The Damned

Spore. On DS. And it's Official. Well. Even though the sales and other popular titles like Mario Kart, Animal Crossing and Nintendogs secured the portable market for Nintendo, having not only Dragon Quest but Spore as well... wow. Is there such a thing as overkill in a console war?

Who's xinster? Some noob? I see that he posted mostly in the WoW thread. No wonder I never heard of him before. But yeah, your opinions, blah blah blah. And what's with the 2006 join date? Did you lurk so much you never even had an account until then?

"It'sa me, aMario! Ita looks like yous want to write a letter. Woulda you likea som help?"

Also, throughout the entire time the torrent is downloading, the time until completion will change. As other people start downloading and completing it, the number of seeds and leeches will fluctuate, thus affecting the speed.

Get more people with the torrent to seed it. Other than that...

Yes it is. I got to level 48 and then I was so pissed at having to fight all those guys at once, I actually threw the wiimote onto the bed and turned it off. Haven't tried it since.

If you think getting three other people with GBAs and link cables for a few hours of Four Swords is difficult, then don't even bother trying to get them together for Crystal Chronicles. Four Swords ic a game you and your friends can play and finish in one sitting, if you wanted to. FF:CC is a game that demands a lot of time to play. And I mean lots of time. Maybe a hundred hours to really get into it. But that sort of commitment seems to be beyond anyone. I think that the four of us, with the desire to actually play it as much as we could, never got past eight hours total. And then there were some problems where one of us wasn't around for a few games, and he fell behind a few levels, missed items and such... it unbalanced things a lot. Hopefully, the DS version will fix that right up.

QFE although good luck finding GBAs and cables for everyone. Double QFE. It's sort of like Mario Party. When you need to work together to advance, it's all chummy and "let's be friends!", but the instant there's a gem on the field, everyone starts throwing/bombing/fire rodding/arrowing each other. Luckily, I managed to play quite a bit of four-player thanks to everyone actually having a GBA and cheap link cables. Now a Wii/DS version would be a lot easier...

They are. 10 CHARACTERS.

Yes, they are. The move itself determines what stats are used and affected. Before, it was Normal, Fighting, Rock, Ground, Steel, Flying, Ghost, Poison and Bug that were Attack-based, while Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Ice, Dark, Psychic and Dragon was Special-based. Flamethrower and Fire Punch are both Fire-type attacks, but Flamethrower is powered by Special Attack and Fire Punch is now powered by Attack. Alakazam used to do serious damage with Fire Punch, Thunder Punch and Ice Punch, but now it can't do jackshit with them. But now it gets to use Shadow Ball with its high Special Attack. A lot of pokemon got screwed out of their most valuable attacks, and some get attacks that they don't have the stats to use them. The split really mixed things up. But there are a few interesting twists now. If you have a pokemon with similar Attack and Special Attack, it can use one Physical and one Special attack of the same type. It you come up against a strong Physical or Special Wall, you can easily use the one that will do the most damage. But the drawback is that you will lose a moveslot for another attack, or even another type of attack. I only see a few pokemon really being able to pull this off.

God damn it... I knew that was coming, and I didn't do anything to stop it. Merk +1

When I bought mine, it was $80. That's Canadian, so there's a fair bit of exchange rate going on there. And they were a new model, so I also paid for that. And it was, regrettably, at a store that charged a little too much. But yes, they are good, and the price is great. The only thing I would be concerned about buying them off of eBay is whether or not they are used, or have been damaged. I'd stick with buying from an actual store. If anything does go wrong, you have someplace to go back to and get either a replacement or a refund. eBay? Not so much.

OK, so I finally broke down and skipped completing the Cave of Ordeals (and some of the side quests). I just finished the game. I was a little disappointed with how short the last part of the Ganondorf battle was. I was expecting some really epic horseback fighting... but it was still alright. Short, but alright. Sadly, I must say that the overall ending is far below that of OoT. OoT had an ending that just seemed far more emotional than TPs. You got to see the friends you met who ended up becoming the Sages watching over the land, you got to see the people you met across the land celebrate together, you had that touching moment where you see a young Zelda and Link meet again in the castle... TP didn't have that sort of ending. And I feel it detracted a bit from the overall experience.

So, 8 millions players, times $15 a month... that's 120 million dollars a month. Times that by two years, that comes to 2.88 billion bucks. I don't think they had all 8 millions subscribers from the start, and I think it's only a year and a half. But even then... that's pretty much a billion dollars. Even after taxes and recouping the cost of development and marketing and servers and all that, they're looking at hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. Blizzard is going to do fine for the next decade or so.

And considering how many people are paying $15 or $20 a month, for the last two years... they can afford to ignore the "I don;t like paying fees" part of the world. Anyone have the number of people that are playing right now? I'd like to see some math showing how much they make each month, and how much they made last year.

Yeah, but if you're serious about your team, you go for all of them. Max IVs, right nature, good EV spread and even using PP Ups on certain moves. If you want to just make up teams and try out different movesets and stats, try Netbattle. You can play against other people online (on your computer, not your GBA or DS. Netbattle is a fan-made program that accurately simulates the battle system. Not official or Nintendo sponsered in any way).

I wouldn't be surprised at all about this. It's well known that in animation, any one anime studio will part out scenes to other studios. They do this because the scene isn't as "important" as others, or they need something special done with it. It makes sense. Don't have the time or staff to do the battle engine? Hire someone else to do it.

The way the stat system works is each stat (HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense and Speed) are determined upon the appearance of a pokemon (be it in a wild battle, an NPC giving it to you, or being downloaded from a special game function). Each stat is given a number value ranging from 0 (the lowest) to 31 (the highest). These are called Individual Values (although sometimes you will see Diversified or Diversification Values). Having an IV of 0 gives you the lowest that the stat can be, while having 31 gives you the highest it can be. Once said pokemon appears, the system randomly determines these, and are set permanently. They do not change under any circumstance. For example, I have an Aerodactly that has both Attack and Speed IVs of 31. That means that both of those stats are perfect. And since Aerodactly here is known for its high Attack and Speed stats, this only helps it. Throw in some Effort Values on top of those, and you have its best two stats either maxed out or greatly boosted above normal. Pokemon is really just a giant numbers game. Having that single extra point in a stat could make a big difference in a battle. Getting the right combination of stats, nature and moves is what most people end up spending all their time on. Well, that and leveling up. Natures (as they are properly known) affect two stats by 10 of their maximum. Most will raise one and lower another. Modest will boost Special Attack by 10%, and lower Attack by 10%, so it makes sense on something like Alakazam, but not a Machamp.

Well, it doesn't matter. What does matter, however, is setting up trades and battles. In fact, there are a few interesting (and highly useful) things about online battling. 1. The game will automatically adjust your teams level to 100. So you can take you team of level 20-30, and still use them against a level 100 team. All the stats will be adjusted as well, of course. 2. Since the game adjusts the level, you can go into a game, check the stats, and perform IV calculations. The higher the level, the more accurate the results are. And at 100, they're perfect. 3. Disconnecting doesn't seem to count as a loss, so you can just do it over and over again. Sort of sucks when you're kicking someone's ass, though. I don't know if it will still count as a win for you. So, since a lot of us are going to get it, we should update the OCR DS list, and try to arrange a little tourney, trades and IV checking battles..

I suspect that there is some form of copy-protection or DMR blocking it.

Bu-bu-bu-but... how will you get all the jokes and strategies that will emerge when we all start playing? CM Cune has no weak! BP Ninjask dies to 1 SR on switch. Boah! BOAH! BOOOOAAAAH! McGraw!

I agree with I-n-j-i-n. I'm actually a little scared now.

I... I knew that. I was just testing everyone. Good job.

Anti-virus and other system programs might not work, because they are 32-bit specific. There are 64-bit utilities out there, though, so that's not too much of a problem. The only real problem I've had is that the driver for the Nintendo USB WiFi Adapter (that little USB stick that lets you play your DS online) won't work. XP 64-bit detects it, but it won't run it. According to Nintendo's tech support, they do not now, nor in the future, plan to make 64-bit OS compatible drivers. So if use you one, you're screwed. But everything is fine. I have old games, new games, media programs, and all my old stuff from my last system on here, and none of it has given me any trouble at all. Off topic for a bit, would anyone like a Nintendo USB WiFi Adapter? Good price, hardly used, will ship to buyer...

I think the old Vista thread is still around somewhere. Most of the comments are about the DRMing of media files and some other complaints. I'm not getting it. I already have a legit (and expensive) copy of Windows XP 64-bit last summer, I don't need to upgrade, I like having control over my files, and I don't want to use up all my processing power and RAM having slightly smoother looking windows. Fuck Vista.