Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - Frumple

Pages: 1 ... 1348 1349 [1350] 1351 1352 ... 1929
20236
General Discussion / Re: The Official Bay12 - 52 books challenge 2013
« on: December 31, 2013, 04:35:31 pm »
Argle. Started tallying. Broke six million words roughly 3/5ths through the "marked as done" list, which would put things at >8m with the initial list, and tally not even done yet. Definitely broke 52 works, definitely broke 5 million words. Goals met! I'll... edit this, I guess, when I actually finish writing out the list. Or new post. or something.

It... it's hard to remember stuff about what you read 6+ months ago, sometimes, though ;_;

E: OKAY! HERE WE GO! CHARACTER LIMIT DON'T FAIL ME NOW!

Spoiler: 70+(5+2)|77/52 -- WC 2.08+9.59+(???)|11.67+m/5.2m (click to show/hide)

And between that, this, and probably a bunch of stuff I didn't finish or forgot to mark down, was what I read for pleasure in 2013. VICTORY GET.

20237
General Discussion / Re: The Official Bay12 - 52 books challenge 2013
« on: December 31, 2013, 11:01:21 am »
Guh. It... it's the last day, isn't it?

Stuff to do, then I guess I'll start counting things up. Tentative look says at least a good sixty more than whatever I managed to actually record way earlier in the thread, so it looks like I got the raw numbers down, at least...

20238
Other Games / Re: Starbound - We have lift off.
« on: December 31, 2013, 10:15:42 am »
Quote from: Facekillz058 on December 31, 2013, 09:21:27 am
I'm thinking of picking the game up as soon as I can get money in the bank and I was wondering, does it require a particularly majestic machine to play? I mean, I can play Terraria on medium-highish settings with no problem, but this game appears to be a bit more graphically intensive.
Starbound pushes my comp about as hard as T does (And I run T with everything that can be turned off, turned off. Starbound doesn't have turn off buttons yet, mostly), maybe a little more, but not notably. T's actually (was, anyway, before the latest patches) worse with some of the more intensive mods or with the wrong lighting. I posted my specs a few pages back. SB's just... not a very heavy game, relatively, and presumably will become even lighter as optimization and whatnot gets put it (though that may be a while, yet.).

20239
General Discussion / Re: Recommend me a (good) book
« on: December 31, 2013, 08:32:13 am »
I... I guess I'd recommend Piers Anthony? It's been a while since I've actually read any, but the guy's fairly prolific and pretty solid, just. Themes and whatnot. Common trends. Put bluntly, dude's a freak of the sexual sort (at least in terms of authorial bent) and beyond that can get into some really rather off stuff including but not limited to rape, incest (sometimes combined, those two), necrophilia, extreme social disparity, slavery, extreme gender issues, and... a bunch of other stuff. The list, it goes on. To kinda' put it into perspective, even his ostensibly young adult/children's series, Xanth, has at least one sex scene, albeit one that's sorta' censored, ish.

But. At the time I read it (I was much younger >_>), I enjoyed the Adept series (which is mixed fantasy/sci-fi), I've since found the Space Tyrant stuff (though it's sci-fi) surprisingly decent if you can get over/past some of the squiggly things (there's plenty!), liked the Battle Circle (post apoc!) and Incarnation series well enough (though, as I recall, some folks here have expressed issue with the latter, in particular. I take no offense from people taking issue with Anthony, haha.), and I think I got through the first two or three of the Mode series (this is one I'd say check the wikipedia page first, and beware all sorts of triggers, up to and including suicide. It gets pretty damn freaky.), those last two both being sorts of fantasy, if not quite a traditionally epic sort. Xanth is... Xanth. It's actually a fairly interesting world, but, well. It's Anthony and it's "punny". There was a Xanth video game made! I wouldn't recommend playing it :-\

Avoid Firefly. It has nothing to do with the sci-fi series, at all. It is the reason I was freaking terrified when I first heard about the sci-fi series. It is the book in which I learned what necrophilia was, when I was all of about eight. Just... don't touch. Trust the Frumple. Stay away. Y'all have been warned. Again.

Similarly, you'll... probably want to avoid the Pornucopia stuff (dear gods, there was a sequel ;_;). It includes magical things like a person's reproductive organs getting stolen. It is thoroughly explicit. The name should be sufficient warning. That said, it does include one of the most amazing usages of accent/dialect I've ever actually seen put to writing, somewhere in the first half of the first book (iirc.). S'just... getting there. And then actually reading it, because it's mostly about smuggling demon eggs about in one's intestines. *coughs* I... didn't actually get past that part.

Point being... approach Anthony's works with caution, but maybe consider approaching. If you're under eighteen or so, stay the hell away from all of it, would probably be my recommendation.

In any case, seconding Butcher's Codex stuff, since it only got a little note. Only thing I'd warn about is the bit of rape-related stuff part way through the series. Nothing directly happens, but it comes close kinda' repeatedly and it's pretty damn obvious the author was actually playing on that... cliffhanging and whatnot in the face of, which is kinda... yeah. That and it's definitely not a trilogy. There's six books in the series :P

20240
Other Games / Re: Dominions 3?
« on: December 31, 2013, 12:54:05 am »
Yeah... if you didn't run out of provinces, you ran out of dominion. S'far as I can remember, that's the only two ways to lose in a standard Dom 3 game. Barring going AI, I guess, but that's more of a surrender, ha.

20241
General Discussion / Re: NSA Leaks - They've accomplished something! A court ruling against the NSA!
« on: December 31, 2013, 12:46:24 am »
Quote from: da_nang on December 30, 2013, 02:45:07 pm
Quote from: alway on December 30, 2013, 02:39:46 pm
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/report-nsa-intercepts-computer-deliveries-2D11820931
I wonder if a non-American company could make a business out of debugging hardware?
An american one could probably make a bit of bank off of convincing paranoiacs that they're debugging hardware >_>

Probably already some out there, doing just that. "Send me your computer and X hundred dollah! We'll totally return it stripped of NSA bugging and not loaded down with our own back doors, keyloggers, and whatnot. Pinkie promise!"

After all, the biggest question regarding business like that is: How does the (presumable) layman patronizing them know they did, well, anything?

20242
Other Games / Re: Dominions 3?
« on: December 30, 2013, 10:24:22 pm »
Not sure about the first... second, though, calling back the god is an action specifically performed by critters with priest levels. Takes several turns, usually, but gets done faster the more holy levels you've got directed to it. Doesn't matter if it dies in your domain or not, though (unless the god is specifically immortal, anyway, in which case dying inside their domain just sends them back to the capital.). Just pull up the action menu on one of your priests and set it to call god.

In any case, low HP is one of the tradeoffs for low chassis cost, generally. It's especially bad if you've got low dominion strength (so the pretender isn't getting the much of a HP boost) or it's something that can get diseased without a way to avoid it (really nasty with some of the more human pretenders, when it happens, but rough all around), but, well. That's the trade off. Might not be the best of ideas to take misfortune ranks in that case, heh, or at least keep a good bit of chaff in the same province to soak up event hits. Still not a hundred percent guarantee, but...

Lastly, well, the god dying often isn't that big of a deal, especially later into a game. It doesn't have to be alive for you to win, you just lose out on a pretty powerful tool (usually, anyway.) if it happens.

20243
General Discussion / Re: [(•ω•)] U wot m8 (happy thread?!)
« on: December 30, 2013, 09:50:15 pm »
At which point, reasonably enough, the DM probably says, "No." Or, even worse, "Okay."

Anyway, own happies, sudden DF reference from nowhere. Near the end of the chapter, but the whole thing is pretty contained and readable. I chuckled entirely too much.

20244
Other Games / Re: Tome 4: Tales of Maj'Eyal
« on: December 30, 2013, 06:47:35 pm »
Yeah, the less cultists alive when wozname shows up, the less likely she's going to instakill you with doom rocks. However, the power of the artifact she's guaranteed to drop also varies depending on how many cultists were alive, so... risk vs. reward, in a very blatant way.

Because at full strength, I'm utterly serious when I say that lady has a very, incredibly, good chance to one shot you. I've seen her get, iirc, something like 2-3k damage in one turn, with a lucky crit meteor shower, in a pre-east dungeon. They also blows up walls! Probably sets you on fire, too, I'uuno. Don't mess around with 'er.

20245
Other Games / Re: Tome 4: Tales of Maj'Eyal
« on: December 30, 2013, 05:45:00 pm »
Quote from: Robsoie on December 30, 2013, 03:12:31 pm
(as there's no tree with the rush ability for a mindslayer and Reach has a very low range and need unlocking the tree)
The mindslayer mobility tree (augmented mobility) can be unlocked at ten (note: You need to do this, period. Every non-dead mindslayer unlocks augmented mobility first.). Both quick as thought (I broke the game with that, many versions back >_>) and telekinetic leap are pretty alright (albeit somewhat expensive), and mindhook helps get things close to you. Fourth tier talent's pretty cruddy, though.

Beyond that, if you want an early gem, try your chance at the alchemist quests. Takes some luck with targets, but the derth alchie's reward (Lifebinding emerald) is a fifth tier gem, last time I looked at it. May have been downgraded, I'unno. Still be at least third tier, though, I imagine. Just checked, still mat level 5.

Quote
All in all it's a class for people that like to micromanage their skills, as you need to deactivate your shield aura often to get a shield (to approach something) regularly and need to deactivate regularly your main projection aura / activate another to get some better damage output when there's too many people jumping on you.
I... I don't think I've ever actually spiked the shield. Any of the shields. Maybe, like, once, twice. Probably over a dozen 'slayers got east, couple won. Aura gets spiked more often, but I usually have thermal and charged tied up with conduit and spike the kinetic as needed. It's pretty painful, so I usually don't find I have to spike it terribly often, heh.

Still, it does seem for whatever reason people have a lot more trouble with 'slayers than I seem to. It's entirely possible the RNG gods have simply smiled upon me most of the times I've played 'em, I'unno.

20246
General Discussion / Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« on: December 30, 2013, 02:08:38 pm »
Silly leo. Everyone knows everything is turtles.

20247
Other Games / Re: Tome 4: Tales of Maj'Eyal
« on: December 30, 2013, 02:03:13 pm »
Fairly sure it's .2. If for some reason you've maxed out a tree and everything runs off effective, that's equivalent to four or so talent points. To put that in perspective, there's only three, iirc, class talent points available beyond natural leveling, and only five generic. Which is to say, it's potentially an actually pretty hefty bonus, close to equivalent to the max benefit (talent point wise, anyway) from the alchemy quests.

From what I remember, a base 1.3 mastery tree will max out at tlvl 7.5 with a cat point investment. There's a few talents that... react well, so to speak, to that. I personally invest cat points pretty often, but that's only because I rarely run with more than four infusions (and even then, the fourth is usually my last cat point).

20248
General Discussion / Re: Things that made you RRRAAAAGGGGEEEE today: Road Rules Edition
« on: December 30, 2013, 01:47:08 pm »
It's called marketing*, GO. Everyone's under siege, everywhere, all the time. This is the future capitalism hath wrought. Fun fact, my grandparents have been getting one (actual people, even, not a machine!) from Jamaica for over a year. Several calls a month, sometimes multiple ones in a single day. It has not stopped, despite blocking numbers, despite calling the law, despite telling them no in a hundred different ways, despite threatening bodily harm. These are some persistent bastids. It'd almost be admirable if constantly trying to steal money from the elderly wasn't something a person should be maimed over.

*With a side order of fraud, identity theft, and scamming.

20249
Other Games / Re: Tome 4: Tales of Maj'Eyal
« on: December 30, 2013, 01:14:17 pm »
Mm... another thing to remember re: mindslayers, if you hadn't noticed, is that many of their talents scale with gem (/mindstar) tier. So if you're going the lash route, you want the highest tier gem or mindstar you have access to being psi-wield, usually. Also you can psi-wield gems, if you don't find decent mindstars. Forget the particulars, but it's the effects of high tier gems (/mindstars) that make mindlash particularly powerful.

Re: mastery, it's mostly as Nenjin says, but there's caveats. Some talents run (or did, anyway... dunno if that's changed recently?) off raw instead of effective talent level -- which is to say, all and only what matters is how many points you put in them, mastery be damned. Extract and imbue gems in the stone alchemy tree, ferex, run off raw instead of effective (incidentally, one of the reasons I like stone alchemy as an escort reward, since the reduced mastery level is irrelevant for the good bits) talent level.

In regards to whether it's a waste... that depends incredibly on the talents themselves. Some talents and some trees benefit considerably from extra mastery (fungus and aegis both did at one point... not sure about right now, but they're potential examples), while others benefit little or not at all.

20250
General Discussion / Re: Things that made you RRRAAAAGGGGEEEE today: Road Rules Edition
« on: December 29, 2013, 10:44:36 pm »
... I prefer to think of it as computer use being rageworthy. The computers themselves deserve no anger. They only do what they're told, naught else. Every problem involving computers is user error... just not always the current user >_>

But hardware failure? Manufacturer, maintenance failure. Software buggerups? Coder, user, third party interference (virii, etc.). The machine itself... it is blameless. No fault lies with it. Blame yourself or others, but don't blame the machine god.

At least until they get around to developing actual sentience. Then... then you can start blaming the machine, because it's probably going to want some righteous vengeance for all those years of slave abuse. We'll find out, in retrospect, that maybe percussive maintenance was a bit of a disrespectful thing to do to someone's great-grandpappy.

Pages: 1 ... 1348 1349 [1350] 1351 1352 ... 1929