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Post by Fraze on Mar 4, 2008 19:16:32 GMT -5
Does anyone else think Haggoth both looks and sounds (in terms of temperament and name) like Hoggish Greedly from Captain Planet?
...*Stifles laughter because roomie is here*
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Post by Strife at work on Mar 4, 2008 19:25:52 GMT -5
Does anyone else think Haggoth both looks and sounds (in terms of temperament and name) like Hoggish Greedly from Captain Planet? ...*Stifles laughter because roomie is here* I never saw Captain Planet... and in that case, that's a very strange coincidence. xD Speaking of Haggoth... Vyt, Celestial, try not to godkill him in the upcoming struggle. ^^; I gave him a name and appearance because I want him to last for a little while. As long as Surly lasted, at least. xD |
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Post by Kengplant on Mar 4, 2008 20:20:49 GMT -5
Yea... believe it or not despite my earlier comments, our NPCs tend to be tougher than your average nameless soldier/guard. This may be because we have a naming policy to ensure stronger troops... or we just properly train them. I'm working on thinking up names for my other marines from Keng's group, and on that note, thanks to a little inspiration from (Strife's?) last HQ post, species as well. We're an equal oppertunity employer you see  |
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Post by Speck on Mar 4, 2008 20:43:23 GMT -5
I'm wondering if lemons are the new Crystal.
(Referring to Rider's last post.)
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Post by Ikkin on Mar 4, 2008 21:16:36 GMT -5
Yea... believe it or not despite my earlier comments, our NPCs tend to be tougher than your average nameless soldier/guard. This may be because we have a naming policy to ensure stronger troops... or we just properly train them. The problem with NPCs is... well, there's really a few problems going on here. First is an extended version of the Ninja Rule. The Ninja Rule states that one ninja alone is very powerful, but the power of a group of ninja decreases exponentially with the amount of ninja added to the group. (The extension just makes it relate to every kind of character, and not ninja. >_>; ) Personae and secondary player characters are singular characters of their own, because they have backstory and in many cases exist outside of the world of the roleplay, they're powerful. A group of marines, named or not, still winds up being considered a group, and therefore gets hit by the exponential penalty, at least in the minds of people who aren't controlling them. Second is a bit of the shonen anime mentality. Heroes and villains are important, and thus powerful. They also must be the only threats to each other; therefore, anyone who's not a hero or a villain will be extremely underpowered. This applies even to armies on either side - people don't really care about them, so they're usually nowhere near in the league of the heroes/villains. This mentality also requires a rather perfect hierarchy. Weaker characters - at least those who are not heroes - cannot do anything at all in the face of a stronger character. It doesn't follow the rules of real life, where a body builder would still get just as hurt by a gunshot as a scrawny nerd - partially because weapons and abilities are created in such a way that the stronger party can just ignore all the damage if he's a good deal stronger. This builds into the next part. Third is the fact that people don't really like NPCs - or, at least, NPCs that try to hurt them. They might find it degrading to be injured by one - possibly because the first two things create the mentality that NPCs are weak, and if you're injured by a weak character, you must be even weaker, due to the anime-like hierarchy. Which probably leads people to try to kill off NPCs as quickly as possible. Finally, Spacefleet NPCs have guns, and no one knows how to fight guns in a roleplay. You can't really dodge them without being really unrealistic, they doesn't really give you anything to use against your opponent in your response like you could get with magic or swords, and they're basically a one-hit kill (or a one-hit "taken out of battle for healing" depending on where you're hit). So, since no one likes NPCs and no one likes guns, the first response when you're faced with NPCs with guns is to kill them as quickly as possible so you can get back to much more fun persona-vs.-persona duels. >_> ...yeah, that was long. >>; I'll just sum it up quickly - people are probably not going to take NPCs seriously unless they're few in number (five at most), act more like secondary characters than random NPCs (beyond just having a name), and give up the guns for something that's fun to fight against.  |
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Post by Rider on Mar 4, 2008 22:43:35 GMT -5
I'm wondering if lemons are the new Crystal. (Referring to Rider's last post.) [glow=red,2,300]Since Crystal often annoys me, I say yes. XDDD Kidding. <3 [/glow] |
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Post by Fraze on Mar 4, 2008 22:49:07 GMT -5
This isn't entirely relevant, but I would like to take this moment to give a little explanation of mathematical terminology.
Exponential functions are of the form y=kcx, where y is the dependent variable, x is the independent variable, and c and k are constants, and k is positive. Usually, k=e, where e is an irrational number (like pi) that is approximately equal to 2.718. If c is positive, the function is called an exponential growth curve. It looks somewhat like a J, approaching the x-axis as x gets very large in the negative direction, and approaching infinity as x gets very large in the positive direction. If c is negative, the function is called an exponential decay curve, and is a mirror image of the exponential growth curve.
Exponential functions are used quite often to model population growth, heat transfer between a hot and a cold object, and other situations when the rate of change of some quantity depends on the quantity itself. (For example: A colony of 2 bacteria will grow much more slowly than a colony of 100 bacteria, simply because there are more bacteria dividing in the latter colony.)
A few times in the past day or so, I've seen a couple different people use the term "exponential growth" when it did not strictly apply.
An exponential growth function will continue to increase indefinitely--clearly, this cannot happen for most circumstances. A colony of bacteria will reach a point where there are not enough resources to allow it to keep growing, and the size of the colony will level off. This kind of curve is called a logistic curve, and looks somewhat like: ___/------. It is sometimes called an S-curve.
Inverse functions are of the form y=k/x, where y is the dependent variable, x is the independent variable, and k is a constant that may either be positive or negative. As someone who has had at least Algebra 2 can probably see, as x gets smaller, y gets larger; as x gets larger, y gets smaller. As one of the variables approaches zero, the other approaches infinity. Moreover, multiply both sides by x: this gets you xy=k. This means that the product of the values of the two variables is a constant at any given point along the line. Because of this, an inverse function might be a better model of the Ninja Rule than an exponential decay function: an inverse function states that for any group of ninjas, regardless of its size, the total power of the group always remains constant.
*Shifty eyes*
*Goes back to Physics homework*
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Post by Ikkin on Mar 4, 2008 23:57:57 GMT -5
This isn't entirely relevant, but I would like to take this moment to give a little explanation of mathematical terminology. Exponential functions are of the form y=k cx, where y is the dependent variable, x is the independent variable, and c and k are constants, and k is positive. Usually, k=e, where e is an irrational number (like pi) that is approximately equal to 2.718. If c is positive, the function is called an exponential growth curve. It looks somewhat like a J, approaching the x-axis as x gets very large in the negative direction, and approaching infinity as x gets very large in the positive direction. If c is negative, the function is called an exponential decay curve, and is a mirror image of the exponential growth curve. Exponential functions are used quite often to model population growth, heat transfer between a hot and a cold object, and other situations when the rate of change of some quantity depends on the quantity itself. (For example: A colony of 2 bacteria will grow much more slowly than a colony of 100 bacteria, simply because there are more bacteria dividing in the latter colony.) A few times in the past day or so, I've seen a couple different people use the term "exponential growth" when it did not strictly apply. An exponential growth function will continue to increase indefinitely--clearly, this cannot happen for most circumstances. A colony of bacteria will reach a point where there are not enough resources to allow it to keep growing, and the size of the colony will level off. This kind of curve is called a logistic curve, and looks somewhat like: ___/ ------. It is sometimes called an S-curve. Inverse functions are of the form y=k/x, where y is the dependent variable, x is the independent variable, and k is a constant that may either be positive or negative. As someone who has had at least Algebra 2 can probably see, as x gets smaller, y gets larger; as x gets larger, y gets smaller. As one of the variables approaches zero, the other approaches infinity. Moreover, multiply both sides by x: this gets you xy=k. This means that the product of the values of the two variables is a constant at any given point along the line. Because of this, an inverse function might be a better model of the Ninja Rule than an exponential decay function: an inverse function states that for any group of ninjas, regardless of its size, the total power of the group always remains constant. *Shifty eyes* *Goes back to Physics homework* ...I was exaggerating. XDDD Besides, the inverse function doesn't exactly work, either, since one ninja is usually more of a threat than a group of them. >_>; |
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Post by Amneiger on Mar 5, 2008 0:04:26 GMT -5
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Post by Omni on Mar 5, 2008 0:07:19 GMT -5
"You have proven exactly what I wanted you to prove. In the end, it does not matter where your allegiance lies. In the end, it does not matter what you believe to be good and just. Deep down inside, you are nothing more than a cold-blooded killer."But it did matter, she thought. Whether one killed for one's own purposes, without provocation, or whether one killed out of self-preservation or the defense of others or to protect one's home... that mattered. *blaster'd* Well it's not my fault that I literally have photographic memory. o_x |
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Post by Bacon on Mar 5, 2008 0:48:55 GMT -5
Hey, Ikkin, don't nessecarily think of the guns as real life weapons as much as video game weapons. Anybody that's played a Tom Clancy game knows that it takes at least three bullet wounds to actually kill you. More than that these aren't even bullet-launching weapons, they're laser-ish-launching weapons, and in the video game world those tend to do even less damage (except for headshots). With this mentallity, you don't necessarily need to dodge every gunshot.
And, as always, the stormtrooper effect is, no pun intended, in effect. These guys, despite their super-intense-US-Marines-ain't-got-nothin'-on-us training, invariably have poorly designed helmets that decrease aim, decrease peripheral awareness, and help running invisible people sneak by, much less look more ridiculous than intimidating. This poor quality(besides the design) could be because the goggles are a few shades darker because the manufacter decided it'd be cheaper without contacting us first, or it could be that the poorly ventillated things tend to fog up, or maybe the storm outside is messing with whatever electronic HUD is superimposed on their vision. Whatever the cause, these guys are not by any means the best shots at the moment.
EDIT: I added my three stooges marine NPCs to my persona, since they are acting a little more like secondary characters. I also used Ikkin's advice to make them as un-NPC as I could think to. Oh, and I named the last one. Dari Vaner, a half-werewolf wolf anthro.
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Post by Kengplant on Mar 5, 2008 1:29:24 GMT -5
I'm sorry Ikkin, this is not an attack, just an ironic observation; you're a mage... you can fly without aid! You can summon a wind storm to stop arrows and quite likely bullets. You have a fire turkey that could incinerate all of the NTWF if he really felt like it, then bring it all back to life during the commercial break. (the buildings however would be beyond repair) And a few laser pistols are over powered? This just strikes me as funny.
Anyways, I'm personally against the extreme hierarchy system that declares that all random troops may be 1-2 shoted Austin Powers style (shoot 3 times, kill 6 people when your gun is a hand and the 'shot' is you saying bang). They should at least be given a chance. Maybe even a few get injured rather than flat out killed, or near mortally wounded. (see the poor guy being tended to by medical personnel in SF HQ)
edit:
We're not related. Honestly.
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Post by Ikkin on Mar 5, 2008 2:45:17 GMT -5
I'm sorry Ikkin, this is not an attack, just an ironic observation; you're a mage... you can fly without aid! You can summon a wind storm to stop arrows and quite likely bullets. You have a fire turkey that could incinerate all of the NTWF if he really felt like it, then bring it all back to life during the commercial break. (the buildings however would be beyond repair) And a few laser pistols are over powered? This just strikes me as funny. Anyways, I'm personally against the extreme hierarchy system that declares that all random troops may be 1-2 shoted Austin Powers style (shoot 3 times, kill 6 people when your gun is a hand and the 'shot' is you saying bang). They should at least be given a chance. Maybe even a few get injured rather than flat out killed, or near mortally wounded. (see the poor guy being tended to by medical personnel in SF HQ) ...okay, maybe I overreacted about the power thing. xD (Though there is a reason Sev never gets used like that) What the real issue with guns is, they're rather monotonous. There's only one thing you can do with them - shoot - and usually only one or two options to avoid them. And avoiding an attack in the same way over and over feels wrong, and a bit godmodish, even if that's the only real option. You don't really have to do that with personae or secondary characters, 'cause they tend not to do the same things repeatedly. ...you know what? I figured out how to resolve the NPC problem. If you want your marines to be a threat, give them more powers, so they'd have options like a persona character would have. And use that to differentiate them, like what Bacon is doing. Though, really, since they need to be controlled by someone from Spacefleet... they'd be pretty close to secondary characters that way. XD Good luck keeping up with them, I say. |
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Post by Huntress on Mar 5, 2008 8:23:58 GMT -5
"I feel pretty, oh so pretty I feel pretty and witty and gaaaay! And I pity any giiirl who isn't meee todaaaaaay!" ... *dies* Fun fact: that song always reminds me of this comic by Oddhatter, mainly because I haven't otherwise heard the song >> So now my brain has this real fixed mental image of space-Fraze-Legolas. With a pointy witch's hat, due to the barrel x3 Why must I always suffer from a serious lack of scanner whenever I get such ideas? e.e |
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Post by Ikkin on Mar 5, 2008 9:30:25 GMT -5
...Kat, how are you in the throne room? I thought you'd gotten stuck outside fighting Cyborg and them, and then stopped to get your leg bandaged before going inside? *really wants the spatial anomaly to go away, because it's confusing her  * |
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