Tale

Wake up, thread! It's here. The first day of National Novel Writing Month. I guess this means I need to make a more serious effort than I had been the past couple weeks.

Also, Halo 4 reviews are dropping. IGN Games Radar Polygon Destructoid Giant Bomb Overwhelmingly positive. I was going to skip this one, but several of the reviews speak of the campaign as the best in the franchise. I've always found their campaigns to be remarkable with the usual caveat that I hate every flood level ever made, so that means something to me.

Dreamfall sequel announced from Tornquist's new studio. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee Here's the press release from Funcom.

This doesn't seem legitimately relevant to Project Eternity. Just a thinly veiled complaint about game journalism and accusations of general bribery. A topic on expectations for how reviewers might react to Project Eternity could fit in here, but how much you hate IGN and think they all take bribes seems more appropriate for computer and console, n'est-ce pas?

Assassin's Creed III. I'm still in the prologue... I seriously don't understand why the game was built this way. It's not offensive, it's just boring. Haythem gets no upgrades, one side mission that I don't even know if I can actually complete yet, no customization (does Conner get customization like Ezio had?). I'm just running around as a guy who is way overdressed for hiding in bushes. At least he gets a cast, but only two of them are worth remembering the names of.

As I understand it, Disney didn't really want to do JC to begin with. It was in the director's contract that he would get to. Still, I don't know if it's a "failure." It was a late bloomer and made a profit in later showings. And seemed to be doing fairly well on home release. Though my info on that is anecdotal, the Blockbuster I tried renting it from told me that everyone kept buying the rental copies after watching it.

Barbarians perturb me. They wear hide armor for no reason other than because their primitive tribal society did not make any better. You can come up with all sorts of justifications with mechanical ties for how they can, in spite of that limitation, excel. But I can't think of a single justification with mechanical ties for why they would continue to do so outside the context of a society that simply can't create better armor. And it's good for me to type that out, because usually after I type "I would never!" or "I don't see how..." is when ideas on the subject start coming to me. Edit: Perhaps it could simply be a damage/defense tradeoff for barbarians. Heavy armor limits their damage output by some fashion. But still allows them to function in a different, but equal, role. I guess that means their archetypal presentation would be more of a damage dealer than a meatshield. Is that comfortable for fans of the class? Maybe.

Thank you.

You don't understand... It's made by a Marvel competitor, The Star Wars EU is not made by a marvel competitor. The publisher is largely Del Ray. Marvel has even published some themselves. http://starwars.wiki...r_Wars_(Marvel) Whoever publishes it, it's still owned by LucasFilm. There's no reason to end the tie-in merchandise, which is precisely what the EU is. They may kill the Dark Horse deal, but Dark Horse doesn't own the EU.

Are you under the impression that Extended Universe is fan material? It has about as much chances of disappearing as Marvel comics.

Nope. I think they just didn't want to pay the model for his likeness any more. Like why they got rid of Kirsten Bell.

I caved and purchased Assassin's Creed 3. I was upset about Revelations and their desire to drag it out forever, but I've decided I trust them enough to make a good story out of Conner and maybe finish Desmond without butchering a decent plot too badly.

I'm hoping they can. This is the big thing I would like to see come out of this.

The Star Wars EU already became a bit of a mess from overexposure and too many cooks. So I'm not all that bothered by the possibility of a bi-yearly milking. If it ends up with more consistency than the old canon, it'd be a godsend. Though I am more than sympathetic to the idea of letting things go. I'm generally pretty disrespectful of any franchise that outstays its welcome, and the Star Wars EU is one of my inspirations for that opinion.

So, not any worse than the new Clone Wars series?

Pick a source, any source. Depending on your opinion of the current state of Star Wars, this might be considered good or bad. There's an episode 7 planned for 2015. Found the press release.

Farscape Doctor Who Babylon Five Deep Space Nine Firefly House MD Some mix of Stargate SG-1/Atlantis Even the filler was good. It's just the filler is harder to enjoy now that I've watched it all 6 times. And the non-filler is still my favorite show of all time. From the attack on the shadow depository to sabotaging Scorpius' command carrier (Talyn :'( ). And Scorpius joining the crew.

Avoiding respec applies more weight to the choices. Similar to how allowing you to make/unmake/remake plot based decisions would make them all seem less significant. Being able to alter choices makes choices into exploratory trials. There's already a system you can use for trying out character builds in the adventurer's hall.

They can be. The players won't accept that blame, however. Randomness disconnects choice from consequence. Because the choice isn't the final arbiter, the randomness is. What is the effect you're trying to get here? If you simply wish to make downsides for ideal options, simply include downsides. Why make it random?

Considering that magic healing wasn't that powerful in D&D, I'm not sure I see the confusion. It took what, level 5 before a Cleric could heal even "moderate" wounds? Nobody was magically reattaching severed limbs or anything like that at those levels, yet the adventurers didn't drop dead from raiding your average goblin camp. Taking a wound doesn't represent having an axe lodged in your skull. Even HP was already an abstract involving luck and fatigue.

I wish the system was flexible enough that respecialization was simply never needed. That's my ideal. Every attribute point, every skill selected, has viable utility towards progression. It's a bit of a pipedream, I understand that. But I still ask that it be aimed for as far as is reasonable. Beyond that, I would prefer that a few screwups in the character build should be able to be made up with party composition, assuming you're not actively trying to sabotage the entire group's build. And assuming you're playing on normal.

Which one? I liked the framing in 1, 2, and Brotherhood. Revelations was just terrible. I'm not familiar with how 3 works out, just how it ends.

I prefer feat selection. Talent trees tend to be too restrictive and with wildly varying utility to the talent selection.

The mage solution is terrible not because it's predictable, but because it is superior. They should be equivalent. Like, maybe you go to get the mages, and the boy kills his own mother. Hey, your hands are clean and you didn't have to kill anyone. And the boy may be yet saved! But... hoooo boy. I mean, that brings up a lot of interesting questions. Is it okay just because your hands are clean? Do you want to burden a child with that knowledge? etc. If it's predictable, then you have to take responsibility. You can't just blame it on randomness. Random outcomes to choices simply have no power. Because the player can dismiss them. "It's not my fault." They take the risk because the random element is to blame, not their choosing. If you want consequences, they need to be assured and known.

There are a dozen ways to do it. You can have fun with it. For example, write a sequence with lots of stuff happening in it. Don't explain WTF is happening, just write the scene. Then chop that scene in half. Start at the second half. It might be an argument, a sword fight, a car crash... anything. Start your novel there and frame the narrative from that point onwards. Let the rest back-fill naturally. This will work better with some genres than others. The other one I use all the time is to write three chapters then switch them around, a variation on a theme. My latest submission does this (I swapped chapter two for three and got rid of a whole lot of exposition). If you send me a chapter I will happily read it as a completely impartial observer. Thanks for the offer. By the time I get around to it, I'll probably forget. I'm still completely new to actually writing prose. I did figure out how to do my first chapter too. It's kind of silly because it's the actual beginning of the story I had planned. But my original plan was to use it as a flashback, so I never considered it. The new structure abandons flashbacks altogether and that's probably for the best.