Here's a place to discus video games, be they arcade-style coin-op games, computer games for your PC, or for a game-system, like SEGA or Playstation. FUN!!! J

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Monday, June 04, 2001 - 01:26 pm:

Damien, have you done a skirmish game in B & W yet? Let me know if you have. I'm getting a bit ticked off at Lethys. Where the hell does he get his prayer energy from? I've had to sacrifice villagers (children from Lethys' villages especially) just to keep up with all the miracles he's casting. We're squabbling over this one little village...

I'd taken over all but ONE of his villages (his home village), it's the next closest one to his temple we seem to be fighting over. He's got no followers (like 90% of the people worship Naughty Nat) but he's not short on miracles or prayer energy, that rat bastid! So is that just the way the computer plays against you or am I missing something? I figured I ask U since you're the only other one I know who plays B&W.

Although good 'ol Einstein kicked Lethys's leopard's arse on several occasions. He's bigger, stronger and has the coolest tattoos. I can't say my creature's penis is bigger than Lethys' creature's penis since they have no genitalia. Oh well...

Oh, and those lavender-white colored mushrooms make your creature grow a teeny bit. I also read that you can poison a rival village food supply by dropping one of those toadstools (the red and white mushrooms) into the village food store =) I haven't found out what the blue mushrooms do.

Oh wait, isn't that EVIL?

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Monday, June 04, 2001 - 01:38 pm:

So since I can't keep up with all the miracle's he casting I've been seriously contemplating a nice genocide on his remaining two villages. That will shrink his area of influence down to zero. It will make me more evil but I really don't care since I play gray (with good tendencies.... usually)..

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Monday, June 04, 2001 - 03:11 pm:

Yah, so I got another question for you MODS out there =) Since Lev has a new home is it okay to put up pictures now? I'd like to post pics of my creature Einstein (and other stuff) once his bruises heal (that damn leopard! At least Einstein showed him who da man! Daz right!)...

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Monday, June 04, 2001 - 05:58 pm:

I had too many babies in the one village, very handy for prayer points if you sacrifice them =) You can even sacrifice the dead too! But they're only worth 6000 points. I've seen babies give out over 12,000 per sacrifice *grin*

I guess that's a cool way to do it! I will have to test this out to see if it is more effective than sending worshipers to the temple. Get your village to overpopulate (easy if you have male breeders instead of female breeders) and pick off the hordes of babies that flood the Creche and then dump 'em onto the altar! I think I'll raid Lethys' creches before dipping into my own. Silly me =)

Mauahahahahahah!

You know, with all that sacrificing I did during my last game you would think my temple would have grown spikes! But for some reason it didn't, I will admit that I was slightly dissapointed. Then again, there's no rainbow over the temple either.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, June 05, 2001 - 10:06 am:

An 'EVIL' petting zoo? ;>

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Tuesday, June 05, 2001 - 08:48 pm:

I still need to see if stupid.com is still selling that "Dr. Evil's bag of Shhh!"... Maybe they have some new funny products, I haven't been to that website in a while.

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Friday, June 08, 2001 - 10:38 pm:

Since no one answered my question from 4 posts ago: " Since Lev has a new home is it okay to put up pictures now? " I'm wondering if our mods pay attention to me =) What do I have to do? Dance around naked? sheeh... You people....

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Sunday, June 10, 2001 - 11:39 pm:

I have no say, even though I kinda have mod-hood right now... sowwy... ;>

By Technomage (Houdini) on Monday, June 11, 2001 - 09:35 am:

Ok ok.. keep yer shirt on!

I was hoping Sol could answer that one since the site is being hosted in his csh account.

By Aileen Pagan-Welch (Ewokie) on Monday, June 11, 2001 - 06:07 pm:

I have sort of a video game related question.

The new Gameboy Advance...can anyone tell me if it's worth buying? Or is it crap?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!! :-)

By Funk Sol Brother (Sol) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 08:32 pm:

Huh?

Sol wakes up to Nat's Question.

I guess... sure, why the hey not? I haven't gotten any CSH complaints YET ;) I think they are content with the glorious deeds I have done by putting up the Fabled and Lost City of LEV on their server. Cool!

Sol

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 09:56 pm:

Ewokie,

Now understand that I am biassed since I work for Babbages the largest video game retailer in the country.

Ahem, GBA is a far superior system to its predecesor. The original GB was only 8 bits and the color version only supported like 256 colors. The new GBA is a 32 bit system and supports somewhere around 2000 colors. In laymens terms it has the power of the original playstation in a neat little hand held size. We got our systems on monday and everyone of them had already been reserved. The games look excelent graphically. Look for Super mario advance, F-Zero, Tony Hawk 2, and Castlevania specifically.

In general it looks like a decent decendent to the Game Boy legecy. It also helps that it is only $30 more than GBC and plays all of the old GB games.

Just my two cents.

By Aileen Pagan-Welch (Ewokie) on Thursday, June 14, 2001 - 05:42 pm:

Night Hawk,

Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate it. It looks like it's a great little game system to take with you when you are really limited on the amount of space you have and are limited as to how many things you can take with you. I bought the GBA Castlevania game. I hope it's good.

Thanks again!

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Wednesday, June 20, 2001 - 03:29 pm:

I started my Black & White game over again last night. And why? Because Einstein was just too nice. He was angleic but not aggressive enough, and I think I know where I went wrong.

I completed the sheep challange of land one. If you find every sheep on the island the shepherd will unlock the sheep creature for you. So my little Einstein would always try to be friendly with the sheep, even though it would just stand there doing nothing waiting for me to swap creatures if I wanted to. But I rewarded Einstein (probably a bit too much) for being friendly to the sheep creature. So now he's friendly to everyone- even enemies! I have a hard time trying to get him to instigate a fight. Sometimes he'll even act friendly while on the leash of aggression. I've seen him cast healing miracles on the enemy creature in skirmish games- that was when I decided to start over. He was good at fighting and all, but I couldn't trust him to judge on his own when to be violent and when to be nice.

So I will try once again to make sure Einstein doesn't grow up to be a wuss. I hope this time I get it right. I have high hopes for my little guy. Once I get a faster net connection I will start my own clan- I need Einstein to be a well disciplined creature for that. All this wussy nice-nice crap has got to go.

I found a neat little skirmish map called "Day Care" for your creature where the opposition is minimal and there's a ton of miracle dispencers so you can teach your creature neat stuff early on.

But anyway, my new baby Einstein seems to be going OK. With the exception that I have to re-train him on where to poop, not to eat the villagers (he's swallowed two of them already), not to be greedy and to only sleep in the temple. Work, work, work...

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, June 20, 2001 - 07:55 pm:

Well I picked up Twisted Metal Black today and slipped right into the game right away. Probably helps that the controls are the same as all the other TM games. The good thing is that 989 studios had nothing to do with this game and the origanal desingers made it. It is really dark in envirnment and story. It is really cool to be driving around and all of a sudden rain starts to pour down, or to be driving on the highway and the cars headl;ights come on as it gets darker. Very cool I highly recommened it to those who have a PS2.

I can't wait till Bloody Roar 3 comes out next week, it is the game that broke my will against the PS2 and looks better than the other games plus the boss of the first game is now playable.

By The CheeseWizzard (Sol) on Thursday, June 21, 2001 - 10:40 pm:

I'll tell ya'az all a cool game. The Sims! What? You haven't even tried it yet? SHAME!

Of course my 1st creation was, you guessed it, Tony and Angie's house. Yes, a little Tony Sim and an Angie Sim, too. Jeff Sim, Bryan Sim, and Darren Sim were all neighbors, but Angie Sim chased Jeff away when he came to visit - she was very grouchy after spending all night sleeping on the kitchen floor. Ha ha ha, Sol God will soon have Sims of all of you, moo hoo haa haa

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, June 21, 2001 - 10:49 pm:

I was fooling around with the movies aspect of TM black and on a whim viewed the credits. It was really cool because they took the cg cutscenes and mixed them up a bit and used The Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black" for the soundtrack.

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Friday, June 22, 2001 - 08:19 am:

cool song... One of my favorites.

By The CheeseWizzard (Sol) on Tuesday, July 03, 2001 - 08:45 pm:

Ha, I just downloaded a Weird Al skin for the SIMS! Awesome! Now Sol and Angie can hang out with Weird Al Yankovic! The SIMS rules!

Sol

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Sunday, July 15, 2001 - 11:53 pm:

Here's a pic of Einstein before I restarted the black & white game. I think he was around 7 years old or something, 75% strength, 30% fat... He's a little battle-scarred too.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, July 17, 2001 - 10:49 am:

UH, Um, uh, yeah. That is a leash right?

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Tuesday, July 17, 2001 - 12:29 pm:

No, that's his third leg.

*SLAP*

Of course it is! Don't you recognize the fuzzy leash of compassion =) Get that naughty thought outta yer head, Damien- you silly puppy! Creatures don't have genitalia anyway =) The leash was just rendered wierdly in that shot, it wasn't mean to be suggestive- knowing me I realize that's hard to beleive but you'd best believe it cuz I say so.

By The CheeseWizzard (Sol) on Tuesday, July 17, 2001 - 12:32 pm:

I thought it was like, monkey-wiz. Take Einstein to see Planet of the Apes!

Sol

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Tuesday, July 17, 2001 - 02:31 pm:

Nah, I'm not a big fan of Mark Wahlberg- with the exception of his CK underwear modeling days. Boogie Nights sucked- the only reason for seeing that movie was to view that large phallis that he's packin'. So unless Mark is gonna whip it out for Planet of the Apes I don't think I'm buying a ticket =)

By The CheeseWizzard (Sol) on Monday, July 23, 2001 - 07:13 pm:

But Nat, I heard Tim Burton is involved! Maybe worth it?

Sol

By Subcriminal (Nat) on Monday, July 23, 2001 - 09:31 pm:

I dunno, I'd prolly spend my moolah on seeing a different movie.

By Technomage (Houdini) on Monday, July 30, 2001 - 08:27 am:

Sounds like a rental to me.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, August 01, 2001 - 11:44 am:

TO get back on subject I got two new games for my PS2 recently.

1. Dark cloud a cool game that is like Zelda when your in the adventure areas and like civilization when your rebuilding the current town your in. The story goes something like this, evil bad guy resurects dark genie and both go and destroy the world. Good fairy king saves the world in pieces and scatters them in their respected areas. He selects you and gives you powerful crystal that will unlock the peices and allow you to rebuild the world. Very cool game.

2. Gran Turismo 3. nuff' said.


Ok I talk. awesome graphics, and that is a weak explanation. In GT2 you could see the rim and hubcaps move right, in 3 you can acctually see the tires move, they bounce up and down realistically in respance to the terain. You can see into the car, not enough to make out details a lag the machine but enough to see that there is a roll cage, a driver, a dash board. The enviernments are increadable with a sun that can acctually put a glare on the windshield and make a person look away, reallistc light shafts that pass threw the trees, and in rally mode the dust cloud is so realistc you can get lost in it if your not in first place. All in all I love playing this game.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Wednesday, August 01, 2001 - 06:33 pm:

Now I want a PS2... boo-hoo, boo-hoo. I want. I want...

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, August 02, 2001 - 11:48 pm:

Hey don't worry save up your nickels and you can buy the GT3 buddle edition of the PS2. The same as the basic package but it includes the game for $30 more.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, August 02, 2001 - 11:50 pm:

Or you could come over to my place and play it. I like to beef up my Miata and I plan to do it without cheating this time.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Friday, August 03, 2001 - 09:42 am:

there are cheats for GT? do tell...

I can help you earn race money for GT. I am actually very good at it. The trick is finding a relatively easy race with a relatively OK purse, but gives you a 500,000 dollar car. And then you sell the car. And then you do the race like, 5 more times. and keep selling the car. trick is, you gotta win the race. in a matter of 30 minutes, you become a multi-millionaire. Easy. I wish real life was like this. Dang. Oh well. Byebye.

By The CheeseWizzard (Sol) on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 03:52 pm:

Nothing beats...

BLASTO!

Awesome! Blasto saves Uranus from tons of evil aliens plus saves space babes! Sweet Playstation Game. With Phil Hartman as the voice of Blasto, how can you go wrong?

COOL
Sol

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, August 07, 2001 - 12:07 am:

Acctually Fred they removed that feature from the game. You get a 3,000 dollar car the first time you win the circuit and then nothing. As for the cheats I found a copy of the GT2 soundtrack a year ago and it had a bonus disc in it that had a video on it that gave you hints on how to corner and stuff. It also included two save files, one gave you a few cars and a lot of money, while the other gave you a lot of cars and some money. Both gave you all the licenses( some in gold) and trophies in all the races. This is how I got concept cars and the Suzuki Escudo.

But I've been more interested in my new computer game Max Payne of late. Good game, your one ex-cop framed for murdering your DEA partner waging a one man war on the mobs of New York. The best part is bullet time where everything slows down and you can see the bullets flying around.

By Yo' Daddy (Sol) on Thursday, October 18, 2001 - 09:03 am:

Saw Black and White on the shelf yesterday - cool! Made me wonder - was the REAL Einstein an Avatar, too?

Also saw the Director's cut of MYST. New better graphics, lost scenes, etc! Just $10! Anyone ever play MYST? Or Riven?

Sol

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Thursday, October 18, 2001 - 09:44 am:

Jon got a PS2 and he brought it to my place on tuesday night and let me play GT3.

That was his first mistake.

Now, realize that Jon is being activated to guard the WTC site (ground-zero) until november 4th, at least.

That was his second mistake.

I know where Jon lives. I know he has a PS2 with GT3. I know when Jamie works and is not in the house. I know Jon's "secret" entry system for when he forgets his door-key (OFTEN)...

A plan is hatching in this primitive brain of mine...

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Thursday, October 18, 2001 - 12:01 pm:

Give Jon my number if he wants to hang out while he's in NYC.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Thursday, October 18, 2001 - 12:16 pm:

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Thursday, October 18, 2001 - 01:33 pm:

Excuse me?

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, October 19, 2001 - 11:00 am:

Derf got bitten by the GT3 bug. Cool game but I'm picking up Devil May Cry today. Kick arse game where you play a half demon occult shop owner whose ancestors banished a powerful demon from our plane of excistance. He's come back and it's up to you to send him back. The charecters name is Dante and he fights with a sword and twin hand guns, named Ebony and Ivory. Starting enemies are man sized killer marienettes. Very cool game. I also recommened the next generation SpyHunter.

By Technomage (Houdini) on Monday, November 26, 2001 - 02:10 pm:

So, having a hard time finding the right console gaming system eh?

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/TechTV/techtv_consolechoose011123.html

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, November 26, 2001 - 05:32 pm:

Nintendo game cube... Why? Two words: METRIOD PRIME- 'nuff said.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, November 27, 2001 - 10:07 am:

Metroid sucks.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Tuesday, November 27, 2001 - 10:13 am:

=P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is bad taste to put down such a worthy and superior game series. Naughty, naughty Fred...

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, November 27, 2001 - 10:16 am:

GT3 is cool.

Ghost Recon ROCKS

Anything else... Just isn't real enough. Sorry.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Tuesday, November 27, 2001 - 10:50 am:

You're not credible enough =) Have you even seen what the new metroid game looks like?

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, November 27, 2001 - 12:33 pm:

yes.

I was just being a dick.

I am good at that sometimes.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Tuesday, November 27, 2001 - 01:06 pm:

I know, you know, we all know =)

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Wednesday, November 28, 2001 - 10:54 am:

an invaluable resource to all gamers everywhere:

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, November 28, 2001 - 11:07 am:

yup, I agree. Nice site.

By Yo' Daddy (Sol) on Thursday, November 29, 2001 - 12:09 pm:

Anyone played Everquest?

Sol

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Thursday, November 29, 2001 - 01:39 pm:

I've wanted to, but I think it's an online multiplayer thing. AsI only have puny dial-up service (due to short funds) I've shyed away from online gaming. I heard that it's really good, another game to look into is Ultima online (cool rpg).

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 10:28 am:

Acctually both are blown completely away by Dark Ages of Camelot. It is again an online multiplayer rpg but from what I,ve heard a lot of Evercrack players have jumped ship becuase it is better.

Warning: If you looking to purchase Pool of Radience, be aware that it is extremely buggy and the worst one some have experienced is that when they uninstalled it it corrupted files in their OS and they had to reboot the said OS.

I'm playing Metal Gear Solid 2 right now and it rocks. Although I now can't wait for Final Fantasy X, I played a playable demo last night and it is incredeable. There is now voice acting in all of the cut scenes, the in game graphics look just like the cut scenes and the battle graphics look just like the running around graphics. All in all it got an 11 out of 10 from me.

I am picking up today something that is probably as realistic looking as Ghost Recon. It is called Return to Castle Wolfenstien. I've seen video footage that dropped my jaw, but I will make a more informative report after I have played it.

As to the console war, here's my two scents. Get the one that will best suit your needs. If you are looking for a system that plays DVD out of the box and has a good variety of games, get the PS2. If you are looking for a system that is going to be more kid friendly get the Gamecube(although kids are not the only target market for Nintendo this time, also Resident Evil is exclusive to the Gamecube now). All others should see an X-box.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 10:50 am:

I played Galactic Battlegrounds last night. Jon spent $50 on it and I must say, even though it is EXACTLY the same game as Age of Kings, I DON'T CARE. I love Age of Kings. I love Galactic Battlegrounds. I played the Wookiees. I built 20 Jedi and walked through a droid army. I built 20 wookiee heavy bowcaster troopers and destroyed lots of trade federation buildings and vehicles. I built Wookiees riding on the backs of dinosaurs with flamethrowers mounted on em. Fighters, bombers... It was FUN.

I am paying today though, since I only got just about 4 hours of sleep. Oh well.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, December 17, 2001 - 09:25 am:

I got Emperor Battle from Dune from a friend of mine for Xmas =) I spent all weekend playing it, I suppose it's my first war-strategy game. I like it, not my favorite game, but I like it. So far I've only played House Ordos, not House Atreides or House Harkonnen... Yet.

The basics: the Emperor has been assasinated by his Bene-Gesserit lover, leaving the three houses to fight over the throne. The Sardukar don't know what to do with themselves without their Emperor, and Ix & Tlelaxu (rivals with each other) will sell their technology to whoever has the money and the right diplomacy- so long as you agree not to trade with the opposing house. The Fremen's alliance with House Atredies (ps- Michael Dorn plays Duke Achillus- for those of you who want to see what he looks like without his Klingon makeup) has been waivering. The Space Guild has a part to play too, but I haven't gotten far enough into the game yet- I think they will sell you some of their transports (navigators included). As for the Bene-Gesserit, I have no clue, but they bumped off the Emperor for a reason I have yet to dicover (of course it has something to do with spice).

House Atredies is a strong attacker, Harkonnen has tough, defensive vehicles and Ordos is just plain sneaky and likes to use forbidden technologies- stolen or purchased doesn't really matter, the never play by the rules of war anyway.

It's too early to tell you if there's much of a plot involved to make it truly interesting. You're given orders from your house's Mentat, the one from Ordos is a cute Asian-looking chicky- I thought you boys would appreciate the info.

Okey dokeley. Back to work for me =)

-Nat

By Yo' Daddy (Sol) on Monday, December 17, 2001 - 09:32 am:

Nat, that's sweet! Is there a PC version?

I just started playing Diablo which is pretty cool!

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, December 17, 2001 - 09:44 am:

Yeah, Emperor Battle for Dune is for PC right now =) If the gaming stores don't have it in stock check it out on Amazon. I don't know who has the best price for it, so you might want to shop around.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, December 19, 2001 - 11:36 am:

Nat if you like Emporer or that type of game (i personally love it, something about being in complete control of the lives and sctions of others) Then you should try some other RTS's. especially Star Craft, I highly recommened Total Annihilation if you can find it.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein is stupendous (can I say that?). The envirnments are realistic as are the people(leather uniforms on SS guys looks like a photograph) and when they talk you can see the detail inside the persons mouth. I recently used the invisibility code(yes I finished the game before I cheated) and noticed something else, as the people talk the sides of the face move as if there was a jawbone. In short I am more and more impressed with this game the more I play it. There is one drawback however and that is the system requirments are kinda high. In order for me to run it at the level I described I had to install 128megs of Ram(taking my total to 256) and a GeForce 2 64meg card at it still slows down a bit every once and awhile. Awsome game otherwise, see I can't stop talking about it.

By Yo' Daddy (Sol) on Thursday, December 20, 2001 - 12:36 pm:

Total Annihilation, my personal fave, can be had for a cheap price at Cavedog.com - there is NO plot to speak of, but LOTS of army-style strategy and action! I love it!

I also downloaded TONS of patches including Star Wars vehicles for use with TA and lots of other goodies.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, December 21, 2001 - 12:22 am:

TA has no plot? Silly Sol of course it does, the plot is that the war has been going on for 4,000 years and it's reaching the end. As you play the narrator tells the story of the side you chose to play.

I beat the game as the Arm(good guys) but only got half way through the Core(bad guys) missions. The main reason being that with the core you start on a metal planet and then to organic ones. I have the expansion but it is again harder because it mostly takes place on water and REALLY small islands.

I'm picking up my copy of FFX tommarrow from work, can't wait.

BTW Sol do tell where you procurred the Star Wars vehicles? I'm looking to replace the old download units I lost when I changed computers. I had some kick arse ones too I had a satlite radar that showed the whole board and a fusion reactor facility that gave me about 5,000 units of energy.

My fav defensive weapon has to be the Doomsday device, how about you guys.

fav attack unit-Brawlers.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, December 21, 2001 - 12:24 am:

Oh some more on the downloaded units I remember, I had an Arm version of Crogoth. And a Mech unit that looked somthing like a Shadowcat. Both could whoop up on the enemy and take on a Commander and survive.

By Yo' Daddy (Sol) on Friday, December 21, 2001 - 04:36 pm:

Knight Hawk,

Don't remember where I got the Star Wars Units from... but I may be enticed to provide some for you...

I hear rumours that AIM or NIM can do file transfers... or I'd even attempt to send 'em 2 you over email if I can. Send me an email! We can arrance it!

For that matter, maybe it can be done over Morpheus.

Sol

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Sunday, January 06, 2002 - 06:09 pm:

shyte! I'm playing emperor and I'm getting my arse whupped by the Atredies minotaurs! I need to scatter my mortar boys before they get blown up.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 04:03 pm:

Did I mention I got Final Fantasy X when it released?

Well if you guys like the commercials you should play the game it is un*&%^believable.

I'm not going to ruin the surprise and I'm leaving it at that.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 04:07 pm:

OH, I almost forgot,

How many of you like Skittles?

How many of you like the Skittles Commercials?

What if I told you they made a game based on the Skittles commercials?

They did, it's called Darkened Skye. It stars a teenage girl who must save her world by bringing magic back to it. To do this she must find the lost Skittles and bring back the rainbow. I kid you not it is acctually quite humerous and they have stills from the commercials in the game to tell the story. Currently I'm trying to find Merlin on some deserted islands.

By Yo' Daddy (Sol) on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 04:56 pm:

Dude! I love Skittles! I was gonna make a 6-hr tape of nothing BUT skittles commercials! Just goes to show that the inventer of these commercials is actually being inspired by visions from the Land of Faerie.

What platform, Knight Hawk, and what's it called?

Sol

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, January 11, 2002 - 09:13 pm:

Uh, it's called Darkened Skye. It's currently only available for the PC.

By Technomage (Houdini) on Monday, January 14, 2002 - 04:46 pm:

I just picked up Star Trek Armada II. Its an RTS game where you get to command a fleet of up to 30 ships against nasty foes like the Borg and species 8472.

Races you can be in mutiplayer include:

• Federation,
• Romulan Empire,
• Klingon Empire,
• Borg,
• Cardassian,
• Species 8472

By Yo' Daddy (Sol) on Tuesday, January 15, 2002 - 08:23 am:

Wow, that sounds REALLY cool! How much was it, where'd you get it? I love Star Trek. Speaking of which, I'll be posting images of Lal later today!

Sol

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, January 15, 2002 - 11:37 am:

The 3-D engine is clunky and the toughness of the ships is lacking. It's a good sequel to Armada, but it still lacks the depth-of-play and intensity of a hardcore RTS like Age Of Kings or Empire Earth. go to gamespot.com for a full review of the game and decide for yourself...

By Yo' Daddy (Sol) on Tuesday, January 15, 2002 - 01:07 pm:

Anyone wanna see my Total Annihilation Strategy Guide? Ha, can U believe I got RIT credit for making and presenting it!

It's fun, worth a look if you like war games.

http://www.csh.rit.edu/~tonyl/ta/welcome.html

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 04:36 pm:

Empire Earth.

All other RTS games suck in comparison.

Before you jump up my A$$ with both feet for saying such a thing, let me elaborate:

the game spans 14 epochs from prehistoric up through nano. Other RTS games choose 1 era and stick to it. Imagine the fun of advancing faster than your neighbors and dropping a nuke on them before they figure out how to fly.

the game's unit limit can be set to 1200. thiss means you won't run into a pesky unit cap because you need 50 citizens to gather resources, a bunch of military in your home cities for defence, an invasion force to kick your enemy's A$$, etc etc etc.

Scientific research is relatively easy... gather enough resources and build 2 buildings during an epoch and you can move on to the next age. Economy, Economy, Economy wins wars...

you can create cool scenarios for up to 8 players, and if you feel like the computer's AI is too tough (which it really is) you can make a "vengeance" scenario and like, not allow the computer to advance beyond the stone age while you romp on him with laser guns and nuclear bombs.

The computer's AI set to its easiest level is tougher than most other computer AI's set between moderate and difficult. The computer does stuff like mass an army just outside your line of sight, then send a small force into your area to engage you, then fly in 3 nukes and kill EVERYTHING in the fight, then roll it's massed military in and kill you real good... Then drop more nukes.

Did I mention this game has nukes in it? Oh yeah, and aircraft carriers, trident submarines, fighters, bombers, and umm... Nukes. Nukes SUCK, by the way. Even when you use them against the computer, it still kinda sucks cuz you can almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

You can choose from 22 different civilizations, create your own civilization, or even spawn one when the game starts based on the epochs you'll be playing and the type of board your on.

So, if you wanna experience a total RTS with true 3D and the ability to zoom down to LOS perspective that spans over 500,000 years of human conflict and you don't think $40 is too much to spend on it, check it out. This RTS takes Age of Empires, gooses it up on steroids, and lets you take a civilization from cave-man times all the way up to battlemechs and lasers...

And it has Nukes, too.

By Yo' Daddy (Sol) on Thursday, January 24, 2002 - 12:28 pm:

Dude, I am SO sold on Empire Earth now! A better endorsement I've never heard! Wow! Just Wow!

I have to remember that I own a computer that can run all of these now!

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Thursday, January 24, 2002 - 06:12 pm:

I'm purchasing a copy of sim city 3000 unlimited. Anyone get to play it yet? How is it?

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, January 29, 2002 - 11:57 pm:

I just finished Baldur's Gate Dark Aliance for my PS2 (when you got the flu there aint much else to do). It was short but very fun. It's basicaly a 3rd edition AD&D version of Diablo. The only real drawback besides the shortness of the game is the lack of charecter generation. You pick from three charecters a human archer, a dwarf fighter, and an elf Sorceres. In the end I got an onyx sword that did 99-125 damage it was cool.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Friday, April 12, 2002 - 12:18 pm:

OK, I've been silent in here for a while now... BUT I have new games and I wanna tell you about em.

Ghost Recon: Desert Siege. OK, the original Ghost Recon blew me away. This new mission pack builds on the first game's action and takes it to a new level. You still command your little special forces team, only you've been shipped to the horn of Africa to shut down some warlord who's been building his military out of equipment bought from the russians (in the first game). The AI is SO much more convincing, and the game is even MORE real than the original. My only complaint (and it's a small one) is that you don't get to keep the experienced soldiers from the original missions in the new missions. Basically, you hafta start over, and unlock the 12 specialists all over again. Although, the first 4 specialists are Lindy Cohen, Dieter Munz, Scott Ibrahim, and Nigel Tunney, 4 of the most-used characters from the 1st mission set. I'm still waiting for my 2 favorites, Henry Ramirez and Susan Grey (they use silenced MP5's). Anyway, I highly recommend it for fans of 1st-person shooters who also like to use their brains and a bit of tactics, rather than just "see enemy, squeeze trigger". I give it a Fred-rating of 9 out of 10.

Star Trek: Bridge Commander. I only played the first several missions for this one, most of it tutorial, but based on those, plus the few actual missions, I can tell you this thing is frickin HARD. You gotta juggle 5 stations simultaneously, with the option of a 6th, tactical display where you kinda go 3rd-person in a chase-camera behind your ship "for more direct control" they say. I haven't yet found the purpose for this view, spending most of my time between tactical and engineering (telling Mr. Felix to destroy the starboard warp engine and alternately Gax to fix the shields, fix the hull, fix the impulse, give more power to weapons, etc etc etc). I think I've played like, 4 live missions, and had to restart something like 10 times cuz I lost alot. The graphics are cool and the concept is unique, but will take some getting used to by players who are used to a more direct-control kind of approach (like me). It seems like you issue orders, sit in your Barcalounger captain's chair and watch events unfold on your simulated big-screen TV. You got a hot chick first officer who sits next to you and has a nice voice, I mean, a couple of cup-holders and some beers would make the bridge the ultimate tailgate party to watch the big game on the big screen... But I digress. since I have not yet been through the game enough to see all it has to offer, the jury is still out on it. Looks like it has the potential to be really cool, though, once I get used to the command interface. There's this Romulan warbird that keeps messin with me, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be able to destroy it or let it keep cloaking and getting away... It keeps getting away and I keep losing the missions, so...

The Sims. Jon recently got me addicted to this one, and as of April 5th, I have all the expansions (that's right, livin large, house party, hot date, and vacation). It's pretty cool, especially if you wanna waste large chunks of time in a single stroke. Basically, you make little people that live on your computer. The programmers must have had no lives whatsoever, because you can almost replicate all things in real life on your computer with your sims. This game is great for people-watchers, and there are all sorts of little things you can do to have your sims get by better. The ONLY thing that really blows in this game is the really complicated social structure set up for "how to make friends" and "how to keep friends". I mean, I've known full-scale sociopaths who were easier to make friends with than the sims in this game. And what's worse is that your jobs REQUIRE you to maintain a certain number of friends to get promoted (14 is the max I think, but I'm havin a hard enough time keeping 7, and I have 1 sim who's unemployed and all he does all day is try to make friends and bring up his skills). But again, I digress... I like the game, it gives you all sorts of freedoms with construction, whether it be your sim-house, or a downtown area where you can go on a sim-date, or the new vacation slot where you can take your sim-family on a much-needed sim-vacation. The thing that makes the sims is the stuff you can buy for em... Like the new polar bear rug you can make out on, or the leather couch you can make out on, or the variety of "Love hot-tubs" you can make out in, or... well, you'll find out... 7 out of 10 on the Fred-scale...

Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. Even though I STILL CAN'T GET IT TO FRICKIN WORK ON MY COMPUTER, I played it a bit at Jon's house, and was very impressed. I went running through the levels with nothing but the lightsaber, and I got beat a little bit, when Jon told me "why don't you use the GUNS, dude?" Guns? Guns? Do Jedi really NEED to use guns? I told him it wouldn't be the right kind of jedi experience if I used guns. He shrugged and let me keep deflecting those blaster bolts back at the bad guys. Eventually, I will be good enough to use the lightsaber exclusively, instead of using it exclusively and PRETENDING I'm good enough... Graphics are AWESOME, gameplay is smooth, the figures are rendered nicely and show facial expressions, and the AI is really smart. I mean, I wished I was playing against another human because the AI was that hard to predict... 9.5 out of 10 on the Fred-Scale (now if only I could get it to wrok on MY machine, I'd be all set...)

Tachyon: The Fringe. Space flight-sim. Good points: simple control system, freedom to choose your own "destiny" and missions, Bruce Campbell is the voice-actor for your character. Bad Points: simple control system (too simple for my liking). That's it. Freespace and Freespace 2 kick it's flight-sim BUTT, but it's fun to just jump into and play real quick, like the old X-wing games. I give it 7 out of 10 on the Fred-Scale.

If you want game reviews by other people, go to gamespot.com and do a search for any game you wanna see reviewed. I usually use this as a guide to seeing what I wnat to buy. Oh, and don't believe those dudes who pan Ghost Recon. They just have no idea how to play a thinking man's shooting game. Stick with Quake, Junior...

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Sunday, April 14, 2002 - 01:23 am:

I got B & W creatre Isle butI haven't tested it out yet, I'll let ya know what I think whem I test it out. Right now I have too many gin and tonix in my bloodtream to be conherent..

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, July 09, 2002 - 10:32 am:

GO away

Playing Warcraft III

Go away.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 11:47 am:

Okay.. Let me tell u guys about my labor day...

I had fully immersed myself into the world of gaming, and had transformed myself into a game geek. I lived for nothing else except for gaming. I did not bathe, I ate junk food, I only left my computer when nature called. I feel so ashamed.....

Why you ask? Because my latest addiction is Anarchy Online... Mind you I am careful not to get too addicted (with the exception of yesterday). I have a life outside my computer, it's not much of one but I shall defend it nevertheless. And unlike many of the people I've met on AO, I have a significant other. Probably because I don't use gaming to socialize! Sorry, but if you're loking for love in real life you dont do it on a computer game.

Anyway...

The graphics are awesome, most of the people are nice, you can pick Clan, Omni or Neutral, there are countless guilds and clans of different alignemnt to help the newbies level up and get cool guns and armor. You can also get implants that you can customize to raise your stats.

I haven't done any player vs. player combat (becuz my current level sucks), but they have all out war in certain "political zones" and some of the citys have combat arenas. There are also clubs and lots of places to hang out with yer on-line buddies. They even have a bot, a very large, muscular and BALD in a white wedding dress and high heels dancing in one of the clubs. He's called "the dancing fool"- it is so hilarious. There's even a red light district where characters hang out to sell.. *ahem* services in exchange for guns, armor and money. I was very pissed to find out there were no strip clubs for the ladies to go to =( I shall send my complaint to Funcom.

Omni can't travel on clan territory without getting attacked, Clan can't travel on Omni territory without getting attacked, and neutrals are picked on wherever they go =( Neutrals can travel around, but can't use Omni shops and terminals. However, Omni and Clan can both travel to Neutral territories and used their shops. It's not fair!

You can pick from a TON of professions, fixer, doctor, agent, soldier, enforcer, martial artist, adventurer, Bureaucrat, engineer, fixer, etc...

Clans and Omni tech are enemies, neutrals don't take sides, and are becoming a third army in the game. From what I gather Omni is trying to take over Neutral political zones, but the neutrals are banding together in their own clans to defend themselves- frequently getting Clan assistance.

There are some good clans, and some aggressive clans too. Clan and Omni leaders going to neutral territory in order to recruit players is frowned upon since the Neutrals are starting to band together. You can have friends from all alignements. Politics also plays a role.

So far I have two characters, a fixer and a Doc.

Some of the people are a little strange, but nice. You also have your mix of creeps and perverts, but that's socitey for ya.

Anarchy Online used to be a very buggy. I think it was a very ambitious game project and Funcom bit off more than they could chew, but they work hard to fix the bugs and from what I've heard from the game veterans they do a good job with the patches. There are a few bugs left to fix, but it's not that bad.

There's a 7 day trial for AO, if this sounds like you guys might like it, you should give it a try.

happy gaming =)

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 12:29 pm:

ummm, does it cost money to play?

Cuz, I say all games should be free to play, no online fees, no extra hidden charges. Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, and Everquest all were passed over by me because they cost money JUST TO PLAY. I don't care how cool they are, if there is an online charge, I resist the urge to play, because gaming should be FREE FOR THE MASSES!

I am currently wrestling with the idea of Star Wars Galaxies, since I am really into Star Wars, but I don't wanna pay $14 a month to play a $50 game. I'll pay $50 and play a game for a few years for fun, but if you tack the the monthly charge on there, you paid an additional $168. so, the bottom line for me is, "is it free to play?"

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 12:40 pm:

Yes, it does cost moolah to play. Although I agree gaming should be free, in reality the game companies need to pay their employees to keep things up and running, server maintenance and upgrades, pay programmers to resolve bug issues and such. Not to mention the game is constantly changing and improving due to customer feedback. There is an ongoing expense for the company to provide the online service, so I can see where a monthly fee is justified. However, I do feel a little jipped and wish the fee were a bit lower.

I think the software download for AO is cheaper than $50, more like $19, I'd have to check on that for u. If you want them to ship u a CD it's extra. If u have broadband it's cheaper to download. Monthly is $13, but u can get a 3 or 6 month package and save a few bucks. So far I like the game and am willing to shell out the monthly fee for my entertainment. =)

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, September 04, 2002 - 05:09 pm:

I got my hands on a copy of Shadowrun for SNES recently. Haven't played enough to give a fair judgment yet though. I've been mostly playing Super Mario Sunshine & Onimusha 2.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Wednesday, September 04, 2002 - 05:30 pm:

it's not a good game at all, actually. Sorry.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, September 05, 2002 - 07:49 pm:

Actually My Boss and Co workers swear it's a great game so I'm gonna give it a shot. Besides I NEVER go by what other people say I like to formulate my own oppinions. I mean if they say it sucks and I like it all the better, if they say it's good and I hate it oh well, and if they say it sucks and I think it sucks it must really suck.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Friday, September 06, 2002 - 03:36 pm:

You'll see. It has a novelty level, but that wears off after a half hour of doing the same old things over and over. Plus it has very Zelda-esque graphics. And you'll run out of money way too fast, too. Oh and all the cooler weapons aren't really available until you start makin MILLIONS. Other than that, it's a fine game.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 04:38 pm:

A great game just came out for the PS2. I forget if you have one Nat but if you do I defenetly think you'll be interested. It's called Kingdom Hearts, the game was developed by Squaresoft AND Disney. Yes it is Final fantasy meets Disney literally. You play as Sora who is helped by Goofy(a knight) and Donald Duck(a wizard). All through the game you meet up with FF and Disney charecters. Right off the bat you can interact with Tidus and Wakka from FFX and Selphie from FF VIII. Later I met up with Cid (the cool FF VII version). As of yet I've only played for about an hour but it is fun. The combat system is more action instead of turn based, I highly recommened this game.

BTW: they use the real character voices for the disney charecters so far. This includes not only Donald and Goofy, but also Jimmeny Cricket, Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 04:39 pm:

Oh I forgot to mention Aerith from FF VII is in it as well (Yah, she's alive).

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Saturday, April 26, 2003 - 03:14 pm:

Here's a few games coming out for everybody(well maybe not everybody).

This is for Nat,
Black & White 2, yes they are finally making a sequel which is supposed to allow you to go even deeper into the role of a god. The people are supposed to be more independent and tech levels higher. They show a picture of a purple ape like thing in the middle of a battle kicking LOTS of people into the air.

For those with a PS2 and a love for old cartoons, there is a Transformers game being made based on the original series set to be released in Japan, and while they don't have an American distributor I can't imagine there not being one who wouldn't want to pick it up at all.

This ones for Fred in particular,
Star Wars Jedi Knight III, Unfortunetly you no longer play as Kyle Katarn who seems to have come to grips with his Jediness and is teaching at Luke's academy. Not only can you pick your race clothing and facial features, you can build your own lightsaber. You get to chose from a single saber, Darth Maul like double blade, and Anikinesqe two sabers at once. They also brought back the ability to chose between the light and Dark sides of the Force.


I played and finished Freelancer and while the job market jobs are almost all the same(they just get tougher as the reward goes up) the variation in ship designs and areas is great. The detail they put into each different star system is incredible.

I also played X2 Wolverines Revenge, the game is actually fun although some parts can get really hard. The voice acting is good with Patrick Stewart playing Xavier, however Mark Hammil as Wolverine just didn't seem right he did a great job it's just that the voice wasn't completely right. I played it on my Xbox and with the hard drive was allowed to use my own music during the game, it was really cool using a stealth strike where Wolverine sidle up to a corner and jumped out to stab the poor guy standing there while Billy Idle's Buried Alive played.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 08:59 am:

Ah you forgot about SWG and the Anarchy online expansion pack "Shadowlands". :P

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Sunday, June 15, 2003 - 03:48 pm:

I hear SWG is now in beta. Has anyone checked this out yet?

I'm getting a little fed up with Anarchy Online lately, is SWG lives up to its hype and lets people play non-politcally affilliated mercenaries wihthout GIMPING them for PVP I just might make the switch.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 10:09 am:

SWG ROCKS, Nat. I was in Beta, and am on the preorder list for the full release. I hope to have it either tonight or tomorrow. Me and some friends are making a rebel-affiliated guild which will eventually become a new Jedi Academy. But, yes, you can remain neutral and play both sides, and not even participate in PVP if you so choose.

You can even be a cutesy-cutesy Twi'Lek dancer and make money by flirting all day long. But I know that's not your style Nat. ;) And if you want to join our guild (we aren't going to be part of the rebellion RIGHT away) come to Starsider (I think) and go to Coronet City on Correllia. We'll be there, recruitin. See ya on the flip side, WHeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! ;)

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 05:23 pm:

Yo yo yo, what's yer chars name and which servers?

Right now my main is on Flurry, joined the Mos Eisley Syndicate there. Havne't had much time to play yet because I've had MAJOR ISP issues for the past two weeks.

I also have a flirty Twi'lek on Bloodfin because the PVPers need mental healing/battle fatigue healing whether they like it or not. But my main motivation for that was to see the dance emotes and the music. AO had emotes, but the ones in SWG are much better and there's a larger variety. I really love some of the dance and music flourishes. They are so cool! I really don't know what my plans are for my dancer, I might pick up Teras Kasi if i have enough skill points left after I master Entertainment, Dance and Music.

I miss the /moon and /flip emotes in AO though, haven't seen them in SWG, so I'm a tad disappointed.

Flurry: Kali-Ma
Bloodfin: Anemone
I have another alt somewhere but I dont remember which.

Oh, btw, is there any way to log chat channels? I need to look something up. Some dancer bitch (probably a pimple-faced male teenager behind the keyboard) was giving me lip for no apparent reason, and I don't remember the name. I was thinking about putting a bounty on her head but I can't remember her name!

Is your name kept anon. when you create bounty hunter missions? If so I have to give it a try, if only I could remember her name.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 11:20 pm:

Well as soon as I get my computer working, finally find a job, and get a decent internet connection I will be joining up with John as a Wookie Bounty Hunter.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 08:36 pm:

I rerolled my char on bloodfin. I realized any entertainer has the HP of a gimp, and therefore making a dancer/teras kasi is IMPOSSIBLE if ya start out with the stats of an entertainer. Of course this was all before I found out about STAT MIGRATION. *Slap*

So I rerolled and the new name of my toon is "Anemonie". Just so ya know in case ya look for me on bloodfin. Not having character names deleted when ya erase a character is bullshite.

Ah well...

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Monday, July 14, 2003 - 11:46 am:

They delete, eventually. Usually by the time the next server update occurs, usually 3am east coast time. Sorry I hasn't got back to ya about the server/characters, etc, but I haven't been checking here, and I dinna get home till late last night so I dinna wanna call back and wake ya up, but the lowdown is this: Everybody I know plays on Eclipse.

Jayce Brilliam = Fred
Aarin = Jon
Tasslehoff = George
Frizzle = Frank (a friend from work)

I am going for creature handler/squad leader/master pistoleer.

Jon is going for Bounty Hunter, and he is trying to decide what to do with the leftover points.

George is going for Combat Medic, also trying to decide what to do with leftover points.

Frank is going for Commando/weaponsmith. He also has a few medical healing skills.

We could use an entertainer-type, which would make us self-sufficient as a group in the field, or we could use an architect, so we can eventually do the guild thing. Right now though, we kinda just try to look for each other whenever we're online, and group up when and if we can. Aarin put his house on tatooine, but Frizzle and I are neighbors on an island just off the coast of Coronet city on Corellia. I decided the quickest way to make money would be to supply the crafter-type people with raw materials, and so I have a harvester gathering Steel, one gathering aluminum, and 2 growing fruits. I made 12,500 credits in under an hour selling aluminum.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, July 14, 2003 - 02:01 pm:

Oki cool I will put you and Jon on my friends list when I roll and alt on Eclipse. Might be a while tho, trying to get freelance work off the ground. Lotsa hard, unforseen work.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Monday, July 14, 2003 - 03:49 pm:

George is fun too, and so is Frank... Don't forget about them...

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 12:51 pm:

AO vs. SWG: Nat’s ongoing research

As ya guys know I’ve played AO for almost a year now, and it’s the best mmorpg out there.

In comes SWG, so how does it measure up? This is a list of my observations and opinions to date; some may change over time as I don’t know everything there is to know about SWG yet.

SWG pros:

1) SWEET character creation- blows AO out of the water
2) Different kind of XP for different profession areas: Damn nice to get crafting XP to raise your skills if you’re an artisan and not cut out for combat. In AO everyone has to fight and level in order to raise skills, this sucks if you don’t want to design your toon around combat.
3) You can give up your profession for a new one!!!! OMG!!!! This is very very cool.
4) SWG= more and BETTER emotes- dancing and music flourishes are fantastic!
5) SWG has made the PVPers and the Rpers need each other. Entertainers, musicians and craftsmen are all made crucial and essential to the game.
6) SWG won’t gimp you for not choosing a side. All characters have equal potential no matter what path they take- Jedi being the very very very very rare exception.
7) Player run economy is cool! It should control any inflated economy problem some other games have.
8) Waypoints are a godsend for navigation, especially since coordinates are a litte weird with the + and – coords.
9) More race choices.
10) More detailed models.
11) Houses and furniture!

SWG cons:

1) Missions are boring as hell. I’ve only been playing a few weeks and I’m bored out of my skull. Missions are more like working for a pest extermination company, doing the rounds to clear vynock or womp rat nests. Any cool loot? Nope. Any rare items? Nope. Anything different between mission to mission? Other than species and type of nest, no.
2) Not much if anything as far as unique mobs or things to do when you’ve mastered your professions.
3) Not much good loot off of the mobs, mostly worthless junk.
4) Very boring terrain, and all cities look the same, there really isn’t much to see.
5) Teams are sloppy, I think 20 people per team is too many and the ham bars clutter up the screen too much. Would be nice if they made a special team window you could turn off or resize.
6) Weapon choices are a bit limited: rifle, pistol, carbine edged weapons. Zzzzzz.
7) Attacks are kinda boring. Shoot, punch or hack with a sharp object. Yeah there are some specials that can stun and intimidate, but there doesn’t seem much beyond that.
8) Profession roles in battle aren’t as diverse and colorful as they could be.
9) Can you be a part of the storyline? No, not really. History has already been written, the empire will eventually lose- well all know that, we’ve seen the movies and read the books. You can’t “leave your mark” so to speak.


AO pros:

1) Missions rock. Sorry but AO could teach SWG novels on this subject. Not only is each mission different on the inside (it could be a dark, grimy cave or a spotless medical lab), there are turrets that do fire damage and can root you on the spot, mines that are disguised and will temporarily blind and snare you if you step on them, security cameras that can send security sentinels after you, locked doors (some are locked and rigged with bombs) you need skill to pick in order to open, treasure chests- some locked, some also rigged with traps, and heaps of trash on the floor that contain either loot or small creatures that are worth a TON of xp if you kill them. Hell every time a teammate comes across a trash heap I pray for trash fleas or garbage salamanders. There are also special chests called “shrines” that give you different bonuses depending on the type. The shrine of spirits multiplies your XP x2 for a period of 2 minutes. The shrine of the bear gives you a nice damage modifier, there’s also the firefly shrine, frog shrine, phoenix shrine, and a few others I am forgetting that give you bonuses to AC, attack rating, evades, etc… Missions can have from 1-5 levels in it, the finally one being the boss level. Sometimes the boss is alone, sometimes guarded. They are much tougher to kill and have MUCH better loot than the ordinary mobs, in fact they have a lot of good useful stuff you can’t get anywhere else as well as a good chance of dropping something rare. Solo missions don’t have levels or bosses, only team missions do.
2) Teams are small (no more than 6) and have a special team window that doesn’t take up as much space, and you can also close it as you please.
3) The many different professions have their clear advantages and unique differences. How well you do on missions depends on how good your teammates can play their professions. This is where profession differences SHINE and in some cases are the only thing than can keep you alive. Nanotechnicians (NTs) can calm mobs and launch massive nukes to kill everything in site. Crats and Traders can charm a mob and use them like pets. Fixers are pulling/snaring/rooting experts when you need to draw one mob out of a crowd instead of alerting the swarm and have the mission go fubar, they also have heal-over-time (HOTS) nanos that will have your ass time and time again. Docs are gods of healing, no one can rival them. Enforcers are the ultimate tank, they do major damage, have the best HP buffs, can hold aggro and with enough hit points to sustain the fight. Metaphysicists (MPs)have pets that can attack or heal anyone they choose, they also have nanoskill buffs than no one else can match- wanna cast a nano 20 levels out of your skill range, just ask an MP to cast his/her buffs on you. Soldiers deal great damage and they are tough enough to tank, they have excellent reflect shields and some good weapon buffs. Traders can drain the opponents weapon and nanoskills to the point where they are weak and crippled (traders own in 1 on 1 PVP, no question). There’s a lot more but too much to list.
4) Locked doors, mines and locked chests REQUIRE someone with a high perception skill AND high breaking and entering (b&e) as well as trap disarm. Bombs are strong enough to kill everyone in your team, a locked door can mean no access to the boss room and unlocked chests might hold something very valuable. Best professions for the fine art of b&e are fixers and agents.
5) Professions are much more interesting and diverse in AO. Some docs don’t need to use weapons when they are skilled enough to run the best damage-over-times (DOTS), NTs have nukes so powerful and with such great range you will be dead before you can even get within firing range. Agents can assume ALL other professions and cast their nanos, they can also change alignments from omni, clan and neutral- not to mention they are the best at sneaking. Adventurers are masters of the wild and can take on animal forms with special stat bonuses.
6) Weapons with different damage types. Many different types of riles, pistols, SMGs, cannon guns, bows, swords (1 handed edged and 2 handed edged), 1 handed blunt and 2 handed blunt for things like lead pipes, maces and support beams. There is projectile, energy, close combat, fire, cold, radiation, chemical and disease damage types. Different armor has difference AC stats and different weapons can do different damage. A gamma ejector SMG and hellspinner cannon will deal radiation damage while there are FEW armors that protect against it. A Sol Fire C sword will do fire damage. A frost Scythe will do cold damage.
7) Unique mobs with phat lewt. Lots of them. There are also “dynacamps” the wild where you will find creature bosses guarded by 8-10 minions from level 10-250. Dynacamp bosses are similar to mission bosses in terms of the loot they drop.
8) More stuff to do for high levels- more tough unique mobs that take 3 or more teams of well-coordinated high level people to defeat. The Inner Sanctum dungeon just opened with the last patch, only levels 100+ are allowed in. There are dungeons for lower level players too as well as a PVP dungeon.
9) Explore!!! There was much more care taken into landscape design. There is varied terrain with attention to detail. Lots of NICE surprises- a secluded little village hamlet, towering waterfalls, swamps, dense forests and desert dotted with ruins to discover. Each city is different with its own flair. Furthermore there are unique nightclubs with their own look and style. There was much more work made to make the landscape between the cities interesting and in SWG.
10) Implants! Up to ql 200+, they permanently increase your stats and you can design them any way you please! There are literally THOUSANDS of implant skill cluster combinations, and you can make different sets of implants- one for combat, one for tradeskilling, one for agility or strength to equip special armors with stat requirements, etc. There are also ways of getting implants far exceeding your level into your body, so at level 100 there are ways of equipping ql 200 implants.
11) You can be a part of the story! The storyline hasn’t been written in stone, so what you do as an individual and as a guild can have great sway over the storyline. My guild is a prime example.

AO cons:

1) They gimp neutrals. This has always been a MAJOR destructive reality on my gaming pleasure in AO. There once was a time where neutrals were not allowed to PVP or even organize into guilds. This is because neutrality wasn’t intended as a permanent alignment. They assumed you would WANT to pick a side eventually. To their surprise 5% (and growing) of the player population stayed neutral. Omni and Clan get “token boards” which add large bonuses to stats, namely computer literacy and max health. The result is that neutrals are severely disadvantaged in PVP, nearly crippled. A seasoned neutral PVPer can’t beat a seasoned Omni or Clan PVPer 1 on 1 because the token board advantages are just too great. This is horribly discouraging, especially since it rules out the success of neutral mercenary guilds, as well as neutrals being able to defend their mining operations effectively. Consequently, few people stay neutral because of these major disadvantages- this leads to more problems. There is the encouragement of an “anti-neutral” culture in the game where neuts are picked on and ridiculed simply because they are neutral. I have dealt with this on FAR too many occasions. In order to get the best loot in the game you need LOTS of players level 150+, Omni and Clan have no trouble gathering these hunting parties on a regular basis. The number of 150+ neutrals is VERY small, therefore we don’t have the best equipment because we don’t have the numbers to hunt for it. Being disadvantaged, outnumbered and under-equipped make the neutral life much harder than it should be. Since Funcom intends to introduce 2 (maybe even 3) new factions with the upcoming expansion pack “Shadowlands”, it makes NO sense to me WHY they insist on punishing neutrals for not picking between Omni and Clan. It pisses me off to no end, my guild has withered up and all but died and will take an immense amount of work to restore- all an uphill battle considering they gimp neuts.
2) Sometimes the world is a bit too PVP based, there is a huge rift between the Rpers and the PVPers. The might of your character can depend on how many bases your guild has. Mines and towers give players nice stat bonuses. Here numbers are power. If you are not in a large guild you are at a disadvantage.
3) Large guilds take advantage of their great numbers to hog unique mobs to farm their special loot. Smaller groups, neutrals and individuals are left in the dust.
4) Inflated economy out of control. There are no player run stores. Moneymaking is easy at high levels, but very hard at low levels. 80% of the armor and weapons in the game CANNOT be made by tradeskillers. There are ways of making money fast, and everyone knows it- so prices for rare or semi-rare items are outrageous. Grid Armor 4 ran 400-700 million at one time.
5) No houses. There are ugly and usless apartments that are limited to holding no more than 10 items in it. However, there will be custom housing, furniture and the like coming up shortly after Shadowlands.
6) Rezz shock. When you die your stats are lowered to 0 and gradually climb back to normal after 6 minutes.
7) Neutral community is so small you get a lot of the “big fish in a small pond” syndrome. Any neutral who has the drive to make it past 115 is treated with great respect because it’s the HARDEST thing to do. Unfortunately there are people with big egos (and their groupies) too. WE just had a major exodus in my guild because the former slut of a president didn’t like the way the new president wanted to run things- so she left and took half the guild with her. Bitter? Who me? You bet yer sweet black ass I am!]
8) AO is VERY hard to learn, it’s a very deep and complex game that takes a LONG time to master.

Anyway, my final conclusion is:

SWG is good. Refreshingly different in some ways, but dead boring in others. I hate saying it but SWG is WAY WAY WAY over-hyped. AO is a great game- not without disadvantages- but overall far more enjoyable to play at this point.

I will probably play both games for a while. While AO is king, SWG is still in its infancy and will improve over time I think. As things stands SWG has a long way to go before it can seduce me away from AO.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, July 22, 2003 - 12:47 pm:

counterpoint #1: Have you actually EXPLORED in SWG? I have. the terrain is immersive, unique, and completely believable, as well as really pretty.

counterpoint #2: There are many different weapons in SWG, but they are available to certain professions and only become available after certifications (higher levels). Yes, flamethrowers, rocket launchers, acid spray guns, different types and classes of swords, etc. are all available. But most of the cooler weapons are only available to commandos.

counterpoint #3: you DO have an impact on the storyline. Starting this month the DEV team is implementing quest-based storylines where your actions and the actions of those on your server will determine that server's ultimate fate. We all know the Empire will lose, but we don't know how well the war went on, say, Corellia, do we?

counterpoint #4: while you are not penalized for remaining neutral, only the faction-based MOBs drop the really sweet loot and you can't attack faction-based MOBs until you declare a faction. Yes, critter-hunting and message delivery gets boring. That's why at advanced levels there are bounty-hunter terminals. That is why you can go to one of 10 planets, with more to come. You get bored hunting death bunnies on corellia? Do what I did, organize hunting parties to go Rancor-spotting on Dathomir. Trust me, it isn't so much that you're hunting, it's more like you're trying not to be hunted yourself.

counterpoint #5: I wouldn't wanna go out in the wilds without a scout and a medic and even an entertainer along for the ride. No camp to heal in, nobody to do the healing, and nobody to ease the mind fatigue of the healer doing the wound fixin? And who wouldn't want a creature handler to whip out his 3 pet Rancors in a sticky situation. I sure as hell wouldn't wanna see 3 rancors appear on the other side, and hear the owner say "Spike, KILL".

Now, I have no comparison since I do not play AO, but I have played SWG a little longer than you, I think, Nat, so I am just bringing out the finer points of what I have discovered. And you know me, if I get bored in a game, I find something to do to keep it fun. I haven't done PVP yet, but that's not really my thing. Yes, I agree the critter-hunting is boring and repetitive. So, do what I do, find other challenging things to hunt. Rogue Corsec troops. Swooper gangs. Those are fun. Hell, Jon hunts Tuskens on tatooine for kicks. Get group together and hunt Krayt dragons. Get your faction and go kick the imperials around. Anyway, I hope you try out a little more in-game diversity before ya make your final judgement. I know, I know, you say you're gonna play both for a while. Hopefully everything will work out in SWG for ya.

(player cities and vehicles are coming SOON)

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Tuesday, July 22, 2003 - 06:50 pm:

yep, I know ya've played SWG longer than me. I've been playing since launch and you've been playing since Beta.

No worries, what I had listed was not meant to be an "SWG sucks" post. It's a good game, but I do prefer AO becase SWG does have some shortcomings.

There's been a TON of hype revolving around SWG's anticipated release. When I ordered SWG I had hoped it would be my answer to what AO has done wrong.

Although George has the greenbacks, he actually has a bigger job than he thinks if he wants to make the best MMORPG out there. He's gotta be able to make a better game than AO. Because of all the cool differences SWG was to have, I initally believed he may have accomplished this. Then I bought the game and became sorely disappoined over the course of a month. Right now SWG has more eyecandy but less game content than AO. Furthermore, what AO has done right SWG hasn't- at least not yet but maybe later.

My short time playing with you and the gang on Eclipse only spans a couple of days. Most of my SWG playtime hasn't been on Eclipse. My main is on bloodfin, and I have another alt which is part of the Mos Eisely Syndicate on Flurry. I've done missions and hunting with other people before as well as a good deal of exploring.

Run into a few dragons, wandered around exploring, been out on Tuskan raiding parties as well as other hunting and missioning parties. My main in bloodfin is my dancer and I've experimented with tradeskills in addition to performance. So I have gone out and experimented with what SWG has to offer.

Answer to Counterpoint 1:
Yes I have explored. AO has much more to see for the explorer than SWG. I didn't say it wasn't believeable, detailed and natural looking, it's just boring. AO has a lot more interesting stuff in the landscape for explorers to see between cities.

Answer to Counterpoint 2:
K. Didn't know about the other weapons, only what I've seen on the market so far and used myself. I was speaking from my own experience at the time. If there's a lot out there as far as weapons go- but just haven't seen it- then I retract the complaint.

Answer to Counterpoint 3: I stand corrected. Didn't know about that.

Answer to Counterpoint 4: Then it sucks for neutrals, and I can't say I like it. I've always hated the pressure of game developers to make you choose one of TWO factions- and if ya DON'T the slap on the wrist is missing out on important game content even if you pay for the damn service. That makes it cops and robbers- boring, yawn, been there, done that and it ain't fun. The shades of gray are MUCH more interesting to me. So it seems both AO and SWG do penalize those who don't like to conform to a faction. Less so in SWG however, and that is a defintate plus. I am waiting for the Hutt faction to come out.

I gotta tell ya why I hate picking a faction: other players.

I'd much rather do my own thing than deal with having my faction made cheap by a bunch of misbehavin gamers. Seen it happen all too much, and I just don't wanna get into it. I'd bet my tits that you'd find Rebels acting more like imperials (and vice versa) within a short amount of time. At least with the Hutt faction you know you've got a bunch of backstabbing criminals after their own interest.

Behaving out of character for your faction is a rampant problem in AO. A good deal of the players in SWG are from AO. Worried? You bet I am!

Hunting is the same no matter where you go. Same shite, different flies. We got that in AO too, as well as similar creature AI. In fact the only difference I noticed was that we don't have "curious" animals in AO. If you run across a pack of non-agressive animals they won't come up to you and scope you out. Other then that, the creature AI is very much the same.

Not only are the missions boring, they don't cater to casual players or those who enjoy soloing. Without a team you are strictly limited to being a delivery buttboi.

As far as things to do in SWG: Where are the unique mobs? Does SWG even have any? AO has tons (at various levels of difficulty), as well as Dynacamps, regular monsters, critters and dungeons scattered all over the place. Neutrals aren't limited to what they can attack and loot. In terms of hunting SWG does not have AO beat.

Answer to Counterpoint 5: My opinion stands on the lack of colorful profession diveristy in SWG. AO's are much more unique and there is the use of nanokills, each profession has it's own nanospells it can use in addition to regular weapon attacks. AO has 3 pet classes-Bureaucrat (can charm and control other mobs too), Metaphysicist (they have cool flesh demons and heal pets), and Engineer (kinda like a droid engie with tradeskill bonus). There are also 3 healing classes: Doc (best at healing of course), Adventurer, Martial Artist. For general tanking you have Enforcers (lot's of health and major damage) and Soldiers (better weapon skills, more well-rounded than enforcer). The other professions are: Nanotechnician- specialization is nanoskills. Nanoprograms are kinda like spells, altho all classes have their unique nanos the NT is king of nano and can nuke you off the face of the earth. They can also calm mobs, and they have some tradeskill bonuses. Agents can assume any profession they want and cast their nanos; primary skills are concealment and aimed shot. Traders are excellent tradekills as well as formidable opponents. They can drain the skills of a creature or person and add them to their own. They can also drain their own skills, nanopool and health to transfer it to another teammate. Martial Artists have special brawling attacks, are capable of striking critical hits and can also heal. Fixers are the masters of speed and trickery. They have some tradeskill bonuses and heal-over time nanos. They are the ones you go to breaking and entering (kinda like slicing). Fixers are the fastest class, and they can transport themselves and others into digital form and access the travel grid at any time and place. Others can only access the grid at cities where grid terminals are available. There is also a special fixer grid that goes to many more places than the regular grid accessable to the public.

All and all I think they are much more destinctive than from what I have seen in SWG so far. However the tradeoff is that there are no hybrid professions, once you pick a profession you are stuck with it for life. Not to mention AO is level based. I don't much care for level bases professions, so in a way I so like what SWG has done in that respect. Just wish the profession differences were more colorful.

Then again I will have to say AO is a much more complex and far more diffiuclt to learn. SWG is a million times easier to pick up.

I know that SWG is still very much a game in progress and that there will be much more cool stuff added to it. That's why I am keeping both my SWG and AO account.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 10:15 am:

Yo yo yo. Fred and Jon, nevermind about making that alt on Bloodfin to help me out with that undercutter. I got it all worked out now. It's all good.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 12:28 pm:

Arggg... I hate people sometimes.

I am really starting to hate crafting in SWG because of THE PEOPLE and the TIME-SINKS. I've been playing SWG much less lately, RL keeping me busy and stuff also testing out Lineage 2 (seems pretty cool so far). And it doesn't help that when I log in, not only do I have 30 harvesters on 4 different planets to check/maintain, I have new resources to survey for, vendors to check/maintain, inventory to check/maintain, factories to check/maintain, an assload of crafing and restocking to do, and a lot of RPing to do also (My character is married and we also have an adopted son)............. Considering all this and within 4 minutes of login I get everyone and their MOTHER sending me tells... It's so damn bad I can't talk to my buddies without mistelling to half the freaking server.

SOMEONE HIDE ME!!!!

By I, (Ranger) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 11:31 am:

**Sets up camo screens**

What is your character occupation, pray?

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 03:38 pm:

Master Armorsmith/Master Artisan/Master Tailor

By I, (Ranger) on Thursday, February 12, 2004 - 02:31 pm:

Ah. Then what the heck is the harvesting all about?

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 11:01 pm:

You have to mine metals and other things (polymers, fiber, etc) to make all items in the player economy. For Armorsmithing is is a major pain in the ass because once a rare metal spawns, if the quality is good you have to be prepared to polp down 30 harvesters on the drop of a hat. Even worse is if several good quality resources that you need spawn at once... So a seasoned crafter is usually juggling 30 harvesters at a time.

By I, (Ranger) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 12:11 pm:

I think I'd rather be a pirate

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 01:56 pm:

Beleive it or not I am starting to agree.

By I, (Ranger) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 10:37 am:

Yaaaar!

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Wednesday, March 03, 2004 - 01:00 pm:

I always hated crafting professions, which is why I went pistoleer/creature handler. But now my holocrons tell me what to do, and I had to master Medic and am working on Bio-Engineer now. At least with Bio-Engineer I don't really need to worry about setting up harvesters, I just gotta go stalk really tough-to-kill critters and jab a needle into their ass to suck out DNA. They don't always appreciate this, so I'm glad I am a master pistoleer to kill them if they get too fiesty...

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, March 08, 2004 - 11:12 am:

I am beta testing Lineage 2 now. I like it, the beta version is less problematic than SWG was when it went live. We all know SWG was Beta 4 when it first came out. Not to say that all games don't have their problems, but SWG's release was pretty darn bad.

Lineage 2 North America

It's pretty cool so far, but very different than SWG. PVP is MUCH more balanced than SWG which is a major plus, since I made it a point to avoid PVP in SWG because it was so badly designed.

There are also unique mobs, interesting dungeons, and the scenery of the world better designed than SWG was.

On the down side, the crafting is limited to Dwarfs only, and the "economy" isn't 100% player run, but that's not so bad. There are a lot of items in the game that can only be hand made by dwarfs. Loot is rare in the game, and items in the store are expensive, so there is an incentive to buy from crafters instead.

You can solo if you want to, mobs aren't clustered around nests like in SWG so you don't have to worry about getting gangbanged. I am still figuring out creature AI, aggro seems hard to control. Sometimes the mob will get smart and lash out at the healer instead of the one who dishes the most damage. Other times it won't.

The world is PVP enabled, so you are attackable 100% of the time, and there is a Karma system to punish PKers. The system needs a little tweaking but it's pretty cool. If you kill an innocent (someone who's name is white and doesn't fight you back when attacked) your gain karma and your name turns red. If you are red anyone can attack you with no penalty and you have a high chance of dropping your items on death.

Unfortunately the game isn't well designed for RPing, I gotta admit the emotes and the moods in SWG were fantastic, and L2 doesn't have anything close to it.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, March 08, 2004 - 03:58 pm:

Here's a forum with some screenies of actual gameplay:

Lineage 2 Orphus Forum

If anyone has problems viewing the images in that forum thread, let me know and I'll try to link the pictures in here.

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 01:11 pm:

ok I am still an avid swg player and have gotten closer to getting my master bounty hunter ranking. However I am now playing a game on the xbox that has me excited to play fps's again. It's called Breakdown and it is your typical fps in the regards to controls and stuff but where it differs is that there are certain enemies that you can't kill with your guns. "Can't kill with guns, what the hell?" you are probably asking. The answer is you battle them martial artsstyle while still in first person mode. The cool thig is its not limited to just punches, you throw kicks as well and you can do combos and diffent moves depending on how you hit the buttons and which direction you hold the movement stick. It's actually really well done and as you also do things not normally done in fps's such as pulling yourself onto ledges and shimmying along hanging pipes. What really surprised me was that as you crawl through tight spaces you actually see your hand and arms reaching in front of you. You also don't just pick up items, you see your hand in front of you as it picks up thre item then as you look at it you can either toss it away or put it in your inventory(or use it in the case of health replenishing items). I'm not gonna give more away as it's more fun to see these things for oneself than hear about em. I believe it is out on the ps2 as well but could be wrong so for those of you inclined...enjoy.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Friday, June 11, 2004 - 04:52 pm:

Here's a screenie of my character on the L2 NA test server.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 11:21 am:

wow. cool and stuff. I am currently working on building a cool D&D adventure in Neverwinter Nights with Jon. Mayhaps I will include some screenshots of that here... hmmm, yes, perhaps I shall...

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, July 14, 2004 - 09:18 am:

You still play SWG or did you quit? I'm getting sick of L2, might be headed back to SWG, but I dunno.

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, July 14, 2004 - 09:50 am:

Jon and I still play We're neibors on Naboo in fact.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Wednesday, July 14, 2004 - 10:33 am:

I still play from time to time. Have a PA hall on Dantooine, and we still carry the Star-Dragons tag. Mr. Damien, you will know when I stop playing when your S-D tag goes away.

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, July 14, 2004 - 01:28 pm:

Oh GF are you still around I hadn't noticed damn my eyes. I'll just have to get a bigger maginfing glass or increase the perscription of my glasses:P

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Thursday, July 15, 2004 - 09:36 am:

If only I didn't have 48 million (used to e 59, but I gave some away) on my main character on bloodfin I'd switch servers in a heartbeat.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Thursday, July 15, 2004 - 02:24 pm:

oh and Fred, could ya change the name on that house outsdie of theed on my server? I reactivated for 1 month but I'm not doing biz inside the shop anymore. I might set up a small vendor somewhere but it will be later on.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Friday, July 16, 2004 - 02:12 pm:

yeah, Sylkie has about 2 dozen nastygrams from people yelling about a door fee for empty vendors. HAHAHAHAHA!!!

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, July 16, 2004 - 03:09 pm:

I finnally got high enough in ch to get a graul mauler and I have named it Bluto.

For those who don't know a Graul Mauler is like a Rancor only got fatter arms and is fuzzy.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Friday, July 16, 2004 - 05:44 pm:

Graul Maulers are what wookies would be if they had a temper problem like Bruce Banner.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Friday, July 16, 2004 - 08:41 pm:

Yeah I got some ripe email over the fee as well. People are dumb as turds. My vedors were barking that I was "leaving the game" and selling off all my stuff.

Vendor bark message + empty vendors = OBVIOUS that I left the game a LONG time ago. Some people don't have the brains to put 2+2 together and literally have nothing better to do than kvetch about 10 credits. I think it goes without saying that if I intended to rip people off the entry fee would have been MUCH higher than 10 creds. Pfff, some people...

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, July 19, 2004 - 03:03 pm:

Beta tester regestration went up today for Jump to Lightspeed. I can't wait to see if I get selected.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Monday, July 19, 2004 - 04:39 pm:

does that mean we'll hafta create a new Beta guy to test on a beta server? I'd much rather keep my same guy and wait for final release, if that be the case...

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - 01:43 am:

If either of you guys test out JTL let me know if the rumor is true about them scrapping the new planets. If they aren't adding more planets JTL is kinda half-assed and not a real expansion if you ask me But that's because I'm not interested in space dog fights. But having access to unexplored/unihnabited places, smuggle spices to a mysterious underground network of planets that you can't get to by shuttle, etc, etc- now that's what I am hoping they add.

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - 09:36 am:

I haven't heard that rumor and I do go to the SWG website daily and as of right now they are not scrapping those plans. But I didn't think they were adding that kinda planets I alwaysa took it as they were adding planets from the movies or stories like Hoth, Bespin Dagobah, or Holy crap I can't believe I just brain fried on the capitol planets name.

In any case I just can't wait to get a ship so I don't HAVE to wait for shuttles anymore. It'll make bounty hunting that much faster. But check out the sit www.Starwarsgalaxies.com They have pics up of almost all of the ships and and 3d renderings that you can spin of some of the sectors.

Well I'm haveing trouble regetering for the Beta anyway so I'll prolly just wait for the main release like GF. Just my $0.02.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - 11:06 am:

Cosucant?

Yeah I check the site daily too and haven't really found answers.

I really hope they add Ryloth to the list of planets- if they're not scraping them.

Anyway Hoth and Dagobah were uninhabited, right? Therefore you can't just grab a shuttle ticket, you need to own a ship of your own to get there. Now that's what I'm talking about.

I also want to know that other professions Shipwright will be dependant on. Will ship schematics depend on parts from Artisans, Driod Engineers, Armorsmiths, and Weaponsmiths? We all know the SWG developers get a hard-on when it comes to inter-profession dependence. I'm currently master armorsmith/artisan with some merhcant. I don't want to drop any of my crafing professions in case I need them in conjunction with shipwright to make me and my buddies (and perhaps sell some) ships.

I wanna go smuggler, but not until I have a good stock of ships ready

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - 11:18 am:

Bah anyway I think I'm giving up on L2 entirely. It's turning out to be soooooo boring. The only real content to the game is castle sieges, but you have to be level 55+ to participate without dying in 2 seconds. And it takes forever and a year to get to level 50+, normally I wouldn't mind if there were other aspects of the game to keep me entertained whenever I wanted to take a break from the leveling grind- BUT THERE ISNT. There's no RP, crafting isn't deep enough to even be remotely interesting, you can't own a home or decorate it, travel is slow as shite, etc... So I'm already bored.

I'll be headed back to SWG for a while, hopefully JTL will be some new content to keep me happy.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - 12:36 pm:

BTW, I mispelled Corsucant...

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - 01:17 pm:

Ok I was wrong and they are not adding any new planets just new sectors. Shipright as far as I know only depends on Artisan and any upgrades you want can be found as loot from npc enemies in space and they can be (I've suddenly forgotten the term. Doin great aren't I ;)). Any way they can be brocken down so to speak so that an shipwrite can then make those upgrades.

As for me my Wookiee will continue as a Master Bounty Hunter/Master Creature Handeler. But when my second slot is opened up from the new jedi system I plan to make a Shipwrite and either an armorsmith or a weaponsmith haven't decided on the second part yet.

ANd thanks Nat for reminding me of the name of the capitol planet I still couldn't remember it today. I'm gonna go lie down now I fear my brain is leaking out of my ears.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - 02:05 pm:

I got a BIG warning for ya about armorsmith. It is a very stressful profession and not for everyone. It can be so serious at times that it is NOT fun. It is very time consuming, and takes a lot of dedication and months of time collecting the finest resources to make the finest armor. The best armor I've made to date was 77% kinetic ubese- no loot components, I think I sold complete suits of that for 240k. The 80+ stuff uses looted segments and I didn't have those in bulk- if I did I would have made the best ubese on the server. I had bad luck with resource spawns and therefore never the right metals of the required quality to make composite.

First, of all the best way to grind it is to stockpile crappy hides and make mabari chests.

Second, you need to do a TON of resource hunting and collecting in advance.

You need the following essentials if you actaully want to sell armor that people will buy- overall quality and SR must both be 900+, high MA is a plus:

Axidite iron
Neutronium Steel
Kiriium Steel
Beyrullus copper
Polysteel copper
Colat Iron
Solid Petrochem
Nabooian Fiber
low-grade ore
Wooly Hides (BIG stack, as much as you can get)
Leathery Hides (same as above)

Without these you can't make Ubese or Advanced Comp. Oq + SR determine the resists, while MA determines the enc. UT determines the integrity but you don't need to worry about that.

In additon you need a second set of resources for making layers, but those need to have DIFFERENT stats from the other stuff. Instead of OQ + SR you need OQ + MA. Some rares you need are crism ore and vertex crystal.

Unless you are ginding, don't even bother considering harvesting resources that don't have an oq+sr (or oq+ma) average of 900+. As long as the oq/sr (or oq/ma) averages to be 900+ you will become one of the elite armorsmiths on the server.

I don't know about weaponsmith, but I would check SWG craft and see how many rare materials are needed to craft weapons, it very well might be the same thing as armorsmith in terms of resource nightmare.

In short I thought armorsmiths were robbing people blind, until I got into it myself and realized just how much time, pain, blood, sweat and tears goes into it. You can't go into that profession with the 3cpu mentality. Not all materials are created equal, some take months just to spawn and they aren't always good enough to make armor with and you are stuck waiting again. A lot of people don't fully realize just how rare some of the metals are.

Advice if you do armorsmith:

1) Don't do custom orders (friends are the exception). Once you do, word gets out and you will be pestered every wakeing minute online by people. I've been there and it's hell. People suck.

2) Don't take bulk orders unless you KNOW you have the material to spare for the project. If you run out, remind yourself it may be months before a replacement resource pops. Also people who put in bulk orders expect discounts. If you are a smaller armor dealer I would avoid bulk orders entirely- it will use up your stock and you won't make as much in the long run.

3) Don't run around with the master armorsmith tag on your head. People will stop you in the middle of the street and play 1000 questions with you (whats your price for comp? you make stun helms? got any imperial PSG's? do you do custom suits? Can you sell me a suit of comp for 100k?) like you don't have anything better to do.

4) Use Interplanetary survey driods daily to keep abreast of resource shifts, also use SWG craft daily. Missing a good, rare resource spawn can be devistating to a smith.

5) Get at least 12 high BER harvies and find friends with spare lots. If a rare and good spawn pops up you have to be ready to plop down your harvies before resource sweet spots are all taken up.

6) Master artisan, at the very least get surveying 4. While you can hire people to survey for you, they can be spendy and sometimes not online at the right times. There will be plenty of times you'll need to survey for yourself. Master Artisans can make all the subcomponents for PSG's.

7) While you are waiting for armor resources to spawn but can't produce anything in the meantime, produce PSG MK3's to pay the bills. The materials you use for the subcomponents can be total crap! All that matters are the raw materials for the final combine- Steel, Iron and Ore: make sure you have a good supply of those three with 900+ oq/sr. The subcomponents have no bearing whatesover on the quality.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - 02:12 pm:

http://swgcraft.com/currentresources.php

Check the stats of any resource on any planet without having to sample it yourself. This is very handy to use, but keep in mind you still need to do a lot of surveying yourself. Sometimes it takes a day or two for this site to gather info on new resoruce shifts- especially the remote planets like Yavin.

Oh yeah this site also lists schematics for every profession.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - 02:18 pm:

oh it also helps to have avertizing 3 on merchant. That way you can set up a vendor and advertize it on the global map listing. Otherwise you have to set up a barker near the closest spaceport to advertize the coords to your shop.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 03:47 pm:

capitol planet in Star Wars = Coruscant.
plans for crafting items in SWG = Schematic.
part used to create a larger part = Component.

Any other linguistic pointers?

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 04:56 pm:

Yeah I need the translation for horses buttocks in Huttese.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 06:10 pm:

oh that one's easy: Damien.

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, July 23, 2004 - 10:30 am:

Ha Ha, so that would mean Fred is Huttese fo the male horses member huh.

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, July 23, 2004 - 02:40 pm:

In all seriousness GF I'll be on Galaxies tonight so if you want I'll train your Cu-pa For you. And any other pet you need trained.