I just use either Internet Explorer or just the dos FTP commands.

Go to the Dragonforce website and download the MP3 from their new album. Do it now.

For those of you with some curiosity and a high speed internet connection, just wanted to post the release of a demo of UT 2004 on fileplanet. It weighs in at 209 MB.

I guess we were all so exhausted from the last week that none of us had any energy to post anything.

I have played the English Demo of Sacred and it is looking very cool. We will have to see how things turn out.

A little Nightwish news (from the Nuclear Blast Homepage):

Nuclear Blast is very proud to welcome Finland's Symphonic/Gothic Metal act No. 1, NIGHTWISH, within the label family. The band will release their forthcoming, yet-untitled album Europe-wide via Nuclear Blast, while Spinefarm/Universal Records will issue the record in Finland, Brazil, Mexico and Chile. The new songs emerged in cooperation with members of the London Session Orchestra which recently recorded the soundtracks of "The Lord Of The Rings" and "Harry Potter".

The first single of the new album shall be 'Nemo', due in middle of April – NIGHTWISH are going to shoot a video clip for this track together with director Antti Jokinen who already worked with Celine Dion, Shania Twain and Eminem.

I can agree with all those sentiments.. although I think we may be able to combine rolls even while expanding their meanings.

A few more random thoughts...

As we get to work on this project, another thing to remember is that combat can sometimes really drag on, especially if the party size gets to be much over four people. I remember having a couple people in a cave fighting 12 hook horrors between a couple different rooms and it took over an hour. I know Mr. Shade likes speed playing where everybody throws their attack roll at once and stuff like that. If we start dividing damage between specific parts on the body and the armor, as well as recording wear and tear on weapons and sheilds and elaborating on defensive moves, speed playing (I think) would almost become essential or the game could grind to a halt during heavy combat. All of these ideas are good ideas and would surely bring more realism to the game. I guess we have to decide if we're concerned with balancing time with realism, or if we're choosing at the moment to committ soley to creating the most damned realistic combat system ever and who cares how long each round takes. Another idea is including a maximum time during which a player has to decide on their course of action. If you want to go truely realistic, then players whose characters are not near each other should not be able to discuss their actions. Looking forward to the work.

Yeah this weekend I think everyone will be coming up so that would be a good time.

The main reason why I brought this up is because I am tired of that 15 gold piece long sword you bought 2 years ago still working and shining like the day it was purchased. Also the swords you pick up from goblins... obviously they didn't keep their weapons in as tip top shape as they should have been. These are things that are really lacking in the gaming system.

The debate seems to be becoming whether to just modify the DnD combat system or throw it out all together and start over. On the one hand, you have dividing hit points into personal body space and armor body space and otherwise keeping everything normal. On the other hand, you go really deep and start considering weapon hit points, hardness of armor versus hardness of weapons, shield skills, method of defending against attacks (dodging, parrying, etc). Its beginning to sound more like the latter. Perhaps a scheduled melding of the minds would be in order?

Shields are a difficult thing to do... I would say try the following... During combat the attacker declares who they are attacking and if it is an aimed shot.

The defender then determines whether they wish to a) defensive maneuver (ie dodge, pivot), b) parry, c) shield block. A shield block consists of a contested dice roll based on the skills of attacker vs defender.

So then you have two sets of body space, armor and personal. So I guess AC then just becomes your Dex bonus? What about shields?

I can agree with that. And I am even looking at this like Plate Armor... Does Plate armor mean you get hit less? Plate Armor should add a ton of life to each area of the body, but you get hit a lot, just hope that the plate can absorb it all. And when you think about it.. Your armor 'life' points don't come back after a battle.. The armor is still damaged unless you actively attempt to repair the damage (which most fighters would probably be able to rudimentarily do).

I like it. That sounds alot like Diablo 2, except that stamina and mana would be blended. I would take everything you said, add "body space", and then I think you'd have a much more realistic damage/life/energy system. Keep the called shot penalty. Maybe make a table like Rolemaster to judge where your character is hit if no part of the body is specifically targeted. After all, your head shouldn't be the only thing you can loose...

I have been thinking about Role Playing Games recently... One of the issues I have with the D20 system that a lot of people have had is that everyone wants to know how your warrior can run up.. fight through 30 orcs take 15 blows on his body and be fine the next day... So here are my thoughts:

What about a Energy / Life system... now here me out you people in the back of the crowd:

For a fighter Energy and Life are basically the same thing. You take damage first on your energy, stating that as the battle goes on you get tired so an example--
(Wolf Fighter level 5, high strength and con, Energy 45, Life 16)
(Orc, Energy 16, Life 8)
-Wolf swings his longsword at the orc. Before rolling to hit etc he takes 2 energy points off.
-He hits and with his heightened strength he deals 14 points of damage to the orc, this knocks the orc down to 2 energy and 8 life.
-The orc swings back at Wolf, takes 3 energy points off his total based on the fact that he is using a heavier weapon (Two handed Axe), this knocks the orcs energy down to below 0, first off from now on he will be taking damage into his life points, second off he will be dealing lesser damage due to his wearied state unless he has feats to counteract that (Rage, etc)
-The orc hits but it is a wounding blow (special type of hit, requiring skills or luck of the dice), it doesn't deal more damage that normal but goes straight against Wolfs life total in addition to his energy total. The orc deals 8 damage, Wolf is now at 35 Energy and 8 Life. Normally he wouldn't have taken any damage from the blow except because of the critical strike.

Energy would recuperate with just resting probably 10 points per hour for sitting / eating / drinking, 5 points per hour for non streneous activities.
Life recuperates through extended time or healing.

How the process would work for magic wielders. You would spend energy points to work magic, the amount of energy you spend would directly effect how the spells works. I would go more for a general spell system where you don't necessarily have specific spells, but if you use a specific spell you get more bang for the buck. A priest could cast a fireball in this instance but since it would be against his nature would never be able to learn the spell unlike a wizard and could cost more energy. After a magic user ran out of energy they could continue casting spells into their life total. This would recuperate at a higher speed than normal wounds but slower than energy, but it could still kill you if you overstretched your bounds.

I also thought of armor adding onto a temporary life total and subtracting from the energy total (probably a lot more adding than subtracting)..

Something like:
Full Plate Armor +65Life -20Energy +8 Defense
Leather Armor +10Life 0Energy +2 Defense

It gives lighter armor some benefit but wearing the heavy armor major benefits and negatives, it would also increase the amount of energy lost in fighting / general actions. Climbing a mountain in full plate armor is going to hurt.

Thoughts? Very rough but just something I was thinking about this morning.