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I don't think we ever had Nethergate titles, did we? That's a shame.

Originally Posted By: Jewels in Black ...didn't ET win the deathmatch? Or did y'all start another one while I was on hiatus? No. ET was eliminated from the Deathmatch. He then interfered in one of the semifinals, which led to everybody dying, and the final match never took place. See here. Originally Posted By: Something doughy that way goes Schro was made an admin, but he didn't admin very much, and he left relatively soon after. Drakey and *i were the only long-term, non-Spiderweb-employed admins. According to my compiled notes for the History, Schrodinger was an admin for about two and a half years. Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Sorry, Dintiradan. Dikiyoba tried. As did I. And from the looks of the logs, many a man has tried to put his title on Cinderelladan's head, but none of them have stuck. Someday his helmet will come.

Custom-resizable windows would clearly be a huge pain, and multiple versions of the application even more painful. But what about having a handful of different window sizes, 100% preset, that the one and only version of the application supports? Say, traditional, large, and gigantic. You could switch between them via a menu item or even, if it would be easier, just make the user pick one at startup.

That would not be the first time those walkthroughs have been wrong. They are a great information source in many ways, but very few facts were checked since there were not many people around to check the facts against. Technical data is not their strong point.

Originally Posted By: Walker White Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES The first type of game lends itself to dramatic interactions between characters and intricate personal relationships, and initially gained prominence among console RPGs that put a strong emphasis on storytelling. Are you seriously calling the Baldur's Gate series console games? No. I'm talking about things that predate that series. That's why I said "initially." This may be an old Obsidian vs Bethesda argument to you, but the argument predates those battleships.

Core humanities? Where are you?

Originally Posted By: He fined Angle is trying to kill I had a custom title, "Wisebottom". Loved it. But then soooommmeeeone had to take a perfectly innocent poll question and turn it into a CoC violation. *cries* Well, I'm glad that you appreciated it. I was proud of that one. Originally Posted By: Something doughy that way goes [Edit: Sniped. Also, Drakey and *i have been the only admins who are not the actual employees of Spiderweb.] But: Zeviz and Schrodinger, although both had brief tenures. Right?

Definitely 1-8. I just rechecked.

Redundancy is a perfectly legitimate linguistic phenomenon, to the point that it appears in one of the linguistic terms most commonly used in discussions of redundancy: reduplication.

In G3, G4, and G5, magic does win versus melee any day. In G1 and G2, game balance is dramatically different. Melee dice are always 1d8, as opposed to in the later games where they are 1d4 or 1d5 depending on the weapon. Additionally, Daze is weaker in G2 than in later games. You're going to take Parry to about 20 either way. That means it will cost 20 extra skill points as an Agent. That's the equivalent of 10 skill points into Battle, Mental, or Blessing Magic for a Guardian. Does a Guardian need more than that? I'd argue a Guardian needs less; the extreme Parry means you don't even have to bother with Daze, so it's Blessing Magic (and Healing Craft) only.

Actually, we don't have those powers any more. At least, not very functionally: we can try to, but most of the time it will fail for inexplicable reasons. Hooray, UBB. Once upon a time only admins could give custom titles. Drakey gave out a bunch in spurts when he was an admin, but the last major spurt was in early 2006. Then there was a very brief time, during the switch to UBB.threads in 2007, when anyone could give themselves a title; and since then mods could do it, but with gradually and bizarrely diminishing powers that are now mostly gone. That's the real reason custom titles are so rare among newer members. They were easier to get in the old days: all you needed was for an admin to think you were an interesting person. Important had nothing to do with it: Drakey gave me a custom title when I'd been here about 2 months, was not a mod, and had not yet done the comic strip or the deathmatch or the vlish exposé or that first strategy central, or even much with EE. On the other hand, I had started a karma topic and gotten in spitting wars with TM and Thralni. So, yeah. The lack of new mods mostly stems from the fact that there isn't much for the mods to do these days. The forums are pretty friendly. Spambots are rare. And honestly, the Kwazy Kwilting Korner does not live up to its expectations

I don't even remember where I was in that one. Are the threads still around? Maybe I'll finish it this summer when I have free time again. Edit: I seem to have proved your point. Although it might be more characteristic for me to vigorously deal with several rounds before getting distracted.

Originally Posted By: Goldenking Or perhaps just a death match tournament between the strongest characters of each game. Garzahd wins, hands down.

One of the major dichotomies in CRPGs is between games with predetermined player characters, who have their own names, personalities, backstories, etc., and games with protagonists who are either totally customizable, or generic-looking and mostly silent. The first type of game lends itself to dramatic interactions between characters and intricate personal relationships, and initially gained prominence among console RPGs that put a strong emphasis on storytelling. The second type of game gives more room for some players to insert themselves into the game, or to imagine their favourite D&D characters are playing, and was really the default CRPG paradigm, taken up by roguelikes as well as Ultima, Wizardry, the Gold Box games, and all of their descendants. Chrono Trigger is the classic example of the "silent protagonist" game, an attempt to straddle the differences by having well-fleshed out secondary characters, with a blank slate hero. Needless to say, many people prefer one or the other sort of game. Jeff's games have always been clearly in the second category, and he's written about the reasons he prefers it. In fact, the NPCs in Avadon, along with Alwan and Greta in Geneforge 3, are as far as he's ever deviated from the faceless PC model.

Originally Posted By: Lilith In general, I prefer making meaningful choices on a moment-to-moment basis instead of having my choices predetermined for me by the way I built my character. This.

Google it and see.

I was just about to make the same comment about locked doors and lockpicking! I think the dilemma is very similar. And honestly, I'm not fond of lockpicking (or "Tool Use" -- whatever) skills. Opening locked things and finding treasure is fun. You get that little Skinnerian "ooh, something good!" rush. You know what's not fun? Having to decide between increasing my Tool Use skill, which will lead to FUN, and increasing a skill that's useful in battle. Because there is no SW game in which the stuff you need Tool Use to get to is significantly better than anything else. The analyses I and others have done of how much Tool Use / Mechanics / whatever is useful at a given time, and when exactly the skill point investment becomes not worth it... well, that's part of optimizing, I guess, but it's not really fun either. So I say, good riddance to Leadership, and I wish Door-Opening would follow it out!

The junk bag demand has been around since at least G3 -- I was particularly fond of the suggestion for a living tool style creation that was a bag of holding -- but Synergy deserves thanks for keeping up the fight for it after the rest of us gave up. Huzzah!

Given everything Tom Bombadil says, it's probably a safe bet that he's a Maia. Lorien: Doh. Right. On further research, even though I usually see Gandalf referred to as a Maia of Aule, different sites claim his primary Vala to be either Aule, or Irmo, or Nienna, or Manwe. Quite a selection he has there.

Originally Posted By: Fflewddur Fflam son of Godo The Dwarves are mortal. The Hobbits are mortal. The Ents are immeasurably long-lived, and probably immortal. Citations please? Mostly because I am interested. These seem like safe assumptions indeed, but is there any evidence behind them, or are they just assumptions? Quote: Olorin (later Gandalf) spent most of his time in Lorien. Citation please? He did keep close counsel with Galadriel, but I always remember Gandalf having been described as an eternally restless traveller.

Four and twenty checksums, baked in an app. Ahahaha...

That's an awfully broad statement to make. Actually, both of them are, but especially the one about "crap to live in."

The effect of having creations is negligible: we're talking 1-2 levels at end of game if you spend the whole game with 7 following you.

It does? Are you sure?

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel The first syllable of "Avadon" is still just A. Syllables always begin with a consonant unless there's no consonant present to begin it. Actually, things aren't so simple. It's true that most languages are traditionally analyzed in terms of CV and CVC syllables. But the phonetic reality is that consonant clusters in the onset or coda affect both preceding and succeeding vowel sounds (primarily through spreading), so when there is just one consonant cluster between two vowels, syllabifying as ©V.CV rather than ©VC.V is not always as clear-cut as it would seem... particularly in English, with its mishmash of pronounciations and its tolerance for obese consonant clusters. There are even reasonable, if hotly contested, arguments made for ambisyllabicity, in which consonant sounds can fit into two syllables: Av-va-don. (See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable#Syllable_structure)