Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Suggestions Box => Topic started by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on September 09, 2003, 01:01:58 AM
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I finally sent in that Light Speed review. since I understand that both it and Timeline are short reviews, maybe you could post them both at once, even linking to them both in the same blurb
And on that note, Button Men ends up getting three reviews. One for the game (by Cheapass). one for the Button Men Online site (by a masochistic individual who programed it), and one for the Buttonlords expansion (By Green Knight, and the only one that we actually got sent material for). They could also be a one day thing. I was even going to do them all in one review, but it was too scattered. Just an FYI
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Uh... with the "pending" review for Pendragon, you did get that right? Cuz I actually sent it BEFORE Book of Knights.... Just making sure.
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I do have it, but it's buried in the middle of the list. I assumed that it presented them to me in the order they were posted, and that you wanted them in this order; I guess not. I'll post Pendragon tomorrow.
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It doesn't really matter which order. I was just checking, because I assumed you posted them in order as well, so I got concerned. No hurry.
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Come to think of it, I'm not really sure what order the pending articles are displayed in. We have dates for submissions, but no timestamps, so if they're submitted on the same day I don't think we have a way to determine which came first.
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I posted Pendragon, but I want to change your score. It seems weird to me that you rave about what a great game it is, tell us that it captures the feel of King Arthur perfectly, give it an "unreserved recommendation," and then cut its score because players can't use it for things it wasn't intended for. The way I see it, if the game tries to be Arthur and ends up being a really really good Arthur, we shouldn't penalize it for not being D&D.
However, it's your review and I bow to your wishes. If you want to change the score, give me a new one; if you don't, I won't mess with it.
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Actually, I wrote to Peter Corless (head of Green Knight) to let him know that reviews were going up, and told him that even after I submitted it, I was considering giving him a higher score. To be honest, the limited audience should only be cause for half a clock loss, maybe one at the most. So I think you're right, give it 5.5 clocks. Also, I think Book of Knights deserves half a clock more than I gave it. I don't know why I was being so tough, except that I am a tough grader all the time.
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good reviews by the way...
Smashing!
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uh... fell, the villagers are revolting again. Entropy is going to come after me with a pitchfork and a torch if I don't get answers to some TWG related email soon...
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I'll do that anyway it should be noted, but in this case i'd actually have another reason for it, meaning more pain for SE. :)
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feh, keep that up and you get NOTHING!
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Fell, i'm posting my review for Vikings this evening, and if no one has a problem, I'm gonna approve it in the morning. It's not an emergency, but I'd like this one to get up. I told some people I'd move fast on this, and I've actually been slow reading it. Plus, Avalanche promised they'd link to us when the review is published. Since they're getting a good one, this can only mean nice things.
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Considering you (and me) cannot post blurbs on the main page, I don't see much value in doing it yourself. I would just e-mail Fell with the request to post it tomorrow. That way when you tell Avalanch they can find the article.
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I can still point them to the link and let them know it will be linked from the front page though.
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I'd still send him an e-mail, though. Sometimes Fell won't notice that you've approved an article for several days.
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Ah, but now I've noticed that he needs it quickly, so I'll make it the main post tomorrow.
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"I love it when a plan comes together."
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btw, Fell, I can't remember if I submitted my Duel of Ages review, or just wrote it. Let me know if I need to put it into the system.
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I don't see it anywhere on site Saint.
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k, i'll submit it when I get to work then.
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It's on there now.
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I think I'm satisfied with my exalted review, I couldn't think of anything to add (of course I do have a headache from watching my character spinn around in morrowind). I'm still reading the starwars books you gave me, it's a slow read becasue of all the suggestoins and guidelines that are in it. Everytime a hit a new one I start thinking weither I like the Idea and weither others might too. I'm over half way so I should have it this week.
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I've read the exalted review, and it's good, but I'm not convinced we need a second review of that game. I'll hold onto it and use it when we don't have anything else (which is, incidentally, the reason I've posted previous "double" reviews).
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it doesn't look like we have much else right now. But no worries, I'll be struggling to get the official TW(i)G setting basics put together. THen we have to have a discussion on where to go next.
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btw, I edited your article. There were a lot of boxes instead of real punctuation, and it bothered me. On that note, this was pointed out to me by Looney Labs, makers of Nano-Fictionary, regarding the review of that game:
Also you might want to tweak the opening sentence of the
Nanofictionary review where it says:
Look, I'm not in the habit of passing out perfect
or nearly perfect scores to any game, but this
**really game** deserves it.
Just reverse "game" and "really"
(I can't edit articles in the "other" section)
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The menace manual article? I pasted that in from Word, but I usually don't have problems when I do that. I wonder if our style sheets are screwed up again. Thanks for fixing it.
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Ya unless the second review is strikeingly different there's no real reason to have one. The only difference between mine and Kids is I go into the storyteller system and talk about why I hate it. But we agree on everything else.
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Yes, that's the main difference, but I think it's a good thing to mention.
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Well I wrote it because I wanted to write a review but didn't have anything new to reveiw at the time.
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if your comming early to gamming tonight (ie before Earl gets off work) don't forget to bring your magic cards.
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where's TWGgn at? And when?
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This isn't TWG game night just me and Fell's D&D group (which also happens to include EUOL and Tage) game night. One of the players started teaching at BYU part time and gets off of work late at night so sometimes we show up before he gets back to do other things.
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Though Kije, you are more than welcome to come play Magic with us tonight. It's at Tage and EUOL's house, probably around 6:30.
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ok
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uhm...
I fixed the punctuation on this last article too.
Word to everyone writing reviews in word: make sure to turn off "smart quotes" and auto-replace, because that will give characters that don't make sense to HTML. Either that or use the SAVE AS feature to have Word convert it like you were doing some WYSIWYG stuff. That will insert a lot of ugly code, but readers don't see ugly code, and after the first day or so, we won't have to play with it anyway, so it'll be tolerable.
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Don't bother with the punctuation on the current article--that's how it was sent to me, and I don't touch it.
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I've found that taking your text, putting it in notepad and saving it there, then cutting it out and pasting it on the board takes care of all these little problems.
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That's how I usually clean 'em up. But xp sometimes retains the special characters even in notepad.
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So I've just had a thought. There's a page that says everything uninteresting about you guys. What you do and everything, but I don't think I found anything saying stuff about TWG itself. Like how old it is, and the why and how long. You know? Just a thought.
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That's a good idea. I, for one, would be interested in finding out 'why'.
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'why' frankly and blatantly, was originally to "get free stuff"
A brief early history:
Fell, Tage, EUOL, Prometheus, Brenna, MoD, Ookla the Mok, GuJiaXian, e3, 42, Skar, Kije, and Dravner (possibly someone I'm missing, but these are a the nicks I can remember) used to all (and some still do) be staff (and at least half of us editors at sometime or another) on a Science Fiction magazine published by BYU called Leading Edge. One day Fell decided he wanted to see if he could get a free copy of Diablo 2, so he called (wrote?) Blizzard to see if he could get a copy if TLE published the review. They agreed. The review was called The Time Waster's Guide
For the next issue, I jumped on the bandwagon, and wrote to Wizards of the Coast, hoping to get one of the three core books under the same conditions. They sent the PHB, the DMG, the MM, the Monster Compendium, the Psionics Handbook, Sword and Fist, and the "Adventure Game." Which the we also published as what became a column called Time Waster's Guide.
Visions of free loot dancing in his head, Fell took the show on the road, and started organizing the web site. For a brief period the column was published in a newspaper in Heber. But the focus was the web site, and it eventually grew into what it is today.
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Actually, the initial contact with Blizzard (and the genius who came up with the whole idea of requesting press copies) was Skar. Then SE and I got in by contacting Blizzard and Interplay, respectively. The whole part about visions of free stuff dancing in my head, however, is true.
We were eventually getting so much stuff that we couldn't review them all in The Leading Edge (which is a guarterly publication), so we made it into a web site.
I think that should answer the question of "why" as well as "how."
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Could you please post to the Judas topic? Let's hurry up and get back to the main group.
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Speaking of Blizzard, I've just had a crazy idear. Do you think, Fell, that you could arrange an interview for me with a staff person from Blizzard? I would like to have the article put in the school paper. I think it'd be trice awesome. And you guys can put it onto the TWG pages as well. Eh? Eh? (This is just a ploy to get me known as Zak "The Guy Who Asks the Questions and Gets Answers" K.)
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You know, I was going to say what a silly idea that was, but then, this entire site is built on the "Hey, I have a crazy idea, let's see if it works" mindset, so hey, why not?
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I don't think we'd have any problem doing something like that, assuming we could actually contact someone in PR. Which we've never been able to do. Except for Skar, who's in Afghanistan. I'll see what I can come up with, however.
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Check the Novel in a month topic. I just want to know where to take EUOL's laptop since you said you wanted to use it during Thanksgiving.
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So, hey Fell. How's the little thing coming along? Now that NaNoWriMo is over. Any chance you'll get around to it before oh say, a few weeks after the new year?
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Now that I can think again (about things unrelated to my book) I'll get on it.
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Super cool guys.
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Hey Fell, how goes that interview? Any news on the whereabouts of this project?
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Blizzard is very hard to get hold of. I'll keep trying.
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Thanks Fell. As long as I know your trying, I feel better. Someone give the guy a hug for me.
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Ok. I'm not too worried about thi, but if you can't get ahold of Blizzard, then if you want mayhaps try a gaming company you can get ahold of. An interview is an interview, and I will get praises of gratitude bak at school because of my (our) initiative.
But, eluding to the same topic, here's some questions I was thinking of asking Blizzard and/or someone else of the same nature of business.
G) If you could choose a dream team of developers, programmers, and artists, who would be your first choice in each of these three fields?
Q) If you had a chance to work with John Carmack on a cideo game, would you and why?
E) Does your family, relatives, or yourself play any of the games you make/produce? And do you have a favorite platform to play on?
Any other suggestions?
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Since Entropy is a lazy person, I'll post his questions here.
"Many people feel that Diablo 2 was not a true RPG, but rather an action game with an in-built character builder. What are your thoughts on this?"
"Your games have often been felt to be refinements of the existing genre, rather than breakthrough innovations. Do you feel this is a fair comment?"
"World of Warcraft is an ambitious project. Do you feel that your expertise with online systems (battle.net) will help you in creating stable, constantly changing gameplay for the game?"
"Why are there not any chariots in warcraft 3, you 'bad people'?"
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I'd leave off the last one.
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Hey, i like chariots.
Those questions need refining btw - the one about online stability basically lends itself to blizzard saying "yes".
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its easy to fix though...
"World of Warcraft is an ambitious project. How do you feel your experience with online systems (battle.net) has prepared you for a creating stable, constantly changing gameplay for your players?"
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yeah, the "how" will make a big difference.
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this mroning there were three articles waiting. Then you posted jeffe's, now I see that there are none. Did you delete some? Mostly I'm just wondering because I'm behind something like 10 reviews, and I want to know if you need me to whip one out and submit it tomorrow first thing at work.
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I've got a webcomic review going up sooner or later.
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Ya one of the articles was a webcomic review that Jeffe never finished (and was deleted), the other was a magic card deck that Promethious submitted (wich it looks like fell aproved as mods only articel for editing). That's why there are no reviews left.
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Well, I wrote up a Diceland review that should be available for today. I'll try to bust a couple more out tonight.
Incidentally guys, it's been a VERY long time since we've missed any days for any reason other than holidays. Months, I believe. If you have anything you were thinking of reviewing and haven't submitted the review, do it now. We want that database with a back log again.
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Fell, if you have a chance, could you please post to the AORP game? We've started up and you'll miss your chance to get hitched to Natira.
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And you want this to happen?
I'm sorry I've been slacking so much on AORP. I'll see if I can get to it.
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Of course not.
I was just being a marketer and make erroneous promises to encourage you to do what I wanted you to.
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/me pokes Fell.
Say Fell, hear of this new d20 Modern book coming out from WotC yet? 192 pages of over 500+ firearms. You know, there's this person I know, in my mind, that would love the book. And he/she would be happy to review it for TWG too. If she/he got a copy of it and all.
Just bugging ya.
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I beleive the person you're talking about is...me? I love d20 Modern.
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Yeah, I already pointed out that if it arrived in either your or my paws it'd probably stop changing hands at that point. But ya can't blame the kid for trying.
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I think a book like that has already been released, but not under the D20 modern flag, by a 3rd party.
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Yes, a Green Ronin book, called "Ultramodern Firearms." That one can be led towards me as well, ya know, whichever. =P
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Fell if you got yesterday (and haven't deleted it), or get one today, an E-mail with log in info for my website could you forward it. My webhost guy has a tendency to misspell anime.
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I haven't yet, but I'll be sure to send it along if I do.
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If I'm going to do webcomic reviews again, it would be nice to get a membership in Keenspot Premium. Those annoying load-times keep me from going back to their comics very often. Fell, would you contact them and see if you can get me a press account?
On other news, I updated my RPG World review today. I plan to post another full review this week. What day do you want it?
Oh, a membership to Modern Tales would be nice too. That way I could review the other Scott Kurtz comic.
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EUOL, two things:
That link needs fixing. Put an "http://" in front of "www."
Browsers tend to interpret anything in a link without the http:// as a local, relative link instead of going out to look for the new domain.
Also, RPG World now updates on MWF, with the color comic on Monday. The title bar proclaims this schedule, and the last color comic was posted monday, even by the archives official date. I don't remember him ever announcing the change more specifically, but that's what it is now.
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EUOL, you have my official permission to ask for memberships at comic sites. I don't have any special contacts that would make my asking any more effective than you asking, so go nuts.
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Hey, how come i'm now a student of death?
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to match your golden monkey skull.
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Dang! When did that happen? And, how did it happen? Did you so something special when you edited your profile?
I'll change you back if you want.
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what ever happened to getting more Dragonlance books and that one steampunk/fantasy (forgot the name) d20 game I asked you about months ago?
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Well, this is wierd. I checked my profile, and all the stats have been changed around. I just checked, and they are actually Fells stats. Which is funny, since he is several levels higher than i am. (Free stat points! :D)
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he is mighty!!!!
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I wonder if it happened when I edited your profile (to remove the picture in your sig). That's an interesting side effect.
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weird things always happen when the admins edit profiles. I think it probably has something to do with the cookies, since the admin has to be logged into his own account, and it somehow shifts information from one account to the other.
Good thing banks don't run this software.
Anyway, Fell, I know for a fact you have at least three articles (the winner of the contest, my comic review, and the "Humans of Azmoth," which I did some light edits on... it's not the best, but it's better than some we've run). what's been with no new ones? (don't claim busy projects yesterday, you didn't run anything on Wednesday either)
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Submitted 2 reviews, but I think I submitted the first (Heroquest RPG) to the videogame forum instead of the RPG one.
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speaking of the review I sent you, Fell
Don't run it
I've already cursed Zach Stroum for this, but you know how I wrote this massive review with the chief point being that he shouldn't have ever split the comic?
Well, he's reintegrating them as of today.
So uh.. the review needs to be re-written.
I'll do that and submit via the system. instead of via email.
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Ya you did Jeffe, but I switched it to RPG for you.
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Ok 3 reviews for 4 books.... and only one more monkey to get off my back in that line....
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Uh, yeah. Just FYI, Fell--if you edit anyone's profiles using the admin edit button, you will save all of their "Forum Game" stuff so that it is the same as your own.
So, I guess you make undead spawns of yourself....
I assume you went in and took off Entropy's cute little BSing since whenever pic. Just curious--did you try asking him to remove it first?
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btw, SOMEONE needs to go post an article. I can't post 'em, I can just edit 'em. THe news post would be a good one. The bit about Paranoia. Tage? EUOL? Fell?
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I was talking to Tage about this. Don't think he wants to read/edit one. So if you do that SE, then approve it, we'll get it posted.
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The Paranoia and the Azmoth ones are both ready to go. Just do one so we have reserves.
Wait. You said approve
I'll go do the Paranoia one.
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ya, the less steps involved the better chance of getting tage to do it. He's a lunch right now, but I left him a message.
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Blurbed.
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Thank you, Tage-san
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Actually, EUOL, I just removed the pic as soon as I saw it--as I have always tried to remove profanity as soon as I see it. Now that I know that doing so will produce undead spawn (a nice perk, I think) I will take the time to ask the person to change it themselves.
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lol. No problem--I wasn't questioning your administrative skills. It's your forum, after all. I was just curious.
I'm not exactly sure how to fix the bug. I always assumed it reset people to the base class--but that's only because Tage always did the editing. I'm actually glad you did this, because now I know exactly why the alterations produce the effect they do.
Not that I know how to fix it, as I said, but at least I know what's happening.
Anyway, Entropy, anytime you want to change back, let me know.
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*poit*
Hey, Fell, thought, since you don't read the whole message board, that you should look at the TWG T-Shirst (http://www.timewastersguide.com/boards/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=other;action=display;num=1082404162;start=0) thread in "Everythign Else and give your official disapproval or stamp of apathy/ok on it.
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Fell, what sorts of things have you been getting from Wizards of the Coast? Besides 4 novels (one review printed, Jeffe and Stacer and I are doing the other three) I haven't received anything since I got the 3.5 ed. core books.
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I know we got a Starwars book about a month or so ago. We also got the Draconomricon and the complete warrior, the minature book, and everything before that. Don't know if we've gotten the Players Guide to Faerun or the 3.5 Psionics handbook as of yet.
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Uh... wow. I really wanted the Draconomicon. Wish they'd send that here. The 3.5 psionics book is the other one I would have really liked to see. I could do something with the complete warrior too, I guess. No one's reviewing these?
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No, Micah has them all. Except the Minature one, I think Fell has that one. But if you look in the RPG section you'll see we have reviews done for most of them.
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On Monday WotC sent the starter kit for the MLB Showdown 2004 card game. Hoo baby!
My understanding, Saint, is that you were getting all of the D&D books as they came out. Do you have a contact for WotC PR?
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Hey, SE, you've gotta leave at least a little bit of the free stuff for us poor Utah guys.
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Ya, even though I'm just waiting for the next PFRPG book. Cure you Palladium and your lousy release scedule!
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Yeah, I have a number for a lady over there. I'll be giving her a call now that I know what's going on. (just wanted to be knowledgeable). I thought I was getting stuff too, but apparently I've slipped through the cracks. Wnat to know what's REALLY weird? The packages I did get, with the novels? Those come addressed to TLE, not TWG. WHich I thought Chris had straightened out long ago.
To clarify, I didn't mean I wish Fell would send them to me, I mean I wished WotC had sent them to me. And it's not my fault that Green Ronin, Mongoose, Cheapass, and Looney Labs all like me so much. Talk to Fell about that Decipher stuff and the cards he keeps getting :)
And speaking of cards!
Upperdeck. Way back when they sent us stuff for like four or five different games. Six if I count right. I did a review for Gregory Horror, and then passed on the decks for four other games to EUOL (they actually sent enough cards for 4 people to play a game, so I kept half, expecting at least one to be good). We never saw reviews for those, for which I partially felt guilty, esp now that none of those four are still in print. Which leaves the last game. Bionicle, which I finally got around to learning to play and test, so there'll be a review soon. I have no idea why I brought that up.
But speaking of Decipher, you expecting to get that Arthur/Biker game, Fell? Because, y'know, since I've reviewed everything else vaguely Arthurian on the site....
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I'd be all for getting stuff from Decipher and reviewing their material. I was going to do that LotR Online CCG but that sort of went flatline when I couldn't really do anything, since my connection at school doesn't really allow much of that on campus.
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That was Pinnical, not Decipher, SE. Decipher, as far as we know, has stopped produceing RPG games. But we still get lots of CCG's from them.
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Well, we sort of do. We didn't get the last set of LotR cards because they sold out their stock before they got a chance to send press copies to anyone. So yay for them, they obviously don't need much press, but boohoo for us because we want cards. I just found out that a local (ie, in Logan) card shop is hosting a .hack//ENEMY tournament April 30, however, with the actual Decipher Rules Manager as special guest. If anyone local is interested, I can find out more info.
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need your imput in this thread plz.
http://www.timewastersguide.com/boards/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=rpgs;action=display;num=1082454238
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Have either you or SE contacted AEG before? They've got a lot of RPGS and CCG's, be nice to atleast get more CCG stuff.
http://www.alderac.com/
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They have not responded to my queries in the past. But I'm willing to try them again.
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couldn't hurt. Sometime I need to get a list of who you guys have contacted so I can go on the prowl for new companies for you to contact.