So... Restricted Area?

Okay, right clicking does the instant move thing. In all those other games, right clicking equips items in all inventory screens including the shop and storage ones.

There's a problem with it, though. If you right click on an item and there's no slot in your storage area available, that item disappears forever. It won't even rotate to make the item fit.

As for multiplayer and items, that's actually a feature Master Creating implimented to keep people from l3wt hording. It's reserving the item for one of the players kind of like how Guild Wars does. Instead of seeing a ghosted out item, you just don't see it at all in RA. So, that's not a sync problem, that's actually a feature of the multiplayer.

 

Are you certain about this? According to my bad-translation on the Germanian forum, this is listed on the bug list. Furthermore, it affects even items dropped by other players deliberately, and there are definitely multiple reports of sync issues involving there/not-there monsters.

 

Yup, Jan Beuck and I had a conversation about it long before the game was released. I didn't like the idea because I thought it would be confusing, though I didn't expect people to notice it and confuse it with sync errors.

You'd think the manual would mention that, but then again, the manual doesn't mention much.

However, about the manual.. I do dig the corporation history section. If only the game involved that stuff more than it does. I'd kill for factional mission recruiters in the town that give missions loosely based on the stories in the back of the manual. I'd probably completely ignore the Oxygenetics EVIL plot and just do those factional things.

 

Well, considering that the first thing I attempted to do was, well, you know, give something to somebody, this was rather noticeable. As is typical, I put the object on the ground, and told him to pick it up. Then proceeded to scream at him repeatedly for wandering around doing nothing, uncertain as to whether or not the chat system was broken, or whether he was simply being a flapjack, or something else.

Wondering what the hell went wrong, I tried browsing the bad-translation version of the Germanian forum, and discovered that this apparently was listed on the bug list.

I can see a reasoning behind preventing somebody from bogarting all of the loot, but it simply makes absolutely no sense that there appears to be absolutely no way to actually give somebody something, something which pretty much has defeated the point of multiplayer: Why bother, if you can't actually swap the loot and each of you essentially exists in a bubble universe independently of the other player? It's certainly not to have somebody to talk to, what with a 20-odd character limit and auto-mutilation of your punctuation...

What's more, it appears that their official forums seem to be engaging in the rather unsavory practice of censoring and locking anyone who mentions anything about the half-assed multiplayer implementation. It could be that their stupidity isn't readily apparent in when babelfished, but sure doesn't look good.

As for your "conversation", this strikes me as an excellent example of CYA "it's not a bug, it's a feature" BSing to cover the fact that their network code appears to be, well, broken.

 

Could be, but this conversation took place around eight months ago, long LONG before the game was released.

But yeah, there are a number of problems with multiplayer including the punctuation stuff with the chat. It is half assed and probably shouldn't have been in the game to begin with. The way it's implimented now, it generates more complaints than if it hadn't been in a feature.

 

Second day playing it, up to level 21, and I do 360 max damage and have 690 life. NICE! I still don't really get what I'm doing tho with stats.

 

Well, based on your current numbers, you do about half the damage I do, and have about 3 times the life I have. So you're doing fine, albeit with a slightly different emphasis: I prefer simply crushing my opponents into powder as quickly as possible, as falling back on hitpoints typically is a sign of failure in tactical manuevering.

 

Yeah, but what weapon are you using? I'm using a vindicator plasma rifle. Flamethrowers do more damage I believe.

 

Flame throwers don't work very well at all. They're still pretty bugged. I can't see him using those just because of the wacky stuff that happens when a monster gets right up on you.

Speaking of bugs, I did a random mission last night. I entered the mission, cleared one level and tried to haul my loot back to Jason's glider but there were unmovable, indestructible crates too close to the door for me to get out. Oh well, I figured I just lost some money there. Then I get to the lowest floor and there's supposed to be someone there for me to kill, but I can't find the person anywhere. Normally the target is marked on the map, but there was no one in the room that was marked. I ended up taking the two reputation point loss.

Of course, I've done ten or so of those random missions, and this is the first one where I've had these problems. It's still pretty frustrating, though.

 

I do happen to like the flamethrower, yes. There's something deeply appealing about watching things catch FIRE! I like fire!

You use the flamethrower? One odd effect that the flamethrower can cause is that random, often normally invulnerable objects, as well as monsters, can spontaneously catch fire on other levels. This tends to result in them being destroyed before you can touch them, and in the case of objects you have to manipulate to complete the quest, render the quest impossible to complete. Still, a small price to pay for the fact that IT BURNS IT BURNS IT BURNS!

 

I suddenly remembered playing the original Blood game... It was wonderful... Those cultists running in circles, aflame...

 

I equipped the volcano Flamethrower, and I do now 1280 max damage, wow. What a difference.

 

Man, that's a lot of damage. I'm only up to about 900 or so, but I'm very stingy when it comes to stats, and usually save my points for some special occasion. Still, everything catches fire and burns pretty well, so I'm satisfied.

 

I got lucky with the flamethrower tho. It does 173 per second, plus the 175 I added. If you adjust the grip to your character, it does shitloads more. The one thing I dont like so much is that it goes through it's energy like shit through a goose. That's where I like the plasma rifle better, it has better energy consumption.

 

Well, I finally got high enough level to use the new shiny one. Mine does about 180-or so damage, plus an unlisted +40-odd% to both machines and living things, with about +40-odd bonus recharge. It's a very nice one. IT BURNS, IT BURNS, IT BURNS!

And yes, they do go through energy much faster than is sustainable, but unless you're fighting elites, a quick wave is generally enough to cause the entire crowd to degenerate into a confused mass of critters which would probably be screaming "IT BURNS!" if they had voice clips.

 

You know what i just got tho? A plasma rifle called "Excaliber". MULTISHOT! Does less damage than my Vindicator tho.

 

I finally got around to playing through a handful of missions as Jessica. Fun times.

 

Don't flatter yourself - It's not a failure, it's a conscious choice of tactics, and certainly a viable one. That's what RPGs are all about - exercising choices. It would be terrible if we all played the same boring way, don't you think?.

 

I was stating that this was *MY* preference, and that I similarly stated that he was doing fine. Obviously, he prefers a larger safety shield in his style than I do. Nothing wrong with that. After all, some people prefer the X-Wing, others are die-hard TIE fighter pilots.

 

Well, actually I've been lucky in finding good implants, all my arm and leg implants give me at least +10 constitution, and a + in dexterity, either from the fact that it's Pharma Inc, or I picked it up that way. My heart alone is +14 con and +13 DX, and with Johnson, DX is what makes me do major damage.

 

Dex seems to be highly in demand for at least 2 out of the 4 characters, possibly 3/4 depending on build. Pharma thus makes very useful stuff. Can't argue with inflicting more damage. Damage is everything when it comes to ranged weapons, as the line between "awesome" and "useless" is entirely defined by stopping power, the ratio of opponent hitpoints to damage.

 

Which other character needs dx? The psionic chick or the Yakuza boy?

 

The Yakuza boy benefits from dex also, as it improves his to-hit even as a melee fighter, and will improve his damage if he goes the John Woo route. The Psi chick needs just a metric assload of Int. The more the better. Hosing the room with the super-psi-shotgun will clear the place out REAAAL fast. She doesn't really need dex at all.

 

Very cool, so she's powerful?

 

A slight tendency towards being breakable, but the same stat that gives you a larger fueltank also gives you more firepower. This tends to mostly aggravate the opportunity cost issue of doing anything else, but hey, the ability to hose, nuke, and generally blast the crapola out of the room and never run out of medpacks ain't bad, especially when you can launch many of these attacks from either "out of range" or "behind a wall".