EchoEcho

This takes me back. When I was a teenager, I joined up with a group to do this stuff one summer, at the invitation of a friend. Same basic rules they're using here, though I don't think it was part of the same organization. It was really fun! It wasn't a full-on LARPing group; nobody was dressing up or in-character or anything, though several of the regulars were also involved with a long-running LARPing organization in the area. I was interested in trying that out, but never had the opportunity.

Some of the regulars had been doing this stuff for fifteen-plus years and were extremely good; they'd cut you down in the blink of an eye, but they'd graciously tell you exactly how you left yourself open and give you tips to improve.

They didn't bring it up in this video (not sure if it's permitted in the specific rules system they're using), but I was personally a fan of dual-wielding smaller weapons, such as short swords or dirks.

Halfway through this trailer I thought to myself, "If they don't have a dramatic pause at the end of this, followed by 'Welcome back, Commander,' they done fucked up." Glad to see they didn't fuck up.

Still haven't played through the Enemy Within content, despite buying it day of release. I should really get on that at some point.

This is exactly the case for me. If I don't have a good few hours of relaxed game time, then I don't want to start. Hence, I spend the majority of my free time following game-related things in general, with maybe a single, decent chunk of time playing something on one of my days off.

As long as they're visually interesting, I'd actually rather have a decent mix of new (or at least sparingly used) planets in with the recognizable ones. I mean let's be frank, here -- Hoth is just a big white ball, and Tatooine is just a big brown one. You can only play on those maps so many times over the years before they get stale; there needs to be new stuff to balance out the checklist of mandatory movie sites. The potential for creative freedom in map design is one of the strong points of the Star Wars license, and it'd be a shame to waste it.

Otherwise I agree, twelve (or thirteen) maps is plenty, so long as they're well designed.

Like them both equally. Probably why the Warhammer 40k setting is so entertaining to me.

So I'm no Tolkien scholar myself, just a fan of the books who has done a marginal amount of research outside of their contents, but I find myself somewhat puzzled by Jason Fisher's reaction in that Mike Williams article.

How, exactly, did Williams describe the story setup to Fisher? Because Fisher's reaction to the notion of "Celebrimbor as Wraith" seems to be from the perspective of taking that information entirely at face value rather than looking deeper into the context.

Celebrimbor, as presented in the game, is not really a wraith by definition within Tolkien's world. However, despite being inappropriately labeled, his situation -- a spirit left wandering the world -- is supported by Tolkien's work.

Typically when an elf "dies" -- that is, their fëa (spirit) is separated from their hröa (body), as they can't "die" in the complete sense -- their fëa returns to the Halls of Mandos for a time before being reincarnated in another hröa, unless they choose to remain in the Halls and not be reincarnated.

However, on rare occasion an elf's fëa might refuse to return to the Halls of Mandos entirely and remain wandering in Middle-earth, though doing so tends to result in the slow erosion of the consciousness, and many such spirits eventually become evil.

Given the setup of the game, it seems at least somewhat plausible that this is what happened to Celebrimbor, possibly due to the tragedy of how he died and his specific connection to Sauron.

It may not align perfectly with Tolkien's writings (though it's a better attempt than most), but to say it's "not at all in keeping with the spirit" of them is going a bit far, in my opinion, and I'm generally pretty harsh on a lot of the "expanded fiction" that people have written around Tolkien's work, especially for games.

It just seems like Fisher heard the term "Wraith" and completely wrote the entire thing off, focusing too much on the terminology used, but since I'm not sure how much information he was actually given in the first place, maybe he didn't have enough context to see past it.

This has to be the most bizarre epiphany anyone on these forums has ever had.

Also I'm not sure "things we never realized about cavemen" is really a thread-worthy topic of discussion, but maybe people will prove me wrong.

Anyone else getting flashbacks to literally the only other forum thread attached to this wiki page?

I play inverted with a controller but non-inverted with a mouse. I am everyone's enemy.

I've played far too many games over my lifetime to be able to pick a "best" soundtrack, but I have always had a real soft spot for Secret of Mana's score.