It's time for another installment of "Good Idea, Bad Idea". Today's episode is about Xenosaga III. Possible Definite spoilers follow.

Good Idea: Being able to earn experience points while inside Gears.
Bad Idea: Making Gears' power be completely divorced from the level of the characters.

Good Idea: Optional bosses.
Bad Idea: Making one boss dependent on beating another, more difficult boss.

Good Idea: Shops.
Bad Idea: Having the best weapons and armor in the game in the shops at reasonable prices. What's the point in even looking for equipment when the best stuff in the game costs 10% of your cash reserves total?

Good Idea: Closing all the open plot threads.
Bad Idea: Not ever bothering to explain why she isn't named Elly.

Good Idea: Sending a character with the appropriate family name to the appropriate place so that others with that same family name will make sense in a game which is supposed to take place later in time.
Bad Idea: Promptly killing said character off (even if it was in a show of selfless sacrifice).

Good Idea: Explaining who the mysterious character that joined your party for no reason two games ago was. (And who just happened to be on the ship you were using)
Bad Idea: Jesus.

Good Idea: Not giving you a game over if you die to an optional boss.
Bad Idea: Keeping any items used when you were fighting said boss.

Good Idea: Having characters dress in a way that elludes to their successors.
Bad Idea: Giving them the same damn outfit.

Good Idea: Exposition of the backstory of the main characters.
Bad Idea: Psuedo-time travel, but its really just in your head, kind-of not really.

Good Idea: Continuing a recurring theme.
Bad Idea: Mary Magdalene

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So, I've decided to set up my UT2k4 server again. It hadn't been up (at least not regularly) since sometime sophomore year, so I figured it would be a good way to put the second core on my fileserver to use. I'm still working on trying to figure out how I had the stat logging set up before (the old UT2k4 scripts were one thing that was lost during the migration from magi to mystique), but for now it should be accessible at mystique.blade.io. It may even be visible through the listing of all internet games.

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So, this past weekend I finally got around to completing the main quest in Oblivion. After having made several false starts at attempting to play through Morrowind previously, I think I have discovered what the fundamental problem with Morrowind was: it didn't even try to engage you at the beginning. In Oblivion, like Morrowind, you start off imprisoned and are quickly released. Unlike Morrowind, the time inbetween is spent introducing you to the way the world works (i.e., a tutorial) and provides an interesting character (voiced by Patrick Stewart) to draw you into the world.

After playing through Oblivion, I may take a stab at playing through Morrowind (probably not going to try going back as far as Daggerfall). Oblivion was most impressive for its scope, but that same scope became annoying late game when I was simply running through areas to get it done. I closed at least half of the Oblivion gates that I needed to close without attacking a single enemy--I just ran past them all and grabbed the McGuffin.

Oh, and when you are fighting the Big Bad near the end of the game, make sure that you walk behind him, sneak, and do a charged stabbing attack for 6x damage in the middle of his monologue. It will teach him a valuable lesson.

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So, I've been in France since monday for an operational readiness review. Earlier today (Tues), we had an ~12 hour meeting to go through all sorts of aspects of satellite preparedness. It was grueling.

The next few days, we'll be addressing all of the issues that were raised at the ORR. Hopefully, there won't be too many open item assigned to JPL and I'll get a chance to wander around Toulouse. I'll post some picture that I've taken once I get a chance.

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