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OMG!! Read the officer joournal NOW!
I can't even spell Journal. Sheesh.
(Yes, I am putting a link in this time!) [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url]
Read the newist entry. OOh MY GOD! NOw I understand! Now I understand!
[This message has been edited by croxis (edited 09-01-2001).]
(Yes, I am putting a link in this time!) [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url]
Read the newist entry. OOh MY GOD! NOw I understand! Now I understand!
[This message has been edited by croxis (edited 09-01-2001).]
Comments
GNOMES!
THEY'RE STEALING MY UNDERWEAR!
STOP TI!
ACH!!! THEY'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY!
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Life is full of surprises. The ones reserved for me usually come wearing brass knuckles.
And doesn't crash -
And I hear the author looks at the stats once a week to see if there are enough people visiting the site (unique, not repeat), and staying more than a minute, to make it worth doing – since he’s spending a couple of days per week on it for free as a favor to ITF supporters.
Who knows if we’ll get the entire story before the site disappears?
Ohh sounds!
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[b]Required reading: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
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[b]Required reading: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
But the telepath/S14 tie-in was great...very clever.
Was Sinclair's voice done by Michael O'Hare, or was it another voice augmented with audio from the series?
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[i]"...In the end it would hold because what is built endures. And what is loved endures.
And Babylon 5...Babylon 5 endures."[/i] -- Delenn in the Babylon 5 episode [i]Rising Star[/i]
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[b]Required reading: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
We knew that there was interest in historical battles, of course, so that was an issue early on. Problem with B5 historical battles is that they are on rails if you keep them canon – everyone knows how they’re going to turn out. Even if you don't worry about this, we still had the problem that JMS's major historical battles are set up so that the playing field is very uneven. This works for drama – because we love to root for the underdog. But it’s not so good for a space combat simulator. If it wasn’t for plot gymnastics, the EA would most likely have been wiped out immediately, or would have wiped itself out. Mostly he has his main characters talk their way out of battles, bluff their way through before there's total destruction, manages to have some cosmic reason stop a battle before it's final conclusion, or everyone does get wiped out (victims of the Dilgar, for instance). Not exactly the stuff of re-playable space combat simulators - because the player doesn't end up with enough influence, or have much hope of success. At first it seemed like the only way to have historical battles was to artificially level the playing field and not worry about whether or not it was canon, or have historical modules that the player could participate in – usually ending up quickly dead. And then have a main story game where the player could actually have a hope of “winning”, given enough skill.
At first we put aside the issue of historical battles, figuring that they’d end up being modules, and started to look for a period of time in The Great Maker’s history where the years were only sketched in. We found a perfect place between the formation of the Alliance and the Drakh attack on Earth. We knew from talks with him what was supposed to be going on in the background during those years, so we worked out single player story game stuff so that it would fill out this little space in his overall narrative, and become canon material. This allowed us to formulate something where the player could have a major influence without interfering with canon. This was to be our single player game – but this didn’t solve the issue of interest in historical battles. What to do?
Since we couldn’t at first think of anything else, we went to work figuring that the historical battles would be simulator modules that set the playing field according to canon, and that the player would be a wild card within that mix. We knew that the odds would be way against the player if we kept it canon, but since they were only a modules and not the main games offered (single player story game – multi-player simulator without story) we figured that this would be okay. Most likely players would get creamed pretty quickly. But it would be fun while it lasted. And then everything changed.
Amidst a bit of a misunderstanding with JMS, while we were trying to juggle his concerns and ideas with our concerns for good (fun – well balanced) gameplay, we hit upon the idea of integrating Sector 14 as a way of allowing interaction in historical battles without having to leave the game. Then the problem became – how do we account for the common time travel phenomena dealt with in science speculation. We started to think about “What ifs”. For instance, what if the player had advanced weapons and defenses due to the new sharing of technology as part of the Alliance accords? And what if this player went back in time with this new technology? This would lead to a more level playing field in historical battles. This led us to think about parallel universes. That idea turned out to be okay with JMS. There was furious re-writing and the loss of about two months. We had to figure out how to do parallel universes without expanding the need for more assets, and without having to write for the rest of our lives to finish the game. But we did figure out a way, and we ended up with a better game, IMHO.
I'm going to ****ing kill someone for this.
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Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
To me, it is not the B5 license that I want in this game. That's great and all, but I am a fan first and foremost of space combat simulation games, and I feel that we have once again been deprived of a game that really defines the genre. We [i]need[/i] something that can really be called the best of the lot without a certain measure of embarassment. ITF would have been it. This wonderful journal starts to paint a picture of how and why.
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Q'Daan, Lord of the Porcupines
Council Chairman of the Grand Coalition of Porcupines
Oracle of the Mystical Trout of Malfador
We'll murder them all, in laughter and merryment. Except for the few we take home to experiment.
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Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://www.nialb5.com"]B5 site[/url].
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Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
[b]Biggles:[/b] You bring the shells, I'll bring the shotgun[/B][/quote]
Shotguns too quick for the likes of them.
Oh man the more I read the journal, the more I miss it.
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I have seen the future, and it was dark
and then I took my shades off...
--
Only the insane have strength enough to prosper,
Only those that prosper truly judge what is sane.
Love the story, I want to tell the author THANKYOU!!! (If you read this)
Whats REALLY bad is that I have a compleat mission campagn setup...that uses sector 14 in the SAME WAY!!! (Much different plot though)
LOL! as they say...Great minds think alike...
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[b]whitestar90: [/b]"it would give the computer a heartattack just looking at it" -
[b]Sanfam: [/b]"And Drazi didn't like it one bit.-
[b]Mr.Bungle: [/b][i]"So that's where the forum went..."[/i]-
---
[b][i]ahhh, the good old days of HTML.[/i][/b]
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[b][url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]Required reading[/url][/b]
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
But, I have to go now...
Zosolias quietly walks away and pounds his head into the wall moaning for what might have been.....
Do you think we should use the same cadence?
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We are one. No matter the blood, no matter the skin, no matter the world, no matter the star. .. We are one.
No matter the pain, no matter the darkness, no matter the loss, no matter the fear. .. We are one.
- Alliance Preamble to the Declaration of Principles, The Paragon of Animals
Webmaster [url="http://www.Sprungtor.de"]www.Sprungtor.de[/url]
Except maybe the minds of people who know that "no one" is two words. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img]
[b]I find I must agree. It wasn't just B5, it was The Ultimate Space Combat Game.
[/b][/quote]
"The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. Noone knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us."
- [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/vsml.gif[/img]
[b]And Sierra saw such brilliance, and Sierra thought, "How can we let this happen? People will expect us to make good games!". And Sierra stifled the creativity.
I'm going to ****ing kill someone for this.
[/b][/quote]
Ok everyone meet at the Statue of Liberty in 9 days. I'll Get a boat and some weapons. Next stop France!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We won't return untill those bastard execs heads are on our fighting pikes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We will Prevail
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"Ambassador we all know that the first casulty of war is the truth."
-John Sheridan