https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/586 ... h-new-year

Brigid Alverson wrote:
NBC Palm Springs reports on the brand-new game store Big Deck Energy, located in Cathedral City, CA.

Official Launch Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWFiF-r ... XVyolQO3wj



There's now a full campaign and co-op. They Are Billions didn't have co-op, so that's one improvement at least. 70,000 units on-screen they say, but that's with dumb projectiles not simulated ones as in the TA/SupCom/PA games.

I soured on these games (meaning AoE-style, not TA-style) once I realized the scale is completely off and the characters wouldn't even fit inside the houses. I now see them as handheld minigames, meaning I'd play if I was bored and had nothing better to do.

Earning capital with the downtime rules; Am I understanding this correctly?
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r8j6?Earn ... rules-Am-I

This two-page thread is required reading to understand wth is going on with the Earning Capital rules. There are no spoilers in the thread, though most people will probably be bored reading it, and that's understandable. Don't worry, I am handling it, but I am posting it here just in case anyone wants to read it because the more brains working on this stuff, the easier it will be to run the math and avoid mistakes.

It will be easier to understand, and to become interested in the issue, if you've played a few turns. If you haven't played yet, come back here and read it after you've played, or while in the middle of playing. It's hard to take an interest in this level of complexity if you aren't actively engaged with it.

Here is clarification on the full Roleplayer subscription tier benefits now that ysignal has asked for it. Note that the main benefits are in the roleplaying layer. The adventure-strategy benefits are just bonuses. Substantial bonuses to be sure, but they’re not the main dish, which is why the tier is called Roleplayer and not Adventure-strategist. So:

• Above all, Roleplayers can play in two campaigns simultaneously. For example two Pathfinder campaigns, or one Pathfinder and one Starfinder. Or one Pathfinder and one D&D. This is by far the main benefit of the tier, it’s for those who are super-hungry for roleplaying content and want to participate in as much Battlegrounds drama and action as possible. How can you play in a second campaign if you’re a Roleplayer and currently playing in only one? First of all, if three new players joined today and wanted to start a new PF campaign, you could be their fourth. Second, you can speak to other Roleplayers in the private #cult-roleplayers Discord channel and see if there is enough interest for a new campaign. Currently there are 7 players in there, so they could almost start two. They could for example start Iron Gods which unlocks Starfinder and at the end of it they could continue there. Note that currently shubn and Chev are playing in two campaigns because they volunteered to step in for retired players. Those campaigns are freebies, so that’s a way to get to play more without paying more: be alert and volunteer to help the multiverse run smoothly when help is needed. And yes, this means shubn can play in three campaigns if he wants to. And a fourth if he adds another $50 to his sub. There is no limit. Some people play in half a dozen campaigns simultaneously if they can find the groups and GMs for them. For example Steven Berg if you remember him played in four campaigns if I remember correctly, all the while still playing 4P Divinity: Original Sin with us AND asking to be in the original Forgotten Realms campaign that I was planning to run before that idea morphed into Ultimate Edition and Battlegrounds.
  
  


• The other major roleplaying benefit is that Roleplayers can play as much DLC as they want for free. But that’s not such a huge deal because anyone can play a DLC adventure for $50. The huge benefit is that new DLC will be announced first in the #cult-roleplayers channel, so Roleplayers will get first dibs on them.
  
  


• As for the adventure-strategy layer, Roleplayers get 1 regular hero every two months, and also 250 GP again per two months that they can spend on construction or recruitment, or just to buy stuff like items etc. Note that heroes normally cost $25 and $1 = 10 GP (i.e. you can buy anything in the game at any time by paying 1/10th its GP value in USD). So these are nice steady bonuses for players who are looking to make a big impact in the adventure-strategy layer, no different than the bonuses a Life is Feudal or Star Citizen subscription give. Once Starfinder is unlocked you’ll also be able to buy spaceships and colony buildings etc., at which point it will be clear how utterly superior this sub is to any other game’s, including Star Citizen’s.
  
  


• You’re still helping the project tremendously with a $50 Superplayer subscription and can still access all the game’s features with it. Besides, the $100 tier is not only a lot more expensive but also requires more time to fully enjoy its benefits, time that some players don’t have. So there’s no need to upgrade unless you are dying for more content, and you can always buy whatever bits and pieces you want with one-off purchases. On the other hand, if you just have money to burn and want to throw some more of it at me so I can make a bigger and better game, you can upgrade even if you don’t plan to use the benefits yourself. You can then gift the benefits to other players if you want, including extra campaign seats. The heroes and gold for example will keep piling in your account, and you could dump them on someone’s lap when you see their situation on the overworld in dire peril.

I have to make a decision on that asap. It’s definitely retroactive to the start of the sub, I just haven’t decided how many heroes per month/year. At least 4/year. Plus workers/troops like cutpurses/archers etc. Which means I have to set limits of unit recruitment per settlement as I did with hero recruitment because you shouldn’t be able to go into a village of 100 and recruit 1000 as you currently can with Paizo’s rules.

I just don’t yet have a good feel for the game’s balance to be able to make these decisions, but I have to make them otherwise we’ll never start, so I’ll make some conservative choices and see where they take us.

Players who don’t use their heroes/units will have them accruing in their player profile and will be able to gift them to other players. Or let them pile up and then one day unleash an entire army on the world.

When did the rule about Cult Roleplayers accruing heroes become active (assuming it already has)? I'm assuming it's not retroactive to the start of subs that preexist the rule.

FILMMAKER REACTS: STAR CITIZEN | [ALL SHIP ADS - PART 2!!] | EVEN MORE ADS?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o1JB39SwNg



That's all the way to the last release, the Guardian. That said, I saw one guy in the comments saying he missed one or two ships because CIG has forgotten to add them to their Ship Commercials playlist which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... mGsml8tcK9

I've returned Headshot to the pool as per the explanation here: https://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=9643

I've returned Isilynor to the pool as per the explanation here: https://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=9643

I've returned Xander to the pool as per the explanation here: https://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=9643

I've returned Tannith to the pool as per the explanation here: https://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=9643

I've returned Warner to the pool as per the explanation here: https://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=9643

The Gifted Heroes section had been accumulating errors for the past few months while Cult Engine 1.5 was evolving under it. All those errors are now fixed, and the section looks smashing once more.



In addition, the names of all heroes that have been purchased are in strikethrough font now to make it easy to see at a glance who's still available. The first three are gone for example.



Several classes are also entirely gone. Can't get an antipaladin, ninja or vampire hunter anymore for example.

And finally, I have returned to the pool the five heroes I grabbed for myself when I launched the system: Warner the Allegiant, Tannith Vor, Xander the Xenophile, Isilynor Dirke, and Headshot. At the time, no one was signing up for the game, and it seemed I'd have to play it on my own, but now we have some players and I'll have my hands full running the game for them, so I am regrettably returning my ideal party to the pool. Maybe I'll play in another setting with another GM when Game Master Meshing™ technology is finally implemented. So feel free to purchase any of these heroes if they strike your fancy. The threads I made for them will remain in the forum, but if you buy any of these heroes go ahead and bump their threads (e.g. "I bought Warner the Allegiant" is all you need to say) and I will turn them over to you by editing in your username in the thread titles.

All instructions for purchasing heroes are in the sidebar of the Gifted Heroes page. Any questions on that process or the system in general can be posted in this thread. Also suggestions or anything else you want to say.

My next project in this section will be voicing all their lines. I wanted to do that for launch, but it was too much work on top of everything else and I was exhausted at the time. Cult Voice Studios is working on it as I write this.

More cool surprises are in the works for Gifted Heroes, and they'll all be announced in this thread once they're ready.

What is Ultimate Lore? Since we're talking about games, Ultimate Lore is clearly interactive lore, i.e. lore that the players have made, not the designers; i.e. what I like to call Dynamic Lore, i.e. not lore, since the entire definition of lore is narrative, which is by definition non-interactive.

It is clear that Dynamic Lore is the ultimate because it makes the world feel real and alive, instead of fake and plasticky as with regular gaming. There are however two huge problems with it:

1. Most groups—players and GMs—suck at weaving cool stories, so whatever lore they create will suck. For them, good old-fashioned Static Lore that they bought from a store will always work best.

2. Even great groups however can't produce enough lore to adequately fill out the sprawling settings that the best modern roleplaying games utilize. So they must still rely overwhelmingly on store-bought Static Lore.

The solution seems to be to employ good groups and MANY of them in a single world, so that they may provide each other's lore. This in fact we tried in Battlegrounds for the first few years, with four teams of 4 players each operating in fairly close proximity (same planet, same continent pretty much).

The results? Better than any other group's ever but still underwhelming.

The reason? Roleplaying campaigns move extremely slowly, especially the massive, hyper-complex ones that Cult Games Redmond (aka Paizo) produces. This is because almost every hour of every day has to be simulated, and sometimes even every minute or second. Add to this that the teams are hundreds to thousands of miles apart and you must wait for the consequences of their actions to propagate across these vast distances, and the end result is that you could be playing for many months if not years before some cool cross-campaign effects appear, let alone actual cross-campaign interaction. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome when this happens and unlike anything you've ever experienced in gaming, but it happens so rarely that the naysayers are almost justified in asking "What's the point?" For them, setting this up is too much trouble for the payout, and though that's not true for me, I have to admit I almost see their point.

The solution?

Multilayer Genre Fusion™ technology that I designed, developed and coded in machine language in Notepad.

You know how some advanced graphics rendering techniques only render at full resolution and detail wherever the player's eyes focus, while at the edges of his vision everything is rendered much more cheaply to save on processing power?

That.

I wrote the code and the engine that does precisely that—not solely for graphics—but for entire game engines, game designs, game rules and game genres. And the names I gave to these groundbreaking programs are Master of Combat and Master of Heroes.

Master of Heroes operates at the level of days, so it's extremely processing-efficient and therefore can simulate with ease hundreds of heroes and villains and parties tearing up and down the world and causing all the events that lore is made of. Moreover, the kingdom-running mode operates even more efficiently at the level of months so as to finally render dynamic entire planets' societies.

Adding to that, my Master of Combat engine facilitates extreme zoom-in to key hotspots across the world where key events can be played out in full roleplaying detail when the players' "eyes" focus on them, so to speak, with thousands of one-shot scenarios popping off all across the multiverse and affecting ongoing roleplaying adventures and campaigns, all the while being affected by them.

And to cap it all off? Game Master Meshing™ technology that I again coded in machine language in Notepad adds infinite scalability to the above for infinite heroes and parties interacting in a single world via the processing power of infinite GMs. (Programmers' Server Meshing technology, that you may have heard of touted in recent years, is merely a subset of my tech since what programmers call a "server" is merely a dumbed-down Game Master, so Server Meshing was plagiarized from my work, as is the habit of programmers. I was in Monaco playing roulette and wrote down the inspiration for the tech on a napkin, and Chris Roberts who was sitting next to me copied it off while I went to the bathroom. And that's how my tech made it into his game.)

But I go even further and add bespoke mechanics wherever possible and appropriate throughout the world. For example the upcoming boardgame, Builders of Baldur's Gate is "A city-building game from acclaimed designer Matthew Dunstan" where "you are the head of a powerful family in the iconic city." This Ultimate Editions adapts to work with every fantasy city across the entire Battlegrounds when a player manages to become the head of a powerful family.



Or take the 2023 boardgame Pathfinder Revolution! which is itself an adaptation of the Steve Jackson original Revolution! for Pathfinder's city-state of Korvosa during the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path.

It begins as a spark—whispered words in a tavern, a slogan scrawled in a sordid alley, a quiet conversation in one of the great halls of power. It can sweep through neighborhoods like a fire, taking over entire cities with a rapidity that can scarcely be believed. Rulers may fear it, and the populace may hope to control it, but kings and paupers alike can be consumed by it. This powerful force has many names, but it's most commonly known as . . . Revolution!



So let's say a couple of players from the adventure-strategy layer move some of their heroes and assets/gold into Korvosa during the revolution, or outright buy rival Korvosan factions in the Battlegrounds Store. Then suddenly the situation in the city goes from a 4-player roleplaying campaign to 6-player mix between roleplaying and adventure-strategy, where each layer affects the other and characters and heroes can even outright switch between layers depending on circumstances. If for example there is a casualty in the campaign, a hero might step in to replace him, not out of a spawn closet as usual, but out of the 4X layer he had been operating in for many turns, seamlessly filling the vacancy and even changing completely the player dynamic with the replacement not merely of a character but even of the player controlling him, so that instead of character death—or incapacitation—being a bother that must be fixed ASAP to continue the campaign as usual, it becomes a riveting development that increases immersion instead of lowering it. This way we can also accommodate characters going off on compelling tangents/side-quests or even breaking up the party entirely, and for good. All these developments are rightly feared and forcefully avoided in traditional GMRPG campaigns because they can easily derail and even destroy them, but with the Multilayer Genre Fusion™ technology that I designed and coded they become mere opportunities for new twists and turns in the ever-complexifying drama that only Ultimate Edition can generate.

And of course the above revolution mechanics will be adapted to work in any fantasy government across the multiverse that has been sufficiently destabilized by the actions of PCs or NPCs, whether via roleplaying or adventure-strategy developments. Remember also that in Civ, a period of anarchy is always the result of any change in government. And now we have the mechanics for it, and deeper than in any Civ.

But even beyond fantasy settings, bespoke mechanics adapted from boardgames, wargames and the like will be injected everywhere. Just earlier today for example I learned of a new Risk adaptation called Risk: Dune that came out last year and that would be a terrific addition to the Dune RPG Adventures in the Imperium.



Alien has half a dozen boardgames at least, and even Blade Runner has a couple. All these will be purchased, studied, dissected and analyzed, then seamlessly incorporated into the ultimate game engine that is Alex Kierkegaard's Ultimate Edition in order to power and fully flesh out both the mechanics and the lore—the now-interactive Dynamic Lore—of the ultimate game and artwork, Alex Kierkegaard's Battlegrounds.

I had been wanting it for a while, but had pretty much given up on finding one at a price I was willing to pay. I randomly checked The Impound yesterday, and they had it for $250, so I jumped on it. As I'm writing this, there's a single one left for $300: https://theimpound.com/products/cutlass ... 8802382077

Unlike the BIS 2949 ships, this one is a standard Cutlass Black. The paint is separate.

Bought a Cutlass Black Best in Show 2950 Edition.

Also got a Pulse referral bonus I'd forgotten to report.

You could hire someone to play your games for you like Musk does. Maybe Grok can do it.

I feel attacked lol.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mfWcQQND5Xs



What’s more pathetic than thinking diablolikes are cool? Paying people to play them for you so you can pretend you’re good at them.

1.7M views, 7.9K comments.

With all this talk of "dozens" or even "hundreds" of "heroes" swarming around the "4X layer" or whatever, how do we keep the roleplaying characters who SHOULD be at the center of the game from being overshadowed?

Two words: Level caps.

Now listen, I hate level caps as much as any other person. Hell I hate all types of caps period. But in D&D there is perfectly reasonable and extremely immersive justification for them, believe it or not, and the only reason you've never heard about it is that you've been playing CRPGs made by dingbats who don't know the first thing about D&D, and possibly can't read at all.

It boils down to the fact that programmers have grossly abused the concept of XP in CRPGs. A character isn't supposed to be able to ascend to godhood by exterminating every rat on the planet. The AD&D 2nd Edition "Dungeon Master's Guide" that taught me how to run the game back in the early-'90s says it plain as day that if the encounter isn't challenging, THE CHARACTERS GAIN NO XP from it.



...no experience is earned for situations in which the PCs have an overwhelming advantage over their foes. A 7th-level player character who needs one more experience point to advance in level can't just gather his friends together and hunt down a single orc. That orc wouldn't stand a chance, so the player character was never at any particular risk. If the same character had gone off on his own, thus risking ambush at the hands of a band of orcs, the DM could rule that the character had earned the experience.

The DM must decide what constitutes a significant risk to the player characters. Often it is sufficient if the characters think they are in danger, even when they are not. Their own paranoia increases the risk (and enhances the learning experience). Thus, if the party runs into a band of five kobolds and becomes convinced that there are 50 more around the next corner, the imagined risk becomes real for them. In such a case, an experience point reward might be appropriate.

Very postmodern for 1989, no? Perception shapes reality. Baudrillard would have approved if he wasn't too lame for gaming. My 13-year-old self was mightily impressed with these mechanics when I discovered them a couple years later, and I fell in love with the game on contact with the material. Meanwhile, 35 fucking years on and programmers are still giving demigod-level parties XP for every rat they hunt down and kill. Can programmers even read? It doesn't appear so. But what's the point in complaining about such "details" when the characters in CRPGs are immortal anyway thanks to the genius programmer mechanics of load/saving?

Meanwhile, Pathfinder's 2013 "Mythic Adventures" takes it further. I couldn't hope to adequately paraphrase the sheer awesomeness of this text, so I'll just copy-paste it:



What Makes Mythic Adventures Different?
In a world of might and sorcery, with dragons and elves, what does it mean to be “mythic?” Being mythic means possessing a degree of might unusual even in a fantasy world. Scenes turn more dramatic, the enemies are more lethal, and the consequences of the heroes’ actions make a far-ranging impact. Being mythic means invoking a sense of wonder and awe even in those already accustomed to the strange and unusual.

The way this book portrays the mythic narrative isn’t solely about stories at 20th level and monsters with high Challenge Ratings—it’s about the surprising and unfamiliar regardless of power and scale. Even 1st-level characters could be imbued with mythic power and become forces to be reckoned with. Similarly, lesser monsters such as ogres and skeletons that become mythic transform into terrifying foes with unknown powers, changing the nature of the story you’re playing—and startling those accustomed to their non-mythic ilk.

Not only the characters take on unexpected forms in mythic adventures; the setting does as well. The vistas are more dramatic, featuring flying islands and keeps that float in raging volcanoes. The colors are brighter, the sounds are more mysterious, and all of the other stimuli are sharper and more vibrant. Where the non-mythic hero would encounter a crumbling keep filled with familiar monsters, a mythic hero faces a towering citadel that builds itself from the bones of would-be invaders and is inhabited by cruel and malign creatures of nearly god-like power.

Besides the setting, the challenges that face mythic characters are far more harrowing than usual. Enhanced abilities allow mythic characters to take on threats beyond the reach of those without such power. They can face with ease foes both powerful and numerous. The real challenge is when they take on mythic creatures that possess the same resilient nature and abilities similar in potency to those they themselves rely on. When a mythic hero comes face to face with a mythic monster, the battle is truly legendary.

Finally, mythic adventures feature difficult choices and far-reaching consequences. As the characters progress through the story, they’re tasked with taking on challenges that seem impossible even to them, and might be tempted to wander from their path. As mythic heroes, they’re the first to respond to cataclysmic events, just as they’re the last bastion to stem the tide of evil and darkness that threatens to wash over the world. Their successes and failures leave marks on the world for centuries to come.

For the record, some Paizo Adventure Paths feature mythic mechanics, and some don't. For example, the penultimate AP in PF1, Return of the Runelords, is a mythic AP. To give you an example of how wildly inventive these adventures are, here's just one line taken from the short mythic adventure included with the rulebook, Fire Over Blackcrag:

The PCs fight on terrain firmly controlled by their enemy, and they should feel like the mountain is itself one of their adversaries.

So there's no question of becoming a mythic character by hunting down rats lol, the book makes it clear that only mythic challenges can forge mythic heroes—or villains.

Which brings us back to Ultimate Edition and its multiple layers. It is clear that different threat levels exist on different layers, with the greatest threats naturally arising solely from the roleplaying layer, simply because that's where Paizo and co.'s campaigns are ran. Therefore, if a character or hero or call him what you want isn't operating at that level... he can't rise to the highest levels of power in the game. And that, dear readers, is an implicit level cap. It's already in the bones of the game, in its structure, and all I am doing in this chapter is making it explicit. I didn't add these caps. They were already there, stretching all the way back to the 1989 "Dungeon Master's Guide", if not earlier (I still haven't read the 1E DMG).

In short, the level caps of Ultimate Edition are as follows:

• For the adventure-strategy layer (aka 4X/Master of Heroes) I set the cap at 7th-level because that's the barrier to entry for the highest-tier Pathfinder Society Scenarios commonly available: the 7-11 tier. This means that even if at some point we temporarily run out of lower-tier PFS Scenarios to level heroes to 7th-level so they can attempt the toughest tier, the players can still level their heroes by random encounters while exploring in the overworld, so there's no reason for any hero to ever get "stuck" with no way to progress, as does happen in Paizo's Organized Play system, because it lacks the overworld. But this cap also makes sense in terms of the setting and lore: 7th-level is about where the typical villain's captains are in the adventures and campaigns. So that's about the level of personal power you can expect your heroes to achieve if you keep them adventuring in this layer.
  
  


• Things escalate in the tactical layer (aka SRPG/Master of Combat). As aforesaid, the highest-tier scenarios commonly available are 7-11, so heroes here can get to 11th-level, for a start. Moreover, higher-tier scenarios do exist for 12th and above levels, and I've even seen the odd 15th-level one. But you can expect competition for access to these to be fierce, especially if we end up with many players and heroes on the overworld at some point. So for all intents and purposes the cap here is 11, but it can go as high as 15 on very rare occasions, and if you play really well. You shouldn't therefore expect to manage to get a lot of heroes to this height of power. One or two of them is the most that even the best players may reasonably achieve, at least in the short- and medium-term. All of which again tracks perfectly with the setting and lore, once again, because 11-15 is about where the villain's right-hand man or woman tends to be; the villain's lieutenant or lieutenants so to speak.
  
  


• And finally we arrive at the roleplaying layer (aka GMRPG/Battlegrounds) where there's no cap and characters can max out their levels to 20, plus 10 mythic tiers on top of that, if playing mythic content.

Took it from the Discord. They aren't bothering to make a peep outside of Discord.

No skirmish AI yet, you can only play 1v1 so far. There are a handful of "scenarios" that I suppose task you with achieving some production goals, and a sandbox mode where you just endlessly build. But players are reporting that within half an hour the game starts chugging even on fast machines. The team is optimizing. It's all very early yet, even for Early Access. More like an alpha than a beta.

Found a new unique armour set - Morozov Pyrotechnic
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... yrotechnic

ThunderTRP wrote:
I can confirm this, found it 3 times, always at Checkmate final loot room. He spawns very rarely.

Best looking armor in the game right now in my opinion hehe.

518Peacemaker wrote:
That armor is imposing as fuck. Imagine that coming at you on a dim lit night.

The Pyrotechnic Amalgamated Edition was made specifically for the company's mining efforts in Pyro during the 26th century.

We're now on Day 3 in the Master of Heroes Tutorial. Day 7 will be the last tutorial day, culminating in a full 4-hero playthrough of Black Fang's Dungeon, and Day 8 will open up the game to all players. Currently that is Rory, recoil and ysignal on top of SriK, if he chooses to continue. They already have several dozen heroes between them, so it should be hella fun dropping all of them on the overworld and watching them form parties and spreading out and exploring and getting themselves into trouble and crazyass schemes.

They will be the first players in history to be given total freedom to explore the Pathfinder setting: the biggest fictional world ever. No other players have ever had this pleasure, because no previous game has offered it.

What will players need to know to play the game? What will be the starting ruleset?

• First off, read the tutorial linked above. Once all 7 days are played, the full text chat from Discord will be copy-pasted in that thread, and it will contain many additional explanations from me on top of the actual mechanics used for those turns. Think of it as a FAQ on top of an actual play log. Additionally, it will be lore! It will be part of world history, what I call Ultimate Lore or Dynamic Lore, to be explained in depth in a future Ultimate Edition chapter.
  
  
  
  


• As for the actual ruleset players must learn, the tutorial confines itself to pages 74-131 in Ultimate Campaign, the chapter titled "Downtime" (which we rename to "Adventure-strategy"). The full game however, starting from Day 8, will use far more rules than that.
  
  


• For starters, it will use the next chapter as well, "Campaign Systems", on pages 132-195. These sections introduce many vital mechanics to the game. For example cross-hex movement, that was omitted from the tutorial, can be found here in the "Exploration" section in pages 154-159. These are the same hexploration rules originally introduced in the Kingmaker Adventure Path (maybe expanded, I am not sure, I haven't compared them yet). The next section titled "Honor" introduces yet another form of capital alongside Gold, Goods, Influence, Labor and Magic: Honor. And on it goes.
  
  


• Then the next and final chapter in the book, "Kingdoms and War" in pages 196-251, is an expansion of the same mechanics originally introduced, once again, in the Kingmaker Adventure Path. They're all part of Master of Heroes, but you can skip them to start with because it'll be a while before they come into play. (Though note that they'll be activated in Kingslayer almost from the get-go, because that's the entire point of that campaign, being an expansion of Kingmaker, so you might want to take a look at these rules if you plan to be joining that campaign when it launches later this year.)
  
  
  
  


• And that's it for "Ultimate Campaign". However, this is where Ultimate Kingdoms starts, and note that the ENTIRETY of that book is included in the starting rules, in contrast to "Ultimate Campaign" whose first chapter, "Character Background", is too detailed for adventure-strategy layer heroes and will be used only with roleplaying layer characters. Note however that Chapter 9: "Sample Kingdoms & Organizations" has been removed from the players' copy for obvious reasons, and you'll be encountering those kingdoms and organizations in the game. Apart from those missing pages, the entire rest of the book is in the rules, including the new general and hordelord classes, which are now available in all layers of the game.

One aspect of Pathfinder that has bugged me for a while is... the Pathfinder Society. Why is it the only organization you can back in Paizo's Organized Play program? The Society often comes into conflict with other Golarion organizations such as the Red Mantis, the Aspis Consortium, the Hellknights et al., and players have been asking to get involved with these organizations for years. This can actually happen in some of the adventures and campaigns, but not in the Organized Play program, which is 100% Pathfinder Society. Ideally, in my view, the Organized Play program should provide missions for at least the most prominent of the Golarion organizations, with at least one representative org from Good, Evil and Neutral alignments, and let the players battle it out on the table. Then tally up the wins and losses, and let the orgs rise and fall in influence in the world according to the results.



Of course that would make the world much more fluid than now, and Paizo would have a hell of a time adapting future products to these developments, so that's why they aren't doing it. Moreover, PVP is far more contentious to run than PVE, so there would be real arguments at the tables, with the GMs in the middle of them. Hell, players are fighting NOW with co-players and GMs, even though they're all supposed to be pulling for the same goal, let alone what would happen if they were fighting each other. That's also why one of the rules of PFS is... no evil at the table. Check this out: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions ... nized-play

The in-game solution is Infamy. When characters perform evil acts, or other inappropriate things (such as inappropriately deviant or criminal acts) the GM can award them Infamy points. A character with 3 Infamy points becomes evil, and thus inadmissible for Society play.

FILMMAKER REACTS: STAR CITIZEN | [ALL SHIP ADS - PART 1!!] | ARE YOU SERIOUS?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qR1TAjc8FQ



If you had always wanted to watch all the ship commercials but never got around to it, this might be your chance to do it and learn something about cinematography as well. The filmmaker dude who reviewed the Squadron 42 demo last year [ > ] has now done the same for about half of the commercials, and what's more he's done them in chronological order, so you'll be able to see how CIG's skill improves over time. He's planning a Part 2 as well. Excellent work.

What people don’t yet grasp, but will soon enough, is that I am also competing with Star Citizen. Wait until Blade Runner and Alien are running, for example, and then tell me which metaverse’s metaplot you’re most excited to see develop—you’re most excited to SHAPE yourself.

Or what about Cyberpunk? You mean to tell me you’ll be more excited about the one story CDPR will be giving you per decade (and dumbed-down with almost all the roleplaying removed and immortal protagonists) over the dozens of them my world will feature? The Cyberpunk CRPGs will be merely bonus unlockables in my world. Optional ones even. Little better than cutscenes—which is what they are.

My game is really The Game To End All Games™. This is the official tagline that will be added to the site soon.

I've always hated fast travel in CRPGs, and Ultimate Edition will have none of it. This chapter's "Ultimate Fast Travel" title is then facetious, as the point I am trying to make is that Ultimate Fast Travel isn't fast at all, it should in fact be the slowest means of travel in the game. But let's take it from the beginning.

One of the many problems I am facing with Ultimate Edition is that the source material of the worlds I use is made for a very definite player power level. In the Pathfinder setting at the center of my metaverse, this power level consists of 4 characters. So how is a lone character supposed to make his way in this world that's built for 4, WITHOUT employing gay difficulty-adjustment techniques that make the world feel bullshit?

First let's understand why it's IMPERATIVE that the world be able to accommodate solo characters making their way across it. Why can't the world only work for groups of characters?

Because 90% of fiction is about lone characters. The group is an exception in fiction as a whole, but in GMRPGs it is the rule for reasons I have explained in depth in my essay Roleplaying Culture (briefly: because it's more fun to interact with other people instead of just with the GM all the time).

Group play is in fact RESTRICTIVE in the type of narrative that can be spun out of it. Almost none of noir works with a group for example, and barely anything of horror, to name just two big genres. That's why the groundbreaking Blade Runner RPG (which is supposed to be noir science-fiction) is made for "1 to 4 players", and may well be best played with a solo player. But we'll discuss that game at length soon in a Battlegrounds Alpha 2.0 update. What's important to grasp here is that none of these considerations apply to Ultimate Edition, because even if all roleplaying teams in the Pathfinder section of the game are made of 4 characters, there may still be lone heroes traversing the world in the adventure-strategy layer aka Master of Heroes, and it would kill much of the realism of that layer if an arbitrary rule was added that forbade heroes from traveling alone.

So again, how are lone roleplaying characters or adventure-strategy heroes supposed to traverse a world that's made with a group of at least 4 of them in mind?

That's the number 1 issue my Ultimate Fast Travel mechanics were designed to solve, but there is also a number 2 issue, and this is that the SRPG layer of the game, aka Master of Combat, needs a way to "teleport" the teams from mission to mission without interacting with the adventure-strategy layer, for the sake of players who only want to play the greatest SRPG of all time, and not the greatest adventure-strategy/4X game of all time, or the greatest roleplaying game of all time. How are we to accommodate those diehard SRPG fans and bring them along for the ride so we can employ their contributions to enrich the depth and interactivity of our metaverse?

Keep in mind that Paizo's Organized Play department hasn't found a solution to this issue, and to my knowledge never even tried, so they actually do TELEPORT their tens of thousands of player characters across the Pathfinder and Starfinder worlds, oftentimes even BREAKING THE SPACETIME CONTINUUM to do so. Think about it for a moment. You take your official Pathfinder Society character to a game store and participate in a scenario. But across the table from you is sitting another player with a character who played last week the scenario your character will play next month. How the fuck does that make any sense? And just as bad is that all these characters didn't have to walk or ride or fly between scenarios, and Paizo just teleported them across the map according to your life schedule.

Ultimate Edition solves all this faggotry by CONNECTING THE SCENARIOS VIA A 4X ADVENTURE-STRATEGY LAYER that must be traversed in order for a team of Pathfinders or Starfinders to progress from one scenario to the next. Moreover, once a scenario is played IT IS OVER and can't be replayed by the same team or any other team. So everything makes spatial AND temporal sense, and moreover there is now a kind of competition between players on who can reach and play the coolest scenarios first, since when they're played they're gone, and gone forever, together with their substantial rewards (completing Master of Combat Scenarios is the fastest way to get ahead and generate capital also in the adventure-strategy layer, at least until a player has acquired entire settlements or a kingdom).

The simplicity of the rule that solves all these issues is stunning, so here it goes. When a roleplaying character or adventure-strategy hero (or groups of them for that matter) travels along civilized roads or established shipping lanes—designated as "Safe Routes" on the overworld—he simply doesn't roll for random encounters. Problem solved.

Think about it for a moment. HOW ARE THE NPCS TRAVELING BETWEEN TOWNS FOR FUCK'S SAKES? Do THEY roll for random encounters too? Most of these are PEASANTS for fuck's sakes, so even if there were 4 of them, it would mean jack shit. In the Sandpoint Hinterlands—to mention a low-level area that's already been unlocked in Battlegrounds—if you roll 82–91 you get half a dozen fucking ghouls, and the chance of an encounter is 20% per day. You mean to tell me every time a farmer goes to town, he rolls on that table? How are there any farmers left?

Of course, Paizo's random encounter tables are made with the intention of being adjusted by the GM to fit the party's power level, and I suppose the GM also adjusts it for the NPCs, but this adjustment makes no sense, since at least all the intelligent predators would focus the brunt of their attacks on the WEAKEST travelers and NOT on the strongest, as Paizo's mechanics would have GMs do, thus utterly annihilating the civilian population of practically every region of the world!

But there is an explanation that solves everything! In my view, the peasants and civilian travelers in a dangerous fantasy world like Golarion would develop a life rhythm and protocols that allow them to group together and rely on safety in numbers. So for example, they wouldn't go far from their homes at night, or would join caravans when traveling between towns, or ride on the coattails of regular guard patrols, etc. And that's how lowly peasants and NPCs in general survive!

And that is also what lone player characters and heroes can do. Moreover, even groups of heroes can employ this method of travel when going for example from one Master of Combat Scenario to another, so that they won't have to interact with the 4X adventure-strategy layer if the players are only in it for the SRPG missions.

Of course, there is a drawback to this travel method, that it is slow, and takes TWICE as long as it otherwise would. Your character or characters must wait for the next caravan or the next guard patrol, after all, or for the weather to turn so that it might be bright and sunny so that monsters can be spotted from afar, or not even leave their lairs at all, and so on.

This method of travel doesn't mean that such caravans and groups of travelers are NEVER attacked. Attacks may well happen, but the group is large enough to fend them off without substantial casualties, and certainly without any player characters or heroes getting killed, though they might be injured. And recovery from such incidents and injuries is also part of the reason these travel times are doubled, as is the extra work that a character or characters might have to do to pay for these caravans or guards and so on. It's all included in "the price" so to speak of having all travel times doubled.

Now you might think this slow travel method would prevent the players using it from effectively competing for the coolest and most sought-after scenarios, and that is undoubtedly at least partly true, but take also into account that the groups traveling normally will be eating random encounters, some of which may hurt them badly enough to require expensive healing and/or rest, and on occasion a party may even be wiped out; all the while the slow party is sure to reach its destination, and at full strength. On the other hand the safe-traveling groups will forfeit the XP and loot the random encounters can provide, so it's a complex maze of advantages and disadvantages to each travel method that each player and group will have to navigate for themselves, and according to their particular circumstances (for example, if no rival team seems to be sprinting towards your preferred scenario, maybe there's no sense rushing, but if several of them are headed there, you might want to step on the gas until you're clearly the frontrunner). It sure will make for many interesting decisions, which is what good game design is all about.

But above all, Ultimate Fast Travel = slowass Safe Travel finally unlocks the possibility of lone-wolfing it across the biggest and deepest fictional world of all time, in a manner FULLY CONSISTENT with both fundamental GMRPG mechanics AND the requirements of cool fiction, so you can finally play the lone hero on a lengthy journey of exploration ALL THE WHILE epic group and multigroup campaigns are going on all around you. This means that right from the beginning of Master of Heroes you can send a hero out to the furthest reaches of Golarion (or at least to the parts of it that have been unlocked, which for the moment is the Inner Sea Region) without having to worry about grouping up or painstakingly investigating each region before setting off to cross it. As long as there is a ROAD (or established shipping lane) with the designation "Safe Route" on the overworld, your roleplaying character or adventure-strategy hero can head there safely as long as you're willing to double the traveling times quoted in the source- and rulebooks.

I read Dark Waters Rising.

I've always hated automatic difficulty adjustment in videogames, and also GMs adjusting adventure difficulty in GMRPGs to fit their groups, and Ultimate Edition will have none of this abhorrent mechanic because it makes the world feel bullshit. This chapter's "Ultimate Difficulty Adjustment" title is then facetious, as the point I am trying to make is that the ultimate way to adjust difficulty is not to adjust it at all. But let's take it from the beginning.

There is a problem with the random encounter tables in GMRPGs, and this problem is that these tables are made with a party of at least 4 characters in mind, and often in the older versions of the game, even for as many as 6 or more. So how is a lone character to get around the world when most encounters on the road would end up being fatal to him?

Well GMRPGs don't give a shit about this scenario, because they aren't designed to accommodate solo characters without heavy GM adjustment of the source material. But this adjustment is what I am trying like hell to avoid, because it makes no sense in the context of a believable metaverse. Or what? When 4 characters go out, they get 1d4 wild dogs to attack them, but when a lone traveler goes out, he only gets 1 dog? Where did the rest go? They magically disappear because they sensed it's only 1 character instead of the "normal" 4?

This on-the-fly difficulty adjustment may make sense in the context of a single-group game, since... it's only a single group that will be passing by any given area, so the GM can adjust the stats involved and rule that THIS is the reality in HIS version of the world. But in the massively-multiplayer and therefore necessarily multigroup worlds that Ultimate Edition is designed to power, multiple groups of varying power including possible solo characters might pass by the same area in quick succession, and then the illusion collapses if the GM keeps having to alter the danger and stats to perfectly fit the power level of each group or individual.

Therefore, in Ultimate Edition THERE IS NO DIFFICULTY ADJUSTMENT ALLOWED BY THE GMS! Rather, the world should be built with different regions and sections of regions offering different difficulty levels, and the players and groups of players must decide on their own where to head (as opposed to being pulled by the nose by their bad GM as usual), after careful investigation to figure out the threat level beforehand. And there are regions that not even full parties can handle, and require multiparty alliances or even entire player-controlled armies.

As a player, therefore, you've been warned. Investigate and team-up as necessary, or face the consequences.

As a GM, you've also been warned. Adjust tables and encounters from official material, and get kicked out of the game. (The exception being blatantly unbalanced TPK sections about which many GMs are whining in a game's official forum; so you must keep informed of what each game's community thinks about all the material you are running or are about to run, and adjust it accordingly.)

Found the quote I mentioned above in page 80 of Ultimate Campaign:

Cult Games Redmond wrote:
Keep in mind that a settlement's government usually has jurisdiction over what happens to an abandoned property. For example, just because you kill all the cultists using a building as their secret lair doesn't mean you can claim that building as your own.

Tomorrow is my birthday. January 8, 1978 is when I was born, and tomorrow I become 47. And I’ve been playing games since Pong.

Would you believe it if I told you I have never been as excited about gaming as I am now? I am about to dump the biggest upgrade gaming has ever received in its entire history. Forget about Chris Roberts. In the grand scheme of things he’s only delivering an engine—which I will appropriate and incorporate the moment it becomes viable. The real design advances are happening right here, and I get so giddy at the thought of them that I am paralyzed for whole days just daydreaming about them and not doing the work that’s needed to bring them online lol. But don’t worry, I am doing the work, and we’re basically there. It’s now just a matter of days before people start seeing what I am talking about. In a matter of weeks we will be in possession of screenshots that will blow away everyone in the gaming world who merely looks at them—with no explanations needed.

Spring 2025 is also Insomnia’s 20th anniversary. Around May if I am not mistaken; I’ll see if I can find the exact date. At that date, everyone who has ever registered an account on this site should expect an email with a link to the greatest art trailer ever.

Gaming’s future has never been brighter. And it is right now.

I read Dark Waters Rising.

[Live Feedback] Star Citizen Gameplay Survey
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... lay-survey

You can fill out this survey in a couple minutes (about 10-15 mins if you want to answer everything, but you don't have to, you can just skip to the end and hit Submit as well). I did it for all 3 of my accounts. It gives you the same IAE 2954 shirts and caps I mentioned in the previous post. "Survey will be open until January 15th with reward distributing shortly after."



I think whoever made this image screwed up with the female versions because instead of front and back it shows the front twice. Might also just be a tits appreciator.

I melted all my Fortuna and Invictus paints for credit with which to renew my Imperator sub for a year. Due to the current Luminalia 10% discount, this is the cheapest time to get a sub. I'll rebuy the paints on St. Patrick's Day and at Invictus respectively. Interestingly, the melt value of the paints was $198, which is EXACTLY what an annual Imperator sub costs for the Canary Islands (we only have a tiny 5% sales tax here).

I think you only have about a day before Luminalia ends: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... nalia-2954

0.6 Live Demo Montage (12/20/2024)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTAmTYwgk0



Greatness is coming as Cult Games Paris readies the release of Cult Engine 4 under my personal supervision (remember I architected the foundations of the engine in machine language in Notepad: 111001010110100 etc.)

Just logged in with all 3 of my accounts and got all 11 gifts for them. It only takes a minute and you get red, blue, green and purple paints and guns to use with all Stanton Commanders/the Emperor, or as their bodyguards. It only takes a minute, and the event ends in a day or two. Do it asap if you want the stuff and haven't done it yet!

Not record breaking, but still impressive.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... impressive



They brought in 1% less than last year, so this is now their second-best funding year. Considering how bad the economy is doing, and how delayed all their major releases were, they're doing great.

This guy always knows a lot and provides interesting commentary:

S1rmunchalot wrote:
Of course the flip side is that those who keep insisting that the total revenue means nothing without factoring in expenses is that they can, and do, have the ability reduce their expenditures without significantly affecting their revenue. There is always natural wastage and where that isn't sufficient they have the option of 'restructuring' and lay offs.

Like any building project there are stages, this is perfectly normal in the game development industry. They will structure the company and development teams accordingly.

CIG have a 12-year history of being a going concern where for the previous 7 years they saw annual growth and steady progress toward a AAA marketable product, they would have no trouble at all raising business loans or private investment if they needed to. Since they haven't needed to (since the Caldwells' buy in) it speaks volumes.

The Caldwells are billionaires, they paid CIG $50 million or so for a 10% non-voting rights share of CIG in 2016, Chris Roberts was a multi-millionaire before the project began and Ortwin Freyermuth is also a multi-millionaire, he was the one who bought out Turbulent. There are possible revenue streams they haven't even touched yet, Arena Commander modules are still part of the Star Citizen game package deal, it's unlikely that will remain so.

It's worth pointing out that CIG stopped selling Squadron 42 packages over 2 years ago, and it hasn't affected their annual revenue. When it goes on sale again, at a higher price, it will boost annual revenues.

Why do they spend every penny on development instead of hoarding it in a bank account? To avoid paying tax.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... ched_armor

Other_Extreme_8173 wrote:
Scorched armor

Is there a specific spot you guys are finding this stuff?? I see people decked out head to toe in full sets. Are they just grinding?

RoscoWaffleking wrote:
Asteroid Bases also have one to two on boxes where it can spawn.

wanszai wrote:
I've found a ton of it in Checkmate before the loot stopped spawning in the Contested Zones. I think I have two full sets stored now.

It doesn't give any extra stats like the attachments do though.

You're looking for the large orange lootboxes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... nt/m53dpls

daryen83 wrote:
Military components aren't necessarily better. They are hardier, but Industrial components have better performance at any given "letter" and are almost as hardy. To me the big loss are the Stealth A systems.

From 3 days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTrove/comme ... nt/m4lfyec

Global-Front-3149 wrote:
This round is about 4.5GB of "new" TTRPG stuff/magazines/comics and about 94GB of 3D miniature stuff.

I have a bunch more TTRPG type stuff for the next update - it just takes a lot longer to dupe check (especially since I got a couple of huge Pathfinder 1/2 collections) the TTRPG stuff compared to the 3D files.

Next update I think I'll split into 3D and non-3D stuff - as I know some folks could care less about the 3D stuff (not everyone wants to print their own minis!)

Wanderlustfull wrote:
Any chance you can include some kind of index or contents file so it's clear what's included in each of the various downloads please?

Global-Front-3149 wrote:
I'm not going to put in the time for that I'm afraid. Just managing the vast amount of data is pain enough.

I'd be happy to include any index list/spreadsheet with future updates if someone else wanted to go through everything to generate them as things are released. I'd just post them into a folder in the MEGA share for anyone to grab.

Global-Front-3149 wrote:
I'm seeding every file... and all files have 16+ seeders currently.

CULT|icycalm
@CULT|shubn can you take care of the above?

CULT|shubn
Hmm I don't have 3 TB of free space right now, but I'm taking a look at what I can delete to make space.

CULT|icycalm
I suppose you're counting deleting previous Trove versions, right?

CULT|shubn
That's one of the potential options.

CULT|icycalm
Don't think about that, just do it. No sense in keeping that stuff.

CULT|shubn
Alright.

CULT|ExiledOne
I think I can help too. I had a drive specifically for this stuff. I just have to backup some of the website archives and the 5E stuff, then format it. I kinda fucked up on the drive format anyways so it works out well actually (it's in EXFAT instead of NTFS which is supposed to be terrible for long-term storage and it's slow as fuck).
It's a 5TB drive.

CULT|icycalm
Cool, we could use an extra copy. Also, heads-up for @CULT|danjiro if you want a copy of the Trove too... look up the last link above.
I am especially looking forward to getting all the latest 2E PF stuff that wasn't out yet for the earlier Trove versions.

CULT|shubn
Ok I made a bunch of space. I'll start downloading tonight.

CULT|icycalm
Keep us posted.
Not too long from now I'll also be able to download this. But the seeds might disappear any moment, so we got to do this now.

CULT|shubn
I guess I should start with PF and D&D?

CULT|icycalm
Exactly.
Then Dragon and Dungeon magazines.

CULT|shubn
I deleted a bunch of stuff from my NAS to free up 1 TB and started downloading, starting with Pathfinder. I only managed to download 20 GB out of the 100 GB of Pathfinder books so far, because there is only one seeder and few peers. I haven't deleted my old Trove archives yet, just in case this one doesn't end up working out, but I will once I get further along the process and start needing space.

CULT|danjiro
Nice, thanks for the heads up! I should be able to start downloading them all today.

CULT|ExiledOne
Had a lot of trouble formatting that drive I mentioned before. I basically couldn't do it in Windows at all initially so I had to delete the partition in Linux (which took several hours) then make a new one in Windows. I'll be able to start downloading now too.

CULT|icycalm
So we got 3 people downloading. Sounds good.

CULT|danjiro
I've got all the book and magazine categories downloaded. I might get the rest this weekend.

CULT|icycalm
Good to hear, we finally got there after that catastrophe years back.

CULT|shubn
I've got the Pathfinder folder and a good chunk of D&D done. Continuing tonight.

CULT|ExiledOne
Seems my hard drive for this died on me while I was in the process of backing up these files. It's weird because it's only been 3 years and it was specifically for cold storage.

CULT|icycalm
Next Starfinder.

HQ is at Ruin Station.

recoil you haven’t told us where your HQ is.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is free on Epic until January 2: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/kin ... eliverance

Sifu is free on Epic until January 1: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/sifu