alanschu

What exactly do you think Morgoth was saying? I'm pretty sure he was talking about how if one dies, 1000 more take its place, not 1000 more die.

What if the computer is able to modify it's own programming code? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If it did so because of the capabilities given it under some existing program, that still wouldn't be free will, technically. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What exactly is free will? And does it actually exist? Skinner wasn't convinced.

I was under the impression that it was for school. How much would you like for it? Meta, Genera is also an OS for LISP machines. I was very confused when I read it :D And the one thing I thought Blizzard contributed quite nicely was the streamlining of the process. In WoW, it's possible to play for an hour, and actually accomplish something, at least until the end game. The need to wait with jars to poo into for an important mob was no longer necessary. I think it's just a joke, alluding to the human wave that the Soviets employed in WW2.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. I know if you had high Lore you could answer things straight up, but otherwise I remember having to read a book, and get the details from the book, so that I could answer the question posed by the tome.

Says the guy that, at one point, tried to sidestep the issue I presented to you in the death penalty thread by calling me a hypocrite, and thinking I actually wanted you dead. I don't know. I didn't know it was like that. I'm not the one that started posting snide post script remarks at the end of a post when someone disagreed with me. If you look back through this thread, when I've disagreed with you, I've posted how I disagreed with you. Most people on this forum have seen me get pissed off and snap, and this isn't it. And I certainly am not offended. You, after all, where the one that felt it was prudent to add in a post script to your message taking the shot at me. When I try addressing points that you make, and you ignore them, then later add a snide post script in your message talking about how I just say "irrelevant" when I'm wrong and can't discuss what you said (ironically in a post where I did discuss what you said), in addition to previous examples of your posting history, forgive me if I'm not all friendly with you. And much like the death penalty thread, when people started countering the points you made in your discussion, you either found some obscure point and took it out of context, and tried to drag attention away from the discussion. First it was when you started calling me a hypocrite and alleging that I actually wanted you dead, when I presented a situation that I had hoped you could use to present some form of perspective on the issue. You attacked me, instead of discussing the issue. When I called you on it, you disappeared (and later said you enjoyed the discussion we were having, when there wasn't any discussion between you and me because you weren't saying anything). Then there's your bizarre interpretation of Hell Kitty's player skills. And now, you're going on about how this became "OMG you disagree with me then you must hate me" comments. You continue to write words, without saying much. I have not done any actions that could be labelled as "OMG you disagree with me then you must hate me" type actions. I disagreed with you, stated where the disagreement was, and you responded with a snide remark about how I had nothing to say about what you posted, when in fact I actually did. I suppose my previous post about you being daft was rather hostile, but when you've made it a trend of obfuscating the issue, misinterpreting posts, and following it up with strawman arguments, it gets hard to take what you say seriously. I think for one reason it's tolerable, because it's something that really cannot be removed from the equation meta. It's possible to remove direct player input for combat, but we can't just shut down our brains.

Better than the odds of a lowly trained character whose aiming is controlled by a player with slow reflexes and overall poor marksmanship Seriously though, I see where you are coming from. The thing I guess is how much do you just let the computer make the decisions, and how much input do you really like. You commented on dropping Atomic Bombs in Hearts of Iron, but that's a game that puts me more in the role of being the Commander in Chief of a country. I place production orders, determine where units move, and so on. I'm not the one fighting the battles, some grunt is. The thing is, I'd not mind at all if it was a hybrid. I love the Total War games, and how I can be both leader of a faction, as well as lead armies directly in battle. If HOI2 offered, say, a Combat Mission or Close Combat style system of fighting the battles, I'd still be delighted (assuming of course that this monster of product was actually able to bring everything together naturally). One game that I enjoy for this is Pacific Storm. If I want to go and drop The Bomb on Nagasaki, I can. And you can still run into issues about how other attributes of yourself influence the impact of the game. While fighting a particularly tough battle, you as the player may notice a weakpoint to make the game easier. But it's you that figure it out, not the character. So how much is too much when it comes to requiring some player input, compared to letting the character figure things out. Conceptually, it almost seems like you'd be happy with a game where many of the decisions are made for you, based on the attributes of your character. The only real influence you may have is how you talk to a character, of which the dialogue options would only be appropriate for the attributes of the character of course. I'm pretty sure that this isn't necessarily what you want (essentially have an AI traverse through the game for you dependent on your attributes), but it's just sort of the impression that I'm getting. I guess it's just that I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. With poor skill, the player must try to counter the recoil of the gun, which will (even if you are really good) affect where JC is actually pointing the gun). As the skill improves, the player no longer needs to compensate for such things, and accuracy greatly improves, both in the intrinsic crosshairs, as well as the removal of the wobble. I'd bet that if the only thing that was different between the skill levels was the wobble, you'd still find yourself performing much, much better with a higher skill in rifles.

It was the one that Yamamoto was shot down by P-38s in. http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-air-su...enemy/betty.htm

A lot of what you just described was in Deus Ex and System Shock 2, among other games. Both of these games are some of the best games ever made in my opinion. There's also games like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and it's not uncommon for FPS games to hint at a romantic interest. What are you talking about? I immediately addressed the point you brought up right after I said irrelevant. In case you have forgotten, here's the statement: "Irrelevant. I was assessing your asinine interpretation that Hell Kitty was referring to our skills as magic casters when stating the term player skill. Look closely at what I wrote, I made no statement as to how things should or should not be. I'm not sure if it was strawman and obfuscation, or just some sort of mind boggling deduction on how you thought his comments about player skill referred to Furthermore, the fact that weapons aren't precisely accurate isn't a contradiction of player skill, even if you use your messed up interpretation of Hell Kitty's post. In fact, when dealing with a RPG elements such as in System Shock and Deus Ex, it demonstrates an excellent way to combine both player skill and character skill in a game. And in no way is this contradictory. Since my character has poor skill with a bow, it should take that into account with more random shot placement. Not "it only looks like you hit the opponent, but you actually didn't" that a game like Morrowind has. And this was after you already went off on your own little world by either intentionally misconstruing Hell Kitty's post to think he was talking about making sure there wasn't a contradiction between the skills the character uses and the supposed magic casting skills of the actual player, rather than the skills of the player actually playing the game, or if you just dropped the ball altogether. The fact that you went ranting on about how different game characters in a game like Day of Defeat Source have different accuracy ratings is somehow a contradiction when it's not. You were grasping at straws, and unfortunately came away with nothing. On a final note, if you wish to continue with your remarkable displays of maturity, do not bother with Post Scripts at the end of your message about how I allegedly cannot admit I am wrong and hence use the word irrelevant. Particularly seeing as you failed to respond to my post in kind, so it just makes you look that much more absurd. If you have any particular issue with me, don't be a coward bring it up in a post directly (preferably addressing the post in question), rather than as a footnote at the end of an unrelated post. Or use private messages.

Well, if you're using the environment for cover, then you'd be sneaking up on people unaware. The problem with that is scale though, and I'm not even sure it appropriately compares to the example I used. I still don't see the giant difference between you spending more time to aim because your skill is low (a consequence of having low skill), and spending more AP points to get an accurate shot. In both instances, you're spending more time in the game mechanics term. In Deus Ex, if I improve my skill with the gun, my likelihood of hitting stuff goes up, to the point where I can run around and accurately pick people off without spending much time aiming (I'm using less AP then). Just like how in a game like Jagged Alliance 2, where I don't need to spend as many action points to shoot someone in the head when running out of the corner. Or, like in Jagged Alliance 2, if I'm already shooting at someone, I need less AP to pull off an aimed shot, since I'm already aiming at my target. In moving your mouse to counteract the recoil though, you're going to have inconsistencies with your accuracy. Compare it to the recoiless full auto that you have with expert skill, and it's a world of difference (ignoring the damage bonuses you also get with improved skill).

Elitism is also saying stuff like "This is why I hate WoW" because of something a WoW player said regarding the alleged death of someone and somehow associating the blame of said event with WoW. You'd have been better off saying "This is why I hate stupid people with bad senses of humour" Nor does it mean otherwise. Volourn is quite correct with the people saying Game X sucks because it only has mass appeal is just as silly as Game X is good simply because it sold a lot. Driv3r sold a lot, but the consensus is that the game sucked, and cashed in on the franchise. World of Warcraft though, seems to be getting more positive recognition for its quality than negative people. Granted, these same people also awarded a game like Black & White a ton of praise when it was first released, but the "WOW factor" of World of Warcraft has worn off, and the word of mouth and critical success doesn't really seem to be waning. And these same people that have given out these awards are the same people that have given out critical acclaim to games like Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, and Planescape: Torment, all the while bashing the crap out of a game like Driv3r for being the cheesy cash-in that it was. Since you did research on it, could you give a quick description of the fundamental differences of a game like World of Warcraft and Everquest? Hopefully you still have your research project handy, as you could just copy-paste exceprts from it. And I don't know if I'd necessarily consider Navy Field to be an MMO.

What if the computer is able to modify it's own programming code?

Hahaha. The details are a bit hard to see, but most of those are single units of submarines. I also split up each transport evacuating from Java Island to make it harder for Japan's airforce (including these retarded Bettys that have either AP bombs or torpedos and a range of like 1000 miles....I'm guessing the Americans were crying for Nerf of it and the Zero to start the war). to isolate them. They were able to get one task force, a transport with a minesweeper. They're limping their way to Darwin, but I don't think they are going to make it. In other news, April marks the milestone of a refit for many ships. So a lot of my ships just got upgraded. Most upgrades consist of just upgraded AA weaponry, and many of my ships now have some form of RADAR, which I imagine will only help immensely. Unfortunately, I just had the ships set to auto update, and updating the ship causes a small amount of system damage, so most of my destroyers have about 15 system damage. Since I prefer to not send things out with more than 5 system damage, it means i have to repair these. Which means that the repairs on the BB Maryland, which had 99 system damage at Pearl Harbour, and is now only at 88 System Damage, is going to take even longer to update. Oh well. On the plus side, the extra AA from the fast cruisers and the Aircraft Carriers is only a bonus. Anything to stop those pesky Bettys!!!

That screenshot is also my submarine "minefield." It's a bit less useful now, but there was a ton of transport ships moving around in that area, as well as the main Japanese Carrier Task Force (though I don't think I ever got a submarine shot against. My commanders don't have high enough aggression to risk fighting through the picket of ASW escorts).

The mass evacuation of Soerabaja and middle Baja Island. I'm keeping troops station at Batavia on the north side for now, since there are still important flight ops going on out there.

If it wasn't for War in the Pacific, I would. All this talk of Deus Ex always has me wanting to play more Deus Ex :D

I doubt it'd be 1914 Total War. The Great War is a boring war. I wouldn't be as surprised if it was something Napoleonic though.

Not that safe of an assumption, really. In Realistic, hostile perception is somewhat more accurate than on lower difficulty levels. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I only ever played the game on Realistic difficulty. If you're getting close to the enemy, you're either using ballistic armor, chewing through medkits like they are going out of style, or coming up to him unaware. Even medkits might not be an option, as there are some rifles that will do over 100 pts of damage to JC. So if they hit you in the chest or the head, you're instantly dead. Even still, with the "player skill" adjusting for the wobbling scope, is that any different than say a turn based game allowing players to spend extra AP on aiming? And for adjusting the recoil of the SMG, that's nice and all, but there's still the fact that your gun's spray is going to be much wilder than had you had a high skill in the weapon. And my Expert Rifle skill guy can pull of headshots from the hip while jumping consistently After a while, there's no point in using the scope, as JC is just as accurate from the hip. And I can do this while engaged in a firefight with multiple badguys. While running around with low skill (and hence the wide crosshairs), you'll score some hits, but not nearly as much as when the things are so tight that the "moving" crosshairs are as tight as an untrained person is after waiting 5 seconds for the crosshairs to converge.

Mr. MacArthur will indeed! And no, this is just against the AI. If he were to get the game, I'd probably play as Japan since they have the historical disadvantage, and more micromanagement with industries and whatnot, and I've already played the game a bit. Though I believe he was commenting on it being too much time investment.

I think he's referring to your close range shots. If you get the close, it's a safe assumption that the guy is probably unaware, especially if you're playing on Realistic difficulty.

Irrelevant. I was assessing your asinine interpretation that Hell Kitty was referring to our skills as magic casters when stating the term player skill. Look closely at what I wrote, I made no statement as to how things should or should not be. I'm not sure if it was strawman and obfuscation, or just some sort of mind boggling deduction on how you thought his comments about player skill referred to Furthermore, the fact that weapons aren't precisely accurate isn't a contradiction of player skill, even if you use your messed up interpretation of Hell Kitty's post. In fact, when dealing with a RPG elements such as in System Shock and Deus Ex, it demonstrates an excellent way to combine both player skill and character skill in a game. And in no way is this contradictory. Since my character has poor skill with a bow, it should take that into account with more random shot placement. Not "it only looks like you hit the opponent, but you actually didn't" that a game like Morrowind has. No, it's because I was stating how poorly conceived Mortis Nai's argument was about Hell Kitty talking about how it should not contradict our "skill" at casting magic in real life. Look closely, I made no statement in that post about how things should or should not be in an RPG. So no, I'm not looking at them as action games. For reference, here's the post you two quoted: You can't seriously be that daft. Talk about taking things way too literally, especially considering the rest of Hell Kitty's post. Hell Kitty is talking about your skills as a game player, and the skills of the character. For example, a classic point of a contradiction was in Morrowind, when you could shoot someone with a bow and arrow point blank, but then your character's skill determined after the fact whether or not it actually was a hit. I can't really shoot a compound longbow, but if my skill as a player has me shoot an arrow (not a real arrow, but one in a video game, by using a mouse or some other form of input) and I see that arrow hit someone, but some bizarro mechanic says "nope, your skill wasn't good enough" then that's not a good thing. Mortis Nai somehow thought that Hell Kitty was talking about our skill as magic casters, not as gameplayers. That's just baffling.

All sorts of updates going on now. After the IJN bombarded Guadalcanal a few times, I sucked it up and brought those 4 battleships + change as I mentioned earlier. And a couple months later, the Japanese tried raiding it again, only to meet 16" and 14" batteries! While the Colorado (with the 16" guns) took heavy system damage, I didn't suffere a whole lot of flooding. I sunk one of their DDs, and made mincemeat out of one of the Japanese Battleships. I had hit it 4 times and caused heavy damage in the first encounter, and in the second encounter of the night, I got in another 3 hits and a torpedo as well. Many of the escort cruisers and destroyers had heavy fire damage and suffered many hits as well. Easily a tactical victory for the Allies. I also did another probe to the Marshall Islands, this time with 4 different aircraft carriers. Unfortunately, right when I got there, there were severe thunderstorms suspending flight operations. Since there were no flights either way, I stuck around, though I ended up losing my element of surprise that I would get from zooming in at high speed with the carriers. The Yorktown took 5 torpedo hits and was at 80% flooding. I switched all of my fighters to Combat Air Patrol (CAP), and covered the Yorktown as it limped away, dispatching the 3 repair ships from Pearl. The fire damages were quickly put out, but the flooding damage, while dipping at first, steadily started to increase, even with the repair ships attached to it. When it finally made it to Pearl, it was at 92% flooding. Now that it's at Pearl though, the flooding is going down by about 5 points per day. After that, it's off to San Francisco for heavy repairs. I have also been pushed completely out of Burma, and have Chinese Forces on the East Border, and Indian/British forces at the North Border. The big problem is that the only way to get decent supply lines if from the south through Malaya and Siam, both owned and operated by the IJN. I'm hoping on cutting through the middle of Burma with the Chinese troops (and the Burmaese troops that retreated over the Burma road) to cut the supply lines of any troops to the North. Unfortunately supplies are an issue, so I started flying supplies in over the blockaded Burma road into Yunan directly. These transport craft will be instrumental to my operation in Burma, which is not able to be supplied directly from either China or India. The roads are too crappy, and just mere trails. Optimally I'd love to take back Rangoon, as all supplies north must go through the hex just north of it. But Recon missions over Rangoon show 12 infantry divisions. I guess that's not happening any time soon. I have also started the full evacuation of planes from south Java Island. The Japanese have landed significant troops there, and the air units are just too precious. Unfortunately I can't get too much to India, but I can get most of them to Australia. I also found the upgrade aircraft function, and apparently I checked off "User Defined Aircraft Upgrades" which is nice, as it allows me to replace some of the really obsolete units in Australia. Australia also got a squadron of Kittyhawk fighters, which I zipped over to Guadalcanal, and have been instrumental in turning back Japanese air raids and protecting convoys at port unloading their supplies. It's now April 1st, and the Philippines is still holding off. Though their time is numbered. They are significantly entrenched, so I can cause casualties to the Japanese fights, but most of their casualties are just disablements, rather than outright kills. Since they are now completely out of supply, every hit against me results essentially in a death, since I do not have the supplies to return disabled units to the battle. This is on top of the natural attrition I get from being out of supply. GG guys, you put up a valiant fight and helped buy me some time. Perhaps keeping those troops occupied is what will help me hold Guadalcanal.

Let's not kid ourselves, Sony would LOVE to have WoW's numbers. Or even Lineage's or Final Fantasy XI's. Considering WOW pretty much was released head-to-head against the company with the reigning MMORPG champion and their EQ2, I don't think it's a stretch to say EQ2 was a failure. Unless Sony was content with EQ2 not having as many players as EQ1. Somehow I doubt that. Guaranteed that WOW's success has other MMO makers green with envy. And when people start tossing out the "Lowest Common Denominator" it (as other people have stated) makes them elitist. It seriously sounds a lot like sour grapes. They're favourite MMORPG isn't the biggest. People that liked the SEGA Genesis used to nitpick small details of how crappy the Super Nintendo was, and vice versa. As for the "challenge," the biggest "challenge" I typically received in EQ was waiting for a mob to spawn and hoping there wasn't a party wipe. Because if we died and someone else got the mob, we're waiting virtually for days. Unfortunately, I was unable (and unwilling) to bring glass jars into the room with me to defacate into so I wouldn't miss the spawn while I was in the bathroom. Besides, it's not like Kel'Thuzad is a slouch. And it should even satisfy the "hardcore" that love the time investment since you need to spend assloads of time finding the consumables in order to stay alive during the raid.

You can't seriously be that daft. Talk about taking things way too literally, especially considering the rest of Hell Kitty's post. Hell Kitty is talking about your skills as a game player, and the skills of the character. For example, a classic point of a contradiction was in Morrowind, when you could shoot someone with a bow and arrow point blank, but then your character's skill determined after the fact whether or not it actually was a hit. I can't really shoot a compound longbow, but if my skill as a player has me shoot an arrow (not a real arrow, but one in a video game, by using a mouse or some other form of input) and I see that arrow hit someone, but some bizarro mechanic says "nope, your skill wasn't good enough" then that's not a good thing.

Excellent points.

Check out that FAQ I linked to earlier. It has a way to unlock the factions.