Gromnir

we drowned. not today, but when we were young. were a frozen lake and we fell through while playing hockey. just one o' those things. lake had been frozen solid for more than a month, but the patch we fell through were rotten. we got pulled out and resuscitated, but not before we stopped breathing. we drowned. may have already described the experience before on these boards... am not certain. ain't important at the moment. the reason we bring up is that we were terrified and absolutely nothing we did while trapped under the ice did any good. felt utterly helpless. were ten years old when we drowned and since that time we has had dozens o' moments in life that were just as terrible and frightening, but not nearly so dramatic. family crisis. business crisis. personal crisis. unlike most movies and tv shows, real life problems ain't always fixable. fall through the ice and get trapped and just kinda feel self drown. in real life, the folks who might be there to save us, who is s'posed to save us, is often just part o' the ice. only genuine escape woulda' been to make different choices five, ten or even twenty years in the past and that ain't possible, is it? so, you drown. probable takes three minutes or less to drown in water. drown in marriage or problem with kids or job can last a whole lot longer than three minutes. spend days and weeks and months feel like drowning. got no idea what you are going through and it ain't none o' our business. even if you told us, we wouldn't pretend to to know how you feel. we ain't got no great insights, that is for damn sure. that being said, let us know if you need a hand.

It's not a Codex game, it's basically a one man game then a couple of multi-purpose significant contributors coming on board. AoD is brilliant and you should all get it. OK, in fact, not everybody. But if you want to see what a game that actually takes choices and consequences seriously, actually has NPCs lie to you and backstab you, actually has a combat which is very dangerous, actually makes you choose suboptimal outcomes and live with those wounds - that is, all those things people speculate about, wish for, or make empty promises about.... if you want to see a game that does all of that far more than almost any game in RPG history, then this is it. It's a unique thing. For better or for worse its a very pure distilled vision, without the million compromises where unique features become gimmicks and design philosophies become watered down. Which is why some people will hate it, some people will love it. Hey, there's a free demo. (Also, if you thought, regardless of the rest, Alpha Protocol or MOTB were amazing because they gave you such unique roleplaying options that you don't find elsewhere, then AOD gives you a ton of that. Ever talked one enemy group into fighting another enemy group and solve both of your problems? Ever disguised yourself as a guard, scaled the walls with rope, backstab a guard, jump down onto the floor, then smooth-talk the palace's owner about why all that means he should hire you? Ever gone on an assassination mission and then shot your partner in the face to defect to the target's side? Well, there we go.) can't express how much we disagree. perhaps you like the game, and that is fine, but is hardly brilliant and its notion o' choice and consequences and/or role-play is complete misguided. aod is skinner box mentality, and not particular inspired at that. there is clear wrong choices in character generation and quest progression that the player gots no way o' divining before failure/death. player choices do not necessarily result in new and different routes opening up to the player. more frequent you discover that 'cause o' unimaginative design, "wrong" choices result in a simple dead end. is much more difficult for a developer to make diverse choices in character generation and gameplay viable and fun. is much easier for developer to simple prune the bifurcations o' a quest tree, or to make combat that is only challenging AND fun for a limited number o' potential builds. bad consequences is okie dokie with Gromnir, but am not in favor o' such being unforeseeable. is more difficult to artful inform player that "here there be dragons" before getting game over message. 3/5/9 hours into game you discover that aod provides choices, but offers only a few viable options? is not brilliant. is lazy. is limited. is anachronistic. ... and the writing is... *shrug* anybody who applauds aod w/o noting writing shortcomings is gonna have a difficult time complaining 'bout excessive exposition and uninspired character development in future crpg titles. is nothing inherent wrong with a glorified rat maze o' a game. is nothing inspired or brilliant 'bout such design neither. is also kinda the opposite o' what we believe role-play is 'bout. be that as it may, sometimes anachronistic can be fun and nostalgic. enjoy the nostalgia. but recognize the flaws. regardless, aod is a rather simple conditioning program as 'posed to creative, clever or inspired rpg. we got loads o' mechanical quibbles, but am gonna leave those aside as we ain't played final release (don't plan to) so is possible that considerable/few/no changes were made to those mechanical issues we observed. HA! Good Fun!

the min-max is hardly essential. we posted in response to fighting robots query. brawling gets more use from strength than any other character, so min-max or not, your brawler is gonna be resilient compared to most. with med skills you can heal self and with computer science, you will be turning enemy robots into allies with great frequency. blunt weapons focused melee is almost as good... and likely better, but only at very end of the game once you got plasma hammer. regardless, the point is that melee weapons can be overpowered 'gainst 'bots, particularly as melee is the folks most likely to effective exploit computer skill. if you softened and is only core four doing melee, then ag center and honey badgers is likely your most difficult challenges, yes? energy weapons no longer is easy-kill weapons 'gainst honey badgers, and the badgers hit very hard. add green girl with gamma ray blaster and ertan wielding the 3.. plus whatever. vulture's cry with a sniper rifle? you went highpool first, yes? CA will likely be easier than arizona for you simply 'cause there is so many bots and most bot battles will be surprisingly easy for you if even a couple or your melee guys has computer skills. and 'course, explosives and rocket launchers can make any difficult batlle less so... which you is already aware o'. gonna disagree 100% on luck, but no sense opening that can o' worms. HA! Good Fun!

channel kp? regardless, is as much representative o' a great american as is, well, captain america? oh wait, cap fought on the side o' the rebels in that civil war thing. jimmy stewart in mr. smith goes to washington? hmmm. he were fighting rampant corruption in washington, so might not fit. rambo? ... in any event, even when you see folks being condemned as unpatriotic, the rebel and rabble rouser is as much a part o' the American identity as is the guy who wraps himself in the flag. oh, and just for fun, Thomas Magnum and Gromnir likely only got one thing in common: both big stalag 17 fans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm1biDpzlp8 bit long, but great william holden stuff. HA! Good Fun!

Yeah, I figure those will be some of the roughest fights. I'm going to need explosives, lots of explosives. Those don't actually use any weapon skill, so I don't technically violate my own rules if my core 4 are lobbing grenades. with new perks, a robot destroying melee ranger is even more viable, but one o' our most efficacious pre dc wl2 builds were: co:1 lu:1 aw:1 st:10 sp:10 in:4 ch:1 added 1 point to coordination then went awareness. skills were brawling, computer, and few points in the med skill with animal whisper and eventual leadership rounding things out. our melee brawler were the one most likely to out distance our primary leader, so in spite o' crappy charisma, points in leadership were not a complete waste once we maxed everything else. is only a few wl2 bots that could not be hacked, and most bot battles that had bots immune to hax0ring also had hackable bots. battles got easier when bots were attacking each other 'stead o' you. melee weapons have changed a bit with dc, so brawling ain't the clear win melee skill. we suspect that this makes an all melee core squad more viable. HA! Good Fun!

is relative off-topic, so we will be brief... as brief as we is able. in a nutshell, the Court observes that recognized (such recognition is more complicated than you might think) Indian tribes is deserving o' "dependent domestic nation" status. as such, those tribes got sovereignty that trumps individual state law, but fed law can diminish or even eliminate such sovereignty. the tribal dependence on Fed government and the limits placed on tribal sovereignty create a trust relationship between the Fed and tribes. am suspecting that don't clear much up for gifted, but truth to tell, it ain't much clearer to experts. http://www.truesiouxhope.org/need/ is embarrassing. and as for hurl comparing kp to college students in the quad, we see as appropriate and not necessarily a criticism. is a good thing that american university students is encouraged to challenge the dominant paradigm. those university students is often integral to social change. the thing is, as we has noted before, there is few creatures more naive and ignorant than a first/second year university student. college is a new world, and with a mere few dozen credits to their name, the largely ignorant students thinks they got answers. *shrug* is a good thing to have young and intelligent people who is not daunted by the magnitude and complexity o' real world problems. naivety gives the college student protesting in the quad a kinda power that more educated and mature minds is incapable o' recollecting. the older and wiser mind understands that the problems is rare so simple and easily corrected as the college student believes. the older and more jaded realize that the villains that college students sees as obvious don't really exist and neither does most o' the heroes neither. the college student protesting in the quad is a blessing... if a bit comical. the college student is ignorant and naive but the paradox is that their lack o' awareness makes it possible for them to demand change that wiser minds would dismiss as pointless. and sometimes, those smart and ignorant college kids who has no reasonable chance to bring about meaningful change... succeed. oh, and as for leferd being a lazy uc student http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/profiles/ other than at merced, even the mediocre uc freshman is academically impressive. HA! Good Fun!

Nah, 99% of the time I just ignore you, so the last thing I'm going to do is trawl through pages of you following Sensuki around from thread to thread or whatever. Much as 99% of the time if there's a game I don't like I ignore it rather than wandering in to (not so) randomly diss it. Just thought people who weren't aware of your background and chip on shoulder with respect to the Codex/ VD etc needed to know where you were coming from. so this were a complete random zorish PSA? *snort* oh, and we only responded 'cause we Just thought people who weren't aware of your background and chip on shoulder with respect to Gromnir needed to know where you were coming from. HA! Good Fun!

I don't know about the whole "'Murica **** yeah" myth as I've never been there. But you can find fictional representations of gov't agents and US soldiers as brave, selfless heroes just as easily as works depicting them as overweight dummies, remorseless killers or just ineffectual morons, depending on the scriptwriter's bent. Except IRS people. Those are universally reviled. It's like a modern day Gestapo or something. Personally, I have had nothing but good experiences with Americans. Haven't had to deal with the US government yet, though. highlighted... 'cause apparent it were missed somehow. HA! Good Fun! ps edit am thinking we can all agree that if all or virtual all depictions o' State agents were insulting, that would identify a complete different problem.

*chuckle* we would observe that zor's comments is a pavlovian reaction to Gromnir. guess he doesn't like getting his silliness called-out. sadly, is gonna happen again. gotta venn diagram o' games Gromnir likes and those approved by codex groupthink would have near complete overlap... with the exception o' bizarre codexian fascination with arcanum and their knee-jerk hate o' bioware. nevertheless, while we like games such as fallout, we also has noted, for +15 years (before codex in fact), that as much as we liked fallout, it were horribly unbalanced with utter useless skills and its "freedom" in character generation were a misleading as even the developers noted that there were only a handful o' builds that a majority o' folks actual played. etc. our public rejection o' the things vd seems to think are essential to crpgs goes back before codex existed. we do dislike misogyny, anti-semitism and racism that is common at codex, but am not certain what that has to do with Gromnir disliking aod. if zor can find inconsistency 'tween comments we made between games such as poe (easiest option as is accessible on this board) or recent criticisms o' wasteland 2 and our observations o' aod, we will concede hypocrisy or bias 'gainst a title. ... am waiting. HA! Good Fun!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/sunday-review/why-russians-hate-america-again.html?_r=0 "Intellectuals pointed me to books on Berlin in the 1920s and the concept of “ressentiment,’’ a philosophical term that describes a simmering resentment and sense of victimization arising out of envy of a perceived enemy. It often has its roots in a culture’s feeling of impotence. " most o' the world recognizes the unique position the US has as the sole remaining superpower. though such a label has far less meaning than it did in decades past, there still exists the pervasive envy and the widespread belief that the role is undeserved. we spent time teaching abroad. we would sit 'mongst a group o' euros as they mocked American culture and American intellect. initially when such stuff would occur, we would point out that Gromnir were American. our euro companions would shrug off and observe that they weren't talking 'bout Gromnir but 'bout Americans and America in general. were kinda surreal. how often is you gonna have a group o' Americans discussing the failings o' swedish or austrian culture and education? the typical American don't care enough 'bout sweden or austria, and that includes educated Americans. is not as if those folks on campuses at ivy schools, stanford and mit is unaware o' europe and south america and asia neither. it won't make some o' you feel better to know that educated Americans is aware but wholly unconcerned with your foibles and failings. furthermore, there is a huge misconception 'bout US patriotism/nationalism. other than perhaps germany, is few nations that is so self-deprecating 'bout their history. a large portion o' the history hurlshot teaches kids in school is how rotten and evil the US has been for the past couple centuries. bad to indians. bad to revolutionary war vets. US were bad to laborers and blacks and just about everybody. gets even more pronounced at universities where professors is not shy 'bout exploring faults in US politics and culture and history. there is a world-wide myth o' "america, f*%$@ yeah" that has been perpetuated but that doesn't exist. watch tv shows and fbi agents is more often portrayed as buffoons than highly educated and competent. the military? the US military in tv and movies is as often portrayed as trigger happy maniacs as they is shown heroic. oh, and again as this gets missed so often, Gromnir has much reason to loathe US. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/huey-photography some well-intentioned euro tells us 'bout gaza and the suffering there and we cannot help but note that conditions at pine ridge is worse than gaza but that euro sympathies not seem to extend to folks who ain't lobbing rockets at farmers or hurling molotov ****tails at police. soa gain, if you got some weird notion that Gromnir is just another ignorant and blind American, you got your facts wrong. we do run into frequent misapprehensions 'bout US when speaking with folks from other corners o' the globe... and the fixation 'pon the US folks got is sadly understandable. we blame on the internet... can blame all on internet. ... that last bit were sarcasm in case it weren't obvious. HA! Good Fun!

touch rugby? *snort* no snot-nosed japanese kid is gonna stop boris even if is touch. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-34537841 HA! Good Fun!

fixed. *shrug* is a ridiculous vanity product that attempts to sell crpg anachronisms as innovations. tactical sophistication takes a back seat to lucking or metagaming your way into a viable build? *snort* played the demo a while back and have little interest in slogging through full release. HA! Good Fun! I don't know, they never claimed the game to be innovative with its combat mechanics. They just said they want to stay off the beaten path and accepted status quo in roleplaying games, and that they did. With a vengeance. they claimed to be different than every other crpg. am recalling a claim by its that we had never played a game such as aod. *chuckle* is not different so much as anachronistic. there is a tendency for hardcore fans o' __________ to see comical reactionary as inherently praiseworthy. old movies. old music. old comics. old fashion. whatever. old is not intrinsic good or bad. aod look and plays... old... but worse. is old as imagined by a small group o' hardcore fans. HA! Good Fun!

fixed. *shrug* is a ridiculous vanity product that attempts to sell crpg anachronisms as innovations. tactical sophistication takes a back seat to lucking or metagaming your way into a viable build? *snort* played the demo a while back and have little interest in slogging through full release. HA! Good Fun!

it's a tennis ball traveling at 100mph. am suspecting that given force involved and assuming that the sword is sharp, he need only be certain o' hitting edge first to cut the damn thing. again, the ball is coming at predictable intervals and is having exact same delivery each time. the sword guy can practice thousands o' times... hundreds of thousands of times. train so that your draw-cut is consistent, and then hard part is actual getting the damn batting cage operator to calibrate the machine to match. to get the "perfect angle" on a curve ball to result in a hit with a heavy wooden bat, when you don't know what pitch is coming, seems far more impressive to us. HA! Good Fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSvrIZKI8mk why is this particular impressive? solid hit with a wood baseball bat o' a +90 mph curveball from a human pitcher when you don't know what pitch is coming is far more impressive to us. batting cage fastballs is perfect strikes that come at predictable intervals. these staged bits o' silliness impress us very little, particularly as we not see all the fails. HA! Good Fun!

the game is woefully unbalanced with many skills getting virtual no usage and others being essential. attributes/abilities is similar unbalanced. you can drop luck and charisma to 1 on most characters w/o much sense o' feeling pain. odd enough, coordination is almost as easy to ignore as is luck and charisma. it is worth having a single ranger with a 6 charisma IF you make sure to also take leadership on that character. s'posedly, there has been improvements to blade and blunt weapons as well as to shotguns-- those three weapon groups sucked previous to dc. heavy weapons is nice late game, particularly when augmented by a special skill. energy weapons is bad early, and is only genuine worthy with 1 particular weapon... in which case it is an excellent choice. *shrug* people says to diversify weapons, and that is a good idea, but you could have an all assault rifle group and your only genuine opponent for the first 1/2 of the game would be ammo scarcity. most important derived stat is combat initiative. can't overstress the importance o' ci. it is possible that some skills has been made more useful in the dc incarnation, but some serious changes would need be made to improve skills. mechanical repair had 2 uses in all o' california? we had a 1 charisma brawler with computer science and we purposeful stopped hacking bots 'cause we were overleveling compared to the rest o' the party-- a hacked bot only gives xp to the computer nerd. combat xp is shared 'mongst party, but the bot defeated through hax0ring is removed from the shared xp pool. your computer guy is effective stealing xp from the rest o' your party. given how common bots is second half o' the game, you gotta be careful. oh, and computer is useful for more than hacking bots. fantastic skill. animal whisperer is kinda the opposite o' computer. by the time you can succesful charm critters, you isn't gonna be facing many critters and animal whisperer doesn't unlock doors and safes as does the computer skill. spread your social skills. ultimately the social skills are not numerical worthy o' investment, but we hate missing unlockable content. locks, safe cracking and demolitions is excellent skills that all generate goodly amounts o' xp. hate to admit it, but we recommend metagaming insofar as choosing skills and picking companions. most skills only require a single ranger to max/excel. you only need one lock picker. you only need one smart arse. take a looksee at possible companions before creating your rangers. is outta date, but... https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=8733 we mentioned the importance of combat initiative, am doing so again. combat initiative is not simple establishing your combat turn order. high ci will result in additional attacks opportunities. HA! Good Fun! ps late game we typical run outta skills for which we would pay. we always have at least 4 int on all characters, but that is 'cause we want more skills Early.

am sensing some bitterness. ... we will note that driving in some neighborhoods in pittsburgh during the winter scares us. am not joking. got mugged once in ny. scary. we had business in western pennsylvania a few years ago and spent almost the entirety o' two winters (save for our annual early december trip to hawaii) in pittsburgh. for Gromnir, driving pittsburgh's narrow, vertical and twisting streets when such thoroughfares were covered in ice were like being mugged over and over and over and over. HA! Good Fun!

sadly, it is a regen item, no? a flying log would be fantastic... as long as it is a genuine log and not a stick with a bundle o' straw attached to one end. HA! Good Fun!

draconian demands from employers? okie dokie. am suspecting that not too many folks frequenting this board has worked an ordinary labor job. right now there is roofers getting paid by the square in arizona when temperatures reach +130 F on on tar paper and tin/aluminum flashing. hell, there is doctors doing residency and enduring +20 hour shifts or school teachers and their insane functional workload/hours while having to deal with classes o' upwards o' three dozen kids (some of whom is likely having autism and other learning disorders, while others is esl) that don't actual wanna be in school. but hey, no doubt that when hurlshot teaches his students 'bout exploited workers in the USA, he will skip the traditional triangle shirt fire, the ludlow massacre and the lessons o' cesar chavez fighting for the rights o' latino farm workers. why show kids the grapes of wrath or read from upton sinclair's the jungle when you can reveal how few vo artists is getting residuals? HA! Good Fun! ps so is no confusion, am not saying that the vo guys shouldn't ask for more money. if they can get more money, then why should we begrudge their good fortune. even so, it's vo actors we are talking 'bout. the list o' demanding jobs that gets insufficient remuneration and evoke pathos in Gromnir is legion... and vo is not 'mongst the multitude.

the establishment and free exercise clauses o' the First Amendment do indeed have the most tasty sounding tests: lemon and sherbert. HA! Good Fun!

stunt coordinators? *chuckle* and how dare companies use their non-sag employees to do voicework in games. HA! if the voice actors can force better pay for emoting into a microphone, then so be it... and good for them. get points for boldness. HA! Good Fun!

I don't think the Kim Davis thing really ties into a 1st Amendment thing. She tried to make it that but in reality all that happened is a public official refused to obey the law. I don't think that is deserving to be made into something bigger. A more appropriate choice might be the removal of the 10 commandments monument in Oklahoma. funny thing 'bout the okies is that the brouhaha were centered 'round the Oklahoma Constitution and not the first amendment to the US Constitution. is very few news services that added that detail to their coverage. oklahoma constitution is much more specific 'bout public displays. HA! Good Fun! ps van orden v. perry v. mccreary v. aclu is two ten commandment display cases from 2005... same day in point o' fact. Court ok'd one display in texas, but nixed kentucky. try and get middle schoolers to understand why the Court ok'd one and not the other might be difficult, particularly as we weren't dealing with unanimous Court decisions and the dissents were actual (as is often the case) more eloquent than the majority opines. pps texas display oklahoma display

Careful-- Hurlshot might think you're volunteering! (The two of you are both in NorCal, right?) middle school kids is a tough crowd. *shrug* manifested's crowdfunding would need include lunch at yank sing. HA! Good Fun!

am likely gonna lose nerd cred, but am admitting that we don't much like thanos. we don't like that his traditional motivations is equal parts petty (the other kids were mean to him) and ridiculous (he is trying to impress his girlfriend: death). we also don't like that in the limited screenies so far, thanos looks more like a muppet than one o' the big bads o' the marvel universe. we don't like his throne or his cheesy grin. we do kinda like purple, but the fact that he is literal aiming to fist the universe makes us roll our eyes. if you is gonna have an evil purple diva-villain with family issues, then they shoulda gone with prince. HA! Good Fun!

separation o' church and state doesn't mean what the simple language would seem to indicate, and it ain't the language o' the constitution regardless. hugo black's invoking o' jefferson to erect a wall o' separation were judicial sleight o' hand and has lead to many a confused citizen and student. pull out US currency money and see "in god we trust" on every coin. look at the Supreme Court building itself and observe Moses looking down 'pon you. try and explain the seeming hypocrisy o' separation when so many politicians invoke God and faith as they condemn democrats/republicans/gays/st. louis cardinal fans... whatever. *shrug* the most annoying aspect o' explaining Constitution to lay folks is getting 'em to realize that simple grasp o' English won't help 'em. there ain't never been no genuine wall o' separation that is implied by the language used. Gromnir has actual been invited to speak to high school students on more than one occasion regarding first amendment. is fascinating just how many misconceptions students got regarding seeming simple language: "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." ... typical high school teacher, even if she actual understands first amendment, doesn't have the time to do more than kinda highlight... which understandably leads to greater confusion. there is a few important cases that is particular noteworthy for establishment and free exercise. lemon, prince, sherbert, oregon v. smith. go more recent to give example might use arizona christian school tuition organization v. winn another good place to start is with the first amendment itself. what did the Founding Fathers intend? is not an original intentionist argument we posit, 'cause in large part we got no idea what were specific discussed by the authors o' the first amendment. however, we do have the various drafts o' the first amendment that were proposed and rejected before settling on the final language. is intriguing to see how the first amendment were cobbled together by looking at the drafts. regardless, separation don't mean what most students believe it to mean... and based on our limited experience, it definite don't mean what most social studies/history teachers is teaching. HA! Good Fun!