Brickdoctor

I think the point he's making is that as a shooter, Battlefront really doesn't have very many features. You have a couple basic stats, a couple abilities, and some cookie-cutter classes equipped with cookie-cutter weapons, and you do pretty much the same thing in every battle, both in Instant Action and in Campaign. (Shoot this, capture that, hold here, get there.) The squad commands are extremely limited, the AI is primitive, and the options you have seem uncreative. The main reason we like Battlefront is because we get to play as Star Wars characters; if it was a WWII shooter instead, I doubt it would sell that well. You can't just say that that's the same as saying, "if you took the SW out of KOTOR it would just be an average RPG", because KotOR would probably still be a novel and popular concept if it were, say, medieval fantasy RPG instead of Star Wars RPG.

But that's an unfair assumption for TLG to make for the many consumers who don't have the substitute piece. It would be unfair for them if TLG decided, "We think the average person already has this piece so we're going to go with this other option even though it doesn't look as good so that we can have some variety." It'd be like selling an incomplete set.

Those weren't existing licenses; this is referring to licenses such as Star Wars, where there's already a license in place and the other party already has some say in what sets get made.I wouldn't read too much into this; it's mostly just a restatement of what we already knew: that the chance of a concept from an existing license becoming a set is very small. This comment on cavegod's project seems more like the Ideas people trying to be encouraging and acknowledging that it's a concept worthy of being a set but while also "letting the creator down gently" in expectation of the fact that these concepts usually don't pass the review. I agree with this. The whole idea behind Ideas is that you vote for concepts you like so that TLG can get an idea of what fans want. If you try to be too strategic with what you do or don't vote for because you think or don't think the project will pass, then you're, in a way, making the system less effective and less important, and making it harder for TLG to judge what you actually want.

That's more of a high belt with his shirt extending just below the waist. On the 'real' officer, it just looks longer because the boots are high. Really, the boots are the only distinctive feature of the legs, and none of the other minifigs have boots printed.

The PS2/Xbox/PC version had enemy heroes, but the enemy AI in general just wasn't very good, so I'd often see AI heroes sitting in a turret or doing something useless like that. (The most glaring deficiency in my experience was the Kamino level — it's already a sniper's paradise with all the platforms and cover, but the AI units too often would just stand in the middle of a walkway, or they'd prioritize running to man a turret even though you're camping on a platform getting an easy headshot on anyone who enters that turret. With regards to heroes on that map, I can't count the number of times I saw AI Obi-Wan just run right off the central platform into the ocean.)

Does an officer really need printed legs? They're just plain pants. The other minifigs have armor or pockets or armor and a waist cape.

Yeah, I know; I'm too young to really grasp the huge advances in computer graphics.

I would never use that mechanic again. It was boring, it was repetitive, it bogged down the quest progression, and it forced players to fight battles that didn't have any effect on the rest of the quest. It's either giveaway XP with weak enemies in order to speed battles up, or it's high offense, low defense enemies to speed battles up, which creates the risk of the party being KO'd and failing a quest doing something that they didn't choose to do and which does nothing to move them towards the quest's goal.Unless the quest is focused solely on getting from one point to another on the map, any rigid travel mechanics sacrifice too much of the quest's enjoyability for the sake of realism.

I'm torn regarding the Snowies. I like the backprinting, but it'll never really be seen. Front printing doesn't look like it's changed. Separated helmet and backpack are a nice feature, but I liked the cutout eyes better than the printed ones (I know I'm in the minority there.), and the brick-built backpack is uglier than the old molded one.

Congratulations, markus!

That isthmus is also pretty close to the orcish territories... I'm thinking an army encamped on the western side, fleet on the eastern side, hundreds of enslaved giant orcs and trolls dragging oversized plows across the land, rolling on huge logs. Like Return of the King siege towers and battering rams, but with farm equipment. (Okay, that sounds kind of ridiculous and demeaning when I write it out; in my mind it looks a lot more epic. [A 'quintessential medieval fantasy trope' sort of epic, not a 'slavery is epic' thing.])

Enter magic!

OoC: Ah, my bad; I thought we used one of the handicaps.

Nah, the only way a hole can lead to Narnia is if it's filled with water and you're wearing magic rings.

Yeah, some of the later games did seem like they just wanted to look like one of the 'cool games', with the insane powers and the flashy graphics effects and the grungy look. I grew up playing Dark Forces; Battlefront and Empire at War look like the advanced graphics games to me.

I'm waiting for JimB to have Johon fall into a hole or something for digging in the Fields of Glory. (Nothing against you, B&P; it just seems kind of unsportsmanlike by virtue of taking even more advantage of a very favorable system stats-wise. )

OoC: Our GP should've gone up by 4, JimB. I hand one Remedy and one Phoenix Essence to Johon, I hand one Remedy to Namyrra, and I keep one Remedy and one Phoenix Essence for myself. I lead the party to the Sanctuary. "Miss Uq, I assume you'll Rest here. After that, shall we head to the Broken Bridge, or shall we gain more experience in the Raging Rapids or the Ghastly Marsh first?"

I have absolutely no experience with UK geography or UK LUGs, but the first that springs to mind is the Brickish Association, only because I know they're a big LUG and I know that did that huge Mos Eisley diorama a few years ago.

I definitely agree with more named officers. I don't think the varied different ranks of generic officers is that important, though. It's a very subtle difference in colored rank squares and code cylinders, something most people don't know about, and something that isn't even consistent throughout the OT. I mean, the Clones clones ranks are so much more obvious, with bright colored trim that's clearly different, and even those we only got after a decade and one of them was an exclusive polybag release. Different Imperial officer ranks (apart from the black/grey/white uniform difference) don't seem like the kind of thing that would be important to TLG or to the majority of consumers, and it's not really that important to me. There are a lot of character that I'd rather get as minifigs before getting an extremely minor variation on a supporting character.

"Understood." I attack Bloody Bug C from the Back Row with my Darksteel Crossbow. Order of Actions: Bloody Bug A Splatterfly A Death's Rose A Mutterfly A Mutterfly B Mutterfly C Shutterfly A Flutterfly Nutterfly A Nutterfly B Splatterfly C Namyrra Uq Bartholomew Docken Johon

Given that this is only wishes and predictions not based on any rumor, it belongs in Most Wanted Star Wars Characters. Merging...

All that leg printing in the ISD looks great.

Yeah, probably. I'm sure part of the problem was that I was still making up a QM style as I went in that quest, since it was my first. (Actually, we probably were all still deciding what style to post with in Heroica at that time. I mean, I was still making some attempt at roleplaying my PC at that time. )

Quest 4 was my trying to be more like an NPC than a GM. It was awkward and limiting for me and I think it was hard for other people to tell how I was speaking whenever I posted, which is why I used a more traditional GM/DM/QM style for Quest 17.

Welcome to EB. I'll move this over to the "Hello, my name is..." forum for introductions.