I have always had two (main) issue with Settlers of Catan:
1) It is so easy to kill someone off near the start of the game. A well placed road or building and it's effectively down to three players. And there's no "bow out" option, either you keep playing, or the game ends. It is rarely fun playing a game you've already lost.
2) Other people. Seriously, that game seems to bring out the idiot more than any other game I've played. Rob from the leader, why is that so hard to understand? Someone's on 8 visible points and has two hidden cards, TAKE HIS GODDAMN RESOURCES. He offers you fifty rock for a brick? That brick is all he needs to win, DO NOT GIVE IT TO HIM. And don't get me started on "I can't rob from him/her, she's my boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other". If your relationship can't stand you robbering his grain, go fight it out in private, stop ruining my game.
If the menu is up, use one, unchangeable keyset. You must in some way be able to access this keyset, even if it is just as some kind of mystery blackbox, because otherwise you can't physically write for the game.
1) Assuming it is a mystery blackbox:
From the menu, give the option to remap the keys, through a capture system. "Select an action" >Jump "What do you want to be jump?" >presses a button "jump is now bound to whatever you just pressed".
If the gameplay is on, run each input through the blackbox and the custom set built up by the player. If the game result matches, perform it. If the results differ, use the custom result,/unless running it through the blackbox would have accessed the menu structure/, in which case use the blackbox result. In this way, even if some idiot rebinds "start", the game will simply ignore it and open the menu anyway. The only problem is, for your game this removes the number of remappable buttons for gameplay by one.
Boohoo. They'll like this a LOT better than no customisation at all.
This failsafe can be expanded to any function you do not want remapped, but the only important one is the menu access button, as all the others can be undone by the player himself.
2) Assuming you have full access to the input style/format/etc: just build a custom set, and again, do not allow for the chosen menu access button to be unbound. Alternatively, allow it to be unbound, but force the player to choose a new one before continuing.
The problem is, Christlandia is buried underneath an giant, norad-style mountain constructed of an infinite number of clowns. Hence, the war described would go like this:
Atheianon: Fire the missiles!
Christlandia: What missiles? Have a clown.
Atheianon:...the missiles I am shooting at you (quit it).
Christlandia: I didn't feel anything.
Atheianon Flunky: Sir! We can't get through the clownshield! There's too many of them!
Atheianon: Well, I assure you, we are firing missiles and they are quite impressive. (quit it)
Christlandia: Well, I can't see them and therefor they do not exist.
Atheianon: They do, and if you were not SURROUNDED BY CLOWNS you would see that. Also, your attack clown keeps poking me in the back of the head and pressing buttons. It's getting annoying.
Christlandia: WE WIN YOU LOSE! Now if you don't mind, we have a bit of a plague situation going on.
Atheianon: What do the doctors say?
Christlandia: "Honkahonka", mainly. Then they squirt people with seltzer bottles. I think we need more clowns.
How so? If someone is arguing something and using as reference in a collection of books to back them up, and the collection of books say directly contradictory things in multiple locations, pointing this out and removing their main reference for their argument is the first thing to do, thereby taking away the "my book says otherwise" dfence and forcing them to use rational discourse.
If someone keeps insisting that one and one is three "because this book says so!", I will examine the book they are reading. If later on the book claims "The sky is green!" I will point this out as an example of the book's innaccuracy, and suggest we start counting beans. If the book says later that "One and one is four!", I'll also point this out and go back to the beans. I don't see why this is a bad course of argument just because the falsities the bible puts forth tend to be less obviously nuts than "Yes, but there's only two beans there now because satan STOLE the other bean!!!".
The problem being, players get to pick the side and server they play in. If they have an attachment to one side, the casual player will go to a server where that side is winning. If they have an attachment to a particular server, the casual player will join the side on that server that is winning. In other words, unless you like a challenge, there is no real incentive to fight against large odds. Unless something is done to offset this, this will ultimately result in server death, due to the below process.
1 Side A gains an advantage on server C, for whatever reason.
2 Side B starts getting its pants whupped more.
3 The most easily "screw this, I'm going home"-oriented side B players flee the server, or set up new characters on side A.
4 New players either do not join this server, or join side A.
5 Side A gains a bigger advantage over side B.
6 Repeat steps 2 to 5.
7 Side B now consists entirely of a few masochists and diehards.
8 Side A deserts the server, because it's no challenge any more, except for a few sadists and people who do not want to have to re-level in a new realm.
9 Server C is now known as "Server Crap", as it is nearly empty except for a few masochists, sadists, and high level characters. Server C is now dead.
This cycle has complete on a couple of the older WoW PvP servers, and given how carebear PvP is in WoW, that's saying something.
Warhammer have (wisely, given the level of PvP they are looking for) chosen to provide a "buffer" to this, and the method they have chosen is battle balancing and bots. Whether or not this will enhance the game experience or detract with it, who can say...
They can tell me to run Windows all they want, unless they buy me a brand new computer it ain't happening!
Your above statement is inaccurate. They will not buy you a new computer, they will inform you that, if you wish to access the internet, it must be through a pc running their software. The specifics are now their problem, it is up to you to comply. If you insist upon using a pc which is not compatible (i.e. a non-windows box) you will not be allowed access the internet, under penalty of fines and/or imprisonment. I will now for humorous effect craft a sentence similar to yours but altered to represent a more realistic take on the situation.
They can make it a term of my probation to run Windows, so unless I buy a brand new computer I'm not going to use a computer at all!
Since this is like your statement, but true, I declare this to be the "repaired" or "fixed" version of your statement! Haha!
Option 2: Negotiate with the bandits for return of the ring.
Option 3: Kill the bandits, keep and sell the ring.
Option 4: Kill the NPC, take his stuff.
...
Option 77: Go get drunk.
WoW(and most crpg) roleplaying:
NPC: Help! Bandits have taken my wedding ring!
Option 1: Kill infinitely spawning bandits (or an infinitely respawning special mob) untill one of them drops the ring. Return the ring.
Option 2: Not accept the quest.
The difference being, in WoW the only input you can put in is how, exactly, you contribute to the killing of the quest mobs that drop the item/killing of the trash mobs between you and the chest which drops the item. Getting to choose between "pew pew" and "healz" is not roleplaying. Getting to choose between "pew pew" and "healz" while speaking in an old english accent is not roleplaying. Having your character's backstory, personality, etc actually affect conflict resolution is what roleplaying is all about.
Whether or not this is present in D&D is debateable, but no-one can realistically argue that it is found in WoW.
P.S. I play WoW myself. I enjoy many aspects of it. But I've never even begun to think I was roleplaying, and wish I could get more CoC in my life.
Additionally, how do you "give back" killing someone? 6 months for murder isn't going to deter anyone, even if it's garaunteed.
In fact, if a new "option" was implemented of "spend five years in jail, get a free murder", I think a lot of people would jump at it. ("Why hello there Mr. Bush, I have a certificate I would like you to validate")
The argument "Without god, people have no reason to do good, and no reason not to do bad" is the reason I will always feel morally superior to theists like yourself(not all theists, just ones like you).
You say "This is bad because God says so".
I say "This is bad because I say so".
Which one of us is a more moral person?
On the other hand, in cold environments the brain could serve a dual purpose as thinky device and body warmer. Stick the brain in a ball with your other organs, stick on eyes to taste, get yourselves a set of tentacles to walk on, and it's just as easy to spin-and-look as it is to bend your head. Yes, it has limitations, but our arrangement isn't so perfect either. I doubt I'll ever see tentacle-blob falling over and snapping his neck, or being paralysed from the waist down.
Actually, his statement was quite fair, and would have been if he'd said Germans, French, Irish, or Alaskan. There are, quite definitely, "some" Americans that feel that way, as in any culture (or lack of (oh, I went there))
Initially, as far as Y is concerned, X travelled to the left for one hour. However, from her "perspective" (though she has no way of telling this) only half an hour has passed in "his" time, as his "time" is moving half as fast as hers.
When he gets the call, from his "perspective" it is Y who has been travelling rapidly (Remember, all motion is relative) to the right, and only for 30 minutes of his time (because only 30 minutes of his time has passed). So from his "perspective" only 15 minutes of "her" time has passed, because from his perspective her time is only moving half as fast as his. So when he gets the phonecall from her at "her" 10 oclock, from his perspective it is 9:30 and "her" time (from his perspective) is only 9:15, or 45 minutes before the phonecall he is involved in was actually made.
This is assuming that they have equal mass, are standing on nothing, and he (or she) can go from 0 to MysterySpeed(TM) instantaniously. When you start including objects of different mass and acceleration and gravity wells then it gets beyond my IANAPBIHFWAAIRAL (I Am Not A Physicisist But I Have Friends Who Are And I Read A Lot) armchair relativity knowledge:(
The above explained crudely and innacurately using ascii diagrams.
X and Y are at the same location. It is 9 o'clock
XY
9
X has a sudden, irresistable urge to get as far away from Y as possible. He departs rapidly to the left at Mystery Speed(tm)
X {- Y Y's Tale
Y stands around for an hour, at which point she feels needy and clingy and rings him with her Nifty Ansible(tm). Her watch says it is 10 o'clock. Now, from Y's perspective, X has been travelling so fast to the left that he has reached relativistic speeds. As such, only half as much time has passed for him. His watch says it is 9:30.
X {- Y
9:30 10
He gets a phonecall. Y says "I miss you I need you come back (bring me a magazine)" He replies "Fine." and hangs up.
X's Tale.
X realise he didn't know which of the seventy million identical celebrity magazines Y wanted. But from X's perspective,/Y/ has been traveling rapidly to the/right/. As such, only half of half an hour has passed for her, and her watch says 9:15.
X -} Y
9:30 9:15
She gets a phonecall. X says "What magazine do you want?". Y says "OMG YAY YOU WERE THINKING OF ME a people would be nice."
Y, having gotten the reply 45 minutes before she sent the initial call, thinks X called off his own bat. She feels happy and validated, and does not ring him 45 minutes later. So he never calls her. So she feels lonely and calls him. So he calls. So she doesn't. So he doesn't. Then the universe explodes.
X BOOM Y
And that's why relativity and relationships don't mix.
I disagree, especially in the region of PvP. The bane (and by bane I do not mean "best, most challenging opponents", I mean "thing which ruins the games") of PvP are characters known as "twinks", people who aquire the absolute best gear available in their level range. This effectively makes them several levels higher than the other players, ruining the game for casuals. It's the equivalent of playing, say, Counterstrike where armour and grenades are only available to a class of "prestige" player.
Since you can't (well, not easily, and without a lot of tedium) find these items or earn the amount of gold required to purchase them on the auction house without gaining at least some exp, and therefor leveling out of the level catagory, there's an 'effective' cap on the gear most people will have. Twinks get their gear by either using gold aquired from one of their other characters or, more usually, buying the gold. Since they have more gold to spend, they artificially inflate the cost of "twink" items well beyond the range of most players. Which reduces the quality of gear casual players have, which increases the gap, etc etc.
So if you chose to PvP (by which I assume you mean battlegrounds) you'll find it equivalent to playing Quake where rocket launchers and quad damage are a pay-per-use option only. And that's why gold sellers suck.
So I take a try and google image label, and the SECOND GODDAMN PICTURE was furry porn.
I hate you internet.
(I'm sorry I didn't mean it we'll never fight again)
Slashdot Mirror
1) It is so easy to kill someone off near the start of the game. A well placed road or building and it's effectively down to three players. And there's no "bow out" option, either you keep playing, or the game ends. It is rarely fun playing a game you've already lost.
2) Other people. Seriously, that game seems to bring out the idiot more than any other game I've played. Rob from the leader, why is that so hard to understand? Someone's on 8 visible points and has two hidden cards, TAKE HIS GODDAMN RESOURCES. He offers you fifty rock for a brick? That brick is all he needs to win, DO NOT GIVE IT TO HIM. And don't get me started on "I can't rob from him/her, she's my boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other". If your relationship can't stand you robbering his grain, go fight it out in private, stop ruining my game.
If the menu is up, use one, unchangeable keyset. You must in some way be able to access this keyset, even if it is just as some kind of mystery blackbox, because otherwise you can't physically write for the game.
/unless running it through the blackbox would have accessed the menu structure/, in which case use the blackbox result. In this way, even if some idiot rebinds "start", the game will simply ignore it and open the menu anyway. The only problem is, for your game this removes the number of remappable buttons for gameplay by one.
1) Assuming it is a mystery blackbox:
From the menu, give the option to remap the keys, through a capture system. "Select an action" >Jump "What do you want to be jump?" >presses a button "jump is now bound to whatever you just pressed".
If the gameplay is on, run each input through the blackbox and the custom set built up by the player. If the game result matches, perform it. If the results differ, use the custom result,
Boohoo. They'll like this a LOT better than no customisation at all.
This failsafe can be expanded to any function you do not want remapped, but the only important one is the menu access button, as all the others can be undone by the player himself.
2) Assuming you have full access to the input style/format/etc: just build a custom set, and again, do not allow for the chosen menu access button to be unbound. Alternatively, allow it to be unbound, but force the player to choose a new one before continuing.
The problem is, Christlandia is buried underneath an giant, norad-style mountain constructed of an infinite number of clowns. Hence, the war described would go like this: Atheianon: Fire the missiles! Christlandia: What missiles? Have a clown. Atheianon: ...the missiles I am shooting at you (quit it).
Christlandia: I didn't feel anything.
Atheianon Flunky: Sir! We can't get through the clownshield! There's too many of them!
Atheianon: Well, I assure you, we are firing missiles and they are quite impressive. (quit it)
Christlandia: Well, I can't see them and therefor they do not exist.
Atheianon: They do, and if you were not SURROUNDED BY CLOWNS you would see that. Also, your attack clown keeps poking me in the back of the head and pressing buttons. It's getting annoying.
Christlandia: WE WIN YOU LOSE! Now if you don't mind, we have a bit of a plague situation going on.
Atheianon: What do the doctors say?
Christlandia: "Honkahonka", mainly. Then they squirt people with seltzer bottles. I think we need more clowns.
How so? If someone is arguing something and using as reference in a collection of books to back them up, and the collection of books say directly contradictory things in multiple locations, pointing this out and removing their main reference for their argument is the first thing to do, thereby taking away the "my book says otherwise" dfence and forcing them to use rational discourse.
If someone keeps insisting that one and one is three "because this book says so!", I will examine the book they are reading. If later on the book claims "The sky is green!" I will point this out as an example of the book's innaccuracy, and suggest we start counting beans. If the book says later that "One and one is four!", I'll also point this out and go back to the beans. I don't see why this is a bad course of argument just because the falsities the bible puts forth tend to be less obviously nuts than "Yes, but there's only two beans there now because satan STOLE the other bean!!!".
...if you're trying to say that you were trying to be funny in the ggp, it didn't work.
...orcs can't be paladins...
The problem being, players get to pick the side and server they play in. If they have an attachment to one side, the casual player will go to a server where that side is winning. If they have an attachment to a particular server, the casual player will join the side on that server that is winning. In other words, unless you like a challenge, there is no real incentive to fight against large odds. Unless something is done to offset this, this will ultimately result in server death, due to the below process.
1 Side A gains an advantage on server C, for whatever reason.
2 Side B starts getting its pants whupped more.
3 The most easily "screw this, I'm going home"-oriented side B players flee the server, or set up new characters on side A.
4 New players either do not join this server, or join side A.
5 Side A gains a bigger advantage over side B.
6 Repeat steps 2 to 5.
7 Side B now consists entirely of a few masochists and diehards.
8 Side A deserts the server, because it's no challenge any more, except for a few sadists and people who do not want to have to re-level in a new realm.
9 Server C is now known as "Server Crap", as it is nearly empty except for a few masochists, sadists, and high level characters. Server C is now dead.
This cycle has complete on a couple of the older WoW PvP servers, and given how carebear PvP is in WoW, that's saying something.
Warhammer have (wisely, given the level of PvP they are looking for) chosen to provide a "buffer" to this, and the method they have chosen is battle balancing and bots. Whether or not this will enhance the game experience or detract with it, who can say...
Your above statement is inaccurate. They will not buy you a new computer, they will inform you that, if you wish to access the internet, it must be through a pc running their software. The specifics are now their problem, it is up to you to comply. If you insist upon using a pc which is not compatible (i.e. a non-windows box) you will not be allowed access the internet, under penalty of fines and/or imprisonment. I will now for humorous effect craft a sentence similar to yours but altered to represent a more realistic take on the situation.
They can make it a term of my probation to run Windows, so unless I buy a brand new computer I'm not going to use a computer at all!Since this is like your statement, but true, I declare this to be the "repaired" or "fixed" version of your statement! Haha!
"Fixed" for the humour/common sense impaired.Well, arses. Forgot to close my tags. byebye, insightful post :(
NPC: Help! Bandits have taken my wedding ring!
Option 1: Kill the bandits, return the ring.
Option 2: Negotiate with the bandits for return of the ring.
Option 3: Kill the bandits, keep and sell the ring.
Option 4: Kill the NPC, take his stuff.
...
Option 77: Go get drunk. WoW(and most crpg) roleplaying:
NPC: Help! Bandits have taken my wedding ring!
Option 1: Kill infinitely spawning bandits (or an infinitely respawning special mob) untill one of them drops the ring. Return the ring.
Option 2: Not accept the quest.
The difference being, in WoW the only input you can put in is how, exactly, you contribute to the killing of the quest mobs that drop the item/killing of the trash mobs between you and the chest which drops the item. Getting to choose between "pew pew" and "healz" is not roleplaying. Getting to choose between "pew pew" and "healz" while speaking in an old english accent is not roleplaying. Having your character's backstory, personality, etc actually affect conflict resolution is what roleplaying is all about.
Whether or not this is present in D&D is debateable, but no-one can realistically argue that it is found in WoW.
P.S. I play WoW myself. I enjoy many aspects of it. But I've never even begun to think I was roleplaying, and wish I could get more CoC in my life.
No comment
Additionally, how do you "give back" killing someone? 6 months for murder isn't going to deter anyone, even if it's garaunteed. In fact, if a new "option" was implemented of "spend five years in jail, get a free murder", I think a lot of people would jump at it. ("Why hello there Mr. Bush, I have a certificate I would like you to validate")
The British tried something like that. I think it's called Australia now.
The (main) point of having a judicial system is to make life more fair.
The argument "Without god, people have no reason to do good, and no reason not to do bad" is the reason I will always feel morally superior to theists like yourself(not all theists, just ones like you). You say "This is bad because God says so". I say "This is bad because I say so". Which one of us is a more moral person?
Does not compute :(
On the other hand, in cold environments the brain could serve a dual purpose as thinky device and body warmer. Stick the brain in a ball with your other organs, stick on eyes to taste, get yourselves a set of tentacles to walk on, and it's just as easy to spin-and-look as it is to bend your head. Yes, it has limitations, but our arrangement isn't so perfect either. I doubt I'll ever see tentacle-blob falling over and snapping his neck, or being paralysed from the waist down.
I would play this untill my fingers bled.
Actually, his statement was quite fair, and would have been if he'd said Germans, French, Irish, or Alaskan. There are, quite definitely, "some" Americans that feel that way, as in any culture (or lack of (oh, I went there))
Initially, as far as Y is concerned, X travelled to the left for one hour. However, from her "perspective" (though she has no way of telling this) only half an hour has passed in "his" time, as his "time" is moving half as fast as hers.
:(
When he gets the call, from his "perspective" it is Y who has been travelling rapidly (Remember, all motion is relative) to the right, and only for 30 minutes of his time (because only 30 minutes of his time has passed). So from his "perspective" only 15 minutes of "her" time has passed, because from his perspective her time is only moving half as fast as his. So when he gets the phonecall from her at "her" 10 oclock, from his perspective it is 9:30 and "her" time (from his perspective) is only 9:15, or 45 minutes before the phonecall he is involved in was actually made.
This is assuming that they have equal mass, are standing on nothing, and he (or she) can go from 0 to MysterySpeed(TM) instantaniously. When you start including objects of different mass and acceleration and gravity wells then it gets beyond my IANAPBIHFWAAIRAL (I Am Not A Physicisist But I Have Friends Who Are And I Read A Lot) armchair relativity knowledge
The above explained crudely and innacurately using ascii diagrams.
/Y/ has been traveling rapidly to the /right/. As such, only half of half an hour has passed for her, and her watch says 9:15.
X and Y are at the same location. It is 9 o'clock
XY
9
X has a sudden, irresistable urge to get as far away from Y as possible. He departs rapidly to the left at Mystery Speed(tm)
X {- Y
Y's Tale
Y stands around for an hour, at which point she feels needy and clingy and rings him with her Nifty Ansible(tm). Her watch says it is 10 o'clock.
Now, from Y's perspective, X has been travelling so fast to the left that he has reached relativistic speeds. As such, only half as much time has passed for him. His watch says it is 9:30.
X {- Y
9:30 10
He gets a phonecall. Y says "I miss you I need you come back (bring me a magazine)"
He replies "Fine." and hangs up.
X's Tale.
X realise he didn't know which of the seventy million identical celebrity magazines Y wanted. But from X's perspective,
X -} Y
9:30 9:15
She gets a phonecall. X says "What magazine do you want?". Y says "OMG YAY YOU WERE THINKING OF ME a people would be nice."
Y, having gotten the reply 45 minutes before she sent the initial call, thinks X called off his own bat. She feels happy and validated, and does not ring him 45 minutes later. So he never calls her. So she feels lonely and calls him. So he calls. So she doesn't. So he doesn't. Then the universe explodes.
X BOOM Y
And that's why relativity and relationships don't mix.
Grand Parent. The post above the post you are replying to.
Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your Beta
I disagree, especially in the region of PvP. The bane (and by bane I do not mean "best, most challenging opponents", I mean "thing which ruins the games") of PvP are characters known as "twinks", people who aquire the absolute best gear available in their level range. This effectively makes them several levels higher than the other players, ruining the game for casuals. It's the equivalent of playing, say, Counterstrike where armour and grenades are only available to a class of "prestige" player. Since you can't (well, not easily, and without a lot of tedium) find these items or earn the amount of gold required to purchase them on the auction house without gaining at least some exp, and therefor leveling out of the level catagory, there's an 'effective' cap on the gear most people will have. Twinks get their gear by either using gold aquired from one of their other characters or, more usually, buying the gold. Since they have more gold to spend, they artificially inflate the cost of "twink" items well beyond the range of most players. Which reduces the quality of gear casual players have, which increases the gap, etc etc. So if you chose to PvP (by which I assume you mean battlegrounds) you'll find it equivalent to playing Quake where rocket launchers and quad damage are a pay-per-use option only. And that's why gold sellers suck.
So I take a try and google image label, and the SECOND GODDAMN PICTURE was furry porn.
I hate you internet.
(I'm sorry I didn't mean it we'll never fight again)