Desbreko

[quote name='Marsh][FONT=Arial']You know that's not the case. =P. Regardless of user profiles, we get introduction threads anyway. [/FONT][/quote][color=#4B0082]That's why it's "the idea." It doesn't always go according to plan, (though I have seen it work quite nicely), but it's the best method for handling introductions that I've seen. We do still get the occasional introduction thread anyway, but then again, we also still get other types of spam even though we have actual rules against them. Nothing's perfect. The problem with making a thread devoted to introductions is that it faces the exact same problems that an entire forum faces, only crowded into a smaller space. You'll still get tiny little introduction posts that don't actually tell us anything about the person, like the example Dragon Warrior posted. And you'll still get the generic, "Welcome to the boards!" posts over and over again--or worse, the spammy and nonsense-filled replies that the Newbie Lounge was infamous for. Providing an introduction form to fill out would put us right back to where we are now with user profiles, only with more moderation work. The idea is that people would provide some meaningful information about themselves and make a good introduction, but anyone who remembers the Newbie Lounge knows that wouldn't be the case. Or, heck, just look at some user profiles and see what you find. Any way you slice it, it would still require a lot of moderation to keep such a thread up to the quality standards we have here. The nice thing about user profiles, on the other hand, is that they require almost no moderation whatsoever. People can put whatever the heck they want in their profiles fields so long as it's not obscene. Yet they serve exactly the same purpose as an introduction form in a thread. The only real benefit to an intro thread that I can see is that it would provide a single place you could check to see who's new to the boards. But I don't think that's really necessary. I notice plenty of new members just while browsing around the boards each day, as well as from keeping an eye on the "Welcome to our newest member" thing on the home page. [size=1]There, happy? You made me do the whole spiel on introduction threads. Again. :twitch:[/size][/color]

[color=#4B0082]Using the -image switch should help a lot. It'll get you completely up to date on everything and then decompress the files all in one go, so you shouldn't have to download or decompress anything when zoning into areas. Just remember to remove it from the shortcut after you use it. I'm glad you decided to get Factions, Jeh. Fina (my ranger) is still just hanging out in Kaineng Center and hasn't done any missions yet since traveling over from Lion's Arch, so maybe we can get together to play through the story. That would be fun. :) And I'm curious, have you made an assassin or ritualist? Or are you going to play through the game with a Tyrian character first?[/color]

[quote name='Sara][color=#b0000b][size=1]You know, after so many years on the inside, it [i]hurts[/i] to be out in the cold.[/size'][/color][/quote][color=#4B0082]Aww. . . . *hands Sara a sweater* We miss you too.[/color] [quote=Dragon Warrior][size=1]Hah, if that were the case, Marsh, people would have to give it more thought than: "Umm... I like cookies and anime!!!1 ^_^" Normally that's what I hear when people try and think of short bios for themselves ;) I mean, look at some member profiles. Haha. But like I said, if we did do that, I'd think there should be a nifty system to work with. Like... [list] [*][b]Hobbies:[/b] What do you like to do? :^D [*][b]Personality:[/b] What are you like? :O [*][b]Favorite Band:[/b] My favorite band's better than yours...[/list] I dunno. I'm just thinking outside the box?[/size][/quote][color=#4B0082]We already have something like this. It's called a user profile. :p See, the idea goes like this: [list=#] [*]A new member joins. [*]During the sign up process they fill in their profile with some info about themselves, or they edit it in shortly after. [*]The new member posts in a thread and introduces themselves while joining in on the conversation. [*]Everyone in the thread can see they're new, and they can click their screen name to see their profile and learn a bit about the person. [*]Both mods and members live happily ever after without having to deal with spammy introduction threads. [/list][/color]

[color=#4B0082]I have to ask. . . . If you didn't want just anyone to be able to see your posts here, why would you post them in the first place? This is a public message board, where anyone can read posts whether they have an account or not, so that just doesn't make any sense to me. If you want to keep a conversation private that's what PMs are for. As mentioned, though, you can always go back and delete your own posts if you really want to. But I don't think we'll ever make an option to let members mass delete their posts. Every time someone deletes one of their old posts, they're removing a little bit of the site's history, after all.[/color]

[color=#4B0082]I missed a lot of NES games, since I grew up during the SNES/N64 generations, so I haven't actually played any of the ones ranted about. But damn, I have to agree about Zelda II, which I finally played on the CE disc. I thought I was pretty good at Zelda games, being able to breeze through LttP without ever dying, and being able to get through the original without dying if I'm careful. I expected to die a few times, sure, but not 25. What really pissed me off the most, though, was that they hid the Life spell. The abosolute most useful spell in the entire game, short of the ones you're required to use, and they freaking hide it. Sure, they give you a little hint if you talk to the townspeople, but the translation is so horrible that it doesn't actually tell you jack about where to look. I did two dungeons without it before I finally came back and stumbled on it. The game got a whole lot easier after that, but was still damn hard.[/color]

[color=#4B0082]We already have a newer thread about the DDR games [url=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=37470][u]here[/u][/url], which has seen a lot more use. Please post in that one instead. Thread Closed[/color]

[color=#4B0082]This is hilarious. I haven't laughed this much from something on OB for long time. It's all so absurd, yet believable at the same time. . . . Makes me wonder what all goes on at my local GameStop. I'll definitely be back for more. *bookmarks* :animesmil[/color]

[color=#4B0082]Yeah, I expect there will be some fun new ways of fighting the bosses, both with and without the remote's functions. They always have added new ways in each game, to keep the fights interesting for at least the first play through. And I'm definitely looking forward to that, since I still enjoy fine tuning my strategies and finding all the little tricks for fighting the bosses. I'm just saying, as long as they stick with that same basic formula, the bosses will never be as challenging or as fun to fight over again as LttP's, LA's, or MM's bosses. And I think that's a shame, since I really love boss fights like Blind from LttP or Goht from MM.[/color]

[color=#4B0082]Not really. They can change the way you control the action, but the gameplay itself will still be exactly the same: Stun, damage, repeat. The "stun" step can vary in how you accomplish it (whether that be with the Wii remote or not), which is the main thing that makes the boss fights fun. But, once you figure out how to do it, the damage and repeat steps are usually a walk in the park. As long as they stick with the model they've been using in OoT, TWW, and TMC, where all that's required is a simple use of a secondary item to stun the bosses, they're going to become stale after the first or second time you beat them. The only real challenge is figuring out how to stun them. Sure, that makes them fun to fight once, but it turns the bosses into nothing more than puzzles with time limits; can you figure out how to damage them before they kill you? And after you've solved the puzzle once, the time limit is inconsequential because you know exactly what to do and there's barely any challenge in simply doing it.[/color]

[quote name='Wormmon's Tamer][COLOR=Blue']A dungeon boss is more impressive if it can sucessfully kill you a few times before you defeat it.[/COLOR][/quote][color=#4B0082]Definitely. LttP had a lot of challenging bosses that I still have fun fighting today, most of which kicked my butt the first time I fought them. Most of the bosses in the newer games, though, have been turned into just another puzzle where the main challenge is figuring out how to damage it. And once you get that down, they're a breeze. Besides the overall difficulty of the games, that's my biggest gripe with the newer Zelda games. As always, though, I have to give props to Majora's Mask and Four Swords Adventures. They didn't fall into that rut, and their bosses are pretty fun to fight, even if they are easy. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Twilight Princess. The two bosses we've seen (the plant monster and the fiery thing with the chain whip) sound like they follow the same pattern of, "stun with secondary item, damage with sword while it can't move," which I really wish they'd do away with. But the game is supposed to be huge, so I'm hoping they're not [i]all[/i] like that.[/color]

[color=#4B0082]The popularity ranking script was slowing down the Backroom page too much, so Adam took it down. He made a [url=http://www.myotaku.com/users/adam/posts/835957][u]post[/u][/url] about it on his myOtaku page a few days ago.[/color]

[quote name='Bombu][color=darkred']Eh? I ran a search before making this thread and found nothing. That's weird. :animestun[/color][/quote][color=#4B0082]I keep the thread directory updated for a reason, you know. :p[/color]

[color=#4B0082]As I mentioned over AIM before, there's one problem with that build: I'm pretty sure Ward of Stability doesn't stop the interrupts in Arborstone. When I played the mission as Amelia, I switched to earth magic specifically to try that out, and it didn't seem to work. My conclusion is that they don't count as knock downs, but just normal interrupts, since Mantra of Resolve worked but Stability didn't. Ward of Stability is still really nice in that mission, though. The warrior type wardens all use hammers and the shout "None Shall Pass!" and the Stone Rains use Gale and a Tenai's Wind + Aftershock combo. That last one is especially deadly against assassins if you can't avoid being knocked down by Tenai's Wind. I managed to get masters on Arborstone yesterday just with a PUG, amazingly enough. I think I sat around the outpost for about an hour, searching for a group that looked even halfway competent. Two or three of the invites I got were 7/8 and didn't have any other monks or ritualists. . . . Makes me shudder just thinking about it. But I finally saw a warrior and a mesmer forming a group, asking for a good setup (second tank, nuker, SS, MM, two monks), so I joined. We actually ended up with three warriors, a mesmer, an elementalist, a necro minion master, me playing boon/prot, and another monk. So no Spiteful, but we still rocked the mission. Arborstone is a great mission for showing people's skill levels, and everyone there was pretty good. Only a couple deaths happened on the Onis towards the end. (Those are a real pain when you go through the center path: Shadow Shroud on me, so I can't heal myself with RoF/Guardian, and the other monk getting interrupted by all the collapse damage makes for a dead boon/prot). But we rezzed fine and then kicked *** on the end fight--not a single death there--against all the Stone Rains, Stone Judges, etc. We almost managed to killed every last one of the buggers before Danika opened the door, but alas, three were left standing. Whatever, though; I'm just happy we got masters, since that also meant I got the Protector of Cantha title. So now I have Tyrian Exploration, Protector of Tyria, and Protector of Cantha all maxed (3/5 towards Kind of a Big Deal). I also only need 8% more to max my Canthan Exploration title, and 8 more elites to get the third level of the Skill Hunter title. Speaking of which, if anyone wants to do Hell's Precipice or make a skill cap run into Mineral Springs, I'd be happy to come along. I have two elites to cap in Hell's and three to cap in the Springs.[/color]

[color=#4B0082]Link's Awakening was the last Zelda game where the fights could be more difficult than the puzzles. Ever since Ocarina of Time, they've just been getting easier and easier, until we ended up with TWW and TMC, which I could probably beat with one hand tied behind my back. Four Swords Adventures was a pleasant return to balance between combat and puzzle solving, the likes of which we haven't seen since LttP and LA, but it was still pretty easy. So I'm also really hoping they take the diffucult up a notch--actually, more like two or three notches--in Twilight Princess. LttP and LA set a great example of being difficult but not to the point of frustration, which I hope is followed. I would actually welcome a break in my streak of beating every Zelda game since LA with zero deaths on my first time through.[/color]

[color=#4B0082]Oh yeah, so here's another one. The memory of my registering on OB reminds me of the 9/11 attack. I signed up three days before, on September 6, and was having a grand ol' time. Then I got woken up a few days later to see the second plane hit the tower. And, of course, I was on OB for part of that day. The whole board was pretty somber for a while afterwards, and I have all of that associated with my registering.[/color]

[quote name='DeadSeraphim][size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]One year ago I wasn't single.[/font][/color'][/size][/quote][color=#4B0082]How can you say that like it never even happened?! *runs away in tears*[/color]

[color=#4B0082]Bah. I'm stuck at Arborstone as well, though not in the same way. I'm going for the Defender of Cantha title and I only need to get masters on two more missions: Arborstone and Gyala Hatchery. Gyala shouldn't be too hard, but I've been trying Arborstone and it's turning out to be a real pain in the ***. Even when I managed to recruit a couple people from the guild/alliance to help me, we were 25 seconds too late. The rest of the group just had to screw around and aggro about five mobs that we could've passed by, which stalled us for a couple minutes. It would be no problem if I could get together a full team of guild/alliance members, but the incompetence of the randoms we pick up keeps dragging me down. :animeangr It's also annoying that, as a monk, I'm 100% reliant on the rest of the party to go fast enough to get masters. I can keep people alive through hell and high water, but if they don't kill crap fast enough, I'm still screwed. Really makes me want to whip out my necro and start mowing through things with a horde of minions or Reckless+Spiteful.[/color]

[size=1][b]#7[/b] [i]A matriarch. She rides through The Prefecture on her lucky shoes[/i][/size] [color=#4B0082]I'm guessing [url=http://www.otakuboards.com/member.php?u=119][u]Sara[/u][/url] for this one. She fits the first part, and lucky shoes sounds familiar.[/color]

[color=#4B0082]Couple problems here: [list=1] [*][size=2]MapleStory is a PC game, so it belongs in the PC/Mac forum, not Play It.[/size] [*][size=2]Starting a thread with nothing but a link, saying, "Go here!" isn't allowed. You at least have to say something about what you're linking to or else it automatically falls under the no advertising rule.[/size] [/list] Thread Closed[/color]

[color=#4B0082]I always keep that off, so I'd completely forgotten about it. It just adds more of a load to my aging graphics card while I play Guild Wars in windowed mode for a change that's barely noticeable. Also, I

[color=#4B0082]The question is fine, but you can already find the answer in the [url=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=53703][u]Suggestions & Feedback FAQ[/u][/url] stickied at the top of the forum. Please check there before creating new suggestion threads. Thread Closed[/color]

[color=#4B0082]I can never walk through lower Norfair in the game Super Metroid anymore without thinking of the song Lasagna, by Weird Al. See, when I was little, I was watching one of my brothers play Super Metroid and he was going through lower Norfair. At the same time, another brother had Lasagna playing back in his room with the door open, so we turned down the volume on Super Metroid so we could hear it as well. Thus, the two became connected in my mind as I saw my brother play through most of lower Norfair while Lasagna was playing instead of the normal background music. I'm sure there are more, but I tend to forget them until the memory is triggered by one of the two things. I just happened to have played through Super Metroid again recently.[/color]

[color=#4B0082]Nah, I don't play PlanetSide that much anymore. I got one of the free trial accounts instead of subscribing again since I only play once in a while. There's really only so much to do in an FPS, and I did nearly all of it that interested me while I was subscribed. So unless I happen to be in the mood for an FPS I mainly stick to GW and my console games. Anyway! Arborstone (the one with the urn and the collapsing cathedral) is a pain, especially for assassins. You've got low armor, you're in melee range, [i]and[/i] there's no way to avoid the collapse damage. I came really close to doing it with all henchies on my assassin, but I ended up wiping on the very last fight because they'd built up too much death penalty. (The Onis towards the end completely raped them.) After that I found a real group and got through okay, though; you just have to keep a really close eye on your health. Myself, I did Vizunah Square last night on my necro. I decided to play minion master again, since I hadn't done it since the update that made it so you could only have 10 minions at a time. I gotta say, I realize now why they changed that: If there was still no cap, I probably would've gotten up to 25+ minions in that mission. So many things were dying I was having trouble just spending all the energy I was getting from soul reaping. Basically I'd just stand around raising minions, keeping Aura of the Lich/Blood Renewal going, spamming Blood of the Master, and occasionally throwing up a Well of Blood. All the while my little army of fiends and vamp horrors would be rampaging around owning the afflicted. Even with another minion master there were plenty of corpses to spare. My party only had a single monk and a ritualist (who dropped out after the first battle), and we still only had one death. With two MMs with 20 minions between us, it was pure ownage. They mowed down the afflicted like a knife going through butter and we easily got the master's reward. I think I'm going to be playing my necro more often again, now that Amelia has beaten Factions. :toothy:[/color]

[color=#4B0082]As far as I know there haven't been any official announcements since the last one I posted about Ridley, G&W, etc. I kind of doubt Waluigi will make it in, if only because of the multitude of other Mario characters already present. Maybe if they made him a clone of one of the others (a faster Wario perhaps), but otherwise, there's only so much you can do with that type of character.[/color]

[color=#4B0082]I finally beat Factions with Amelia yesterday! Which, more importantly, means I was able to get 15k Canthan armor for her. ^_^ [URL=http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amelia15kcanthanzy2.png][IMG]http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/4285/amelia15kcanthanzy2.th.png[/IMG][/URL] I dyed it green+blue+silver+silver. While the trim came out just how I wanted, the rest of it is still a tad dark for my taste. But I guess there's not much to be done about that, what with all the black mixed in with the green-dyed pattern. I may go back and try just green+silver+silver some time, but at least for now I'm happy with how it turned out. Oh, and by the way: earth magic [i]rocks.[/i] (Ha ha, get it?) I don't put out the massive damage like when I use fire magic, but wow do I mess things up. I switched to E/N in order to use Enfeeble --> Stoning --> Ash Blast for knockdowns and blindness and it really gives things the works. My current build:[/color] [quote]The Edge - Guild Wars Utility [url]http://renobrothers.waynereno.com/[/url] Class: Elementalist / Necromancer Attributes: (cost) '+' indicates Rune attributes Energy Storage: 10+1 (61) Earth Magic: 12+4 (97) Curses: 8 (37) Total attribute points used: 195/200 Skills: [Attribute] (Energy, Cast Time, Recharge TIme) 1) Stoning [Earth Magic] (15,1,5) Spell: Stoning strikes for 95 earth damage if it hits. If Stoning hits a foe suffering from weakness, that foe is knocked down. 2) Enfeeble [Curses] (5,1,5) Spell: Target suffers from weakness for 13 seconds. 3) Ash Blast [Earth Magic] (5,1,8) Spell: Target foe is struck for 41 earth damage. If Ash Blast strikes a knocked-down foe, that foe is blinded for 10 seconds. 4) Earthquake [Earth Magic] (25,3,15) Spell: You invoke an earthquake at target foe's location. All foes near this location are knocked down and are struck for 105 earth damage. This spell causes exhaustion. 5) Ward Against Melee [Earth Magic] (10,1,20) Spell: You create a ward against melee at your current location. For 21 seconds, allies in this area have a 50% chance to evade melee attacks. 6) Ward Against Elements [Earth Magic] (15,1,20) Spell: You create a ward against elements at your current location. For 21 seconds, nearby allies gain +24 armor against elemental damage. 7) Earth Attunement [Earth Magic] (10,2,45) Enchantment: For 61 seconds, you are attuned to Earth. You gain 30% of the energy cost of the spell each time you use Earth Magic. 8) Elemental Attunement [Energy Storage] (10,2,45) Enchantment: For 48 seconds, you are attuned to air, fire, water, and earth. You gain 50% of the energy cost of the spell each time you use magic associated with any of these elements. This is an elite skill.[/quote][color=#4B0082]As you can see, it's a pretty defensive build, but it still puts out a decent amount of damage. Getting smacked with Stoning every 6 seconds hurts, and Earthquake (or Dragon's Stomp if you want) provides some nice AoE damage + knockdown. I also tend to swap out Ward Against Elements a lot if I'm not going to be facing much elemental damage. Ward of Stability (prevents allies in its range from getting knocked down) is a big help in some areas, or sometimes I'll trade it for another damage skill like Aftershock. I still like swapping back to my fire magic build for doing mass ownage, but this is turning out to be a lot of fun as well. I think I'm going to play with water magic next.[/color]