For those who pay attention to the Catholic Church: 
March 13, 2013 saw the election of Argentinian Cardinal Jose Mario Bergoglio to the Seat of Peter, becoming Pope Francis I.

(For those paying attention to 'firsts', he is the first Pope from the Western Hemisphere, and the eleventh non-European Pope. There have been at least three from Israel, one from Lybia, one from "somewhere in North Africa", four from Syria, and one from Turkey, before this.)
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

http://drunkardswalkforums.yuku.com/top ... e-Gauntlet]Old thread is old.

Posted story is wikified http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?titl ... Greywalker]here (It'll need to be broken up to be actually posted.), with all the numbers so people who haven't contributed but wish to can put things in the right place. (And attributions to scenes contributed.)
You wan't to contribute, right? PLEASE???

Setting Info:
After 9 AM Sunday 14th September 2014 if you didn't record the video stream at the time you will have had to track it down over the Fen-net as it won't be on the normal servers.

As noted above, the sections of story have numbers to them, so people can match up what's been written to what they've written. It least, I hope that people (including those who have already contributed) will do so.

I'm posting again because I feel I have the next chunk of story done. I'll be posting at a week apart, hopefully so I can keep what remains of my muse at the moment.

So, here's the next segment.

SpaceX successfully tests the "Grasshopper", a rocket that can lift off, hover, and return to earth.  Check out the video, and ignore what the link claims the article is called.

Extraterrestrial "microfossils" found in comet fragments.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

The Register: Ten serious sci-fi films for the sentient fan

I've seen seven of these, and own copies of three of those seven. (Which seven? Which three? I'll tell you later.)

What's your score?

(Edit: Don't treat the numbers as rankings - they're just there to show that, yes, there re ten entries on the list.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

...and Google has a great new doodle for it. 
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

By now, you know that Cryptic's next upcoming game is Neverwinter (Online). If you don't, pretend that you already knew. Currently they're marketing the game simply as 'Neverwinter', or 'Dungeons and Dragons: Neverwinter'. 

But a lot of folks still call it 'Neverwinter Online', because that's what it was called for the longest time. Neverwinter Online, from the makers of Champions Online and Star Trek Online, a company that's really really daring with their naming scheme.

So here's another 'Acyl talks about an upcoming MMO' thread. I'm going to largely concentrate on big picture issues here. With occasional smaller pictures. Think of it as an oil painting with portrait passport photos stapled on. Or something. Look, I'm bad at metaphors.


Weekend Me. Weekend Me So Hard.

Neverwinter's currently doing closed beta weekends. Or clopen beta weekends. Or some other horrible massacre of the English language. You pick. Either way, these are weekends you can sign up for. Or get keys from giveaways. Or buy a Founder's Pack. Or be a Champions or Star Trek lifetime subscriber.

That last one is how I got into beta, and why I'm talking about it now. There's no NDA for these things, they're using them as publicity vehicles. Somewhere, an elderly software engineer is crying about how beta tests aren't really testing anymore.


Neverwinterminator: Judgement Night

So what's the verdict? Well, I like it. Exceeded my expectations. Admittedly my expectations were zero, so they were easy to exceed. But bottom line: I plan to play this when the game launches.

It's a Free to Play game. Obviously there's monetised stuff, but it does look like you can get a full and decent experience without payment gating, so there's no particular barrier to checking it out when it goes live. They'll keep dangling bait in front of you in an effort to hook your wallet, but there's no barrier as such.

Aside from class options. More on this later, but basically the model seems that there's only a handful of free classes (and each class is a relatively narrow playstyle). If you want more variation, you pay for it.


He Cleans Up Pretty Well

Neverwinter is surprisingly polished. By which I mean, it's a slick-looking game. Not just the graphics, but also the user interface - look, sound and feel. Champions Online and Star Trek Online were made on tight budgets, and it shows. With Neverwinter, they've managed to make their game look and feel a lot more...well, expensive. It feels like a quality product. And for Cryptic, that's saying a bit.

This isn't unexpected - after all, they're trying to compete with the likes of Guild Wars 2 for the fantasy market. But this does a good swing of it, at least in terms of presentation.

While it has a D&D license, that's mostly just for setting, lore, flavour and terminology. Otherwise it doesn't actually use D&D rules. Which is for the best. Even if the D&D fanboys are all sadboys about it. And sadgirls.


I Stab Your Face

For me, the biggest attraction of the game is the combat. The combat is good. The combat is excellent. It's absolutely freaking amazing. It isn't going to appeal to everyone, that's a given. But if you enjoy hack and slash fantasy action titles on PC, the likes of Fable, Diablo III, then this is absolutely solid.

MMO-wise, the best comparisons would be to things like DC Universe Online and Tera. By default, mouse movements swing the character around. Left and right mouse clicks are 'At Will' attacks, meaning they have no cooldowns, can be used pretty much whenever, etc. Your basic stuff. You have multiple choices of At Will powers, but only two slots for them. Holding down a mouse button chains the attack. There is no 'hard' selectable targeting, instead you have a reticle at the centre of your screen, and you will attack what the camera is pointing at. 

Other slots are for cooldown powers. Notably, because you don't need as many keys for camera movement given the mouse-look, Q, E and R are all used for cooldown powers. 1 and 2 are for your big zomgwtf powers, 3, 4 and 5 are for item slots. It's all easy to access. Tab triggers your class special ability, shift is for blocking or evasion (depending on your class).

Let's be clear - these are slots. You can freely swap powers in and out of said slots, depending on your needs. It's like Diablo III, if you've played that.

Interacting with items is 'F'. You hit left 'alt' if you need to bring up a normal mouse cursor; when interacting with some things, like talking to NPCs, vendors, it goes into alt mode by default. But the important point is, all the keys you need are in easy reach of your hands under the default bindings, without needing weird contortions.

Most of what I just explained is the control scheme. If you want to see how the game looks like, Youtube trailers would have you covered. It's seriously fun, though. My favourite? Trickster Rogue. Playing a dagger-wielding slashity-stabbity melee whirlwind of destruction is awesome like this.

Stabslashstabslash DODGE! Throw-knife throw throw throw until enemy is back in range, then STUN! Stabstabstab while they're dizzy, they're recovering, not enough stamina for dodge - leave a shadow decoy! Stabstabstab while shadow is tanking! And all that with a seamless fluid control scheme I barely need to think about.


Honey Badger Don't Give A Zen

Neverwinter is evolutionary for Cryptic, not revolutionary. By which I mean they've built on the back of their most successful things from previous games - modified to fit the fantasy setting, or given a higher sheen of polish. The fantasy feel is the overriding consideration, of course. That's why my Rogue is chugging potions often enough that I probably need to attend a Potionolics Anonymous meeting. Or not. Look, I don't have a problem, okay? I have it totally under control. 

The combat is like Champions, but it's better, way better. And more functional even if you're lagging like whoa. Due to beta server load, I was lagging, but even under lag conditions I was able to perform well in a party as my agile squishy melee DPS character.

Beyond combat, the evolutionary thing applies to other stuff. Skirmish and dungeon queues are clearly based on tech from Champions and STO. You can have permanent companion NPCs, that's STO tech. So on, so forth. 

And yes, you can have a Honey Badger BFF. This is clearly 200% more awesome than having a human fighter or cleric following you around. Honey Badger costs real money (Zen currency), unlike the other options. But I bet you people will buy it, because HONEY BADGER.

If you pray to the Gods religiously (ha-ha), which you can do every hour you're logged in, while located in a rest zone...eventually you can save enough RELIGION CURRENCY DOLLARS to redeem yourself an angel companion. And a unicorn mount. I am extremely disappointed there is no redeemable Pope hat cosmetic option.


National Neverwinter Writing MMO

A notable key feature from a previous Cryptic game is the Foundry. Star Trek Online already has a Foundry player-generated content system, and it's a very very powerful tool.The Neverwinter version is even better and more fleshed-out, because Neverwinter was designed with that in mind from the very beginning. 

I haven't seen the Foundry backend tools, because that's a separate tier of beta testers. But the output? That's fantastic. Oh yeah, of course a lot of it will be awful and terribly spelt, let alone written. But some of it will be awesome. The tools are there.

I genuinely believe that a robust player-generated content system goes a long way to mitigating lack of other MMO content. 


Needs Moar Content

Let's face it. No launch MMO has enough content. That's not going to change, and Neverwinter isn't going to fix that.

But there's quality. The dev-created content in terms of writing and presentation I've seen is solid. It's not the best. The Secret World, for example, has better regular dev-created story quest content. SWTOR would be better for story. Sure. But it's still above-average for MMOs, and worlds better than, say, Champions Online. 

How the content stream will be going forward - that's a question I can't answer. But at least there's the Foundry, and personally I would play this game just for the combat itself and the Foundry stuff made by other players.


What's The Catch? Where's The Other Shoe?

So what's the downside of all of this? What are the cons, in my book? One is character customisation. Another is class options.


I Feel So Pretty

Now, let's be clear. Character customisation isn't BAD. It's still light years ahead of most MMOs. But it's not great compared to other Cryptic games.

The interface itself is awesome, mind you. It's a great character creator. Especially nice is the fact it gives thumbnail previews of each visual option before you apply it, like how all the hairstyles WOULD look on your character. There's some loading time - changing hair colour or skin tone, for instance, then changes all the preview thumbnails. But hey, that's expected.

But there's limits to variation. Especially since the races are meant to look different, so you're locked in a fair bit for face and body morphing. And this is basically just your head and body proportions. There's supposed to be a system for reskinning armour and weapons, but I haven't seen it yet.

What is implemented is a visual slotting thing where you have a separate paperdoll of inventory slots to put pure 'fashion' items that override the armour items beneath - like what some other MMOs have done. So I can go round murderfacing in peasant rags if I want. You can also get colour dye and things like that. But this is very much the fantasy MMO gear model. Which is meh.


Will Fight For Food

The other downside is class limitations. Right now, beta has Trickster Rogue, Guardian Fighter, Devoted Cleric and Control Wizard.

Yes, those are classes. They're specific flavours of Fighter, Wizard, or Cleric. Great Weapon Fighter is confirmed as coming, items for it are already in the beta even if the class itself isn't selectable yet...but Great Weapon Fighter is a distinct and separate class from Guardian Fighter. 

And let's face it, you're only going to get four or maybe five class variants available at launch for free. The others are going to be cash purchase. That's not officially announced, but c'mon here. It's pretty obvious. You want your DPS mass-nuking AoE death murder weapon Wizard, and not the free crowd-control Wizard? You want a classic D&D cleric in armour with a mace, not some lady waving a holy symbol and posing dramatically like a pious Sailor Moon?

Well, Neverwinter accepts all major credit cards and local bank debit...

I'm fine with this. But a lot of people out there in the great wide Internets are raging so hard, you could probably power a geothermal plant with the rage.


Final Fantasy (Conclusion)

On balance, I think those are relatively limited downsides. Like all Cryptic games, strictly speaking all cash store items can be earned through pure in-game play, by converting currency at player-determined market rates. In Champions, with a smaller playerbase, conversion favours the cash spenders, not in-game grinders.

In STO, it's the other way around. A small amount of in-game currency will get you a fair bit of cash-store currency, at current exchange rates. And that's a good thing. It means the pay players are happy. And the free players are happy too. The cash store stuff is...not absolutely essential. They're all nice things to have, but there's always comparable 'generic' free versions to be had. 

Like many new online F2P games, PW/Cryptic is selling Founder's Packs. So if you have a burning need to be a black elf from da hood dual-wielding blades and hanging with your panther homie, cruising the underground with your pimp spider mount...er, I mean, if you have a burning need to be like Drizzt from the novels, certainly you can. I don't think it's worth it, though I did buy the mid-tier pack for myself. But I only made that decision after playing the beta and seeing it for myself, so caveat, yeah?

But as I said earlier: I will play this game when it goes live. I absolutely freaking love the combat. I think the Foundry player-created missions have huge potential. That's good enough for me. 
-- Acyl

Pavonis ArcologyPavonis Mons in Tharsis is home to not one but several interconnected, quasi-subterranean communities that operate under the banner of the Pavonis Arcology. All of them were built and are still supported and partly managed by the NERV Foundation. They are each a part of the multi-phase plan, Project Red Earth, which is the main focus of the foundation’s Natural Environment Recreation Venture. It is worth mentioning that, similar to Canada, Pavonis is bilingual in its signage and education: English and Japanese, reflecting its founders.Flag of Armitage III Mars, used by PavonisUsing Binford’s super-hardy construction material vulcanocrete – a ceramic material made up of the lava rock of Pavonis herself mixed with ground-up quartz and something else (generic plaster mixed with pure handwavium; basic formula open domain as of 2017) – the NERV Foundation successfully carved several Martian settlements into the extinct volcano.

While originally rather bare of settlers who didn’t directly work for NERV members, the arcology had a boom in population once construction on Red Earth Phase Four started in February 2013 when the Elies, at least for the foreseeable future, threw their lot in with Pavonis. It also saw a slight increase during the Boskone War of Belters, but the majority who went to Mars instead of cislunar space went to Port Lowell and Helium, instead. The biggest population boom to date was shortly after the opening ceremony for New Port City when a surprising number of Japanese nationals immigrated to the arcology.

[table]

robkelk Wrote:An "unconventional" government is still a government...

Hope this doesn't step on any toes...
~~~
Seele Council Chambers, NERV Headquarters
Pavonis Arcology, Tharsis, Mars
23 December 3021 Inner Sphere Reckoning (alt. 2025)

“This final meeting before the 2025-“ Kazuo stopped himself. “My apologies. This final meeting before the 3021 Christmas Holiday, barring any special circumstance, will now convene.”
The council’s newest member started things off.
“I’ve finished going over the material we have available on the ‘BattleTech' universe,” stated Joseph Fenette. “As per my volunteering at our last meeting before the invasion, I studied both the source materials from this… um, our former universe as well as what has been uncovered thus far from the Catalog. As near as I can tell, we lucked out as far as locations where we could have ended up in this world.” He paused. “Before I continue – Alex, what is the status on that Star League medical data that was recovered from the Catalog?”

“It’s being dissected by all of our B-RAD personnel that aren’t already working on anything critical,” assured the Commander of NERV, Alex Xanatos. “Near as we can figure, the Girls must have appeared on some minor world prior to the Star League Civil War and basically downloaded whatever was on the local planetary version of the Internet before continuing on. You were saying, Joseph?”

“Yes, thank you. We lucked out in where we appeared. Our closest interstellar neighbor is the Outworlds Alliance, followed pretty much equally in distance by the Federated Suns and the Draconis Combine. The Alliance’s territory would actually be much closer to us than even Antallos was, but they lost more than three entire provinces in what is now called the Outworlds Wastes over the course of the three previous Succession Wars.

“Still, the presence of what is left of the Alliance acts as a sort of buffer between most major actions by the other two powers. House Avellar, the hereditary Presidents of the Parliament for the Outworlds Alliance, still claim those former provinces as their domain and oppose any actions they view as House Davion or House Kurita, the Great Houses ruling over the Federated Suns and the Draconis Combine, respectively, taking them over.”

“And yet they apparently have no grievances with any pirates who should choose to plunder them,” snarked Lana.

Jimmy snorted. “Of course not, darlin’. The blue bloods in the Alliance care more about the two wolf packs on their front lawn and posturing to them more than they care about the rabid dogs mauling the kids out back.”

Kazuo cleared his throat. “Yes, yes – Viva la Revolucion! boys and girls, but can we get back on topic, please?”

A chorus of “sorry” answered him.

“Ahem, anyway,” continued Joseph. “My point is that we are at just enough distance away from the Inner Sphere’s major powers to have some breathing room, but not enough that we will not receive any attention at all. Simply put, we need to be able to defend ourselves. And by ‘we,’ I mean both the Convention and everyone on Earth.”

“SMOFcon and the UN are talking about that already,” assured Biwa. “Right now, we need options and plans, both to present to the rest of the Convention and to carry out for ourselves.”

“Agreed,” said The O. “Which is what Mary and I have been working on.” He passed ou a small stack of manila folders to each councilperson. “These are some preliminary ideas we’ve been bouncing back and forth.”

Alex raised an eyebrow as he opened one folder labeled ‘Operation Le Fey’… and promptly shot the other one up as well. “You want to capture Camelot Command and bring it back here? Do you have any idea what kind of resources and… and… I can’t even begin to guess what doing something like this would take!”

“That’s why it’s more something to point out to the rest of the convention and see what prevailing opinion is,” Mary responded. “You have to admit, the facilities and the data it has would be invaluable to us all. The design for the holographic systems and Mark 38 drone fighters alone…”

Alex grunted noncommittally.

Kazuo was frowning over another folder. “’Operation Sweeper Group’?” he asked.

“That was a proposal from the Naval Division, actually,” said The O. “It’s another proposal to put before the convention as a whole. Commodore de la Vega wants both several of her own ships and those of other factions to begin a reconnaissance of the star systems immediately around the ISOT periphery.”

Alex piped in. “You want to use Barge? Are you serious?”

Barge was a project that predated the Boskone War. Started by the Gundam AC subfaction before they’d ever joined with the NERV Foundation, it was almost exactly what one would think – a recreation of the eight kilometer long mobile space station from the series. Unlike that version, however, the now NFV Barge was unarmed, most of it simply empty space, and was intended to be a support craft for future extrasolar colonization missions. Construction virtually halted during the war, but started up again following the subfaction’s joining the foundation as the core of STARS Naval Division.

What was being proposed was to use the station as a mobile supply depot and base of operations for whatever ships participated in Operation Sweeper Group.

“No, that’s Harry’s godfather,” quipped Biwa, who, unlike most of the others, was grinning at what she reading. She looked over at Mary. “You want to build the Libra? Really? I’ll admit, I’m intrigued.”

“That’s a long-term defense project I hope to propose to daneside nations,” admitted Mary. “I was actually inspired when I read about the Space Defense System from the Terran Hegemony’s era, so we could use that system as a proof-of-concept. It would require a lot of daneside cooperation because it would take a network of more than just two or so to be an effective defensive option.” She paused.”It also wouldn’t really be effective to have a superweapon particle cannon like the original. A VLS for anti-ship missiles is more likely.”

“Well, this is certainly going to take some time to go over,” Kazuo said, looking over the sheets in the folders he’d been handed. “I say we take the holiday to go over them and decide whether and what to submit to SMOFcon just before the New Year when we return.” He grinned. “’New year,’ heh, talk about a loaded statement.”

He got a few laughs. “Are there any more issues to be discussed or can we dismiss for dinner?”

Alex spoke up. “Actually, earlier today the Space Patrol asked us to temporarily use Hakone to house the dropship Distant Home and to offer a place of at least temporary sanctuary for her crew… and I agreed.”

Everyone started talking at once.

“URUSAI!” shouted Kazuo. After everyone had quited down, he turned to Alex. “Explain, please.”

Alex coughed. “The post-battle… debriefing of the pirates that were captured all indicate the same thing. The crew of the Distant Home – a mercenary group called the Buron Cavalry – were just that: mercenaries – and mercenaries with a surprising reputation for moralistic conduct, at that. The only reason they were in the attacking force at all seems to be that the asshole who sent said force hired out their jumpship – which was under separate ownership – right from under them, leaving them essentially stranded on Antallos; which, as we’ve all read the sourcebooks, is not a place for those with morals to make any kind of a prolonged visit.

“With this in mind, the GJ people turned affairs regarding Distant Home over to the Space Patrol. Since then, the Patrol has also been able to determine that Distant Home also never transmitted any… colorful messages as the others all did following Haruhi’s demand for a statement of intent. Simply put, as they were coerced into helping the pirates, there is not anything that the Buron Cavalry can be charged with.”

Alex took a breath. “They are, however, essentially stranded in the Sol System. Great Justice and the United Nations have impounded all of the jumpships. Everyone in the Buron Cavalry is now SOL… unless someone helps them.”

“Just what are you proposing?” asked Mary.

“Until such a time as the members of the Buron Cavalry can find and accept another means out of the system, I propose that the foundation hire them to both train our STARS and…” he looked down at the stack of folders in front of him. “And, if a plan such as Sweeper Group is approved, assist in whatever ways they are capable.”

“Essentially,” said Jimmy, grinning as he figured out why Alex had accepted the Patrol’s request without asking all of them first. “You wanna hire out one of the few merc groups with morals out there on a semi-permanent basis, simultaneously increasing our own defensive abilities while decreasing any potentially enemies possibilities of increasing their own.”

Alex looked away. “I never said any of that.”

The O snickered. “You never denied it, either.”

“I wonder if there’s still time to get you some Gendo glasses for Christmas?” Lana continued.

“Or maybe that Treize outfit de la Vega is always harping on about?” mock-mused Jimmy.

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” He deadpanned.

Kazuo chuckled. “This meeting is adjurned.”  

I've been reading this manga for some time now, mostly in the version by Ishida Akira because that's the farthest along, but I check the other versions more-or-less regularly (there're two others, not counting a ludicrous 4koma and a sidestory).  I recently began watching the anime on Crunchyroll, and the episode I took in last night included something ... odd.  I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, but:

The anime opening credits, and one scene in the first episode, indicated that Female Magician has two companions, presumably also mages, each carrying a staff similar to hers.  This latest episode showed Demon Queen approaching Female Magician as the mage sits sleeping on a bench (she spends a lot of time sleeping, and has the nickname of "Napping Sorceress," to which she responds "I prefer Pleasant Serial Killer").  Female Magician is alone when the camera looks directly at her, but when it points down at the water-covered floor, the two companions can be seen rising to their feet at Demon Queen's approach.  Then they glance at Female Magician, who's still snoozing ... and one of them kicks her off the bench.  She thrashes face-down in the shallow water for a moment, then wakes up fully, stands, and finally notices Demon Queen.

I have no idea where the series is going with this, 'cause the companions haven't even been hinted at in any of the manga portrayals I've read.  I'm not asking for suggestions, just commenting -- and recommending this as highly worth taking in.  Hilarity, romance, and lessons in economics and agriculture.  As long as it doesn't bother you that none of the characters has a name....

I do regret that the anime doesn't give more detail of Hero going through, like the proverbial dose of salts, anybody who tries to fight him.  Like the bit from the Ishida manga when Fairy Queen warned him that even though he'd defeated the Demon Wolf General, there was still the even more powerful Black Wolf King....
Hero:  I defeated him too.  Last week.
Fairy Queen:  Eeh?!  What in the world are you?
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.