SystemsReady

I was a very confident 17-year-old about to graduate high school and enter college to study computer programming, so I wanted a cool "hacker"-like name. .....and no, I didn't see Hackers till like four years later.

It wasn't even that for me, it was waiting for everyone else to do their thing. For me it was just a couple of rolls and telling the DM what happened, and then waiting for the two or three other people to do the same. My character had already cast Mirror Image and used a Magic Missile on an enemy in the same time that it took another player to figure out the logistics of their grapple mechanics! I dunno, the character customization in games like the Elder Scrolls titles are pretty infamous for being time-consuming and involved.

I played AD&D in college (the same version that my mom played when she was my age - and I even used her dice!)...until the DM literally threw a rulebook at me one day when I needed to get spells written down for my new bard.

You're missing Persona II: Innocent Sin, which is the first part of the Persona II duology. :3 Persona 1 also had the "Revelations" title appended to it in the US.

An RPG, I think, can be determined by looking at it and then looking at a game of Dungeons & Dragons and seeing how similar they are. Persona 3 - main character whose appearance is set but can change roles, party members who level up and gain new skills in the process, delve into dungeons and fight monsters, very story-based. Game's timeline is pretty linear but you have flexibility in equipment and spells. An RPG. Skyrim - Character whose skills and stats level up and fit into classical RPG classes (fighter, mage, rogue), delve into dungeons, fight monsters, has side-quests and "main quests" a la what a D&D GM would write the world for. Definitely an RPG. Zelda - Main character whose appearance and class is set, who delves into dungeons, fight monsters, only proceeds through getting set equipment and proceeding through things in a set order, very very puzzle-based, only ammo and health is regained in killing enemies. Feels like the framework of a D&D game without any of the meat that makes it D&D. Not an RPG. Final Fantasy I - Literally an automated AD&D campaign, complete with stealin--er, borrowing a ton of monsters from the D&D monster manual. Very RPG.

Not just rig the model, animate it, bind sounds to it, etc.

They also added the Spring Ball, and IIRC they use the PAL version of the plot, too :/ Which renders Metroid Prime's entire first form and associated scans a gigantic plothole. Apparently the Boost Guardian was indeed nerfed. From a designer standpoint, a boss that not even the testers could beat without debug mode is dumb, but from a pride standpoint...dammit, I've literally beat that boss multiple times on Normal and Hard mode! I'd mind less the changes if they also put up the original games, untouched, glitches and controls intact. As is, it feels like we're getting an alternate interpretation of two really groundbreaking titles.

What!? NO! D: Rest in peace...

I find the Wii download games kind of redundant in my case (I keep everything), but I can definitely see how it'd be useful for those late in the game (no pun intended). $10 for the Metroid Prime Trilogy is a steal though. Especially since physical copies of the game, as well as the original GCN versions, are damn impossible to find. For the sake of archival purposes, I'd hope that maybe they'd release the original versions of the games too...especially since apparently Prime 2's difficulty is nerfed in Trilogy.

I get sad every December/January, mainly because Winter Break means going back home to my family and dealing with a loud & messy house, being yelled at for talking wrong, and just overall stress and gloom. But the high temps being in the single digits does not help.

Throwing in votes for: Medli Spyro Eevee

Unfortunately...it's Australia. I've heard all sorts of outlandish tales of games being banned or censored in that country over the years. It's kinda weird that people are acting like this is a NEW thing when I heard Yahtzee complaining about it back when I was in high school (so...six years ago).

That baffles the ever-loving hell out of me, to be honest. JRPGs are so combat-heavy that I find it inconceivable that the combat isn't even close to done until really late in the cycle.

Aaaaand now Jack-freaking-Thompson of all people is trending all over Twitter because he showed up on the Sarkeesian Effect or something. So uh...yay Gamergate? Bringing an old, literal (DISBARRED) censor out of retirement and supporting him? Like, I grew up reading Electronic Gaming Monthly and I HATED this guy. And now he's BACK? And people are like "yes, we agree with this disbarred lawyer". What. I take the impression that you're pro-GG. Let me tell you this: Gamergate has made me afraid of making games. I'm literally scared of writing in any kind of professional context about gaming, or literally making a game, even under this pseudonym, for fear of some mouthbreather deciding that "disagreement == dox" and ruining my life.

From what I had HEARD, it was a terrible glitchfest. From what I had WATCHED, it just seemed bland, repetitive, and also glitches. Apparently the show's good though, so we have...that?

So stoked they're using more of that amazing design. Midna-as-imp shows up everywhere and it just doesn't give true!Midna justice. Like...wow. From an aesthetic standpoint she's one of the most gorgeous and beautifully-designed characters in the series.

?????? Care to name any? FFX-2 is the only one that comes to mind. FFXIII maybe, but I haven't played it so I have no idea. Like...seven Shin Megami Tensei games came out since I bought FES in 2008, and the only one to have a female lead was P3P, which isn't even canon. FFIV revolves around Cecil and his redemption... FFX is about Yuna...AND Tidus, complete with all his daddy issues. He's very obviously THE player character. Our perspective character. The only JRPG series I've played that has consistently had female characters up-and-center was...Pokemon. Because you could actually choose your gender and the majority of the Champions in the last decade have been female.

For me, my "terror spot" is blowing up the rock outside of Romani Ranch with a Powder Keg. I've had it freeze on me so many times during that cutscene But not only that, audio glitches galore, terrible framerate...I mean, I love the game, but that port has problems.

I'm really happy about this, because I actually have the GCN port of the game from the Zelda Collector's Edition disk and it is sooooo botched.

Calculus...is the ultimate metaphor to life. But I digress. Thanks for the advice. ^w^

Oh man, our math department is so notoriously bad for anyone in the aerospace school (CompSci like me, Meteorology, etc) that people will take classes on the AFB like...half an hour away. They're usually fully booked, too. I was just wondering. I know that my thought process/how I process things is different than most people, so I just wanted to put some feelers out.

Thank you all for the advice. I'll stick with it more...such a steep learning curve for these things. I think it'll become a lot easier if I get a proper keyboard instead of trying to key melodies on...my laptop keyboard. Most frustrating thing ever >:[ Calculus as it's taught here is pretty much "a function that looks like this is integrated this way just because, and by the way you better memorize this and a hundred different other ones before the test". It is SO obfuscated. Algebra? I LOVE algebra. Fitting the numerical pieces together (metaphorically) is SO satisfying. Binary math? Hex math? Base conversion? Love it. They all make perfect sense to me. Calculus? Can go die in a fire. A very vague, poorly-defined fire. Apparently it actually starts making sense at Calc 3, but given that you need to pass Calc 2 to get into Calc 3... At least with music, I've been doing that since I was a kid! ;3 It all makes perfect sense to me! You forgot Nuendo:

Hi! You may recall that I have a cracked version of FL Studio...I'm working 35 hours a week total and might be able to squirrel away money over time to actually buy a program. The question is...how are they different from FL? FL is "pattern-based", right? But I prefer to see everything laid out like a digital version of a conductor's score (obfuscation destroys me - for instance, I still can't pass Calc II to save my life). I suppose there's a way to lay it out like that in FL and I just haven't gotten to that point in the tutorials yet? I'd prefer to see everything just...go. I'd also like recommendations for a keyboard. It doesn't need to be anything ~amazing~, but I'm finding that $300 for one on Amazon is a little steep for me (that is seriously like...a paycheck for one of the jobs I'm working). Right now I have a Yamaha PortaSound PCS-500, which is so old that Yamaha themselves don't even make cables for it anymore. As you can imagine...perfectly fine for my classes, impossible to produce with. I'd also like to take suggestions for plugins, particularly good bass guitar and alto/soprano sax ones at the moment, and would like to know whether having a "good" soundfont or synth really matters that much...some of my producer friends have told me it's all about tweaking the stuff you have 'til it sounds good, but I must have a bad ear because everything I make sounds terrible! I'm discouraged before I even start translating the score in my head to the computer! Finally...does ANY of this stuff get discounted, ever? November is coming up, would Cyber Monday or Black Friday be any good contenders for buying any of these? Does anyone offer student discounts to non-music majors attending a school that isn't known for its music (srsly, I'm in a school known for aviation and hockey. Please send help)? These are probably well-worn questions, but I've been wanting to gather information from various circles. I've dropped two of my classes and might have some more free time on my hands now.

I haven't been able to play online matches because my University's internet is notoriously evil with DSs and 3DSs. Also...still doing classic runs. Can you do Smash Run on your own? It sounds like a multiplayer thing, but I srsly have bad internet and NO ONE IRL who owns the game. (also, do yourself a favor and don't run a Bruiser or Speedy custom on Meta Knight or Kirby, you WILL die instantly)

I DON'T KNOW I keep thinking "oh man, I've unlocked so much, surely..." BUT NO, there's always more help me I've seriously just been running Classic mode as every character while also doing ordinary CPU brawls to get a feel for how much my customizations suck. Though my Zero Suit Samus is AMAZING. She's amazing.