Profile for Thuryl

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Field	Value
Displayed name	Thuryl
Member number	869
Title	...b10010b...
Postcount	9973
Homepage	http://thuryl.desperance.net/blades.html
Registered	Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00

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Motrax-E2 in The Exile Trilogy
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Saturday, October 15 2005 18:31 Profile Homepage #3 Hmm. You may be right. Whoops. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Avernum 4? in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Saturday, October 15 2005 18:20 Profile Homepage #389 It's not so much a programming issue as a game design issue. Every useful gameplay feature has to be balanced with every other useful gameplay feature to make sure that they're all kept useful. Adding a spell which is useless is easy, but doesn't really add much to the game. Adding a spell which is useful is hard, because it might make the game too easy, or make something else less useful by comparison. I've spent quite some time recently thinking about just this sort of thing, so I have considerable sympathy for the effort involved. As an example, a topic on the Pygmalion forum at Desp just spawned a half-page-long discussion about how much money a magical arrow should cost relative to a magical sword, and how both costs can be worked harmoniously into an internally consistent weapon enchantment system. That's the kind of thing which a game designer has to deal with in order to maintain balance. [ Saturday, October 15, 2005 18:25: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Motrax-E2 in The Exile Trilogy
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Saturday, October 15 2005 15:01 Profile Homepage #1 There's a fair few neat items in Motrax's treasure, the most interesting of which is Scrioth. I've never been able to successfully cast Capture Soul on Motrax. Some people say they've succeeded, presumably by spending hours on end sitting in front of the computer doing nothing but casting Capture Soul and reloading if it doesn't work. Not my idea of fun -- if I can't capture something after 10 attempts, I give up. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
E2: Garzahd in The Exile Trilogy
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Saturday, October 15 2005 14:52 Profile Homepage #2 Garzahd specialises in defensive magic. Holing himself up in a fort full of protective runes is pretty much his schtick. quote: Garzahd would simply cast three kill spells on anyone wearing a ring of will - thus neutralising any potential threat. Yet he doesn't. Don't blame G-dawg for the fact that the enemy AI sucks. :P (Seriously, though, since a well-equipped party is quite capable of keeping itself continuously invulnerable for as long as it takes Garzahd to run himself out of spell points, even blasting the party relentlessly wouldn't be all that helpful. Makes you wonder why Garzahd didn't carry around a few energy potions of his own.) [ Saturday, October 15, 2005 14:53: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Your adventurers group in The Avernum Trilogy
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Saturday, October 15 2005 14:40 Profile Homepage #1 Overall, you're probably better off with four Custom characters. Most of the default classes have some peculiar stat allocations that aren't very useful, at least in the early game. (And by the late game, a few extra skill points don't mean much). Having said that, my recommendation is that a party should contain one to two characters capable of fighting in melee, zero to two characters capable of archery, one character capable of casting mage spells, and two to three characters capable of casting priest spells. But no single party member should try to do more than two of these things. [ Saturday, October 15, 2005 14:42: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
stealing in Geneforge Series
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Saturday, October 15 2005 14:38 Profile Homepage #1 Keep stealing enough items and eventually the town will go hostile. For most towns, you have to steal 3 things before being attacked. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
stealing in Geneforge
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Saturday, October 15 2005 14:38 Profile Homepage #1 Keep stealing enough items and eventually the town will go hostile. For most towns, you have to steal 3 things before being attacked. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Where in Canopy?... in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Saturday, October 15 2005 14:34 Profile Homepage #4 By the way, in case you're wondering where to find mithril ore, it's those big honkin' grey boulders you've seen around the place. Stand next to one and look at it to collect it. [ Saturday, October 15, 2005 14:35: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
A Hypothetical Conceived Whilst Drunk in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 23:54 Profile Homepage #41 I can certainly think of situations in which using the word "doxy" could be hazardous to my health. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Where Our Wings Take Dreams in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 21:51 Profile Homepage #2 I'm wondering what the quote about fish was about too. New Orleans? That would seem to be a counterexample, actually. [ Friday, October 14, 2005 21:52: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
A Hypothetical Conceived Whilst Drunk in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 18:03 Profile Homepage #25 I wish I could say I were surprised that people are overthinking the practical details of the situation, but actually I'm surprised it took this long to happen. :P -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
erika's tower in The Exile Trilogy
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 17:48 Profile Homepage #1 No. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Politics and Beliefs in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 17:20 Profile Homepage #158 Well, "a few" was an intentionally vague term. It's certainly taken us less than 2000 years to get further than Rome ever did. As for how you define progress, well, doing things that no society in recorded history has done before is a good start. Maybe some lines of progress are dead ends, and maybe some of those dead ends are disastrous. But there's no way of knowing in advance, so you may as well try messing around with the fabric of society in new and creative ways and see what happens. I've always felt that it's rather unfortunate that the phrase "social experiment" has negative connotations; if you don't experiment, you don't learn anything. Giving up on creating new social structures because of Nazi Germany or the USSR is like giving up on researching new drugs because of thalidomide or Vioxx. [ Friday, October 14, 2005 17:29: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
A Hypothetical Conceived Whilst Drunk in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 17:15 Profile Homepage #23 quote: Originally written by WST ben: Or more questionably, what makes the word "Constantinople" any more toxic and a given other word? It's an intentionally silly hypothetical, you know. Hence the topic title. Don't think too hard about why the C-word is fatal. :P -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Politics and Beliefs in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 05:42 Profile Homepage #153 quote: Originally written by AxB: Besides, even if the church hadn't stepped into the power vacuum, something else would have, and quite possibly wouldn't have done as good a job. If Galileo had to be out working the fields, because all human resources needed to be devoted to survival, he wouldn't have been able to do his research. He also 'stood on the shoulders of giants', but of the economic and cultural type, rather then scientific, or technological ones. So? What's the worst that can happen? When the Roman Empire fell, it only took a few centuries for civilisation to be restored to a level of technological and cultural advancement comparable to what it was. That's barely even the blink of an eye in geological time. You can't give the church all that much credit for merely holding onto something when plenty of other institutions could have done the same, and when what was being held onto could so easily have been redeveloped even if it were completely lost. If your goal is to see a society progress as far as possible, then progressing at all times is essential; staying in one place just leaves more time for unfortunate political accidents that require the whole process to start over. Political bodies are strange little slime molds that dwell upon the surface of this earth, and we are their cells. Individual organisms coalesce, divide or fragment, but in the long run it all evens out. A church here, a monarchy there; it doesn't matter. A church is as good as a monarchy is as good as an empire, and anarchy is just a temporary setback. The only significant change that could be made to human civilisation in the long term would be to bring about human extinction, and I suspect our species is better at surviving than most of us give ourselves credit for. Perhaps that's why I've never found human history all that interesting: there's been so little of it so far. [ Friday, October 14, 2005 06:03: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
BoE limitations and solutions in Blades of Exile
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 03:11 Profile Homepage #3 quote: Originally written by Drakefyre: quote: - Can't move boats, etc I don't know what you mean. I'm pretty sure he simply means moving a boat from one point to another by means of a special node. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
It's the A2Template! in Blades of Avernum Editor
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 02:49 Profile Homepage #50 He's tried that, and the trouble is that to recreate Avernum towns accurately, he sometimes needs to put walls directly behind tall pillars. quote: Regardless of that, it is almost impossible to place it without altering the wall configuration - and that simply hasn't been very successful. See? Anyway, I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's just cosmetic, after all. Regular pillars will work just as well. [ Friday, October 14, 2005 02:51: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
It's the A2Template! in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 02:49 Profile Homepage #50 He's tried that, and the trouble is that to recreate Avernum towns accurately, he sometimes needs to put walls directly behind tall pillars. quote: Regardless of that, it is almost impossible to place it without altering the wall configuration - and that simply hasn't been very successful. See? Anyway, I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's just cosmetic, after all. Regular pillars will work just as well. [ Friday, October 14, 2005 02:51: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Need help with Canope: Manefactured Womb! in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 02:45 Profile Homepage #10 It doesn't really work for anything longer than a shortish sentence, though. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Politics and Beliefs in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 00:58 Profile Homepage #150 Oh, yes. Because we all know that lots of technological progress was made in the Middle Ages. :P -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
On Nov 1st, 2005.... in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 00:09 Profile Homepage #27 The entirety of Star Wars is a cliche. It's a Western set in space, and it's not even the first Western to be set in space. :P [ Friday, October 14, 2005 00:10: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
The ins and outs of Teleportation in Blades of Avernum Editor
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 00:00 Profile Homepage #20 Apparently it's likely to be a limitation inherent in the way the engine handles towns. Allowing move_to_new_town at other times could potentially cause serious bugs. [ Friday, October 14, 2005 00:02: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
The ins and outs of Teleportation in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, October 14 2005 00:00 Profile Homepage #20 Apparently it's likely to be a limitation inherent in the way the engine handles towns. Allowing move_to_new_town at other times could potentially cause serious bugs. [ Friday, October 14, 2005 00:02: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Converting from PC to Mac? in Blades of Avernum Editor
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, October 13 2005 23:52 Profile Homepage #8 quote: Originally written by Frobozz: So what does CMG stand for? Would be interesting to make a converter, but I'd have to know the name along so I could atleast find the file format. ;) CMG isn't really an official file format -- it's something Jeff made up. It's just a resource file with a lot of PICT resources in it. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Converting from PC to Mac? in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, October 13 2005 23:52 Profile Homepage #8 quote: Originally written by Frobozz: So what does CMG stand for? Would be interesting to make a converter, but I'd have to know the name along so I could atleast find the file format. ;) CMG isn't really an official file format -- it's something Jeff made up. It's just a resource file with a lot of PICT resources in it. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00

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