Anonymouswizard's Random Banter #227 and Free Cup of Tea

[Fyraltari]

Oh man, the first Halo was something magical. There's two genres I typically hate, first-person shooters and horror. And there's two games which absolutely overcome those biases, Halo and Bioshock. And if I had to choose one to reign supreme, it'd be Halo. Far and away one of the best games ever made. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Lightning in a bottle, I tells ya. They were able to instill majesty and terror as well as anything I can remember.

Hey, have I mentionned Prey, yet? I feel like I have.

Okay, I'll stop pluging this game, now.

[Aotrs Commander]

Spoiler: Don't be so sure...

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I'm super interested in resin printers, especially given recent events.

For those unfamiliar with the fun of owning a 3D printer....

Spoiler: This is NOT what infill should look like.

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Spoiler: This is NOT what a raft should look like

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Spoiler: This is NOT what a nozzle-free extruder should look like.

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There is really only one apprproate reaction.

[Peelee]

There is really only one apprproate reaction.

That was milder than my reaction by several orders of magnitude.

[DataNinja]

Oh man, the first Halo was something magical. There's two genres I typically hate, first-person shooters and horror. And there's two games which absolutely overcome those biases, Halo and Bioshock. And if I had to choose one to reign supreme, it'd be Halo. Far and away one of the best games ever made. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Lightning in a bottle, I tells ya. They were able to instill majesty and terror as well as anything I can remember.

From just playing the original recently, it definitely has... aged. I see where the good lies, but, man, does it show the rough spots. That's what happens when you influence all the games in your genre that come after you, though.

[Peelee]

From just playing the original recently, it definitely has... aged. I see where the good lies, but, man, does it show the rough spots. That's what happens when you influence all the games in your genre that come after you, though.

I don't know if I'd agree, actually. All the rough spots I can think of were already notable at the time (the biggest, of course, being the Library, and the lesser Library-style repetitiveness scattered around. **** the Library), so I can't think of a while lot that's not as it was in the beginning. Of course, I don't play the games it influenced, so that may have something to do with it for me. In interested in what aged for you, though.

[Jasdoif]

Oh man, the first Halo was something magical. There's two genres I typically hate, first-person shooters and horror. And there's two games which absolutely overcome those biases, Halo and Bioshock. And if I had to choose one to reign supreme, it'd be Halo. Far and away one of the best games ever made. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Lightning in a bottle, I tells ya. They were able to instill majesty and terror as well as anything I can remember.

From just playing the original recently, it definitely has... aged. I see where the good lies, but, man, does it show the rough spots. That's what happens when you influence all the games in your genre that come after you, though.

Huh, that's a lot like how I feel about Unreal. It occasionally hit the mark on the horror it was clearly half-heartedy trying for, but those actually-open-3D environments were gorgeous....I'm sure the combination of the two is why the not-really-trying-for-horror-at-all Unreal Tournament series, and the rendering engine itself, took off so much better.

Conversely, System Shock excelled at the immersion and horror, but had a horribly jarring interface because "first-person" as a genre was nascent at the time...like, it was underwhelming on sales because it was competing with the similarly-new Doom. Things get messy from there...in addition to the obvious actual sequel (System Shock 2, which itself was underwhelming on sales because it was competing with the similarly-new Half-Life), key people later on created the Deus Ex and Bioshock series (see, there's a point to this particular digression!).

[DataNinja]

I don't know if I'd agree, actually. All the rough spots I can think of were already notable at the time (the biggest, of course, being the Library, and the lesser Library-style repetitiveness scattered around. **** the Library), so I can't think of a while lot that's not as it was in the beginning. Of course, I don't play the games it influenced, so that may have something to do with it for me. In interested in what aged for you, though.

There's a lot of repeats on assets (that's most noticeable on the Library, but it's obvious in a lot of other places, as you mentioned), the Waypointing is basically non-existent and it's super easy to miss where you're going, physics is... merely a suggestion to vehicles.

A lot of it's just QOL stuff. Like the physics. And not being able to use the energy sword. And I'm used to Melee stuff feeling a lot more consistent, especially in Halo in particular. And a lot of the time (mostly with the Flood), they like to drop enemies on top of you with little warning. And, on the story side of things, there's a lot of "and then we gloss over the important stuff." (Like how they manage to get away from a covenant battleship in a single dropship, when the whole ship - and presumably its fighters and stuff - are on alert.) Don't get me wrong, they basically fix everything that I gripe about as the series goes on, which is exactly what a series should do. It just... man, seeing what stuff has become, it feels hard to go back.

[Peelee]

There's a lot of repeats on assets (that's most noticeable on the Library, but it's obvious in a lot of other places, as you mentioned), the Waypointing is basically non-existent and it's super easy to miss where you're going, physics is... merely a suggestion to vehicles.

A lot of it's just QOL stuff. Like the physics. And not being able to use the energy sword. And I'm used to Melee stuff feeling a lot more consistent, especially in Halo in particular. And a lot of the time (mostly with the Flood), they like to drop enemies on top of you with little warning. And, on the story side of things, there's a lot of "and then we gloss over the important stuff." (Like how they manage to get away from a covenant battleship in a single dropship, when the whole ship - and presumably its fighters and stuff - are on alert.) Don't get me wrong, they basically fix everything that I gripe about as the series goes on, which is exactly what a series should do. It just... man, seeing what stuff has become, it feels hard to go back.

I don't remember to much half with the way pointing, but by now I've memorized everything so it might not be as big a deal (I did have some way point issues in ODST, which is also a near-perfect Halo game for me). The reusing assets was pretty bad, but aside from the Library, it was worst on Assault on the Control Room, which was my favorite level, so I clearly didn't mind (except in the Library) too much.

The physics, especially vehicle physics, were super fun. I don't care about them being guidelines, they were super fun guidelines.

And I never noticed the glossed over story stuff before. I choose to headcanon that they were able to to the Covenant's open comms network to facilitate the escape there. And, in any event, weren't they more concerned about the Halo artifact at that point? Sure, kill all humans and all, but Halo.

[Aotrs Commander]

That was milder than my reaction by several orders of magnitude.

Yeah, but, like, the board has profanity filters, doesn't it?



On my end, at least, we appear to have got the part sorted finally,m despite some bizarre email issues and it should be theorhetically arriving in the next couple of days, so Dad can see if he can fix it.

[DataNinja]

The physics, especially vehicle physics, were super fun. I don't care about them being guidelines, they were super fun guidelines.

Yeah, but when you're bumped by a Ghost going 2km/h, and die... feels bad.
(Especially when the boost isn't until the next game.)

[Aotrs Commander]

Dangit. Started on the Wu Jen spell list (now only the Wu Jen and Shugenja spell lists to do!) and trying to balance it a bit, so that one elemental mastery isn't clearly just straight better (by at LEAST giving them all the same number of elemental speciality spells at each level) and got to 3rd level, where on my temporary list, I'd added loads of metal spells. Gonna have to take a load of those out, maybe switch some stuff around, else Metal will be the Clerly Better Option By Miles...

(And it's kind of sad that there are so few wood spells that every nature-adjacent caster sort of knows all of them, but what can you do; sure as FRACK not adding any more at this point...!)

[el minster]

Dangit. Started on the Wu Jen spell list (now only the Wu Jen and Shugenja spell lists to do!) and trying to balance it a bit, so that one elemental mastery isn't clearly just straight better (by at LEAST giving them all the same number of elemental speciality spells at each level) and got to 3rd level, where on my temporary list, I'd added loads of metal spells. Gonna have to take a load of those out, maybe switch some stuff around, else Metal will be the Clerly Better Option By Miles...

(And it's kind of sad that there are so few wood spells that every nature-adjacent caster sort of knows all of them, but what can you do; sure as FRACK not adding any more at this point...!)

Are you going to post those sometime they sound cool?

[Bartmanhomer]

Well, yesterday. My supervisor at the job asked me to return to work and I yes. I'm going to work 3 days a week starting next Monday. And I'm going to be very careful.

[el minster]

Well, yesterday. My supervisor at the job asked me to return to work and I yes. I'm going to work 3 days a week starting next Monday. And I'm going to be very careful.

very careful. very very careful. remember, you can never be to careful

[Anonymouswizard]

Well, yesterday. My supervisor at the job asked me to return to work and I yes. I'm going to work 3 days a week starting next Monday. And I'm going to be very careful.

I hope you're either a key worker or working from home, lives are more important than businesses making money (I'll say it now, Workers Lives Matter).

[enderlord99]

So... I just got kicked from a TF2 match for being idle... during setup time... as BLU.

[el minster]

you play Titan Fall 2?

[enderlord99]

you play Titan Fall 2?

No, Team Fortress.

[Anonymouswizard]

No, Team Fortress.

Can't you just collect hats in real life?

I've begun messing around with module creation for NWN2 again, and I'm annoyed at the fact that the Appearance Wizard seems to cause the Toolset to freeze up on Windows 10. I mean it's not a massive deal, I can work around it, and I should probably be messing around with the NWN1 toolset anyway, but I do actually prefer how NEN2 allows you to properly control your party members (plus I only have space for one on my laptop and NWN2 is installed so I can play it). God I remember how annoying it is to write each individual reply on a dialogue tree and keep everything in character, I can see why RPGs tend to railroad you away from neutral into 'saintly paladin or puppy kicking blackguard' again.

Actually, I'm really wanting to go back to messing around with NWN1's toolset, because it's just that little bit easier to use and less buggy. Maybe once I've finished MotB.

[Bartmanhomer]

I hope you're either a key worker or working from home, lives are more important than businesses making money (I'll say it now, Workers Lives Matter).

What's a key worker?

[Peelee]

What's a key worker?

The same thing as an "essential worker" over here. It's just the British term, I imagine.

[Bartmanhomer]

The same thing as an "essential worker" over here. It's just the British term, I imagine.

Well, I'm not a key worker my job has reopened during the pandemic and I'm not working at home.

[The Fury]

The same thing as an "essential worker" over here. It's just the British term, I imagine.

Naw. It's what British people call locksmiths and pianists. Y'know, because they work with keys.

[Peelee]

Naw. It's what British people call locksmiths and pianists. Y'know, because they work with keys.

Would ya take a butchers at that clanger? That really takes the biscuit. Now, if you want your Britishisms to be tickety-boo, what they call "keys" translates to "bones", so "key workers" are doctors, surgeons, medical professionals. You know, essential workers, like I said! Now if any of the Brits around here say otherwise, don't you listen, they've all gone quids in on trying to confuse Americans. Or, as they call us, "Bumbledoffers".

[LaZodiac]

Well folks, you lovely band of miscreants who I love so much, I have some cool news for you.

the cover art is done, as is my own working on it into a proper front and back and spine.

I'm so very, very excited for this. The e-reader version is actually already up, but the physical release still has at most 72 hours to finish cooking in the review process.

I am, officially, a published author, and I'm so ****ing happy right now I can't believe it.

[Bartmanhomer]

Well folks, you lovely band of miscreants who I love so much, I have some cool news for you.

the cover art is done, as is my own working on it into a proper front and back and spine.

I'm so very, very excited for this. The e-reader version is actually already up, but the physical release still has at most 72 hours to finish cooking in the review process.

I am, officially, a published author, and I'm so ****ing happy right now I can't believe it.

Wow congrats. I love the artwork.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Well folks, you lovely band of miscreants who I love so much, I have some cool news for you.

the cover art is done, as is my own working on it into a proper front and back and spine.

I'm so very, very excited for this. The e-reader version is actually already up, but the physical release still has at most 72 hours to finish cooking in the review process.

I am, officially, a published author, and I'm so ****ing happy right now I can't believe it.

Congratulations!

Forum rules allowing, can you plug it in some more detail? Or link me to an appropriate place? YA, I'm guessing for the art?

Grey Wolf

[LaZodiac]

Wow congrats. I love the artwork.

It's awesome!

Congratulations!

Forum rules allowing, can you plug it in some more detail? Or link me to an appropriate place? YA, I'm guessing for the art?

Grey Wolf

I cannot! I will PM you though!

I'd argue more New Adult than Young Adult, but that's a messy and complicated descriptor in the first place.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'd argue more New Adult

...

I'mma have to do some googling, aren't I?
ETA: OK, I think I see the difference.

Not a Newberry Medal contender book, though, right?

Grey Wolf

[Bartmanhomer]

Every night during the pandemic I go to bed at 3 AM and I some up at 12 PM. Well I'll be going to bed real early next week.