Fleeting Whisper

That's just his script for Ascendant-Os. His other scripts are posted elsewhere.

Well, at the level of lackeys, we more fight on the order of 1 to 3 (or more). It's only when you get up into the higher ranks like Recluse's lieutenants that the ratio shifts in the other direction.

I throw my lot in with phpBB. I've used most of the major forum softwares out there (and been administrator and/or webmaster for several), and I haven't seen one I liked better. The only complaint I've seen about phpBB that I can agree with is that vanilla phpBB is very feature-light... but that's why there's an entire database full of modifications and additions to the software.

Hey, it's good enough for the largest forum on the internet (both number of users and number of posts). Why not use something good instead of what we have?

On the other hand, the cap on where each protection stops is different.

If you compare just +res or just -dam to +def/-tohit, the two types of protections are on average equal at the cap (assuming Tanker/Brute resistance, or in all cases for -dam).

However, +def/-tohit stack driectly, so that if you floor the enemy's tohit, you don't need any defense. If you softcap your defense, you don't need any tohit debuff. If you cap your resistance, you can still benefit from damage debuff (and the reverse).

When hit chance is floored, an enemy will do at least 10% of their base damage on average (higher-level opponents, higher-rank opponents, and certain powers have Accuracy which raises their average).

Any entity, at worst, deals 10% of their base damage when under the effects of damage debuff. Tanker/Brute capped resistance is 90%, forcing the damage to 10% of the incoming. A Tanker at capped resistance facing a foe at the maximum damage debuff will take 1% of the base damage. Even if you go down to an AT which caps at 75% res, the final damage would be only 2.5% of the base.

Here you go:

Just think: it was National Singles Awareness Day, too!

You can hit "Multi-Quite", start a new thread, and then there'll be a link at the bottom of the text window to paste the post in for you.

While true that it doesn't matter if the proc triggers outside of combat, it's only useful in combat. For IO-tricked out builds or steamroller teams, a single combat can easily last less than 10s, so a proc triggering too soon in a toggle can prevent you a chance of getting the buff in combat. If the proc is coming from a click power like Aim, you can control the opportunities it has to activate. Especially, since players usually use Aim to begin combat with an alpha strike; the proc can add to the alpha.

Aim will give you the buff less frequently. But when it does give you the buff, it's guaranteed to be at the correct time.

IIRC, they also did 6+1 months.

Literature, theater, and film is full of stories in which the true meaning of the outcome is uncertain due to an unreliable narrator.

What about Beholder in a swimsuit?

Freezing Rain is not autohit. It gets enough chances to hit that it will most likely hit at least once, and then the defense debuff means it will probably hit a lot more, but it can benefit from Accuracy.

There are a few non-psionic powers which do not have a melee/ranged/aoe attack vector, but they're much more uncommon (Fearsome Stare is an example, which only has Negative_Attack).

Hamidon's attacks are also not the only powers without attack vectors. Fulcrum Shift has no attack vector, for example.

Ultima Online was released September 1997.

Air Warrior (black and white wireframe) was released in 1986.
Air Warrior SVGA was released in 1993.
Air Warrior for Windows was released in 1996.
Air Warrior II was released in early 1997.

The original Air Warrior cost something like $10/hour to play. Air Warrior III was taken offline in 2001.


Meridian 59 was the first fully 3D MMO. It went online in late 1995 and released commercially in early 1996.



Ultima Online is far from the first MMO, nor the first graphical one. Ultima's fame comes from making MMOs popular.

Especially since the buff pets all hover...

A few of the signature characters originally were characters in a tabletop Champions game, weren't they?

I agree. We should absolutely return to the original definition of "first world".

First world: United States and its allied countries.
Second world: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its allied countries.
Third world: ... everyone else.


I guess by that definition, Praetoria really should be part of the fourth world...?

Yes, though I can't say to what extent. (Arcanaville probably tests such things much more thoroughly than most of the devs know how to, and for free at that.)

We do know that Castle created [The I Win Button] power in I9 to test drop rates. Run all over the map, spawning all of the critters, and then instagib all of them and check how many recipes/salvage you get.

I don't see the issue here? From the description of the Bres enemy:

The original Bres was a hero of the Tuatha de Dannan. Here in Croatoa many of the creatures have earned the right to carry his name. They lead their fellow creatures in the effort to wipe out the Fir Bolg.

And, of course, in Irish mythology the Tuatha and Fir Bolg fought over Ireland (with victory going to the Tuatha).

For bonus points, the king of the Fir Bolg at the time of the Tuatha invasion was Eochaid mac Eric. Guess who the Fir Bolg giant monster is...?

(Of course, Eochaid is a name used by many Irish figures, mythical and real. Including The Dagda/Eochaid Ollathair, god/king of the Tuatha.)

In my experience as a GM of various tabletop games, many players want weighted dice.

Possibly. But considering that it's probably reset (with a new seed value) on a semi-regular basis (patches to the game), I doubt that the game has ever passed through an entire cycle of its rand() pattern. In addition, assuming the same random state is used for multiple different random values, additions and deletions from the game modify exactly how the pattern affects the game.

Put simply, you're not going to notice the pattern unless you apply various analytical tools, and even then you're only going to point out the existence of a pattern. I don't think MT passes the next-bit test, so you could conceivably predict the next output from the rand() function given enough data. However, if the same random is used for multiple players, or for outputs you can't directly measure (easy example: the object produced by Propel), that knowledge isn't enough to attempt to exploit it.

For a short time, there was a bug on one of the maps where you would get the exact same drops, every time. But that's been fixed. Thanks to the help of players knowledgeable in the required analysis methods, the developers have closed that bug, and it shouldn't™ happen again.