HalcyonSpirit

Yeah... a monthly competition would be good. Not so long of a wait between opportunities, more chances to write something, and less of a chance of not being able to write something for all the competitions (as has been my case).

Congratulations to the winners and runner-ups, and nice work to those that entered! I LIKE this idea! I'd let me focus on one at a time. Dooooooo eeeeeeeet!

Since that isn't going into a competition, epinephrin, it's better suited for the main Writers' Thread. Post it there; the thread is in need of a bump anyway. I'll try to get around to reading it after this week is over... too many tests coming at me all at once.

G_D, have you tried PM'ing the people that haven't voted yet? They might've forgotten about the voting part. PM them so they'll at least know.

I still need to start the trial for EvE...

I'd vote, but... I didn't enter. Still going to read the entries at some point, though.

I noticed that as well... but I didn't want to point it out and sound like I was complaining for some little thing like that.

Hey, it's Shaak Ti! Awesome!

Quoted for absolute truth. We demand a Jedi Kirby! I'd do it myself, but I can't draw... at all.

Actually, I just chose to ignore the sarcasm in an attempt to give my post a little more relevancy to the topic than just the link. Yeah... facial expressions can really make-or-break the immersion factor when it comes to cut scenes. You could be watching a scene and be perfectly fine, but if a single expression is screwed up, it can throw people for a loop. Brings them back into reality and whatnot.

Yep, because real is brown. Rendering movie-quality cut scenes in real time seems a little out of its league, even after developers learn how to use it. Last I heard, it takes a decent amount of time for the computers at Pixar to render a single frame of a movie. Unless the PS3 is insanely powerful, pre-rendered cut scenes are still required, at least when it comes to cut scenes that are comparable in quality to movie scenes. The PS3 is powerful, but unless it's got power in there that we don't know about, it's not that powerful.

If I find the time over the weekend (and assuming no one else volunteers by then), I'll try to come up with something. Oh, and G_D? My Eternal Legends chapter most certainly is not short enough to be put in this competition (by about, oh... 16 pages). I thought you would've figured that out already. Seriously.

IF I had a phone that supported custom ringtones, I would use this remix from 1:13 or 1:25 onwards.

Thanks for the information so far, G_D. Looking forward to seeing the gritty details! Ann's character is something I hope to really expand on in the next few chapters. She originally wasn't supposed to be a main character, to be honest, and as a result I didn't really go into her much. Now I have to make up for that lost time, which brings me to my question: what pieces of Ann are missing that's making her less deep? I have Ann's character fairly fleshed out in my mind, which is making it harder for me to see where she's been lacking in the story so far. As for Ganner... well, can't say much about him right now. All I can say is that I understand how you feel about him being underdeveloped, but fear not! His character will be developed further, especially regarding his more recent past just prior to meeting Damian and Ann. Well, I certainly hope it doesn't fall apart! I know about the dangers of the cliché, but as a teacher used to tell me, it isn't the cliché that's bad, it's how you use it. Used properly and in moderation, a cliché doesn't harm the story. A cliché used just for the sake of using it is simply bad (and is how I see a lot of people do things in stories, unfortunately). And no, I don't plan on having Damian rescue Ann at any point. Yeah... it's something that I have a hard time with at times. However, I can't really come up with any other way to do it without revealing too much at one time. There's a big world out there... and a lot of shit is going to hit the fan in different parts of it. :cool:

Eh, I guess I could be game. I haven't played it in months, but I could get back into it. That's assuming, of course, that my college work don't get in the way.

It's getting way too hard to follow all the changes on OCR with a home computer. I can only imagine what you're going through. In other news... Drum roll please. *insert drum roll here* Ahem... Eternal Legends: Chapter 8 has been released! Author's Commentary: This one was a little trickier than the others, if only for the fact that I'm starting to delve deeper into the going-ons of the world. Future chapters will be equally difficult for this reason, but all the more satisfying to write. One of the things I learned when writing a particular portion of this chapter is how hard it is to describe something when the only way you can do it is by how the character seems to experience it. I know exactly what happens, why it's happening, and what it's supposed to be and mean, but I can't go into it because the character doesn't know what exactly it is! I certainly hope this chapter begins to pique your interest in what exactly is going on in the world. Things should be getting more interesting from here on. This is one chapter where I'm unsure of the pacing and setup. I'm fairly confident that it works, but I can't be certain this time. I'm hoping I didn't screw anything up. Read, review, and critique it as hard as possible! It's the only way I can get better! And also, I am interested in hear what your thoughts are on the story so far. Not only just "is it good or not" and "what needs fixing," but also any thoughts you have regarding the characters, the world they live in, and any speculation you may have on it. I've been lacking in that area so far, and it would be nice to see what the readers have going through their heads when reading it. That way I can get a better idea of how I'm doing with leading you guys places. :cool:

A lot of this is really great work. I might even have to come up with a few of my own now. ... Of course, my inability to draw might be an issue here... After one of the mods eliminated the Writer's Thread soon after the UnMod deletion (intentionally or not, we don't know)... well, some of us are a little wary. Never forget! (Or forget and move on... whichever.)

Just as a warning: I had a similar problem with my own computer a year ago. It seemed like it was the RAM, since it showed all the symptoms of bad RAM. I even ran memtest, which said the RAM was bad. However, it wasn't the RAM, the RAM was fine. Turns out that the motherboard itself was going bad. When the motherboard goes bad, it can exhibit the symptoms of other hardware issues. Just wanted to throw that out there. Test the RAM first, see if it comes up as bad. If it does, replace it. If that doesn't work, my guess would be you either have a bad power supply or a bad motherboard.

That would be because G_D never updated the link (as a matter of fact, I'm not sure if I did either...). His link is going to the old thread on the php forum. The php forum still exists, so his link works. Your link, on the other hand, doesn't work because it went to the thread on this forum, which was deleted. Still haven't heard a reason why.

I find that if you reload the forum using the same browser window (not necessarily the same tab) after you've read the threads, it'll register that you've read them. It's something with how it confirms you read it. My advice is to just open all the threads you want to read in separate tabs and then reload the forum. That always works for me.

Hey, if you've got any techniques to lower it, please do share them. Everything I tried resulted in a severe loss in quality. I kept it under 300k, which is the total upper limit for ANY sig (in my opinion), so it's not too bad, though I'd like it to be lower. And by the way, KOTOR just popularized it, it didn't invent it. This version isn't even the KOTOR version (which has an extra line in it).

*raises hand* Make that two people. I'm going to be doing more reviews once I finish my current chapter.

1. Get more friends -- I'm seriously lacking in this area. 2. Get more exercise -- Again, seriously lacking in this area, but at least I'm taking Kendo these days. 3. Improve my grades -- This past semester really sucked for me, and my grades suffered a huge hit. I really need to bring them back up. 4. Write more of my story in less time (ie: write faster) -- It's taken me about 4 years to write 8 chapters of my story (shameless plug), and I really need to pick up the pace if I'm going to get it done in a reasonable amount of time.

As Ab56 said, part of it is the challenge and overcoming the obstacle. We, as humans, love to overcome anything that faces us. We want to be superior. What makes games fun is that you can show that you are superior at something without the physical effort required for other activities. It's easy, the task isn't too difficult, and you know that it is possible no matter what someone says. Also, it gives us a chance to be someone else. We can imagine ourselves in a different life. That is fun to us, because we can do things that we normally couldn't do. Oh, and Zutnunzor hit the nail on the head with that particular part of it.

I don't usually post reviews, but this one deserves my attention: I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by this song. When the vocals came in when I first listened to it, it took me by complete surprise (I was working on my story at the time, so I really wasn't paying attention), so much so that I had to stop the song and restart from the beginning just so I could hear it properly. I'm glad I did, because I love the song now. It did take a second listen to really get into it due to the vocals, but they grew on me the second time around. I have to agree on some points, the vocals at various points did sound a bit nasal, the reverb was a bit much at times, and the pitch changes did throw me for a loop a few times. But it certainly didn't hurt the song enough to make me not love it. In fact, I really like songs that don't sound perfect, so this is right up my alley. It gives it a genuine feel, I think. All in all, I think I'll give this one an 8.5 out of 10. Very well done, and I'm looking forward to your next collaboration! You know what? You should put up a joke version: "LESS MOUSECLICK, MORE COWBELL!"