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Originally Posted By: Kelandon Is there some way to keep the screen centered on the character or at least have it move automatically in some way? I'm finding it really annoying to move the screen myself. This has been a problem since G1. I don't know if it works in Avadon too, but I took to using the mouse for movement and simultaneously using the arrow keys to keep the screen on track.

Care to post a list? I'll strain my fingers to wall-bash, but I have no desire to strain my eyes to wall-look. Eww.

I strongly disagree that auto-heal correlates with lack of difficulty. In previous SW games, surviving long dungeons was never difficult. The "attrition" test of 80's and early 90's CRPGs in which a party had to be strong enough to defeat monsters AND enduring enough to deal with a dungeon full of 'em, never existed in SW games, due to plentiful healing, and even plentiful spell point restoration if you looked for the right items and abilities. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the Marsh Cave in FF1, too! And the Cave of Ordeals in FF3j. Those were painfully difficult. Serious attrition. However, eliminating the attrition element doesn't just make things easier -- it also expands the game's tactical depth for any given battle. Not having to worry about resource conservation means that expensive abilities will actually get used once in a while. You have more options and things are more interesting. And frankly, it's a LOT easier to properly balance "kill before this enemy has a chance to kill you!" rather than "kill before you get unlucky and take a disproportionate amount of damage which will cripple your current attempt at the gauntlet." This is a common mechanic in so-called tactical RPGs, which as a general rule are harder and more demanding of intelligent battle tactics than regular CRPGs.

Originally Posted By: Khoth I was disappointed that I couldn't get a bribe to not kill her, then turn round and kill her. Seriously. Double-double-agenting was one of the things that made G4 so much fun.

What Nikki said. Recently though I've used E/A rather than X, because people always assume X just means Exile. It doesn't.

How does training work? Please, please, please tell me it is different from in previous games.

Wait, there's no keyboard movement at all? +4 I bought into the click-and-pathfind mechanism in A4-A6, and liked it, but I'd still use keyboard movement from time to time, ESPECIALLY in combat. If this has really been removed, that will be a huge irritation.

I think we need to involve some diacritics in this.

Climax, no, but it would be reasonable to call the Balrog encounter the major turning point of book two (of six). Arguably, it is the major turning point of FOTR (the first novel, comprising the first two books), since everything up till then has been organized and aided by Gandalf, and since the Balrog encounter also begins the sundering of the Fellowship that is completed at the book's end. I would argue that the real climax is a few paragraphs before the breaking of the Fellowship, when Frodo, on the summit of Amon Hen, is torn between the Voice and the Eye.

Bang Bang? I believe you mean Horrendous Space Kablooie.

Well, of course Jeff has always used SDF's. If you aren't keeping track of the story state in variables, I don't know how you're keeping track of it. SDF's are just a fancy name for integer variables, arranged in an array, that Jeff came up with to help make Blades of Exile more user-friendly. And it worked, I think. Giving SDFs a unique name, rather than a common technical term, made them easier for non-technophiles to banter about.

It's not a link to a web site, it's a link to a file. Clicking on it will normally download the file. You probably didn't notice.

I will say that, despite the low graphics budget, I think it was a really unfortunate choice to make both physically-oriented classes male, and both magically-oriented classes female. Geneforge did the same thing: the combat-specialized Guardian was male, while the magic-specialized Agent (and later, the Sorceress) was female. On the other hand, SW games have never given out different stat bonuses to different genders, a practice that is all too common. SW deserves some applause for resisting this urge even as Eschalon picks it up.

Having not touched Avadon, I will comment that in skill tree games, the passive skills that you can build up usually seem to be the best ones. I am confused and intrigued by a few things listed here, but exploring this game will have to wait until at least saturday for me. This is possibly the first standardized test I've ever taken that I've had to study for. Stupid post-break Avadon release date.

Demigod is probably the simplest comparison. Basically, in Tolkien's world, you have THE VALAR (gods) THE MAIAR (powerful immortal beings) QUASI-IMMORTAL RACES (elves, etc.) MORTAL RACES (men, etc.) I'm not entirely sure if other races (dwarves, hobbits, ents, orcs, etc.) go into the elf category or the man category, particularly those races of unusual origin (dwarves, orcs, etc.) As Alorael mentioned, there is a somewhat deistic creator God figure, Iluvatar or Eru, who stands above the Valar, but basically doesn't figure into anything after creation. Each and every Maia (I think) is associated with a particular one of the Valar. Gandalf, Sauron, and Saruman apparently all served Aule, at least originally. The Balrogs were Maiar in the service of Melkor (aka Morgoth).

Yes. There is a link earlier in this thread that shows you an example of what they looked like. Reading the thread before you post is usually a good idea

Originally Posted By: loyal servile of sasuke uchiha comment drift happening >.< Loyal Servile, There are now at least four members here, including moderators and non-moderators, who have politely asked you to stop making so many "spam" posts. You have stopped making the worst of the posts ("what he said") which is great. However, you are continuing to make large numbers of "spam" posts, especially one-line posts. Wading through so much "spam" can be annoying for other members. You are very welcome here at Spiderweb! You seem like someone who has interesting things to say, and you have been very friendly. But, the excessive "spam" posts, including the excessive one-line posts, need to stop. Therefore, I am giving you an official warning: please stop making so many one-line posts, or your posting ability may be restricted. Thanks, Slarty

Originally Posted By: Dantius And I haven't read LotR books, but I have seen the (extended? Director's cut? Whatever it's called) movies, (and actually seen the Ring cycle, and it's kind of important to be familiar with both works when you're having a discussion compating them ). I agree whole-heartedly with what you wrote in parentheses. That leaves me kind of shocked that you are seriously attacking an author for plagiarizing, when you haven't even read the book in question! The movies manage to sustain the general atmosphere and feeling of the books in many places. And in many places, plot and dialogue is straight from the books. In other places, however, there have been serious changes. There is no parallel in Wagner for Tom Bombadil, nor for the Scouring of the Shire, which Tolkien himself considered the most important part of the story -- and both of those were omitted from the movies. Likewise, Arwen. Aragorn does have a "smoking hot immortal babe" etc etc in the books. However, Arwen doesn't get a single line of dialogue, and her romance with Aragorn is mentioned twice, and briefly. She is hugely upstaged by the Faramir-Eowyn romance, which gets a whole chapter, and even Sam's future wife, Rosie Cotton, gets talked about as much. Most of Arwen's screen time in the first movie is taken from Glorfindel, another elf -- a male elf -- who does not show up in the movies at all. Quote: This may be an instance of YMMV or just a discrepancy between the books and the movies, but it seemed to me like Aragorn was the main character and protagonist Um, yeah. Discrepancy. It would definitely be reasonable to say that Frodo, Aragorn, and Gandalf are all the protagonists of LOTR, but in the books, everything begins and ends with Frodo; Gandalf, you eventually find out, is working just offstage the entire time; and Aragorn leads up the more impotant of two intersecting secondary plots (the other involving Rohan, Fangorn, and Isengard), but gets rather less screen time than either Frodo or Gandalf. Quote: Frodo is also inherently replacable- had he died in Shelob's lair, Sam could have carried it to Mount Doom and destroyed it himself (we already know he can resist its power). Extremely strong disagreement. Read the book. Quote: It kills the Ringwraiths, the legions of orcs, and Sauron, and probably some other characters that were only in the books (like the Mouth of Sauron). At least two of those three qualify as "supernatural beings". There's a slight divergence here as in the Ring cycle the destruction of the ring winds up destroying all the gods, but the destruction of Sauron and his minions should qualify at least in part. First of all, the destruction of the Ring does NOT kill the orcs; Gandalf in fact is quite clear in stating that the orcs are not inherently evil and should not be treated as such. Also, the Silmarillion, which tells the story of things that came before LOTR, makes it clear that there is an entire pantheon of gods, the Valar, ranking above both Gandalf and Sauron. They are quite explicitly not on Sauron's side, and destroying the Ring doesn't do anything to them. So, um, no. We could argue like this for ages, but I want to return to my main point: if you are making an accusation of plagiarism, the burden of proof is on you, and making such an accusation about a book you haven't read is just foolish.

For the record, my so-called "seizure avatar" was there for a specific reason. Unfortunately, even after I removed it, the damage was done as there was a wave of animated avatars, and it was just too much.

"The entire plotline and concept," your original phrasing, is hardly the same thing as "the general sequence of events both [backstory] and the events that occur within the narrative itself," but whatever. We seem to have different ideas of how much the two works have in common, and I suspect also in how much similarity constitutes plagiarism. Point taken that our one paragraph summaries were not really adequate to the task; I'm not really up for an epic argument over this, so I'm moving on.

Once upon a time, Alorael was not the only one who changed his name. I myself have at least two — possibly just two — changes to go, while I am still here.

Originally Posted By: Dantius More than 90% of the entire plotline and concept is identical. "90%" is a gross overstatement, if you really mean "the entire plotline and concept." There are obvious similarities and parallels, on a very general level. Some of these can be explained simply by the fact that both authors drew from the Eddas, the Nibelungenlied, and other such sources (and I believe both explicitly acknowledged this; Tolkien definitely did). The others, I think, are less substantial than you make out. Here's the Wikipedia synopsis of the Ring Cycle: I've bolded the phrases that apply to LOTR as well: Quote: The plot revolves around a magic ring that grants the power to rule the world, forged by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich from gold he stole from the Rhinemaidens in the river Rhine. Several mythic figures struggle for possession of the Ring, including Wotan (Odin), the chief of the gods. Wotan's scheme, spanning generations, to overcome his limitations, drives much of the action in the story. His grandson, the hero Siegfried, wins the Ring, as Wotan intended, but is eventually betrayed and slain. Finally, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, Siegfried's lover and Wotan's estranged daughter, returns the Ring to the Rhinemaidens. In the process, the Gods and their home, Valhalla, are destroyed. There are a few words above, bolded or not bolded, which we could argue over, but the point is that "90% of everything" is several ballparks away from accurate, however you look at things. Also: Originally Posted By: Dantius This is generally defined as "plagiarism". Um, no, it's not. Copying someone's idea, and telling the same thing in different words, is plagiarism. Copying elements of someone else's story, and using them in your own story, is not plagiarism. That's part of the exchange of images and ideas that is the hallmark of art when it is being created by entire civilizations and not just by one individual in isolation. If you want to call that plagiarism, then Tolkien is guilty of it clear as day, for he talked endlessly about his sources of inspiration; also guilty are Shakespeare and Goethe, Sophocles and Ovid, Dostoevsky and Joyce — and they would all admit to it as readily.

Images are not permitted in signatures -- I believe the board is actually set to not show them if you put them in. The FAQ is mostly generic (it comes with the forum software) and unfortunately, not all of it has been updated. Even the Code of Conduct listed there is obsolete. Let me see if we can do something about that!

Hey Sonic / Loyal Servile, This is a message board... not a chat room. There are thousands of users here, and as you can imagine, if we all posted "I have no idea" and other pointless posts in response to everything, well, the whole forum would get swallowed up in posts no one cares about. Please only post when you have something to add to the conversation -- be it information, humor, or whatever else. Thanks. Slarty

Actually, that's a cool idea that should get more use. That would give a scenario designer even more flexibility than BoA's scripting provides!