Valorian Endymion

Trash mobs might help some games to balance pace, tension and difficult, because otherwise in some games all you would have is a series of might be too long and difficult combats that might grown tiresome without some break or pause, also the they might help other encounters to feel more unique. However this might change a lot from game to game. One exemple, since we are talking about DAO, is the difference between the last part, where you face several trash mobs, but since you are much powerful that them is really fast and does build up some sense that you are cutting the darkspawn horde as you try to open a way, now on the Deep Roads, there is a lot of combat but does start to get boring as is rather slow but not difficult. Now a interessing game to look is the early Might and Magic rpgs titles, specially M&M4 (Clouds of Xeen) and M&M5 (Darkside of Xeen), they both play like classic old school rpgs with third person perspective, but the combat is very fast and really enjoyable, you be facings several large mobs, but the combat and the actual enemy hp are in just the right balance that this is works really well and never get tiresome.

The main difficult with historical accuracy in games is that, you can´t create every system which is related to what you are trying to reproduce without just make a confusing mess of mechanics. Therefore, you risk end with something that might be "half broken". Think like the fact no matter how much "swordmasters" you add to a game you can´t reproduce all that could affect how as sword is begin wield, I mean things like from foot work to movement of your waist/wrist/arms without ending with a confusing game that is just gazillions of quicktime events (and I am nothing even taking in account the actual and reliable historical sources). In a large scale exemple, like Duke of Chutney said - Wargame can´t (or don´t want) reproduce the political effect of your actions and to be fair even if they did I think that would simple ruin the game (more of this below). Also on the debate of what is "historical accuracy" you have the issue of people thinking that "historical accuracy" is often trivia/factual perception disjointed from the large compreension (sometimes the debate of this or that weapon or this armor is better can turn in this, the very understand of their actual role and usage or lack of it is made difficult, because the "pratical" aspect view of object is often detached from cultural/economic/social aspects, that could explain its usage or the lack of it) or what people might believe is realistic might not meet what would be historical accurate (per exemple, for some people everything in middle ages is colorless, detailess, pratical and is all about violence over the top, but if you show the other elements they might simple refuse to accept). What most games could do is a "selective realism/historical accuracy" where they select some key elements to reproduce that work with their game theme and design. And there is the trick, figure what could work for each game. That said, I think that "historical accuracy" often can became in different flavours: Setting/visual/flavour - This is the most noticiable one, it is all about the visual design, uniforms/arms/armor, effects and some simple mechanics (like in Cossacks you had to have units with the drummer and banner), but without gameplay that support or reflect (at least a perception of what is based on) at least a simple level it might felt strange (I had this issue with Ages of Empires III, where I felt that despite the setting the gameplay was just the same as the previous games, this might be noticiable in other older historical RTS). Immersion: I might not be using the correct word, but I want to say, is when a game "feel" historical accuracte even when it´s visuals/gameplay aren´t, think in games like The Witcher 3 which is a fantasy game that lot of people might say that feel historical accurate, even when isn´t and it´s a fantasy. Or even think in a game like Mount & Blade, the game combat system maybe isn´t the most accurate one, but the actual flow and pace and lack of interruptions, make easier to get immerse in the combat. Sometimes however, by trying to add more "historical accurate" or "realistic" mechanics, this can break immersion - While M&B combat was rather fluid with very few commands, War of the Roses often felt to me more strange to me, because, despite trying something more realistic, they add lots of extra inputs, making things like mount on a horse, using a bow or even swing the sword (which often pop up a pizza graphic in your face) more complicated. This was made worst due the multiplayer nature of efficience over everything, which meant that the most optimal thing to do, if you aren´t much skilled was just running around swinging a poleaxe. I can imagine, upon hearing Bruce exemples of that "Crown of Glory" games where mechanics are piled upon mechanics because it would be "realistic" but this cost the whole the pace/flow of the game itself or just turn the whole thing to busywork. Addition: Something that is realistic or appear that "add" something to the game without "removing" or "restrict" (in direct ways) something else, that still visible on it: In XIII Century Cavalry units didn´t stand still in melee, they clash and pass through to clash again. The way sight, supply, and other elements works on Wargame series. Forced Restriction: Something that is realistic or appear so, but came at expanse of limiting and restricing, that often is crucial to what you are trying to reproduce, but it need careful explained context and execution otherwise it be felt as something arbitrarial. Once many years ago I did played a old mod for EUII that suffered a lot of this. I start a game as England and managed to grab a few provinces in France, but suddenly, because that wouldn´t be "historical" the mod start to punish me : first it raised my revolt risk (fine), reduce my taxes (fine), them it start to DELETE my armies! and I think suddenly didn´t allow me to raise armies in France too. In the end quit the game, because it felt so weird despite historical context, tried another one playing with a minor and found that I could do absolute nothing because it won´t be historical... Now if you take the open form of EU in mind you can see the problem, because it´s give the player two doors but if he dares to take the left one you punish him in such way (or simple don´t allow him) that make you wonder why the mod/game bother to add the actual door... Another exemple, while some mods for Rome 1 had really good logistics/supply mechanics, once I played mod for Medieval 2 where they add this too, but there it felt that execution was bad, because logistic/supply was so harsh that you could bearly move your armies at all, making crusader the most boring stuff ever (or even impossible given the distance) as your armies just crawl at snail pace. Invisible: Something that is realistic (or could felt as it is) but there is no way to know it exist ingame - Because all of the talk about Medieval I, I decided to check some videos since I am thinking in buy it again (can´t find my original cd), but it so hard to tell that the engine had physics back there, I mean, I knew it was there, but looking I couldn´t notice. XIII Century I think tried have a different engine and simulation but given its limitations it was hard to notice (this made worst by weird design and simulations problems). Impratical: I did found this a lot in M&B mods, where they would balance weapons to more "realistic", the result was often you got lots of weapons in the game became impratical to use, because reach/damage/speed values while more "realistic" where so low that simple you had no reason to use them as given the game mechanics. In strategy games this might mean units which simple are too weak, too difficult to recruit or use, ect... this often happen in trivial perception is throw in without taking in mind of how and if it would work (is the "would not be realistic if we..."). As I said above, maybe Wargame could "try" to reproduce political effect, but done wrong the result would be a extra set of mechanics upon the gameplay that mostly like result in frustration. If I am not wrong, there is a old 3MA episode where Bruce talks a lot about that - I think is the Fire no Guns shed no Tears episode or is the Ethic, Morale and Motivation.

It will, the game even have his own page on steam but its date is around 2016. This waves of jrpgs and Visual Novels coming to steam is great. I mean remember when pretty much all we had was Last Remnant? (not that was a bad game, once you got the hang of it was ok), given that console can be really expansive where I live (in comparsion to pc) I welcome with open arms all this japanese games. There is one more, coming Grandia II HD (but I kind wish they bring Lunar I and II, this where some of my favorite jrpgs on ps one).

Yesterday I finished Ys I, after almost 3 hours (atcually it was first 2h, followed by a break, to first playing a bit of Attila and then I returned to Ys) on the last fight against Dark Fact. That fight is ridiculous hard, not just he keep floating around but he also throw both small blast (which make the whole thing look a bullet hell) of energy and fireball that are aimed to hit where are you standing and if you hit him, the already limited ground became even smaller as a piece of it vanishes. Like the other bosses in the game you can´t use items or potions and none of your rings work there. Despite that, is not frustrating as it could appear, maybe because the game is rather fast so you might die very quickly but to restart the fight is also very fast and once you start seeing the pattern in his moves became a bit easier. And Ys is really fun game by the end. Just look at this video to have a idea how the last battle is:

I agree about XIII Century, just having battle after battle was really boring, specially that the battle they had felt like bad designed puzzles. I felt the flow between campaign and battles one of the things I like in CA games. Now about on the end-game units, I understand, but I did felt that changes made since Empires, made their use more pratical, because in the past, not only they where tied to late eras/tech/development, but the way reinforcement and recruiting worked, make bring this units to the front impratical. The classic exemple is the feudal vs chivalaric knight, you might think to start using chivalaric knights, soon as you got them, but the way reinforcement worked made that soon as you use them once, you had to transport them back to reinforce, sometimes this didn´t matter (if the distance was short) but in others (like you had provinces far away) was a pain and it was simple to just use feudal knights or what ever you had (specially in case of unique units that where tied to a far way provinces, so yeah, by time you could recruit archers of sherwood, they where so far from the frontline that by time you got them you don´t need them anymore). Yes and no. In the earlier games that worked. But in that style simple armies positions in campaign map didn´t matter at all, because all you do is drop stacks in province, don´t matter much from where they came even the map is the same. In the current 3d mode (despite AI struggle sometimes), where and when battle are fought matter as it determines the actual battlefield, in fact, back there (medieval I/shogun I) if two armies attack you and you had a single one there was nothing you could do, you can´t, like you could in the new mode, trying to delay one and fight the other, draw them to a place you could fight and maybe win.

I have to say the show you guys did was amazing, and myself agreed lot of things said there and despite a couple of thing I too liked Attila (more on this below). Talking on campaign AI, I did see factions trying to became stronger and stable, in all games I did so far, I had the Western Roman Empire to fall apart and the barbarian factions set in, conquer some provinces and soon as diplomacy kick in they became rather stable (much like it was said in the podcast, factions kept treaties) sending armies away to either pick up something Rome still have left or trying to hold off the Huns (in fact during one campaign a faction managed to became strong enough to hold off Huns of for awhile or at least weaken them) or even look futher to conquest (maybe sometimes way too faraway). I also saw armies operate in coordenated ways (in my current Last Roman campaign, I am see AI using its armies to surround me, which forced me to allways bring my two curren expedition armies around. Had a really tense battle between 3 Vandal armies and my two legions). However @Gatazhk and @Gormongus points where very interessing I was thinking a lot about that, because I did also noticed them. Never used, but I do know I few old tricks of the older games: - Medieval 2 (I think this also work for Medieval 1): One problem of the crusades was that soon or later you had do defend whatever you got there from Timurids or someone else, one solution was get the provinces (to complete the crusade) and them give or sell the provinces to someone else (that is a reason why many games drop exchange of provinces or techs, players can exploit that a lot). - If attacked by Mongols or Timurids in Medieval 2 and you are playing with England you can get some Longbomman to build stacks in front of the gate, open the gate and let them come in, with luck you might survive. - In Rome I (and Medieval II too) there was what I would call "dance of betrayal" where a diplomat would come to one city, do the animations, but nothing happens (I mean no actual diplomacy), they would do it several times at the same place and if you spot that you can tell that faction will attack you. I don´t know if this count for exploit, and maybe Gormongous might know the actual answer to this one, but if memory didn´t fail me, in Medieval I, cavalry charges where much more powerful, almost a bit too much, because you could win battle by just throwing knights (and more precise those early Feudal Knights, which where much cheaper and despite lower stats, where more useful that the other ones).This changed a bit in Rome I, but wasn´t until Medieval 2 where the changes where felt by most players and effective charges where kind complicated to pull off (I remember a dev post about how to do it). Now on recomending Attila or not: There is a lot things I did like there, the reinforcements zones where clearer, the overall theme, hordes, the parts where UI was improved, the family trees. But also I did also find that part of the UI still confusing, the character development while improved with the new skill system, isn´t the same like in Shogun 2, animations while improved (over Rome 2) aren´t the same level as in Shogun 2, there is some problem with the AI sometimes. Still I would recommend, if you keep in mind that Attila was build over Rome 2 and is somewhat like Napoleon (which too a lot of people love and others not, but I guess the difference is that Rome 2 got a much larger overhaul that Empire got) and does have it´s own issues. But still I liked the game.

Some Visual Novels I did finish this days: Shan Gui: it is a short Chinese VN (kinectic type, so choices), the story itself it, well, very sweet, a bit short, ok. In the end I did even made the badge. Higurashi When They Cry - Chapter 1 Onikakushi: The best way I could tell about this one is "I didn´t see that coming", it´s a really good VN, I confess that was unware of what Higurashi was about or everything around (there is a ton of game and anime) I had bought sometime ago and only now I finally decided to start playing, by the end I was really surprised and can´t wait until the next chapters. Just for the love of all, play with the new sprites,the original ones are horrible.

I too don´t have much high hopes, but there is new article on Gamespot with some more info: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/master-of-orion-returns-to-expand-the-4x-genre/1100-6428383/ It appear that this new game will bring back the original races, therefore ignoring events on MOO3 (in which they killed many of the older race to add pretty lazy designed ones) which could be good step.

One Way Heroics.

After Rome 2 I was at first "cautious" about Attila, which changed to "Cautious Optimistic" once the dev journals/blogs/video start talking about the game, to a finally "Really Surprised" once the game was out. Got to agree with Troy, Attila again proves the point that CA best ability is with focused titles, which improve my hopes on the Warhammer, since it will be focused on four armies instead of all of them. Also, yeah the part of exploring around and find out was going on is really fun, either when I was playing the Saxons (and leaving Britain), or moving my Vandal hordes toward North Africa, there was this feeling of "what hell is going on around here?" finding either separatist factions, romans besieged everywhere, devastations and other stuff around. On battles (I am mostly talking on visual part) what I felt is that in Shogun 2, the mix of animations, plus unit variations (I mean in sense of units with one-handed weapons/spears/bows/two-handed/ect...) and theme (visually, shogun draw a lot from classic samurai moves, just watch the battle scene in Haven and Earth (1990, Ten to Chi) and compare with the Shogun 2) and even the addition of blood (and the animations, again while over the top,again it did draw a lot from movies) all worked and combined together very well. Rome 2 had less unit variation (mostly where units with either sword or spear and shield, almost no two-handed weapon units), animations where less distinctive (since almost everybody is using the same weapon) and much like in King Arthur, the huge shields made unit blob visually worst. Attila improves a bit on unit variation (slight more two-handed units and other types), color is slight better, animations where improved (actually, unit height variation and facial expression work a lot better). I have been playing the Last Roman campaign, it´s quite fun - since it take you to control Roman "Hordes" (the Roman Expendition) and you can either fullfill Justinian orders (and try to balance around the desires of both your wife and his wife, they both give you missions that might even contradict) or try to became independent. Rob commented on the Sprites: talking on visuals alone, yeah, for Shogun 1 it worked since the small number of units allowed each one to be more distinctive, but while the same kind worked in Medieval 1, I did remember felt (talking from memory) that sometimes units distinction was quite lower due the sheer amount* units that Medieval 1 had. I remember having several kinds of Turkish cavalry that that where very similar in stats/function and visual. * I remember Medieval 1 having lots of units, but sometimes to get many of them you need have either special provinces or very developed ones, meaning that most times when you finally could get them, due the way the game micromanagement of units and how it take a single turn to move one province to another, it wasn´t much helpful, since it often takes too much time to move them to the front (since this provinces might be away from frontlines) and maybe back to refill (I remember feeling that around with Medieval II). By the way, one the changes I mostly enjoyed was the way units could be recruited and reinforced, since, while not very realistic, it take way much of the previous games annoying micromanagement and allowed for more mixing of units. By the way, I guess that everybody saw CA just released again Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 on Steam? I guess they got the rights back, because Shogun was under EA while Medieval was under Activision. Also small curiosity: did anyone ever played that Takeda 3 (http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-TAKEDA3/takeda-3) or Strenght & Honor 2 (http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-SH2/strength-and-honour-2) or even Sango 2 (http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-SANGO2/sango-2) all where some kind of Shogun 1 / Medieval 1 visual/engine (??) like games. I never heard about them (at least until I know the gamersgate site, their player review are quite mixed) and I have no idea how the exactly look or play (I do remember seeing a gameplay video and not begin impressed) but its curious to see them. Got to also agree with Rob, that if the narrator saying which unit was fleeing would be great, but I also felt that would mean a lot of more voice work and could lead to narrator spamming comments. The closest thing I saw to what Rob said, it was on Warhammer: Dark Omen, where each unit was lead by a character and you would see a small window showing the animated head of this character saying lines or asking help. I do however remember that Napoleon would open a small window showing where something the narrator was saying was happening (but the visual of the window wasn´t very good).

I just finished a game here is some more thoughts: - I still think that the large changes won´t be a barrier, the only thing is maybe older players get around with old tactics with the new fort system. The new development system is more likely to surprise people only when they couldn´t build more, and from there on is quite clear what to do but not exacly where to click. - AI is behaving sometimes really well:I saw the Commonwealth form and survive until the end, AI armies often hunt down you down (which make those landings more difficult), split when safe and join when under threat (saw this happen a lot in my England+France vs Mexico + Haiti + Chile wars, Mexico would move around a huge stack of 40k men but split it when felt it safe, only to rejoin later, my French allies did the same). But I also saw the AI behave in strange fashion: in one case where a rebel stack would try to siege a fortress with almost no infantry, in other one war France stood with huge stack in border with Mexico but they didn´t move it. Haiti had huge stacks in the islands, but they didn´t move them. But I don´t know if because my fleet was around quickly or they lacked transports. - I didn´t had much problem with development/core because mostly of my war where outside europe, but then the largest amount of provinces I take in a war as five against Haiti and all of them where previous colonies in the north coast of Brazil. Other stuff that happened. - Russia formed, later something happened, and Perm take over. - Spain had huge colonial empire but lost almost everything, became the center of the revolution and later even Tlemcem would invade them and take a few regions in their own mainland. - Portugal had the same fate. - The Ottomans did really well for the whole game. - As the Commonwealth did too. Below is the map of the world in my game around 1812.

Spain and Portugal, followed by Scotland and me managed to colonize a lot of places in both South and North America, but the Incas, Aztecs, Mayans and Native Americans survived for very long time, I mean the Iroquis still around in very late 1780 as some other nations, while Incas and Mayans and Aztecs fallen only around maybe late that the usual fast failing. Ming, Japan, Korea and many other places in Asia still there doing fine, I already told my failed landings in Malaca, but now I have to add another one, I don´t what going on on Ming, but there is a lot of rebels everywhere and several minor power started to split off. I saw a two province Die Viet appear and tried rush it, only to reenact my disaster landing in Malaca, ended wasting my manpower unable to siege their capital, which was protected by a level 3 fortress (or more, AI appear to like build improved forts, which is great). Fun thing is, while Spain and Portugal did colonize huge streches of land, it kind turned in a "hoisted by your own petard" situation, as they could not hold the Liberty Desire until either no one is paying anything (except the treasure fleets, which still work even with high Liberty Desire) or they start to rebel, both powers had no way to control this, and let me add one more thing, Colonial nations are supporting each other, making alliances and supporting each other independence. Haiti (my former colonial nation) is allied with Mexico (Portugal) and Chile (Spain) while supporting independence of my English Peru... and boy, did we had some fun wars, because I hold some land in Mexico, until they drive me so against the wall that I had to give up some land there and to maybe never again got myself in war against them, I decided to free my colonial nation there. Also I think the new dynamics in the way Colonial Nations work now give more option of how to deal with Colonial Powers, as you can either try to weaken them (which rises the Liberty Desire and reduce the income they provide), support Colonial Nations or just wait, soon or later things will start fall apart, instead of trying to get them down early on.

I am enjoying this expansion a lot, it need a some tweaks, but so far, very good. Like Rob I too started a game with England, here is my impressions so far: - Loved the new fort system, I just wish it still possible to remove your troops by sea (if they came from there), because it´s very easy to get trapped with no way to go, it happened to me when I declared war on Malaca and unlanded my troops (14k) in a province, only to find out that there was this huge stack (40K) of troops coming and I had no where to run. Save from that, the fort system is great, I mean, choosing where to move and strike mean much more now. One side effect (and I don´t mean in negative way) is that forts might be helping smaller nations to survive for much longer, in my game several smaller nations where able to survive, in my game Malaca was able to survive, after two failed landing done by me which crushed my menpower. - I agree with Rowan, that because several change made now (and some before) I am starting to pickup ideas which I might not done otherwise. In my game, much like Rob I find myself worried about rebels and the rising of reformation, but thanks to Humanism idea I was able to keep thing in place. - I agree that a visual indicator on the map for how much a province is developed could help. I don´t think the new development system for province will be a barrier, but I do agree that is a bit vague how it works (It took me a while to find where it was and start using it), but once you got the hang of it, it´s good, I find myself developing provinces for shipbuilding and other for trade or manpower, but only later in the game. Let see how patch will adjust. - Talking about manpower.... I think since maybe last expansion (or before) I found that it was becoming more critical to keep an eye on it, since not only reinforcements cost a lot of money, but now low manpower trigger the Peasant Revolt. In a old game with Muscovy I didn´t pay attention and because my war with Novgorad turned sour, I later myself dealing with several rebellions that I had no strenght to fight and did lost a lot of autonomy. Now it appear to be bit more tweaked (in sense of how it trigger, I mean, still happen but no so much like before, because it was annoying) which mean that each defeat I suffered kind hurt more, since meant I need time to recover and luck that nothing goes wrong in the meantime (just to be clear I am not complaining about this, I kind like it). And much like Rowan said, I did felt that mercenaries are much more vital now, specially in moments where you down on luck and menpower, but still have gold (those Treasure Fleets from Peru saved my life at least twice) or have the ideas which lower cost on mercenaries. Other things that happened in my game: - Both Portugal and Spain made huge colonial empires (except on Asia) but now are falling apart, mostly because war in Europe weakened them so much that their colonies start to split up. - The released colonial nations where quite powerful Haiti (released by me) managed to build it´s own colonial empire, Mexico (Portugal) was able to hold off both me and France (and all of our allies). I think Spain is about to lose Brazil. - Austria got luck upon Burgundy demise, but soon after several nations declared war on them and after a few year they lost almost everything. - Much like it was said on the podcast, the HRE is quite wild place, spotted a few minors becoming bigger and a few unlikely emperors. - During the English Civil War, I was almost defeated, but managed to win by hiring all mercenaries I could. In the end I had 19 debts, but thanks to the gold of Peru I was able to pay all, after several year of living with almost everything on zero and praying that nothing goes wrong.

In the end I got: Star Ruler 2 Supreme Commander 2 (with the dlc) Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds (with the dlc). BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend Alphadia Genesis Metal Gear Revangence Since it last until tomorrow I am tempted to pick up Darkstone, mostly due nostalgia, but I am very aware that the game might be too old now.

Yeah I would recommend the same Gaizokubanou said or even trying the demo (I just have no idea in which version the demo is however). I really like EU IV (I do have everything, I mean every dlc, except the e-books) it´s not perfect, but is one of my favorite games. Anyway, I just got on the last second - BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extended. While I am far from begin good on a fighting game, I have played the first one and enjoyed it a lot. And about the cards of the mini-game: I think the idea is you gain one by just playing it, another by reaching level 8 and maybe a third one randomly during the whole day. Like almost everybody I most got two cards, expect one day I got the third one. But I am just selling them to buy other cards and finish some badges.

In the end I did pick up Phantom Breaker and Supreme Commander 2, I would maybe pick up some more costume dlcs for DW8 if Koei had put them also in the sale (go figure, maybe in a flash/week deal they will also add dlc, I mean that happend once, maybe twice). Also I might pick up some Skyrim dlcs, but right now I have so many mods that I fear adding anything will cause the whole thing to coming crashing down. By the way, One Way Heroic still in the sale at -80% is a very good light-roguelike but very fun.

Slow day of the sale for me too. I already got almost everything from Total War and Final Fantasy, except maybe FF III and FFIV, which I might pick up. Maybe Lord of Xulima (anyone would recommend?), but I am not sure...

So far I have only picked up Star Ruler 2, I almost bought Beyond Earth but end changing mind, I am still waiting other stuff in my wishlist to show up (and also I had before this bought a couple of VN and few other games. so I am going a bit slow here) while also keeping in mind that Toukiden will be released very soon (26 june)

Yeah, the monster game is really fast now, I guess the bonus from previous play did give a head start, I mean in less the third minutes I am at level 144... Now, on the current deals: Legend of Grimrock II is at 75% while the first game was good, I found the second one a lot better. Mount & Blade: Warband is amazing game and it is with 80% discount.

So they kind explained what happen that lead to the alien victory spoilers

The minigame does appear to be "working" (if we are generous with definition of "work") now, still I am not sure how winning card from it work I did got two from it but I am really thinking in selling the card to finish other badges instead. I would really recommend Valkyria Chronicles (-75%) there still a few hours left. Homeworld is tempting me a lot (and now I am have less then 2 hours to decided, my mistake I forget that daily deal last for two days) but I haven´t made my mind.

My nick (which I only use in the net) does have two origins, nothing fancy however: "Valorian" is modification of the name of my character in a old gurps campaign, he was called "Valerian", it did turn in "Valorian" when I was playing Might and Magic VII, where while naming one of my character I did start to experiment some name variants and this one shows up and sticked around. The "Endymion", as some of you might guess, did came from Sailor Moon, which I am a big fan. The whole thing, "Valorian Endymion", was the name of my main character on Ragnarok Online for a very long time and how some friend I did meet there know me.

I think a lot of people soon as they got their first contact with a rpg or boardgame might start have ideas and desire to create their own games (specially in the early days of rpg where there wasn´t much around) it´s followed side by side with desire to create it´s own campaign background (because drawing fantasy maps is really fun). For me, I do remember once trying to come up with my own war (the boardgame) rules, which I kind remember trying to have rules for things like diseases in your troops, that slight before I do even know rpg. Later one, once I did know rpg, I too tried around creating my own rule set, but what I did most was creating lots of extra rules for system which I played (including a system for battle between armies and a lot of rules for a anime themed campaign) and drawing fantasy maps and planning campaign backgrounds (I did kept the maps and some annotations).

On the subject of game where you can get old and/or got hurt: - If memory don´t fail me Deus EX (the original) had a system where you could break your legs if you got shoot or fall from higher distance. - A few mods for Mount & Blade feature a system of permanent wounds (if you lose all your health you could suffer a random permanent wound like a broken bone). - In some mods for Total War games your generals might got special traits to reflect their old age and wounds. Crusader Kings II too have a system like this. - Darklands (1992, Microprose) had a system where your character can get old and maybe lose some attributes or simple die. Talking about crazy/offensive ads in old magazines, I recommend look around for old vintage computer ads (http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads-1980s), they where even more insane (I remember correctly there was one ad that had a artwork with two cities, one highly futuristic, with lots chrome around everything, lots of green and even a cyber deer and the other show a futuristic city destroyed by war, and below was written - What future you want for you son? followed by the ad for a computer) and maybe slight less offensive (but you still got some ads like one that feature a woman in a swimsuit on a beach making a model pose with a lot of 5 1/4 disks around her).

I am really impressed by the weather effects, hear and seen even trees moving in a rain storm is amazing (even on low). I don´t know if intentional or not, but you know the battlefield area close to the White Orchard village? that place with the mud, pools of water, wooden stakes and the way the bodies where arranged kind remaind me of the end of the movie Henry V.