Lord Glenn

(WARNING, LONG POST - SOMEWHAT SERIOUS DISCUSSION-ESQUE) I was going through my daily pass of gaming sites today when I came across this article: http://kotaku.com/so-many-pokemon-cheaters-entered-online-tournament-1176444879 tl;dr summary: People competing in the Global Showdown tournament "cheated". (And I'm forced to put that in quotations because no gaming site can do a damn bit of journalism and actually get clarification as to what degree of "cheating" took place*.) Over 1500 people, that is, with the majority falling into the oldest age bracket. (*More on this in a moment.) Obviously, you'd be incredible naive if you didn't think that there was anything going on. With the popularity of battle simluation places like Smogon, the fact that people are using third party applications and websites to engineer "perfect" Pokémon shouldn't be a surprise. Now, in regards to the actual article, it doesn't specify whether the engineering that was caught during the competition was of a ridiculously exaggerated nature (i.e. Pokémon with stat values that they (or no one else for that matter) should be able to attain or having moves that are not legally attainable or not obtained from a distribution event) or simply an extention of the simulation methodology - that is, creating a team full of combatants with perfect IV values, max level, and desired their moves, natures, and EVs without putting any actual effort into it. Now, I think we can all agree that the former doesn't need to be covered at all - it's stupid, plain and simple. The latter is where things get dicey and why I started to think about this issue and, ultimately, am posting this topic. For starters, let it be known that I am not entirely opposed to the concept of what goes on at Smogon, etc. If people want to develop and practice strategy in a controlled environment where they can test teams and compete to see who is the best at doing so, by all means, let them. Applying the same principles and taking a shortcut to do so in the actual games for actual competitive use, on the other hand, is taking it a bit far, IMHO. That isn't to say that I don't understand the "why" of the matter, which I'm sure can vary from person to person - some might do it because they don't have the time to raise an entire team, others might do it because they think that having to go through the painstaking process of en masse breeding and grinding because Game Freak doesn't want to get in line with modern times is stupid, etc. In my eyes, however, I liken it to the current ongoing issue in professional athletics over the use of steroids in competition. Some people play the right way and only rely on their actual ability and practice. Others circumvent all of that and falsely elevate their status. But, for most spectators, the dark thought always seems to creep in that secretly, everyone is probably using steroids anyway, so it's a level playing field. While I'll still have that thought from time to time, I honestly can't believe that every single player is dirty - there has to be someone that's clean - and that's where the extended metaphor comes back to the topic at hand. There have got to be competition players that compete and don't have fully spec'd-out teams that are of simulation quality (or even ones that spend weeks or more to complete the task in-game), and that renders them at a disadvantage against the other players, especially since outside tools are the deciding factor here. Basically, in layman's terms, so long as one person is competing fairly, the people that just poof their perfect teams into existence for competition are, for all intents and purposes, cheating. BUT! This whole situation got me thinking today while I was at work. With X/Y starting to expand how transparent the underlying mechanics actually are (notably right now in regards to EVs), perhaps there's a solution to this predicament that could make everyone happy and potentially even discourage the usage of outside tools for perfection's sake. (Obviously, Game Freak is too oblivious outside of their own little bubble, so this is wishful thinking, but hopefully wishful thinking that can evolve into a meaningful discussion. That is, I highly doubt that any of these comments and suggestions would ever be implemented in a timely fashion by the series's caretaker - maybe if we're lucky, they'll add something like this by 2028.) As a frustrated semi-fan of the series (to the point that I'm honestly sick of the fact that outside of each generations' mechanics changes, the overall game that I first played in the 90s is fundamentally the same exact thing that still is today - but hey, that's Nintendo in a nutshell, isn't it?), I easily understand the call for Game Freak to get with the times, in more ways than one. I certainly don't have the time or drive to pointlessly grind through boring wild encounters to raise up additional teams of Pokémon when the games don't provide incentive to do so, let alone a more efficient or interesting means of doing it. This also does not even factor in the time required to breed out higher IV values in desired stats, natures, or abilities. I also see the value in having teams consisting of only simulation-style setups, as then some randomness is removed from the contest - it comes down to the player's decisions (EVs and moves) and skills (anticipation, deduction, reasoning, comprehension, etc.) along with slight amounts of luck (move accuracy, secondary effect chances, and criticals) to determine the victor instead of the RNG Gods giving your desired Pokemon a max IV in a terrible stat and a 5 in its most important stat, making it statistically inferior. (Of course, this introduces the possibility of an even more pronounced focus on "cookie cutter builds", but if Game Freak actually had someone worth their salt on their staff to do balancing, perhaps this wouldn't be as much of an issue.) This flip side to this value is knowing that the series has inherently adopted the philosophy that if you were to catch two different Caterpies, their starting stats and IVs will ultimately mean that their final stats will possess some variance from each other. I'm always a fan of a little bit of realism being injected into a game if it still allows the game to be fun and enjoyable, so the fact that the game creatures somewhat mimic the real world in that most beings are unique (even if the differences are extremely tiny) is honestly a great mechanic... for part of the overall game. The single player, non-"competitive" portion of the game (i.e. the copy/paste'd outline of bullet points that every single main series game follows to a 'T') is a great place for maintaining random IVs - it lets each player have a different experience as they go through the game or even lets the same player go through it in a different manner on a second playthrough or on another cartridge (using a different team, using a same Pokémon in the team, but will have different ending stats and maybe even a different nature, etc.). If you hadn't guessed by now, though, my proposal is to completely forget about IVs during any competitive segments of the game or online; that is, simply apply a normalized set of IVs (31s across the board) when the game auto-levels the Pokémon to Lv. 50 or 100 and apply the actual EVs that that Pokémon attained on top like normal. If such a large number of players are going these routes to make competitives teams, it seems natural to simply level the playing field by default for any situation that would apply to this (places like the Battle Tower, Viridian Trainer House, and especially online battles, etc.) and then revert the IVs back to what they were when transitioning back the single player content. Then, if you want to play competitively, you have one less opaque mechanic that you have to worry about, leaving the player to have to focus on EVs and what moves they want their Pokémon to have, while still allowing the randomness of IVs to exist during the content that the less-competitively inclined will focus on. This does somewhat obsolete the newer mechanics that Game Freak has added to help pass IVs down, but should you want to improve your in-game team's IVs via breeding, you could still do that. Or, perhaps I'm overthinking things and the people who aren't "cheating" are simply idiots who themselves should get with the times and just do what everyone else seems to be doing.

I haven't played since late 2004 (right around when the Lv monsters came out), mostly due to the fact that they introduced the Advanced and Traditional formats to begin with. It did not sit well with me that cards that had been given away like candy to basically anyone that had played and bought starter decks were having those cards forcefully pried away from them in Advanced, regardless of whether they were "really strong" or not. As much as you could argue that "oh, but the monsters in Legend of Blue-Eyes sucked, so Monster Reborn was fine then," I would argue that you would have to realize that no one in their right mind was going to run a 2-Star, 500 Atk monster seriously and was going to grab as many strong things as they could. There's also the fact that the sets that Japan was ahead of us on had stronger things already in them, meaning that the localization groups should have been aware of what was coming down the road. The point of the matter is that if the card is magically way too good now (or even in 2004) (especially in the case of things like Reborn or Raigeki), it shouldn't have been allowed to exist to begin with. Granted, there are things that you just can't predict that are going to take hold the way they do and do need to controlled. That's my personal opinion, but as it relates to this, I can only imagine what one of the guys that I work with is going to say tomorrow morning. As someone who went to Nationals, he correctly knew that some of the big stuff in the main decks at Worlds were going to get hit (and what they were, not just in general, since that's common sense), but I can't imagine that he saw some of these changes coming. I've heard some of his stories about how ridiculously quick and easy it is to Special Summon masses of monsters these days and I can only shake my head at some of these additions, especially when I've also heard that there are tons of monsters that have effects that allow you to negate any card effect for a cost or prevent them from being targetted, etc. Basically, with my understanding, it seems like getting rid of or limiting stuff like Solemn Judgment or Torrential Tribute would be counter to controlling all of these plays that let players win with what amount to one-turn wins, as that's even less at a player's disposal to try and salvage out a win when their opponent has the equivalent of a gatling gun in their hand, deck, and graveyard.

Can we get an undecided option for this? I've been leaning towards X, but I still haven't finalized which version I'm more interested in. Heck, I'm still not even sure that I'm going to pick up either version as of yet. I'll probably have more of an idea come September once TGS rolls around.

You do realize that they're not mutually exclusive, right? The Persona team at Atlus isn't even developing this.

If that ends up being the entirety of the final list, then this mechanic is absolutely stupid.

As usual (so far), Game Freak continues to show that they can't seem to understand the concept of balance. (I'll spare the rant, since it'd probably take me a good hour if I wanted to type it all out.) For now, I'm not enthused by the information. If/When more information comes out (I would assume it would come up on Japan's show next weekend), I might change my thoughts. Right now, all we know is that this only applies to certain Pokemon (some of which don't even need it), the naming convention is kinda silly, and for a series that has tried its hardest to keep things overly simple (even when I would argue that they shouldn't), this certainly seems like a possibly dangerous step down the line of complexity. Also, like a previous poster on the first page, I really hope that the whole genetics/DNA thing gets tied in here, somehow. In my mind, such a topic could have presented many great ideas and additions to the game, and I would hate to see an opportunity like that squandered. (Under the assumption that I like how this ends up turning out. Right now, I'm still sitting in the squandered camp.) ---Slightly Off Topic--- Woodshooter's post (six above this) does bring about mixed feelings, however. While I would be extremely happy to see Lance or Clair running around with an Ampharos in an actual game, the fact that their teams (and 99% of other the Leaders) lack diversity still greatly annoys me. Yes, okay, they stick to a typing to make it easy for younger players to get a favorable matchup, but it's not like the games are overly difficult (with the exceptions of specific trainers and Pokemon that Game Freak made too overpowered by their own hands) as it is. Hell, when I first played Red, I solo'd Brock with Charmander. First time through, I lost, so I leveled up and roasted Geodude with Ember and learned to wait around Bide. If 3rd Grade!Me can do it, today's kids can too. Give the leaders SOME diversity, for crying out loud, even if it's just 1 out of 6 that doesn't match their type quirk. The extra diversity would at least possibly make the content just a bit more difficult. (I'd like to see the number of Pokemon that Leaders field jump in number quicker, too - the game isn't exactly as challenging if you've got a full complement of 6 Pokemon and the 7th Leader is still only running 4.) Give me balance, type diversity (especially with respect to other in-game trainers and monster distribution in the wild), move diversity (Outside of it being Metang/Clefairy's thing, why can't Scizor learn Meteor Mash, for example?), and for the love of god, STORY DIVERSITY, and I'd be content. (Oh, and some common sense too. Why is Levitate even an ability to begin with when there are Pokemon that can fly but aren't Flying and don't have the ability, but something like Doduo is Flying when it can't even maintain flight?)

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES): Super C Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES): Kirby Super Star Nintendo 64: Paper Mario Nintendo Gamecube: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Nintendo Wii: No More Heroes Nintendo Wii U: N/A Gameboy/Gameboy Color: The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons Gameboy Advance: Golden Sun Nintendo DS: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Nintendo 3DS: N/A Sega Gamegear: Sonic the Hedgehog Sega Genesis: Sonic 3 & Knuckles Sega Saturn: Dragon Force Sega Dreamcast: Grandia II Playstation: Chrono Cross Playstation 2: Super Robot Wars: Original Generations Playstation 3: Valkyria Chronicles PSP/Go/Vita: N/A Xbox: MechAssault Xbox 360: Dead Rising Arcade: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time PC/Mac: Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (Other Consoles that the majority of SF other than myself, eclipse, integrity, balcerzak and ninjamonkey are probably too young to know about) While I've heard of many of the pre-Atari systems such as ColecoVision, etc. or others like the Turbo-Grafx 16, PC Engine, MSX, and Neo Geo, I've never played anything on them, so they all get N/A's as well.

I honestly don't think I actually used it (or FE7's) to get through the game; I remember leafing through it to see character portraits, stats, growths, maps, and the weapon tables at the back of book. The same applies for FE7's too. I didn't even buy either of them, for that matter. I got them both by way of renewing my subscription to Nintendo Power back in the day. (There weren't any better options, so since they were for FE, I selected them.)

My small collection:

There's a distinct difference here between Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower compared to Sakura Wars. The former titles were all new at the time and were on a then-current system. Sakura Wars doesn't have that luxury. The fact that consumers might have been able to influence Nintendo and XSEED to localize games for Europe and North America doesn't just make the rest of the reasoning in my post go away; poor sales of the only game to make it out of Japan is a very large hurdle, there haven't been any new games in the series released for a localization studio to capitalize on, leaving only the older titles as available options, which gives the additional problem of being more costly due to the game code needing to be ported (which means that they would need to sell that many more copies for the risk to be worth it). When Valkyria Chronicles III was new, people were clamoring left and right at SEGA that they wanted it to get localized. (We'll leave the fact that VC2 was easily the weakest game of the series and far too full of modern anime tropes and cliches, which likely added to its poor sales in the West, to the side. (Its poor sales probably being the determining factor in why SEGA didn't localize it.)) Despite the constant wishes of people, there hasn't been any movement on this front. If a newer title with a somewhat established group of fans wasn't able to sway SEGA's overlords to see fit to localize it, I have serious doubts that a game which had a very luke-warm reception outside of Japan would sway them to localize even older titles for platforms that aren't even relevant any more.

While more attention to the series outside of Japan would be a good thing, I can't see this doing that much in the grand scheme of things. (The Steam option would be nice, but there are many more SEGA titles that should be put up on it first.) So Long, My Love was not a financially successful localization effort for NIS America, and while they are a niche publisher and thus can't really afford to market and advertise the game, I honestly don't think it would have helped much. The game released in the twilight years of the PS2 in North America and on the Wii, which really wasn't an ideal system for its target demographic (in that a large portion of the Wii's install base really only cared about core Nintendo titles, Wii Sports, and Wii Fit). Not exactly a great environment to release your title in. Furthermore, the series has been basically stalled since SLML came out in Japan; it had a spin-off dungeon crawler game on the DS in Japan, a compilation release of ST1 and ST2 on the PSP, and a stage show last year. Sakura, Ichiro, Erica, and Gemini showing up in PxZ is a start to bringing more recognition to the series, but let's face facts: them being in the game is purely because the games are so huge in Japan. The game wasn't going to be edited to remove characters for its localization, hence why the Valkyria Chronicles III characters are still in the game too. There's also the fact that a localization effort would be much more than just translating text at this point. The most recent versions of the games (save SLML and the PSP compilation) are on the PS2, so they'd need to port the games to be played on a more modern platform. Let's also not forget SEGA Sammy's recent track record of absolutely brilliant executive decision making (</sarcasm>) that forced them to restructure last year. If I was Ouji Hiroi and Red Entertainment, I wouldn't want SEGA touching the franchise ever again unless the executives weren't involved at all. Sure, Sega Wow was probably one of SEGA's top development teams (and definitely their top RPG studio of recent memory - responsible for Skies of Arcadia, Valkyria Chronicles, Sakura Wars), but even the threat of SEGA's execs meddling in a potential game would be enough to scare me away. EDIT - Oh, that's right, there was a mobile card battle game for the series a year or two ago, too. I remember it because there was a huge hubbub that Hiroi caused by saying that he had an announcement and everyone jumped to the conclusion that he was going to announce a ST6. Also, there was a big deal about the series' 15th anniversary back at the end of 2011 with new merchandise for the series, but that has only produced 3 items (and all of Sakura) so far. You would have thought that a big anniversary event would have been the time to show that you wanted to keep the series alive...

FE staying handheld is a great idea for a global product based out of Japan. Japan's "console" market is dominated by handhelds, with the 3DS and Vita making up almost 74% of the entire market (source). As the (relatively) paltry sales of Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn (especially in Japan) show (compared to more recent handheld iterations), console-based Fire Emblem titles just don't want to sell in the portable-dominated market of the East. Considering how well Awakening sold in the West, I don't think anyone involved in business would give up Awakening's combined sales for significantly lower sales in Japan and a potential possibility for higher sales elsewhere with an HD title on the Wii U (and, let's face it, "potentially" is a stretch given the much smaller install base of the console compared to the 3DS). That's just asking for the product to fail. As much as I ride on SEGA for their decision to move Valkyria Chronicles from PS3 to PSP, their situation with that is similar to this. (Now, perhaps had the PSP had an actual install base (or at least one that wasn't heavily composed of pirates) and perhaps had SEGA actually marketed VC2, maybe that might have saved the series in the West. But, it made more financial sense for them to develop where they were going to get the most guaranteed sales, i.e. Japan.)

If I had to only recommend one game, I'd probably end up suggesting Grandia II (Dreamcast - Also has PS2 and PC ports, but they're both of lesser quality than the original DC release). It ranks as my personal Number 1 game, though it is slightly dated in most departments outside of the series' staple amazing battle system. (Which, if I had to describe it, I'd say is a cross between the ATB system from Final Fantasy and an SRPG Radial Movement System.) The story's relatively trope-y (especially compared to its predecessor which is touted as having a significantly better story), but it's enjoyable and most of all, fun. The battle system easily makes you forget about the story's "faults", as once you master it, you never want to leave it. Heck, I'm playing the dungeon crawler side-game Grandia Xtreme solely for the battle system improvements. (Grandia III's system does add some improvements of its own, at the cost of others. Ideally, I'd take Grandia II's system, add in Xtreme's combo attack system and IP Wheel (as opposed to II's IP Gauge), and III's Aerial Combo system and have a system that is the best of all worlds.) If I were coming up with a full list of underappreciated gems that I enjoy: Grandia II (Dreamcast) Power Stone (Dreamcast - Not sure how well-known the series actually is) I'd say Skies of Arcadia, but it was already mentioned and I think it's more well known than this list is for. Castlevania: Bloodlines (Genesis / Mega Drive) Kid Chameleon (Genesis / Mega Drive) Rocket Knight Adventures, Sparkster: Rocket Knight Adventures 2 (Genesis / Mega Drive - Not sure how well-known the series is, given that Rocket Knight came out a few years ago on XBLA/PSN/Steam) Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete (PlayStation) Drakengard 2 (PlayStation 2 - The original Drakengard is a bit too archaic in places for my tastes, despite 2 being inferior in most aspects) I would second the Growlanser mention, but Growlanser Generations (II + III) didn't draw me in enough to drive me to keep picking it up. Definitely seconding Radiata Stories, though. Dragon Force (Saturn) Probably could come up with some outlier selections, but it's late and I need to head off. I'll add some more if anyone shows any interest.

Gen 1: Charmander (Honorable Mention: Squirtle - I bought Red Version solely because of how boss Charizard looked on the box, so I had to pick Charmander. Squirtle (and by proxy, both of its evolutions) proved to be a very close second after the one from my Yellow Version was transferred to Gen II.) Gen 2: Totodile Gen 3: Toss up between Mudkip and Torchic (Picked Mudkip when given the choice in Soul Silver but I don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other) Gen 4: Toss up between Piplup and Turtwig (Didn't play Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum, and don't really have an opinion either way) Gen 5: Toss up between Snivy and Oshawott (If Samurott looked cooler (IMHO), it'd probably be a shoe-in; but, since it doesn't, Serperior is enough to make this a tie) Gen 6: Undecided; most likely going with Froakie but Fennekin is possible depending on what their final evolutions look like and what their typings are. (Didn't vote in the poll since I'm not dead set on most of my picks.)

Gonna pick a dark horse candidate and pick an indie: Rogue Legacy. Self-described as a "rogue-'lite'", it takes the mechanic of having infinite lives to an interesting extent where every time you die, your descendant takes up your quest. The roguelike portion kicks in in that you can pick your descendant from three randomly generated choices - each with different classes and attributes - and randomizing the dungeons on each life (unless you pay to lock the previous dungeon's layout before you go in with the descendant). One of the choices might be a Barbarian King with the ability to throw Daggars as his spell that happens to be a Dwarf and have Alzheimer's disease, both of which affect how he progresses through the dungeons. (Dwarf is smaller and can fit through small secret passages, while Alzheimer's causes the pop-up map to be blank - you still have a mini-map though.) There's an upgrade tree, the ability to purchase equipment upgrades and the ability to imbue the gear with runes that you've found, making how you play through entirely dependent on your playstyle (and how much money you have). The demo's freely available from the site linked above, and it's quite addictive. The full game's available on Steam and it's significantly larger in scope (more traits, more droppable schematics, etc.).

This should be all of FE7's native tilesets along with a list of what chapters use them. Better than nothing, since you can look up the maps on our site to get a better idea of what the tilesets are. It helped me out years ago when a friend gave me the information to compile so that I could help make maps for him. [spoiler=Tileset, Chapter Correlations] 0A000B0C -> Chapter 2 0A003A0C -> Chapter 11H, 15H, 31H 0A009B0C -> Chapter 28H 0A009F0C -> Chapter 28xH 0A00290C -> Chapter 7x 0A00520C -> Chapter 17H 0A00800C -> Chapter 23xH 1C1D1E1F -> Chapter 5, 7, 8, 9, 11E, 12, 13, 16H, 24H(Lloyd), 26H, 32H 1C1D8A1F -> Chapter 25H 1C1D331F -> Chapter 10 1C1D441F -> Chapter 13xH 1C1D481F -> Chapter 14 1C1D621F -> Chapter 19H 1C1D661F -> Chapter 19xH 5B005C5D -> Chapter 18H 6A006B6C -> Chapter 19xxH, 20H, 29H 7B007C7D -> Chapter 23H 1000B712 -> Chapter 31xH 01000203 -> Prologue 01000703 -> Chapter 1 10001112 -> Chapter 3 10002212 -> Chapter 6 10005612 -> Chapter 17xH, 24H(Linus) 10007312 -> Chapter 21H 16001718 -> Chapter 4 16007718 -> Chapter 22H 91009293 -> Chapter 27H A700A8A9 -> Chapter 28E AE00AFB0 -> Chapter 30H C100C2C3 -> Final [spoiler=Chapter References] Chapters Prologue, 1-10, 12, 13 - Omitted since they're always the same (All other chapters referenced by Hector Mode Chapter Number) Chapter 11H - Another Journey Chapter 15H - Talons Alight Chapter 16H - Noble Lady of Caelin Chapter 17H - Whereabouts Unknown Chapter 17xH - Port of Badon Chapter 18H - Pirate Ship Chapter 19H - The Dread Isle Chapter 19xH - Imprisoner of Magic Chapter 19xxH - A Glimpse in Time Chapter 20H - Dragon's Gate Chapter 21H - New Resolve Chapter 22H - Kinship's Bond Chapter 23H - Living Legend Chapter 23xH - Genesis Chapter 24H - Four-Fanged Offense Chapter 25H - Crazed Beast Chapter 26H - Unfullfilled Heart Chapter 27H - Pale Flower of Darkness Chapter 28H - Battle Before Dawn Chapter 28xH - Night of Farewells Chapter 29H - Cog of Destiny Chapter 30H - The Berserker Chapter 31H - Sands of Time Chapter 31xH - Battle Preparations Chapter 32H - Victory or Death Chapter 32xH - Value of Life Final - Final Chapter: Light

You should probably make use of the nice tutorial that Primefusion did a couple of years ago. At the very least, it's a good base to start building your skills.

I started spriting in mid-2005, a couple of months after I joined FESS. First works were terrible battle sprite splice stills and just-as-terrible weapon icons made on Paint canvases that were far too big in size and grouped together. Later on, I did a couple of face sprite splices with an assist from Black Dragon for VASM's old Face Sprite Project ROM Hacks (back in the ancient days when we were still figuring out and working with trying to bring in new graphics) - to this day, they still remain the only face sprites I've done. Did some more battle sprite editing (mainly for mock up battle scenes) after that, tried to do a couple of animations (finished one, albeit it was simple and terrible) and then mostly focused on mock up requests for other users. At some point later, I started transitioning to working on graphics for hacks (FESSer 7 Project, MK404's Hack) - namely weapon icons and a really crappy battle template - before dropping off from the hobby completely in college. A few years later, I got asked to make some icons for Trent for FE4R and slowly got back into the hobby, culmanating in recording the tutorial I did for making weapon icons and doing icons for EN and ASDDX, along with maps here and there, and template graphics (battle, stat screen). I'd say I've gotten better, at least at the subdisciplines that I've mainly worked in. I mean, the stuff on the right in these examples looks better, right? My only real regret is getting started when I did in the fandom's life and in my own life. As I was in high school when I got into the fandom and the spriting scene hadn't really "exploded" yet (there were talented artists, yes, but the hacking scene was still in its infancy, so spriting hadn't grown to such a level that you needed entire sheets of weapon icons or 40+ full face sprite sheets for an entire cast of playable units, etc.) and I really kinda missed the movement in its "prime" while I was in college and had stepped back from the hobby.

While I've dabbled in battle sprites and map sprites here and there in the past, I don't have the time, dedication, or skill any longer to create custom works from them, so I don't feel like those are applicable for me to check. Still try to find time every so often (maybe a couple times a month) to do a little work with weapon icons, maps, or miscellaneous graphics if I have the motivation and desire to work on them. My work schedule hasn't really afforded me much time or drive to do so, though. Plus I'm still waiting for Agro to stop being slow and inserting the graphics I donated to him

This has since been changed; DE:HR Director's Cut (like the other two Square Enix announcements this week) is going multiplat - it'll be going to PS3, 360, and PC as well. Source

I've got a ridiculously large backlog of games as it is, so I won't be dropping money down on a new console anytime in the near future (outside of a 3DS, which I've been planning to get for months). But, if/when I do transition to the next gen systems, the PS4's got the major edge right now. Still have to see what Nintendo brings to the table tomorrow (what can I say, I'm a sucker for their first party titles, so it would be odd not to have one), but I may have to make a tough decision down the road if I only decide to purchase one system. :/ EDIT - For the record, never been an Xbox guy (though I did have enjoyable experiences with friends' consoles) mainly for the forced "Pay if you want multiplayer" bull, so that's a strike against Sony so far, too. (And, obviously, Microsoft has done enough trampling of consumer rights so far (just look at the Supreme Court decision that allowed shrinkwrap EULA documents that could include the BS "You only bought a license to run the software, even if you bought a physical disc" crap), so I wasn't intending on getting a One anyway.)

And this is why you should always read README.txt files for any kind of software you use. (/generalobservation)

I second at least giving us an option to get rid of the so-called Lightbox, if possible. I'm running the most up-to-date (non-beta) version of Firefox, and whenever I right-click an image in the body of a post, it sees fit to pop up the stupid window. (EDIT - And, it's only the body of posts that it happens in. Signature images, avatars, etc. all don't use the Lightbox, so they don't cause fits.) I mean, the window doesn't even place the actual image into it either, as if you try and right-click the "image" in the Lightbox, it doesn't give you any image-based menu items in the context menu. (While click-and-drag to the tab bar from the post body does work, it's extremely inefficient to do. I'd also rather not have the only option be to "Save" it to my computer, either. Some images I just want a closer look at in a new tab for a single minute, after which, they're closed.) If it doesn't work for one browser, the solution shouldn't be "lolgogetadifferentbrowser". It should be to fix it so that it works as intended for everyone. If it can't be made to work for everyone, then it would at least be courteous to let the people that it doesn't work right for turn it off (if it can be). I shouldn't have to change my preferred system of browsing the web just to accomodate a feature on one website that I can't turn off. (That being said, my personal opinion is that I'd rather get rid of it altogether since I can't even contemplate a situation that it would ever be needed in... Though, I'm sure that someone else might, so a toggle would be an ideal compromise.)

There's a section at the bottom of this post that should help with what you need. (Just CTRL+F "NPC" - minus the quotes, of course - and it should take you to roughly where the information is in the document.)

My rationale for the changes to Ghosts stemmed more from the fact that as mechanics have evolved, the Type Chart still reflects the era before those mechanics vastly changed things. It made sense for Normal and Fighting moves to be completely ineffective against Ghosts since they were physical moves before Gen IV gave designations to individual attacks. (Though, ostensibly for balance purposes, they also didn't make all of the other physical types (outside of Dark and itself) ineffective, creating somewhat of a logical inconsistency.) If the physical nature of the types was the reason they don't work, why isn't ThunderPunch held to the same standard? Or, why are Swift and Hyper Beam counted in with the physical moves? It's these questions that made me attempt to retool the system as I described. I wanted to keep the semblance of being ethereal and able to avoid physical moves while allowing moves that had previously been rendered useless a chance to be removed from that burden. Yes, it makes things more complicated for younger players and it certainly might not be completely thought out yet, but I never claimed that it was . Some of the changes were made for balance, others were made based on common sense and logic. Poison kills bugs, hence adding it to the Type Chart. Steel is a metal, and metal conducts electricity, hence why Electric is now x2 against Steel. Others, such as Psychic being effective against Steel were more of a stretch; Steel was pretty nasty with the number of x0.5 multipliers it had and I can see Psychic as something akin to Magneto's abilities in the Marvel Universe (being able to bend and manipulate metals, etc.). So, as a check to Steel, I changed it from x0.5 to x2. Similarly, it didn't really make sense to me as to why Dragon moves were resisted by Steel-types, so I changed it to x1. Rock being effective against Electric was purely a balance change, one which I struggled to decide whether to do; Electric's only counter was Ground (both offensively and defensively), so I felt like it needed something else, but nothing else really seemed to fit nicely. Flying > Water was based on birds catching fish from streams (as well as making the revised Poison and Flying different in terms of what they dealt effective damage to) and Water > Poison was based on liquids diluting the potency of things like poison. Like I said, it's a heavy WIP and I fully hoped that everyone else would chime in with suggestions for changes that could also facilitate making other "perfect triangles" of types that could be used in place of Fire/Grass/Water for starters. (Which, as I mentioned, I hadn't really had time to crunch the values in the table and see if I had created anything on that level or not; something that might be premature to do anyway if radical changes would need to be made to adjust the chart anyway.)