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Chronocidal

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Everything posted by Chronocidal

  1. Chronocidal
    I only intended to pick up two, but AmiAmi's site flaked out and I got an extra. Will probably sell one somewhere down the road, or maybe two if they release all the versions I want. The more I see of Bandai's designs though, the more I have to question what (lack of) design process keeps making them choose these horrible mechanisms for moving parts. It's not like hinged fins are a new thing, or even a difficult thing, but they keep flubbing it in ways that make me scratch my head. If I didn't know any better, I'd think they're actively avoiding using any previously proven design. If they were managing to improve on old designs, I'd applaud the effort.. but they're repeatedly failing to come up with something even equivalent to what's already been done by other companies.
  2. Chronocidal
    Ugh.. time to break out the Shapeways account again.. I know it's picking at a knit, and the hands might work perfectly fine... but those really aren't "movie style" fists. Anything from DYRL-onward has only two finger joints. Those hands are straight off a Gundam/Transformer.
  3. Chronocidal
    It does make more sense than folding them over the landing gear. Also, when are we going to see a heatshield deployable in fighter mode?
  4. Chronocidal
    I'm going to be honest here.. I don't even primarily focus on battroid mode, but those articulated hands kind of piss me off, because they look nothing like what the later mechanical hands for the VF-1 look like. Everything post-DYRL has only had two-jointed fingers. These ones look like Bandai copy-pasted them from a MP/3P Transformer figure. I'm kind of baffled Bandai went so off-model, and made them mechanical-styled cartoon-design hands, which I think have never existed in any Macross animation at all. I'm probably going to ditch the articulated ones for that specific reason, and just use the fixed pose ones for any gerwalk or battroid poses. Hikaru folded the leg fins upward during re-entry in the VF-1S. The more important reason is to allow for better fitting GBP armor though.
  5. Chronocidal
    I actually kind of wish they wouldn't do the automatic switch to DHL... Unlike EMS, which just goes to the post office, or FedEx, or UPS, which both have offices here, I have to make absolutely certain that I'm home for DHL deliveries, or all they'll do is repeatedly leave requests to drop the package with no signature, which I'm not going to do.
  6. Chronocidal
    That's the part I'd love to see more details about, specifically what the game becomes after you finish Squadron 42. Dumping your character into the persistent universe doesn't explicitly mean it'll be a multiplayer situation though. Yes, there will be official servers running that you can load your character into, but if the game truly supports player-run servers like it's been saying since the start, then there's no reason you can't dump your character into a private persistent universe, and just play that way. I'm not saying the persistent universe is meant to be played solo... but if you have a private server running, and don't give anyone else access to it, isn't that what you're doing?
  7. Chronocidal
    Anyone to translate the pics about the cartoon-style hands? While on the subject though.. is it just me, or do the hands look weird? I know the DYRL style hands were only two-jointed, and maybe these are meant to be a middle-ground between the three-knuckled cartoon version and a mechanical-looking hand, but.. it just looks strange to me.
  8. Chronocidal
    Obviously a very clean-cut case of RTFM. Mistransformation aside, it really doesn't look bad. Few of the details look a little mushy, and the chest intakes are huge, but they pulled off a pretty nice sculpt overall. I might have to pick one up, just to have one in scale with my other models. That neon green stand is utterly obnoxious though.. needs a nice coat of flat black. We've really come a long way from the Toynami Masterpiece sets though.
  9. Chronocidal
    I feel like folks are assuming there isn't a single player option of this game though... There is. The official persistent universe could be all merged, but if the base assets all exist in the single player game (as I expect they'll have to for Squadron 42 to run), you shouldn't even have to connect to the online universe to play the game. I'm hoping it will run very similar to Freelancer, in that the universe exists, and can be played however you like solo, but your solo progress is stored locally, instead of on the main persistent universe server. It will depend on how they have the universe set to run though, economically speaking. Elite Dangerous canned their solo play/private server features when they decided it was too hard to make the economy work in single player (or so I understood, at a very simplified level). If SC has a dynamic economy that depends on player interaction, then playing it single player won't be as interesting, but it should still function. I think the thing that will play heavily into whether they separate out some servers is that the bounty hunting mechanic will vastly change gameplay between players, and while players interacting with NPCs is one thing, it's also the type of system that could produce extremely frustrating mechanics for players who want to play in different ways.
  10. Chronocidal
    CD Japan is usually pay upfront for paypal, but credit card purchases go through at time of release. I'm not sure how TWE items work there.
  11. Chronocidal
    Thanks for the link, grabbed a couple sets on CD Japan. They're turning into the most reliable source for a lot of things, it seems.
  12. Chronocidal
    Refusing to offer a cash refund, and then refusing to let me spend store credit for something I want? Yeah, that's utter BS. I'm not ordering 5 missile sets just to blow the entire cost of a VF-31A + shipping. Oh, and the store credit, which is basically cash they refuse to refund, expires after a year. Customer disservice at its finest. Honestly speaking, I'm mostly using this as a reason to call them out on crappy store policy. If they're not going to offer cash, then the least they should offer is the ability to spend the credit on any combination of items from the store I want, at any time. It is just cash I've flat out given them, after all. If they can't do that, then I want my original 31A order re-instated, because they didn't tell me any of this before cancelling it. I fully expected the whole "we can only offer store credit" line, but they didn't even mention it before going ahead with it, and did it without any explanation of the expiration and limit to using it all at once. Feels a bit vindictive doing it this way, but I actually am hoping they'll just add a little flexibility to their system, and either let me use the credit on something I want, or send me the 31A I wouldn't have cancelled if I knew all of these restrictions existed.
  13. Chronocidal
    So, I'm calling NY on their account credit shenanigans. I offered to reduce my 31A order from 2 to 1 in order to expedite shipping.. they did it with no confirmation that I'd only receive store credit. I expected it from other users here, but they didn't confirm with me that that was what would happen. Now, I went to try and use that store credit with the missiles... except they won't allow it, because for some incomprehensible reason, their account system can't handle using part of your store credit. I filed a ticket on my original 31A order, just saying outright. "This credit system is unacceptable. Either let me use it to buy what I want from the store, or send me my second 31A." (Not exactly those words, but paraphrasing). We'll see what their response is. On that note, anyone know what the order deadline for the missiles is? If I don't hear any kind of response by tomorrow, I'm just ordering three sets, and leaving that credit sit until the 31 armor packs come out.
  14. Chronocidal
    I don't think this game is going to adhere to any existing concept of what a "healthy" server population is, because this game has such a massively broad selection of gameplay styles. There are going to be necessary divisions in the servers, because people are not all going to want to play the same way. If they try to force everyone to play nicely together, it's not going to go well. At the very least, you're probably going to see PVE/PVP/RP divisions in the playerbase, and just for the sanity of CIG, it makes sense to divide those up. The thing about this niche market? It's still incredibly diverse. There are going to be a lot of people who want little tweaks to the standard game, and allowing people to build their own variations and enjoy them in smaller groups is probably going to be far more effective than trying to balance the game for everyone wanting to play it. The idea of building your own content, and running your own universe for people who want to play different ways is a huge draw to a lot of people (I'm absolutely one of them ) I think what this niche market is clamoring for is a return to the days of old where you could buy a game, download the SDK, and just start building your own content for people to enjoy, without having to fork over a credit card just so you can have a fancy hat for your character, or a paintjob for your ship. No monetization, no cash shop... just content that you enjoy making, and want to let other people enjoy along with you. Maybe that means not everyone can enjoy it at once.. but I don't see why that's a problem. Maybe I want to rebuild my universe to operate in entirely Newtonian physics, and use the SC engine to perform a Kerbal Space Program-esque simulation of interstellar travel.. or maybe I just want to take a joyride in the Millennium Falcon. I'm pretty certain the game would do both easily... just not in the same server instance.
  15. Chronocidal
    I don't know how much of a development kit CIG might be able to release, but one of the big selling points SC has clung to throughout development is allowing people to run their own private servers of the game, as well as the "official" persistent universe servers run by CIG. To me, that hearkens back to the days of Freelancer, and the old standard of having dozens of servers running with custom tweaks to the game, ranging from in-game economy tweaks to total conversion mods into other universes. Given the scale of the game, and the ships and environments it is capable of running, I think it's only a matter of time before we see full-scale recreations of any number of science fiction universes within the game engine. Whether any of them are officially licensed remains to be seen, but I'm actually interested to see how far underground modders have to dig to avoid C&D letters from Disney or Paramount if they start throwing some of the most famous ships into the game. At the bare minimum, I expect to see Wing Commander/Privateer, and Babylon 5 content springing up quickly, possibly BSG.
  16. Chronocidal
    Video doesn't want to load, but I'm guessing that motor lever arm is hooked over the metal loop mounted to the boarding ramp, and just held closed by horizontal tension. As the tension releases, pressure against the top edge of the boarding ramp lessens, and lets the ramp sag, until it hits the ground. There's no actual vertical force holding it closed, so the door's going to sag a bit. Quite a nice and simple setup really, but also kind of fragile, so I'm guessing this one isn't meant to be picked up and swooshed very often.
  17. Chronocidal
    My general hope for the franchise is that we'll finally have a new go-to engine to build space games in, so we can move past the limitations of Freespace 2.
  18. Chronocidal
    You're not the only one, I noticed that early on, and it really stood out in that Jimmy Kimmel birthday party sketch he did. I think his voice is deeper, so it loses the similarity in higher ranged pitches, but there's definitely a similarity there.
  19. Chronocidal
    It really is this, as a whole, that's been driving the process along. It's not like they just had to build a game using components and tools that were already in use. They're developing the technology that lets a universe this detailed and expansive even exist on current computers. Has it been well managed from the start? Probably not. But I don't think the devs are even going to be able to reap all the benefits of everything they've developed. That'll be seen years down the road, when (and if) the technology reaches full maturity, and gets used by other development teams.
  20. Chronocidal
    Actually, it might also be a test asset for survivability studies. The Navy keeps old airframes around to shoot at in order to test the effectiveness of weapons. If enough of the plane is still intact, they might be able to patch it up, or just keep the damage out of frame.
  21. Chronocidal
    That might be what they're trying to portray with it, but those aren't standard placards either way. I'm thinking they borrowed a static display Cat for something. Maybe in the Top Gun universe, there are still a few that are airworthy?
  22. Chronocidal
    Still baffled that with all that tampo they still didn't put the ejection triangle. Like.. how do you do that?
  23. Chronocidal
    Considering the Wolfpack F-14s were from VF-1, I'd say it's entirely fitting. Seriously though, I think the VF-1 nose markings were entirely unique for the F-14, and about as close as you can get to the standard Skull Squadron nose stripes.
  24. Chronocidal
    I'm going to be putting in orders at at least two separate sites. If I can avoid NY entirely, I might.
  25. Chronocidal
    Good deal then, it's a great display piece.
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