mostlytechnic

Humans need to learn to read. I never said to claim. In fact, I said specifically NOT to claim to Clem. Nor did I say to lie. What I said about possibly claiming was that one possible way to use Clem (assuming for the moment that she's town) would be for people to claim to her to immediately get the town block solidly going. However, since we do not know for sure she's town, anyone claiming would need to tell others they're doing it (not what their role is, just that they're making a claim to Clem). Then if they turn up dead, she is immediately suspicious. For this to work though, we'd need a few vanillas to make claims to her as well, in case the people being told are scum. Let me put it this way for you. Person A wants to claim to Clem. They tell Person B and Person C that they're doing this, so that B and C can tell the rest about the claim being made in the event of Person A's overnight death. However, A does not know that B and C are town! So to prevent the scum from learning who has PRs through B or C, we'd need vanillas also to do this process. Yes, it'd be a lot of info flying around, but it's not like it's a stumpy code system or anything But again, I reiterate, I do not recommend claiming. And as for scum watchers, you may not have seen it, but the unofficial reference (mafiascum wiki) states that watchers can be either alignment: http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Watcher

I too have been trying to poke holes in Clementine's claim, since I have superior cyborg logic. IF she were scum and making a ploy here, then... 1. One purpose would have to be to get townies to claim to her. That's easily avoided, as long as our power roles don't claim. - Obviously though, that slows the building of the town block. So, the scum gain either way if she is scum. Either they get claims and have targets to kill or the town block is delayed. One counter to this - anyone planning to claim to Clem, TELL SOMEONE ELSE YOU'RE DOING IT. Preferably tell a couple others. That way, if you turn up dead, someone can point the finger at her. For this to work though, we pretty much need a few vanillas to claim to her (and tell others in PM) so that our PRs aren't outed by accidentally telling a scum they're claiming to her (that last part is assuming she's town obviously) 2. Another possible purpose, especially with her blatant asking for protection - assuming the scum have a watcher, they can now watch her to find the town's doctor tonight. Of course, this is true whether she is town or scum. - Our doc has a big question tonight - do they protect Clem, risking their own outing to the scum, or stay away and risk the scum killing her... IF she's town and telling the truth though, then the doc and clem would survive tonight, tomorrow the scum kill the doc, and clem then becomes the doc. 3. If Clem is scum, how long can she hope to pull this off? She could be the godfather and therefore survive an investigation. Or the scum could have a tailor and be able to make her appear town. But at the very least, once a PR has claimed to someone else and then dies, she'll be outed if she can't replicate that role. Realistically though, she could survive pretty long before being caught. It's a pretty safe claim for a scummo to make. Overall, after calculating the statistics and outcomes, I'm leaning truth on Clem. I just don't see the upside being worth it for the scum to make such a bold claim. However, I'm not confident in that enough (because I don't trust the scum to work with the same level of logic as I, since they're inferior beings [like the rest of you]) to make any claim to her (vanilla or PR, doesn't matter here). I'd recommend others not claim as well. The normal way to build a town block is for the investigator to clear a couple people and start talking to them. It works well and is the safest, most logical way to proceed. She's a suspect to the scum in the sense that they never know when she'd take on a new ability instead of being vanilla. Not that it really matters to them - they'll just kill her whenever they get a chance. And why do you assume she'll announce that she's taken over a role? I'm guessing her logic was that she'll build a town block and be able to confide in them once she's gotten a role, without making it public knowledge.

Hm. Still thinking it's risky for you to have claimed (definitely put a target on yourself) but yes, the info is useful to us. And it's a bit useful to the scum, in that they know they didn't kill anything that great last night. But after all the craziness that this ancient civilization known as Ragnarok went through because they didn't know their vig was dead, I'd agree it's good for us to know. I'm suspecting you didn't start today intending to claim, but you (perhaps hastily) made the early statement that the vig was still alive and then had to dig your way out of that. Oh, and it's "lose it" - unless it's a tooth in which case it's loose before you lose it

Although claw, your entire post is so "stating the obvious" that it seems like busy space-filler. Ping...

Don't forget the other possibilities - one of the dead could be the vig, or the vig or SK chose not to kill last night. So blocker, don't assume that whoever you blocked was a killer. As for the rest... Not at all surprised to see Wen flip town. didn't have much of a read on the other two. And for some wild speculation - either could have been a good scum kill. Clark's shown some serious skills lately, and Gaiman's always been good at these hunts. Both were quiet enough yesterday that the scum would have felt safe going after them (not likely people to have trackers/watchers/whatever on). But if I had to put my money, I'd say Gaiman was the scum victim and Clark was the SK or vig's kill due to being so quiet yesterday. dang, all sorts of you got in on the same ideas while I was typing too slowly. Gotta get my voice-transcriber fixed one of these days, my cyborg fingers are too slow apparently.

Thanks for playing Xen.

Dang, way to jump on all the suspicions. Even saying I might have something with Hannah, when my vote was primarily a prod with a bit of suspicion mixed in. And really, signing off when there's still 24 hours left? Way to be fatalistic! Although I realized that according to the rules, the day is over since the majority has been reached. Don't think I've ever played a game on this planet though that does that, the rulers here usually let the hours run out in the day. Other places I've played DID end immediately when lynch was reached and it really affects the playstyle, since it becomes strategy to time the last votes. But seriously Clem, even I know my vote on Hannah was a throwaway vote. I was just looking for someone I could justify a vote on since it's mandatory and I don't want to vote for you or Wen. But now I'm pinging a bit with how you jumped all over that weak suspicion...

Actually, I remember looking into the day 1 lynch thing many many planets ago... at the time, I found where someone in another universe had done some statistical analysis and shown that not lynching day 1 actually led to more frequent town wins. However, that logic has never flown here and I was shot down when I suggested it back then. So yes, it actually IS a good idea and I'm glad to see you thinking logically. And as people have shown, mandatory voting does not lead to mandatory lynching, since a lynchee has to have more than 50% of the vote, not just a simple highest # of votes. Honestly, this is pinging my town-dar for Clem. She's legitimately trying to help the town and not voting for someone she thinks is town, even at the potential cost of her own life. There's still many hours left to decide, so she's got time to continue to persuade people. Similarly, I'm NOT going to be voting for either Clem or Wen today - both are still leaning townie to me. For now, I'm going to Vote: Hannah Ford (Ranger of the Forest) Because she's barely gotten out of bed during all of this. One solitary post, making all the usual noises (I'm busy, I've got suspicions that I'll talk more about later and doesn't ever do it, brief comments on the main characters of the day) but nothing of substance or importance. AKA sliding under the radar... scummo's favorite place to be.

Bock here was referring to Clementine and her constant yammering. Considering how much Clem has said, yeah, complaining about other people being fluffy seems off. Pingy....second post and just a bandwagony agreeing with other people's suspicions, AND inflating things. Saying Wen was strongly disagreeing, and pretty blantantly calling him scum. Just feels overplayed to me, but that could easily be noobishness. This, 1000 times this. Harriet, I know this seems to contradict my last comment, but there's no good reason to hold back suspicions on day 1. The odds that you've actually figured out something enough to become a scum kill target is about zero (there's just not enough info out there yet to ACTUALLY deduce anything) and even if you do die, then those of us that remain will give some extra weight to whatever you said and it's a great way to actually catch scum. Just like lynching a townie by mistake on day 1 gives us a ton of info, who gets killed overnight ALSO gives us info. And since the Federation has a large advantage in numbers (and the scum have a large advantage in knowledge), we need to convert people into facts. As for my vote, I don't have one yet. I don't actually think that either Wen or clem are scum. Wen may be a bit of a distraction so far, but I've seen it happen on other planets before. He may come back and be a great help to the federation. Lynching him today gains us NO knowledge, since it'd be way too easy for the traitors to vote him without repercussions. And clem is too vocal to be Blacktron.

No sir, we do not have snacks at this time. Please address the Colonel and Danny with this issue, as they are the ones promising cookies. And you sir, need to cease with the hallucinogenics. We have a dire situation that requires your clear-headed attention. Finally, congratulations to Seamus who, in the recent discussion, re-achieved his usual status of most-frequent poster in these games.

To be 100% clear that I was joking about claiming, please reference post 2309036, timestamp 1440363271, from topic 113773. Oh wait, you humans don't know everything off the top of your heads. Let me quote it for you from the tale of Ragnarok Now 3: Here, in my previous life, I very clearly stated that claiming to Hinck [especially on day 1!!!] is a mistake. Now, I was tempted my the remaining shreds of my humanness to use rule 2 to promote you and I both being Federation. However, this dispute has not risen to the required level of viciousness for rule 2 to apply.

I thank you, Minga. You accurately explained to Clementine that she's being foolish and misunderstanding my attempt at a joke. Remember, Clem, I am mostly cyborg. My humanity is mostly gone and therefore I struggle with emotion and feeling and humor.

Time check. Has voting begun? We need to lynch Clementine for deliberately misleading the Federation like this. And for failure to read the rules. ... wait, what? That was a joke? I do not understand "jokes" - that may have been part of my humanity that I lost. Day one, so am I correct that we all come claim to you via the facility messaging system?

4 of 2 is here, please begin now.

1) Tell me a brief summary of your Mafia experience, in poem form. A Free verse is fine. A Haiku will also do. You don't need to rhyme. Played some. Won some. Lost some. Town some. Scum some. SK none. 2) Will you be free to actively participate from now until whenever the heck this ends? Of course! What else in life could be more important? Obviously not my job, family, church, etc, since I managed to follow Ragnarok all the way to the end. 3) What is your favorite Sci-Fi work? I've watched/read a ton, not sure I really have a favorite (in any media form, I consume lots but don't get fanatical over any of it). Seen all 3 Star Wars, seen the other 3 Star Wars, seen Star Trek up through TNG and movies.... watch King of the Nerds and Warehouse 13 and Dollhouse and Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog and tons of other stuff. Played Doom and Command and Conquer and lots of other games. Read so many I can't begin to name any of them. But I tend overall to enjoy the lighter stuff more, so Warehouse 13 is right up my alley. Eureka was too. Heck, I think I'll pick Jack Carter from Eureka as (at least one of) my favorite characters. 4) "Solve the function: for N=4, with r being the third root of i"? ~JJP Nope. Did enough calculus in high school to skip most of calc in college, and then got a BS Chem with minor in Physics (so I took classes where this sort of crap was a daily exercise) but don't remember any of it. 5) Watch this brief .I need to stay off the internet before I get some caffeine in me (and that's always Mtn Dew, not coffee, to keep my sci-fi cred up) since I actually fell for that.

Yep, I've played the anonymous games and it's a bit of a pain, since you have to be VERY VERY careful before playing to make sure you've logged out of your real account and logged back in under the game account. A thought - is it possible to block accounts from posting in certain sections? So in that case, block the players real accounts from posting in the mafia forum to make sure it doesn't happen? And restrict the game accounts to only posting in the mafia forum...

Yep, I was struggling the whole game to see where people thought Hinck was scum. Yes, he's good and devious and sneaky and could easily bus a fellow scummo to get himself into the town block, but 3? That's just too much.

Wow, what a game! Just ask my wife, even though I've been dead for like a month, it's still consumed many many hours keeping up with all the crazy. And for those too lazy to read the massive deadboard, here's Mostly's rules of EB mafia: 1. Don't claim to Hinck (or def) - sure, it'll probably turn out ok since the odds are they're town, but if they're not, you're totally screwed. 2. If two people are viciously fighting in thread (see day 8 for a perfect example), they're BOTH TOWN. 3. EB mafia players should all toss a few bucks in a pot and buy hinck (and def) some valium when they play :) But seriously, how does the vig get lynched day 1 and not claim? And we were all cheering when solid logic posts got put up. I know ChromeKnight and adam got big kudos on the dead board for sure. Others as well, but they're the two that I remember the most.

Could have been an orange LED or similar, or it could also be a white light and then editing - either changing white balance in camera (ie set the camera to shade and use an incandescent light, you'll get pretty orange) or by editing in photoshop or your software of choice. Easiest is to use an actual orange light, you see exactly what you're going to get. But changing white balance is pretty close to as easy, since you can see right on the camera what you've got.

Bah, you noticed :( I told him privately in the dead board hoping he'd fix it before anyone saw...

Sorry it came across that way - it certainly wasn't how I intended it! I went out of my way to acknowledge my limited knowledge and get my kids involved to help me fill in the gaps. I had a blast with this set!

It could be blooming of some of the chemicals in the rubber. Nothing to worry about from a health standpoint, mostly just a cosmetic issue. It could lead to it getting brittle or cracking over time (depending on what chemicals are coming out), but probably not. Does it look like this blog post shows: http://www.thesouthernthing.com/2014/11/how-to-clean-your-hunter-boots-remove.html ? Other than the fact you said yours is in the crevices rather than all over... probably just means the boom on the outside of the parts has rubbed off. But to answer your other questions... probably nothing you can do about it. It won't affect other rubber parts if you store them together. (source: I'm a rubber compounder in the tire industry, meaning I develop and test various rubber formulas for tire repair products)

Very curious about the ratings people are giving. As of right now, the poll is about even between poor, below avg, and average, with NO votes above average or excellent. How much of that is people not liking it BECAUSE it's Minecraft vs people not liking it as a minecraft set. I'm guessing it's the former - sort of how I gave 2 ratings in the end of the review. I'm not a Minecrafter, so I only gave it 6/10. My boys are exactly the target market being both Lego and MC fans, so they think it's the awesome-ist thing they've ever gotten. Even though both MC and Lego would seem to attract similar fanbases, I think the EB users lean heavily away from the blocky style of Lego and the style of MC and so we don't appreciate the MC sets for what they are.

Since I just did a review of a very similar in price and part count set, I noticed something weird about your manual. Again, same size set - but no page about the brick separator, even though my set had one too. Mine has a page with the same "numbered bag" part of that page, but nothing about the separator on it.

Lego 21121 Minecraft Desert Outpost Thanks to Lego and EuroBricks for making this review possible! This will be a little different review than normal. Somehow I've just never gotten into Minecraft, but my two boys (9 and 5) are addicted to it. So since it's currently way past their bedtimes, I'm first writing a review myself looking at this as a Lego set but with basically no knowledge of the source material. Then tomorrow I'll have them give me an education and add that to the review. That said.... on with the details! Name: Desert Outpost Set Number: 21121 Pieces: 519 Price: $59.99 Minifigs: 5 Theme: Minecraft Year of Release: 2015 Links: Bricklink Brickset The Box So, a set of blocks based on a game about blocks and giant pixels. Hm. Nice logo and pixelated background at the top, with a face or something over at the top right corner. Frowning ghost face? Messed up Mickey Mouse head? Not really sure.... As for the set, well, it's a desert outpost. With a river flowing next to it. Um.... isn't that against the rules of a desert? From the boys - there's lots of rivers in the Minecraftian deserts. And the logo in the corner is a Creeper face, even though there aren't any in this set. And they really like the action of the box front with the TNT flying and such. The 1:1 On top of the box Lego used one of the minifigs to illustrate the size. It's a skeleton with a blocky head instead of the normal minifig head. And armor. Why's a skeleton need armor? It's already dead! Guess the boys will have to explain that one too. What they can't explain is why Lego used a minifig for scale. Anyone buying Lego sets probably already knows how big a minifig is. It seems to me that using something else from the set would make more sense, but there's not really anything else that would give easy scale. On vehicle sets, a wheel works well. Here, I guess they did as well as they could with a fig with a weapon. The Back of the Box The back is a standard display of play features. I won't recite them all since you can see the picture. I do find it a little odd to see the "build your own creation" in the bottom corner and the top center. Isn't that the exact point of both Lego and Minecraft? Do people REALLY need that spelled out explicitly for them these days? The Contents 3 numbered bags, some baseplates, and a manual. Simple. The Manual The manual is book-bound, not a stapled booklet, and nicely made. I'm not in love with the pale green background, more of a traditional light blue fan myself, but it's ok. You can see here there's no problem distinguishing light/dark grey or light/dark tan, but there were a couple times at the start of a section of building that it was less clear since there's only one color in use so far. Also, why are the print colors so far off the brick colors? For kicks I tried placing bricks on the page and it's crazy how different the colors are from the book. My wife and I do photography, so we understand the challenge of making prints match the screen or a physical object. But this is LEGO. They could do it. Once they defined the colors once they'd be pretty much done. So why is it so different? It'd make it easier for those times different color shades are unclear if the print color matched the brick color - just hold the parts to the page! Sort of how Technic sets often have a 1:1 scale axle on the page to help you get the right one from all the different sizes. The Minecraft Ad At the back of the manual is an ad for Minecraft, with a 70s looking dude playing along with his daughter on a "Blockstation 500" desktop computer. Personally, I love the style. I've read enough actual ads like that from back in the day to appreciate it. It sorta reminds me of a Pixar movie - it's an ad geared at kids but has lots of hidden details the adults would appreciate. Like the massive beard. And the collared shirt / sweater / jacket combo. And the Apple ][ style computer. Nicely done. The only flaw is a computer of that vintage with a full color screen :) The Other Sets That ad is followed by an ad for the other Lego Minecraft sets. The original micro sets are not included, but the 2014 and 2015 sets are all shown. The Part List For those who want, here's the inventory from the set. Yes, there is a brick separator. The Special Parts There's a variety of specialty and printed pieces. Not sure how much use any of them have outside the blocky Minecraft style, but they work here. The Minifigs Technically, I think Lego counts the wolf as a fig, but it's not built with the other figs in the manual. You'll see it soon. These 4 figs are nice though. The skeletons get Minecraft heads, and the two other characters are decent. It seems that "Alex" is a female Alex, based on the orange hair printing onto her torso. That is sort of a bummer, since it limits the usefulness of that torso for other things. The weapons and armor likewise are pretty limited to the Minecraft world. From the boys - You get the two main characters that you can be in the game, so this is a good starting set for someone. The armor and helmets are cool, but it'd be great if Lego could make the armor leggings and shoes. The Minifigs' Backs Alex gets the only back printing, and no one has alternate faces. The Build, 1 The first part of the build is a few small objects. A wolf, I think a crate?, a red torch?, a grey thing, and then 4 other torches. I do like the grooved bricks used for the wolf legs, but beyond that, not sure what I'm looking at here. From the boys - it's a wolf, tamed since it has a red collar, then a crafting table where you make things in the game. Super useful, you pretty much can't play Minecraft without it. Next is a redstone torch used in redstone circuits. There's also a furnace for cooking both food and other things, and finally regular torches to keep monsters away. The Build, 2 More small items. Some brown bin thing that based on the box art is a little one-man boat, a few plant things, and then I assume a red bed. The small bin is a boat used to travel in the water or for fishing. The green cylinders are sugarcane used to make paper or sugar, both very useful in the game. The Build, 3 And still more small items. First I see what appears to be an unfinished green tree, and then a TNT launcher. No dad, that's a cactus and a TNT Dispenser. Ok, I guess I can see the cactus. Still say it looks unfinished, but everything in Minecraft sorta does :) The Build, 4 Finally, into the meat of the build. I definitely like the brown flower parts used in the door to give it some interest. And we obviously have a play feature there in the ground - pressing on the smooth section of the tan tile makes the grey tiles flip up. I'm betting the tan blocks fill that grey area and get launched out. That's a wooden door, not as good as an iron door. Zombies can break the wooden doors. Lego did a good job matching the game doors. The Build, 5 The build moves on to another platform. This will be the main part of the outpost, so it's a large baseplate with some feet under it to raise it. And yes, I counted studs carefully to put that brown brick right where it's supposed to be, even though it doesn't really matter. The Build, 6 After flipping the base over, we get to start building some walls and water. The Build, 7 It takes a LOT of jumper plates to get that offset row of dark grey "brick bricks" in the right place. And that basket thing and grey thing that we build earlier now get a home. Still have no idea what they are... We answered about the crafting table and furnace earlier dad, we're NOT going over it again. Remember, I wrote this ALL before talking to you. Oh yeah. Ok, well, we're not sure why they did the two stud lower walls and 1 stud darker wall sections. That doesn't look like Minecraft to us. The Build, 8 The door is attached here, and they made a pretty ingenious and discreet doorstop out of a couple headlight bricks with a dark grey tile across them. The Build, 9 We turn it around and build more of the tower. There's also a bunch of those 2x2 bricks with jumper plates on top piled up here. That looks like when my chest gets full and I have extra blocks and pile them outside my house since I don't have room. The Build, 10 After another spin around we get to add the base with the flipper that we built earlier. I'm sure my boys with drive us all insane using it to launch those tan blocks all over the house. We also add the green thing - in context, I'm assuming it's a cactus - and the TNT dropper. The Build, 11 Let's make a couple more small bases, hinge them together, and give one a splash of blue. And with all those jumper plates, I'm sure there's walls coming. The Build, 12 I've opened it up here to show what's going on. The bed is in the room, and the weird walls were built as pre-fab sections and put into place. These walls look better than the other walls. Although the bricks in the windows look more like fences than windows from the game. And the bed is actually too big, but it had to be to look right and fit a minifig. The Build, 13 Now I've closed it back up, added more walls, and started on the roof. Still weird, and sorta boring. Grey walls get old after a while... We love the water slopes. It could be bigger, but even like this the boat will slide down and across the blue plate. The Build, 14 This secondary building gets joined to the main base and a few more accessories are added, like the plants. The Build, The End So... the bedroom gets a roof, the tower still looks incomplete, and there's a bunch of creatures around that I don't understand. The tower gets a big door, but the bedroom has just a little swinging panel? You can't really see it in this photo, but there's some water in the back corner. But it's not connected to the water up front! The TNT dropper and the block launcher both work great though, so the playability is nice. Big fail Lego - Steve has a sword AND a cookie, but you can only hold one thing at a time in the game. There's probably mods that change that, but you can't do this in the official game. And if this is daytime, then the skeleton with no armor would be dead or on fire from the sunlight. Having the redstone torch up with the TNT dispenser is right though, since you need a redstone circuit to make the dispenser work. The Leftovers Here's the leftover parts, all from bags 1 and 3. Bag 2 had no little parts, so no extras. Nothing surprising either, but these little 1 stud parts are always nice to have more of. The Playset The bases have hinges between sections, so it can open up like this. There's also a seam with a hinge under the bedroom, but the roof holds it together. If you remove the brown roof then that building can split open. We like the set opening, since it's easier to reach places and play. The Boat No idea why in the desert there's a guy in a tiny boat holding a cookie. Because that's all part of Minecraft, dad. Duh. Why does it have to make sense? The Alternate Build Remember how the box talked about "building your own creations" with "inspiration included?" Instead of the alternate models that we see in Creator or Technic lines, this set includes a modified version. First, you remove walls and other parts to get down to this. Then you rebuild with those pieces (and it does use just about all of them) into... The Alternate Outpost A much taller tower. But now the TNT doesn't fall onto the launcher, and the bedroom building is looking very incomplete. Neither is a big issue - just turn the top of the tower and use some other Legos to finish the building - but it just feels like a weak effort here to me. On the other hand, it's pretty much what my boys would have done anyway! The tower is awesome! The TNT flies further from higher up, and it's like a lookout tower to see if bad guys are coming. See, I was right... My wife thinks the regular model looks better though, and I agree. The Conclusion So, what's my conclusion on this model? It's definitely aimed at a specific fanbase, as opposed to things like City. And even Chima or Super Heroes have their source material, but this just seems more specific to me. Those other licenced themes are easier to play with without knowing the source. The price is ok, since you do get several figs and larger parts instead of tons of 1x1 bricks like many sets do. We think it's great, maybe even better than the other Minecraft sets we have. The TNT dispenser and boat are great, plus the wolf... and you get Alex! The Ratings Value: 7/10 - Close to 10 cents a piece, and you get 5 figs and a good size tan baseplate plus other largish plates. Design: 8/10 - Looks very Minecrafty, but a little plain. Minifigs: 10/10 - Good assortment, new Alex and wolf, and the boys liked that her hair was printed down onto her torse. Playability: 8/10 - Pretty good on its own, and easy to blend with other Minecraft sets or expand with other Legos. Parts: 6/10 - Appreciate the flexibility of these pieces for Minecraft use, but it'd be much more limited if you wanted to use them for other purposes. The unique parts are very specific to Minecraft. Overall: 6/10 or 10/10 - My score is low. I'm not the target market for this, since I've never played Minecraft. My boys on the other hand give it a 10 and are SO glad to have this set.