Hmm TMT this is a very neutral post. I somehow thought you are more aggressive..
That's funny, because when I was scum in DDay mafia it was precisely an increased aggression that first drew PM's attention, and probably would have gotten me lynched if I hadn't convinced the town it was natural play evolution.
Can you answer me this, AE is more scummy then Cantrip/Roja because...
Because I've played in a game where AE was anti-town and his play here is a freakin' mirror image of it.
You countered my point by narrowing down his indignation specifically against Cyan. But I wasn't talking about his reaction against Cyan alone. From your counter, I assume you agree that if his indignation was against a more general crowd, and not specifically against Cyan, Cantrip would be in the clear?
I wasn't narrowing it down entirely to Cyan. And no, I do not agree that indignation toward the general crowd would put Cantrip in the clear. Cantrip could be scum and still feel that some of the attacks on him are unwarranted. As such, he could feel genuine indignation toward those attacks.
Since the post screamed out loud to you in an obvious way, what would be the incentive for a desperate scum to "brag on Ced"? Hoping that Ced specifically would pull him out of the mess? Why Ced? Since I'm not really seeing anything obvious, I am interested in your thoughts.
My personal thought is that he was hoping to score some brownie points with an obv town. But he ended up overdoing it and the post came off completely disingenuous. Ask yourself this: What, as town, would be the point of a post like that? How often do you see someone, even a relative newb, take time to make a post simply bragging on another player? If someone catches another player in lie or contradiction, or someone makes good use of a night-ability to catch a scum, you might see some posts where people throw a "good catch" or "good job" that way. Occassionally you'll see an overly congratulatory post by a newb at the start of a day when there's been a scum killed at night or a successful doc protect at night. But an entire post seemingly out of nowhere saying "I love that this guy is scumhunting so hard"? It just seems far too out of place to me.
I think Dagger's on to something with Roja. Disagree with him on Cantrip though. Cantrip has shown some indignation, to be sure, and some of it is probably genuine. But some of that indignation has come from Cyan's hounding of him, and that's hardly a uniquely town reaction. And for every one of those "genuine indignation" posts, there's one that screams desperate scum (the "brag on Ced" post is a good example IMO, another disagreement I have with Dagger).
AE is still my pick though. When he's actually here, he's just dropping useless oneliners about old topics, briefly parroting other players, and generally ignoring both criticisms about his play and discussion about relveant wagons.
Sorry for the disappearance. My main comp has a faulty power supply and it's got to go in for maintenance. I was trying to get my old backup comp up and running, but it went into a sequence of (freeze on windows startup)->(can't run checkdisk while windows safe mode is running, it'll run on next bootup)->(checkdisk runs AFTER the windows bootup starts, so go back to step 1). I've got access to a new comp now, so I'm back into the swing of things.
That said, it doesn't look like anything has really happened for the last three days. Cantrip doesn't look any better, and AE is still in lurk-lurk-oneliner-lurk-lurk mode.
WoD's and Wuffles' votes on CC rub me the wrong way though. The guy's not just avoiding the thread, he's not posted anything on the site at all in nearly a week. A prod is needed, yes, but I don't think he needs votes yet. Especially not when there's active (I use the term loosely in AE's case) scum right here with us to lynch.
Had a cataclysmic system crash. I'm in the process of shipping my comp off and rebuilding my old one for use. Apologies for the delay. Will post again soon.
Fighters and shooters tend to not be my thing, so I don't have much to say about those except to agree with bloodyspasm about Metroid Prime 3. I can't wait for the Prime trilogy release that will have Prime and Echoes redone with the Corruption controls.
What I CAN speak about are RPGs. Below are, IMO, the best of the best (and a couple of the worst of the worst as well). In no particular order, of course. Ranking them against each other isn't really fair since they're so varied in their implementations.
Hall of Fame
Grandia (any iteration)
The Grandia combat engine has always been excellent, though admittedly the original looks a little clunky. Starting with 2 though, the system really began to shine. The incorporation of battlefield movement and interrupt effects into a turn-based system is masterfully done, and the wide variety of AoE types add to intricacy of battlefield management. The result is a system that gives you the feel of a chaotic, active battle while still allowing the player to plan his actions at his own pace.
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy games, both the active-time ones and strict turn-based ones, have almost always stood at the forefront when it comes to RPGs (there are a couple of abominations we will not speak of). But FFX is the one that truly stands out IMO. The game allows (and at points requires) the player to carefully manage the turn sequence, weighing the benefits of any given action against the recovery time and the speed of the enemies. Additionally, the game does an excellent job of making most of the characters useful (poor Kimari just doesn't have a niche to call his own), encouraging the player to rotate team members frequently and giving the party the feeling of actually working together, rather than a small group carrying everyone else. The only problem the engine suffers from is in its power curve. The primary problem is the "overkill" system. The game rewards you for being excessively strong by giving you more experience with which to grow stronger. On the flip side, falling behind on the power curve means no bonus experience for overkills, which in turn pushes you even farther behind. Thus a little extra grinding in the early game pushes you into easy mode, whereas moving through the early game quickly can result in a lot of catch-up grinding in the mid to late game. Even with its power curve issues, though, it ranks among the best for players who enjoy slower, precise combat.
Final Fantasy XII
FFXII really has a "love it or hate it" kind of game engine. I don't think I've ever met anyone who felt anywhere in between on it. But regardless, the engine is amazingly powerful and precise for an active-time system. The gambit system is an excellent alternative to the generic party AI that many active-time RPGs utilize (Star Ocean 3, anyone? *shudders*). In addition to the robust scripting allowed by the gambit system, the player has the option to issue direct commands (and doing so pauses the combat), allowing the player to micro-manage when necessary. My only beef with the engine is the fact that you have buy (or occasionally find) the gambits over time, denying you some of the more useful script commands in the early game for no discernable purpose except to add a money sink to the game.
Hall of Shame
Star Ocean 3
Let's make one thing perfectly clear: I like Star Ocean 3. I'm not bashing it out of any kind of hate for the game, but because the combat engine is simply bad. The "bonus gauge" feature is a source of endless frustration, because not only is the triple xp bonus incredibly important for reasonable xp progression, but also because the gauge can be broken by things entirely beyond your control (enemy just rolled a crit on you? bye-bye gauge!). The fact that characters can die from mp damage is yet another slap in the face, as it means every spell you cast has the ugly side effect of pushing you one step closer to death. By the same token, the more powerful non-spell special abilities actually require you to expend hp to use them, giving them the same problem. But the most heinous thing about the game engine is the party AI. The characters aren't just stupid, they're functionally ******** (it boggles my mind that that word is censored). Casters set to a "focus on healing" strategy will let other party members sit at 40% health in favor of trying to whack an enemy with a stick, which is all the more ridiculous in cases where they have long range attacks at their disposal. Characters set to melee strategies will, at random times, inexplicably run to one corner of the battlefield and just stay there. The game has an excellent story, excellent voice acting, excellent music and excellent graphics. But in terms of gameplay it falls horribly short.
Vagrant Story
It pains me to list this game here. I LOVE Vagrant Story. The story is incredible. The look, sound, and feel of the game were spectacular for their time. The choreography of Ashley's attacks is awesome. The spells and special abilies look great. But the combat is just insanely clunky. Alternating button presses over and over to get long hit chains is boring. And lots of enemies have increased evade against chain hits, forcing you to repeatedly stop and bring up the combat sphere. Then there's the ridiculous number of attack types you have to manage. That blunt weapon that just crushed the hell out of that last guy? Yeah, it's gonna do zero damage to the next one. That last guy that got rocked by fire damage? Yeah, the next one is gonna need earth. And the next one is gonna need light. There are 7 elements (earth, wind, water, fire, light, dark, physical) and 3 damage types (slash, blunt, pierce). Each attack will have an element and a type, and enemies have a horrible habit of having only a handful of combinations that work against them. To increase a weapon's element stat, you hit enemies that are vulnerable to that element. But since only the highest element on the weapon is used to calculate damage, you have to "train" multiple weapons and switch them constantly due to the fact that a given room might have as many as five enemies with totally different vulnerabilities/resistances. And even if you use the right element, you can still end up doing nothing if the weapon is the wrong type. 21 potential combos of element/type, and you can only carry 8 weapons. Then there's the "risk" gauge. Risk builds up as you perform attacks, and decreases while you're idle. Having higher risk means you do more damage, but it also means you take more damage AND have a lower hit chance. The risk gauge has to be constantly babysat or you'll end up taking extra damage and miss like crazy. I love this game to death, really I do. But the combat can be completely maddening at times, and is tedious all the time.
Rafaelk I understand where you are coming from here. He got his mafia abilities and thought everyone got them in their PM. But what about what MMoD says here?
Oh look, AE's back. And what content does he have to add? A quick buddy-up to Rafk ("I understand where you are coming from") and a quick restatement of a point that needs no restatement. In other words, zero content.
Kpaca, do you have a case? I'd like to know why you think I'm scum.
And a quick "Who, me? Scum? Why do you say that?"
Seriously people, go look at his play in Battle Royale Mafia. It's like I'm watching an instant replay here.
As much as I disagree with Raf's main case against Kpaca, I'm really not liking the fact that he's gone MIA when he's in the spotlight. He really needs to get back here.
As far as WoD goes, I've not played with him that I can remember. So I really have no frame of reference for Cyan's meta argument. Can someone link me a game where he was scum for me to compare? I'll look over it when I get access to high-speed i-net Thursday.
NOTE IN ADVANCE: Wednesday I will be in transit back to Florida. I'll be able to post more today, then probably nothing until Thursday night.
Yeah, he said he had a stipulation as town which would be removed if he was scum, which is not the same thing. It doesn't surprise me that people have this stuff (similarly what NightArcher said about a kill method changing) but it's not the same thing at all as the level of knowledge kpaca has displayed.
At this point I'm not going to say anything more before he has a chance to come back in here and speak, as I don't want to be putting any words in his mouth. I will say, however, that I think you've jumped to conclusions and leave it at that for now.
Even worse, he clearly has implicit knowledge that everyone gets additional abilities if they become mafia. Not "some people's roles would change". All people. Extra abilities. And he clearly knows this for sure.
Can someone please link me the relevant post where Kpaca says this? Because I can't find anywhere where he explicitly says he knows everyone that gets the mafia designation gets extra abilities.
And no-one besides kpaca has yet claimed to be told this, or to be told what additional abilities they get as mafia.
Not true. Cyan has already come forward and stated his role PM indicated that his role would be different based on his alignment.
Frankly, this whole thing feels way blown out of proportion to me. If Cyan and Kpaca did receive a PM that indicated different roles based on alignment, they would have received it prior to the alignment designation and thus it tells us nothing of their alignment. And it makes no sense for them to be lying about it, since if their scum abilities had been sent to them in a separate "you are scum" PM then they'd have no reason whatsoever to spout off anything about roles changing since there'd be no reason to think any town player would know about role changes (to the contrary, they'd have reason to think the opposite).
@RafaelK: Let me ask you a question. What reason would Kpaca have to make the post he did if he did not, in fact, receive an either/or role PM prior to alignment designation?
I'm giving him the opportunity to defend himself and clarify what he means instead of barning those that defend him. To me this is obvious.
So instead you just made a post consisting only of a question that's already been asked and already has massive discussion going on about it? Sorry, but that post was just another short filler post with nothing resembling content. I'm really reconsidering moving my vote back to you.
Personally, I'm not sold on Kpaca. My role PM doesn't say anything about my role changing based on alignment, but I don't see that having a role PM that does is particularly damning. I think Cantrip or AE should be the lynch today.
You didn't respond to me, so I'll note down your subtle defense of Cantrip and the way you cleared NA as points against you.
I didn't think my stance on Cantrip was subtle. I thought I was pretty clear that I did not feel he was scum at the time. As far as the "vague" bit, I've not played with him previously, only read some of his posts in one of his earlier games. His posts "felt", for lack of a better way to describe it, like his posts from those games. So I suppose my comments did lack the level of detail you might have prefered. Going back and doing more detailed research is difficult at the moment as I only have i-net access via dial-up right now. Expect me to be more thorough when I get high-speed access again Thursday. Until then, I have to rely largely on memory.
As for my reason for not thinking NA was scum? Well, when I play as scum I feel that doing something contrary that's bound to draw attention that early in the game is to be avoided at all costs. NA is, to my knowledge, one of the newer mafia players and I would expect him to have a similar mindset as scum. Responding to WoD like he did is not the play I would expect from a newer player in a scum role.
Question: Is Ace scum?
Can't tell if you're directing this specifically at me or not, but I'll answer either way. Aside from a couple of posts re: NA (neither of which involved him commiting to much of a stance), he's really not posted much in the way of content. I'd say I'm leaning scum on him on the grounds of active lurking.
How did you get "over-analytical townie" from a guy who doesn't want to leave the random stage after he starts asking questions?
Look at his focus on Dagger, and the ensuing back-and-forth, particularly when he referred to Dagger's request as a "discrepancy". It felt to me like he was simply trying too hard, looking for significance in something that, for a specialty game, is simply "business as usual". Hence I used the term "over-analytical", because I felt like he was going overboard trying to analyze Dagger's post. I no longer feel that way about him though.
That's funny, because when I was scum in DDay mafia it was precisely an increased aggression that first drew PM's attention, and probably would have gotten me lynched if I hadn't convinced the town it was natural play evolution.
Because I've played in a game where AE was anti-town and his play here is a freakin' mirror image of it.
I wasn't narrowing it down entirely to Cyan. And no, I do not agree that indignation toward the general crowd would put Cantrip in the clear. Cantrip could be scum and still feel that some of the attacks on him are unwarranted. As such, he could feel genuine indignation toward those attacks.
My personal thought is that he was hoping to score some brownie points with an obv town. But he ended up overdoing it and the post came off completely disingenuous. Ask yourself this: What, as town, would be the point of a post like that? How often do you see someone, even a relative newb, take time to make a post simply bragging on another player? If someone catches another player in lie or contradiction, or someone makes good use of a night-ability to catch a scum, you might see some posts where people throw a "good catch" or "good job" that way. Occassionally you'll see an overly congratulatory post by a newb at the start of a day when there's been a scum killed at night or a successful doc protect at night. But an entire post seemingly out of nowhere saying "I love that this guy is scumhunting so hard"? It just seems far too out of place to me.
AE is still my pick though. When he's actually here, he's just dropping useless oneliners about old topics, briefly parroting other players, and generally ignoring both criticisms about his play and discussion about relveant wagons.
Also, a vote count would really, REALLY be nice.
That said, it doesn't look like anything has really happened for the last three days. Cantrip doesn't look any better, and AE is still in lurk-lurk-oneliner-lurk-lurk mode.
WoD's and Wuffles' votes on CC rub me the wrong way though. The guy's not just avoiding the thread, he's not posted anything on the site at all in nearly a week. A prod is needed, yes, but I don't think he needs votes yet. Especially not when there's active (I use the term loosely in AE's case) scum right here with us to lynch.
What I CAN speak about are RPGs. Below are, IMO, the best of the best (and a couple of the worst of the worst as well). In no particular order, of course. Ranking them against each other isn't really fair since they're so varied in their implementations.
Grandia (any iteration)
The Grandia combat engine has always been excellent, though admittedly the original looks a little clunky. Starting with 2 though, the system really began to shine. The incorporation of battlefield movement and interrupt effects into a turn-based system is masterfully done, and the wide variety of AoE types add to intricacy of battlefield management. The result is a system that gives you the feel of a chaotic, active battle while still allowing the player to plan his actions at his own pace.
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy games, both the active-time ones and strict turn-based ones, have almost always stood at the forefront when it comes to RPGs (there are a couple of abominations we will not speak of). But FFX is the one that truly stands out IMO. The game allows (and at points requires) the player to carefully manage the turn sequence, weighing the benefits of any given action against the recovery time and the speed of the enemies. Additionally, the game does an excellent job of making most of the characters useful (poor Kimari just doesn't have a niche to call his own), encouraging the player to rotate team members frequently and giving the party the feeling of actually working together, rather than a small group carrying everyone else. The only problem the engine suffers from is in its power curve. The primary problem is the "overkill" system. The game rewards you for being excessively strong by giving you more experience with which to grow stronger. On the flip side, falling behind on the power curve means no bonus experience for overkills, which in turn pushes you even farther behind. Thus a little extra grinding in the early game pushes you into easy mode, whereas moving through the early game quickly can result in a lot of catch-up grinding in the mid to late game. Even with its power curve issues, though, it ranks among the best for players who enjoy slower, precise combat.
Final Fantasy XII
FFXII really has a "love it or hate it" kind of game engine. I don't think I've ever met anyone who felt anywhere in between on it. But regardless, the engine is amazingly powerful and precise for an active-time system. The gambit system is an excellent alternative to the generic party AI that many active-time RPGs utilize (Star Ocean 3, anyone? *shudders*). In addition to the robust scripting allowed by the gambit system, the player has the option to issue direct commands (and doing so pauses the combat), allowing the player to micro-manage when necessary. My only beef with the engine is the fact that you have buy (or occasionally find) the gambits over time, denying you some of the more useful script commands in the early game for no discernable purpose except to add a money sink to the game.
Star Ocean 3
Let's make one thing perfectly clear: I like Star Ocean 3. I'm not bashing it out of any kind of hate for the game, but because the combat engine is simply bad. The "bonus gauge" feature is a source of endless frustration, because not only is the triple xp bonus incredibly important for reasonable xp progression, but also because the gauge can be broken by things entirely beyond your control (enemy just rolled a crit on you? bye-bye gauge!). The fact that characters can die from mp damage is yet another slap in the face, as it means every spell you cast has the ugly side effect of pushing you one step closer to death. By the same token, the more powerful non-spell special abilities actually require you to expend hp to use them, giving them the same problem. But the most heinous thing about the game engine is the party AI. The characters aren't just stupid, they're functionally ******** (it boggles my mind that that word is censored). Casters set to a "focus on healing" strategy will let other party members sit at 40% health in favor of trying to whack an enemy with a stick, which is all the more ridiculous in cases where they have long range attacks at their disposal. Characters set to melee strategies will, at random times, inexplicably run to one corner of the battlefield and just stay there. The game has an excellent story, excellent voice acting, excellent music and excellent graphics. But in terms of gameplay it falls horribly short.
Vagrant Story
It pains me to list this game here. I LOVE Vagrant Story. The story is incredible. The look, sound, and feel of the game were spectacular for their time. The choreography of Ashley's attacks is awesome. The spells and special abilies look great. But the combat is just insanely clunky. Alternating button presses over and over to get long hit chains is boring. And lots of enemies have increased evade against chain hits, forcing you to repeatedly stop and bring up the combat sphere. Then there's the ridiculous number of attack types you have to manage. That blunt weapon that just crushed the hell out of that last guy? Yeah, it's gonna do zero damage to the next one. That last guy that got rocked by fire damage? Yeah, the next one is gonna need earth. And the next one is gonna need light. There are 7 elements (earth, wind, water, fire, light, dark, physical) and 3 damage types (slash, blunt, pierce). Each attack will have an element and a type, and enemies have a horrible habit of having only a handful of combinations that work against them. To increase a weapon's element stat, you hit enemies that are vulnerable to that element. But since only the highest element on the weapon is used to calculate damage, you have to "train" multiple weapons and switch them constantly due to the fact that a given room might have as many as five enemies with totally different vulnerabilities/resistances. And even if you use the right element, you can still end up doing nothing if the weapon is the wrong type. 21 potential combos of element/type, and you can only carry 8 weapons. Then there's the "risk" gauge. Risk builds up as you perform attacks, and decreases while you're idle. Having higher risk means you do more damage, but it also means you take more damage AND have a lower hit chance. The risk gauge has to be constantly babysat or you'll end up taking extra damage and miss like crazy. I love this game to death, really I do. But the combat can be completely maddening at times, and is tedious all the time.
Oh look, AE's back. And what content does he have to add? A quick buddy-up to Rafk ("I understand where you are coming from") and a quick restatement of a point that needs no restatement. In other words, zero content.
And a quick "Who, me? Scum? Why do you say that?"
Seriously people, go look at his play in Battle Royale Mafia. It's like I'm watching an instant replay here.
UNVOTE, VOTE Archmage Eternal
As far as WoD goes, I've not played with him that I can remember. So I really have no frame of reference for Cyan's meta argument. Can someone link me a game where he was scum for me to compare? I'll look over it when I get access to high-speed i-net Thursday.
NOTE IN ADVANCE: Wednesday I will be in transit back to Florida. I'll be able to post more today, then probably nothing until Thursday night.
At this point I'm not going to say anything more before he has a chance to come back in here and speak, as I don't want to be putting any words in his mouth. I will say, however, that I think you've jumped to conclusions and leave it at that for now.
Can someone please link me the relevant post where Kpaca says this? Because I can't find anywhere where he explicitly says he knows everyone that gets the mafia designation gets extra abilities.
Not true. Cyan has already come forward and stated his role PM indicated that his role would be different based on his alignment.
Frankly, this whole thing feels way blown out of proportion to me. If Cyan and Kpaca did receive a PM that indicated different roles based on alignment, they would have received it prior to the alignment designation and thus it tells us nothing of their alignment. And it makes no sense for them to be lying about it, since if their scum abilities had been sent to them in a separate "you are scum" PM then they'd have no reason whatsoever to spout off anything about roles changing since there'd be no reason to think any town player would know about role changes (to the contrary, they'd have reason to think the opposite).
@RafaelK: Let me ask you a question. What reason would Kpaca have to make the post he did if he did not, in fact, receive an either/or role PM prior to alignment designation?
So instead you just made a post consisting only of a question that's already been asked and already has massive discussion going on about it? Sorry, but that post was just another short filler post with nothing resembling content. I'm really reconsidering moving my vote back to you.
Personally, I'm not sold on Kpaca. My role PM doesn't say anything about my role changing based on alignment, but I don't see that having a role PM that does is particularly damning. I think Cantrip or AE should be the lynch today.
I didn't think my stance on Cantrip was subtle. I thought I was pretty clear that I did not feel he was scum at the time. As far as the "vague" bit, I've not played with him previously, only read some of his posts in one of his earlier games. His posts "felt", for lack of a better way to describe it, like his posts from those games. So I suppose my comments did lack the level of detail you might have prefered. Going back and doing more detailed research is difficult at the moment as I only have i-net access via dial-up right now. Expect me to be more thorough when I get high-speed access again Thursday. Until then, I have to rely largely on memory.
As for my reason for not thinking NA was scum? Well, when I play as scum I feel that doing something contrary that's bound to draw attention that early in the game is to be avoided at all costs. NA is, to my knowledge, one of the newer mafia players and I would expect him to have a similar mindset as scum. Responding to WoD like he did is not the play I would expect from a newer player in a scum role.
Can't tell if you're directing this specifically at me or not, but I'll answer either way. Aside from a couple of posts re: NA (neither of which involved him commiting to much of a stance), he's really not posted much in the way of content. I'd say I'm leaning scum on him on the grounds of active lurking.
Look at his focus on Dagger, and the ensuing back-and-forth, particularly when he referred to Dagger's request as a "discrepancy". It felt to me like he was simply trying too hard, looking for significance in something that, for a specialty game, is simply "business as usual". Hence I used the term "over-analytical", because I felt like he was going overboard trying to analyze Dagger's post. I no longer feel that way about him though.