An open ended Naruto/Tenten onsie of mine, written to try to get the juices flowing for the Sunspots part I wanted to post three days ago.

http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/224276.html

ETA- My hat for yuku KNOW NO LIMIT!!!1! It is harder to make a working link in full plate!
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

I have a buddy over here who's been a sounding board for me with ideas concerning DSKS. The dude is awesome - he has lived in Japan for quite a while
prior to joining the Navy and he has substantial knowledge of how things work around here.

One topic that took me by surprise was Yakuza.

A fact that he was able to confirm for me was that it is not uncommon for mid-level Yakuza to have ties to politicians - even relatively powerful ones such as
party leaders. Therefore, my idea of Rei's father having such connections does not break any walls at all.

The only question was how Zeke was going to get out of the situation where Daddy-san arranges for Zeke to have an accident. Of course, he can fight his way
through a few thugs, but my friend told me that Yakuza thinking in these matters goes by orders of magnitude - if one or two guys doesn't do it, then ten
should. And if that don't work, then we'll use a hundred.

Fortunately, there is a caveat; Yakuza leaders set strict limits on how much of their resources are supposed to be used for a given sort of target, and anyone
that exceeds those limits face harsh punishment - and not just the removal of a finger. I'd hardly see Zeke being worth too much of the Yakuza's time
and effort.

Except that Yakuza are also opportunists. My friend told me that one way to secure an alliance among the Yakuza was to be promised the leader's
daughter's hand in marriage. He then proceeds to dump this idea on me.

Say that Principal Kuno wasn't just a Principal. Say it was all just a front to throw off suspicion. Say that the money to pay for that -castle- he lives
in was because he is a Yakuza boss. Say that the Yakuza gang that Rei's father has ties to is Kuno's. And say that as a means of not only securing
the alliance of such a powerful fighter -AND- fulfilling their politician's wishes of getting Zeke away from Rei, Kuno instructs Kodachi that she is to
marry Zeke. (Sure, there's Ranma, but Kuno thinks he's already got enough contenders already.)

Kodachi was sullen at first until she sees, 1) Hey, he's not half-bad looking, 2) Oh, he is some kind of technological mage, 3) COMPETITION! YES, I CAN
HAVE FUN WITH THIS!

Of course, Kodachi would be the worse for wear in any confrontation with any one of Zeke's paramours, let alone all of them. She gets in on a political
card, though - Zeke REALLY doesn't want to be on the bad side of the Yakuza, least of all Kuno's Yakuza.
Although I'm wondering if Usagi should 'accidentally' use her healing power on Kodachi. She'd be a lot less crazed - gentle, even - except
that I think she'd still be quite devious at times. Diabolical at the very least.

...Momo is freakin' awesome.

So, over on the rpg.net Other Media boards(registration required), user Shadowjack has been watching the Sailor Moon anime from the beginning and giving a hilarious breakdown of each episode and his thoughts on the series as he goes. He just reached the end of the Jadeite arc which he capped off with this:












-------------------
Epsilon
Seriously, registration is free and this thread is worth reading form the beginning. It's hilarious. I also recommend [Where I Watch] Bleach

MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32659678/ns ... ?gt1=43001]Japan's next first lady says she rode spaceship

Trouble is, it's "psychic space travel"... but her husband's about to become Premier of Japan, so how would the (stereo)typical Fen treat her?
--
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

I am not posting this as a schadenfreude thing.
Really. I'm not. I wanted Champions Online to do well.
But holy heck, this is...this is...
See the general Champions Online forums. Notice how it's full of angry threads bitching about a patch, demanding it be rolled back - or, alternatively, full of threads grumbling about how other threads are being modded or locked.
The longest existing thread is here, by the way - 146 pages after two days.
So what's going on? Well, Cryptic put in a global nerf to passive powers, unannounced, without proper patch notes, on launch day (Tuesday, Sept. 1st).
From what I gather - I'm not familiar with the Champions combat engine, so this is just my ballpark understanding...the nerf went in because defensive passives were too powerful, making some builds all but invulnerable to enemy damage.
The player complaint, though, is that by nerfing all passive powers (including, apparently, offensive/support ones), it's a nuclear bomb of a nerf that whacks pretty much everyone. (EDIT: it seems passive powers are the main means of self-defense in Champions. So the whole game's much harder for everyone, and where some players were apparently taking on three-to-five enemies at a time, they now can die one-on-one. Stuff like that.)
Some folks are saying their characters are literally unplayable now. Which may well be true, since from what I can gather, no free respecs were given out.
So let's recap, right - Cryptic didn't give any warning this change was coming. The changes weren't properly documented. The main result of the nerf is that players are much less powerful (which, to a CoH player, has shades of purple patch and ED thinking right there). Players weren't given respecs.
And this was on launch day.
Why's that a problem? Well, the game officially launched on Tuesday, yeah. But many folks have been already playing since Open Beta and pre-order headstart. Mind, I can sorta sympathise with a company nerfing their game after launch, given, y'know, with increased player numbers comes increased datamining, but...
Nerf on launch day has gotta be some kinda new record, especially since it punishes the people who preordered the game and have already been playing for a few days. Indeed it's kinda worse, since many folks are claiming they're of sufficient level, after the headstart weekend, to have basically borked their own characters under the new patch, but not of high enough level to afford respecs.
Annnyway, so now Cryptic's saying there will be a test server in the future, and all patches will go on there before they hit live.
Uh...yeaaaaah...what the hell, Cryptic? Seriously? What the hell?
I want to cry, because they're the people developing Star Trek Online, and I want to play that game. =P
Oh well...

EDIT: Apparently CO's respec function was broken throughout headstart. It now works with the post-launch patches, but you still need to pay for each power choice you rollback. Ain't free, and very expensive to completely rebuild a character.
-- Acyl

...and it was basically my own stupid fault. I wrote a joke memo satirizing in another memo, and sent it to a friend. It got sent around and offended
someone. And I got canned. (And the friend got canned, too.)

So here I am, half numb, half sure I'm about to collapse in tears.

I have some ideas what to do next, but... dear god. It would have been 19 years on Friday.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Does anyone know the latest word on Hallstrom's resurrection of this story? Last thing I heard was a month or so ago, and the forum where his message
about it was posted is now closed to outsiders.

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

Powers, fading... Fresh air and sunshine... Draining my Cathode Rays... Curse you, Captain Planet! Cuuurse yooouuu...
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

For a while now, I've been trying to come up with an appropriately fennish way of cracking a problem that has had Gina depressed: the ability for an AI to
reproduce, should they so choose. I know, it's an odd-ball problem, but the Fen are odd-ball people.

It was recently that I found an old email, one about Ben and AC hashing out details over Talons and such (can't believe I forgot about that one!) and
seeing Gina, AC, and Greenwood's interactions got the train of thought rolling and it eventually meandered its way to a hidden crevice in my brain.

How the hell could I have forgotten about Armitage: The Third?

With this bit of precedence, I think that its possible. I'm pretty sure the Handwavium would go for it and besides, would it not be kick-ass to have Naomi
Armitage running around?