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[Pono]

However, both the Corporate Manager and the Radio Personality lands powerful blows and reduces me to Near Death. Things are not looking good. Indeed, the third guy scores a critical hit, and apparently severs my lower spine with his bare hands. 'Bastards', I think

Immediatly collapse...lmao
thats happened to me too

but yea man..lmao

[Floydman]

Hello again.  Played less during the last week, I had other things on hand.  However, I ran into a situation where one of my kidnapped hostage have been reported by the press, so I thought he was a liability and assigned one of my (heavily armed) agent to kill the hostage.  At first, he said he didn't want to do cold-blood murder with his bare hands, and the next day he finally killed him, by strangulation, and then threw up of disgust (that was cool).  My only problem is why did he use strangulation when he had a .45 semi-auto or something like that?  And wouldn't an Intel. agent have the training to do such task without any second thought?  Is it a bug?

[Toady One]

Not all intelligence agents have executed people before.  You got one with some heart left, that's all.  Every time they do it, they'll lose a heart point and puke, etc., until they are down to one.

[Jim]

Hi, I just downloaded your game and it is quite addicting.  However I'm still trying to figure out if Oubliette store has any practical function.      Like a lot of people on this post, I've got a few ideas/thoughts:

"Random liberal acts" action or whatever it's called should be changed.  I say this because in the early stages of the game someone stole about 1000 dollars from a banking account and got me into a lot of trouble extremely early on.  I think that if someone is going to steal that much money from a bank account, you'd think that it'd be a little bit more planned.  It should be an action that is an application of computer knowledge and maybe security...  So I say make it an action that can be done on purpose.

To touch on another topic, the "random liberal act" action doesn't have enough meaning.  There should be some jobs that you can get your members to do that aren't random - and repairing clothing and making clothing can only work for those kids you found at the clothes factory, but what about the random college student and the janitor?  Maybe with your monetary assistance, they can go to the university to become professionals of some sort?  It's just an idea.

I also have a question about guns.  Are guns really appropriate?  If guns can exist then you should be able to equip members with "flowers" which might help your dating or political debate skills.  There should also be a location in the game called the "NRA club" because it's just a perfect place to tick everyone off.  You could sabotage all the targets to look like some really prominent CEO or something like that.  

I also have a problem with getting skills to increase.  Surely a liberal wouldn't allow a "survival of the fittest" situation to occur, but that's what usually happens when you are in a combat situation.  Only my lucky and skilled gang members manage to survive.  There has to be something we can do for unskilled and inexperienced ones too.  I suggest that at a particular site there should be the option of building some kind of training facility that can help people prepare for a dangerous mission.

Then there's the writing skill - a skill that I think is very highly underused.  There should be more options about how to spread propaganda about your organization or issues and writing should play a role in that.  It's not enough that a newspaper is written every month (if you have certain items).  Or maybe I'm just too unfamiliar with the game to understand how controls work, so feedback is appreciated.  Thanks.

Note:  there is also a bad bug.  Say that there’s only one member in a particular squad, and he or she goes on a cheap vacation with a potential member, all of his equipment disappears when he returns!!  It’s quite frustrating to come back with absolutely nothing in your inventory, especially if you have a critical item like those photos of the CEO or the disk from Intelligence HQ.

[ May 23, 2004: Message edited by: Jim ]

[Floydman]

Hello Toady.  I accept your explanation of the heart of the agent and the threwing up part.  As I said, it made me laugh.  But did it have to be by strangulation?

Also, the drive chase bug actually saved my leader from a horrible death twice so far  

Also, I vote in favor for having the making clothes activity a permanent one (like repairing clothing, selling brownies, etc.).  It would be much more useful that way both for exp. suits and for disguises, as this is often the only activity that these people will perform.

Another word on business fronts.  It should not take too much place in the gameplay, I like the way it is currently abstractized, I simply thought that since we *are* running a business front, there should be some revenue coming out of it.  Maybe we should assign some squad members to the task, but it should not be more complicated than selection option "Attend to business front" (and making this a permanent action).  I thought if this because I found that raising money at the beginning of the game is one of the hardest part (that is, before being raided like crazy after only 1 week of existence).

For Jim:

Here is my attempt to answer your questions from my own experiences with the game, mind you I've played it only for the past 2 weeks.

So far, "Random liberal acts" have been more useful to me in terms asking programmers to do this, which means that they will hack into systems (for money, files or denial of service).  If you ask low skilled people to do this, it does not seem to be more useful than selling brownies (but I may be wrong).  This goes a bit with my question regarding the run-of-the-mill jobs.

Regarding to the hard times your hacked 1000$ got you into, I understand your point for having the same thing happened to me.  This seems like there is a lot of randomness in this game, and you could just start a brand new game, hack yourself several K's $ and files, and not be bothered by law enforcement for weeks.  It just goes with the game. Besides, it *is* acts of civil disobedience, and as such there is always the chance that the authorities may not like that.  Also, 1000$ is not that much an important amount of money in real life, in terms of hacking, so there is not as much risk to it as stealing 100000$.  But the way the law is currently setup, it is the offense that matters, not the amount pilfered.  And police raids are the usual course of action to capture suspected hackers (I mean, like, they are soooo dangerous).  As a side note, I'd recommend reading "Hacker Crackdown", by Bruce Sterling .  This book is free on the net, and is based on real incidents during the 90's involving the Secret Service, the FBI and your local phreaker/hacker.  Which leads me to think, with all the things being discussed in this forum, did the Feds ever came knocking on your door recently?  

I'm not sure about the flower idea, but I like the NRA club location, either for a sabotage like you described, but also for gun training (costs ammo + money).

Regarding the increasing skills, I'd say that practice makes perfect, and it's not only the fighting skills that improve over time.  I know it's very tempting to go the guns way right from the beggining, but once you've got the trick with staying low profile for long enough, you eventually get enough firepower to stand your own ground.  Now, all humans are different, with different skill sets, and in real life combat, the ones with the best training (or with the luckiest rabbit foot) have better odds to survive. Now, your goal as the Squad leader, is to use the skills of your members to the best of their abilities.  Sending a bunch of teenagers againts well-trained police officer and soldiers should give very predictable results.  UNLESS... I don't want to spoil all the fun, but equip your compound with at least camera TV and booby traps, and with a bit of patience and strategy during a siege, you will find that you can help fate go in your way  

I support the idea of having more propaganda options, related to the writing, and maybe even the law and persuasion skills.  I made a proposition of having more articles printed as you have more working (people at location) presses, but something else than the newspaper could help.  Maybe the protest idea could link with this somehow.

Related to that, one last question: is there something useful we can do with the weird chemicals we find in labs, excepted pawing them?  I tried keeping them for a newspaper edition, but it seems this was not proper material.  What could be fun is if we had a lab tech (regular or sleeper?) to analyze the stuff, and if it proves to be something hazardous, then it makes a new story for the paper.  This would make one more source of material for whistleblowing, and involve the Lab Techs more into the game.

---------
I just want to finish this post by saying that this is the first time I fall in love with a game so much that I spend time sharing about it on a forum, and actually suggest ideas to hopefully make it even better.  I think this is something everybody on this forum feels.  I'd like to take this opportunity to advertise to the people here of my own humble online contributions to the real life liberal revolution.  One of my online identity is the singer of the one-man band Gemini-9 (www.gemini-9.com).  Gemini-9 is my progressive/experimental rock project that was basically my way to express to the world what I think is wrong with the world.  My songs are available online at http://stage.vitaminic.com/main/gemini_9/all_tracks/,2  (these ones are in english, the rest is in french, if you're interested, they are on page 1), but probably more interesting to the folks here would be my 2 animation videos (flash) for my songs "Watch the Tower" and "Root" (http://www.gemini-9.com/videoe.html), which are really on topic with the issues covered in LCS.  Hope you won't mind this shameless plug, and that you will enjoy these unique songs.

[Toady One]

Jim:

Regarding guns, the content in the game was partially inspired by the actions of the SLA, a violent "liberal" organization.  I posted a link somewhere describing their history.  Gun control is a liberal thing, but they took a different route.

I figured out the vacation bug, so that fix should be posted along with the car chase bugs as soon as I get those.

Floydman:

The songs reminded me of Lard's "I am your clock" but with music more like the sci-fi sound of Fantastic Planet.

Nothing more regarding sleepers is implemented -- I didn't have enough time to do everything I wanted for LCS 3.  You've found the uses for judges and lawyers -- aside from certain more conservative archetypes giving you regular opinion bonuses, there aren't any other benefits.  
Nothing to do with chemicals and so on...  I think the supercomputer is placed in a random location every time, but I thought it was always supposed to be there.

The business front currently is a just a fake front that is not being staffed.  We've been floating some ideas around about improving (somewhere up there or elsewhere).

No Feds yet -- I think the Feds are probably more likely to go over the Atlantic to harass X now that he has made that console game!  He he he...

[X]

I love the idea of having been put on a list of the dangerously liberal for playing LCS and making that game (see Armok part of forum).  

Hey! You can't burst into my room, it's a free c...

X

[Floydman]

Just a thought.  Maybe the chihuahua is an undercover intel guard dog whose task is to watch your every move and report it bach to Intel HQ.  Or maybe I've played LCS a bit too much.

Anyway, I'm going to Mexico this week, leaving from Canada, but my flight plan involves a stop in US territory, so I guess it will be a nice occasion to test these "context analyzer algorithms" they put in Echelon.  If they take me in as a terrorist, then I guess their software needs more work  :eek:

BTW, my game is now 4 years into time, my ranks have grown, shrunk, grown again, shrunk to a single member, went low profile, grown back again, at this is where I am right now.  The fact that my leader was coincidentally at the hospital when the raids occured helped me a lot to maintain my organisation over time.  I think I'll have more comments/suggestions when I come back, but I've seen very interesting things, even if most of my game now resides in my ability to press the 'w' key.  If LCS 4 sports half (or even a quarter) of all the ideas mentionned in this forum, it will be one hell of a game!

[Aquillion]

quote:Originally posted by Floydman:
<STRONG>The fact that my leader was coincidentally at the hospital when the raids occured helped me a lot to maintain my organisation over time.</STRONG>

Hmm.  You know, something just occured to me.  With the way the game is set up now, you're probably better off keeping your leader in the hospital 24/7, or as close to that as you can manage--that will basically make the LCS as a whole immune to the new structure-related risks.  Just have him pop out occasionally and promote everyone to right under him, then get him scratched and send him back to the hospital for a month--simplicity itself.

[J.P Marshall III]

Is there any use for computers/printers/tvs you steal, aside from pawning them?
I also once stole a printing press... Can I do anything with that?

[Toady One]

They're just for money right now.  Except for cloth -- those reduce clothesmaking costs.  Computers are especially useless, since my D drive just got corrupted completely.  80 gigs down the toilet.

[Floydman]

Hello Gang.  Just got back from Mexico, no Echelon warrant on me it appears   :cool:  , and it even turns out that custom officers from Mexico and US are nicer to the people that the Canadian ones.  :roll:

Just read the latest comments in this thread, mind you I'm barely off the plane, so I'll be quick here but I'll come back later this week.  Just to anwser to Aquilon, one thing I did not mention is that while you're at the hospital or clinic, you don't get juice at all, even the the organisation-wide juice-upping events like publishing your newspaper.  If you use garment makers to make and sell clothes, you might have noted that they start with very little juice (negative), and that by making clothes they don't make any juice either (unlike your other squad members who does more liberal things), but by the end of every month, if you have a printing press, they will go up like everybody else.  Except for the people in the hospital or the clinic.

In my game, my leader got badly injured just 3 days before the first month ends, and while he built some juice to be classified as an activist when he was active, he was quickly surpassed by his first recruits in terms of Juice by the time he got out (they were socialist threats or something like that).  Now that brings an interesting idea, our founder's leadership being questionned by his own organisation members.  Not only we would have to worry about the cons, but also from the internal politics.  It shouldn't be as easy as my early-injured-for-3-months-leader would have been overthrown as soon as he got back from hospital, but it could actually be a good way to prevent the "coward-leader strategy".  If at some point there is a certain number or people have so much more juice as our leader, is leadership could be questionned.  There would be a time-period where he would have to try to make-up for his errors from the past, but if after that period he still didn'y raise his juice sufficiently, there could be internal elections, and one of the top juice members would be elected.  I have no idea how this should be finished though.  Should the game end, or should we keep our founder into the ranks, and try to make him recover his leader status as well as overthrowing the conservative agenda?  Anyway, this would be a very good rendition of real-life.

Also regarding that, others may have noticed too that there is a small bug, or actually an interesting hack for the player, that when you're injured for say 3 months, but you've been injured on the 28 for example, the last 2-3 days of the current month will count as a full month.  When I first encountered this situation, I kind of expected it to work that way, since I've seen it in many other games before, so this is why I'm saying it's not too bad.

Another thing with the "staying at the hospital all the time" strategy, the biggest problem I see with that is to get injured in fight but making sure to stay alive long enough to make it to the hospital.  Sometimes, you're very not lucky, and you can get your whole head blasted off by a single gunshot.  I definitely see no cure for that kind of injury.  So, as you're trying to avoid risk by staying at hospital, you actually have to take incredible risk just to go there.  I never said that I actually planned my leader to be in the clinic, but it actually turned our for the best of my organisation when it happened.  That was only fate.  But my leader actually lost an arm in that first injury, and it kind of pissed me off.  But hey, that's life when you're a liberal extremist!

Toady, I've just read the lyrics of the Lard's song.  I'm astonished.  More later this week.

Good night!

"There's someone in my head, but it's not me"
(Dark side of the moon)

[Dave]

I just downloaded LCS from The Underdogs - top game!

Here's a bug I haven't seen on the forum yet tho:-

My main character was wearing badly damaged Clothes [BD]. He went to the department store and bought a black suit for $500. On his status screen it appeared as a Black Suit [BD].

I think the store could use a 'Demand Refund' button.  

[Fourth Triad]

Has anyone else noticed that when you have no arms you can still use a gun and drive a car?

[Toady One]

All straightforward bugs...  shouldn't take too long to take care of.  The hauling and driving bugs on the other hand...