alanschu

Sorry, but how exactly does any of that have to do with the when the projects started, years ago? I think the only people more bitter are the ones that play the other MMOs that they prefer, and are annoyed with how wildly successful WoW is.

I'm familiar with the term 'Nip" as well. Though I'm not as familiar with the term 'jap' being affectionate. And Singapore as become an annoying base for which the Bettys can bomb me and cause heavy damages to my airfields in the dutch east indies!!!

Actually I doubt that sales would see any appreciable change. I'd be surprised if there were enough people hung up on whether or not a game was first person or third person.

Kids these days probably don't really know nor care much about James Brown.

Unfortunately those little details like time and money come into play.

What?

Oh yes, no peripheral vision really makes the immersion feel like I am playing a "role." <{POST_SNAPBACK}> But seeing behind you is A-OK!

Final Fantasy 7 was fairly well balanced. Each map was a puzzle in and of itself, there was a sense of exploration and adventure, there was just enough playing the game and just the right amount of watching an "Interactive story book" and man, what a story to interact with. I think nostalgia may be slanting your perspective. I loved the game too, but if you step back and look at it, it's a pretty straight forward game. Any sense of exploration and adventure likely came into how large the game was. Outside of acquiring Vincent and Yuffie, there really isn't a whole lot of exploration in the game. And each map (I'm assuming you mean each area, as in a collection of individual maps) being a puzzle in and of itself is being somewhat generous IMO. Again, it seems to me like the nostalgia of the experience is winning over. The game was more about Sephiroth than it was about Cloud. The big thing about the game was the huge WOW factor when it came out. But show me some RPGs where you don't move things along. You're placing your personal subjective bias on something that can't really be quantified. Combat was not challenging, and even the harder fights were little more than figuring out what spell was appropriate to use. And if you were still having trouble, it was easily remedied by wandering around aimlessly fighting random encounters. Given the 1000s of fights in the game, I can't honestly remember there being 100 fights that required a particularly large amount of thought. Unfortunately, the ones that were the most diifficult typically seemed to come after lengthy dialogue sequences, so dying meant enduring it all again. I never once said Linear is bad. You were talking about "dumbing things down" and how games today have no choice, and then proceeded to state how a game that pretty much had zero choice is still significantly better than most other games. I tried to pick a map that contained actual characters in it. Posting screenshots of prerendered backgrounds or prerendered videos are poor representations of graphics (as an aside, it did have people talking about the "awesome" graphical capabilities of the PSX). It was always funny coming back to the in game characters after a FMV sequence, or even combat itself. Given FF8 was able to have much better looking characters, it seemed more like an artistic choice. It wasn't one I was fond of (though I may be in the minority, as I remember a lot of people complaining about the character models in FF8. Big giant blocks for hands I figured you did, when you started critcizing "modern RPGs" about their lack of choice. I have nothing against a linear game. I'd rather have the more linear and streamlined Baldur's Gate 2, than the more open and exploratation friendly Baldur's Gate 1.

I'm betting he'll be remembered as the Godfather of Soul.

Wooo, my first successul night strike with torpedoes. And it hit a good target! While not shown here, hitting Carriers also adds plane damage, and can also suspend it's flight operations, so hopefully they'll be a little less annoying over in this area!

I don't know if I'd be able to say that EQ2 was in development longer than WOW. And from people that I know that did play SWG, it sounds like a lot of the revamping they did seemed inspired by WOW.

It's probably more the right-wing captialists that want to market the game to as many people as possible, so as to make as much money as possible, that would be to blame.

Kind of funny how you go on about how games have become more mainstream, appeal to the lowest common denominator, and how things are all different, then talk about how "sad" it is that you have to play arguably the most popular and most well known RPG in gaming. Talk about stripping out things like choice, then talk about how one of the most linear (albeit long) game "blows away" other RPG games. In fact, I tend to think that FF7 is partly to blame for how the RPG genre has progressed. I'm a bit surprised about your comments about the graphics as well. If not for the prerendered backgrounds, the only thing redeeming about the games graphics would be found in the FMV sequences. Even compared to other PSP games, I'd rate its graphical quality as subpar. I found it subpar when I first played the game. I still remember laughing when I saw the "real" Cloud jump out of the train, especially right after the super cool FMV sequence to start the game off! I enjoyed the game, and even went through all the tediousness of getting the Knights of the Round materia, and defeated both the Ruby and the Emerald Weapons. I really enjoyed the music, especially the Jenova theme. But to complain about the simplicity of current RPGs, and criticize the lack of choice, you could probably do better than Final Fantasy VII as an example. A game that was rarely challenging, certainly didn't require much of the thought that Kalfear was talking about missing, and almost as linear as they come.

Not true...Relic have already released a first class WW2 RTS Company of Heroes along with the DoW expansion Dark Crusade, effectively going into competition with themselves which might not have been the best plan since they're both very good games. The most eyebrow-raising news is that one of their next projects is a MMORPG...although thinking about it now it's probably a Warhammer game so you could be right. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Except that Company of Heroes is basically Dawn of War set in World War 2.

Well, the Japanese are trying to invade some key islands in the Dutch East Indies, which complicates things. They are proving very useful, especially Java Island, since it has a naval port capable of reloading submarines. I also scored my first real big hit of the war. Reports are that CVL Ryuko is at the bottom of the ocean. The cool thing was that I hit it with an attack about a week ago. I also had an excellent bombing run against an escort carrier. Anything to keep Japanese planes out of the sky. In Burma, it seems as though I will lose Mandalay. The 2 Armored divisions, and one Armor brigade could not get there in time (no railroads over the hills from India into Burma), so I'm falling back to the borders of India. Both choke points involve having to cross a river, which causes heavy disruption to attacking forces. Plus I have reinforced that part of the border quite well now, with more troop still coming from Karach. When I get a larger force amassed, I'm hoping to push back into Mandalay. I sent out two probes from PH to the Marshall Islands, and met with pretty solid success! One of their islands has a rather beefy garrison, and quite a few ships nearby. The first probe involved the CV Lexington and CV Enterprise. While Enterprise took a single torpedo hit, damage was not too severe. Both carriers launched air raids in the morning and the afternoon. I didn't get within range for my torpedo bombers, but the SBD Dauntless Dive Bomber carries a 1000 lb General Purpose Bomb, which can do a number on pretty much any ship. Hit a fair number of cruisers, a battleship, as well as some transports. Since the Enterprise took a hit, planes were no longer able to land there, so they had to land on the Lexington. Unfortunately this put the Lexington over maximum capacity for aircraft, so flight operations are suspended. So I recalled both back to Pearl Harbour. As that probe was coming in, I sent out another two Carrier Task Forces, one with the Saratoga and another containing the Yorktown. Yorktown's Torpedo Bomber group was substituted out for another Dive Bombing Dauntless airgroup. The first wave had a light cruiser take 15 bomb hits. I don't expect it to last the night. A separate attack was against 4 tankers, that saw every ship get hit with at least 1 bomb, and two with 5 hits. Those two that got hit 5 times also took 1 and 2 torpedo hits each from Saratoga's Devastators. The New Orleans Cruiser took a torpedo and has been separated from Yorktown's task force. Hit has some pretty heavy damage, so I'm sending out a repair ship to rendezvous with it en route to Pearl. All in all both probes were quite successful. In order to avoid any surface combat, I've decided to pull back both TFs. Recon shows a lot of heavier capital ships in the region, and I'd rather their main gun batteries never get a shot at my carriers. I expect to make another probe though shortly afterwards, perhaps adding the Lexington to the mix as well. Guadalcanal had a shipment of an Base Division intercepted as they were being unloaded. A task force consisting of CAs and CLs did a shore bombardment, and engaged transports in the area. They did this a second time, so I've sent 4 BBs and 2 CAs from Pearl Harbour, and 1 CA and CL from Sydney. A few of the BBs are Colorado class, which are slower pre-war BBs, but have decent AA ratings and big 16" main guns (because the 14" ones on the Pennsylvania Class BBs are just *so* useless ). Here's hoping that port raider encounters a fleet consisting of those heavy ships. Unfortunately, work on the airfield has been slow (and it didn't already have one on it), so the only planes I can fly out of there at the moment are the Catalinas, which are capable of landing on the water. While typically a scout plane, I have them set to night time naval attacks, in hopes of getting an attack off on that fleet. I've yet to see a night attack show any real success (I had some NIght Bombers near Borneo score some hits with some weak 100 lb bombs), the primary load out of the Catalina is a pair of torpedoes, so if they can score a hit it should be rather devastating.

Marc Joanette seems to have our number.

SINGAPORE FALLS! After 1.5 months of hard fighting, the Japanese finally broke through, and 50,000 troops were forced to surrender. The super carrier fleet also happened to stay at the base one day, which resulted in the utter devastation of on bombing run. Over 20 planes all lost, and all I had to show for it was a single downed zero. I now have that whole area laced with submarines, and there aren't very many hexes that they can get through without encountering some sort of submarine attack. Unfortunately, it's still early war and while I've been somewhat happy with the success my submarines have had, many of my torpedoes are duds. But any successful hit I can get makes me a happy man! I also have the odd Light Cruiser in the area, but I only employ hit and run at night. The Japanese have brought some planes to the island of Borneo, as well as Singapore. Speaking of Singapore, I had left the port there heavily mined, and by my account I have sunk another two ships long after I have left. Just a bunch of crappy DDs and coastal gunboats, but both of those are armed with depth charges, so I'm actually happy. More happy time for my subs. I have also learned that you can set attack runs at the fun altitude of 100 feet. This means that the planes can also strafe the boats. Not likely to sink anything, but if I'm lucky I can inflict some system damage, and perhaps future runs not have to worry about as much AA fire. It also looks funny to see "Shells hit 35" as each strafing run is considered a "shell." Troops from western India have finally arrived at the Burma border, and some infantry divisions, as well as one armored division, are heading to Mandalay, preparing for an assault on Rangoon. If I can take back Rangoon, it opens up a solid rail line back down into Malaysia and Singapore, as well as into Indochina and Siam (I'll have to cut through Siam). My Aviation divisions also just arrived in Eastern India, so I have a large airbase to perform recon and air support for some of the Japanese troops heading into Burma. And the Philippines is still holding on. We have similar numbers, but I tend to do double the damage (an estimate on my part though, those numbers could be wrong....I once saw an assessment of the enemy say they have 8 guns, and then destroyed an estimated 12 guns in the battle!) that they do to me in the bombardments that fly back and forth. Most of the lighter ships (CAs and CLs) from Pearl Harbour are almost done repairs in Los Angeles, while the medium damaged BBs are making steady progress in San Francsico. Two of the heavier damaged BBs in Pearl Harbour have been repaired enough that I feel comfortable sending them back to San Francisco. There's still two that have absolutely insane damage. They are solid enough AA platforms, so I'd like to include them in some of my Carrier task forces. And it seems as though I maxed out on fuel in Pearl Harbour, at 999999, so I've started sending it in a loooooooong round about way to Australia.

What is MOO then? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Older School goodness.

VGA Planets! :D

Moo2 is old school awesomeness!

Ban please!

All in all, I have been happy with the play of the Oilers the past few games. Horcoff is starting to get points now too. Slowly but surely, the players that got off to a slow start are starting to get back into the swing of things.

Well, I didn't get any confirmed kills, but I know I did hit a few of their carriers. By my account it looks like I did heavy damage to two light carriers, and some damage to a fleet carrier. One of them in particular was hit with I think 4 torpedoes over the course of a few days, as well as numerous bombs (though typically just 100 lb and 250 lb bombs, so they wouldn't have done too much damage, though may have caused additional damage to the fighter squadrons). A few destroyers were unfortunate enough to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time as well, so I'm thinking I won't need to worry about them again. My Light Carrier Fleet had the HMS Revenge battleship take two torpedoes, but fortunately the damage was minimal. That fleet his headin to Sri Lanka to top off repairs. I just got two battleships this past day as well, a New Mexico class in San Francisco, and a Royal Sovereign class in Karach, India. They are both older (i.e. slower) battleships, but with the Arizona just finishing up its repairs, I'll have 3 Battleships ready for action at Pearl Harbour in a few days. Repairs in San Francisco on 3 other BBs are going nicely, and the a pair of cruisers just finished repairs in Los Angeles, and will be executing the CV Yorktown to Hawaii. Singapore continues to hold on, but I don't think it will for much longer. The AI is starting to get more assault advantage, and has now surpasses my assault value. The force in the Phillipines however, despite being limited in supplies, is fortified enough in Bataan that it seems to be inflicting more and more casualties with each attack the Japanese try to make. They tried a few assaults, but were beaten handily, and have resorted to going back to bombardment attacks. The Allied forces there consistently inflict more damage than the Japanese force though, and they are both similar in size. They have more guns, but I have bigger guns! I also had the pleasure of witnessing one of their troop transports run into a mine just off its coast! I also sunk a transport off the coast of Indochina, which apparently had troops in it (most of my transport casualties seem to "only" be the boats). It resulted in a rather morbid sound effect, as you hear gurgling water with mean screaming. I'll take it! Still only two months into the war, but I've started to fortify Guadalcanal. The only thing really left for me to do there is to send some airplanes, and maybe a few more troops. It won't be a naval base for quite some time though, as my best source of fuel, the US mainland, would have to cut through a few Japanese islands likely with airfields. I can get supplies fairly easily from Australia, and I can safely send large quantities of supplies, and some fuel, from India, but those land on the West side of Australia, so they'll still need to be transported to the east side.

I won't dispute that. Hurlshot was talking about some of the foundations of religion, and those foundations do transcend mere diety worship. I'd be surprised if some of the guidelines non-religious people strive to achieve haven't been promoted and engrained into society through religion. You could probably also argue the other way as well.

I think the Smart Gun is an MG42, and the Pulse Rifle a Thompson submachine gun.