Memphis_Bill

Hmm... interesting...

(As a side note, I really wish we had the ski chalet back!)

Since I seem stuck with blue on blue... some ideas for
Hyperborean Wraith, if you would.

The left and right costmes are current, and keepers. She's an Ice/Psy dom. The blue skin, red hair, and face 10 (have to get the one on the right to use the right face, shouldd be the same face as the middle) are the "must haves."

I'm looking for something... *not blue or black.* I've got a lot of darker, subtle colors on characters as it is. (See the Sketch-a-day thread, last page, with a link to several shots of multiple characters.)

Available - Santa gloves. Vet rewards through the group emblems. Think she has valentines day stuff, and santa boots/gloves. (see the costume on the right.)

As for backstory? I don't have a heck of a lot of one for her. She was a researcher, heading to the arctic. The plane she was on got shot down in the middle of nowhere, the experimental chemicals affecting her and keeping her alive - and priming her to be powered. An Arachnos expiditionary team found her, the mental probing from the Fortunata leading it being the last spark needed to kick her powers in. She inherited some of the Fortunata's powers - stealing her helmet as well to help her focus, initially - and went to find who had tried to kill her.

Darn! And Gratz!

I'll go with 76. (And for any practice, you can use and abuse the various shots I have up anyway... )

Yep.

And can I just say "Yay, widescreen resolution! MY widescreen resoultion! "(1680x1050)

Thank you!

Pretty much the same, but nav and health are shifted over and the map's in the upper right.

awww.

Good luck, 's all I can say...

With - dont' remember, is that jack - narrating and Rick playing? Yeah.

Exceptional, thanks. And yeah, the fighting style (more offensive or defensive) was actually touched on on another video (someone posted it from Youtube.)

At some point I'll have to update and clean this up.

Yeah, that touches on the other thing. If it's a freebie, I don't really worry about it. Khepra was doing one, there were a couple of others that were starting little freebie projects - that, they can do on their own time, and if they never finish I haven't lost anything and they've possibly gotten some practice. I don't sweat those at all. If I get something out of it, it's a "Cool, you did it, thanks a bunch!" moment.

[ QUOTE ]
I would say whatever the client and artist agree upon barring any real life issues for the artist or changes the client wants. Communication is always key.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bingo.

I waited over a year for that Graver piece, BUT (a) he had a queue up and (b) he had a central place where he mentioned moving, etc, etc. so you could see what's going on, and his stuff's worth waiting for.

I'm waiting on one other piece from a talented artist, and it's been a few months - which wasn't bad, about once a month we'd get back and forth on the queue and where I was, etc. But since getting a prelim sketch at the beginning of *last* month... I haven't heard a thing, and have sent emails. The site (and DA page) haven't seemed to been updated... so yeah, I'm left here wondering what's going on.

(No, not naming the artist, there may well be RL things going on - I know my focus would be there, not on email and such - but I'm hoping to hear what's up.)

Used to be an issue with searching on short words - you couldn't search for "Ice," for instance... IO is too short though.

How to Search the Forums

Many times we get a topic posted with the comment "I searched but couldn't find it." When it comes to some of the most common topics (Server Consolidation, Power Customization and the like,) it's hard to believe it hasn't been run across. So, I thought I'd try to help out.

The search screen

The search screen is split in half. On the left side, you can select "Forums to search."

By default, if you click on "Search" from a forum (such as Suggestions and Ideas,) that forum will be automatically selected. You can keep that selection, select a different one by clicking on a different forum or grouping, or select multiple forums. (Shift+Click for a range, Control+Click for specific other forums.)

Selecting a single forum (Suggestions and Ideas) or forum heading (*Development*) is usually all you need.


On the right hand side, you limit your search.

Keyword search terms:
This is what you're looking for. Keep it as simple as possible. (For instance, "Server consolidation" can also be "Server merging," "Combine the servers," or something similar. What do they all have in common? "Server." Put that in.)

Below that, you see two radio buttons - "in subject" or "In subject and body." By default, "In server and body" is selected. Since you want to search for a suggested idea, and those are typically mentioned in the topic, limit your search a bit - click on "In subject."

Why is it like that?
Most likely to give the greatest number of results. Unfortunately, if you searched on "Server" trying to find "Server consolidation" with it searching the body as well, you'd get comments like "On my server, blasters are the most popular" and "I ran my own NWN server, I know what coding is!" which have nothing to do with what you're looking for.)

Search tip:
When you search by title, you're going to get the main post and all the replies. Why? Becaues they typically share the same title - people rarely re-title the suggestion. To limit your search and give you the greatest number of unique topics matching your search, add the following to the end of your search:
-"re: "

That's a minus sign, quote, re:, space, quote. When you do this, add a plus sign in front of the terms you want.

This will eliminate all replies from the search result (you'll still be able to read the thread.)

So, if I want to see if anyone's suggested server consolidation, server merging or the like - anything to do with servers - my search box will look like this:

+server -"re: "

Search tip
Pick your terms to give the widest range of results. For instance, Power Customization could mention Customizing, Customization, Customise. The search looks for a string of characters, not a word - so if you're looking for customization, use "Custom" as a search term.

So, say I wanted to look for Power Customization. Before posting, I'd say "Well, how else could this be said?" Varying ways of saying it?
"Let us customize our powers."
"Custom animations for powers"
"Powers should be customizable!"

Ugh, that's a mess. I can put in ALL those variations on "Customize" (since they aren't all preceded by "Power") or I can type in:

+Custom -"Re: "

And it will search on anything with the string C, U, S, T, O, M in it - yes, it can bring up Customer Service as well in the result list, as it shares that string.


Username search:

This can be used in combination with the search terms (for instance, you know SuperDude made a post on Positrons Codpiece. So search on "Codpiece" as a search term, with Superdude in the Username Search box.

Search tip:
This is *really* handy, especially in guides, to see all a user's started topics - put the username in, and put in -"re: " in Keyword Search Terms.

Date Range:
This is probably what kills most searches. Nobody changes this, it seems. By default, it's set to 1 Week. While that's great for some things... looking up actual ideas for the Suggestions forum? Nope. I'd recommend 1-3 months.

You can also look for items *older* than something, or limit a beginning or ending date.

For topics like server consolidation - 1 month should be good. For powerset ideas, I'd go for 3 or so.

Result format:
It can't show more than 100 per page. And that's what I set it to. Even at 200, you get 100 on the first page.

"Show a preview of post body with results." (Checkbox.)

This will show two lines of text from the beginning of the post. Purely personal preference.

Get all that?

Putting it all together

To see what I mean, let's do a test search. I'm going to be an ebil egotistical high-post-count forumite here and have you search for guides I've written in the Player guides section.

Step 1:
Click on "Search."

Step 2: Select forum
For "Forum(s) to Search," select "Player Guides."

Step 3: Keyword Search Terms
Just type in -"re: " in the text box. Beneath it, click on "In Subject."

Step 4: Username search
Type in memphis_bill - capitalization doesn't matter. Spelling does.

Step 5: Date range.
I've been here a bit over two years. Type in "30" under "newer than," and change "Weeks" to "Months"

Step 6: Result format
I don't have that many, so the default of 25 is fine. You can pick "Show a preview" if you want.

You should now see eight topics (if I don't write something else by the time you try this.) At least two of those are out of date. They're ordered from newest to oldest (the oldest with a date of 1/1/06, a guide to fighting Lusca that's... out of date.)

if you got that, congrats! If not, well, go back to "Search" and see what you missed.

Hopefully this will help you - remember to check using the "Search" function. There may be a relevant discussion already ongoing - or you may find the pros and cons for your idea already laid out.

The scoop staff is having their first prom, and all their parents are showing up.

Well, that was also taken three systems or so ago... on a... hmm... what was it? Athlon XP 2000+, maybe a gig of RAM, and GeForce 5200.

Just ran across it looking for something else.
First screenshot ever! Well, from me. 2/26/2005.

And as a bonus (?) my first deleted character, an ice/ice blaster that never got past the hollows.

Actually active ones or overall?

I'll put up the bit Graver just finished for me - Therra Arcson, elec/elec blaster, and my first 50 (got there over two years ago...)

/em thumbsup

First character I'd spent time on, RPd, got to 50 - I like how it turned out.

Skipping a chunk of this to make a few comments and suggestions.

1. I've done the Eden trial several times, usually after outlevelling it. I've gotten ONE Titan-O, and yes that was while (FINALLY!) getting to run it while in range. And it... became useless fast, as I outlevelled it.

Solution?
- Get rid of all the Special-Os as they sit now. These are special, unique items... make them like IOs and have them *not expire.*

Alternately:
- Have them reward a "token" that you can exchange for one your-level non-unique IO (so, multiaspect, sure, but not, say, Numina's Regen/Recovery.) Make it selectable, yes.

2. The trials are fun, but need some work. The Hollows trial also comes to mind with the eight-character requirement. (Drop that to six.) Eden is *outstanding* but nobody really introduces it. The sewer trial? ... is broken.

- What can I give as a solution other than "The problems are known, please fix them?" These can be a *blast,* but need to get the auto-exemplar code in or something, for starters.

3. Don't hide the trials. And introduce more, at other levels, as well as on villainside.

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone actually think that the lack of grammar and spelling in that article was not intentional? Have you never seen material mocking l33tspeak kids?

Pure Pwnage

That links to an entire show dedicated to this format of humor.

[/ QUOTE ]

This does not seem to be attempting to poke fun at "leet speaking kids," for lack of a better term. Its presentation and content that are nowhere near up to the standard of the rest of the scoop. It's JMans "usual," and does not show any degree of care or effort, quite frankly.

If he wants to write in that fashion, make sure it's listed as an RP piece. I'd give it *far* more leeway in that case - I'd still ignore it, but I'd leave it as "It was very 'eh'" as far as commenting on it.

I'm going to say it again - the quality and presentation were very sorely lacking, and not up to the standard of the rest of the CS.

And when I run across an article of questionable value, one which steps well outside the bounds of quality and the standards the publication has set previously, I let the people running the publication know by stating my opinion.

That is not "forcing" an opinion on anyone. That is *stating* an opinion.

If I ran across an article in "Better homes and gardens" on more effective ways to grow marijuana, I'd complain. If I ran across an article that looked like it was written by a fifth grader that said "The indians wer idiots, they livd in tents, they d-servd to be pwnt by teh youopeans, they wer pwnd!" in Smithsonian or Archaeology Today, I'd complain.

I ran across a poorly written, carelessly thrown together so-called "article" in the City Scoop. I'm making my view and opinion about it known. And that *opinion* is that it was poorly done and does no credit to the rest of the CS, and is an experiment I hope would not be repeated.

[ QUOTE ]
Should read:

Extremely Jealous

These sniffyfoos, talk about quality. I bet they write better stuff, but the scoop just forgets to ask them to put an article in, Yah thas it.

Keep staring at the phone fellas

-If you want we can take this to the arena, no insp, max end,no travel powers, no temp powers, no accolades, no observers, rated, one on one- ANYTIME HeHe

[/ QUOTE ]

Look a few issues back, chuckles.

And your "meet in the arena" won't make JMan's random spew of letters any more worthwhile. So your point?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Not bad, except for one article *cough* that stood out like a rabid chimp at a beauty contest.

No, that's not a positive endorsement. While the rest of the CS looked like it had some thought and effort put behind it, the Manticore... um... piece looked like it was banged out in five minutes after last call.

To use its own language, "Phail."

[/ QUOTE ]

I hate to disagree with you- the manticore piece is comedic genius. It is meant to be comical not to insult your hero.

[/ QUOTE ]

Manticore's not "my hero." My issue is with the quality (or extreme lack thereof) of the piece. Not to mention lack of actual comic content over about the fifth grade level. And that's being generous.

Not bad, except for one article *cough* that stood out like a rabid chimp at a beauty contest.

No, that's not a positive endorsement. While the rest of the CS looked like it had some thought and effort put behind it, the Manticore... um... piece looked like it was banged out in five minutes after last call.

To use its own language, "Phail."