Dervish

The Elder Scrolls: Vengeance of the Deep

We're like a good vintage wine, you know what you're getting but it's too good to pass up. ;D What made you decide to drop by, anyways? I always like feedback so I can do moar good stuff.

Oh, by the way ladies and gentlemanatees, it's Fallout's (Dusk's) birthday! Make sure you flog him with overwhelming shows of uncomfortable PDA and heavy petting.

I mean, what?

The Elder Scrolls: Vengeance of the Deep

Shon, that totally exceeded my expectations and was a fantastic read! I love the character and am more than happy to offer you a place in our motley band of goofballs! I'll let Soul add any additional comments or suggestions, but I think it's safe to say you can begin work on a post. If you need help or ideas, ask away!

That one idea that you really like but no one seems interested in

I think something that might be a bit of a turn off for people is the way it's presented as overpowered/god modding characters. God-RPs and super human RPs tend to do very well on this site, but one thing people are almost all universally afraid of is people godmodding or making an overpowered Mary Sue-type character where the story is secondary to being a badass. It's simple word use, but the way it's worded can do a lot to change someone's conceptions about a game.

While I certainly understand you're going for something where people have god-like abilities, it would be a good idea to set some sort of limits to it or general guidelines to keep people in check and on a good path for character creation. When you literally have every choice in the world, it's actually really hard to make up your mind about things, and a lot of people don't want to have to worry about another character in the game that's so out of balance, it isn't fair. There's a lot of powers that somebody could potentially pick that literally have no counter and is quite unstoppable. Since there's probably going to be PvP in a game with a lot of NPC fights, you definitely need to put some kind of cap on what people can and can't do, especially if you want fights against enemies to actually have an impact/ be a challenge.

Another thing is you should really play up the story aspects. Remember, people are generally here to play a character, not a video game. Assigning stats to character sheets is something I rarely see work out well, and since it's not a table-top game, maybe you should disregard that? Looking at your power table,

"1 - Heavyweight Boxer
2 - Super Heavyweight Boxer
3 - Neo From the Matrix
4 - Goku mid DragonBall Z
5 - Can Lift 2 trucks
6 - Can lift a medium house
7 - Can lift a large house
8 - Can Punch a hole through a mountain
9 - Can Punch a meatore sized crator into the ground
10 - Your punches are basically a nuke "

That is a very uneven and unbalanced list, not even including the fact that Goku is pretty much already god-like in power, and I'm like 90% sure that he's capable of doing everything except for Nuke-fist, which I'm going to say is probably a terrible idea. Just to give you an idea, you can actually load a "medium sized" house (let's say a 2 story bungalow) onto a large flatbed truck and move it. Mountains are vast, massive and incredibly dense and heavy landmasses that are formed from incredibly powerful natural forces with so much force that literally billions of tonnes of rock are forced up from the crust of the Earth from two colliding tectonic plates into towering peaks that endure largely unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. Going from "moving a house" to "destroying something that weighs millions of times more than a house" is quite an exponential leap, wouldn't you say? And then it goes to pretty much city destroying force, which is where things get ridiculous. How is anything supposed to resist that? When one punch can literally kill hundreds of thousands of people, you're not really creating a balanced game where people are encouraged to do much else than deal in brute force. There's also nothing to aspire to; if a character's already starting off as a force of nature that is more devastating than a natural disaster, what's their progression? What's a character supposed to do, how are they supposed to develop and grow?

Looking at the speed scale, it also kind of comes across as a bit "sloppy", for a lack of better term. When you are using Sonic the Hedgehog as a reference 3 times as an unmeasurable unit and isn't really going to make people take it seriously, it doesn't give people an accurate gauge of how fast that speed is supposed to be. Also, the speed of sound really isn't that fast, a jet fighter breaks it, and several jets go several times the speed of sound. When you're comparing that proportionally to strength, there's no reason to pick speed as an asset over strength, because someone who can break the sound barrier literally can't escape the force of impact of someone who's punching holes in the Earth the size of asteroid craters.

Things with the story don't really add up; who are the Arisen and if they're a part of the normal world, why are they suddenly appearing now? How has civilization even sprung up when at any point, any progress could have been stopped dead by a single demi-god? Why were they in hiding to begin with? Who are these Children of Light, where did they come from? Why are they fighting the Arisen? How did they know who was Arisen or not? If you want to draw people into the story, you really need to flesh out the world you're trying to establish and give people a reason to care about it. Right now, this kind of reads like an Arena-style game that's focused primarily on fighting, since that's the area you've given the most thought/ work into. Most people in the Casual section are looking for story over action. Remember, you're trying to sell people a story they want to get invested in. They need something to go off of and some kind of direction and guarantee that it'll survive more than a few weeks. In a sense, you're competing for people's attention in a sea of literally dozens of other games. What's the draw and why should people chose to invest time and effort into your game over somebody else's? Remember, just because you're passionate about an idea doesn't necessarily mean other people share your enthusiasm. You need something to hook them into it and convince them that it's worth taking a chance on. Take the time to develop the game's setting and information and convey it into something people can grasp and digest. Don't make it complicated, but make it look like that you know what you're doing, otherwise it might appear like you didn't really make it past the basic concept stage. That doesn't bode well for a game's life expectancy.

Also, the write up at the top kind of does a good idea conveying what you're going for in the game, but it really comes across as a pointless act of destruction without motivation and comes across as an excuse to show us how badass that kid is supposed to be. If he's been powerful his whole life, why would he find getting hit by trucks and destroying them so amusing? Why did he do that, to draw attention? You can really give some narrative weight to the scene and use it as a "hook". How is this any different than another super power game? Maybe give the kid some kind of personality and reasoning for his action, like he was hoping to accomplish drawing somebody out or trying to escalate things with the Arisen to start the war that the Children of the Light are apparently craving. Basically, give the scene a point and a reason for people to be drawn into the narrative.

Hope this all helps!

Mass Effect: Nova

Voltaire said
O_o!I'm 22 and I can't even imagine what it would be like to have kids right now. You are a manly man.

He has very prestigious loins.

Mass Effect: Nova

Tanya looked up from her work to see Mark standing across the table, holding one of the old omni-tools like it was some kind of alien relic beyond comprehension. "It's like my old boss used to say, 'If it's not blowing up in your face, you aren't learning.'" she replied dryly, writing into a notepad, Serrice Council model phase emitter NOT compatible with Kassa Fabrication frames!!! "There's a reason there's a big ass disclaimer about not altering or tampering with omni-tools, because shit like that happens. Rule of thumb; just because it fits doesn't mean it works. In this case, the connectors are reversed between two of the different models and it overloaded it, kind of like if you put a battery in backwards." she said, turning down the music to levels it was easier to converse with, the holographic dial on the stereo control calibrated to be a perfect fit for her hand. "You managed to endure and pass my first line of defense. Time to retreat to the trenches." she said, opening up another omni-tool casing and laying out the parts across the rubber surface on the work bench.

"You're quick to jump to assumptions about my history, but consider it your lucky day I'm actually in a good mood today and I've been trying to follow my list of resolutions a bit more closely this year." Tanya said to Mark, glancing up and taking note of the old Mattock he must have discovered that was never unpacked or stored properly. She returned to sorting components from various other omni-tools, parts so small and fragile they looked like watch components. "63rd Expeditionary Division, attached to the 6th Fleet. Not to be confused with the 63rd Scout Flotilla. Instead of being a colony garrison, our regiments were stationed primarily ship side as a reactionary force. Plenty of planet-side deployments and training exercises, some combat deployments that didn't amount to anything, one that did. Not something I care to talk about. If you pan out, get on my good side, and probably get an irresponsible amount of liquor into me, then maybe. Let's just say I've seen shit that nobody ever should and leave it at that." she said, closing up her latest creation and powering it up.

The omni-tool activated, and to Tanya's credit, didn't immediately explode in her face. However, it was much dimmer and pulsing like a fluorescent light bulb on its last legs. Deactivating it, she disassembled the omni-tool with deft, practiced hands that worked with Keeper-like coordination and efficiency. She looked up at the omni-tool in Mark's hand and a moment of revelation hit her. "Pass that here." she said with a hint of excitement, taking it and quickly tearing into it.

"Anyways, don't take offense to my lack of transparency. Most people on the team know next to nothing about my past with a few notable exceptions, and it's kind of an unspoken rule that we don't go digging into each other's closets, so to speak. If you want to stick with Nova, you need to understand that it's a fresh start for pretty much everyone. You don't end up here unless you're trying to discard some baggage that's been haunting you for a while for the most part. Why else take a chance on a small team of misfits instead of joining an established outfit? I wouldn't have it any other way." she said, reassembling the omni-tool with the new components, powering it up. Almost immediately, it materialized with a solid, stable glow. Tanya quickly ran through it's functions, grinning at her handiwork. "I'll credit you with the assist for this one. The parts I plucked out of that Nexus tool have very little resistance from the power source to individual components, so the Ohms rating is optimal. This piece of Frankenstein shit will work for now, until I can buy a new one, but at least it'll be mission worthy. Anyways," she turned her attention to Mark. "You strike me as a fellow marine. What the fuck happened there?" she asked. "You claim a lot of combat experience, and yet we find you shitfaced at a bar instead of doing your job guarding some asshole. Times are rough?"

Mass Effect: Nova

Oh god, I hope that people didn't read/ watch that scene and say "Oh, neat!" that would be fucking horrible. XD

Then again, knowing the internet...

But yeah, I totally get where you're coming from, and I'll freely admit that some of my memory is hazy because I've only read the books through once and that was last year, and given how Titan-sized each book is, there's lots that's slipped between the cracks. I think we're mostly in agreement about how things are, just saying it all a bit differently and maybe having slightly differing takes on one scene out of several really fucked up scenes in the series, so it's kind of a minor point. Lots of stuff's different between the source and adaptation. Another big one that I'm surprised more people didn't get worked up over was Khal Drogo's relationship with Dany when they were first married.

Out of everything, I'm most annoyed about them changing Asha Greyjoy's name because they were worried that the show audience would be too retarded to tell the difference between when people were talking about Asha and Osha, considering that they never met in the series and are never talked about at the same time, ever. Then again, people bitch and complain about how hard it is being able to tell the difference between some of the characters, like Lord Commander Mormont, Davos Seaworth, Barristen Selmy, and Rodrick Cassel, or Stannis Baratheon and Roose Bolton. Some people need friggin' training wheels and colouring books. >_>

Mass Effect: Nova

Grif of Hearts said
*makes angry moth noises*

Mass Effect: Nova

I don't think it's a case of people trying to pretend he's a good guy, for much of the stuff you said. He's still a largely immoral, egocentric sister-banging asshole who's done pretty much one redeeming thing in his entire life that he can't even talk about. I think the main issue people have is what I kind of outlined, which is it was just so damn jarring to how him and Cersei are portrayed in the books. Cersei to Jaime is everything and I can't really picture him deliberately being sexually violent towards her, at least not to THAT degree, you know? Just because he's guilty of a list of immoral things longer than my arm doesn't mean it's in his nature to do absolutely everything abhorrent, you know? It's kind of like if suddenly, Sandor Clegane turned around and raped Sansa or Arya. He's a cold blooded killer and a violent, absolutely unlikeable man (well, one of my favorite characters, but if we're speaking from an in-series perspective), but I can't imagine him ever doing anything like that, especially since his brother is the reigning champion of wartime atrocities. Or if Jon Snow turned around and started bullying Sam Tarly to get the approval of his fellow Brothers.

It's not that people are really offended by the act itself, because you kind of have to be used to it/ accept it as a part of the narrative to stick with it this far, it's just that how the scene in question was executed was a huge departure from the book and what people feel is Jaime's character. If they played it out more like the book, I don't think people would nearly mind as much. Keep in mind that a big part of Jaime and Cersei's narrative moving forward is how it becomes more and more clear that Cersei never loved Jaime, at least not to the extent he loved her, and was more or less using him, and him starting to discover that fact and distance himself from her, which becomes quite pivotal later on. He's proven to be entirely devoted to Cersei, and there's been nobody else, something he's pointed out on a few occasions. Just how that scene was executed just felt plain wrong and at odds with the book and blah blah blah, we're going around in circles. :P

TL;DR Jaime's a terrible human being, but how that scene played out really didn't seem to reflect the character properly, especially compared to how it played out in the source material. He's capable of a great many crimes he needs to be held accountable for, but what was widely interpreted as a passionate act between two receptive parties who loved each other since birth should have never been portrayed as a cold, violent rape for reasons we've beat to death kind of like what happens later on in this season.

So...

Ace of Spades said
The entire world seem like a boring and hopeless place and I can't find a job.Need to start paying back my student loans sometime soon.

Consider this your how to guide for a better life.

You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?

Larfleeze said
What about Cicadas?

They don't come out of the earth to swallow cities, so no.