melkathi

Your internet ran past you, only stopping for a moment to say "Meep meep" ?

Ok, going to post a Defiance screenshot so I can reply to the "simplyfication" discussion without feeling guilty I have less and less patience to spend too much time searching. I don't need a light-trail to guide me places, but I do want at least some sort of reference. Currently playing Defiance, where some of the daily contracts can be Kill Raider Blasters at Farms. Just that the farms aren't labeled on the map. So you have to search for / remember the location of the two or three farms that are under raider attack or have been taken over by raiders. Fair enough. A bit annoying that raiders killed in the fields just outside the farms don't count. They have to be at the farms themselves. But fair enough. When it tells you to kill x number of enemy type y in the Sausalito area, but the game does not indicate when you have changed area from Sausalito to Marin... that is annoying. Anyway, the screenshot:

Meh, then you'll have to type it outside the game and copy/paste it Or join the chat channel, then I can see your info there and post your complete name here (if you aren't sure what your handle is) for people to add you (you know the "In soviet russia you didn't add friends, friends added you" line...)

And once an MMO has been out for a while there is no soul in sight when you do these

When you hit level 15 you unlock the foundry. The foundry is like many mod tool kits, it allows you to make full adventures. It includes many, if not all, of the assets from the game. You can script conversations, encounters, etc. Then the adventures are made available to the public via the in-game job boards. I don't know what the approval process for adventures is like, if there is one, since I'm yet to finish making an adventure. It's a really cool feature, and, frankly, all games should do it. Access to it will be pay though after launch if I am not mistaken.

They have usermade content in STO as well if I remember correctly. Kinda had to - community pressured them a lot since CoH had the mission architect.

Earthalan, your formers could raise and lower levels as well (though most people, myself included, just put them on auto). It was a slow process, but I doubt anyone plays this kind of game for speed. Tectonic payloads on missiles were a lot of fun as well: drop a terraforming payload near a city and watch it suddenly be by the sea. And then, Earthalan, there was the whole fungus planting and removing and of course fungal payload missiles - now those were fun.

The strong underlying narrative is very important. As is its, inmy opinion, subtle presentation with different bits of story triggering through different... erm triggers (for example your first ever mindworm unit you trained yourself being killed by an opposing faction triggering the revenge story and adding the setting that the next city you conquer from that faction is renamed in the dead unit's memory). Beside that: The attention given to faction and faction leader personalities The social engineering The unit customization Terraforming Diplomacy - politics - voting in the council The decission to include real world politics/political views and have them interwoven with all aspects of the game. I fall right into the validation of your theory though I guess: to me narrative is extremly important. Yes I could get all that from a new setting. But that goes for any sequel, no? This is a setting that I enjoyed a lot. Probably my favourid setting in PC gaming that was created for a particular game. (I would have loved a Dune MMO or a Dune rpg, before Brian Herbert took the setting out back into a dark, smelly alley and shot it in the back of the head) Right now there are two games I would pay to have made sequels to, even at an early stage: Alpha Centauri, Alpha Protocol (and I just noticed the pattern there...) And one game I'd love a modern remake for: Magic of Endoria I am not sure if I should add Syndicate to either of those.

Seriously? I'd back a sepparate crowd fund just for them obtaining the rights.

Watch it mister, you already are walking on thin ice having admitted to being the reason we wont get an Alpha Centauri 2

First edition didn't really need it. It was fully compatible with WH40k: Rogue Trader, and first edtion fantasy battle up to part of third edition. Thus the old Realm of Chaos books for example could be used for all. It is only halfway through 3rd ed Fantasy Battle and with the 2nd ed of 40k that everything was segregated. At that time GW made the shift to focus only on minis, so the RP got left to rot.

In Champions Online additional character slots are a micro-transaction with one character slot being gained in-game each time you reach max level on a character (I think I am at 22 char slots right now, one of the guys is trying to reah 100). I suppose it will not be friendlier in NWO.

In other words you are the reason we can't have nice things.

Seems like some people are engaging in erotic RP just outside the screenshot. The character has noticed even though Bokishi hasn't, and she is thinking "What the hell is going on over there? Oh, no. Please people, get a room! Oh, I did not need to see that. But of course he had to take screenshots right here where the perverts gather. Would it have hurt him to take the screenshot someplace else??"

Thing is, Alpha Centauri managed to unobtrusively tell a story where noone seemed to think a story could be told, and noone since has tried to tell a story. You could follow it, embrace it, ignore it - it as your choice. You could see the factions as just colours on the map (the way I see others in civ games) or you could see them as the characters that were far more fleshed out than Civ ever will be able to do with historic leaders. And all the while you could enjoy a depth through unit design and social engineering and even terraforming, that the Civ searies has barely touched upon. So were the pirates in the expansion completly overpowered? Sure. Was green rush pre-expansion (and the nerf that came with it) overpowered? Again, sure. For me it was simple: I didn't play as pirates and I avoided the cheese tactics when I didn't want a cheesed game experience: problem solved

Meh. Can't edit the post

Yeah, I know what you mean. aRPG's and story do not go together. If it was, that would be a very long story, tho! I'd deffinitly support that kickstarter

If only that was a map of the story progression Guess I can dream

Ork theological debates. Brutal but kunnin' or kunnin' but brutal ?

Ok, gonna remove that bastard's invite from the channel then Figured out why you didn't show up correctly: glitch in the display You could change the title, if it isn't a hassle.

So we already have a conspiracy? How awesome are we?

Meh. I knew something looked off Can't change the title now though. Strange about gfted's handle. The channel invite showed only @Gfted1 existing as an account.

As a few people seem to be playing it, may as well start a thread for it, to keep the discussion more organised than the "What are you playing now?" thread allows. As it seems, the majority of forumites are located here: Shard: Mindflayer We have a custom chat set up which you can join by typing: /channel_join ObsidianOrder (though currently only hurlshot, serrano and shadysands are in it, with one person not responding to their invite ) Global handles: Your global handle will be added behind every character name and takes the form: @global For example I am @melkathi Note: this should be the display name of your account, not the account name itself. For friend invites, chatting, mailing etc, all you need is the @global. It means that you can find people online regardles of what character they are on and regardless even of which of the three Cryptic MMOs they are on (NWO, CO, STO). People currently playing (in reverse alphabetical order) : ShadySands - @shadysands Serrano - @serranolegacy Keyrock - @keyrock42 Hurlshot - @hurlshot Gfted1 - @gftedUn Drowsy Emperor - Bokishi - @bokinator And that's it for now.

That is very inspirational

Love the new avatar Col. Corazone Drowsy