The Loquacious Lord Grimm

Looking for a rather distinct monster graphic for my port-in-progress.

To quote the help file of the original:

Will take either small or large template.

Would really like to have the attack pose include the quoted tail flinging, for proper in-game effect.

Bonus points if the graphic is flying, and the death animation invoves the creature falling to the ground.

Thank you.

More like, One team showed up wanting to win, the other thinks they deserve it by default.

And never stick Lidge in without a ten-run lead.

But oh well. Philly hasn't given up hope yet... which is to say, the fans haven't. Jeez... so many freaking t-shirts out while shopping today....

It is difficult to come after these well-thought and detailed deconstructions, and then state that I liked Canopy.

But here it is:

Canopy is fairly normal for TM, in that it involves a good deal of ten-dollar philoso- and psycho-babblings, takes control of "our" characters, generates some excessive and oftentimes sensless items, and comes to a very unsatisfying conclusion; I'm not going to contest that, it's what makes TM, TM.

What draws me to this scenario is its execution and its departure from standard convention.

In terms of execution, you have essentially this: a linear plot, as described in posts above, that is essentially a series of extended battles that carry you from cutscene to cutscene. These battles are challenging, and, when combined with the custom item and spell set, force the player to all but abandon the tactics that the party has relied on to level up to the 35-50 range.

Fair? No. But that's what you get by putting yourself at the mercy of any designer. I would suggest that you stop pouting and play along.

Because once you do start to play along, you slowly learn that the designer is providing you with all of the tools that you need to survive his intentionally perverted world. You play by his rules, you get to move on; which is a rather effective embodiment of Bishop and all that Canopy represents. I don't know if TM planned it that way, but that's what we get.

True, the ending is an anticlimax: by TM's own confession, he simply didn't feel like writing more. But I find it completely in-line with the rest of the scenario: this is not the Player's game. It doesn't have to pay off.

Canopy forces the player to think unconventionally, with its unusual bosses and battles. They will be forced to reload many times to learn from their mistakes, and adapt their strategy to play TM's game. And yes, inevitably lose.

But that's what you get for playing in the first place.

Canopy's scripting has its technical highs and its annoyingly specifically-demanding lows; its' items are not effective (or overpowered) outside of its own world; the combat balance really lies on the upper end of the levels 35-50; and the "custom spells" are cumbersome and at times useless.

But.

As long as you're willing to play by the ever-changing rules, Canopy is a ride into the potential of BoA's engine that no player, designer or no, should forget.

Because of its alternative gameplay, its custom-fitted and internally-balanced scripting, its cutscenes, and applied ideas, I would say that it is among the best that early BoA has to offer, but...

I believe that the ideal BoA scenario must respect the fact that it exists inside the continuum of BoA and therefore other scenarios, so due to its unbalanced items, disrespect for the players' own RPing, and the fact that much of Canopy's technical and visual flash has become mainstream, I can only rate it as: [rating]Good[/rating].

Personally, I believe that much of the above-posted resentment could have been avoided if TM had supplied a prefab (granted, the idea was far from common at the time), thus concretely placing Canopy in its own world, and not draging players' beloved parties into it.

It cannot be stressed enough that this is a prime example of how not to make a scenario.

Giving Selentine the benefit of the doubt, it looks like the kind of thing someone would do to simply familiarize themselves with the engine, its' basic scripting, and its' editor's most basic functions.

With minimal scripting, no balance in combat, essentially no plot, a single side quest, and a playing level clearly out of the stated parameters, Nephilim Valley gives the impression that the author threw down a handful of purely functional maps (including one that looks as though it was mostly created with the "change terrain randomly" tool), loaded them up with low-level items and average-level monsters, torqued exactly one core stat and the item loads for those average level monsters in the scenario data script, and then released it without testing.

While the author does thank beta testers, and while there is slightly more scripting ands design than this, the lack of substance and technical savvy, combined with outright torturous gameplay leads me to rate Nephilim Valley as [rating]Poor[/rating].

All that said, if you're the hardcore hack-and-slash type, and have a well-equipped party resting above level 75, Nephilim Valley could prove to be an amazing tactical challenge, as I'm sure was the author's intent.

While this may appear (and may truly be) out of character for me, the fact that I live in this particular little hellhole in South Jersey (and spending so much quality time with my in-laws) requires me to point out that Philly is back in the World Series, and, at the time of this post, leading.

Discuss.

_________________________

The Silent Assassin is currently in NYC for some sort of fancy to-do over music.

Priorities, dude, what the hell?

Back on the original topic, I kinda figured that part of the insanity in Bioshock was came to be because of the splicers' chemical addiction to Adam and plasmids. It's revealed earlier on (Neptune's Bounty, I'm pretty sure) that Fontaine got into the splicing market because the first round of research revealed that a splicer's body constantly needed more adam to regenerate itself and recouperate from the physical damage that using the plasmids does. The lack of a fresh supply is what leads to the splicers' physical degredation.

That, and, well, there's also those pheromones that Ryan uses to instantly convince a splicer to do his bidding.

Whereas in Geneforge (I confess, I've only ever played the demos), the addiction is more psychologic1al: one must get canisters not because of a physical need, but because of the need for power, for strength, for control.

Huzzah. Now I can force Facebook to spam my friends with this company instead of forcing them to look at my profile.

And Toby, thanks for getting it up on the AA group.

_________________________

The Silent Assassin warns you that faulty scripts are to blame for the next few minutes of random hiccups after you read this post.

Also, never run your antivirus software again.

Thank you.

I like to change things up every time I play. I once tried A2 with a team of archers with diversified subskills. Suffice to say, I ran out of ammo long before I finished chapter 2, and ended up relying on low-roll melee attacks.

Had to reload a lot.

I once jokingly referred to my standard party as a knife, a wall, a skeleton key, and cannon: a swordsman devoted to speed with a few points in assassination, a polearmsman devoted to strength and defense, a mage/rogue, and an archer/priest. It takes several levels to establish all of the skills necessary to exploit all of the resources in the game, and then a bit of backtracking to make up for the time (locked doors and breakable terrain, mostly), but I find it to be a well-balanced and effective team.

My latest party, which I'm currently running through A3 on torment, has a soldier, an assassin, an archer, and a caster.

Ammunition was only a problem at the beginning, and I took care of that by stockpiling the munitions stores from the brigand lair and the agatge tower. By the time I got to the Isle of Bilgail, I had enough of a backup supply of iron arrows that I sold off all of the stone ones; I currently switch between iron and steel, depending on the enemy, and only pick up arrows that have already been fired if they're in large quantities, or if they're steel.

_________________________

The Silent Assassin favors something very close to the preset party, but he likes to boost attributes to the highest XP penalties and to take his time with outdoor encounters to compensate.

That said, I don't think I've ever seen him anywhere past chapter 2 in A2.

L100 "challenged" in a Selentine scenario, Nioca?

L100 with full spell complement and a few invuln elixers might survive two or three random encounters; good luck on a town, though.

MadScientist, I have to add a resounding DON'T to everone else's recommendations. Selentine somehow equated uber-leveling the scenario's creatures with quality, and the results were, well, pitiful at best, and gut-wrenching at worst.

_________________________

The Silent Assassin suggests instead that you try something a bit more down-to-earth. Undead Valley, for example, is much more pleasant in comparison. Or perhaps Kill Prize, Win Ogre.

I have a rule when picking up items: given worth must be at least three times the given weight. If I encounter more items worth picking up, I trade out the most "cost efficient" items, and come back for the rest. The sole exeption is arrows, which I upgrade as supplies allow.

This rule will later evolve as supplies and general enxpenses vary. Going back for piles of bronze longswords gets tedious after a while.

_________________________

The Silent Assassin believes that the only items truly worth keeping are dice, skulls, and boardgames.

Dice are always good to have; free boardgames are hard to come by, and skulls make great competitors when playing them.

Well, fanfiction.net is a decent enough spot. I'm moving away from it because I've found that maintaining it is a bit of a headache when in the context of the lengthy nature of my work (and my sporadic nature in approaching it).

But I'd definitely recommend it.

_________________________

The Silent Assassin would also like to point out that there are several members of this community who might be willing to archive a few txt files on their sites.

If you're nice and have lots of cheesecake, of course.

Well, in a scenario like this, dungeon-delving tends to be an easy way to rediscover where you we're. I'd suggest heading back down as far as you can go into the depths of the school and seeing what you can find.

_________________________

The Silent Assassin's suggestion involves bananna pudding, a little bit of vanilla ice cream, and a flamethrower.

Seeing as none of these items exist in VoDT, I doubt it will be helpful and am therefore not conveying it in full.

Yeah, I've had a fanfic kinda in the works for about forever. I'm probably gonna move it away from fanfic.net soon because what work I've done on it has mostly been out of sequence, which makes thing weird on fanfic.net. Just a matter of finding a place to put it where I can organize it properly, and then uploading everything.

I was hoping to catch up on my play-throughs and reviews before attempting to return to actual design... but, hey, I just found my notes for the Vitoba project while unpacking. Things can happen.

_________________________

The Silent Assassin thinks that the winning scenario will be a tribute to the life of Sean Connery.

I think he needs to stop watching as much TV.

Catching up on BoA (in reviews and playthroughs) is on the to-do list after ripping up the carpet in the kitchen.

That said, I may do another batch tonight and save the carpet for Tuesday.

_________________________

The Silent Assassin believes in life after love.

He also believes that the Tooth Fairy is a con artist maquerading as a professional hit man, so I'm not sure I can give it much merit.

If'n you're interested in learning about user scenarios that are available, I am working on compiling the current listing of available third-party scenarios with some synopses and criticism on this page.

EDIT: This was meant to reply to the topic, not to Kel

_________________________

The Silent Assassin thinks that broken glass will soon replace lava lamps as a popular fad.

It's not the brightest idea that he's had.

I'll see if I can composite something over the weekend. IM me about it if I don't post something.

--------------------

The Silent Assassin knows that the shotgun may be mighter than the penknife... but the penknife is still more fun.

Yeah, Imban, I'm getting a 404 on all three. Can you check on them?

--------------------

The Silent Assassin thought that this would be a great place to...

Wait, nm...

As noted here , the Dread Curse skill removes one level of every skill, including, in appearance anyway, itself.

--------------------

The Silent Assassin thanks you.

Now get on with it.

Is this on the bug list?

--------------------

The Silent Assassin thinks that this explains a lot.

No, I don't get it either.

Rereading through my Chichton collection right now. Just finished Prey , hoping to grab Sphere and State of Fear while I'm home for spring break.

--------------------

The Silent Assassin is reading your mind.

Yes he is. No, this is not a stupid gimmick. Stop arguing. Believe it. No, he will never stoop that low.

1. For Tyran's sake: SPAM.

2. Yay!

-goes to download-

--------------------

The Silent Assassin is excited to hear of the windows release, and hopes that the broken glass won't hurt too many people.

Rubric?

I developed one that can be found here .

While I still haven't gotten around to properly applying it (I've only used it for the half-dozen scenarios that I've rated on Spideweb), theoretical testing suggests that the average scenario will score somewhere between a 4 and a 7 on this rubric, depending on where the author's talents and focus lie.

Tests also suggest that it is difficult to score above a 9 and below a 2.

I put more focus on plot, balance, and presentablility than I do gameplay mechanics, because these are the aspects with which players will interact the most. That, and because mechanics vary greatly from scenario to scenario; they become very difficult to standardize.

I also devote a full point out of 10 to custom scripting, because I feel that a solid, creative, and effective original script really does prove the difference between a novice writer and an experienced scenario designer.

However, in the end, I feel that a designer's job is only done properly if the player comes away from the scenario with the desire to re-experience the powerful emotional highs that should come with its execution and completion. After all, the point of a good scenario is to not only tell a good story and give good execution, but to give payoff for the story's correct completion.

Therefore, novelty and replayability are ranked highest among all considered factors.

EDIT: fixed formatting in the link.

EDIT 2: After further consideration, I might as well say...

Clearly, this isn't exactly what Aran is going for, as he said, quote, "But what if I want (this is hypothetical) hack and slash? Or what if I couldn't care less about plot or combat as long as there are lots of original riddles?" I just wanted to give an example of how it could be done, not how it should.

The ideal rubric would therefore have to balance all elements, instead of having a storytelling emphasis like mine does.

I think that an ideal presentation of scenario ratings would be to have a table that presents and compares the average ratings of the individual elements of the rubric for each scenario, as well as the overall score. After all, unlikely as it sounds, the scenario with the best scripting could potentially be the one with the worst plot.

It would also be quite cool to somehow script said table so that you could reorganize it according to which aspect of the rubric you want to look at (so listing by best plot, gameplay, combat, etc.). But as I have minimal web design experience, I have no idea how one could implement that.

--------------------

The Silent Assassin will now proceed to do the dance of the 2 veils, 3 handkerchiefs, a dust rag, and a shop towel.

Watch your wallets. Trust me.

Ouch. On both counts.

I guess I still have the outdated version .

My Apologies.

--------------------

The Silent Assassin really thinks that I deserve to take the blame for that Porche incident.

I don't see why he keeps saying that. It was the neighbor's kid messing around with his paintball gun. I watched it happen.

Of course, Dintiradan left out the fact that "Beefing up" involves acquiring the specialized artifacts and custom items that can be found in each scenario.

Fortunately, if you feel like taking the shortcut and using the High Level Party Maker, there is the scenario called the Artifacts Hall, which contains all of the custom items found in a good deal of the currently available scenarios.

Both of these scenarios can be found at the Scenario Database , along with every other known playable BoA scenario ever made.

I would recommend against taking an experienced party into Lord Puditus, on the grounds that Kel's inventive scripting promptly permanently strips all of your spellcasing capabilities. In fact, I would recommend skipping over it altogether for a short time, so that you can become more familiar with the BoA game mechanics and potential strategies before diving into it with a fresh party. Lord Puditus, though rated Level 1, does require some deeper strategy consideration than most scenarios.

But don't ignore it. It's a good example of BoA as an art form.

EDIT:

--------------------

The Silent Assassin chastizes me for forgetting to consult him before adding this post.

He believes it only fair that I take the blame for the paint splattered onto that random Porche sitting across the street.