Lurker > s0nicfan

Fluttershy posted...

That sounds right, but it's been a long time and the game split the servers into PVP and non PVP decades ago so who knows how it works today.

i've really wanted to pick the brain of someone who has played it for a while.

ever since i heard about skara brae i wanted to rule it like i do anor londo.

it sounds like if i had the talent i could amass a small army of like-minded murderers and get stuff going.

Hey, feel free to keep asking questions and I'll answer how I can.

Another fun thing (and something WoW absolutely borrowed) is that when you died you became a ghost and had to go find a monk to resurrect you. What they did differently, though, is you could make yourself visible to players and talk to them, only all they would hear is "OOoOoOoO". BUT, if they trained up the right skill, the game would translate back to regular text, so if you really wanted you could have your army of murder hobo pirates that scouted out potential trouble using an army of ghosts. Oh, and player housing went all the way up to castle, so you could have your murder hobo ghost pirate fortress with its own vendors and a drawbridge you could lock to keep other players out.

Of course, when you died you dropped everything you had on you, so you were heavily encouraged to keep stuff in the bank vault, but depending on how you died it would also flag as a crime if someone looted your body (using the same system as the murder system), which also meant the risk of being a murderer is anyone could take your stuff penalty free if they killed you. Luckily most equipment was affordable at town and the game didn't really have an iLevel system or anything like that, so death was always more of a frustration and less of a total account ruiner.

Also, dungeons were unmarked in the world. You either had a rune to teleport to one, or you just wandered into caves and sometimes found a multi-level cave system.

Oh, and you could train up animal taming and tame ANYTHING, so high level tamers often stood outside the main town bank with like 5 dragons in tow that they could then sell to other players who could use them as pets until they died, although below a certain animal handling level they were likely to just run away.

I swear, the more I remember Ultima Online, the more it pisses me off that modern MMOs haven't tried to steal any of it.

So then why did he go so hard at the Oscars?

Fluttershy posted...

is the pirate city skara brae?

That sounds right, but it's been a long time and the game split the servers into PVP and non PVP decades ago so who knows how it works today.

Fluttershy posted...

i just adore the idea that the game gives you that kind of playspace.

It was the ultimate sandbox MMO.

Fluttershy posted...

Ultima Online. There's just something special about that game and how it chose to be an MMO that feels like it's lost to time because nobody ever tries to emulate it.

ultima online caught my interest for its murderer system. it's basically a precursor to souls invasions, as far as i'm concerned -- with the point being how hands-off a system it is, it lets the game play out and tell a story that way.

it sounds like you played it. do i have the wrong idea about skara brae? it sounds like a city for murderers.

No, that's the right of it. In the original version of the game you had always on world pvp, but also a dynamic wanted and guards system. Commit a crime in a city and the guards will basically just murder you on the spot. Kill somebody outside the city walls and your character would be marked gray for a short period of time. While your character is gray other players could kill you without consequence and guards would attack you, but it would fade away with time. Murder too many people too often and your character would go red and be permanently marked by guards outside of a pirate City you could go to. I think there is a way to repent and get your non-murder status back but I don't know what it was.

Also keep in mind that because it had in-world player housing and a lot of land between cities, you could have players who had a shack out in the woods that would just murder newbies that are walking between town and a low level dungeon who would then flee back to their private residence to resupply. You could also buy a boat and sail the ocean, which I think might have been the only way to get to the Pirate Island unless someone had marked a summoning stone for that location.

The game required reagents to cast spells. It didn't even have a leveling system.. you had a point cap and a list of skills that went up or down with use or lack of use. There are so many things about that game that I really wish modern MMOs at least tried.

Ultima Online. There's just something special about that game and how it chose to be an MMO that feels like it's lost to time because nobody ever tries to emulate it.

Zikten posted...

Did Hamas really think they would win this attack? I wonder if they thought they were going to take out the Israeli government with their task force. I just don't understand why they thought this was a good idea

Maybe they thought Iran and Russia would have their backs. There's no way they did this without outside help.

All these notes say is what Heard told her therapist, so they're worth less than the paper they're written on.

VFalcone posted...

Israeli death toll at 1,200+ now. Still can't find a damn thing about Palestinian death toll though. Last I heard was a tidbit from local news last night saying it was 500-600 or something I think.

Edit: I may need to visit r/Palestine more to get that info. The people in charge of the live thread I look at may be staunchly pro-Israel and only posting what happens on Israel's side. Including death tolls. I'd like to get as much news as I can

BBC live updates have been providing ongoing casualties from each side:
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67073970

The death toll in Israel has reached 1,000, while more than 900 people have been killed in Gaza

Its just after 02:10 in Israel and Gaza, where citizens are likely spending another restless night.

The Israel Defense Forces shared an update on social media about half an hour ago, saying more than 1,000 Israelis have been killed and there are 50 confirmed hostages or missing people.

The latest update from the Palestinians was that more than 900 people have been killed in
Gaza.

On topic about Russia, apparently Hamas met with Putin in March:
https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-says-violence-israel-palestine-shows-us-failure-middle-east-2023-10-10/

Moscow has long-standing ties with the Palestinians, including Hamas, which last sent a senior delegation for talks in Moscow in March. But it also has "a lot in common" with Israel, including the fact that many Israelis are former Russian citizens, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

That's far enough away that its likely not related to this attack, but given everything in Ukraine even a tacit "we won't do anything if anything happens" could have played a part in their decision to act.

legendary_zell posted...

Why is any group of people entitled to establish an ethnostate with an enforced majority by displacing and oppressing the preexisting population? That has a lot to do with the aggression that Israel has been "forced" to set up apartheid to deal with. Yeah, when you're not "nice" to the people you did that to, they're gonna be mad at you.

Your question is fundamentally flawed because they were Jewish people who lived in that area and were part of the Ottoman empire when it collapsed. If the conversation doesn't even begin with acknowledgment that there were Jewish natives to the region than you're already starting off on the wrong foot.

Now if you're talking about their settlement and expansion, I absolutely agree. But you'll notice that the Palestinian response in the West Bank isn't nearly as aggressive as in gaza, when the West Bank is the actual place where the settlements are being built. Again, the starting point of relations between Israel and the people who lived in Gaza was a fundamental rejection of their right to exist and an attempt to finish them off. Then they tried again in two decades. Then they elected a leader who said it was his goal to do that. Then Hamas took over and literally put it in their charter.

If people are going to keep saying that Hamas was formed by Israel's actions, then you need to take it a step further and also explain how Israel's actions were formed from aggression against them.

After the 1948, when a league of Arab nations declared war on Israel the day they were formed, Egypt was placed in control of Gaza. Israel withdrew all their forces and left Egypt to manage the region. Israel then captured Gaza in 1967 during the 6-day war when, again, a league of Arab nations joined together to try and wipe them out. They controlled Gaza directly until the Oslo accords in 1993 when administrative control was handed over to the Palestinian government. They pulled all their troops out in 1994 and then Yassir Arafat was responsible for the region. Arafat, by the way, was the one who rejected the two State solution in the 70s and stated "Our basic aim is to liberate the land from the Mediterranean Seas to the Jordan River.... The Palestinian revolution's basic concern is the uprooting of the Zionist entity from our land and liberating it." Even during the Oslo accord, when some kind of formal piece was established along with joint recognition, the Palestinian government stated that it was only a temporary measure until they could find the means to fully eradicate israel. Arafat was also the one to reject the camp David agreement in 2000 and refused to continue negotiations. The main sticking point was he insisted on a full Palestinian right to return, which would have allowed any Palestinian from anywhere, including the descendants of people who had previously left, instant Israeli citizenship and also the right to any land that they claim was their descendants. It would have turned the Jewish population in Israel into a minority which would have had serious consequences on Israeli government.

Hamas won a surprise election in 2006, overthrew the government, and then established themselves as the entity with absolute control over the region.

So when we're talking about Israeli actions in gaza, we really shouldn't pretend like they just woke up one day and decided to be oppressive. We're talking about decades of attempts to wipe them off the face of the Earth, dating all the way back to literally the day they were founded, and a region that has only partially been under Israeli control and often ruled by people who openly declared their intent to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. These are the people that Israel is being told they have to be nicer to.

I mean, they gunned down an entire concert and you can find videos online of them throwing grenades into buildings and then gunning anybody who tries to run out, so I don't see how decapitating babies is suddenly a bridge too far. They literally snuck into the country and then just started fanning out and murdering everybody they came across. Remember, Hamas has the stated goal of the global eradication of the Jewish people. We're talking like "I would have volunteered to turn on the gas in Auschwitz" levels of hatred.

So when people are saying Palestinian autonomy is going to die in gaza, what autonomy are they even losing? Hamas hasn't had an election in 17 years. Israel provides all of their food, water, and electricity. The Palestinian authority is focused on the West Bank because Hamas doesn't recognize them as a legitimate government. Hamas seems to take every dollar they get and spend it on buying rockets from Iran.

I'm not saying that Israel should annex gaza, but if people are talking about the Palestinians losing their autonomy over military occupation, they really need to be real about what autonomy is there in the first place.

Giving Star-Lord's elevator rant in the last guardians movie, my guess is that gunn had no intention of ever using Thor and was basically told he had to be in there for all the crossover events by executives.

Super_Slash posted...

Are these longer than a regular classic/X title?

About as long in terms of stages but there's more story and now there's a hub area where you can talk to people and stuff so you definitely spend more time on a single save. I want to say there's more "events" outside of stage select as well, like forced stages and whatnot.

Plus with the ELF system, the weapon upgrade system, the night/day cycle, elemental chips, and special S-ranked moves, the Z series has a lot of other systems and mechanics to play with.

If this CS:GO port to Source2 goes well I wouldn't be shocked if TF2 got the same treatment.

Pikachuchupika posted...

I don't know much about palestine/israel, but didn't this all start because of britain (whom controlled palestine) allowed jews to move into the area back in the early 1900s?

Lol absolutely not.

After the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the League of Nations partitioned the empire's previous territory into a handful of countries, including Iraq and Syria, among others. They were trying to figure out what to do with the Jews that already lived in the area since as soon as the empire collapsed locals started murdering each other, so they came up with the two state solution to keep them from fighting. The very day Israel was made into a country, a league of Arab Nations declared war on them for the crime of existing, and the region has been a disaster ever since. But the two important things to take away are that one, there are a whole bunch of countries in that area whose borders were defined as part of that same process, and two, there were already Jews living in what is now israel. Many more Jews have moved there since then, but if anybody tells you that was exclusively arab Muslim territory they're just lying.

By "do your own thing" do you mean like get together and define an international messaging standard that everyone (but apple) uses for their messaging? Like that?

iMessage is based on an old Blackberry standard called BBM and it's proprietary.
Apple has chosen to use a 1980s SMS standard for non-iMessage messages.
Everyone else uses RCS which is the modern standard.

Apple doesn't even have to abandon iMessage. Simply upgrading to RCS from SMS would fix a lot of problems and also update their messaging software from the 20th to 21st century.

If only the Exorcist had more than 1 possessed child. I bet 2 kids would make the movie TWICE as good.

Holy_Cloud105 posted...

I think they're content making their spinoff games with other IPs. I don't think we'll see another Dynasty or Samurai Warriors game again.

This. Why make DW10 for your relatively niche dedicated audience to be angry at when you can release One Piece Pirate Warriors 5 and make 10x as much?

Metroid_Food posted...

It has nothing to do with what I posted. I was gracious enough to provide my reasoning. Also, I don't answer questions at anyone's behest. They usually just leave frustrated, so spare yourself.

Sure it does. Israel is right in the middle of the worst terrorist attack that has happened in the history of the country and all of your effort is focused on highlighting just how terrible Israel is. You're getting the same response you would have if a day after 9/11 people were going on and on about how terrible the US is.

You absolutely don't have to answer any questions I ask. But I'm going to ask them anyway, and you can feel free to dodge them, but if you think you're being clever about posting these little stories and "leaving other people to come to some conclusion" you should know it's not subtle. Don't worry about frustrations, though, your explicit non-answers are just as good as anything else you'd try to say.

Metroid_Food posted...

The point of such a post is to show the kind of things Palestinians face DAILY. If you can't understand why things happen, how the hell do you expect anything to change?

Answer the question. What do you believe should be done about Israel?

Metroid_Food posted...

I suppose posting a video of something like the kid who got burned head to toe by israeli settlers in Hebron would be against the TOS.

Can we just jump straight to your conclusion? What takeaway do you want people to get from your posts with regard to what is currently happening? What do you believe should be done about Israel?

Evil_Nice_Guy posted...

How is Netanyahu working with Hamas?

Some folks have already gone full "George Bush did 9/11" on this attack and are peddling the conspiracy that Netanyahu knew this was coming and let it happen to deflect from controversies around his presidency.

Questionmarktarius posted...

PNA and Hamas don't want a goddamn thing to do with eachother. At all.

I'm sure they don't, but since both claim to be representatives for Palestine why don't we take the one that's calling for genocide, leave them as the terrorist organization they are, and rally behind the one that's at least attempting to be a real government?

Questionmarktarius posted...

Ironically, that's the most useful option for Israel.
Gazan independence, then Hamas fucking around is an "act of war" finding out.

Why do people always forget that the PNA exists and continues to hold actual elections? The solution isn't to give Gaza Independence and make Hamas into official government representatives. It's to cut a deal with the PNA that involves them taking over Gaza and then completely purging Hamas.

Don't put the people who have a call for the global eradication of the Jewish people in their charter into official positions of power.

Sufferedphoneix posted...

Idk how yall ain't getting it. People break it by going out of their way to get magic spells you wouldn't just naturally stumble across then further more grinding to get 99 or whatever of them.

Like someone mentioned getting Diablo getting some ability then grinding dinos turning them into cards to convert into quake or something.

Shit like that a new player with no guidance is gonna think to do

Okay, but under that criteria a new player with no guidance is still stuck with a broken ass system where they can soft lock themselves by accidentally over leveling the main character, are probably constantly starved of spells because they can only draw a couple in a fight, and are probably struggling against bosses because they're not junctioning properly to boost their stats. It's still a fundamentally broken mechanic.

Do keep in mind that Hamas doesn't recognize the west bank government as official and vice-versa, so when you say "Palestine" you kind of need to specify which half, because the PNA does hold regular elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Palestine#2021-22_local_elections

You know, studies show that 70% of the time... it works every time.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/3/8/AABJX0AAE6m-.jpg

Agent_Stroud posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/2/AAR6WtAAE6fE.jpg

The Djinn system is everything junction was trying to be. You can use them to cast spells, or you can equip them to change your stats and grant you new moves to use in battle. You could stack the same element to get more powerful in that area, or combine elements to unlock entirely new classes. However, they also had powerful summon-tier moves you'd lose by equipping them, so it was always a balance. Plus they granted world traversal powers as well so they doubled as mobility progression.

I actually think the junction system is really clever and it's only really bogged down by being paired with the draw system. In many ways, we would see the junction system refined and improved in the Golden Sun series.

ClayGuida posted...

https://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status/1711123881656733923

Seems scary.

So will this make it the third or fourth time that a league of Arab Nations joined together to try and wipe Israel off the map?

ScazarMeltex posted...

Are you aware of what the Nakba was and it's role in creating the current state of Israel?

So are you going to acknowledge that it was in response to the 1948 War where a league of arab nations attempted to wipe Israel off the map the moment it was declared a state? Are you going to go a half step back before that where the 1947 partition map as rejected by the Palestinian people, opting instead to go to war to kill everyone and take all of the land in the partition plan? Are you then going to go even further back and point out that the partition was made in response to the collapse of the ottoman empire, under which Israel was one of like a dozen countries that was formed, and yet no one ever seems to claim that the boundaries of Iraq or Syria are invalid because they were made by the League of Nations and the UN at the exact same time as israel?

Or are you going to do that thing where you remove all of the history and context leading up to those events so that it doesn't look like Israel was responding to an attempt to genocide every single Jewish person that lived within the boundaries of that country so that you can try and make them look like some kind of objective bad guy while they're in the middle of fighting a terrorist organization that has the global eradication of the Jewish people in their charter.

ZMythos posted...

I mean a lot a lot though.

Also I'm happy I'm reinventing the wheel here.

Unless you're bringing the pension back as well keep in mind you just destroyed the 401k as a retirement option, so now nobody gets to retire.

ZMythos posted...

If that accomplishes the same thing, then sure.

Can we tax shareholders too? Like, by a lot?

Spoilers: that's what capital gains taxes are.

BurmesePenguin posted...

Israeli officials are reporting over 200 confirmed Israeli deaths.

BBC was saying around 250 dead, over a thousand injured, and an unknown number of hostages

FYI they've been doing live updates all day which is one of the quicker ways to keep up:
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67037895

The number of people killed in Israel since the Hamas militant attack began early this morning has risen to at least 250, Israeli media report.

The health ministry has said that another 1,452 people have been taken to hospital, with 18 in a critical condition and another 267 described as severe.

Hospitals in both southern Israel and Gaza have been inundated with casualties. Palestinian health officials say 232 people have died in Gaza and another 1,790 are wounded.

Also apparently they're saying they had Iran backing as well, so shit's going to get worse:

A Hamas spokesperson earlier told the BBC that the militant group had backing from its ally, Iran, for its surprise attacks on Israel, saying it was a source of pride.

Ghazi Hamad told the World Service's Newshour programme that other countries had also helped Hamas, but he did not name them.

Earlier, a senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, confirmed the Islamic Republic supported the attacks, but did not go into any details.

The Hamas spokesperson also claimed the violence was in response to attacks by Jewish settlers.

"Every day they are building settlements, taking our lands, killing our people, entering our cities. Through the mediators, [the Egyptians, the Qatari or the UN] we tell them to stop but they didnt listen to anyone."

Go to Detroit or Camden and tell everyone there industries leaving is good and tell me how they respond.

An exorcist sequel won't ever be as scary as the original as long as they keep focusing on the demon and not a nonbeliever mom slowly losing her sanity as science fails her and she feels forced to resort to extreme measures because her child is practically rotting in front of her eyes and nobody else can help. People forget how important the human element is in horror.

hockeybub89 posted...

If you keep treating your neighbor like shit and abusing them, do you get to claim "I tried being courteous and this is my thanks" when some of the people who live next door beat the shit out of you?

Do you want to hold off on the "both sides" thing until Hamas stops intentionally firing rockets at civilians and kidnapping people? You know, the group that had the global eradication of the Jewish people in their charter up until recently?

JuanCarlos1 posted...

And this is how Israel finishes purging palestines from their own land. Fuck them. The double standard for Israel doing human right violations is sickening

Current reporting is that over 500 Israelis have been killed in rocket attacks and citizens are being kidnapped from their homes and being taken over into gaza. Iran has openly declared that they are in support of the Palestinian fighters and will be with them until the end. There's no double standard at this point. This is a full-on invasion and declaration of war by hamas.

IceCreamOnStero posted...

Wouldn't really call it an incremental game. I'd attribute a focus on automation and focus on a constantly increasing number are defining attributes of an incremental game, neither of which apply.

It's really just a multi-directional shooter, which is the umbrella category that includes twin stick shooters like smash TV and robotron.

I'm just going to list off stuff from my steam list, because getting into all the console games is too much work:
Axiom Verge
Blasphemous
Bloodstained
Cave Story
Death's Gambit: Afterlife
Dead Cells
Dust: An Elysian Tail
Environmental Station Alpha
Guacamelee
Hades
Hollow Knight
Iconoclasts
Lost Ruins
Minoria
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
Ori and the Blind Forest
Outland
Rabi Ribi
Rogue Legacy
Shantae (Pirate's Curse, Seven Sirens, Half-Genie Hero, Risky's Revenge)
Timespinner
Touhou Luna Nights
Valdis Story: Abyssal City

If you're posting on Gamefaqs, your life is less Sysyphus + Job and more:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/3/0/AABJX0AAE6C6.jpg

General Kenobi.

If streaming kills sitcoms then I guess all those undeserved price hikes were worth it in the end.

EDIT: And I get wanting to do the whole "we're devolving as a society" thing, but sitcoms aren't the product to use that on. Generic procedural garbage designed to never change the status quo and run perpetually isn't any better than tiktok.

It's a great example of a game with a unique concept that desperately needs a modernized remake.

Some Sony TVs still use Samsung panels, so depending on the model you're getting Samsung either way.

Visually its pretty ugly at this point, but the whole weapon system is a refreshing take on the genre and the fact that your weapons stay leveled after you game over is a nice feeling of "roguelike" progression.

In terms of build I would check and see what the recommended minimums are in some of the stats for quest/social reasons. Some quests or paths through an area will be locked by stuff like Body 12 so you'll want to invest at least a little bit in the stats that actually impact the roleplay part.