Flipz

"Perhaps...that is why I cautioned Mister Rone not to assume it was her. Perhaps someone in Dastan--or even one of the Emperors--is a user of Chaos. As for the conflict...well, I have a feeling that the rougue Lion Knights are either an excuse or a scapegoat, a manufactured excuse for war. We Heroes shall be walking a knifeblade, a steep and slippery slope on either side. Do not misunderstand, I look forward to the challenge, but I do not wish to make rash decisions that may put others in danger. An old friend once told me 'hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.' It seems wise advice to me."

^^THIS. Although, I still think that Knight will be my least favorite of the three sword-classes.

Yes. I agree with that assessment.

"No, he's got a point," Arthur said, stepping forth once more from the shadows. "These Quests seem set against each other--a more potent recipe for Chaos has yet to be uncovered. I do not know if the Lady Wren herself is involved, particularly, but darkness surrounds us all. In times like these it is best to keep our allies close at hand." And why I fear so for Atramor. "Do not assume the Lady Wren is behind this, however, Mister Rone. There are more Chaos-users in this world than the Lady Wren, and perhaps some even more potente in their ability. Limiting thy suspicion to just one, no matter how powerful that one may be, could be a fatal mistake."

"May there be many pockets to pick on yours, Atramor, and may our paths cross again soon." Arthur ponders the chicken's words. Was he on the right path? Was there even a right path in the first place? True, the Lion Knights were worthy allies, but was it worth gaining tha favor of one of the most corrupt Houses of Eubric? Arthur begins to ponder these thoughts, but remains convinced that, even if it was not, his destiny awaited him in Dastan. He glanced thoughtfully over at the Quest board, and wondered if any of the other Heroes he had congratulated had truly noticed him beyond simple acknowledgement, and who they even were. To whom was fate entrusting his first true ally in the Hall, and the unexpectedly brilliant Ranger who now held the secrets to recovering his family's legacy? "Legacy..." he murmured. Was that it? Was that the purpose to his existence? If so, then on a lteral level he was surely failing--he was by no means unattractive in the slightest, but his absent manner did little to endear him to those he found attractive. Perhaps it was on a metaphorical level--but what did that mean anyway? What legacy was he building, to whom would he end up passing it on? Brooding over these questions, he withdrew back into the shadows of the Hall to lie in wait for his next Quest.

I'd like either a red or blue Rebellion logo or the Empire logo, please. Surprise me!

Eh, give me one of these, these, or especially a Mando-spec version of these beauties.

*Note to self: If I ever host a Mafia game, find some way in which various characters' different body parts are played by different players and may or may not be of different alignments.*

Arthur tears himself out of his mental reverie; Harkenshire's unexpected expertise in his father's craft had sparked ideas aplenty in his mind. If he could master this new technique, and combine it with the dimentional positioning and anchoring that had been honed through the generations, his House had a fair shot at--but he mustn't think of such things. He couldn't. He had no house, he reminded himself, he was alone in the world--except for his fellow Heroes. That's when he notices the messenger. Arthur walks to the Quest board. He sees Atramor's name on the list for Quest 30. Damn! he thought, I really hoped he'd join me instead. He looks into his pack, at the lone unbound journal remaining there. Then he spots his Amethyst. An irrational surge of anger washed over him, and the violet gem flared, incinerating the book with its dark power. Arthur wrested a grim satisfaction from the destruction. There was more than one way to keep in touch--and he knew just who to speak to. Arthur walked back into the Hall proper, murmuring congratulations to the Heroes chosen, and taking an extra moment to wish Harkenshire and Atramor good luck. Waiting until Atramor was distracted, he sat next to McCafferey and sent a tiny shadow bolt into the countertop to gain the chicken's attention. "McCafferey. Listen. Atramor was chosen for a different Quest than me. I...there's a likelihood we'll end up fighting. I want you to keep an eye on him. Make sure that he lives, at least until we are forced to do battle. He's a great man, one of the few beings in this world who are both good friends and worthy allies. If he has to fall by any hand, it should be that of a worthy adversary--or, fialing that, mine. I forsee great power, and great devastation in his path. Guide him. Bring word to me, if you can--though I do not know if that would be possible. Above all--if by any means you can coerce him to take my side--do it. I do not wish to lose such a valuable ally from this world." As he stared the "chicken" down, it saw a light purple tinge to his eyes--one that disappeared almost as quickly as it came. All at once, there was nothing different about Arthur--and yet everything had changed. There was...potential. Arthur had the sudden urge to ask the chicken about its "superiors"--but that made even less sense than whatever he had just said. What had he said? And why was it so important? And where was that last journal, he had wasted perfectly good arcane spell components on it...shaking his head, Arthur walked into the shadows of the Hall, awaiting the call of a Quest.

*insert igloo joke here* Realistically speaking, though, I believe you're correct, though I also think that rectangles are slightly more visually appealing than perfect cubes BECAUSE we associate them with LEGO sturdy, safe structures. That may just be me, though.

...says the guy who thinks "PT Jedi are the BEST!" Though in all honesty, the best thing to come out ot the prequel trilogy WAS the lightsaber fights, so...

Yeah, that's basically how the crystals system works in that other game. Fame would have to be made quite a bit more difficult to gain (in order to encourage purchase of items), but it would be a lot more fair. As for Doc's points about pots: OK, I just suck at RotMG in general then.

I just thoroughly enjoy them. So long as I'm decently equipped, they're a decent challenge without getting "unfair" like godlands and EVERY SINGLE OTHER DUNGEON (aside from Pirate Cave). I've played RotMG enough now to complain about it on a conceptual level; it's not problems within the game formula, or little nitpicks that could, conceivably, be fixed in a later update, it's basic problems with the structure, things that would entice me to switch to a different game if they delivered where RotMG doesn't. (well, as long as the new game didn't have even worse problems of its own, that is. First and foremost, performance. Seriously, for such a simple game based off of such simple code, the lag and other performance issues are, frankly, inexcusable. Well, there is the excuse of "this is an indie game and server upgrades are expensive", but seriously, it wouldn't cost THAT much for a few key upgrades. If the devs are THAT strapped for cash, they need to come up with better reasons for me to pay them. Which brings me to problem two: having to buy extra storage space/character slots. Yes, that's what mules are for, but to be honest, the concept itself is frustrating. It's a fundamentally useful commodity I'd be buying, but at the same time it's not substantial enough, it just seems to "frivolous" to spend my hard-earned cash on. And that segways into another problem: there is literally NO REASON to buy Realm Gold. Come on, guys. I like indie gamers. If I see an indie game I like, I'll work a purchase into my budget. I WANT to give you money. But the FTP structure and the utter uselessness of dyes, tinctures, and the like in light of the game's INHERENT permadeath system makes it completely stupid for me to waste real money on any of it. Dungeon Keys are the only thing that truly tempt me, but once again rediculously limited inventory and the permadeath system hold me back. You know, there was a game I used to play called "Tanki" that had crystals as an in-game currency. You gained a VERY small supply of crystals from winning battles, as well as from crates that would VERY rarely drop from the sky, but the easiest way to get them was to buy them. Now, Tanki didn't compel me enough to buy their in-game currency, either, but it did seem fair, and if the rest of that game had been half as compelling as RotMG, I would have bought them by the ton. Perhaps you should look into this, Devs? Anyway, onto my next problem: THE "HARDCORE" divide. I have never--EVER--gotten a stat potion, no matter how hard I've tried. The enemies a tier BELOW pot-dropping level are insane, and all the rest are BALANCED for potted characters, not to mention the player-regulated trading market revolves around pots. You see where I'm going with this--it's unfair. Unless you play the game obsessively (in which case you'll most likely buy Realm Gold and use the purchased items to stay alive long enough to get pots) or you have SUPREMELY generous friends, you, like me, will never see a stat pot in-game. Now, I don't care about getting pots. I really don't. All I ask is that I be able to have a decent shot at Oryx's Castle and O1 WITHOUT farming for pots for 20+ hours. This brings me to the biggest and final problem: the leveling system. Look, I'll be honest, for starting out, it works great. If the game was calibrated so that Level 20 was the best you could be and it were possible (if difficult) to solo gods as soon as you hit that level, I'd be happy. But no, Fame and Pots continue the progression where Level 20 leaves off, only the rate of progression drops off DRAMATICALLY, and from what I hear only gets worse over time. If you want to leave in pots and Fame, make pots just a little easier to get. Give them a chance of dropping from things easier than Lizard Kings or whatever they are. That or take out levels entirely, and have classes unlocked by the Fame-based Quests, which would dramatically spike the difficulty, but might stand a chance of driving off the hordes of annoying noobs who don't contribute anything and lag the game anyway. Thank you. This has been an irritation-fueled rant. Thank you for listening.

1. Let's just say that base security was not happy (not with me, with what happened because I had gotten the other kids [this was years ago now] started with lightsaber fights, because for one pair of kids it got personal), and that there are some parts of the body that should not be struck by hard objects traveling at high speed. 2. An Ataru-Soresu hybrid, though recently I've been getting some Form V creep. 3.

Let's take this to Star Wars discussion, shall we?

What's wrong with Pokemon?!? And believe me, it's easy enough to hit yourself with your own weapon if you aren't careful. *remembers that particularly disastrous day of lightsaber training...* It was a Force FX lightsaber, yes, I practice with it regularly, and yes, I am a complete nerd. I imagine with spells it would be even worse, since arcane, mystical powers (to me) imply the need for intense concentration. I can only imagine the myriad ways in which the supernatural manipulation of the elements could go wrong... :devil_snicker: (The mental image for me is splinching during Apparating in Harry Potter. :wince: )

Yeah, but mods can see if it was edited anyway, they help the hosts police such things.

... I just got the most hilarious mental image of the rug swallowing itself.

While we're on the subject of the sets, any chance we can get more pictures of the sets of the house and the castle once the Conclusion is up? I'd like to see more of both.

To add to that, if a non-Sealed enemy that is Confused attacks itself, and the roll was for Special Damage, would the enemy use its special against itself? Or would it just be a normal hit?

I seem to recall the sound brick being demonstrated in one of the toyfair videos. I could be wrong, though, I'll have to see if I can find it again...

I'm pretty sure it does...

Two words: interference field. If a QM doesn't want them active, it's easy enough to disable--you're kind of god in your own Quest. It's just for roleplaying. In Quest 17, it worked for ideas because, well, it was that kind of Quest. (And because I was coming up with most of the ideas and was running out IRL, and no one else seemed to be coming up with more at the time.) I don't intend to use them to break the tri-Quest--I actually planned to have Arthur realize that they don't work in Dastan for some unknown reason, and to use that to get rid of some of his smugness (which is annoying me at the moment). And, in any event, Arthur would learn nothing from them unless someone took the time to write--soething that would not happen in, say, combat, or if the character was distracted, or incapacitated, etc. etc. etc., so there'd be no unsolicited advice, either. I'm not trying to break the game, I'm trying to keep in touch with characters Arthur probably won't see again for a long, long time due to overlapping Quests. So, TL;DR, there's not going to be more Journals, aside from one to Atramor. He already mentioned it would be some time before he could get the other spell components, which in this particular case means he'd have to go back home (of course, there's no way anyone could know that, it's something Arthur hasn't had cause to explain), which will never happen. In-character, of course, he's going to try to abuse them, but please know that out-of-character I don't want to cause any problems.

Arthur looks up in surprise. It is rare indeed to encounter another who knows of his family profession, it was a most rare and arcane art. "Yes, indeed, most of my family line has taken up the trade. I'm afraid I don't know about glowing ovals in the air, though--our family, through careful alchemy and the use of arcane ritual and magically imbued scrolls, built a number of Gates in our realm, through which the proper arrangement of elemental keys will open gateways to other worlds. My father created a very special gate, one that relied solely on combinations of symbols, but that gate had other...difficulties...attached to it. Rarely have we ventured through it. I am the first of my line to have magical abilities of my own, you see, so all of our preparations were based on the clever use of the many magical materials available to us. All that stopped, though, after my father's latest tryst with the Zeigfried witch was revealed. You say the planewalkers you speak of can cast gate spells anywhere they wish? How do they overcome the Dyson-Milner parallax effect? Or are they limited to plane-shifts between dimensions with geostationary transit kinesis? Please, tell me more!"

"No, sir! A simple Scroll of Sealing renders them helpless! No, I'm more inclined to follow a different path. Battle Mage is not for me, no offense to any Heroes who have taken that class, for me it's between Mystic Knight, Evoker, and Sorcerer. I've seen what Alexis can do with her elemental summons, and it is most impressive, but I fear that the creatures I would summon would not be nearly as impressive. I'll probably train to be a Mystic Knight or a Sorcerer. My village is too close to the volcano for true towers to be built, but the mansion was big enough, and had a wonderful Library--though it pales in comparison to our own. Heroica could make a fortune if they opened a dimension gate here and fortified the Nether route to my village--we get all sorts of arcane travelers in my land. A lady in black seeking the 'wisdom' of our elders, a green-skinned witch seeking new wares, a elven mage who spoke of "soul splices" and other such arcane mysteries--that one taught me a most useful spell called "explosive runes". It is somewhat difficult to use as a true weapon, but when an annoying monk gets too uppity in their letters to you, well..." Arthur blushes. I'm an adult, I really should be done with such tomfoolery. "Anyhow, our region has much fertile farmland, but those were not the Planes I spoke of. The Planes are..." Arthur stops suddenly. "Well, uh, it's kind of complicated. Are you familiar with the mystical uses of fractal unconformities in microarcane spatio-temporal applications?"