I was only able to participate for a half hour or so, but here's what I saw.
As soon as I logged in, I went to Atlas Park (the hub/newbie zone of the game). I looked up and sure enough, hanging in the sky right above the giant statue of Atlas was a large ominous sawcer. Very Independance Day-esque. I flew up closer (I play a lvl 24 blaster with flight) to the alien ship, and noticed there were little green flicks and flashes coming down from parts the ship. The Ritki aliens were dropping to the surface.
I flew down and saw what I did not expect. Hundreds of heroes banded together to form a line of scrimmage, using unprecidented organization to fight off one or two aliens at a time. The aliens were all 'conning' purple to me (meaning they were tougher than me, I suspect they were around level 30 apiece), so some aliens took many heroes to take down.
The wave of heroes moved forward until we had resecured the capital building from the alien onslaught. We then huddled around Ms Liberty in a mass of flying, jumping primary colors, and defended against another wave of alien attackers.
I probably hit the screenshot button more than the shoot button during this event.
I'm running an Athlon 1700+ with a gig of ram. I have a GeForce4 Ti 4600 with 256 megs. It was slow and choppy during the real heavy parts (I was getting about a frame a second whenever someone did a 'mass heal' to a batch of 50 heroes), but still remained stable and playable. I was still able to put some hurt on the aliens.
It was a very entertaining event, a successful stress test on the server (and the clients), and it definately made me eager to start playing an official character on Sunday.
Most of the things you've mentioned in this post were not around in January-February of the beta test (they're pretty recent bugs, except the hover exploit), so here's to hoping that they're quick fixes and won't impede the game's release.
All joking aside, I think it's a very clever and zany idea. If in the odd chance you got two friendly power-gamers in the same Ogre body, they could be a real force to be reckoned with. A huge tank-mage that is almost always the last 'man' standing.
It's not much different than most games where two people pilot a vehicle (like a PlanetSide tank, one in the drivers seat, one in the gunner), except you'd be bound for the whole existence of the character.
Some people would love the challenge. Much like back when EverQuest had evil races who were hated by most NPC's. They adapted, and focused on their advantages.
If this ever were to be in the game, I guarantee you would see them in play, sometimes quite successfully. I would have a lot of respect for the duo that got a high level Two-Headed Ogre.;)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with innovative game thinking. I didn't buy Warcraft III because jack had changed between it and its half-decade earlier predecessor. But I would almost guarantee I'd buy WoW if it had this class (much like I bought Horizons for the dragons).
NannyMUD is one of the first LPMUDs put together, and has a very large player base and world. It's been around since 1990, and has a nice wide range of guilds and quests and realms to explore.
I haven't really played since 1999, but I still know people who do, and enjoy it to this day.
'that's the kind of game only an American would like'
Isn't Rockstar a UK company? I know Rockstar North worked on State of Emergency and Vice City, but the origional GTA series didn't start on this side of the pond.
Not necessarily true. Pick up the new version of the Tron DVD, it's got a pretty good 'making of' segment that actually put my own skepticism in place. A lot more of it is CG than I origionally thought, and even scenes where it looks like backlighting or trick photography is actually CG post production (like all the bright suits with black and white faces).
They mention that one of the gripes is how people didn't believe how much computer effort they put into a lot of shots. Many people wrote it up as drafters sketching onto film paper or other copout alternatives. They actually had two studios running at the same time, one that was devoted to the CG effects.
Yeah, check out the special features. It's insightful. I respect Tron even more knowing it's really CG in most places.
I ran the game last night on a minimum requirements laptop (a Dell Inspiron 7000, PII 300), and it ran quite well, considering. The full motion video was choppy at points, and the mouse cursor had this annoying flicker until I turned all the graphics features to 'low'. After that, once I got into the actual game, I experienced no problems whatsoever.
So, my verdict is, it's actually playable on the minimum system reqs (and still looks good and runs nominally), unlike a lot of graphic intensive games.
After looking through all the merchandise they have on their Cafe Press site, this has to be an elaborate hoax. The basketball backboard that says 'Score on the court, not on a date!'? Or the t-shirt that mocks hindu? Seriously. This is a thick gag.
$25 for a 240 piece set? I've always been a fan of legos, but they were always really expensive. I think at this price, I could buy more Atollo than I'd ever need for fifty bucks.
My lego collection has to be at least a couple hundred dollars worth...
There has to be something missing. You could take this story, show it to any reasonable human being, and they would excuse Sean for being a victim of circumstance.
Either some information is missing, or this is easily a breech of some form of personal rights.
Seriously, there has to be a slashdotter here who is a lawyer, or a cop, or even another school administrator who can tell us why something as blatantly unfair (and probably unconstitutional) as this could go through. That is, unfair if this story is an accurate representation of the truth (I'll try not to put myself on a side just yet).
Slashdot Mirror
Quick! Log on to City of Heroes and reserve their names! I already got xxMr.Inviinciibaalxx! OMFG!
I was only able to participate for a half hour or so, but here's what I saw.
As soon as I logged in, I went to Atlas Park (the hub/newbie zone of the game). I looked up and sure enough, hanging in the sky right above the giant statue of Atlas was a large ominous sawcer. Very Independance Day-esque. I flew up closer (I play a lvl 24 blaster with flight) to the alien ship, and noticed there were little green flicks and flashes coming down from parts the ship. The Ritki aliens were dropping to the surface.
I flew down and saw what I did not expect. Hundreds of heroes banded together to form a line of scrimmage, using unprecidented organization to fight off one or two aliens at a time. The aliens were all 'conning' purple to me (meaning they were tougher than me, I suspect they were around level 30 apiece), so some aliens took many heroes to take down.
The wave of heroes moved forward until we had resecured the capital building from the alien onslaught. We then huddled around Ms Liberty in a mass of flying, jumping primary colors, and defended against another wave of alien attackers.
I probably hit the screenshot button more than the shoot button during this event.
I'm running an Athlon 1700+ with a gig of ram. I have a GeForce4 Ti 4600 with 256 megs. It was slow and choppy during the real heavy parts (I was getting about a frame a second whenever someone did a 'mass heal' to a batch of 50 heroes), but still remained stable and playable. I was still able to put some hurt on the aliens.
It was a very entertaining event, a successful stress test on the server (and the clients), and it definately made me eager to start playing an official character on Sunday.
If you see Kid Gizmo in the mix, send me a tell!
Most of the things you've mentioned in this post were not around in January-February of the beta test (they're pretty recent bugs, except the hover exploit), so here's to hoping that they're quick fixes and won't impede the game's release.
All joking aside, I think it's a very clever and zany idea. If in the odd chance you got two friendly power-gamers in the same Ogre body, they could be a real force to be reckoned with. A huge tank-mage that is almost always the last 'man' standing.
;)
It's not much different than most games where two people pilot a vehicle (like a PlanetSide tank, one in the drivers seat, one in the gunner), except you'd be bound for the whole existence of the character.
Some people would love the challenge. Much like back when EverQuest had evil races who were hated by most NPC's. They adapted, and focused on their advantages.
If this ever were to be in the game, I guarantee you would see them in play, sometimes quite successfully. I would have a lot of respect for the duo that got a high level Two-Headed Ogre.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with innovative game thinking. I didn't buy Warcraft III because jack had changed between it and its half-decade earlier predecessor. But I would almost guarantee I'd buy WoW if it had this class (much like I bought Horizons for the dragons).
(house explodes)
NannyMUD is one of the first LPMUDs put together, and has a very large player base and world. It's been around since 1990, and has a nice wide range of guilds and quests and realms to explore.
I haven't really played since 1999, but I still know people who do, and enjoy it to this day.
'that's the kind of game only an American would like'
Isn't Rockstar a UK company? I know Rockstar North worked on State of Emergency and Vice City, but the origional GTA series didn't start on this side of the pond.
Not necessarily true. Pick up the new version of the Tron DVD, it's got a pretty good 'making of' segment that actually put my own skepticism in place. A lot more of it is CG than I origionally thought, and even scenes where it looks like backlighting or trick photography is actually CG post production (like all the bright suits with black and white faces).
They mention that one of the gripes is how people didn't believe how much computer effort they put into a lot of shots. Many people wrote it up as drafters sketching onto film paper or other copout alternatives. They actually had two studios running at the same time, one that was devoted to the CG effects.
Yeah, check out the special features. It's insightful. I respect Tron even more knowing it's really CG in most places.
Dude, hold out for the SL6700. It's got a full 640x480 LCD screen. I'd quote specs, but you're already on the Internet. Go find it yourself. ;)
I ran the game last night on a minimum requirements laptop (a Dell Inspiron 7000, PII 300), and it ran quite well, considering. The full motion video was choppy at points, and the mouse cursor had this annoying flicker until I turned all the graphics features to 'low'. After that, once I got into the actual game, I experienced no problems whatsoever.
So, my verdict is, it's actually playable on the minimum system reqs (and still looks good and runs nominally), unlike a lot of graphic intensive games.
Way to go, Taco!
Because this is a bit better to give to my (frequently travelling) father for Christmas. He's gonna love it.
Considering everybody I know plans on seeing this movie tomorrow in Minneapolis, it is most certainly released this weekend, and not next.
Either the Lagoon theatre or the Uptown theatre (they're three blocks away from eachother in Uptown Minneapolis, hard to miss either).
After looking through all the merchandise they have on their Cafe Press site, this has to be an elaborate hoax. The basketball backboard that says 'Score on the court, not on a date!'? Or the t-shirt that mocks hindu? Seriously. This is a thick gag.
Kind of a contradiction in terms, innit.
$25 for a 240 piece set? I've always been a fan of legos, but they were always really expensive. I think at this price, I could buy more Atollo than I'd ever need for fifty bucks.
My lego collection has to be at least a couple hundred dollars worth...
There has to be something missing. You could take this story, show it to any reasonable human being, and they would excuse Sean for being a victim of circumstance.
Either some information is missing, or this is easily a breech of some form of personal rights.
Seriously, there has to be a slashdotter here who is a lawyer, or a cop, or even another school administrator who can tell us why something as blatantly unfair (and probably unconstitutional) as this could go through. That is, unfair if this story is an accurate representation of the truth (I'll try not to put myself on a side just yet).