Messages

You can also use arrow keys to move the controls around if pixel perfection is what you desire.

Nope, as far as I can see from briefly scanning over all the posts after Rorik's appearance, there was no command to offer him to dinner. From post #307, that he:

> Grant shelter to RORIK and ask him to tell us more about his home to the north. Also gently inquire about his mission and the fate of his companions. But make sure not to insult him if he really doesn't want to talk about it.

So what is the donation for other than to promote this to happen more often? I'm serious. Not only are there hundreds of youtube commemoration videos, there's now a donation for the family? If suicide was something I had been feeling, this pleasant outcome can only strengthen my determination.

[> Invite Hirschel to dine with you, and then go dining]

> Invite Hirschel to dine with you, and then go dining

What are the controls? I pressed nearly everything and Jesus always falls in after 3 seconds or so. Am I missing something?

>Summon JONATHAN OF ANDERS and MOOK to the palace.

That'll have to be tomorrow. This meeting with Jester and Hirschel is the last event for the game night. But asking them additional questions is fine.

And there are probably many more examples that haven't been mentioned yet!

I thought the question was if there were any enjoyable AND profitable commercial AGS games?

Joking. BTDT & TGP were likely the most successful in terms of quantity and pleasure (for me anyway), but the price was set so damn low.

[> Ask Hirschel if he could grow valuable plants or herbs, or create any valuable potions, that we could trade/sell for an income]

Well that ruins that idea of hoping to takeover a successful mine operation that was momentarily abandoned during our revolution. I just wanted to cut the profit aspect and simply create our own gold coins. The best option for now is to likely meet up with this Jonathon of Anders and Mook and see what they say about new prospects for the Crown to give permission to mine/sluice, where we rake in a slightly higher tax profit since they won't own the land they're mining.

> Ask Hirschel if he could grow valuable plants or herbs that we could trade for an income.

Sounds like a promising question to ask, but I add the following:
> Ask Hirschel if he could grow valuable plants or herbs, or create any valuable potions, that we could trade/sell for an income

Since a plant by itself may be worthless to the traders' guild but a potion could be invaluable. It all depends on our buddy Hirschel's knowledge and success rate.

[minerals of the earth]

I think now we should start tackling our low gold income. Start inquiring or looking around for gold deposits or abandoned mines during our takeover and let's look at making some more. Given this:

For decades I have offered my services to those in need and to those who sought it, and in those years I have accumulated a wealth of knowledge in the matter of plants, herbs and minerals of the earth.

I know mineral isn't an element, but at least he's better for searching for signs than say the guard standing behind us.

> Allow the guards to swap with fresh guards, then SUMMON the Jester and Hirschel, ask if either know of any rich gold deposits within our kingdom borders, and if Hirschel could explore around for more possible mining sites or if Jester knows of anyone in town who's more appropriate for the task

This thread seems as appropriate as any. So I'm sitting here relaxing while catching up on the AGS forums, I just got home from work and I'm minding my own business when suddenly my dog starts barking at my desk in the direction of my screen. I sometimes have an empty water bottle sitting on my desk and she will often let me know (relentlessly) that she wants to play with it. But today I have nothing on my desk that a dog would want to play with. To get to the bottom of things, I hold up just about everything on my desk for her to smell, just to give me an idea of what she's after. I'm baffled and she eventually stops and gets distracted by her bum or whatever dogs get distracted by. I'm relieved.

Ten or so minutes later I enter another thread, low and behold she bounds off my bed, where she has full view of my computer desk, and starts barking at the screen yet again. This time I'm looking at her completely puzzled. I'm asking her what's going on, just as though I'm asking Lassie if Timmy fell down the well. Just about when I was going to give up on her and assume she has just too much energy, I see it... This little bugger!

Spoiler

[close]

It's just moving along, minding its own business riding along the bottom edge of my screen in Ponch's signature. I certainly made sure of it too, I watched her eyes. When it reaches the left side of the screen and vanishes she starts to look around like a sad dog, then BAM she sees it again on the right side and you can ALMOST see her eyes smile. Thanks Ponch.

Edit: Added Hide tags.

[Code of Honor]

Star Trek

First I'd like to mention that in the past dozen years I've really started to become a strong Star Trek fanboy. I love the technology, the aliens, and many of the stories and their true meaning. In the past year I've finally gotten around to watching the original Star Trek TV series and the 6 movies, I'm also half-through The Next Generation series; neither shows had I really watched before other than the odd episode that was on air throughout my life. The original ST was indeed terribly campy and had too many issues for my taste, but given the 50+ years of its age, I can dismiss the corny bits of it all and simply see it as the framework in which today's ST is based upon.

Next Generation started off on some seriously rough ground, with terrible acting and weak or laughable stories, I started to wonder if the show was ever going to find its footing. I almost couldn't stand to look at Wesley Crusher wearing his old woman sweaters and that corny smile if someone simply just looked at him, not to mention the urge to regurgitate from the overly nurturing relationship between him and his mother; It's one reason why I was quite satisfied to see Dr Crusher leave the show on the 2nd season but to return on the 3rd once Wesley aged a little. Once Tasha Yar got herself killed (in probably the worst episode yet) I started to really feel the ship and stories come alive - she was the worst actor on the show, not to mention how weak and unbecoming her character development was (ugh, I cringe every time I think back on that Code of Honor episode where she flips the alien onto his back because he was attempting to hand a box of vaccine to Picard *facepalm*). I really can't wait to see how the remaining 4 seasons turn out.

I grew up on Voyager, I've watched every single episode and can definitely say that I have a soft spot for the show. But I haven't watched it in almost 10 years, I can only imagine how timeworn that show has become now. I'm also a moderate fan of ST: Enterprise and strongly wish they had written that show differently. I disliked the whole 9/11 attack on earth bit and the majority of the remaining 2 seasons due to the whole vengeance plot. I'll also admit that I've never watched DS9 but plan to do so once I'm done with TNG.

Having said all that, I would like to now point out what I dislike about the new Star Trek (J. J. Abrams). I'll start with the most recent, Into the Darkness, because I felt it was the best of the two and had so much potential to be the absolute best of Star Trek. Most of these issues I had noticed on my first viewing in the theater, when it was done I had walked out quite disappointed, but now after each subsequent viewing at home, I am starting to like the movie more and more.


[MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING AHEAD]

It starts off quite beautifully and I was immediately engrossed in the beautiful white and red plant-life and atmosphere. Kirk steals the holy scroll of sorts the aboriginals were praying to, immediately everything is good and you're proud JJ is obeying the prime directive with the disguises and the ruse to lure the folks out of danger. But then, related to the previous movie and its flaws, I was upset that they couldn't simply beam the bomb or even Spock into the volcano (but in the previous movie they could somehow transport themselves into the Enterprise which was lightyears away and also traveling beyond lightspeed). Then comes in the ridiculous idea of Enterprise being underwater, which certainly was a beautiful scene and put a shiver down my neck, it's not possible without some sort of shield or some form of technobabble to counteract the forces.

"We couldn't find any good parking spots"

Spock then manually arms the device, and with Enterprise overhead they beam him back to safety just in the nick of time. I was quite content with them calling it "Spock's device" but then Pike opens his mouth and reveals that it's some sort of "cold fusion device", BLAH! I don't think they consulted scientists for this tech. Or they simply called it cold fusion because it turned what was once hot into something that is now cold, not to mention that it's now fused together.

Cold and fused

Then we have Kirk, the captain of the Enterprise, scolded and getting his toys taken away; Something digging into you telling you that we've already seen this rebellious Kirk in the previous movie, who also happens to get demoted and later regains his rank. I found this scene very depressing and it made me immediately lose respect for Kirk with his childish behavior. Did we really need to show this rebellious side once again?

"Don't worry, I'll get it back"

One thing that didn't help set the realism of this future tech, the hospital has hover beds yet important industrial things like forklifts (which still has today's designs) is still stuck on wheels. You'd think a hospital with hover beds would be considered an over-the-top luxury, where a hovering/flying forklift would be seen as the necessity.

   

Never did understand this exploding ring bit. First off it completely changes everything we know about Star Trek's explosives, they don't even have a scanner system in place for it. It would have been better if he purposely activates one of the photon torpedoes you see all around him, that would've been the path of least hassle. (Also aren't all those torpedoes the ones Khan has his people in *oops*, or is there another super secret torpedo warehouse)

   
Futuristic Alka-Seltzer  =  *BOOM*

All StarFleet high-rank officials cleverly meet together in an unprotected skyscraper. Kirk suddenly realizes the motives for bombing the "archives" just to get everyone to meet here, but he doesn't seem to warn anyone until AFTER shit starts exploding. Khan winks at him as he transports himself to safety - I'm hoping he's only transported himself a few yards away.. Am I right?

I'll go play somewhere else!

Later we discover that Khan certainly didn't transport himself safely only a few yards away, or maybe just to the street or something close by, no, no... It's much worse than that. He transports all the way to freakin' Kronos! The Klingon planet! This tiny device that could easily fit in my girlfriend's trunk can somehow transport a man more than half a dozen lightyears away (or more)! Even at the speed of light it would take 6 years for his molecules to reach Kronos - yet he gets there pretty near instantly, has the ability to re-materialize and also pinpoint the exact location on the surface of the moon taking into account of rotation and transport delay. All that does is say a big *fuck you* to any "He's out of range" or "We need to get closer to transport" mechanics.

"You're trying to tell me this only runs on 3xAA batteries!?"

Kirk then gets into a completely uncalled for face-smashing moment with Khan. Not just one punch, no, he puts a good minute of hits into Khan. Completely out of character and so unfitting for a captain, all this does is make me really dislike this new Kirk. Why he couldn't just be the better man and simply arrest Khan, I don't know. I suppose this beats the terrible orders Pike gave him, to launch photon torpedoes at Khan's location all the way from the neutral zone.

"Maybe if I hit you some more, I'll earn your trust for when we team up together later"

I might be getting a little nitpicky on this one, I can easily ignore this and pretend that Scotty's communicator works like a cellphone, where somewhere on Earth a subspace antenna is picking up the call from the Enterprise and relaying it to Scotty in the bar. It's plausible.

"What do you mean this call is ultra long distance?!"

Enterprise on its trip back to Earth gets knocked out of warp. Luckily they end up at 237,000km from Earth. Turns out the closest distance from earth to the moon (the perigee) is actually 363,104km yet somehow they're on the other side of the moon? (363,104km < 237,000km ??)

These writers have bad math - or the director gets distracted with pretty shots

Enterprise blows up the enemy ship, you can clearly see the moon at its full size behind them. Moments later the Enterprise is suddenly being pulled into earth? Either there was a long time lapse between scenes which would mean someone really fucked up and is responsible for all the deaths ahead, or our buddy JJ just wanted a nice moon shot and didn't realize how far the earth actually is?

  Seconds later --> 
"Who put this planet here?"

Enterprise goes into a radical free fall into earth.

Remember that tribble McCoy was working on? Well, apparently the director hadn't thought about the whole ship flipping upside down. Luckily the dead tribble remained where it was placed and only a few test tubes got knocked over (apparently gravity is a trickle of a thing).

  After upside down free fall --> 

Kirk saves the ship with a terrible deja vu scene (it was bad enough the first time, we really didn't need to see this happen again). Luckily Kirk knows how to kick things to the exact angle it needs to be - it's not like it's a technical piece of machinery which needs advanced calibration or anything. I also don't need to mention how terrible the upcoming "KHANNNNNNNNNN" scene is. Was this scene really that incredible that the writers had to replicate it almost word for word?

   

Then we have Spock and Khan double fisting each other on a smokey and depressing automated flying ship, something that belongs straight out of Star Wars and not within my futuristic fantasy of tomorrow. Certainly wasn't a pleasant look at tomorrow, as Star Trek is famously known for. JJ admitted he never understood Star Trek and that he was always a Star Wars fan (it shows all too much).

Also for some reason McCoy badly needed Khan's blood, I guess we didn't have anymore super powered blood that heals just about anything (this new introduction also says *fuck you* to any future plots of an "incurable" illnesses or death). Also McCoy says that cryogenics is antiquated technology, yet Kirk would've been dead if it weren't for it preserving his body. Just like it makes you wonder why the girl dying in the hospital isn't put in a cryotube to preserve her body until they find a cure (Khan's blood apparently cures all ailments).

"Get me Khan's blood!!! He's the ONLY cure for Kirk!"

Most of these issues could've been altered without changing much of the story. I definitely would've ditched the personal transporter and the super blood, the rest isn't as game breaking bad. I don't overly like JJ's Star Wars approach with everything but I do like the beautiful action scenes and downright gorgeous ship to ship battles. I don't think he's very capable at keeping a story strong without numerous plot holes or inconsistent character behaviors. I'm actually quite excited to see that he's not working on the 3rd ST movie and instead he'll be off butchering Star Wars some more. Hopefully the new director is a real ST fan.


What do you think of Star Trek TV shows or movies? Does anyone have any faith in the new director? He looks pretty green so it's really hard to tell.

And I sense that it's a bomb of sorts. Why else would this creature be as nervous as he is, and growing ever increasingly nervous with each moment you delay him - we didn't even accept it and he set it on the ground and is already dashing for the door. I say we take it out of the kingdom as fast as possible. Do not touch it with bare hands, he wasn't. Have these two guards run it out of the kingdom and bury it somewhere and keep a secret record of its location. If it isn't a bomb, it's doom. I don't feel good about this.

The Prestige.

Since this thread isn't going anywhere: yes, the film is indeed The Prestige.

"There is no right or wrong time, however, but each ruler who has used the gift has wished they hadn't, and each ruler who didn't use the gift has wished they had. [Using the gift] will evoke powers that can both help and harm."

Now doesn't that sound wonderful. I believe I now want to take it up to those mountains and have someone smash it to pieces.

Also the eerie darkness surrounding the shadowy figure, is that a quick and easy fix from WHAM to show that it's nearing the end of the day or did it actually get dark in this kingdom except for our furry friend?

[> Mention what the shadowy figure had said with the previous king having wasted the gift, ask when it would be an appropriate time to use it. Then accept the gift.]

As to what the gift does, simply uncover it and gaze into it, and the answer will be made clear to you.

Use it wisely, for only once will it serve thee'.

"King of the land, know that your reign will not be an easy one. But fear not, for on the third day from now, an object will be passed unto you, which will grant you the assistance of myself and others like me. Be wise and use it well, unlike the one who reigned over this land before you, for wasting such power might see your reign come to end sooner than you think."

From what I gather it's a one-time-use device that shows us the truth in what we seek, eg: an army is coming, you will be poisoned, etc. Knowing the truth now will likely be what he considers a "waste". So, given that information:

> Mention what the shadowy figure had said with the previous king having wasted the gift, ask when it would be an appropriate time to use it. Then accept the gift.

Edit: I strongly believe that using the gift now would be considered a waste. And asking him questions is something we will only have one opportunity to do, so make use of his presence now or we'll never know what this device really does or when to use it.

[+1]

> Before accepting the gift, ask him to tell about the 'others' who sent him, and what the gift is and does.

+1

So what did happen to our TRAVELLING ARTISAN, or did I completely forget about this person and she wasn't added to the wiki? Or is she still next?

> Arrest this visitor, throw him into the dungeons and execute him.

Just because of your previous suicide commands (which I honestly disliked, and would would prefer for you to not participate in this game if you're going to try to ruin it for others - no offense) I can't know if you're now serious with this command. The person is mysterious and could quite possibly be evil and as far as we know the object is some magical cursed object that will doom our kingdom. I do think if these people are evil, killing the messenger will only advance their plots much sooner than we're prepared for, but killing a messenger to a friendly group of people surely will create some new enemies.

[MAGS game (monthly AGS competition entry)]

Now the game length shows like this (it doesn't wrap properly):

Play length:                MAGS game (monthly AGS
competition entry)


It throws off the neat design of everything. But instead of just making it properly wrap, is there any chance of removing the description and having it only visible with a mouse over?

Also things like Genres, Game Length, etc should be a link to view all games with that type. Eg: Viewing a game with the Comedy genre, clicking that would show a list of all comedy games.

[> COMMAND the guards in your presence to stand alert but don't look too threatening, then SUMMON the next AUDIENCE]

The hooded silhouette of your next audience awaits at the door of the throne room

Hmm. I believe the last person on our list left is the TRAVELLING ARTISAN, unless this isn't the artisan.

a TRAVELLING MERCHANT from the south wishes to offer his finest wares and services to the KING
SIR KEVIN OF AXEMONT and his knights wish to offer their services to the KING
a LOST WARRIOR seeks assistance from the KING
BARON MONOCLE, an envoy of a pirate clan from the Western sea, seeks an audience with the KING
HIRSCHEL THE WIZENED offers his skills as a HERBALIST to the KING
ROBINA THE RANGER and her archers seek to offer their services to the KING
a TRAVELLING ARTISAN seeks to offer her finest crafts and services to the KING

It sounds a little eerie. Like we should be requesting more guards before we let this person in. I suggest this:

> COMMAND the guards in your presence to stand alert but don't look too threatening, then SUMMON the next AUDIENCE

Along with the Unrated Games List or the list that hasn't received 5 ratings, there's also a list of the Games You've Rated which most importantly, shows the games you haven't rated.

[> Ask the man why he seeks no pay in return for his services, and then ask about his past and people he's worked for. And ask what he can do with herbs and potions.]

Don't hire him just yet. Ask him some questions first.

> Ask the man why he seeks no pay in return for his services, and then ask about his past and people he's worked for. And ask what he can do with herbs and potions.