Agamemnon

Ever since I developed the first AI for a game, it was called Agamemnon. There were originally going to be three other AI's, parallel versions of the same series (Obysseus, Nestor and some other guy), named after four Greek generals.

The idea was scrapped, but Agamemnon was there to stay. After I got sick of being "CybLord", I took the name as my alias.

Something about this thread makes me proud of my decision to remain 105% sober. Ok, I'm only 18 at the moment, but still...

Thanks for the warning, I almost fried myself.... ;-)

Looks a bit like the pulse rifles from Alien.

Topic says it all, really. The Desert of Real is back. Updates may or may not come out in a few weeks.

cyber203x.cjb.net

Quote (MonSTeR @ Mar. 02 2002,12:39)

The other comments about "membership" I actually pretty much agree with

The Perks are one of the good things about Fuzion. They make it possible to have "Dual-Classed" characters, like corporate/cops or cop/netrunners.

Because after all, being a member of a corporation/police force/government agency is what you do. It's necessarily not what you are (though it can be).

Of course, this kind of system adds complexity to the rules, which is never a good thing, not even when it removes faults.

Special abilities only make sense in a cinematic campaign, where

"the heroes" possess some sort of magical edge over their opponents.

In reality, the outcome of combat, for example, is dependant on

countless random factors, thus making the idea of a Solo inherently

laughable.

If Combat Sense should exist (and I'm not saying it should), it should

be available to all, like in Fuzion. After all, there are military medics

and techies as well. Compare a normal military medic (let's call him

Jones) to Dr. Carter from ER. In a potentially dangerous situation,

Jones is less likely to lock up, thanks to his training. Carter will probably

be a better doctor, but Jones is more useful in an Edgerunner team.

Also, the term "Combat Sense" is somewhat misleading. After all,

the ability only gives a person a chance to spot a potentially

dangerous situation and react to it accordingly. Morgan Blackhand

would probably react by shooting, Rincewind the wizard (who also has

Combat Sense IMO) by running away.

Combat Sense is the ability to react to a hostile situation. Characters

from many different backgrounds can possess it, even Dr. Carter (maybe

he has improved his reflexes by playing paintball).

Almost all special abilities could in fact be replaced by Fuzion-style Perks.

Combat Sense -> Danger Sense (or whatever, bonus ranges from +1 to +5)

Authority -> Membership (police force), Licence (to apprehend criminals and carry weapons)

Resources -> Membership (corporation)

Family/Rank -> Membership (gang)

Interface and Medical Tech could be made into normal skills. Jury Rig,

Credibility and Charismatic Leadership would be dropped altogether. Stranger

skills like the Prowler's Sneak and the Stripper's Vamp skill could be perfectly

simulated by imaginative use of normal skills.

I think that's about all for now. Feel free to disagree.

I guess I'll have to start writing more, then. It would look

stupid if the owner of the web's oldest cyberpunk site has

a paltry 13 posts to his name...

Indeed. And furthermore, the book is ridiculously cheap, as are most books that are free of copyright. I paid a paltry 2.05 € for my copy. That's 0.17 cents a page.

For the record, I paid 15 € for Hagakure (8.3 cents a page).

(Sometimes I feel that a far-too-large part of my income is spent on books. But it's either that or MtG...)

BTW, maybe this discussion ought to be returned to topic or dropped altogether.

Well, Mr Blitzkrieg, I believe Voltaire said it best: "I disagree with every word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

My opinion on Dumas is largely based on The Count of Monte Cristo, which I consider to be one of the greatest pieces of fiction ever written. Within its pages, a reader can find love, death, betrayal, revenge, mercy, friendship, crime, punishment, religion philosphy, the multiple facets of life.

No point? No direction? No meaning? I disagree wholeheartedly. The point is revenge, poetic justice, and the execution thereof.

The Count of Monte Cristo also has the honor of being the only book that has ever caused me to shed a tear...

Now, if one considers The Three Musketeers or The Man in the Iron Mask, they suffer greatly from the flaws you illustrated. Both lack a definite dramatic curve and have IMO unsatisfactory endings. To be honest, I prefer the movie versions of both to the books.

Based on the fact you presented, I take back my previous opinion and simply call The Count of Monte Cristo the greatest novel ever written. Now, I'm sure you could find flaws in my arguments, but I hope you would refrain from pointing them out to me. Some bubbles should not be broken... :-)

* - * - * - * - *

"Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and

never forget that until the day when God shall deign to

reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in

these two words, -- 'Wait and hope'."

                           - Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo

"Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape."

                            - Death

Close, but no cigar (this has got to be the second stupidest idiom inn the English language, right after "and Bob's your uncle"). It's Jericho Weaver, the man with a serious spider fixation.

Einstein/Eisenbach actually gets killed in StF.

If it were online, I would prompt you to go read the latest version of StF, which IMO is a lot better than before the renaming. The plot still has some holes, but I got tired of trying to plug them. ;-)

No, no, no...

The finest author of all time is none other than Alexandre Dumas, or possibly Edgar Allan Poe.

Having said that, I still feel that Gibson rocks.

In my case it was probably when an ignorant and dimwitted player was walking along a pier and spotted to fully-kitted-out speed boat of a local gang leader.

e decides to irritate the gang for no reason and blow a hole in their precious boat with his pistol. He asks if there's a nitroglycerine booster in there. I say yes. He shoots at it.

I do the facepalm (you know, the way you put your hand over your face when someone does something unbelievably stupid). Then I start rolling dice.

The player's ass was blown across the bay in several pieces.

I suppose

The first few chapters were there, But I'm doing them again, with some slight alterations. You get to know more about Markow and Finch, for one thing.

Also, the role of Vidoqcue will be slightly different. I considered dropping him for a while, but then decided against it.

Mike and Inferno won't be making an appearance, as originally planned, but I'm pretty sure that Lobo, Ivan and Axmann will. No matter what I do, they end up being a part of it.

BTW, have you guessed who the "old man" is? The one who Kramnov took orders from? If not, well, all I can say is that he is a returning character from StF with serious problems traversing stairs...

Quote (LordDemon @ Feb. 26 2002,20:49)

HELL YES!!! I loved to read the fiction section on your site, I think I still got "stealing the fire" somewhere on my hard disk. Are you going to write some more stories? Please!?!?

Sure. I started writing Tension Underground, but the storyline started to veer to much into a sequel to StF. So I started from scratch. I've got the first two chapters ready. When my site is back up, I'll post them

Short Synopsis: Voodoo Samed has risen into the position of a major player in the organized crime circuit. His position is jeopardised, however, by the Yakuza, the Russians and a mysterious new faction... Two freelance trouble-shooters must get to the bottom of things before a war breaks out.

Ah, well, I didn't give you the link since Qwikpages is doing a maintenance break and my page in thus unavailable.

I'm planning on moving it to my new ISP in the near future. The address was, is and will be cyber203x.cjb.net

If anyone has bothered to check recently, they would have noticed that the Desert of Real is once more unavailable. Well, I'm working on moving the page into yet another server and this time probably for good.

I'm also starting a mad project called the Legacy or just The Book, a netbook-style compilation of old archive material, with a few short stories thrown into the mix.

Question: does anyone care whether my site returns or not?

Question: does anyone give a crap about a re-hash of old material with a little bit of new tossed in?

I have to agree with the other guys on the thread. Whatever you do, don't stop. The genre needs a boost.

The only cyberpunk fanfic worth noting (not counting DJorgensen's Wavemaker, which is good) is probably Stealing the Fire, which is absolutely and totally awful. Trust me. I wrote it.

The path of a writer is a long and tiring process and the end result is not always worth the while (like StF wasn't).