit that I haven't been around all that long, but I've talked to people who have, and I've read almost all of the old discussions in existence, so please, bear with me. Everyone who's reading this, give it a chance.

I have realized that while we are a very disparate group (some of my favorite members of the community are from Louisiana, Finland, England, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Canada, and so on), we do share certain things in common. We are a sensitive bunch. Look in the General forum and read the topic entitled Suicide. Then note that near it is another topic with a very similar name. Both have aroused considerable passions. Then look at the third page, at the topic entitled Board Member Info (a Science Experiment), and look at the discussion we had there. Then look at the next two consecutive topics. Are you starting to realize the depth of passions in this community? We care about things very intensely.

On the Lyceum, you can even find community reactions to 9/11 on 9/11: God Help Us.

This is a community that has existed in various forms for ten years; ask Thuryl or Alec or others who are still around from the AOL days about what they remember. I have, and it's pretty amazing. People talk about Aceron's Malkeera as if it existed yesterday. People are still in touch with Zaloopa. I talked with Akhronath not long ago about his days running the Arena. What I'm trying to say here that is that there is a Spiderweb community, and we have a history, and we come together on the forums devoted to these games and we talk, we make friends, we hang out.

There is more at stake here than just 8-year-olds wanting to kill stuff. What Alcritas, *i, Brett Bixler, TM, Drizzt, the Creator, Shyguy, Ben Frank, Akhronath, Measle, Tarl Kudrick, Ryan Phelps, Andres Gonzales, and many others have done here is turn scenario design into a legitimate art form. That's why your somewhat disingenuous remarks have offended people. You appear to be sticking your tongue out at all of us. Your rather acerbic sense of humor, which is appreciated in many, many contexts, is not ideal here. TM was being completely serious, and he's made enough scenarios and reviewed enough scenarios that he usually gets a fair amount of respect around here. Your response?
quote:
Heh. This quote is going up on my wall. The idea that anyone writing a game would purposefully put fun second is, I admit, alien to me.
You then go on to make your 8-year-old comment, which seems (at best) to make light of his remarks, or (at worst) to insult the entire community as a whole. I think that was not what you intended, but it is what you said.

You go on to further the same mistake by saying,
quote:
The only point I am making (and I feel it is a very mild point and I'm on pretty safe ground making it) is that a large portion of your potential Blades-playing audience mainly gets off on hitting things. Trust me. I read their fan mail.
Do you know what the people on these boards do when those portions of your audience show up here? Read the Poetry thread, starting with FatBatMonkey's post halfway down. Thus: the people you are addressing on these boards are NOT the same people as wrote to you, "LOL I LUV GENEFORGE!!!! BUT PUT IN MORE BLOWING THIGNS UP." (Thank you to Djur for putting it so eloquently.) You were speaking to the wrong audience here, and some of us took offense at your generalizations.

Also, as you have said, "For all I know, my games only ever sell to septugenerian eskimos" (in an interview). And, as you said, "it is important to remember what any statistician can tell you: self-selecting samples are invalid." Thus, those who write you fan mail are not a perfect sample of those to whom your games sell. You can't have it both ways. The Lyceum's CSR is of at least equal value to the fan mail that you receive. There is a difference, though: those who post on the Lyceum are far more likely to be hardcore fans who will buy every game that you release from now on, the ones who bought BoA on the first day it came out and who will buy Geneforge 3 the first day it comes out. Those who write you fan mail are more likely to grow up and stop buying your games. So it's a far bigger loss if you alienate your hardcore fans such as you find on these boards and on the Lyceum. Take some time to get to know us. You might realize that there are a *lot* of us who are not 8-year-olds who only want to destroy things.

But aside from all of this, there's a point that should be more dear to your heart: these boards also influence which products your customers buy, and whether they buy them at all. Don't believe me? Look at the Spiderweb Newbie Looking to Find a Good RPG to Begin With thread. He asked us what was good. We told him... well, would you care to guess? We told him that BoE was the one to get. TM, Thuryl, Boots, Drakefyre, BtI, Alorael, and the Creator all said something along these lines. If anyone said to buy anything else, it was always in the context of that game and BoE. Nethergate and BoE. E2 and BoE. E3 and BoE. And why do we love BoE so much? As the Creator so beautifully put it,
quote:
BoA will not be superior to BoE until 60+ great scenarios have been made for it.

It costs 30 bucks to register BoE, and there's enough gametime there to last you a few years. Seriously.
BoE is loved because of the scenarios that others have made for it. And thus BoE was the only Exile that I bought. And thus BoE will continue to be purchased for years to come. Why? Because of Alcritas. Because of *i. Because of Brett Bixler. Because of TM. And so on. So the designers of the community are an integral part of your money source.

Were BoE copies still being bought in 2002, years after the game was released? If they were, it's because of the designers. I'm not sure that you care about us, the community, but I do know that you care about your pocketbook. Thus it might be wise to avoid telling your designers that all people who play Spiderweb games are children who like to bonk things on the head.

P.S. I am not saying that you should stop making games with cool combat. That would be ridiculous. I'm saying you should ease off on the condescension just a wee bit.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Article - Why? in Blades of Avernum
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Monday, April 5 2004 17:27 Profile Homepage #23
I started this post at about 5:15, so the topic has somewhat outpaced me. Apologies for that. But, here goes:

From the scenario criticism thread,
quote:
Student of Trinity wrote:
The Geneforges and Valley of the Dying Things seem fine to me; I'm still excited just to find a secret door.
Jeff's writing games for people who've never played any of his games before, NOT for his hardcore audience. This is not a bad idea to do for shareware, but can be not the greatest thing among the Blades community, where everyone who's played Emulations has also played At the Gallows and Spears and Spy's Quest, for example.

And Djur's right: of the respected scenario designers, who also tend to be the leaders of the community as the most known names and the mods of various boards and such, almost none are younger than 20. And absolutely none are younger than 15. Of our best scenario designers (those who've placed top three in more than one design contest, those who have at least one scenario rated above 9 on the Lyceum's CSR), we have a lawyer (Alcritas), a teacher at a university (Brett Bixler), and a physics grad student (*i). I'm not sure how old Drizzt is, or the Creator either, but I'm willing to guess that they're not eight.

Okay, I just read Jeff's last post, and this is going to be a MUCH, MUCH longer post than I thought it would be. Sigh.

I was going to try to make the point that the audience that loves and eats up Jeff's other games is not the audience that he drew for Blades (both oE and oA). I was further going to try to say that he probably just didn't know what made up a good BoE scenario because he did what he always does with games when he wrote BoE: he finished it and moved on. This has always been a fine method for other games; no reason to keep mucking up E1 or E2 many years later, right? But BoE was fundamentally a different game, and this led to a misunderstanding that has caused many hurt feelings.

Well.

Jeff. I've been investigating the history of the SW community (yes, the Spiderweb community, and such a thing *does* exist) for a little while now. I admit that I haven't been around all that long, but I've talked to people who have, and I've read almost all of the old discussions in existence, so please, bear with me. Everyone who's reading this, give it a chance.

I have realized that while we are a very disparate group (some of my favorite members of the community are from Louisiana, Finland, England, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Canada, and so on), we do share certain things in common. We are a sensitive bunch. Look in the General forum and read the topic entitled Suicide. Then note that near it is another topic with a very similar name. Both have aroused considerable passions. Then look at the third page, at the topic entitled Board Member Info (a Science Experiment), and look at the discussion we had there. Then look at the next two consecutive topics. Are you starting to realize the depth of passions in this community? We care about things very intensely.

On the Lyceum, you can even find community reactions to 9/11 on 9/11: God Help Us.

This is a community that has existed in various forms for ten years; ask Thuryl or Alec or others who are still around from the AOL days about what they remember. I have, and it's pretty amazing. People talk about Aceron's Malkeera as if it existed yesterday. People are still in touch with Zaloopa. I talked with Akhronath not long ago about his days running the Arena. What I'm trying to say here that is that there is a Spiderweb community, and we have a history, and we come together on the forums devoted to these games and we talk, we make friends, we hang out.

There is more at stake here than just 8-year-olds wanting to kill stuff. What Alcritas, *i, Brett Bixler, TM, Drizzt, the Creator, Shyguy, Ben Frank, Akhronath, Measle, Tarl Kudrick, Ryan Phelps, Andres Gonzales, and many others have done here is turn scenario design into a legitimate art form. That's why your somewhat disingenuous remarks have offended people. You appear to be sticking your tongue out at all of us. Your rather acerbic sense of humor, which is appreciated in many, many contexts, is not ideal here. TM was being completely serious, and he's made enough scenarios and reviewed enough scenarios that he usually gets a fair amount of respect around here. Your response?
quote:
Heh. This quote is going up on my wall. The idea that anyone writing a game would purposefully put fun second is, I admit, alien to me.
You then go on to make your 8-year-old comment, which seems (at best) to make light of his remarks, or (at worst) to insult the entire community as a whole. I think that was not what you intended, but it is what you said.

You go on to further the same mistake by saying,
quote:
The only point I am making (and I feel it is a very mild point and I'm on pretty safe ground making it) is that a large portion of your potential Blades-playing audience mainly gets off on hitting things. Trust me. I read their fan mail.
Do you know what the people on these boards do when those portions of your audience show up here? Read the Poetry thread, starting with FatBatMonkey's post halfway down. Thus: the people you are addressing on these boards are NOT the same people as wrote to you, "LOL I LUV GENEFORGE!!!! BUT PUT IN MORE BLOWING THIGNS UP." (Thank you to Djur for putting it so eloquently.) You were speaking to the wrong audience here, and some of us took offense at your generalizations.

Also, as you have said, "For all I know, my games only ever sell to septugenerian eskimos" (in an interview). And, as you said, "it is important to remember what any statistician can tell you: self-selecting samples are invalid." Thus, those who write you fan mail are not a perfect sample of those to whom your games sell. You can't have it both ways. The Lyceum's CSR is of at least equal value to the fan mail that you receive. There is a difference, though: those who post on the Lyceum are far more likely to be hardcore fans who will buy every game that you release from now on, the ones who bought BoA on the first day it came out and who will buy Geneforge 3 the first day it comes out. Those who write you fan mail are more likely to grow up and stop buying your games. So it's a far bigger loss if you alienate your hardcore fans such as you find on these boards and on the Lyceum. Take some time to get to know us. You might realize that there are a *lot* of us who are not 8-year-olds who only want to destroy things.

But aside from all of this, there's a point that should be more dear to your heart: these boards also influence which products your customers buy, and whether they buy them at all. Don't believe me? Look at the Spiderweb Newbie Looking to Find a Good RPG to Begin With thread. He asked us what was good. We told him... well, would you care to guess? We told him that BoE was the one to get. TM, Thuryl, Boots, Drakefyre, BtI, Alorael, and the Creator all said something along these lines. If anyone said to buy anything else, it was always in the context of that game and BoE. Nethergate and BoE. E2 and BoE. E3 and BoE. And why do we love BoE so much? As the Creator so beautifully put it,
quote:
BoA will not be superior to BoE until 60+ great scenarios have been made for it.

It costs 30 bucks to register BoE, and there's enough gametime there to last you a few years. Seriously.
BoE is loved because of the scenarios that others have made for it. And thus BoE was the only Exile that I bought. And thus BoE will continue to be purchased for years to come. Why? Because of Alcritas. Because of *i. Because of Brett Bixler. Because of TM. And so on. So the designers of the community are an integral part of your money source.

Were BoE copies still being bought in 2002, years after the game was released? If they were, it's because of the designers. I'm not sure that you care about us, the community, but I do know that you care about your pocketbook. Thus it might be wise to avoid telling your designers that all people who play Spiderweb games are children who like to bonk things on the head.

P.S. I am not saying that you should stop making games with cool combat. That would be ridiculous. I'm saying you should ease off on the condescension just a wee bit.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Article - Why? in Blades of Avernum Editor
Kelandon
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
 written Monday, April 5 2004 15:05 Profile Homepage #5
I think one can see the best and worst of Jeff's scenario design technique in his comments. I agree with TM that Blades is not mostly about beating up monsters but mostly about telling/reading/RPing a story.

quote:
It is better to have lots of fun and action in an irrational setting than a scrupulously designed and plotted storyline that is on the dull side.
Erm, but this kind of misses the point. The point is that the fun and action (particularly in BoA even more than in BoE, but in both) can be from the dialogs and the animations as well as the combat. One need not tear through a dungeon of Haakai with a Flaming Runed Black Halberd of Death to be having fun. As I said on the Lyceum, I would've loved to see a longer cut scene in ASR on Zaskiva, because explosions and madness and people fighting and running all over the place are quite fun as animation, and they certainly pump up the tension in a way that a combat between a level one party and a vampire (or any other challenging combat) does not.

One should not misread me, though: this exact combat is used to good effect in TM's scenario (w00t we have a fifth BoA scenario w0000t!), but it is not the *only* way of adding tension. And many kinds of tension are good.

I think the goal is balance, but the bottom line is plot.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00

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