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Post by satoh on Nov 17, 2015 21:14:09 GMT -5
That sounds like it'll be perfectly workable then.
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Post by satoh on Nov 17, 2015 19:42:38 GMT -5
Its hard for me to really give a lot of feedback since I'm probably the one person on earth who hasn't actually played splatoon, but I can say that having a starring role that begins with a backstory placing them in A Rank (or any already distinguished position) is a very risky move.
Typically a protagonist should advance to a high standing from a low or middling one. You don't want to make your central character too powerful (except in certain cases I'll get to in a moment) or else the audience might feel like they're being cheated or just being fed a bad story. People don't really like favoritism.
Now, as I said, there are some ways you can get away with a really strong main character. Basing them on real events or historical accounts. (Look at former president Andrew Jackson... that guy was like... some kind of terrifying super man.) Having them start out very powerful, but then losing some of that power and needing to work their way back.(.hack//GU protagonist Haseo) Or, having their immense power actually be their biggest weakness. (One Punch Man... who is so strong he can't find anything to do with his time since every fight ends with one punch)
While the nearsightedness might at first seem like a factor that offsets their high rank, it actually doesn't. I'll explain why. The flaw of nearsightedness is something that stands in the way of the character being really successful, which is probably why you added it, but why it doesn't actually help, is that you've already established that the character is A rank even with the handicap... which actually stands to make the character seem that much more superhuman... or... superkraken as it were...
Another way you can get around the problem is by introducing the character very strong, and immediately flashing back to their origin story (which in this event should be long enough to really give a sense that they started out normal and gradually became better) before moving on to the main plot. (See: Ramza Beolve of FFT for a semi-example of this... he wasn't really that strong at first but they did make him a lot weaker immediately thereafter)
Now, I could just be misunderstanding. It could be that A Rank isn't that great, or there's a huge gap between A and S or A+ or whatever comes after. It could be that you fully intend to explain from the beginning and I just misread that she 'was already there' in your story/blog/thing. In those cases this whole post is unnecessary.
However, I still think its good to be aware of these general concepts. Even Heracles was mortal at the beginning of his story.. and he's like the most OP character ever.
Hope this helps in some way.
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Post by satoh on Nov 16, 2015 0:03:33 GMT -5
Commemorating my 300th post, I am making a post about it being 300... yay round numbers
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Post by satoh on Nov 11, 2015 19:31:29 GMT -5
I think its likely that the game simply satisfies what you desired it to be in some ways. Basically you like it for the same reasons many don't.
One of the biggest things in favor of Comcept is that unlike a few other similarly controversial companies and games, they haven't explicitly lied about features. They've been rather upfront about the fact that they're not really sure where they'll be in coming months, though they'd like to do this or that.
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Post by satoh on Nov 10, 2015 22:33:44 GMT -5
I've assumed by bad press you're referring to people saying the game itself is bad. If you meant 'its not getting much press' that's an entirely different issue, derived from the fact that the game is basically old news now (in that it's already been covered a number of times and people are sick of writing articles, that's just how reporting works).
Bad press as per my original assumption would mean that either the game is genuinely terrible, someone dislikes the idea of the game in general, or someone fully expected a game that would be to their liking (probably via hype) and the game was different from what they wanted.
I only passed the comcept community long enough to recognize that there isn't one problem with M9, but several, each contributing a significant piece to the negativity associated with it.
Some believe that the game will be/is great simply because of the creator, which is wrong and is a bad thing in the long run. Some believe game will be awful because of how the hype is being managed, which is wrong and is a bad thing in the long run. Some believe the game is basically a scam to cash in on old fame, which is wrong and is a bad thing in the long run. Some believe the game is great when it might not actually be, for varying reasons specific to the player, which is wrong and is a bad thing in the long run. Some believe the game will recapture all of their nostalgia for the Megaman franchise, which is probably wrong, and is the main reason those who are disappointed with the actual game will be disappointed with it.
All of these people constantly argue within the "community" and sometimes verbally assault the game's staff itself directly, which leads us to the "crappy community" problem.
Bad reviews (that is, press) of information about the game will generally be for one of these reasons, however, may not preclude the possibility that the game is actually not very good.
Similarly, factors like these also contribute to why perfectly rational opinions can get you lynched when expressing them about Steam, Steam policies, or Steam's staff on the internet. And so on for just about anything game related that has more than a small recognizance.
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Post by satoh on Nov 10, 2015 18:18:51 GMT -5
Played Mighty No. 9 beta for the first time yesterday... was awesome. Too bad there's so much bad press.. Watched a gameplay video for the latest demo with my gf and it was AWESOME. This game is definitely something that I want to own. Ahh it really sucks that the community issues and pr were handled so poorly, because the game itself is really cool. Its not so much bad press as it is people wanting a very specific thing, and it being marketed to those people as the answer to what they asked for, even though it's not. That is, everyone wants something specific, and not the same as what the person to their left wants, and the game tries to satisfy fundamentally opposed groups of players, leaving a large number of them dissatisfied. There is bad PR and some ne'er-do-wells in the community as well, of course. But that's not really the cause of the issue, it just exacerbates it. And occasionally makes a convenient excuse for people to use to claim there isn't really a problem, in denial. The supposed bad press is just a symptom of the fact that many of the people who thought the game was meant for them, were wrong, and happen to be vocally oriented.
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Post by satoh on Nov 3, 2015 22:27:02 GMT -5
You know what you do when life gives you lemons? You burn life's house down.
With the lemons!
(Don't just half quote!)
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Post by satoh on Nov 1, 2015 14:57:26 GMT -5
Legitimate question here; How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll centre of a Tootsie Pop? This is a complex issue involving many variables, including but not limited to: - The PH level of one's saliva
- The regional and factory variance of the Tootsie Pop
- Ambient and incident temperature
- The roughness of one's tongue
- The average strength of one's lick force
To make it short, it cannot be simplified into a number.
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Post by satoh on Oct 30, 2015 17:31:25 GMT -5
I'm going to guess it was modified for two reasons: 1) Like the PSX (EN) versions, the frowns on the kobun were turned into smiles, because western audiences like smiles (or whatever silly reason it was...) So we may see frowny kobun in the prototype.
2) Nintendo really likes everything to be small child friendly in their games and on their consoles, and with very few exceptions, they have enforced this on developers. One example would be Mortal Kombat for SNES, which had the violent red blood effects recolored into sweat or milk or some other white fluid which really seems like it shouldn't be flying out of the human body anyway in such amounts. Further still Ninty has refused to license other games for ports on their consoles throughout the years. As MML is not really intended to be that mature, I'm imagining Ninty probably had some things altered for the N64.
In the prototype, we may or may not see differences from the EN versions of the game, and/or PSX version. It depends on whether the 64 version was built on the original MML engine game (which considering the seeming lack of direct gameplay differences between the 64 and PSX versions, I'm assuming the game was built in its own environment and then compiled for the systems afterward with some minor changes to controller layouts and whatnot, rather than built from scratch for both like some games)
Now, if they weren't developed at the same time or from the same basic level engine, then we'll likely see similarities to the PSX version, which was probably the primary version under development.
The last option I foresee, is very little difference. Maybe some unrefined textures on scenery or something. This would be the case if the game was basically complete before it was ported. This is more common than not. A company finishes a game and decides to move it to another console, so they take the existing game, rewrite as little code as they can get away with, and call it a new product. (in some cases they just write an emulator to run the old version of the game on the new system, this is how the PSP versions of the games work.)
Still, it should be interesting to find out.
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Post by satoh on Oct 24, 2015 19:02:52 GMT -5
I'm glad to see that my back and forth rambling on the subject was actually understood. The points you touched on were basically what I was driving at. I also like to imagine that the world of Terra isn't simply a place that doesn't make sense, but rather it is a place with a fundamentally different system of values... both monetary and moral.
Like how no one seems entirely perturbed by replacing body parts with weapons if it makes their job easier. It doesn't illicit any kind of apparent shock or notice from anyone... It almost seems like prosthetics are so common, possibly even desirable, that no one really cares.
Similarly it could be that the economies of MML aren't actually that complicated, but rather, we're only seeing a tiny portion of them. After all, we only ever meet with one or two shop owners in each game--of course the prices seem weird, we're dealing with people trying to make money for themselves, not take a commission from a large corporate conglomerate that strictly regulates the price of products.
Research and development of apparatus is indeed a large time-and-money-consuming expense; though, its difficult to imagine how long Roll really works on things. Consider that when they arrive on Kattelox, Barrel goes to speak with Amelia, while Rock fights off some pirates. I'm sure Barrel would have sent a few messages if he was actually spending days speaking with his old friend, without leaving... So it simply must be a matter of hours... Yet Roll manages to fix a car and invent some stuff in that time... One of which she doesn't even charge for. This just means either we're wrong about how much development really happens or...
It's a game and doesn't really obey the laws of finite time. It is these things which ever compound the mystery of how much truth there is in what we're experiencing.
However, if we consider that Rock is the primary provider for the group, and we never actually see him buying any groceries, we could assume Barrel or Roll takes care of that... most likely Barrel, as Roll is usually spotting (or if you prefer a more comical interpretation, sitting on the bed daydreaming with the occasional token comment to make it seem like she's paying attention).
So if Barrel makes no money, Rock and Roll are both working, where then does the money come from? Item development. Rock buys upgrades, and Barrel in turn buys life supplies with the same money. Sure you could assume this would break down if Rock simply stopped buying upgrades... But face it, you've been him, you know that isn't an option. Moreover, he (probably) needs to eat too, so of course he forks over the dough. If he wasn't willing to use it, he wouldn't be trying to get it in the first place.
Why the complexity? Why do Rocks buy rock-busters from Rolls who then gets Barrels to buy foods? Because only Rock really understands what he needs, when he needs it. Priority One is letting Rock buy the supplies he needs to get ever more zenny... like canteens and body armor, which Roll doesn't have. When he's done with that, he buys weapon upgrades, some of which probably does pay for parts of course, but most probably goes into surplus, to pay for vital supplies.
This is actually a real emergent economy that exists. It often spontaneously appears in multiplayer game economies, but also, less well known, among street people. (That is, homeless people who are not impoverished) Mark gets... we'll call them 'goods' from Jim, which he then sells at a markup, half of which he keeps, and half he gives back to Jim, his "employer". The profits he keeps, (sometimes easily hundreds of dollars), he spends on food and... usually some sort of consumable vice or another... Its not the point though, the point is, A takes care of A, then B, then C. Just like the Caskett model of expense.
and...I've run out of ramble for now.
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Post by satoh on Oct 23, 2015 22:32:23 GMT -5
A car tire sells for less than 20z, but you frequently find well more than that in the garbage. Zenny, or perhaps the concept of 'worth' in general on Terra, does not translate to Earth's currency and values.
This is true of most video game economies. You could consider it a sort of meritocratic trade system... things are worth more, based on how useful they are...
This is why garbage can't be sold, but it can be turned into weapons that could sell for more than a fortress. And please note that this actually WORKs in practice, because one such weapon is all you need to take down a fortress of similar construction cost... Compare: Shining Laser, Gesellschaft. Which one is more powerful? More useful in that sense... Logically, if you try to be such, you would imagine the Gessellschaft, a flying armored fortress is the more powerful one... but logic is wrong. The shining laser can easily knock it out of the sky in a few seconds, even with poor aim.
It doesn't make much sense realistically, because its a game abstraction... but so is Zenny. It's also important to note that Gold City on Ryship Island, has quite a few heavily armored vehicles, which they're led to believe are in fact quite sturdy... and they'd be right. The complicating factor is that the Bonnes are FREAKING SUPERMEN compared to 99% of the other carbons on the planet. What they build is made of Extract of Win (unfiltered).
They seem weak from a gameplay standpoint if you have the skills, but consider that for each time we defeat them, they could easily do the same to everyone around them.
What does all this have to do with money? The Bonnes stretch every zenny to its physical limit, and then stretch it a bit more. ... except ...
That doesn't actually work either, if you factor in the cost of housing. MML1 gives you the unique opportunity to actually foot the bill for rebuilding an entire city, AND for buying medical machinery (which if you don't know, is actually a lot more expensive than it looks, in reality.) Now, you can rebuild the city for a fair sum... but well below the amount of money one would actually assume. I don't recall the actual figure, (when I say rebuilt, I mean: let Tron demolish every building in town, and kick the one she missed until it literally explodes... Yeah I've done it, why do you ask?) but it seems like a single house should cost about a third of what you end up paying to rebuild the whole city.
So we round back again to the merit argument... except now we have to modify it for a heavy weight on physical destructive capability... Feldynaut blew up a whole town with very little effort, yet Rock can take that much damage and stand up again. This must mean that the cost of the town is actually as cheap as it seems, since its so easily demolished. Feldynaut therefor must be worth more than the town, roughly...
Marlwolf more than that... Draches, probably cost around what a house does, each, since it takes similar effort to destroy them.
It goes on and on this way... but in the end, some numbers just don't make sense, and never will. Like finding 100 zenny in the trash wherever you go, and 80z being enough for a full set of tires. (which are relatively expensive in the real world.)
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Post by satoh on Oct 17, 2015 21:12:44 GMT -5
I didn't even recall it spitting money... I think I always immediately started shooting when I opened them... since you aren't movement locked like with a regular chest, its pretty easy to determine which ones are real and not... if you're cautious.
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Post by satoh on Oct 17, 2015 18:09:40 GMT -5
How does it work as a zenny farm?
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Post by satoh on Sept 27, 2015 19:18:40 GMT -5
Voting Five. I love how the caption makes them look desperate for funds rather than terrified.
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Post by satoh on Sept 24, 2015 22:18:23 GMT -5
I wonder... Did they manage to resolve all of the copyright disputes... or did Sony allow someone to alter the content...
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