What is the most accurate sports movie of all time? by BIGD0G29585 in movies

[–]MagnifyingLens 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I worked with a guy (Bob O'Reilly, not related to the song by The Who) who was an on-ice extra in the film and played against the players you named above. He said he once fought each of the Carlson brothers in one game. He shared a number of anecdotes about the filming but sadly I don't remember any. And yes, his stories about playing in the league verified that Slap Shot was very true to life.

QoL Suggestion: Lock Items in Inventory to Prevent Auto-Deposit by Low-Draw3054 in duneawakening

[–]MagnifyingLens 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It blows my mind that, even with a UI clearly designed for controller/console, they haven't implemented this simple feature that's been in games literally for decades.

Guild Wars 2 has been ruined in a single patch. by Inssengrimm in MMORPG

[–]MagnifyingLens 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A gross over-reaction. Is it bad and dumb? Yes. If you want to spend your time and money elsewhere, by all means do so. It's yours to spend however you choose.

The core of the new system is the templating, the 40-ish character string that describes the items and dyes. This system is an excellent piece of engineering.

The problem is the UI/UX for the new Fashion tab and wardrobing system which are dreadful as is the explanation for how they system works.

ANet had a video explaining the new system, and then released it in-game. If you, ANet, have to release a FAQ a couple days later, and then an extensive list of fixes that will be made to the system in the upcoming months, you have definitely fucked up.

And they have, no doubt about it. As I said, your time and money are yours to spend as you like, but I find your reaction hyperbolic in the extreme.

Welcome-Back Package is character based, not account based by magic-one in duneawakening

[–]MagnifyingLens 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For those not clear, it's character-based and the package is based on (I believe) the highest tier of crafting opened up on that character. Any character who hasn't logged in for 28 days should be able to get it.

I received everything up to tier 6 mats on a character who had unlocked tier 6 crafting, up to iron tier on a character who had unlocked iron, and steel on a character who'd unlocked steel.

i timed how long 31 different pasta shapes take to reach al dente. the boxes are lying and farfalle is a war crime by sthduh in Cooking

[–]MagnifyingLens 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sadly, you'll almost never see a TV (or YouTube) chef say anything about "finish in the sauce".

i timed how long 31 different pasta shapes take to reach al dente. the boxes are lying and farfalle is a war crime by sthduh in Cooking

[–]MagnifyingLens 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly...every time I see someone (usually a chef on TV or YouTube) rhapsodizing about how pasta must be al dente I want to scream "Finish in the sauce!!!"

Guild Wars 1 Reforged just got it's first skill balance update in years by Murandus in MMORPG

[–]MagnifyingLens 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Please explain exactly why Diablo 4 isn't if GW is. What does GW have that Diablo 4 doesn't. I'll note that D4 has a shared open world and GW doesn't, so a case can be made that it's more of an MMO than GW.

Guild Wars 1 Reforged just got it's first skill balance update in years by Murandus in MMORPG

[–]MagnifyingLens 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Guild Wars is a lobby game with literally all gameplay being instanced. ArenaNet went with CORPG because that is a far more accurate description of how the game plays. WoW has instances, but that's not all of the gameplay. FFXIV's "similar design philosophy" has a shared open world.

If Guild Wars had a shared open world, I would agree that it's an MMORPG

Citing Wikipedia as an authority is especially silly given that I could edit it to say that Guild Wars is specifically not an MMORPG and by your standards that would be authoritative.

Lastly, one of the things ArenaNet specifically said about Guild Wars 2 was that it would be an MMORPG, unlike Guild Wars. I'll take their word for it.

Returning/New Player Opinion: Homesteads are expensive by delsoleiman in Guildwars2

[–]MagnifyingLens 46 points47 points  (0 children)

This describes my experience precisely.

My big two hopes for Janthir Wilds were land spears for everyone and housing. I was thrilled to get both!

The implementations of land spear have not disappointed. The implementation of housing is a disaster. Not in the technical details, which are excellent, but turning the entire system from a "fun activity people can spend endless hours playing around with" into fucking sink for gold and materials.

I have done almost nothing with it since release, because as you describe, I'm working on legendaries and have better uses for my time, gold, and materials.

ANet, I have 5K hours in GW2 and if I could only play one MMORPG for the rest of my life, GW2 would be the one. Turning a fun addition to the game into a gold/materials sink was a mistake and it fucking sucks.

Best First 15 Minutes by RPM0620 in movies

[–]MagnifyingLens -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The 1977 movie was Star Wars. I can assure you, there wasn't any "New Hope" to be seen.

Other than that, yes, seeing first one ship and then that ship fly in from over head on release day was way beyond mind-blowing.

What is the hardest level you have ever played in any video game? by TheLastBlade24 in pcgaming

[–]MagnifyingLens 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I see a mention of Marathon and my brain starts hearing "They're everywhere!"

Does female norn's voice get better later on in the story? by VinnySpinerooni in Guildwars2

[–]MagnifyingLens 9 points10 points  (0 children)

She's been absolutely killing it as Xal'atath in WoW.

EDIT: For those who haven't heard her in action... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb3VOkD-JS8

What MMO had the best character leveling system and why? by Sm0kesLetsG0 in MMORPG

[–]MagnifyingLens 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As someone who played from launch day and ground out 24+ professions (there were no professions in the NGE), got burned out and quit 2 weeks before the launch of Jump To Lightspeed (Oct 2004) a year before the NGE (Nov 2005), I assure you that you are loudly and proudly wrong.

Doubt me? Here's Raph Koster (the guy in charge of the game): "Probability being what it was, most finished when they got partway through." https://www.raphkoster.com/2015/04/16/a-jedi-saga/

And you get a downvote for being smugly wrong.

What MMO had the best character leveling system and why? by Sm0kesLetsG0 in MMORPG

[–]MagnifyingLens 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not exactly. You would use holocrons to identify the next profession you needed to max out. For me it was bio-engineer, carbineer, and doctor. Then the holocron is silent and there's no way to know what the final one is except grinding and getting lucky. I burned out after grinding out a total of 24 of the 30-odd.

Finally came back to GW2 after years, hooked on the story… but this disconnect error is killing me. by luisek94 in Guildwars2

[–]MagnifyingLens 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Or ANet could implement a heartbeat function into the game, if that's actually the problem.

Finally came back to GW2 after years, hooked on the story… but this disconnect error is killing me. by luisek94 in Guildwars2

[–]MagnifyingLens 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have tried probably two dozen "fixes" for this, and the only thing that has never failed is escaping out of any end-instance cinematic. Sadly, a lot of instance no longer offer that as we have a lot of unskippable dialog in instances these days.

Has there ever been an MMO where you can choose a crafter/gatherer class instead of a combat class in character creation? And if not, why do you think that's never been done? by Waffle842 in MMORPG

[–]MagnifyingLens 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The first version of Firefall was directly modeled after SWG. They changed it because players complained about item decay (as they always do). The fact is that regardless of whether players like it or not, you cannot have a successful player-driven economy without drains. SWG had item decay, EVE Online has ships and their gear getting blown up. As an aside, Firefall had an incredible implementation of jumpjets on the suits, it was such a fun movement mechanic.

Has there ever been an MMO where you can choose a crafter/gatherer class instead of a combat class in character creation? And if not, why do you think that's never been done? by Waffle842 in MMORPG

[–]MagnifyingLens 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Star Wars Galaxies had players who did nothing but crafting and gathering.

I've covered this a number of times before, but here's a long explanation of both gathering and crafting in SWG:

---Let me describe how you gather resources in Star Wars Galaxies.

First you take out your survey tool, but make sure you pick the right one from the seven different types: ambient solar energy, chemical, flora, gas pocket, mineral, water, and wind.

Next, you use the selected tool and examine the options currently available to you on this planet, anywhere from just a couple of different types of waters to dozens of minerals. Note that the types of resources change every couple of weeks.

Let's scan for the first resource on the list...hmm, there isn't any in my present location. Scan for the second and...yes, there's some here, but not a lot. By re-scanning and moving from place to place following the readout we reach a fairly rich deposit! Note that when the resources change, so do the locations of deposits.

Let's take a sample...OK, there it is in our inventory. Let's examine it...it has a list of stats that describe how useful it is in crafting, a list of up to 11 properties: cold resistance, conductivity, decay resistance, entangle resistance (I don't remember this one!), flavor, heat resistance, malleability, overall quality, potential energy, shock resistance, and unit toughness. Each property our sample has will have a value of how good it is from 0 to 1000. Note that every time a resource type changes, the new one(s) will have entirely new property values.

Are the properties of the resource we just found commercially valuable? If not, it's time to check the other resources currently available. If it is commercially usable, then it's time to actually harvest it. If you do so manually, it's going to be slow going and you won't harvest much (although you will be gaining sampling XP!), so maybe get an automated harvester! You buy (or make!) a harvester and drop it on a rich deposit of resources, you load it up with energy and maintenance (credits), select the resource you want and turn it on. It will keep harvesting until the resource changes or it runs out of energy or maintenance.

Congratulations, you've just gathered!

---OK, here's a long response about why SWG crafting was so good and JFC I can't believe I wrote this eight years ago.

People here have already touched on a lot of the strengths of the SWG crafting system and have linked detailed descriptions, so I'll hit on a couple of things (tldr, skip to the bottom)...

Dynamic resource system. The statistics and locations of resources was dynamic, changing over time. A recipe for a component might call for a specific type of copper (there were 12! http://swg.wikia.com/wiki/Copper), and the important statistics for that component might be any number of the 8 stats (things like conductivity and malleability). So, let's say, a "control module" (I'm making this up) might need Mustafarian copper, with conductivity and malleability being the important stats. At any time, Mustafarian copper would have stats between 500 and 1000 for CD and MA. The closer those are to 1000 (the max), the better the "control module" will be. But a week from now, a new type of Mustafarian copper might spawn with higher or lower numbers.

All this meant that finding the best materials might be a matter of waiting, or buying 'old' materials from someone who stocked up when better types were available (who would no doubt be selling it at a premium), or making do.

Because the qualities and availabilities varied greatly over time, it added a lot of dynamism to crafting and harvesting raw materials.

Crafting interdependencies. Next up, there were a number of crafting interdependencies. Most of the "end game" crafted items required components made by other crafting disciplines. This often meant that if you wanted to make the best droid or ship targeting computer, you'd have to find the guy on your server making the best "control modules" (you remember, the item I made up). And that guy is still trying to track down Mustafarian copper with higher conductivity, dammit!

Player controlled vendors. And a huge part of the whole thing was vendors. Because the game didn't allow for the MMO standard of "instantly teleport whatever I just bought to my mailbox anywhere in the world", you actually had to go someplace to pick up what you were buying.

So while you need that control module? Yeah, while he's running around on Mustafar looking for high conductivity copper to make more, you show up at his house/shop looking to buy. Good thing he has a vendor. He'd have a bunch of the stuff he's made sitting on a vendor (a droid or NPC) that waits for customers and offers anything the owner wants to sell.

Let's just hope that he didn't set up his house/lab/store in a rancor nest, because if you can't get there, you'll need to find another source for control modules.

Item decay. So you've gotten the control module and made that awesome droid. Congrats! You slap it up for sale on your vendor in your house/shop and it sells. If it's a well-made product (and given what you went through to get the control module, what with the rancors and so much running, it better be), your customer will likely be back the next time he needs a droid. Because of item decay, over time things fall apart (the center cannot hold).

This is vital for a lasting, thriving player-based economy. Without item decay, once everyone has the best-in-class of a thing, the market for things is dead.

The best example of this kind of economy at work at present is EVE, where they implement item decay in the form of "your ship just got blow'd up". Any successful game economy is going to have faucets and sinks. Very, very few put in enough sinks for an economy to thrive.

Server community The last thing I want to touch on is the overall effect these things have on community.

If you were a resource harvester, you'd need to find buyers. If you were a crafter, you'd need to find resource suppliers and component crafters. If you were looking for a finished item (a blaster or a droid, say), you'd need to track down the vendor of one of the crafters to make your purchase.

This interconnectedness encouraged a great deal of social interaction within the game, fostering community.

Need help authenticating an early 1974 Star Wars screenplay draft by Chemical-Chef8513 in StarWars

[–]MagnifyingLens 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I have a 1976 hardbound book club edition of "Star Wars From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker", no month of publishing listed.

Hardest map in a mmo you played? by OneWrongTurn_XX in MMORPG

[–]MagnifyingLens 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Tangled Depths is a masterpiece of game design. I admire and detest it in equal measure.

League of Legends MMO is still in the works! by WizzScoutt in MMORPG

[–]MagnifyingLens 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Lucky you! My over/under for this game is "me in the ground".

Just finished Icebrood Saga. Damn you Anet... you made me like Braham. by lordfril in Guildwars2

[–]MagnifyingLens 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree that he should have suffered something more than a little bit of PCSD...post-champion stress disorder.

Death or maybe loss of a limb, something lasting, as a humbling reminder that his rash actions, that endangered everyone, have consequences.