alanschu

So by that analogy, 5th edition Call of Cthulhu also has a "counter-intuitive" system when you have to roll 1d100 equal to or BELOW your percentile score in the relevant skill? Sorry, but I don't agree - whether a bonus should make the value go up or down is completely dependent on the game mechanics. I don't think you can generalize that broadly. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> When talking about "intuitiveness" you have to generalize broadly. Because what is, or is not, intuitive depends a lot on the affordances that you get from your society. Your percentiles scores is also not a good one. For example, standardized testing places people in percentiles. Some in the 99th percentile is on average in a room of 100 people, superior to 99 of them. Furthermore, you are talking about a specific mechanic, which isn't as analogous to THAC0 or AC. Sure, you have to roll a 1d100 below that skill. Without any experience from Call of Cthulhu, your description has already matched what my expectations of skill values would mean....a higher value is superior. With THAC0, it's not about the mechanic of rolling the die and figuring out what to do from there. It's about what the value represents. In AD&D, a lower value represents an increased ability. In Call of Cthulhu, imagine skill X and two people, A and B. Person A has a value of 60 for skill X, person B has a value of 40. Given that I have never played the game, my natural instinct would be to assume that the person with skill 60 is better at that skill than person B and their value of 40. All the rolling the die does is provide a mechanic for applying that skill. Given the percentile analogy, and how examples of percentiles exist outside of the game environment, it's actually pretty inuitive.

Hmmm....do you know what...probably. I had very briefly played FF2 (4) on a friend's Super Nintendo, but not too in depth. I doubt I knew what "RPG" meant at the time. I remember immediately falling in love with the world of U6, even though I didn't really know how to play the game. When Ultima VII came out, I asked my Dad for a PC to play it on (until then, my "PC" gaming was all Apple...Apple II and the Mac). 386/SX 16 MHz for the win! (though it was slow for U7). Of course there's explaining the rules of combat and all of that jazz that would take time. I'd be surprised if you had to explain more than once that an item with AC 8 is superior to an item of AC 4. That's what I did....though also some friends (unfamiliar with D&D). Mine may have been too biased, or maybe not explicit enough. I didn't go into armor class, but it was just "Person A has an 'Attack rating' of 10, and person B has an 'Attack Rating' of 8. Who is the more powerful attacker?" I never once had someone say person B :\ (I only asked 6 people). Maybe it would be better to combine it with other aspects, and try to remove any element I may have. Even then, you have people that, when asked a bizarre question, often expect the question to be a trick one. Removing experimenter bias is a pain in the butt though. Just to be clear, I'm not saying AD&D is complicated. Just not as intuitive (which is pretty much the ability to make a decision without any rationality). Once you recognize the way the THAC0 works, it's pretty easy to use.

Was the "full auto" mode always in. It's been a while since I played and I don't remember it...just the burst fire.

According to Moby Games, Brian was lead designer, but Sid was still a designer.

I have noticed that a lot of her soldiers drop night goggles and even UV goggles.

I used to just go in pairs on hide on the roof with spotters. Much less viable now.

Sid is managing the entire studio of Firaxis I believe. Though I think he had "final say" on anything to make sure it kept an appropriate Civ style of gameplay. He really liked the innovations IIRC. I thought Alpha Centauri was a Brian Reynolds/Sid Meier co-op project?

That's what happened to Barry. He was up on a rooftop and a guy climbed up behind him and shot him in the back with a Spaz-15. Fortunately my sniper rifle headshotted him (and he teetered off the roof and feel down for an extra 100 damage....it was cool!). MD then performed emergency procedures as Scope and I maintained cover. I now am using Grizzly (and his Benelli Super 90 shotgun with Duckbill) on close range flanking coverage, as well as Ira. No more sneaking up behind me.

Heh, do you lurk on their forums as well?

Yeah, I was thinking about that. Though with Scope and myself with UV goggles, it's less of a problem now. Plus I'm level 4, so I can get more interrupts myself as well.

Sid didn't make the game, though most "civfanatics" prefer Civ 4. The only ones I've seen that do not like Civ 4 try to play Civ 4 as if it is Civ 3.

I've only played the demo, but I thought it had some disturbing scenes. And I didn't really find Bloodlines all that blood and gory either, outside of the stealth kills.

Hehehe.

http://games.softpedia.com/get/Mods-Addons...nce-2-Mod.shtml

The problem with the high ground is that the guy still rush you there. They like to hang out on the roof tops themselves. It worked really well for the warehouse district, as only a handful were on the rooftops. The prison was insane, with me killing at least 60%-70% of the guys on the rooftop (i.e. they were ON the rooftop). If it wasn't for Night Ops +UV Goggles, I doubt I would have stood a chance. I typically do try to get on the rooftop, as it usually seems darker (out of street lights), and you do get a bonus for attacking down (according to a FAQ I read anyways). Apparently there's a rooftop sniping feat (that we can't get with the questionnaire though) that provides additional bonuses for rooftop sniping.

The Merc with phat equipment is less important definitely. The G41 provides a limited advantage, as the game doesn't scale the difficulty as much in terms of what your guys are fiighting. I'm not fighting with just pistols at the beginning. Though I could probably still do well without the drop all. Every battle with 20+ guys leaves mountains of weapons on the ground. The only real purpose of Bobby Ray's is to get special ammo and equipment (toolkits and stuff). A few guys I have fought have already had Spectra Vests and Spectra helmets.

My tactics are to never leave a team undefended. I also am conservative with my Mercs, because I'd rather they didn't die. Being that I went for a high quality guy first didn't help either, as it left me with virtually no money at the beginning of the game, and I didn't feel like assaulting the SAM Site with a group of three. Even with Night Ops x2, I'd have too few people to stop the swarm of guys coming at me. The mod has seemed to have created a ton of guys though. When raiding the Alma prison, as well as the warehouse, had easily around 20 soldiers....maybe more. Also, when I captured the SAM Site I stuck around to recover from wounds, repair looted items, and train milita. It's a good thing I stuck around too, as that black ops team got there real quick and I had only been able to train one group of militia.

This is the "great" thing about statistics. Especially of goalies. The reason why Ray Emery has a much worse GAA and SV% than Hasek is because he had an 8 goal against game. Given he played a handful of games, it's not surprising he has inflated stats. Prior to his past couple of games, he had a GAA of 2.27 and a save percentage of .920. A couple of bad games, and suddenly he's not even in the same "stratosphere." Ray Emery had also set the record for the most consequtive wins by a goalie to start his career. You guys place waaaaaaay too emphasis on statistics. Watching the goalies play is so much more. I know that that is not possible (I have limited exposure to Lundqvist), but stats only tell so much...and often not very much. There's a reason why Luongo was picked for the Olympic team with lesser stats than Fernandez or Legace. There's also a reason why teams everywhere are interested in the prospect of Luongo being traded, and not so much a Manny Fernandez. Goalie stats are the most bizarre because a tiny bad stretch can make numbers look bigger, whereas a hot streak makes the numbers look way more impressive. Ty Conlin seemed like a solid goalie at the end of the previous season, because the team in front of him was playing absolutely on fire. And it's no surprise that Emery was able to go undefeated in his short career for so long playing on a powerful team like Ottawa. I mean, the Rangers should put in Chris Holt! He hasn't even been scored on!

To be honest I didn't even read the link....I just saw "Disappearing Tanks" and though C&C.

I'm pretty sure the winners simply make a cut, at which point the modules are reviewed by Kevin Barrett and Dave Gaider.

I stop to train the militia to max capacity. Plus, my encounters in the mine level of Drassen, and especially the SAM Site, left me pretty battered so I needed to heal up. Alma was also tough as I almost lost a few mercs (Barry was "dying" at one point). I also couldn't do much on day 2 as I had like $800. So I'd have to walk there, in a wounded condition.

It's not for the faint of heart.

If you want to compare backups, you shouldn't compare to Flordia's. Florida has won zero games with Luongo out of net. At least the Rangers are capable of actually winning with Weekes in net. Of all goalies in the league with a .910 save percentage or better, only three have records below .500 - Luongo, Roloson, and Huet. Luongo is the only #1 goalie out of those three. The other two are backups (well, Roloson is 1B I guess). He's also the only starting goalie with a goals against average less than three, that does not have a winning record. The only other starting goalies that have better than .900 save percentage with a losing record are on hideous teams: Fleury, Kolzig (just hit .900) and Denis. And when goalies start putting up GAA of 2.00 (in today's NHL), it's not just the goalie that is responsible.

You're pretty generous with your scores. I've noticed interesting distributions of points handed out that are always quite heavily tilted towards 7-8 as the mean. No one feels good about handing out that 2 or 3. 1 is actually a lot easier. On a scale from 1-10, the most common values are 10, 9, 8, 7 and 1

I figured Jedi Academy was ripe for an expansion, especially if they assumed Jaden was evil.