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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Author	Recent posts
Did you stay loyal? in Geneforge Series
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 11 2005 13:06 Profile Homepage #16 The broad details of what happens if you use the Geneforge are the same no matter what else you do (well, unless you mess up and forget to destroy it afterwards). To put it simply, there is nothing loyal about using the Geneforge. :P -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Did you stay loyal? in Geneforge
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 11 2005 13:06 Profile Homepage #16 The broad details of what happens if you use the Geneforge are the same no matter what else you do (well, unless you mess up and forget to destroy it afterwards). To put it simply, there is nothing loyal about using the Geneforge. :P -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Blades of Geneforge in Geneforge Series
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 11 2005 13:04 Profile Homepage #35 Wow. Um, you know there's already an Avernum 3, that there won't be a Blades of Geneforge for at least a few more years, and that the discontent from some members of the community was therefore about releasing Avernum 4 after BoA, right? Come back when you have your facts straight and are no longer drunk, please? :P -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Blades of Geneforge in Geneforge 2
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 11 2005 13:04 Profile Homepage #35 Wow. Um, you know there's already an Avernum 3, that there won't be a Blades of Geneforge for at least a few more years, and that the discontent from some members of the community was therefore about releasing Avernum 4 after BoA, right? Come back when you have your facts straight and are no longer drunk, please? :P -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Just a random question in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 11 2005 12:58 Profile Homepage #39 Your sparkling observational talents are clearly wasted on us. There's a career ahead of you in investigative journalism -- if Jayson Blair can do it, anyone can. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Just a random question in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 11 2005 06:54 Profile Homepage #37 Q: What's red and looks like a bucket? A: A red bucket. Q: What's green and looks like a bucket? A: A red bucket... in camouflage. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Monster/Puzzle/Item Thread in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 11 2005 02:32 Profile Homepage #30 Once again, there is no way to call a script whenever a weapon hits a creature. (Also keep in mind that there's no way for a PC to attack another PC, which would limit the usefulness of such a weapon even if it were possible in the first place.) -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
cehck tihs out in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Friday, March 11 2005 02:15 Profile Homepage #22 Whatever do you mean, Drakey? It's clear that BSC went shiopping and botught pants and shoes for SMOE. [ Friday, March 11, 2005 02:16: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
cehck tihs out in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 22:36 Profile Homepage #20 Can't Motrax buy his own pants, BSC? [ Thursday, March 10, 2005 22:37: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
cehck tihs out in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 21:59 Profile Homepage #17 Quite a Freudian slip there. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
How many? in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 21:50 Profile Homepage #19 quote: And I didn't find out about the novel until a few months after I signed onto these forums when I got one of the novels for my birthday. Ha, I feel your pain. I was given the middle name Raphael largely on the basis that it was rare enough to be vanishingly unlikely to appear in pop culture in a way that might leave my name with unfortunate connotations. A mere few years later, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came along... -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Avatars in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 21:47 Profile Homepage #6 I don't know if it's possible to do that with UBB. Even if it is, a lot of forums which limit image sizes do so simply by shrinking down the dimensions of any image that's larger, which doesn't actually reduce loading times. [ Thursday, March 10, 2005 21:48: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Weapon Making in Blades of Exile
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 20:45 Profile Homepage #4 quote: Originally written by Silent Motion: I always fail to see why people need to inflate both monster HP and weapon damage. If you have a sword that does 6HP and your fighting a Goblin with 6HP, is that really any different than a sword that does 100HP fighting a monster with 100HP? Creating godlike weapons throws most scenarios out of balance, no matter what RPG system you use. That's the problem; it's an arms race. To prevent other designers' weapons unbalancing his scenario, a designer has to make his weapons at least as powerful as theirs, and ramp up the monsters to match. The fundamental problem with this is that it ends up making warriors too powerful relative to spellcasters (although once the weapons get powerful enough, even spellcasters hit all the time and do as much damage in melee as warriors anyway). Or just forget about balancing your scenario relative to other people's and provide a premade party. Much simpler. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
A new awakening fear... in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 20:19 Profile Homepage #11 American "college" = Australian "university". The pre-tertiary education system has a bit less of a one-to-one correspondence. The American system of elementary school, middle school and high school is only used in stuffy private schools over here. Public schools have primary school (years 0-6) and secondary school (7-12). [ Thursday, March 10, 2005 20:21: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Hey Alorael in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 20:17 Profile Homepage #52 quote: they have far less interesting organs than humans I read this as "far less interesting orgies". Which I suppose is also true, unless you're into cannibalism. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Article - Rollick in Blades of Avernum Editor
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 19:34 Profile Homepage #30 quote: Originally written by DreamGuy: quote: Please explain to me how the hell it is possible to make a good scenario where the party "can't dawdle" but is still able to go anywhere and do anything at any time without being punished for it by losing. Simple, you make the events that happen largely time-based instead of location-based. You've got scripting, use it. This does not work except for small scenarios with few different locations and options. Different players take radically different amounts of time to do the same thing. Attempting to create a large, open scenario that puts the player under constant pressure for time will accomplish one of two things: either making the scenario essentially unwinnable for players who inadvertently waste time (which, to me, is an unacceptable imposition on the player in all but the smallest of scenarios), or making time almost inconsequential (which defeats the purpose of the time limit, which was to add a sense of pace and urgency). Look at scenarios such as ZKR or games such as Fallout that tried to keep the player under time pressure; in both cases, the time limit is laughably lax unless the player is completely incompetent. (And since we don't want to make our scenarios completely inaccessible to unskilled players, making the time limit much stricter would cause more problems than it solved.) quote: quote: As for redefining the meanings of words, I was attempting to capture the connotations associated with the two main design paradigms in a snappy way. By picking words that actually have nothing to do with what you were arguing, great... A word's meaning is defined by its usage within a language community. I chose words that didn't have an established technical usage within the language community of the BoA forums, unlike "linearity" and "non-linearity", which do have a usage, and are used to mean things different from what you use them to mean. Sure, I could have used prosaic terms like "player-directed" and "designer-directed" instead of "rollicking" and "gritty", but there's something to be said for pizzazz. quote: quote: "Linearity" as you use the term is simply not linearity as the BoA community thinks of it Well, then the people in the BoA community ought to learn what word really means instead of trying to change the meanings of other words. News flash: you're the one trying to change the meaning of the word "linearity" as we have used it for a very long time. Given that our usage of the word "linearity" is generally understood within the community (and by the vast majority of new members to it), why should we switch to your usage? quote: quote: AFAIK, you have never designed anything for BoE or BoA. This makes you quite literally the least experienced designer in the debate. Oh, rightttt... because someone who hasn't yet released a game for BoE or BoE cannot possibly have other game design experience elsewhere. I've got plenty of other experience, and I've read the documentation and have been working with that knowledge so am aware of most of the techinical limitations. Funny how you haven't named a single game you've designed yet. You know, so we could check your credentials for ourselves. One might be tempted to suggest that either you're lying, or all the games you've designed are crap. quote: I'm sorry, but the people here talking about linearity and not knowing what the word means, claiming that things are impossible just because they have never done it, pretending that they are better designers than Jeff and so forth and so on are just play-acting at being designers, because they can't be bothered to learn the basic concepts of game design. It's interesting how you've spent an awful lot of time railing against the community, and no time at all illustrating what these "basic concepts of game design" might be, and why it's so important that we be educated in them when we're already making large numbers of scenarios that are played and enjoyed by many people. It's also interesting that you appear to assume that none of the BoE scenario designers, including the ones who haven't even been involved in this discussion, could possibly be better designers than Jeff, despite your admission that you don't even own BoE. Remember, we play these scenarios as well as designing them. Either there is a large community which does genuinely enjoy the scenarios you deride for being linear, or we've all been pretending to enjoy them for the past 5 years. [ Thursday, March 10, 2005 21:38: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Article - Rollick in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 19:34 Profile Homepage #30 quote: Originally written by DreamGuy: quote: Please explain to me how the hell it is possible to make a good scenario where the party "can't dawdle" but is still able to go anywhere and do anything at any time without being punished for it by losing. Simple, you make the events that happen largely time-based instead of location-based. You've got scripting, use it. This does not work except for small scenarios with few different locations and options. Different players take radically different amounts of time to do the same thing. Attempting to create a large, open scenario that puts the player under constant pressure for time will accomplish one of two things: either making the scenario essentially unwinnable for players who inadvertently waste time (which, to me, is an unacceptable imposition on the player in all but the smallest of scenarios), or making time almost inconsequential (which defeats the purpose of the time limit, which was to add a sense of pace and urgency). Look at scenarios such as ZKR or games such as Fallout that tried to keep the player under time pressure; in both cases, the time limit is laughably lax unless the player is completely incompetent. (And since we don't want to make our scenarios completely inaccessible to unskilled players, making the time limit much stricter would cause more problems than it solved.) quote: quote: As for redefining the meanings of words, I was attempting to capture the connotations associated with the two main design paradigms in a snappy way. By picking words that actually have nothing to do with what you were arguing, great... A word's meaning is defined by its usage within a language community. I chose words that didn't have an established technical usage within the language community of the BoA forums, unlike "linearity" and "non-linearity", which do have a usage, and are used to mean things different from what you use them to mean. Sure, I could have used prosaic terms like "player-directed" and "designer-directed" instead of "rollicking" and "gritty", but there's something to be said for pizzazz. quote: quote: "Linearity" as you use the term is simply not linearity as the BoA community thinks of it Well, then the people in the BoA community ought to learn what word really means instead of trying to change the meanings of other words. News flash: you're the one trying to change the meaning of the word "linearity" as we have used it for a very long time. Given that our usage of the word "linearity" is generally understood within the community (and by the vast majority of new members to it), why should we switch to your usage? quote: quote: AFAIK, you have never designed anything for BoE or BoA. This makes you quite literally the least experienced designer in the debate. Oh, rightttt... because someone who hasn't yet released a game for BoE or BoE cannot possibly have other game design experience elsewhere. I've got plenty of other experience, and I've read the documentation and have been working with that knowledge so am aware of most of the techinical limitations. Funny how you haven't named a single game you've designed yet. You know, so we could check your credentials for ourselves. One might be tempted to suggest that either you're lying, or all the games you've designed are crap. quote: I'm sorry, but the people here talking about linearity and not knowing what the word means, claiming that things are impossible just because they have never done it, pretending that they are better designers than Jeff and so forth and so on are just play-acting at being designers, because they can't be bothered to learn the basic concepts of game design. It's interesting how you've spent an awful lot of time railing against the community, and no time at all illustrating what these "basic concepts of game design" might be, and why it's so important that we be educated in them when we're already making large numbers of scenarios that are played and enjoyed by many people. It's also interesting that you appear to assume that none of the BoE scenario designers, including the ones who haven't even been involved in this discussion, could possibly be better designers than Jeff, despite your admission that you don't even own BoE. Remember, we play these scenarios as well as designing them. Either there is a large community which does genuinely enjoy the scenarios you deride for being linear, or we've all been pretending to enjoy them for the past 5 years. [ Thursday, March 10, 2005 21:38: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Article - Rollick in Blades of Avernum Editor
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 19:21 Profile Homepage #29 quote: Originally written by Kelandon: quote: Originally written by Thuryl: (The Tunnels sequence in Bahssikava is similar; as is, it works as a tactical challenge, but as a plot element it could be done 10 times better with a premade party.) How? Why? Maybe the party's leader is the tough guy who's always the first into a dangerous situation. Maybe his resentment at always being on the front line, staring death in the face while the others are protected at his expense, boils over under the influence of the drake's magic. Having Anonymous Hero 1 suddenly fly into a homicidal rage against Anonymous Heroes 2 through 4 isn't very convincing; having the self-sacrificing hero suddenly snap and try to finally get rid of the deadweight comrades he's spent many thankless years of his life protecting could be awesome. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Article - Rollick in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, March 10 2005 19:21 Profile Homepage #29 quote: Originally written by Kelandon: quote: Originally written by Thuryl: (The Tunnels sequence in Bahssikava is similar; as is, it works as a tactical challenge, but as a plot element it could be done 10 times better with a premade party.) How? Why? Maybe the party's leader is the tough guy who's always the first into a dangerous situation. Maybe his resentment at always being on the front line, staring death in the face while the others are protected at his expense, boils over under the influence of the drake's magic. Having Anonymous Hero 1 suddenly fly into a homicidal rage against Anonymous Heroes 2 through 4 isn't very convincing; having the self-sacrificing hero suddenly snap and try to finally get rid of the deadweight comrades he's spent many thankless years of his life protecting could be awesome. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Custom Scenarios in Blades of Exile
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Wednesday, March 9 2005 23:05 Profile Homepage #6 A Windows-using friend once reported a similar problem to me. Apparently, BoE sometimes chokes on the scenarios folder if it contains any files other than valid .exs and .bmp files. Check the scenarios folder and see if there are any unusual files in there. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Your Thoughts .... in General
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Wednesday, March 9 2005 22:57 Profile Homepage #40 My brother made some home-made cherry "brandy" a while back (essentially, cherries steeped in vodka for a few months). That was very nice -- the fruit took the edge off the alcohol completely. Would have been easy to get drunk on if one wasn't careful, though. He also makes his own wine and beer, but I don't trust his methods enough to drink those. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Article - Rollick in Blades of Avernum Editor
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Wednesday, March 9 2005 21:53 Profile Homepage #13 I think it's somewhat possible to move from rollick to grit if it's done well (although Areni's fairly rollicking even toward the end, since there isn't really anything restricting the party from backtracking). It's more often done badly, though; the Morbane sequence in At the Gallows is a gritty sequence in a rollicking scenario, and suffers for it. (The Tunnels sequence in Bahssikava is similar; as is, it works as a tactical challenge, but as a plot element it could be done 10 times better with a premade party.) Going from grit to rollick is even harder, because it tends to leave the party feeling lost once their sense of direction is taken away. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Article - Rollick in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Wednesday, March 9 2005 21:53 Profile Homepage #13 I think it's somewhat possible to move from rollick to grit if it's done well (although Areni's fairly rollicking even toward the end, since there isn't really anything restricting the party from backtracking). It's more often done badly, though; the Morbane sequence in At the Gallows is a gritty sequence in a rollicking scenario, and suffers for it. (The Tunnels sequence in Bahssikava is similar; as is, it works as a tactical challenge, but as a plot element it could be done 10 times better with a premade party.) Going from grit to rollick is even harder, because it tends to leave the party feeling lost once their sense of direction is taken away. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Article - Rollick in Blades of Avernum Editor
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Wednesday, March 9 2005 11:06 Profile Homepage #4 quote: I think what Thuryl is trying to get at here is a claim for dynamic scenarios or something where the story moves along and you can't dawdle and must react to what's going on. Of course those can be either linear or nonlinear as well. Inexperienced designers may find that a lot easier with very linear scenarios, but that's not the only way to do it. Please explain to me how the hell it is possible to make a good scenario where the party "can't dawdle" but is still able to go anywhere and do anything at any time without being punished for it by losing. As for redefining the meanings of words, I was attempting to capture the connotations associated with the two main design paradigms in a snappy way. "Linearity" as you use the term is simply not linearity as the BoA community thinks of it, and so talking about linearity would be confusing. [ Wednesday, March 09, 2005 11:15: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Article - Rollick in Blades of Avernum
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Wednesday, March 9 2005 11:06 Profile Homepage #4 quote: I think what Thuryl is trying to get at here is a claim for dynamic scenarios or something where the story moves along and you can't dawdle and must react to what's going on. Of course those can be either linear or nonlinear as well. Inexperienced designers may find that a lot easier with very linear scenarios, but that's not the only way to do it. Please explain to me how the hell it is possible to make a good scenario where the party "can't dawdle" but is still able to go anywhere and do anything at any time without being punished for it by losing. As for redefining the meanings of words, I was attempting to capture the connotations associated with the two main design paradigms in a snappy way. "Linearity" as you use the term is simply not linearity as the BoA community thinks of it, and so talking about linearity would be confusing. [ Wednesday, March 09, 2005 11:15: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00

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