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In addition to space flight, NASA does plenty of good basic science and engineering. The problem is that part tends (exceptions abound of course) not to have quickly realizable applications unlike other science and engineering labs in the US, where you can expect to get something into general use in a few years. Astrobiology, cosmology simulations, and observational astrophysics are great things that will hopefully benefit us down the road, but that's a long way into a hypothetical future. I don't begrudge them for trying to hype some of their neater stuff, because everyone else does it too: they just don't get the same media attention as Oak Ridge, for example. I wouldn't be too harsh on NASA for this specific publication. If they are like their sister organizations, they only review the documents for administrative and legal restrictions, and not technical content before approving release. It is the responsibility of the authors to stake their personal credibility and potentially their careers with the technical worth. The good news is such spectacular failures tend to "self-correcting" in this respect.

If you do a little bit of digging, you will find the "Journal of Cosmology" is not a reputable journal, despite its prestigious sounding name. I'll quote PZ Meyers on his blog post: Quote: But even worse, the paper claiming the discovery of bacteria fossils in carbonaceous chondrites was published in … the Journal of Cosmology. I've mentioned Cosmology before — it isn't a real science journal at all, but is the ginned-up website of a small group of crank academics obsessed with the idea of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe that life originated in outer space and simply rained down on Earth. It doesn't exist in print, consists entirely of a crude and ugly website that looks like it was sucked through a wormhole from the 1990s, and publishes lots of empty noise with no substantial editorial restraint. For a while, it seemed to be entirely the domain of a crackpot named Rhawn Joseph who called himself the emeritus professor of something mysteriously called the Brain Research Laboratory, based in the general neighborhood of Northern California (seriously, that was the address: "Northern California"), and self-published all of his pseudo-scientific "publications" on this web site.

NASA and people who work for NASA are two different things entirely. I work at a similar institution that, when it comes to publication, pretty much follows an academic freedom stance so long as there is nothing that is proprietary in there. That said, they have a big fat disclaimer on the cover page that says that this does not speak for my employer or the US government.

They are changed to reflect the release of Avadon. While your suggestions are appreciated, they do nothing to add to this theme.

Quote: When i play a game i do not nessicarily want a character that is "me" but rather i want to become my character. Being able to select a nationality during character creation and then having people react to it would add layers to my character and make the experience more immersive on top of adding replay value, this is a feature that i would like to see in av2. I do like the game but i just cant fit into my character if my character cant fit into the game. That's a personal preference. Others may have varying desires in this respect. Realize that no Spiderweb Software game quite does this. I suspect the reason is that Jeff is one guy, and his limited resources are devoted elsewhere. I agree that it is good to make suggestions, however.

Yes, it is shorter for lack of ranks to work with at this juncture of the series. The ordering of the character classes is arbitrary. You get to join Avadon at 1,000 posts. The order of Hand and Eye are arbitrary, but it's quite clear that Heart is above them. The ranks above are retained from the past two sets of titles.

Thank you for your understanding. Please resume your discussion if you wish.

Weird. I see it in the FAQ just fine. For those who cannot see them, here they are: Quote: 0 Initiate 50 Warrior 200 Shaman 400 Sorceress 600 Shadowwalker 800 Blademaster 1000 Hand of Avadon 2500 Eye of Avadon 4000 Heart of Avadon 6000 Hero 8000 Legend 10000 Postmaster General 15000 Your Postliness 25000 Postaroni, Pizzabella!

Paul, don't push it. Now you are being rude, and it will not stand. Look, I'm not participating in this discussion other than to ensure it is done civilly, and I see nothing wrong with the topic of discussion itself. I'm telling you and everyone else to please be nice. I'll repeat myself: Quote: I'm not arguing for or against your point, I'm stating, in my capacity as a board admin, that you are pushing the boundaries of the rules here. This goes double for your last post.

Quote: Isn"t it subjectve to assume that some speech (caps lock, forceful irony aka the "condescending" first sentence) is somehow inappropriate? You are correct. There is always subjectivity in decoding human behavior, and determining what is within and outside the rules. That's why we have moderators or board administrators such as myself to make such decisions. To clarify, I'm not arguing for or against your point, I'm stating, in my capacity as a board admin, that you are pushing the boundaries of the rules here.

The faceless main character is a common element in many RPGs. See Crono in Chrono Trigger as a prime example. The reason for this is the character represents you.

Paul, calm down. First, use the "edit" feature and please do not double post. Keeping these boards clean and easy to read helps everyone. Quote: I like the idea that games should be tailored to the most uninvolved members of the gaming community. Maybe we should simplify tennis since people who don't usually watch tennis or are too busy to watch tennis don't understand the rules. Well? Do you see a difference? Are you proud of the fact that you demand simplification based on your limited investment? The first sentence is being condescending, which we do not approve. You are free to make an argument comparing simplification of certain things to other things, but please do so in a way that avoids intentionally provocative statements. Also, please do not use ALL CAPS (other post), as this is considered shouting in internet speak. Please respect your fellow board members, and I expect them to do the same to you.

Chris, I took down the link since it has not been announced publicly. Don't expect everything to necessarily work correctly until this. For this reason, please refrain from posting links until such time.

Patience folks. Best to wait until Jeff makes it official just to make sure that there are no kinks.

Why change it? Well, if you wanted a custom version of BoE upon which to make your own scenarios, then sure. In that case, I reiterate that a branch is most appropriate for such things.

Tricky situation with nerfing blessing duration. Had this been in the early days of Blades 12-13 years ago, I would have said, definitely. Unfortunately, some portions of scenarios had assumed this behavior by design. We're sort of stuck here in this respect. While, yes, legacy compatibility options are indeed possible, I could see the amount of legacy portions becoming out of hand quickly, making code more difficult to maintain. At the point of modifying basic mechanics of how gameplay features work, a branch is a preferable option, in my opinion.

Added this to the forum rules to be more explicit about what we cannot tolerate: Quote: 0. Cause no harm. - These boards are paid for by Spiderweb Software, a small three-person company run primarily by a guy trying to feed his family. USING THIS BOARD AS A MEANS TO SOLICIT OR DISTRIBUTE CRACKS OR KEYS WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE, PERMANENT BANNING, NO EXCEPTIONS! Note that this extends to the private messaging system. Yes, this is harsh, but permitting this would very quickly cause Spiderweb Software to go out of business meaning no more games for anyone. Practically speaking, it changes nothing. Anyone who did this before was given a permanent ban, or at very least a long one provisional on a promise of good behavior. This just makes this clear.

Welcome back. Feel free to stay a while!

All right guys, this topic has drifted. Off to General you go...

Thanks Jeff! Can't wait to play the game.

I think even with better shields, it all comes down to killing something faster is almost always the better route. In the vein of having to specialize to reap the benefits of dual wielding, I would revamp battle disciplines. As of now, acquiring them is rather boring and linear. How about requiring an investment of skill points to unlock a battle discipline that is available only when certain skill thresholds could be met? To counterbalance the loss of skill points, I would take away the current set of "special" skills, which are usually just buffed versions of the originals. For instance, if Quick Strike were a battle discipline giving a huge temporary boost to battle order, that could serve as a difference maker in a battle against fast enemies. Other possibilities are attacks that ignore armor, poisoned or other enchanted blades, dumbfound spellcasters, etc. Point being, that dual wielding would allow you to, on average, kill something faster, but these disciplines can provide a strong advantage in specific, but not too uncommon, situations.

Quote: Dual wielding pushes the damage difference over a big threshold. It could be redesigned so that the damage actually doesn't go up that much, but then what's the point? Making the damage comparable is probably not the way to go. I do think that dual wielding, should, from a pure damage per attack perspective, be the most effective. However, getting to that point should require an amount of specialization such that that PC would miss out on other things.

Part of the issue with balancing a second weapon with a shield is the inherent asymmetry between killing your target faster, therefore ending damage permanently, versus suffering a little less damage, on average, each turn for longer. The former is almost always a better choice from a game theoretic perspective. To balance this, there needs to be a significant investment in terms of skill points to make dual wielding worthwhile. Part of the problem as of A6 is that investment is relatively minor and does not scale with the power of the individual weapons -- you reach a threshold and the need for further investment stops. A possible way to address this is to make dual wielding dramatically worse as weapon power increases unless some investment in the dual wielding skill is made to offset it. Also, there really needs to be a reworking of shields if you want to counterbalance dual wielding. I would make shields more like parry, blocking all damage with a chance of riposte. Investments in defense and parry would increase the odds of this block occurring. Also, give shields a good chance of blocking projectiles, both physical and magical, and we might have something worth employing.

This topic has outlived its purpose on this forum. Feel free to continue it in General.

I do wish it would be tied to the creature's skill level at very least rather than a fixed amount of damage. It seems like an easy change to make.