Need I say more?

We still have not yet had the wonderful pleasure of seeing Spaceballs II: The Search for More Money.  :(

That's not ranting.  That looks to me like trying not to rant.  Or waiting to be prompted to rant.

The "Maximum PC" podcast has much ranting, in "Gordan's Rant of the week". So if we need some rants, I can transcribe his... (and yes, some of them relate to starwars).

I'm sorry, but I guess I'm just too nice or sweet or some other such nonsense to really and truly rant the way other people do.  Unless you want to get me started on something like politics or religion which would get all of us either very angry or in a lot of trouble.

Hmm.  Those are two topics that I pretty much don't rant about.  Ah, well.  To each his own.

I'm extremely passionate.  About anything and everything.  I either love it or I hate it, there is little middle ground with me.

I love making cakes shaped like the bio-hazard symbol. It's hilarious to give to people.

So, which is worse. Gungans or Ewoks? That should get a rant out of somebody!

Ewoks by far. Wooping little bastards...

Gungans had some style. Their cities were awesome, their planet incredible, their aesthetic sleek and cool. Ewoks were a bunch of teddybears in a forest. Gungans are steampunk with dinoriders!

They are a really good race and a lotta people would've liked them if not for a certain one...
This message was last edited by the player at 03:27, Wed 08 Oct 2008.

Well Gungans gave us the Jar-Jar in Darths and droids, who is pure distilled awesome.  Ewoks gave us a really bad made-for-TV-movie.

In my book Gungans win.

I feel like the prequels were really missing Han Solo.  I don't mean the actual Han Solo of course, (Chewbacca showing up was bad enough) but the archetype, the older, wiser, cynical scoundrel guy.  I think if Jar-Jar had been that way he would have worked well as a character, but as is all the idealists feel unbalanced.

On the other hand, Gungans also gave us the Jar-Jar from The Phantom Menace, which is pure distilled...  well, you get the point.  :p

True enough, but they were both horrible in the movies.  I'm just saying, something good eventually came out of Jar-Jar where I'm not sure anything good has come from the Ewoks yet aside from a nice string of jokes in Wraith Squadron.

Hey, the empire was defeatd by the ewoks *nod nod*

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with either Ewoks or Gungans.  Neither was particularly bad, and both served their respective purposes.  Taken for what they are, the two species do well enough that no one has yet convinced me that either of them should be forgotten about entirely.

Gungans existed to serve as the only real problem on the world of Naboo.  They're native, the humans aren't, and rather than try to discuss this, the gungans just hole up and keep contact with the outside world to a minimum.  They're xenophobes, taking their misunderstanding of the humans on Naboo to mean that all outsiders are nothing but trouble.  In and of themselves, they're a fairly advanced race with an interesting (if draconic) culture, rather like Star Trek's Klingons, if the Klingons preferred keeping to themselves rather than running about and conquering things left and right.  They value honor and loyalty above all else, and to hide the weakness of fear, they act aggressively towards the unknown.

The reason everyone hates Jar Jar so much is because he was an idiot.  That was how he got to be in the group in the first place: The gungans didn't want him in their city anymore because he was stupid and clumsy.  He was a danger to anyone living in that bubble city.  Still, that's not good enough reason for me to hate the entire species.  It just demands better writing to make the character less ridiculously pointless.  As it stands, he's a waste of CGI.  The only things he does to help the group is to introduce the Jedi to the gungans in the first place, which could have been done by Amidala herself later in the movie (though that would have felt forced and awkward), and take them to the gungans' secret hiding place.  Aside from that, he's pure comic relief, which shouldn't have been necessary had the writing on that film been up to the standard set by A New Hope.

As for the Ewoks, I'm pretty sure they don't exist purely because 5 year olds like cuddly things.  Seems to me they're around to be a relatively dangerous set of total primitives, a threat to both the Rebels and the Imperials, without looking overly aggressive.  They're cautious and curious, and were there as a challenge to the Good Guys to overcome, which they managed.  One of the few useful things 3P0 ever accomplishes, too.  Then they go on to be the army the Rebels need to back them up, and while the idea of using a small bow and arrows on stormtrooper armor is pretty stupid, the rocks and logs were pretty good ideas.  Seriously, though, there was no way they could have known what to expect, and they did a rather nice job of salvaging that fight.  It just went on a little longer than was necessary.  As for the point about there being only one visible ewok death, my guess is that the point of that overall scene was to show that the imperial forces were overwhelmed.  I didn't see anything to make me think the ewoks existed specifically to entertain younger audiences or to be annoying.

I will, however, state that I don't really take most of the specific events of the prequels to be cannon.  I prefer to think of them as 'the basic idea', and fill in my own mental blanks when it comes to things like dialogue, Anakin's personality, etc.  Bothers me that the 'good man' Obi-wan remembers was nothing more than a psychotic jerk with no redeeming qualities.

Good points. There's nothing essentially wrong with their concepts and they're fine in theory...

But theories are treacherous things that can, at any moment, disintigrate like a biscuit raft.

One of the big flaws was the prophecy that the Jedi keep misunderstanding:

Prophecy: A Jedi will bring balance to the Force...
Balance: 1 - 1
Prequal Balance: Jedi 40,000 - Sith 2
Jedi Prophecy Reading Skills and Brains: -50
Sith Converting and Killing Skills: +50

You do the math.


That was another thing that bothered me; The Jedi

I'm not going to get in Midichlorians but the jedi were horribly messed up.
Flipping all over the place with epic lightsaber battles with force powers up the arse is fine in my book as long as it's entertaining and doesn't get old.

Unfortunately it does get a bit old when there are 40,000 jedi flipping around, assumably off cliffs due to a severe case of stupidity. It's like the tuition fee for Jedi-training is their brains and any sign of intelligence, at least that would explain why they couldn't sense Palpantine or read a Prophecy correctly. I would've liked it if there was only around 50 or so Jedi, most of which aren't masters but are better than Padawans. But rather they have a huge amount of retarded lightsaber swingin' masters getting killed by the soldiers who couldn't hit Luke from about 3 meters across a gap.

Anakin was a drama queen.

That's merely what the Jedi became after a few thousand years of peace.

What? Idiotic morons who couldn't predict the side of a barn door hitting them?

This is why I wish Star Wars was made by Douglas Adams. Ah, what a story it would've been...

About that prophecy.  The Jedi don't see 'balance' the same way as normal people.  They're religious zealots, after all, and so have their own definition of otherwise straightforward words.

Part of Jedi philosophy is that the Dark Side of the Force isn't a natural occurance at all, and is actually a corruption brought about by negative emotions and people toying with the Force for their own gain.  As such, they define 'balance' as 'harmony', which means ridding the Force of corruption.  They thought the prophecy meant that someone would remove the Dark Side entirely.  Which is flat out preposterous, but they weren't thinking clearly.

So yeah, that was a horrible tragedy that could have been averted had they just realized that 'balance' means 'equal'.  Then again, their view WAS correct, because later on, Vader kills off himself and Palpatine, ridding the Galaxy of the Sith for a few minutes.

And the Jedi were pretty effective in combat against normal opponents, but not against legions of them.  Except, like, Mace Windu.  But seriously, he was busy fighting a level 20 Sith Lord.  Had better things to do than go around the Galaxy rescuing his comrades from their troops.  Also, clone troopers are much better trained than stormtroopers, being that they have some training.  Stormtroopers just have armor, guns, and the mental programming to follow orders to the death.

About that flipping out...well, I think the Jedi got a little excited when there was some action.  Finally a chance to play with those lightsabers they've always wanted to turn on.

Fair enough but that's why I hate religious Zealots.

Protoss Zealots are awesome though.

And that's why I prefer Luke's Jedi to the Old Republic's.  Less arrogance, more substance.

I like the Darths & Droids interpretation. :D

http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0146.html

Perfect.

Why aren't there more witty cutout comics like this? I read DM of the Rings which is also hilarious but not as good as Darths and Droids.

Is there no god?
http://au.gamespot.com/news/sh...hp?topic_id=25996562

Why do people constantly keep making these Mmorpgs? They're all stupid and all exactly the same.

It's like a really crap apartment. No matter how you dress it up or move things around, it's still a crap apartment. Unless you get new stuff, redo the whole building or move out, you're going to keep living in that same crap apartment.

A fun Mmorpg would be something like Garry's Mod, but more mmorpg-y. Not all this willy nilly 'click on enemy til they die' stuff. More like a 'shoot giant fireballs into a happy forest and let fire physics take over'

WOW, Conan, and any of them for that matter, would be a lot more fun if it was less grind and more screwing around with overpowered and retarded spells and weapons.

Imagine taking your +50 Sword of Bloody Horrible Ruin and re-enacting Happy Gilmore with the NPCs.

Because ever since WoW everybody with so much as a working knowledge of BASIC has had dreams of swimming pools full of caviar from MMORPG profts?

I fail to see the question.

I happen to enjoy Guild Wars. I find combining my skills and having to be clever about it, and fighting to gain those skills to be quite enjoyable. I'd be bored very quickly if every battle was just a case of Fireball > dead forest. I mean, what do I look like, Lina Inverse?

Could do without the grinding though. >> I like the feeling of having earned something, but there's a point where it just turns into yet-another-defeat-at-the-hands-of-massive-dps-monsters. ><

I'd hazard a guess that it's got something to do with just how many people are willing to not only pay full price for a game up front, but also a monthly fee to keep playing it?  It clearly makes a lot of people very happy to play games like this, and these people are willing to pay for it - give me one good reason for a game developer not to make an MMORPG if they can.  :p


And, from what I've read and seen about this game so far, the KotOR MMO looks pretty cool, and like something I'd try, if only I had a proper computer and enough cash to afford it.

That's not what I meant. Intelligent fighting is exactly what MMORPGs need.
Using daggers for climbing trees to escape foes or releasing electricity into a watery environment.

I'm not saying mmorpgs need to abandon their formula all together, but at least mix it up a bit. Good gamers should be the ones that have strategies, not a quick finger and a bunch of spells set to 'spam til mana runs out'.

What I've been ranting about is the old 'spam same thing at the same thing over and over again so you can spam slightly different sized and coloured things at bigger things' that ALL mmorpgs have been following.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic demonstrated what I mean perfectly. Using an ice spell to create slippery floors for enemies to fall off tall buildings. Casting fire spells on wooden boxes and throwing them at enemies. Yeah, the game was easy as hell most of time and it did turn into "Sir. Kicksalot's adventures in the land of suspiciously placed spike racks" at times, but it was awesome and one of the funnest games I've played in a while.

Even grinding could be fun using this:
The current grind is 'click 10 times on "Small Imp" till you level up and are now able to defeat "Medium Imps" without your health going dry'

A fun grinding session with these Imps would just require something that makes them a little bit smarter. When a big dude with a sword comes at impy, he runs up a tree. When sword-dude is trying to cut down tree, jump behind him and slash at his shins then hide up another tree.

That would make the creatures less boring, and a strategy for killing them would have to be formed. Perhaps scare the imps out into the open so they cannot hide? Or lead them to believe you are weak by having a temporary stat cripple, then returning to normal when they are close enough?

And in response to Palpentine: Just because people are willing to settle for less doesn't mean developers should do the same!

A KOTOR mmorpg does sound like fun, but not if it turns into another repetitive Wow-clone.
I'm not saying the system is the devil's own and must be destroyed immediately. I'm only saying that it's been done to death by now, try adding something different to the mixing pot. FPSs are always trying this and they are the dominant genre in gaming because of that with their diversity and uniqueness.

Sometimes they end up shooting themselves (see Timeshift) but sometimes they end up as amazing pieces of fun (see Bioshock). As far as I can see, Mmorpgs so far are just reskinning themselves, which isn't horrible but it is just lazy and unimaginitive. Just a quick grab for cash.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:11, Wed 22 Oct 2008.

No, but the developers' main goal is this:  create a game that as many people as possible will pay us for playing.  You don't win points for being 'unique' or 'original' in the gaming world, when nobody outside a small core of gamers actually plays your game.  And, for the most part, the un-inspired games that are basically copies of last years' big game, tend to sell the most, while a lot of really great, fun games have been doomed to obscurity because the mainstream audience doesn't want to play them.  And if you're in the business of making games - doing it for a living, to get the money you need to feed your family and pay your bills - you need to go for the biggest audience.  And you don't do that by being creative and unique - you do that by giving them something that feels familiar to them.  And, hey, if the game ends up good enough for the 'hardcore gamers' to play it, too - that's just an added bonus.

That's the sad truth. Noone but a few developers seem to be trying to stand out anymore.

This comic sums the whole situation up perfectly:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=269

I live in a happy magical land where people care about making something amazing and fantastic rather than something with a 2 after it and made for easy money-making. Sort of why I have a bias against Halo and an undying love for Valve.

That and I hate leaving the cars with their huge kickass guns to fight solo for the entire, presumably, human race.

This is why, while I love Halo, I refuse to play it as anything except co-op now that I know the plot. Well, except for 3. I haven't had a chance to play with that at all yet.

Still, I loved Star Wars: Republic Commando, just because while the gun battles were pretty annoying (HOW many bullets can a Geonosian Elite take?! I mean, I can understand it when you're shooting them with the ion gun you get as a default weapon, but...), the squad chatter (and Morrison's voice. I don't like men, and I still think it's sexy) completely made the game.

I hope beyond hope that someday people will look at what they're doing and the game market will wake up. They're realize that they're paying fistful's of dollars for shitty remakes of games they already played.

But that hope is dies when you look at the sales numbers and realize that the Madden's (etc.) games are the best selling games out there. They're the same game every year with slightly new stats and maybe a new dunk or new touchdown leaps.

Yahtzee said it better than most:
"If, in the future, we all end up playing Captain Bland's Monotonous Adventure in what little spare time we have between toiling in the Microsoft overmine offworld mining complex, then I want you to know that I fucking called it!"

I have hope for people like Tim Shafer though.

I bought Psychonauts after hearing that review and haven't regretted it at all..well, a little.

I friggin hate the artist work of most of the game. All the characters look retarded. Other then that it's an awesome game.

It's a cartoony game, it's supposed to distract from reality by a planet-sized length.

Psychonauts had it's fair share of annoying problems, but then again you got to light squirrels on fire.

I am currently on the level where you're a giant monster rampaging through the fish metropolis ala Godzilla

ignore this, not really my post. Please delete.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:42, Thu 30 Oct 2008.

I forgot who said it, but the dark side of the force is considered unnatural, an abomination, and a corruption of the force. Just like howdruids don't burn down forests to bring "balance", the light side users don't have to off themselves to "balance" the force.

Any dark user unbalances things because they weild powers that they shouldn't be able to, because they "cheated the system"

Also, what power level do you suppose Anakin was right before getting whacked by Obi-Wan? I mean, those younglings surely were worth some decent XP for the RP bonus :D

Actually, that whole scene reminds me of something out of Darths and Droids.

GM: "You come across a jedi temple. All the adults are out fighting in the war leaving none behind but the younglings.

Anakin: "Wait, no Jedi to fight? That mean's no XP...wait a second. How many younglings are in the temple?"

GM: "Ummm, about a hundred or so."

Anakin: (does math) "Wait...if each one nets me just 10 XP, that's enough for me to level up. I put on my game face and walk inside."

GM: "Wait...what?"

Anakin: "I kill younglings until I level up!"

GM: "WTF?"

Anakin: "Hey, you're the one that stole all the real enemies away..."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

They never said that but it does sound like something they'd do

In reply to PC praguepride (msg #39):

That's pretty funny.  You know who your Anakin just reminded me of? Jim (Qui-Gon's player) He's gonna get killed in the next strip or two...  I’ve been wondering how they planned on handling that...  my bet is they'll have Annie take over Padme and give Anakin to Jim... Jim does seem to have the right mentality for the part... ^_^

Changing the subject slightly, I'm a bit bugged by how typecast SW creatures are.  Every Hutt is a rich gangster with a string of scantily clad slaves, every Jawa is a desert dwelling nomad, every Wookie is a proud warrior race guy, etc.  I know all sci-fi has this to a degree but I was just leafing through a Clone Wars comic and came across a section where Ayla Secura mentions that Twi'Lek females have a genetic disposition to become slave dancers. . . unbelievable.  Even Vulcans aren't that horribly typecast.

There are some exceptions; like not all Hutts are gangsters, just some of the ones on Tatooine (and even then I've only seen 3 gangster hutts on tatooine). The genetic disposition to be slave dancers is probably just another 'medichlorine' fact. Having a disposition to be dancers maybe.

Jawas end up as scavengers because they are suited to that lifestyle, sort of like the wookies and sandpeople, but I see your point.

I know you read TVTropes with the reference to the Proud Warrior Race Guy :) so you'll know it's a Planet Of The Hats type situation.

This sort of thing comes from trying to extrapolate an entire culture based on one or two insignificant facts gleaned from a minor role in the source material. With one or two supporting characters to go by, writers assume that they are typical for their species, and use them as a model for the rest, whilst being unwilling to go against what they perceive as the official canon version. They're afraid to invent anything new, particularly when it comes to somebody else's creation (ie George Lucas's).

Jabba is a gangster, so all Hutts become gangsters. Bothan spies stole the Death Star plans, so all Bothans become spies. Bib Fortuna was a gangster's henchmen, so all male Twi'leks become gangster types, whilst that Twi'lek dancer of Jabba's became the model for all the female Twi'leks. And so on, and on, and on.

I wanna see a Wookie Scientist. That'd be funny. Or a Jedi Hutt.

there have been Hutt Jedi. In fact there is even Hutt Jedi Armour

Wow, haha, fat jedi

I see fat Jedi all the time.  They're just cosplayers.  >_>;;

Yes, I know it's a planet of hats situation.  But Star Wars seems to push the Planet of Hats trope far more than other sci-fi universes, to the point of a 'genetic predisposition' to become slave dancers.  Which is enough to get me ranting, why was that even needed or beneficial? Somebody in a multi-billion dollar empire really thought adding a slave dancer gene was a good idea and an executive okayed it?
Heck, even the races created for the EU seem to have remarkable genetic predispositions, are there any non-assassin Noghri?

Simple question... is this a problem? Because it's starwars. And I think it's really cool (although somewhat silly, but I like silly sometimes).
This message was last edited by the player at 02:24, Fri 31 Oct 2008.

It's a Universe of Hats

I don't know, personally I thought that to mean that twi'lek females are, well...  hot.  They're also from a society with traditions for slavery, so it makes sense that people from across the galaxy would choose twi'leks for their dancing girls (because, as has been mentioned, twi'leks are hot! :p), and also that they would be available (because there are a lot of twi'lek slaves to choose from).  Of course, there are several examples of twi'lek females to avoid this 'seemingly inevitable' fate - Aayla Secura wasn't the only one to show up in the Republic-series of comics as a Jedi, so there's that, at least.  Then there's Mission Vao of Knights of the Old Republic, who certainly 'broke out' of the stereotype, as well.

Checking Wookieepedia lets me see that I'm at least not the only one with this view on it:



Anyway, good night, everyone - and may the Force be with you.  :-)

I thought that there was actually a fair level of irony and sarcasm when Aayla was saying that.

You think that's bad? Zeltrons are an entire race of prostitutes, except for the one mechanic who's a main character!

Why? Because they're naturally and permanantly empathic, so what better way to make sure you're life isn't hell than to make everyone else happy?

Who's brilliant idea was that?

Besides, you can throw things like that around as much as you like, since you're all guilty of it.

After all, everyone knows that all Gungans are like Jar Jar Binks...

Not actually they're not. They may talk like him, but they did banish him on pain of death for being a total spaz. Or clumsy, I really can't remember.

Either way, most Gungans beside Jar Jar are fair enough.

Okay, you win.  That is way more stupid than a genetic disposition to slave dancer.

So on another note.

In the Clone wars (the cartoon not the CG one) Obi, Anakin, and a few other Jedi are seen wearing Jedi armor.

Do you think that they Jedi where all proficient in the armor and then if not what would be the benefit of wearing it when they where already higher lvl then the armor bonus.

Because in the "real" world, wearing armor is a good thing :D

Maybe it's not armor per say, instead it's just equipment that they were that has no mechanical benefit ('cept as a space suit), instead it facilitates the use of gear.

Or it could be that they weren't designing the game around the odd Star Wars armor system.

Instead they thought "well, jedi wear robes in "normal" dress, so they must wear armor when they go to war!"

Plus, rule of cool and you have jedi armor.

Jedi Knights have access to the armor talent tree from the Soldier class.

That may be, but it would be stupid to waste the talent on it at that level.

Didn't you get the memo, it's part of the Clone War Jedi prestige class. It'll come out with the Clone Wars CG.

I would think definitions on what constitutes a waste of a talent would be dependant upon the person taking it or the person writing said character for the tv show.

Not everything you do for your character has to be done to maximize your character potential or minimize their flaws. Some things are done for... gasp... flavor.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:06, Thu 20 Nov 2008.

They're wearing the armor for the Fort bonus :D

Oh, don't give me the flavor argument.  I know that people take things for flavor and not to constitute making your character into a combat God.  There's no need to be derrogatory.  I take things for flavor as well for my characters.  It just seems to have very little to do with the character at that point in time.

Why doesn't it have anything to do with their characters? They're fighting a war where they are leading millions of clones. Why shouldn't they try to bridge the gap a little between Jedi and Clone?

I meant for the player wanting to add flavor to the character.

Hmm...
On this note it seems the cartoon jedi are a little smarter than the RL ones. if they had been wearing armour they might've survived order 66.

That and if they hadn't forgot how to deflect blaster fire.

I've done it.

I played A Jensaarai character (Jensaarai's signature item is their cortosis weave armour), but couldn't afford to dip into Soldier for armour talents because of getting into Force Adept. Because I'm not a Jedi, I can't take Jedi Knight and get the armour talents that way.

So there, that's one example of why you might wear armour for flavour.

Naw, having the armor tree at high levels is just good sense and a basic defense.  You capture a high level enemy, the first thing you want to do is slap some armor on them and drain away their level bonus to reflex defense.

But if your enemy turns out to have the armor tree, then counter-intuitively they actually get better protection from armor and you can't make them weaker by putting armor on them.

More seriously I finally got a chance to see Clone Wars at the dollar theatre.

I'm distressed to note that Ob-Wan is now a war criminal and liable for the death penalty for his violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Seriously Lucas, WTF. You have tons of great worlds to choose from, and where does Palpy come from? Some backwater world without any real power or influence. They have all those nice Core worlds to choose from and instead they have the ultimate evil arise from a H&G magazine cover.

Is anyone else really annoyed at this statement from Wookieepedia?
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

"After reviewing George Lucas' statements on Star Wars canon, the consensus of the Wookieepedia administrators is to only accept the Star Wars films as canon. Expanded Universe material will be treated as non-canon from here on. We will be updating the site accordingly over the next few weeks."

The vast majority of the information on that site is now declared non-canon, and has to be rearranged and specially marked so, when it's just pointless. And George Lucas has got to be the only guy in the world who cares about George Lucas canon anyway.

(Still better than Doctor Who canon.)

Dude, it's an april fools joke.

... Oh.

Well, that gets me back for the RoA joke. :o

Thanks to the internet, April Fools has extended to a full 48 hours.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:39, Thu 02 Apr 2009.

Wow, BCM.  Considering the time us folks spend on the net, how can you not have noticed it was April Fools day?  Just about everybody does something for it.  Especially RPoL...

Oh, I knew. See RoA for details. ;)

But it was 2nd April for me when I noticed Wookieepedia. Time zones. It's an easy mistake to make. :p

March 31 - April 2nd is my "April Fools Caution" window.

Not much of a rant, I'll admit, but I really want to have more episodes of Clone Wars, and I want them now!  :p  I also want to see a lot more of Cad Bane, one of the coolest bounty hunters in the Old Republic.  Combined with Admiral Gar Stazi of Legacy-fame, it's almost enough to make me want to play a Duros.  Almost.  :p

Is it just me or does the Star Wars (WotC) website blow? They hardly ever update the thing lately. They don't do Jedi Counseling any more than once every six months or so it seems. When they do updates, there are usually glaring errors to their main page that are frankly confusing at times.

Edit: And lately, they haven't even been putting out excerpts for upcoming books until the book is already out on the shelves! how are people supposed to know what the hell the book is like and go out and buy it in the first week if you won't even put something up until after the things already out?
This message was last edited by the player at 11:37, Sat 18 Apr 2009.

And if they do update it tends to be miniatures.

I heard that Wizards is having some financial problems, actually. Coulds be that they had to 'let go' some of their webbies.

very possible.

The rumor mill says they have been coming down hard on file sharing sites that have allowed sharing the pdf's of their books.

But I recently bought 3 Saga books so I have been doing my share of keeping them afloat.

I can see your argument about the quality of some of the updates on the WotC site, but let's face it...  they don't need to give us free stuff like Web Enhancements, Bounty Postings, Behind the Threat articles, or even a free series of adventures in Dawn of Defiance - yet all these things does cost Wizards money to produce.  So, with that in mind, I don't think we have the right to expect very much from them, nor to be dissapointed when we don't like what they do publish for free.  I know some disagree with this, but when someone is offering you something for free, I feel like it's in poor form to get on to them for not giving you the free thing you happened to want, or get upset at the quality of the free thing given to you.  Also keep in mind that there is only one game designer/developer working on the Star Wars line - everyone else contributing are freelancers, all with other full-time jobs and everything (Sterling Hershey, for example, works full-time as an architect, his work on Saga is done on his off-time from that).

Sure, it would be cool to get more frequent updates to the website - but, let's face it, compared to D&D, Star Wars is just not that important to Wizards, nor does it make them even close to the money that D&D does.  As it is, we're lucky that the Star Wars line shows no signs of stopping, because financially, it's not one of the highlights for Wizards.

And, hey, here's a preview for the upcoming Jedi Academy book, which isn't released for a whole month yet:
http://www.wizards.com/default...diAcademyrpgpreview1

If they are going to do something, they shouldn't half-ass it, is what I mean.

So, are you saying that they should either put out a steady stream of articles, or just take down the website entirely, rather than 'half-assing' it by only releasing freebies occationaly?  Or that they shouldn't publish any articles short of awesome, rather than 'half-assing' it and giving us some things that might be said to be mediocre, or just not what every GM or player out there wants?  If it's not either of those two, I'm not sure just what it is you mean or what you want, and if it is either of those two, I (obviously) disagree.

And, I also don't think that what has been offered up is all that bad, really.  Sure, the minis previews might not appeal to the roleplayers, but guess what?  There are people out there who love the minis game, but who have never (and will never) play the roleplaying game - those guys deserve to be thrown a bone every once in a while, too.  Errata is usually published soon after new books are released, and has even been updated to include rules clarifications in the case of the core rulebook.  There's the (frankly, awesome) Dawn of Defiance campaign, which they could have easily decided to charge money for, but are releasing for free.  No, we haven't gotten many Jedi Counsellings lately (due in part to G.M. Sarli being sick/having health problems lately, IIRC), but do we really need them?  I mean, we have the main game developer appearing on a fan-produced podcast every few months, frequently taking time to take questions from the listeners about all sorts of rules-related issues they might have.

And then there are other things, like Creatures of KotOR (not web-enhancements or cut content, but additional content developed because certain GMs want more beasts published), the really good Bounty Postings articles, things like Behind the Threat: The Sith (which is a great resource for any campaign in which the Sith will be an active element), Power Beyond Belief, Star Wars: The Musical Experience for GMs who would like to include music in their games...  and I could keep going on, but I don't think there's a point in that.  In my opinion, most of the web-articles published by Wizards have been of surprisingly high quality for being free material, and even when it's something I won't be using myself (say, some of the statblocks given in KotOR web-enhancements), I can easily take the material and use it in another way (by cutting out the name from the statblock and using them for someone else, saving me the trouble of making a statblock of my own).  And, as mentioned before, I don't think we as fans have any right to complain about there not being frequent enough updates online, as long as we're not paying for them (it'd be a completely different story if we were talking about D&D Insider articles not appearing on time, because I'm actually paying a monthly fee to pay Wizards to produce those on time).

I feel bad when I pirate good books :(

However, I would never buy most of the books I pirate. I just don't have the money to invest in it anymore. I try and buy them when I can, especially the really high quality books (Scum & Villainy I've got in hard copy) but for me the choice is either

Don't play vs. Play with pirated books.

I know it's still wrong, but here's the way I look at it. If there was no pirating at all, I wouldn't be running D&D/Star Wars/nWoD games AT ALL.

However, because I pirated some books and started up campaigns I've spent a lot of time looking at them and BECAUSE I pirated books and getting involved, I did end up going out and purchasing books that I would normally have never needed (specifically W:tR, H:tV, and Scum & Villainy). So is it wrong: yes. Did this act slightly increase WoTC/White Wolf book sales....marginally yes. Overall they're at a net profit....

I guess the conclusion is that I've never NOT bought a book because I could pirate it. I've NOT bought books because I can't afford them. HOWEVER I HAVE bought books when I can afford them that I wouldn't have bought if I wasn't already immersed into the game world via pirated books.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:47, Tue 21 Apr 2009.

I practice Ethical Pirating. I only download books I have other means of getting access to - normally involving borrowing them off my parentally rich younger brother, but still. He buys them.

Books need to come with a digital copy. The same way that you get a copy when you buy a DVD these days. Ah to have my entire library at my fingertips via my PDA...

I follow a very loose ethical code of my own when it comes to pirating, which goes something like this:  If I can't realistically buy it without incurring tremendous costs (like, say, shipping from across the Atlantic), or if I wouldn't have paid money for it without giving it a try first anyway (read: most D&D books, including most of 4E), or if I'm going to buy it anyway as soon as possible (read: anything SWSE - I have a copy of every product to date, and that's likely to continue :p), then I'll download it.  And, if it's good enough to impress me - I'm buying it.  That's how I got started with Saga in the first place, and why I own four 4E D&D books and one adventure module - so, clearly, Wizards is making money on my pirating, as long as they keep releasing good products.  :p

Yarrr, all this pirate talk makes me want to play a pirate game...yarrr!

My fiancee bought me this t-shirt: http://www.snorgtees.com/pirateencyclopedia-p-353.html

So, just got a chance to finally read Legacy (Not Legacy of the Force, the comic book that takes place a hundred years after that).

And it's mostly good except for one thing that's key to the whole issue that has me wondering what flavor of crack the writers are on.  Healing is a dark side power and the main character is exposed to the darkside by saving the lives of badly wounded people.  WTF?

Raargh. Dark Healing deals Condition Track Damage to the Healer, and heals based on the Healer's level, and gives you a DSP... unlike Vital Transfer, which deals Hit Point damage to the Healer, and heals based on the target's level, and doesn't get rid of a DSP.

Only with Dark Healing, you can break the natural laws of the universe and bring people back to life!

As long as you have at least two levels in a force-using prestige class.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:39, Fri 21 Aug 2009.

Speaking of rants...

Has anyone actually noticed Ben Skywalker doing domestic abuse to his erstwhile girlfriend Vestara?

He'd totally have picked up some Dark Side points for invading her privacy and slapping her around in my game...

The issue isn't so much that Cade can heal people, it's because he's bringing them back from the dead.

Healing is a light side power, but diverting the course of the force, by disrupting the natural cycle of life you're imposing your own will upon the universe which is a decidely dark side thing to do.