Beseech thy lord

[Deepfreeze32]

Planescape: Torment is one of my favorite D&D games, but it's not even that good of a D&D game. It is, however, a fantastic story.

Neverwinter Nights is pretty good too (Although good luck getting it to work 100% properly...I can't get cutscenes to work). The second one has Mask of the Betrayer, which is a really good story too.

I really want to see a D&D game with lots of flexibility, or where you are the DM and have to deal with keeping computer players in line and keeping them happy with encounters and stuff.


Acquisitions Incorporated? (Don't feel obligated to watch the whole thing. It's great, but long)

[ArchAngel]

Yeah, I heard it had one of the all time best RPG stories.

Haha, I never heard of Acquisitions Inc, but I like the PA guys and I'm totally digging this!

[Orodrist]

What would you say your go to beer is?

Like, not a fancy hoppy, rich beer, but more an, "I just mowed the lawn and I need something cold and alcoholic" beer.

Deep is right. I'm always up for a (Double/Triple) IPA. Something that kicks you in the back of the throat and keeps kicking. Frankly, they do the job in alcohol content better than the other beers, too. You have to get full before you even feel a buzz.
But sounds like you are looking for something different, so, specifically, in the case of the need for a quick guzzling quench, hmm. I tempted to say point at a Belgian, say, one with a 9% per volume, but they often aren't a chugger. Same with a lot of German brews. I'm not saying they're bad, because they are demonstrably not, but I find them a bit boring. Yes, Mercedes is nice, but it's not as fun as a blown out muscle car. Unless it's the AMG SL65 Black edition.
Anyhow, so maybe a shandy, like a Leinenkugel, for those post-yard work thirsts? I like lemonade and I like beer, and they are pretty refreshing on a summer day.
I will, also, at times, drink some of the cheap, mass produced beer. Not everybody's into craft brews, I'm not going to be rude at family get-together or what not. There really is no preference, they all are pretty close to water. Maybe Coors light?

haha I wasn't so much asking for a suggestion as I was curious if you stick to the pro level stuff all the time. My fishing buddies always give me a hard time over the beer I bring. I've managed to at least get most people to the point where they can handle say, a hefe, without whining about how I should've just bought Bud. Granted, at 7am when its rainy and I've worked all week, I'll admit to wishing for an easier beer on occasion.

Any Abbey beer recommendations? I've been meaning to try the style, so in my rush this morning I grabbed a six of Leffe Blonde with no prior research. The last three of which have been relegated to my "culinary use only" corner. Don't know that is was necessarily bad, but I've been sticking to mostly nonfiltered brews, and it seemed entirely too processed for my tastes. And foamy. Eesh.

[ArchAngel]

I didn't meant to give suggestions, you just got me on a beer roll.

Yeah, unless I'm boiling brats or ribs, you'd be hard pressed to find me spending money on mass market beers.
Even for Hefes, it's either a Widmer Hefe for the wife, or something my friends can drink. I kind of relegate them as "chick beers."
Hard for me to recommend an Abbey style. I've had better lucks with Quads (I'd put as a dessert beer. Thick and raiseny) and Tripels.
Yeah, Leffe is a Budweiser owned belgian brewery. And yeah, I found it pretty boring. Processed seems like a good way of putting it.

[Orodrist]

It's all good man, haha.

Rum at all?

My cousin turned me onto some small batch stuff made were he used to live here in FL. I'm not really a spiced rum guy but it was on sale so I grabbed some this morning. It might not have the intricacy of a good scotch, but it's far superior to the typical captain morgan dreck. Nice for floating down the river with, that's for sure.


EDIT: Also speaking of scotch, have you tried the Glenlivet 18? And, if you have, is it a ~$60 improvement over the 12? Debating a bottle next paycheck, it would cut into my beer budget pretty deeply but I miss good scotch. Life's too short to drink cheap booze.

[ArchAngel]

I have. I actually have a bottle of the 12, 15, and 18. Costco had a Glenlivet collectors pack of all 3 in a nice wood and glass case for $110, so that was a great buy.

The 18 year is really nice. Has a smoother note than the 12, and the honey tones comes out more. With the smoother, more matured flavor, you can pull out more complexities, too. Definitely worth trying, especially if you like their 12 year.

If you haven't tried, pick up a Laphroaig. The 18 year is really something else. (haven't tried their younger ones). Really peaty and smokey. Total Islay Scotch. Tastes like you a pipe and scotch. That's probably my next scotch purchase.

As for rum, I've usually just been using them for mixers. Have some Sailor Jerrys and have this bottle of Voodoo or something rum I have yet to try. Probably haven't done the quality stuff, but I'm always up for suggestions.
And, well, I'm always available for a shot of 151 or Stroh.

[Deepfreeze32]

So kind of a (Deliberately) vague question, but what do you think of the Predator system?

[ArchAngel]

Like, the Predator drones?

A first thought is that it's cool that we can get our servicemen and women out of harms way and conduct war remotely. But, then, I'm not really sure what this means for the future of war.
People used to think ramping up the costs and casualty of war would serve to mitigate it. The inventor of the machine gun thought he ended war, but lo' and behold, the 2 largest wars the world has ever seen. What happens when we reduce the cost?

[Deepfreeze32]

That's pretty much how I feel as well.

I feel like drones have essentially "gameified" war. To most of these pilots, they're never going to see their buddies get shot down and killed. And while that is not a bad thing, when you reduce the impact that war has, you feel less of the emotional toll war takes.

I don't want to live in a world of constant conflict. Which is why I feel like making war easier than ever is continually stepping backwards for humanity.

/soapbox


On a lighter note, game idea pitch I want your thoughts on:

Concept: robot-building and controlling in space. You're part of a rescue and recovery ship who is sent to investigate space accidents and recover the crew and ship if possible. Since there is no way to tell what the conditions on the ship will be, robotic probes are sent instead. You configure your probes with various options, and send them scouting throughout the ship and repairing things. You can get a primitive video feed, or a textual feedback from the probe. You send commands to it from a Remote Control Unit, or RCU. The RCU contains the following information: A deck-by-deck layout of the ship you investigate with a blip representing each probe, a fleet-wide encyclopedia, and a list of all probes and their status. Each probe has a motion tracker, which acts a miniature radar on the layout, and can track moving objects such as ship personnel or other, more sinister things. The encyclopedia gives information about each ship, as well as the last few log entries before contact was lost, or you arrived. At the conclusion of a mission, you must make several determinations about the ship: If it can be salvaged (Based on existing damage and your performance); if the crew is alive, dead or missing; and the nature of the accident.

What makes it unique: You open the "game" as you would any other game. You are presented with what appears to be a secure log-in prompt in a window, just like a VPN connection service. After logging in (Think of it like profile management), you see the RCU interface itself. No game window, it runs just like an application. All feeds come into various panels of the RCU, and all inputs are controlled here. Your encyclopedia is accessible via buttons in the interface, and works like a wiki. Your orders come in through a separate window, which will steal focus from the RCU (Because of course it would in the real world).


Still kind of a rough concept right now, but thoughts?

[Orodrist]

I have. I actually have a bottle of the 12, 15, and 18. Costco had a Glenlivet collectors pack of all 3 in a nice wood and glass case for $110, so that was a great buy.

First off, if those were all 750ml's, I officially hate you. There's an absurdly limited supply of liquor stores in the area, the 18 alone is $120

And yeah, I don't know if I ever told you but someone once poured me a tiny sip of the Laphroaig 27. At those prices I wouldn't pour someone more than a tiny sip either. I didn't even really drink at the time, but even I knew I had just tasted Valhalla in liquid form.

As far as rums, like I mentioned to Deep in the other thread, Siesta Key's some seriously legit spiced rum. I won't even drink most other rums neat, but this is of a quality and flavor profile that would almost make it sacrilege to mix.

Back to scotchs, have you tried the Glenlivet Nadurra 16? I'm debating that as well, but at cask strength I imagine it's a bit on the harsher side.

[ArchAngel]

Haha, they were. 3 legitimate handles.

I'll have to keep an eye out of Siesta Key.

Haven't tried Glenlivet Nadurra, just the 12, 15, and 18. I heard their "specials" weren't as good, but, can't really say until I tried it for myself.
I don't pay much attention to cask strength, as I cut my scotches with a little water after taking a sip. Some just might need a little more loving from some water to open it up, but I'm going to try do it on a taste basis, lest I accidently use too much water and water it down.
The control of water is important, and why I won't use ice on any scotch I actually want to enjoy. Whiskey stones and a little water, yes, but not ice. Besides, it chills it too much and numbs out the flavor.

[Deepfreeze32]

No answer for me?

[ArchAngel]

Whoops! I missed it. I'll get write on it, boss!

[ArchAngel]

And while that is not a bad thing, when you reduce the impact that war has, you feel less of the emotional toll war takes.

I will say, while the emotional toll is less, drone operators have been suffering from PTSD, whether it's from watching soldiers get attacked or having to fire a missile into a village.

There's a part of me that thinks this will "clean" up war. For us, as in the U.S., carrying out operations around the world will probably become easier, but an all out war, like WWI/WWII, war will always end with one guy having a knife in another. No country will stop at drone warfare, and it will escalate back into man power if there is push back.
Maybe it's just a matter of cycles. Maybe the generations who have forgotten the Napoleonic wars are the ones who started the World Wars, and the generations that forget the World Wars will start the next one.

But, back to the lighter note.
Interesting game concept. You, of course, piqued my interest with robot building and space.
So, it's sounding more a bit like those hacking games, where you aren't necessarily playing as someone, but as if you are the guy who does search and rescue for spaceships, where your application is actually the interface a search and rescue guy would use? A bit like Papers, Please, but with the whole application being the RCU? Am I following?

That's pretty cool! There's a lot of room for immersive play with that. Maybe even a lot to play around with some emotional impact. Audio feedback from survivors, maybe in a room where oxygen levels are falling, or a brave captain who will detonate the bridge in order that his crew can be safely evacuated, or something. Maybe have to choose to make some hard decisions, between who the save.
Maybe even deal with PTSD issues that search and rescue guys deal with.
Seems like there is a lot of opportunity for that level of immersion.

I might be making too many assumptions on what you'd want to do with it. What sort of aesthetics do you want to build with this game?

[Deepfreeze32]

Interesting game concept. You, of course, piqued my interest with robot building and space.
So, it's sounding more a bit like those hacking games, where you aren't necessarily playing as someone, but as if you are the guy who does search and rescue for spaceships, where your application is actually the interface a search and rescue guy would use? A bit like Papers, Please, but with the whole application being the RCU? Am I following?

Yep! That's exactly what I had in mind!

That's pretty cool! There's a lot of room for immersive play with that. Maybe even a lot to play around with some emotional impact. Audio feedback from survivors, maybe in a room where oxygen levels are falling, or a brave captain who will detonate the bridge in order that his crew can be safely evacuated, or something. Maybe have to choose to make some hard decisions, between who the save.
Maybe even deal with PTSD issues that search and rescue guys deal with.
Seems like there is a lot of opportunity for that level of immersion.

I might be making too many assumptions on what you'd want to do with it. What sort of aesthetics do you want to build with this game?

That's actually not a bad idea.

I was also thinking of adding a little bit of horror to the game as well. The whole "Ghost ship" mentality. For instance, you come across a ship where all the people on board have been killed by a single crewman who couldn't handle the stress of being away from home and finally snapped. Now he's hunting your drones and jumping them (Adding some jumpscare moments, a la Five Nights at Freddy's), making threats to you, and you have to somehow subdue him before you can tow the ship again.

That's a really good question, as far as aesthetics are concerned. I was thinking of starting out with a very sterile UI, to mimic the barebones nature of Government and Military-funded software. Then I could decide if I want to skin it in a more spacey way, with sleek controls and all that.

I dunno, I need to sit down and hammer out a design document or two for this. lol.



Another pitch I had recently made to Drew, maybe you'll like it too.


It's your typical Fantasy RPG. Save the world and all that. But there's a problem: You are the incarnation of the angel of death. Wherever you go, death follows. Whenever you rest, people are found dead the next morning in a brutally murdered fashion.

There is a way to delay it, according to a sage: Sacrifice someone in a ritualistic fashion, and death will be delayed for one day. As many as you sacrifice, you delay that many days.

Naturally, there are many ways to deal with this: Don't care, and let death follow you; perform the sacrifices, as much as they drain your soul (And can negatively affect your skills); or isolate yourself from all of humanity. Other options could potentially arise too.


This is one of the darker ideas I have, and I don't think it will be that popular. I mean, who wants to play a game that depressing? Either way, it would be designed to deliberately provoke emotion from the player.


Thoughts on that one? I've reduced the concept a bit from my original vision for time and clarity, but that's kind of the idea I have right now.