>>Ask *Diego Valdez* anything here!<<


Off-Topic Discussions

51 to 100 of 658 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next > last >>

1 person marked this as a favorite.

What about Fallout New Vegas?

Any memorable experiences if you have.

If you haven't, I can wait for you to go get it and play it.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

A game where you play as Zelda/Sheik (that perhaps emphasizes her wisdom/cunning/cleverness/etc.) would actually be really daggum awesome!

Do you have a favorite video game?


This idea is a really cool almost reverse LoZ concept, sort-of: you go through, clear out the evil monsters and replace them with cunning traps and puzzles of your own to destroy them. Or maybe each creature is a puzzle - or more traditional Zelda-style bosses only or- gah! So many possibilities! So many different reasons for this to occur, too! Hah! Too awesome!

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Fallout New Vegas. So something I discovered with Marrowind and continues to be a thing for me is that I need a lot more direction in my games than Bethesda games usually provide. I eventually got through Morrowind (took me several years) and I went through Fallout 3 pretty quickly. I was super excited for New Vegas because I looooove Fallout and Fallout 2, even Fallout Tactics, and I was looking forward to see what the original Fallout team would do in their version of a Fallout 3. But like with Oblivion I just couldn't do it. With too much sandbox I just wander around until I lose interest and move on to something else. I have run into this with Fallout 4 recently too. I don't know why I struggle so much to get into these games anymore. There are some I really really want to play, like the Fallout games. I have tried several times to the same effect with Red Dead Redemption, and I've never even loaded my copy of Skyrim.

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Oh man, I would buy a Zelda/Sheik game like you're describing in a heartbeat!

It's hard for me to say what my most favorite game ever is because there are several that are my favorite while I'm playing them. I would say it is one of Final Fantasy Tactics, A Link to the Past, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. I love those games and frequently replay all of them.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Diego Valdez wrote:
Oh man, I would buy a Zelda/Sheik game like you're describing in a heartbeat!

Me too!

Diego Valdez wrote:
Final Fantasy Tactics,

My people!

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.

What year did you graduate?

I grew up and was graduated from Peñasco.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Do you know how happy I am to see this thread up here again?

Also: do you ever spend time watching online videos or Live Streams?

Do you take martial arts?

What kind of books are your favorite?

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Bennybeck Wabbittracks wrote:

What year did you graduate?

I grew up and was graduated from Peñasco.

I was part of the class of '99.

You were pretty close to my old stomping grounds!

Customer Service Representative

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Tacticslion wrote:

Do you know how happy I am to see this thread up here again?

Also: do you ever spend time watching online videos or Live Streams?

Do you take martial arts?

What kind of books are your favorite?

I don't know, but you asking suggests it is a positive amount! Glad you're happy to see it getting new posts (I am too, I kind of like it, though I think I am not as exciting as the developers and designers)!

I have been watching one of my co-workers Let's Play of the Mass Effect series. It has been a lot of fun to watch, though I sometimes want to call them up and answer questions they ask, but it's not live and I tend to watch the whole weeks worth of videos on the weekend so it would be too late. Beyond that I really only watch movie trailers online. I have been known to occassionally spend a few hours on Youtube watching things like "Strangest paranormal creatures caught on film!" or, Biggest NASA cover-ups!" They're silly and I enjoy them. Sometimes some funny videos too, like Guy on a Buffalo (part 2 is the best) or the Honest Trailers.

I am far too round and inflexible to do martial anything. I complain any time I have to use my legs like a sucker! I have put way too much time and money into this gut to risk losing it with exercise!

I read a whole lot of shared world fiction. A whole lot. I have complete, or near complete collections of Forgotten Realms, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Star Wars novels. I have a ton of Star Trek ones, Pathfinder ones, and most of the Weiss and Hickman Dragonlance ones. I really enjoy light escapism. I do enjoy other stuff though. My very favorite book is Watership Down which I read annually. I devour pretty much everything Tolkien. I am a big Rudolfo Anaya fan (Sarafina's Stories is my favorite). I enjoy Mary Roach's nonfiction a lot too. The Art of Racing in the Rain, and City of Thieves are some more favorites. I just reread all of the novelizations of the Star Wars movies in anticipation of the paperback release of The Force Awakens on Tuesday (which is when my copy should be delivered). My bookshelf is also filled with books of Native American and Mesoamerican lore, like the Popol Vuh, Raven Steals the Light, Tewa Tales, The Book of the Hopi, and so on. There is stuff like The Sagas of the Icelanders as well, but not as much of it. I just added The Amazons by Adrienne Mayor on a coworkers recommend but haven't read it yet.

I also read tons of comics. I have a very near complete collection of Uncanny X-Men (they have been my favorite since I was a kid)including Nightcrawler and Kitty Pryde miniseries, all of the Robin miniseries and the ongoing (Tim Drake was another of my favorite characters), Most of the Carol Danvers Captain Marvel, a growing collection of Wonder Woman, and a smattering of Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman. I also have a full run of Gen13 but I think teenage me liked that a lot more than present me does. I have the big fancy hardcover special collection of Calvin and Hobbes which I am super proud of. Lastly, I have all of the Arana digests. Anya Corazon immediately became one of my favorite characters, and I get super annoyed at Marvel when she doesn't show up in the spider family books (theres a series called Spider-Women and she's not in it... Come on Marvel...). It may be that I was just super happy to see a Spanish lead with a Spanish super hero name (changing from Arana to Spider-Girl made me super sad) and maybe her book was actually terrible, but I liked it a lot.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Have you ever read the Forgotten Realms novels that were set in Maztica?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Diego Valdez wrote:
I am far too round and inflexible to do martial anything. I complain any time I have to use my legs like a sucker! I have put way too much time and money into this gut to risk losing it with exercise!

So this makes me ask: are you planning for the Singularity?

(Do you believe in it, or do you feel it is so much hogwash? Or are you uncertain? Or do you have a more nuanced view? Or something else?)

Also relevant: are you planning on getting one of those exoskeleton frames as soon as they become commercially available (and, I suppose, affordable/with a battery life longer than, "Congratulations, you took a step") just to make sure they can partially do your walking for you?

Otherwise, I like pretty much everything else you've written (though I'm totally working on losing my matching gut while taking Taekwondo, myself, along side my five-year-old son).


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Oh! Bonus questions:

There are a lot.

(I'm kind of a nerd.)

Top three from Final Fantasy Tactics:

- Guest Characters (never full party members)

- Key Characters that (can) become party members

- Basic "Any character" Class (squire counts)

- Unique Class

- Monster

- Non-party member allies

- Non-party member non-allies (not necessarily foes, just non-allies)

- Foes that you face in battle*

- Battle maps (if you have them)

- Battle (if different from the above)

- Story moments (if you remember them)

Feel free to choose less of any given category, or add a category that I've forgotten that you think of. Have fun! :D

* Spoilers:

Delita, Algus, Meliadoul, Zalbag, Gaff, and Malak can go pretty much where you want, depending on what role you'd think they should go under, either to avoid spoilers (though the game is, you know, twenty-one-daggum years old). Obviously they won't fit perfectly into every role, but they fit fairly well into several of them.

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Sorry for not answering for a few days. I have a flu that has had me down for the count since the weekend.

Customer Service Representative

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Limeylongears wrote:
Have you ever read the Forgotten Realms novels that were set in Maztica?

I have. I also have the Maztica boxed set. It's a mixed bag for me. I so badly wanted to have something influenced by the Americas that I was happy that it existed, but there is also a lot of problematic stuff with it that makes me sad.

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Tacticslion wrote:
Diego Valdez wrote:
I am far too round and inflexible to do martial anything. I complain any time I have to use my legs like a sucker! I have put way too much time and money into this gut to risk losing it with exercise!

So this makes me ask: are you planning for the Singularity?

(Do you believe in it, or do you feel it is so much hogwash? Or are you uncertain? Or do you have a more nuanced view? Or something else?)

Also relevant: are you planning on getting one of those exoskeleton frames as soon as they become commercially available (and, I suppose, affordable/with a battery life longer than, "Congratulations, you took a step") just to make sure they can partially do your walking for you?

Otherwise, I like pretty much everything else you've written (though I'm totally working on losing my matching gut while taking Taekwondo, myself, along side my five-year-old son).

Haha! No. I make a lot of jokes about it, "Damn it, science! Where are the teleporters? It's 2016 and here I am still using my legs like a sucker!" But no, I wouldn't invest in an exoskeleton or anything like that. I'm about 230lbs at 5'9, so pretty overweight, but not as much as I sometimes suggest. I absolutely do need to be getting more exercising.

I think sooner or later tech will get to a point to make humans mostly redundant in a lot of fields. I hope that that means many of us are freed up to pursue the things we really enjoy and lets us as a society go full bore with the arts and sciences. I am optimistic in that I believe maybe one day we can have a Star Trek like future where we are all free to pursue the things we enjoy without having to worry about food or shelter or other necessities. There is a part of my brain that says that is unlikely, but I try to go through life believing the future is brighter and better.

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Tacticslion wrote:

Oh! Bonus questions:

There are a lot.

(I'm kind of a nerd.)

Top three from Final Fantasy Tactics:

- Guest Characters (never full party members)

- Key Characters that (can) become party members

- Basic "Any character" Class (squire counts)

- Unique Class

- Monster

- Non-party member allies

- Non-party member non-allies (not necessarily foes, just non-allies)

- Foes that you face in battle*

- Battle maps (if you have them)

- Battle (if different from the above)

- Story moments (if you remember them)

Feel free to choose less of any given category, or add a category that I've forgotten that you think of. Have fun! :D

** spoiler omitted **

Boards ate my first try, so here goes.

Ovelia. I Knew that Delita was just using her for his power grab and I felt really bad for her, she was such a kind person and was just caught up in everyone elses crap. I wanted her to be in my party so she would be safe and wouldn't be manipulated or used as a tool by anyone else. Plus her powers were cool and useful. I also really wanted Alma to join my group. I didn't want her to stay with Ramza's brothers because I didn't trust them to keep her clear of everything. I don't believe Oran was ever a partial party member but I wanted him to join too.

Rafa. Rafa is my very favorite character in the game (though I hate the randomness of her abilities). I'm also fond of Agrias and Orlandu.

Samurai is my favorite class in the game. I love the mechanics and I think it is very well balanced as a 'little of everything' type of class. It is competent at doing the things it does, but never outclasses the classes that do that thing. Aesthetically my favorite is the Knight. I love the way they look. Ramza always ends up a Squire for me though with a smattering of abilities from other classes (almost all of my squad end up with some Monk powers, Monks get some really cool stuff).

Orlandu's unique class is the one I would take if I could. All of Agrias and Gafgarion's sword abilities in one class? Yes please. I think that probably answers the other 2 slots. Rafa's would be on the list if it were more reliable (it sucks losing an entire turn because you have enemies on 3 of 4 squares and you only get one hit and it's on the empty square...

A flurry of Chocometoers > all the chocobos heal eachother and become unkillable. I haaaaaate fighting squads of chocobos. I also hate checking my squad list and having 4,000,000,000,000 chocobo eggs. I don't think that makes them my favorite monster but it makes them the monster I remember the most (I rate monsters in this game less on how much I like them and more on how much I hate fighting them).

Oran is my favorite non party ally. I wanted so badly for him to join us. I think my answer to this is mostly the same as for the key characters.

For non allies it is easily Meliadoul. I wanted so much to be able to fix things for her. For her to see what her brother was doing. I was so sad that I couldn't avoid killing her.

Fighting Argus was wonderful. I couldn't wait to kick his pompous rear. I hated him. And that scene. Delita and Tietra. Whew. The Belias battle was one of my favorites too. It was so hard! Beating it really made me feel like I had EARNED my victory and that I was a competent player.

The scenes with the reed flutes were favorites. I think they really added a lot of humanness to the whole thing and reminded that in this whole big political war there were regular people.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

So much I want to respond to! I'm on a phone, so keeping it short: from the names, it seems you're using the most recent translations. Is that presence, following the "proper" translation, more recent exposure, or more exposure in general to those translations?

Also: PS1; PSP; or iDevice/Android? Which did you play it on? Any? All?

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Tacticslion wrote:

So much I want to respond to! I'm on a phone, so keeping it short: from the names, it seems you're using the most recent translations. Is that presence, following the "proper" translation, more recent exposure, or more exposure in general to those translations?

Also: PS1; PSP; or iDevice/Android? Which did you play it on? Any? All?

It was the first game I got along with my Playstation way back when I was a teenager. I didn't have a memory card when I got them so I played the Mandalia Plains about 500 times in the 2 weeks until I got paid again and was able to get one. I have replayed it with regular frequency since. I still have that PSX disk, which is currently on loan to a coworker here. I also got the PSP War of the Lions, which is what I usually play now. There are things about it I like better than on the original disk, like the cutscenes, though I do get a little sad when it doesn't slow down dramatically on the chapter 1 intro dialogue like the PSX version did. So the names are probably more likely from the PSP because I have played that most recently. I do have it on my ipad as well, but prefer to play it on my TV.


Hahahah! Oh, man! I remember that dramatic slowdown in the text!

"They had no jobs, ... L...i...t...t...l...e... M...o...n...e...y... and even less loyalty to the crown..."

XD

Hahahah! I wonder if "getting stuck early on" is a secret to loving this game - about several people I've talked to who do seem to have a similar story... as do I!

It's kind of embarrassing, but... eh. That's life!

When I first got the game, I had t read the manual, and I'd never played a game like it before, and it was one of my earliest PS purchases. I'd been pretty strictly a Nintendo kid. As a result I kind of forgot that the right and left buttons existed.

The end result is that the tutorial was easy. The first battle in Garimond (against the thieves) was impossible, because all I had was Ramza and Delita. I played it so many times, never sure what I was doing wrong, confused and frustrated. I even came "fairly close" once or twice when I successfully whittle the battle down to two other guys, but by that long I'd always be in crtitcally low health and they'd either be full or nearly so - there was no real way to win.

So, after enough of this, I eventually just shelved it. Until several months (and a few games) later, a missionary family stopped by our house with an irritatingly stubborn girl (yay!) who, after I'd opened my gaming library ("Oh, except for that one - I mean, you can, but it's not really possible because...") ignored my advice (yay!) put in FFT (yay!) and immediately found out how to add characters to the battlefield.

My world was rocked. Everything changed. I watched her play and beat the next two battles (Mandolia and Secret Woods, I think?) and then she had to go.

I do not remember her name, her family, why or how they were at our house for that day (I don't believe I've ever seen them again), but I remember that moment: she taught me that there were, in fact, buttons on top of my PS controller (which Id known, but forgotten) and the import acne of reading the instructions (which I've tried to do ever since; though, in fairness to me, the copy I had was a used copy, and the instruction book was torn and blurred in a few places; not ideal to learn from).

So: do you have any particularly memorable and/or funny stories about your attempts at play through? (The lacking a card thing works, actually - I'm just trying to make sure I ask a question I the Ask Diego thread... XD)

Oh! Also: have you seen The Completionist/ProJared's crossover review of Final Fantasy Tactics? It's pretty funny!
(If curse words bother you - they can bother me a bit* - be warned they can both indulge, though I don't recall too many in that particular video.)

* My delicate sensitivities! Alas! Woah is me! What ever shall I doooooo~?! ... mostly enjoy things anyway. As long as it's not excessive, I'm actually okay with such language, even finding a (very exceedingly few, compared to its use) cases it being the appropriate tool for communication, though not one I use. It really only gets bothersome when it becomes "the" joke and is poured out in excess of is used as a crutch word too often (similar to "like" in casual conversation). :D


Sweegy Woods, not Secret Woods. Oops!

Bother. Here I thought my memory was better than that... >.<

Oh well! I guess that means that I should play again... :D

EDIT: oh, and are you aware of the 1.03 fan mod?

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Haha! I am impressed that you were able to whittle down ANY battle to just 2 units only using 2 units! That game could be very hard, especially at the beginning. Trade City Dorter is another battle I remember being very difficult.

I was not aware of the fan mod. I Googled it and it looks interesting. I am not sure how I feel about the game being harder though, there were some battles that were very hard (Belias and Dorter).


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yeah, Belias was one battle that has me definitively hesitant to accept any mod that makes the game more difficult.

As for my ability: mostly it was luck, which is why I considered it an impossible game. I had to crit on my throw stone (which had to randomly generate in the first place) to knock roof girl off who had to take crit falling damage and die. Delita had to crit on the chemist to drop him and scare him into running for most of the battle.

Then it was back ally guy, aggressive squire leader guy, other forward squire, Delita, and Ramza. Back ally guy can be held off and killed by stone throw and roof top running. Delita should hopefully live long enough (maybe?) to let squire girl crystallize, and you can full-heal. By that point, it's a running retreat - if you can block things right, you can sreange it so the chemist can't heal the one guy that comes to melee you (range/space) and you can kill him before you're dead. Of course, by that point you're out of options - Delita has long since headed to that great guest character dirt nap, and your a low level rube who's low on up, trapped on a roof, and surrounded on all sides by aggressives - who can heal. Hypothetically, I could get crystal number two, but I could never survive a run to get to it, and I couldn't guarantee it'd be a crystal in the first place. Plus if one little thing went wrong - if squire girl had too much HP or didn't crystallize; if any of them had or used stone throw or if I didn't have it; if Delita got offed too early; any one crit on me before I was ready; I didn't take down back ally guy in time; and so on: that was it. It was over. I always knew I needed to get the chemist gone, but I never found a way to do that without completely losing everything and ending up being swarmed to death by the other team. I'm given to understanding that there are people who do solo runs with only Ramza... but I'm not one of those: I just wasn't ever that good at it.

It is funny, though. I know a lot of people had problems with Dorter - I don't think I was one. It's not a brag: I sssssssssssucked at Rat Cellar, the next level, a battle that literally none of my friends had problems with. It was just about the worst.

Question: were you blending Miluda (chapter one) and Meliadoul (chapter three/four) earlier? Because if so, then I think our answers line up in everything but classes...
(I also have a very soft spot for the not-so-soft Meliadoul, but that's just because I also love Knights, and she's kind of a super-knight and it's very fun to use her abilities, even if you already have Oandu and he is better...)

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Dorter was super hard for me. I think the issue with Belias is that my, and other peoples, instinct is to try to level up more to take it on. He is one of the only battles in the game that scales up to your level, which means you're tougher but so is he and you are under equipped because the game won't start selling you the higher level gear until after the fight.

I don't think Dorter scales but it is definitely harder than the previous levels by an order of magnitude, and the lack of equipment was definitely an issue. The AI always makes Delita and Algus go up the tower in the upper left corner of the map to the one archer up there. It takes them several rounds to get to her because of their vertical movement speed. She just rains death down on them. In the meanwhile my 3 units have to take on the other 5 baddies by themselves, which includes a knight, 2 black mages, and an archer. The knight hits like an angry rhino and there is so much hard hitting AoE coming from the mages that even just getting close enough to engage is hard.

Rat Cellar was easy for me. Monk powers like Wave Fist and Earthslash go through walls so parking a tank at each door with my Monk (because I usually have one at this point) or my black mage behind them cleans up since only one of the enemy units at a time can attack the tanks.

I may have been mixing up the 2. I was not talking about the knight that can join your party and turn into a dragon, I was talking about Wiegraf's sister.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Diego Valdez wrote:

Dorter was super hard for me. I think the issue with Belias is that my, and other peoples, instinct is to try to level up more to take it on. He is one of the only battles in the game that scales up to your level, which means you're tougher but so is he and you are under equipped because the game won't start selling you the higher level gear until after the fight.

I don't think Dorter scales but it is definitely harder than the previous levels by an order of magnitude, and the lack of equipment was definitely an issue. The AI always makes Delita and Algus go up the tower in the upper left corner of the map to the one archer up there. It takes them several rounds to get to her because of their vertical movement speed. She just rains death down on them. In the meanwhile my 3 units have to take on the other 5 baddies by themselves, which includes a knight, 2 black mages, and an archer. The knight hits like an angry rhino and there is so much hard hitting AoE coming from the mages that even just getting close enough to engage is hard.

Rat Cellar was easy for me. Monk powers like Wave Fist and Earthslash go through walls so parking a tank at each door with my Monk (because I usually have one at this point) or my black mage behind them cleans up since only one of the enemy units at a time can attack the tanks.

I may have been mixing up the 2. I was not talking about the knight that can join your party and turn into a dragon, I was talking about Wiegraf's sister.

That makes a lot of sense. For me, it was probably a matter of my obsessive nature.

I definitely was a grinder, right from the beginning, but I also tended to be kind of... hm... obsessive. Because thieves exist, as a class, one of the things I focused heavily on was getting a thief, early on, who could steal all the things.

As an aside: the thief class had amazing abilities and good speed but terrible everything else. As a result, I had a (to loosely borrow Pokemon terms) 'JP slave' character who would become a thief for everyone else, and kind of super-level as that class for my other characters. I did this with most other classes, actually, so I could let the characters gain character levels while being mimes. I, uh... I kind of min/maxed the heck outta stuff sometimes. *cough* >.>

Anyway, with that in mind, I needed a tremendous coward (threaten: mediator) with move/find item (chemist) and lots of luck (save and reset! ho~!) to find the really good stuff. So, to best control a battle, break the baddies' speed and power (and, if it's a monster, it's magic) down to 1, threaten the thing to chicken and frog it, then go panel by panel searching for chachkies.

That, ultimately, I think is what made the 'Cellar such a pain - stealing the monks' stuff didn't really punish them all that much (comparatively), wasn't that valuable (comparatively), and that particular map is very difficult to properly explore (not to mention you only get the one opportunity). Getting into and out of the place could be a bit of a pain, so thoroughly controlling the battle was always a bit of a crap-shoot, on occasion, especially that early on.

As for Dorter - I explicitly remove all of Algus and Delita's weapons and armor and all of their abilities that I could, as I never really found them to ever be useful under any circumstances except as "let me soak damage" targets (to which end, if I ever ended up with cheap extra hp boosters they could use, I equipped them on the two for a given battle, if I expected it to be tough). Hence that kind of loss was never a problem (except, of course, for a place like the 'Cellar - where if they died in the wrong place, suddenly I either couldn't get to the enemy, or couldn't box the enemy in). So it's probably mostly my approach more than anything else - that hyper-methodical "gotta catch 'em all" (irony: I've referenced Pokemon twice in this post, and never played it until after I was married for five years) approach.

But, yeah, battlefield control (and items acquisition) is not really possible - at all - in the Belias fight.

FFT Characters!:

For the record, this last week alone - it's a surprisingly busy week! - I've been talking to no less than three FFT nerds that somehow mixed up the following three ladies (I even blended Miluda and Meliadoul for a few). I'll mention the following for clarification.

Miluda Folles: a very empathetic character from chapter one; the blonde sister of Wiegraff. She was a firecracker and an outspoken fiercely loyal sister. I spent hours attempting to recruit her, all in vain, of course (I just didn't quite believe that "0%" really meant it*), and was relatively crushed when she died rather ignobly in the middle of what seemed to be a relatively pointless battle when we explicitly (and politely) asked to avoid any conflict, explained that the person kidnapped was not a noble, and that we weren't even interested in fighting Wiegraff: we just wanted a guy's innocent daggum sister back who wasn't even noble.

My biggest frustration with Miluda over the years has been that, no matter how sympathetic she is, and no matter how much I wanted to save her: she never wanted to be saved. She called us 'despicable' for daring to show sympathy and daring to try to understand her situation. She fought us with vicious effort, despite every effort to the contrary**, and she allowed her genuinely awful situation to grow into a malevolence and bitterness - a foul internal poison that led directly to the corruption of her brother, and waste of many more of the very lives she claimed to fight for (as well as the demonization of those very people and that very cause). In the end, I wanted to save her, but she wanted to be a martyr - she just refused to understand that it hurt everyone and everything she cared about to die in that way than it would have to live.
Modern name: "Milleuda Folles"

Meliadoul Tingel: This green-clad lady a very empathetic character from chapter four, a Divine Knight, and is the sister of Izlude Tingel and daughter of Vormav Tingel. She begins with the very understandable mistaken impression that Ramza killed her brother (he did not - her father did, with the power of the Lucavai). She begins by trying to kill you, but eventually she sees that you have been telling the truth about the Lucavai when she witnesses you fight Marquis Elmdore herself and volunteers to join you.
Modern name: "Meliadoul Tingille"

Reis Dular: Reis is a hidden character available to recruit as a holy dragon at the same time you recruit a Temple Knight named Beowulf. Eventually, by going through a side-quest, she is turned back into a human woman with power over dragons who retains her breath weapon attacks, at which point she is revealed to be Beowulf's beloved (or fiance? I don't recall right now).

Modern name: "Reis Duelar"

* I had... issues with the % shown by the game. Far too many times, I find that extremely unlikely things occur, while likely things simply do not work. Beyond that, I was really hoping that it was 0% because there was some sort of hidden "win" condition - I wasn't entirely trusting the game in the early days to be entirely forthright with us. Of course, I also tried bogus "make Ramza a dark knight" tricks, too, so it could just be that I'm credulous (though no one I'd ever read about mentioned a way to recruit Miluda).

** The most insane thing I ever did in that game, I did just for her. I went on a 'total pacifism' rout with her specific people: I made an explicitly masterful set of thief-mediators (there were other skills for survival, but everyone had either thief or mediator skill or both). I then made sure that every single member of her crew were recruited to my party without violence. I gave them the best equipment I could purchase at that point in the game, and let them go without violence. Every. Single. Daggum. One. It was insane, but I was super-proud of my accomplishment. Of course, it didn't work. Game wasn't that smart. No duh.

Totally agree about Rafa being the best. The only character to tap the power of the Zodiac stone with no corruption, and strictly due to the power of genuine unselfish love? Yes. (Her abilities also suck.)

Oh! I didn't mention before, and to follow the rules I need a question, soooo...

... did you know that you graduated the year before I did? :D

My favorite class that belongs exclusively to an enemy, however... the assassin class. I want that class. So much.

(Both of them, actually. Celia's is the better class, of the two - she can dual-wield katanas, which is super-amazing.)

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Ah. I wasn't so keen on the move find item thing unless I knew there was a special item on the map. I was/am keen on tons of JP though. The very first ability I buy on everyone if JP Up. I will spend hours playing the Mandalia Plains just getting as much JP as possible. Everyone gets Squire as their secondary class ability so they can Accumulate (the second ability everyone learns) every round that they are not actively fighting an enemy. In nearly every battle I fight anywhere I will leave one enemy alive in critical health so it runs away and then just stand around accumulating and getting JP every turn. I also prolong battle long enough to get any crystals that drop so I can get new abilities without having to use JP to learn them.

Delita and Argus annoyed me because they would end up killing that last unit every time. So I also removed all of their equipment (often I went into a battle hoping they would die, and never took them into battles I didn't have to). So the issue with Dorter wasn't that they died trying to take out the archer, it was that I lost 2 squad slots and had to take on the level with only 3 'real' units.

I suspect you know this but in case you don't, there is a Dark Knight class in War of the Lions, so you CAN make Ramza a Dark Knight!

I think I feel the same way you do about Miluda. I wanted really badly for her to join my team and understand that the Corpse Brigade was wrong. I hated that I ended up having to kill her. I didn't go to quite the extremes you did, but I did go pretty out of my way to avoid killing her, and always had to.

I like Rafa so much that she always goes into my main party as soon as I have her despite how much I hate her abilities (I also hate that unique classes like hers never learn anything like Accumulate so it takes me longer to teach them new stuff).

Class of 2000 huh? I was class of 99 but was almost class of 2000. My birthday is in July, so I turned 18 a couple months after graduating, and was the youngest person in my class. The cut off date for age was in August so were I about a month older I would have been part of the class of 2000.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Uh... okay, a large part of my post vanished before I posted. I'll... maybe get back to making that part later? Or maybe it's on my phone? Eh... anyhoo!

Wow! Yeah, it seems we missed each other by exactly a year! I'm a July as well (the 10th), and was consistently youngest in my class, too! :D

Thank you a lot for the info! But, actually, yes, I do know about the new Dark Knight class... and it's kind of cool! The only problem is that it's not Gaff's class (which has now been renamed "Fell Knight" I think?), and, cool abilities aside, one of the major reasons I wanted Ramza to be a Dark Knight was that it felt really appropriate for him to learn that as part of his apprenticeship under the man. Also the new class feels a bit weirdly balanced, and the other abilities (not the original two) just feel a little... off, somehow. I dunno. It's weird.

I do love how "Algus" was renamed to the - rather fitting, heh - "Argus"... I mean... I don't think they made the first part of his name "ARG!" on purpose, but, you know...

Yeah, Accumulate was my go-to ability after I'd ruined the rest of my foes (and heard the lamentations of their chickens).

And Gained JP Up was the ability that everyone that could acquire had, no matter what. Much later, once I got Move-Get JP, I could chicken all the baddies, and just... go for walks. With Ramza Yelling at people (usually a "Chosen" One for a specific random battle - it worked out much better that way) to up their Speed to 50, plus a Haste, if I could manage it, it really didn't take all that long, even at the piddly rate of gain - it allowed me to rush through classes I otherwise wouldn't have wanted to gain actual character levels as, but otherwise needed or wanted abilities from. It was excessively helpful for people like Rafa or - heaven help me - Cloud (daggumit, why did he start at level one?!).

I can recognize the problems with Dorter, but again, I was kind of used to running battles with lower-than-normal troops: generally, I'd bring Ramza along in random battles, but (after a couple of failed runs where he'd level so fast that random battles became impossible to win) never actually use him (if possible), because he still gained JP from everyone else (even if he hadn't unlocked a given job, yet!).

While, in Dortor, having three instead of four is a bit of pain, yeah, having two extra targets actually ameliorated that a lot, and they rushed the single most important site to hold anyway. All I did was pack everyone on top of the fort, cut off the critical areas, place an archer up top, and rain doom upon the fools who dared attempt to challenge me (with appropriate healing, as necessary, of course). The only thing that ever made that battle difficult was where Algus and Delita died: if they died in the wrong spot, the tower could be impossible (or at least very annoying) to control properly with only three guys.

... also, charming the knight and/or wizard early on is a tremendous help. :D

That reminds me of one very fond memory I have was a thief specialist I'd made; I don't recall his name at present, but he was one of my fellow academy graduates. Anyway, the guy was originally a JP slave-type character, but had some surprisingly solid stats on everything but damage dealt. Ended up making him a kind of pacifist character - consistently charming the enemy as much as possible, and trying to help everyone get along. Later, when he could become a mediator, I had him go for it, too, bless his spoony little heart, and he kept both abilities on at all times. Either way, he sucked at stuff, rather massively. Good at getting the ladies out of their clothes, terrible at making the relationship last. I had this whole story line going with him, about how much he hurt after every "failed relationship" (charmed enemy in battle that turned on him and tried to kill him, later, for reasons). Never once successfully used the Persuade skill. Hilarious and sad at the same time. He died more or less as you could have expected... of heart break. By which I mean he was stabbed through the heart by one of the assassins (I don't remember which) after he either failed to charm her* or the charm wore off (I can't recall now, if they were immune or not). He was not able to be revived in time, due to the flow of battle.

... which brings up a nice question. Did you have "favored" parties or characters from that game that you came up with personal stories for, or did you stick with the main plot?

Also, from your picture, I'm just guessing, but... Balthier fan? Yes? No? (I've not actually played FF12, and haven't recruited him, yet, in the iDevice version, so I'm not too familiar with him.)

* I was pretty hard-core into the characters' stories, even back then. I guess I should have always known role playing was in my future.

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Very close to exactly a year it looks like. I'm July 9.

I do have favorite parties. I make backgrounds for all of my characters (that aren't story ones who already have a background). Lavien and Alicia are always part of my group. I also get a new person as soon as I leave Gariland and name them Anya (in every game I ever play I have a character named Anya, including my first PFS character). The starting male chemist is always in group too (I think his name is usually David?). I create backgrounds for all of them. Rafa usually replaces Lavien though in my active team once I get her.

Leveling Cloud is a nightmare. And his abilities take forever. Want to use Omnislash? Too bad. It takes 15 turns to go off and everyone will move out of its affected area...

My profile picture I chose mostly because of the expression on the guys face. If it was available when I made my account many many years ago I would have used the leshy picture I have on my alt. I didn't see that as an option until after I started here and the one I use was the one everyone saw next to my name. But FFXII is one of my favorite numbered Final Fantasy games (VI is my favorite) and I do like Balthier (he is also in War of the Lions), though Ashe is my favorite from the game, so I appreciate the comparison. I understand the greater fan base lists it as one of the weaker games but I appreciated that it's story is not as grandiose and world shaking as other games in the series. It also takes place in Ivalice and the summons are all the zodiak creatures from FFT. At first I thought this was just a neat tie as Squenix reuses names in a lot of the series, but it turns out it is all the same world. It ties closer to FFTA and FFTA2 than FFT though, and I strongly prefer FFT.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I played FFTA, but didn't get into its lighter tone or equipment based level king as much; since I didn't own it, I never actually finished it. I've always wanted to play FF12, but never had the opportunity - I didn't own the system, so never could get the game, and the only time I hung out with people who had both, they were hour and a half away away, and I only went there to help with green screen effects on a film his house mate (he was one of my brother-in-law's house mates at the time) was making - never any real time to play. Hypothetically, I could have spent more time there, but he normally wasn't there when I was (and usually what little time we spent at crossed paths was spent casually chatting about FFT and FF6 and/or mentioning something cool about them we saw online; yes, this was only a few years ago) and I would have felt awkward booting up his game without him, and more than any of that, my wife would have been left home alone, and it was already an hour and a half drive, so... never really happened.

Similarly, though, I also really like Vagrant Story which mostly seems to have disappeared from cultural consciousness.

Cloud's abilities were always so disappointing. So hard to get and so much harder to use. His one sword that he had to have really sucked (compared to any other option) and he just wasn't that great a character. I ended up being able to see him use all of his abilities... by letting him target my own team. At one point in absolute frustration, after everything I'd gone through, I just wanted to use the daggum toys. So I targeted my guys and tried everything on them. Sometimes I was able to target enemies instead in that battle by Stop and keeping them in that condition, but it was a tedious fight. I got to see all of his loves a few times that fight, declared myself satisfied, and used them rarely since. I always felt like there should have been a way to do it better, but unfortunately, it never seemed to work out that way. ... but at least he wasn't Malak, amirite?! ... daggummit, Malak.

(I always wanted Malak to be so daggum cool. And I tried. A lot. You've played the game. You know how well that works.)

You got a David chemist too?! Awesome! David was my MAN! He was t always there, but when he was, he rocked the house! For me, David became the Calculator-Mediator with constant haste. The only way I got through Deep Dungeon, really. He was also one of two people (the other being Rafa) to gain Zodiac. Which is kiiiiiiinda awesome, except for the part where it was kiiiinda sucky due to the fact that the guy - along with Rafa - never actually used it on us! I mean, loyalty, yeah, but he was super-hard to get charmed, and when he was charmed by the enemy, he always used his weakest summons and weirdly poor tactics until he accidentally in harmed himself (usually by physically attacking someone with a physical counter equipped).
... of course I should have been careful what I wished for. The fourth (and final) time I managed to get him charmed in an attempt to teach us Zodiac, he used it. He was the only survivor. :| He still won that battle, but... heh. Oops.
(Rafa worked out much better.)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Also: I've always wondered at the background of Rad, Lavian, and Alicia. Rad was a merc kid - probably had not much good going for him and hired on with Gatf just to make ends meet. But why did Lavian and Alicia decide to follow Ramza after the monestary battle? Clearly they were devoted to the church - assigned to protect Lady Agrias and the princess. So why join Ramza/Gaff when they did? Even if it's purely mechanics (so you didn't lug around two additional lady knights as guests), why didn't they (for story reasons) stay with Agrias when she and the princess stayed with the Cardinal? It's always been an interesting thing to ponder.

I've also shipped Ramza with various people over the years. At first it was Agrias, because, you know, Agrias - first strong specifically named female you meet with cool powers who you can eventually recruit? Seems natural. But in the end, I tended toward Rafa and/or Meliadoul over the years, if anyone.
(I suspect that, before all of this, if things had gone better at Fort Zekeden, Ramza being who he is, he may well have ended up with Teta. Before that I think he wasn't interested; but if it meant securing a life for her and her brother, than he would have gladly made that sacrifice, and, frankly, I think it would have turned out a relatively happy thing. But that's just pure fan speculation. Similarly, I think that he was impressed enough by Miluda that, had he managed to sway her away from violence - barring some irreconcilable difference - he would have sought her hand in marriage eventually, seeing it as his duty and privilege as a Beoulve to help those who were, in some way, I don't think she would have ever gone for it, however, and her tendency to internalize and agitate and find the worst in people would have made for a very interesting and different sort of tragedy... maybe one that ends more like Delita's, though with a few key differences, naturally. Or maybe it would work out and they could have helped avert tragedy by love... who know? Fan speculation is like that. :D)

Agrias always had Mustadio as another strong possibility for a relationship potential (if she even was interested in those sorts of things - it's hard to say) - they always seemed to have a both spark but mild friction that could work well for building a romance later, if allowed to realize, plus they complemented each other (he the brains, she the brawn and common sense). I also think this one is canon, as of War of the Lions? (I'm not sure.)

Of course, all of this presupposes that any of these people are interested in anything like that. Since I tend to be, I tend to think of fictional characters in those relationships, figuring that Ramza was more distracted by, you know, not being dead and keeping the world from spiraling into war, and whatnot.

Still: do you have any favorite ships?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Fair point of clarification: David didn't, technically, have "constant" haste - just whenever I could equip it on him. So, minor exaggeration, there, but not an intentional mislead.

Also, sorry for the spam-like (now triple-) posting. Getting ready for "The Storm" (tm) down here in the always-sunny state of FL, and posting on the go (as well as in the car-line to pick up my son) - I'm home, now, but I had little time and focus to edit properly above, and I'm past the hour mark now, sooooo... oops.

Another thing to mention that I forgot to before: my contemplations on Lavian and Alicia always had me wondering if they were sisters (either like the Nun variety, or the sibling variety) or even twins (impossible to tell with FFT's aesthetics... so "yes" by technicality?), or just friends. My head canon has been all over the place, depending on how "anime"* versus how quasi-faux-medieval** I feel on a given day.

* Jiggy, I know, I know. But, culturally speaking, there are tropes that are significantly more often associated with the anime medium than with other forms of audio-visual expression, such as Western animation - tropes that seem more common in Japanese cultural story expression.

** This was always kind of true, but was dialed up to 11 for the War of the Lions; I'm still uncertain about how I feel about that. Cut scenes too. I like the animation, but tend to prefer in-game graphics to be able to tell story events - to me, that builds a consistent "reality" within that story (which is one of the reasons I prefer PF to, say, 4E or 5E). And I'm glad they worked to polish it and fix the errors, though I did love taking advantage of those glitches in later play-throughs when I no longer had the time to play the game "properly" due to real life - and now things like fatherhood). And I'm glad they fixed the sometimes groan-worthy poor translations, but find the fake old English somewhat distracting, and a little weird, compared to the plain text and easy English of the otherwise complex story... I found the original gave emotional clarity that you could easily empathize with, because they talked like you did, and you could read the emotion in their "voice" that they used (the tones and styles of speaking),... but the old English all comes across as very stiff and formal and harder to empathize with, and miss the funny times laughing at the stuff (this last just being nostalgia, I admit). Yet... it's also cool, so... I dunno. Conflicted.

Hey: how do you feel about the changes? Mostly positive? Mostly negative? Mixed? Etc.?

EDIT: Also totally pouncing on this: yes, FF6 is, by far, the best of the numbered FFs (that I've played). Of those that I've not played: anything after X-2, more than ~30 minutes of II and ~15 of III (both of which were fan-translations on an emulator via friend from the same floor as I in college), and more than ~15 minutes of IX (from all accounts, a general shame).

((That means I've played I, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, X, and X-2.))

I did like them all, though I was always so disappointed in 7 for being a "lesser" story than 6 (and thus wasn't too worried when 8 came out - I was already "down" from 7). The gap of 9 is... more or less an oddity. It's mostly just timing and due to college pressures and life.

What about you? Any odd gaps in a gaming (or other) "collection" that could seem almost inexplicable, compared to other things?

(Another example of this is me lacking issue 75 - the final issue - of X-Man. While it had been going down hill for a while, I'd been a loyal fan ever since I'd discovered him in Age of Apocalypse. How it went down was, I'd received a notice of severance of subscription (with no refund), shortly after issue 74. It was... disheartening. I've never subscribed to anything from Marvel ever since, and I've never been able to get my hands on issue 75. :/ Ah, well.)

Customer Service Representative

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I did not enjoy FFTA and FFTA2 nearly as much as FFT. I really wanted a more true sequel/spinoff. I did love Vagrant Story. When I saw the Durai name in the opening I made a FFT fanboy squeel. I've tried to play it recently, but it is a lot harder for me to get into now (it plays really clunky and it looks pretty bad).

I always make David a master of every type of magic and then he becomes a Summoner with Calculate and teleport. So he can teleport back to a safe far corner of the map and cast any spell in the game on any unit/s he wants to. It is such a pain to get Summon Zodiac on anyone because I have bad luck and the baddie never casts it on my party. II run into the same issue with Ramza and Ultima. Ultima Demons and the assassins NEVER cast it.

I've always thought that Alicia and Lavien feel they can be more help and do more good with Ramza than with Agrias. After the events at the monastery they know something is up with the church, so it's worth looking into. I never saw them abandoning Agrias so much as them splitting the party to cover more ground (Agrias is plenty competent). I've always thought of them as sisters in the knighthood but not biologically. In my head they are BFFs (which is why both of them join Ramza, they are inseparable). When I use them both I tend to have them gang up on other units (I also never change their class from Knight because I feel like that is what they are and other classes are wrong).

I don't do a lot of shipping (I will have to ask Google later how that term came to be) of characters in most things. I think if I was going to I agree with you on all of it.

For the most part I am very happy with the changes in War of the Lions. I enjoy the animated cut scenes and like the voices for the voice acting. I prefer the original dialog like you do, I tend to think of the more flowery style speech in the updated version as kind of eye roll inducing but it is not game breaking for me or anything.

I am very anal about completing sets. I can't buy a movie and then not buy whatever sequels or spinoffs even if I hate them. If I start getting something I have to get all of it. This includes playing games or reading novel series. If I start the first one I have to be prepared to finish the entire thing (it makes me a bit leery when people tell me I should watch a show or read a series, I get scared that I will hate it and be committed to the whole thing...). So there are few gaps in most of my stuff, and when there is it eats at me until I complete it. This means I have played (or am playing) everything that says Final Fantasy on it, and have FFXV preordered. I am currently trying to trudge through FFXIII-2 which I don't like at all. I should mention that I have not played much FFXIV because I hate MMOs, but it was an FF game so I had to buy it. My Star Wars action figure collection is not complete, which eats at me a lot and I have wish lists with everything I still need. They are just too expensive for me to be able to complete and I can't justify some of the prices. My collection of collected Uncanny X-Men is complete but some things about it bother me. Like I don't have the volume 1 X-Men hardcover, instead I have the paperback Marvel Masterworks volumes that collect the same issues. I have all of the other hardcover collections though and it annoys me to no end that I don't have that one (and that the entire 544 issue run isn't available in hardcover collections). It runs $300+ everywhere I've seen it though so I'm unlikely to get it.

Dark Archive

4 people marked this as a favorite.

>>Tacticslion Asks Diego Valdez ALL His Questions Here!<<

:D

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Seltyiel Fangirl wrote:

>>Tacticslion Asks Diego Valdez ALL His Questions Here!<<

:D

Shhhh.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Seltyiel Fangirl wrote:

>>Tacticslion Asks Diego Valdez ALL His Questions Here!<<

:D

:D

Lot's of 'em!

Rysky wrote:
Shhhh.

:D

Lot's of 'em!

(Wait: my second one might not have made as much sense...)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

With Lavian and Alicia, I think, ultimately, I tend to agree with your analysis. It sounds pretty solid, and I like the implications, over-all. It also feels pretty in-character - and besides, Agrias was totally safe with the Cardinal... basically their duty was done. Yeah. Thanks!

As for them being knights... that's why I have JP-slave characters: for exactly those kinds of reasons. That way they get to stay knights, but also earn monk abilities, or (later) thief and samurai and lancer and ninja skills.

As for the animated parts of WotL... I always wanted to see FFT: The Movie, or rather, The Series - to actually see a whole set of animated shorts that go through every major canonical encounter and conversation and animated in that style. I'd love to see it done. It's never going to happen (thankfully for my wallet), but it's something that I've always wanted.

As far as I understand it, "Ship" comes from "(relation)ship" and thus "ship" as in " 'ship" with an apostrophe - and then "to ship" became a verb (as Calvin noted, "Verbing weirds a language.") and hence, "shipping" is a thing. But I could be wrong - that's just how it was explained to me, as I recall.

I actually really did like that FFT didn't get mired down in the whole "you have to have a romantic relationship" angle as a game - not only did that allow me to paint my own stories, but it also was a refreshing break, as you said, from the myriad of other titles that came out that seemed to heavily emphasize that in comparison to other things.
(It's actually one of the reasons that I genuinely admire Frozen as a film: it's not the romantic love that saves the day, it's the familial, sisterly bond that does so.)

Your sets sound amazing~! I wa-ha-hant to hang out with youuuuuuuuu...!

(I also want to hang out with your stuff, but mostly I'd like to hang out with you - you seem like a really cool guy I'd like to talk to in-person! :D)

Although my financial situation has never allowed me to own as much, I, too, tend to be a "Completionist" of sorts (hence my former* nearly-obsessive behavior with Move-Find Item**).

Mind if I ask you what you know about FFXV? I'm afraid I know very little.

Also, speaking of stuff, with your leeriness in mind: I've been debating recommending David the Gnome. Not only is the protagonist named David (Yay! FFT forever!), but also I recall it having a tremendously important impact on me as a child - laying out a lot of important lessons about life. I don't think I actually will recommend you collect it, as I don't know how easy it is to come by, but I was curious if you'd ever seen or heard of it, previously? If so, what did you think? It may heavily be my nostalgia talking, but (animation aside***), I recall it being rather phenomenal, in that it never talked down to kids, and generally felt both uncompromising in how it viewed right and wrong, but also was very gentle and loving - David and his wife Lisa were (along with my own parents) a phenomenal example of the right way to have a relationship, and their daughter (Susie? Sally? It... it's been a very long time) was an excellent role-model as well. I remember looking up to them all. It's probably just childhood nostalgia, but I still recall lessons that show taught. :D

* I'd likely still be like that, but life has a way of going, "NOPE: I GIVE YOU NO TIME." Q.Q
** To be clear, I always found that ability frustrating, too. But I had to know...
*** I'll just say now that the art was occasionally bad, in my memory. Not the worst - thank you Captain N - but pretty bad. Of course, this was the late 80s or early 90s, and I think I recall learning that David the Gnome was from the early 80s from another country, so differing budgets and expectations could help explain this apparent contradiction. Or maybe my memory is just shoddy by now. I've watched a lot of cartoons over the years.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Ack! You're going to be closed Monday?! But then you won't be in the office! And that means that (like the weekends) you likely won't answer any questions until Tuesday! How will I get my Diego Valdez online-friendship fix?! And if I don't, how will I go on with my Monday?!

So, for when you get back... how did Monday go? Did you get some downtime? I imagine it's much-needed...

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

There was a Final Fantasy animated series, two in fact. But neither of them was FFT based. One was themed on FFV and the other was unrelated to any of the games. I remember enjoying the second one, Final Fantasy Unlimited, though it has been a really long time. An FFT movie or series with the same voice acting and animation as War of the Lions would be really neat!

Thank you for the explanation on shipping. I think too many of the people who make games, write movies, or write stories forget that it's ok to have stories that don't involve romantic relationships. It's ok for people to be friends without becoming lovers. And most importantly I think, that it is ok for people to be emotionally invested in others, to love the people around them without having to be romantically involved with them.

I also know very little about FFXV. I have not followed it as closely as I used to follow the games. This is true of video games in general. But the completionist in me will not allow me to not get it and play it so I have it ordered.

David the Gnome came out on PBS. I watched it as a kid every now and then. I never saw the whole series or watched it frequently to remember much about it, but I did catch it enough that I recognize the characters when I see screens of it. I remember it being a pretty fun show! I may have to see if I can get it on Netflix and watch it.

I do sometimes read the forums over the weekend. I'm not much of a forums kind of guy. I really only have ever visited the Paizo and Bioware forums (I'll go to others if I need to, like to find information or something). And in both those cases I usually just scan the handful of threads on the message board landing page and read ones that catch my attention. I read these forums more since I started here but I think before that my post count was around 60 over the course of the 9 years my account had existed when I started.

Lots of relaxing on Monday, which was nice. I did have a sad event in the evening but otherwise a very pleasant holiday.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'm sorry for the event! I'm sure we'd be willing to listen (I know I would be, so you could PM, if it helps to share but you don't want to post), but I'm glad for everything else!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Did you know that I realized that I didn't ask you a question, came up with a good one, but totally forgot it by the time I got back here to ask you, and so made this one up instead?

(In my defense, I was driving when I thought of my question, so I couldn't post it. I mean, I still sort of am, but not really: I'm just sitting here in line and waiting for a few minutes at present.)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Hey: how do you feel about the following campaign settings: Blue Rose, Dark Sun, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer? For those settings that have seen various versions, do you have a favorite version/edition? Least favorite? Cherry picked aspects from different versions?

What about non-Paizo published adventures? Any luck with those? Do you recommend any good ones from the 3.X era?

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I did not realize that! But please don't drive and post or read the boards, that can end in tears for you and for others.

I do not have Blue Rose, though I have heard a lot of wonderful things about it and will be looking into getting it. Eberron and Spelljammer are settings I am indifferent to at best. When the Eberron book first came out I was interested but it just didn't make a lasting impression. Spelljammer just never did anything for me. I do enjoy Dark Sun a lot. Forgotten Realms is the campaign setting that got me into gaming. Until the Spellplague stuff it was my very favorite setting, especially the 3.x version (I highly highly recommend the campaign setting book, it is one of the best put together campaign setting books you will find). Golarion has that position now but I have often thought of transplanting some of my favorite Realms locations into Golarion in place of the few regions I am not as keen on in my home games. I have also been thinking about how to get post War of the Spider Queen Eilistraee into Golarion since she is my favorite, but I think that involves a lot of adjusting on the way the Drow in Golarion are in the setting.

I didn't do much in the way of pre made adventures before Pathfinder so I don't have much to answer that question with. I do own all of the 3.x Realms adventures because I buy everything Forgotten Realms. I have recently been reading some of the Fantasy Flight Star Wars adventures. Mask of the Pirate Queen has been pretty neat and I think would be fun to play. Curse of Strahd has looked pretty promising with my brief look over too.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

What about Dragonlance?

Silver Crusade Contributor

2 people marked this as a favorite.

If I ever get to play a mythic campaign, playing a good drow who becomes the setting's Eilistraee is my #1 goal. ^_^

I knew they killed her off in the WotSQ novels, and I kind of stopped paying attention at that point. Can you fill me in on the new version?

Thank you!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Oh! By drive and post I did not mean while I was driving anywhere at that moment. The car was on and I was I it. I was parked, however and would be for some time. (I had quite a wait to go.)

I do not post or text while actually driving (hence forgetting the question).

Thank you, though, and it is a very good reminder! XD

EDIT: clarification above and...

The Masked Lady was one of the coolest and most exciting Eilistraee things - an awesome addition to what was already an insanely cool goddess - and it ended so swiftly and ignobly, I was upset, to say the least!

EDIT 2: Oh! Do you have a favorite NPC of the realms? Top three? Top three gods? Top three organizations? Countries? Places? Etc.!

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I do like Dragonlance a lot! I haven't really played in the setting much but I have read a whole lot of Dragonlance novels. Mostly the Weiss and Hickman ones, but a few of the others as well. The 3 original books remain one of my favorite book series! I sobbed a lot when the Sturm thing happened (no spoilers in case anyone hasn't read it, even though it's been out for decades), and still get a little misty eyed thinking about it.

Customer Service Representative

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Post WotSQ was wrong, during is more accurate I think. She absorbed Vheraun and took on some of his more roguey stuff. Went by The Masked Lady. She kept all of the stuff I loved about her before and added more aspects of my favorite class/type of character.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Should've been Tanis on the tower, just saying. :-)

Customer Service Representative

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Yeah, Eilistraee was already my favorite deity and the when she bacme the Masked Lady it really sealed the deal. It is too bad it only lasted the rest of that series though.

My 3 favorite characters in the Realms are Kehrsyn from The Alabaster Staff, The Fox at Twilight from The Crypt of the Moaning Diamond, and Laqueel from The Threat from the Sea series.

My favorite country is easily The Silver Marches (it is also an area I am working on plopping into Golarion in my home game).

Customer Service Representative

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I really liked Sturm, he is very much what I think about whne I think paladin even all these years later. In some ways Caramon too (he is my favorite). Tanis was one that was harder for me to really like.

51 to 100 of 658 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Gamer Life / Off-Topic Discussions / >>Ask *Diego Valdez* anything here!<< All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.