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Post by sinferno on Sept 27, 2005 1:13:39 GMT -5
Don't get me wrong. It's a fine game. Destined to become the "fun for all ages" classic that Dungeons and dragons never could. They did so much right, little things such as including pre painted figures made of economical high impact plastic not poisonous lead as in the days of D+D.
But I am starting to think hero quest was better, even as I sink more and more of my time and disposable income into this black hole on my table composed of hexen blocks.
Why, might you ask? Because hero quest allowed you to grow a character; stats would improve, better weapons would come available, and the tricks in the quest packs would get dirtier and dirtier. Heroscape doesn't allow you to watch a team of characters grow into an unstoppable gang of turn based terror which you make from scratch over th course of days, weeks, months.
Heroscape forces you to come up with a killer combination of units in mere minutes reminiscent of a bad fantasy football league or a good game of Magic the Gathering.
If only someone could design a monetery system for heroscape, a level system for various races and perhaps a questbook, and a catalog of things to buy I think it would be perhaps the last great fantasy game to ever exist in tabletop form. It already is more customizable than hero quest with the board alone, a feat I would have deemed impossible in 1990.
Not complaining too much, the game is good. And I will probably get it all before I recycle the works back from the ebay from whence it came, just sayin', if anyone ever offers to play you a game of hero quest don't think you have played it all, just because you have played a much more expensive, modern game.
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Post by krugruler757 on Sept 27, 2005 21:06:21 GMT -5
You know, You do bring up some good points, but things like that make a game too complicating. It becomes harder to remember certain things. I like Heroscape just the way it is P.S. Why do you keep making these long polls and not reply to them???
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Malechi
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Post by Malechi on Sept 28, 2005 12:36:34 GMT -5
Although I do agree with you sentiment that "growing" characters add a sense of personal attachment to the game as HeroScape is currently it would be difficult to do so. The main reason being that most figures do not survive even a single scenario let alone a campaign! There have been many attempts at creating a campaign setting for HeroScape see the downloads at heroscapehq.com or BoardGameGeek. ... [HeroQuest] allowed you to grow a character; stats would improve, better weapons would come available ... Actually HeroQuest did not have any rules for character stats increasing (I find this to be the only flaw with HeroQuest, the lack of a level system). The only way for a character's stats to improve was through the use of certain Artifact cards. You could implement a similar system to HeroScape by simply utilizing BoB's HeroScape Gear and allow the units to keep the gear they find from game to game.
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Post by sinferno on Sept 28, 2005 13:57:47 GMT -5
The more I get into Scape' the more I miss hero quest. I played a mean Zargon (gamemaster) in college..
I would put ads in game stores, invite strangers over to my apartment in groups of four and give them all manner of food and drink and when their character died I would throw them out, for I did not allow regeneration.
*Reminsces*My favorite stock quest of all time was #2 "The rescue of Sir Ragnar" an inordinately hard quest to come up so quickly in the rotation. One wrong move and the player gets an "orc enema of enemy allotment".
Oh the innocence of youth.
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Malechi
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Post by Malechi on Sept 30, 2005 10:21:22 GMT -5
... I would put ads in game stores, invite strangers over to my apartment in groups of four and give them all manner of food and drink and when their character died I would throw them out, for I did not allow regeneration... That's just plain mean, man. I like it! ;D
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Post by sinferno on Sept 30, 2005 14:27:31 GMT -5
Malechi> While my heroquest days make me seem like a not very nice guy it really wasn't my design to hurt peoples feelings. I just wanted to raise the stakes of the game to a level that an adult could appreciate. Let me explain, in the days of Pagan Rome they knew how to play a game, to elevate the thrills and chills beyond that of plastic monsters and cardboard cutouts. Slaves sent to the Roman Collosieum could earn their freedom and even become famous if they won. And if they were to lose, they would immediately find themselves meow mix for the lions, and perhaps the most quick and ignoble death possible. Truly it was a game among games.
Well because we live in a more "civilized" time with rules, regulations and this entirely human notion of decency I cannot invite people over to my house to fight vicious stray dogs with butcher knives. So how to make the game exciting, worth fighting for? Real easy, with positive and negative reinforcement. Before you could join my gaming club you would fill out a questionaire asking what your favorite beverages and snacks were. And lo and behold when you arrived at my door to play for the first time you would find all of your various brands there waiting for you, more than you could possibly consume. This was your incentive to stay alive. And during the game when your character died, you would be asked to leave immediately and no longer be able to partake in the spoils of my hospitality (Until next week when you could start out from level one like the dog you were) This is how I simulated the real life consequences of loss death, and removal of the player in ways that were civil, legal and had real life consequences, but with no real hard feelings or blood being spilled. Sure, it lent itself to being a tense quiet game, but I would rather sit around the table with adults sweating profusely at their own real life fate like the Russian Roulette scene from Deer Hunter than sitting a table full of sci fi nuts dropping nonstop quotes from the Lord of the Rings movies and talking in their best golem voice. *shudders visibly*
Yeah, that's another odd quirk of mine. I love role playing games, but by and large I hate role players. For example if you showed up at my house in costume for the first game you better hope your sword wasn't made of cardboard... But I digress.
About the castle, I've seen the pics. And I just want to advise caution before drooling over it, like all the pre-pubescent titclowns on the other site. While the ladders are a good idea, the castle itself looks like an unfinished prototype, the actual product will likely be somewhat smaller, colorful and smattered with various copyrighted images from the Heroscape world. As long as it looks better than the crappy home brew mega block outhouse done by the toddler with too many plastic bricks and too much time on his hands I will buy it.
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Malechi
Teenage Hero
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It is frustrating seeing the label "New Member" under to my name ... ARRRRGH!
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Post by Malechi on Sept 30, 2005 20:32:59 GMT -5
... Well because we live in a more "civilized" time with rules, regulations and this entirely human notion of decency I cannot invite people over to my house to fight vicious stray dogs with butcher knives... Why do you think "Bum Fights" were invented! ;D
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Post by sinferno on Oct 1, 2005 3:00:55 GMT -5
Malechi> Bumfights? I struggle to keep things on topic, limiting my conversations to discussions of a game playable by under developed minds of all ages (seriously people, chess this is not) but a paradox such as bumfights deserves to be explored further here.
The paradox arises because I am a misanthrope and feel that humankind is an oxymoron. People are generally animals craving the lowest, shittiest, most sleazy entertainment they can find. I recognize this facet in all of humanity and tend to embrace it in all my forms of media enjoyment. What types of things? Let's just say my DVD collection is hardly made up of "Heroscape the animated series" or tripe like that. I've got films so savage that my few shreds of discretion and human decency prevent me from mentioning here by name in front of children. Lets just say I have given up Tariantino for Matteo long ago.
But when it comes to bumfighting I cannot enjoy it because it is just so evil, and unnatural. People down on their luck are exploted for pocket change to maim and injure each other. Picking on hopeless, hapless people isn't sporting or entertaining to my higher sensibilities. Don't get me wrong, I aint soft. Far from it. For example If I were to see Robbie Knieval crash his motorcycle into a wall and shatter his body into milllions of pieces I would probably just let loose with some wise ass comment such as "Wow, I bet he is gonna feel that in the morning."
What's the difference, You might ask? Simple, one is just a lost soul trying to make enough money to survive another day, which is something we all do and another is a pretentious showoff in a gay red white and blue body suit, who thinks himself so damned special.
Perhaps this is what happens when you have been exposed to as much media violence as I have, you become something of a connosieur with refined tastes. But life isn't all about violence, you need sex too. This is why I have no moral problem with the worst porno you could imagine, but those R rated "Girls Gone Wild" videos make me sick. Despite the fact they are geared for roughly the same age market as Heroscape (See, now I am back on topic) they just depict the senseless exploitation of drunk stupid young girls on spring break, all of which debase themselves for free t-shirts. Give me a girl, a real bonafide porn star over 19 years of age who actually knows what she is doing and is sober enough to remember it, and smart enough to command a high price for her work and you might just appeal to the purist as well as the pervert in me.
Besides. Many of the acts in bumfights were staged. The participants told to exaggerate the pain...etc.
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Malechi
Teenage Hero
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It is frustrating seeing the label "New Member" under to my name ... ARRRRGH!
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Post by Malechi on Oct 1, 2005 13:27:25 GMT -5
Actually, I never saw any of them (I asume there was more than one). But, like you, I too am a misanthrope. I believe the majority of humans will always congregate to the lowest common denominator (films - comedies where no thought process is involved; fast food - 'nuf said; etc.). Humans will probably never be able to create any sort of Utopia due to human nature for greed and depravity. The fact that the Bum Fight films do exist, they and anything else that exists (whether real or imagined) will become fodder in my (sometimes lame) comedy arsenal. Was it politically correct ... hell, no ... but, then again, I have never claimed to be!
Even if I were offered to view the bum fights for free, I would not take the offer. The sheer cruelty involved does indeed turn my stomach. Give me a good game of HeroScape and/or HeroQuest any day where wholesale slaughter is good wholesome fun for the entire family (there, back on subject)!
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Post by sinferno on Oct 1, 2005 15:36:33 GMT -5
Malechi> A misanthrope with a message board? Kind of an odd mix. Like a vegan cannibal or a technophobe with a t1 line. So tell me why the message board? Why bother with trying to bring joy, knowledge and insight to peoples lives in all Heroscape matters when in reality you know all too well that a few bad apples are going to turn this place into some sort of public toilet; quarreling like children over nonsensical matters until the end of time such as which figure pack is the most/least cool. Some of the people and pictures I have seen on the main heroscape site would send most dedicated philanthrope screaming to his congressman, demanding the immediate carpet bombing every game store in the continental US at once for the sake of our gene pool.
Seriously, this isn't a good clan of people for a misanthrope to try and defend. Personally I have friends, cool friends who I would rather catch me watching pornography naked when they came over unexpectedly than to be seen playing the heroscape master set with most of the folks I have seen on the main site. Fucking trolls. Case in point, the other day I had called every game store in Iowa trying to order the "Aliens from Uranus" booster pack before i realized it wasn't some new expansion set at all as I previously had thought, just some guys photo.
But as for board games in general I will defend them to the death, they promote three dimensional problem solving and spatial thinking. While I do not have kids "at least none that I know of" if I did, I would surely use fanstasy games to teach them about human hypothetical constructs such as good vs evil, cheating vs. fair play and perhaps more importantly the life lesson that war is not a harmless game that takes place on a plastic hexen field on a kitchen countertop close to home and is decided over the course of an afternoon. I would tell my child that real war more often than not actually takes place in an oil rich country in foriegn land far way and might just be something they have to grow up and die for. Are we having fun yet?
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Malechi
Teenage Hero
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It is frustrating seeing the label "New Member" under to my name ... ARRRRGH!
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Post by Malechi on Oct 1, 2005 18:17:54 GMT -5
Well, not exactly correct. This is by far not my message board. Hell, I don't even have Admin Status. I believe UranusPChicago created this board in the early hours after the loss of heroscape.net. This board was quickly replaced by the heroscapehq.com site due to the upload ability to that site. I post to this site as a self imposed exile from heroscapehq.com due to a very strong difference of attitude concerning the lack of recovery of the hs.net posts. The administrators had access to the posts but refused to make them available except a select few. These select few have never even shown up on the site, however.
Whether war be in an oil rich nation or a neighboring barren wasteland, being a person who believes that power corrupts and does not make someone more altruistic. War is inevitable if to simply knock some sense into the heads of other power hungry psychotics. It would have been a much better war in Iraq had the US kept it a war instead of its current incarnation of a police action. Where the US is forced to take a defensive stance rather than an offensive one. the US structure is not one of defensive prowess, simply look at US borders! Let us hope that if you do one day have a child that must fight for the military, he is not killed by the hamstrings placed upon him by liberals who want him to play nice with the people who believe in their religious doctrine to kill all Americans.
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Post by sinferno on Oct 1, 2005 19:08:30 GMT -5
Malechi>
I aint dissing the war. I am a misanthrope, remember? Right along with the New Orleans flood relief footage, it's my favorite thing to watch on TV. If I can't stop it, I might as well understand it, perchance enjoy it on some level. If you can't get out of something, get INTO it, I always say.
Should we be there? Maybe George Bush has a plan, or maybe he is just playing heroscape with our countrymens lives, substituting oil fields for glyphs. Gotta collect em all to win, right kiddies?
I think the war is mismanaged, and recent surveys say we are about a decade from done there. But I don't think we dare leave regardless the cost. It is a just shame to think that kids born in the next ten years will just accept this war as an inescapible fact, a cost of doing buisness. Can you imagine the effects on society? Hell, it might even have an effect on heroscape. I can see it now, series XIV the Islamic Jihad blister pack!, four foreign born enemy combatantants in Fundamentalist islamic garb who have the suicide bomber special attack allowing them to explode on a roll of a 16 or higher on a d20 or less and wipe out all adjacent figures. And you thought the Lava Death pack was controversial...
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Malechi
Teenage Hero
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Post by Malechi on Oct 1, 2005 20:56:16 GMT -5
Well, I am glad to hear that. I was going to state that a liberal could not be a misanthrope, the fundamental philosophy of Liberalism literally depends on the goodness of man. It is a great idea, but so very flawed. I won't go into my thoughts on Katrina's so called "victims" (the only true victims were the handicapped, aged, infirm and their care providers).
I am a Bush supporter, but I do have a brain of my own and do not agree with many of his actions. My personal belief for the US involvement in Iraq was purely personal for Junior and had solely to do with the relationship between Saddam and daddy.
I wholeheartedly disagree that the war was mismanaged. The war was won with lightning speed and minimal loss of life. It is the current police action that is mismanaged. And, the worst part is we here at home are the cause of it! The latest being the ruling by Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein regarding the ordered release of more Abu Ghraib Prison scandal photos. What will this release do besides harm the US image to the world (as if that could actually get worse) and add even more fuel to the Islamic fundamentalists hatred (just look at the riots after the alleged Koran debasement at Gitmo). We force our military to play nice and not offend the enemy combatants, let alone cause them bodily damage. I just wish it were still a war, the at least we could go in, kick ass and only then question the survivors!
As for the suicide bomber HeroScape character a mod was made for one on heroscape.net quite a while back, I don't remember exactly who the creator was (it is lost to the ages for now - see previous post). It was not received well to say the least. I don't think you need to worry about HeroScape going along those lines.
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Post by krugruler757 on Oct 1, 2005 21:40:24 GMT -5
Man you guys have long conversations!!!!
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Malechi
Teenage Hero
Whiney newb member
It is frustrating seeing the label "New Member" under to my name ... ARRRRGH!
Posts: 46
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Post by Malechi on Oct 2, 2005 0:09:30 GMT -5
Sorry, here's the Cliff Notes version:
War is bad for everyone. Human nature will innately make war inevitable.
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