Off Topic - Main

[ultifd]

The best RTS ever was Cossacks - Back to war.
It's such bad that cossacks II is such a big fail...

Yeah, too bad I can't remember my favorite RTS...I mean before Glest, you know.

[Loronal]

Dude the best war rts is Battle for middle Earth 2. Its more tactics that resource management.
THe counterpart (resource management) rts would be AOE 3+ ep 1+2

[wyvern]

Sudden strikes a great RTS

[Gabbe]

Dude the best war rts is Battle for middle Earth 2. Its more tactics that resource management.
THe counterpart (resource management) rts would be AOE 3+ ep 1+2

TOTALLY IN AGREEMENT XD

[xxcatmysteryxx]

Hilarious!! XDD watch it, only a few secs

HAHA.

[mictes]

If you like tacticts more than building bases try warhammer 40k dawn of war II Chaos Rising

[wyvern]

or sudden strike

[Gabbe]

I like simulators, thats why i staretd with game design and coding in the first place

[Mark]

Hey, does anybody know of good fantasy book/series selections?  I have read LOTR, some Lloyd Alexander (don't really like him), Suzanne Collins, Eragon and other basic ones... if you can find it in the middle school library, I have either passed it by (sometimes unjustly), or read it.  Mostly read it.  But if you know of any good fantasy involving orcs, elves or dwarves, or magic, I would like to know.  I Know that many are longer, harder to read books, but I read The Two Towers in one night, so I can read the longer ones.  I also know that there is a book or series similar to LOTR (similar characters, conflicts), but I don't know what it is called.

[wyvern]

Funny I'm writing a book with goblins elves etc... a book I suggest though its not about fantasy is something from the Biggles series, I'll try to read find some more stuff

[John.d.h]

Hmm... I haven't actually finished a novel since about 2004... but if you're looking for just "good fantasy storylines", rather than specifically restricting your search to just books, I'd recommend the "Under the Burning Suns" campaign for Battle for Wesnoth.  It's got the best storyline of any campaign I've ever played, from any genre of game, even soundly beating commercial games (Note: Wesnoth is community-developed FOSS), and the gameplay and storyline play off of each other in a way that's seemless and beautiful.  Plus, the ending totally kicks ass and it's overall a very fun game to play.  It's a pretty hard campaign, and if you're not already a fairly experienced Wesnoth player, it'll probably kick your ass, but boy howdy is it awesome.

[Omega]

Hey, does anybody know of good fantasy book/series selections?  I have read LOTR, some Lloyd Alexander (don't really like him), Suzanne Collins, Eragon and other basic ones... if you can find it in the middle school library, I have either passed it by (sometimes unjustly), or read it.  Mostly read it.  But if you know of any good fantasy involving orcs, elves or dwarves, or magic, I would like to know.  I Know that many are longer, harder to read books, but I read The Two Towers in one night, so I can read the longer ones.  I also know that there is a book or series similar to LOTR (similar characters, conflicts), but I don't know what it is called.

TERRY BROOKS! Any book by Terry Brooks (that's the author). He is a master. Start with his first series, the Sword of Shannarah (sp?) and all his books basically take place in the same area at different times. Either way, he is probably one of my favorite writers, and my dad and some of my friends will certainly agree with me! This is probably the closest thing EVER to LOTR, and should NOT be overlooked. Dunno how many books he has, but I own at least 10 and have read others from libraries/friends.

Also, the inheritance series (Eragon, Eldest, Brisinger, and an unknown 4th book that I want so bad) is very good.

Harry Potter may seem like an unlikely choice, and may not be waht you have in mind, but don't pass it over, the series is excellent.

[John.d.h]

Bleh.  I don't care for Terry Brooks.  "The Sword of Shannara" copied way too much from LotR for my tastes.  Take the main group for example.  What do we have?  A dwarf (Gimli), an elf (Legolas), two quaint peasant folk (Frodo and Samwise), a ranger (Strider), a human warrior (Boromir), a wise old magic guy (Gandalf)... yeah, the only difference is that the main protagonist and his brother aren't hobbits.  Plus, it was way longer than it needed to be, in my opinion.  I read one of his later books (the one with the airships) and it was decent, but not something I'd go out of my way to find.

Mark's tastes are clearly different from mine, though.  When I was around that age, I loved Lloyd Alexander's work.

[Omega]

I dunno, I always found him to be excellent. While its true that it isn't that disimilar to LOTR, that's partially what Mark wanted, and personally, that raises two points that I see.

1. LOTR set a lot of standards. Most stereotypes and standards for fantasy, while not necessarily created by LOTR, were largly enforced by it. Overally, LOTR covered a lot of the fantasy genre. It'd be hard to write a book that's not at least SOMEWHAT similar to it without it becoming totally alien (if you wrote a book where dwarfs are big, tall, lean men with pointy ears, it'd probably be criticized for that because people are used to dwarfs being short, stubby men, thanks to LOTR.

2. LOTR was awesome. Doesn't that make Sword of Shannarah awesome too?

It's worth noting that Sword of Shannarah was the first book he wrote, and the other books in its same series are excellent too. Personally, Elf Stones of Shannarah (I do believe that was the direct sequel to Sword, though taking place in the future, with new characters, abet, related) was the best book, and one of the best fantasy books of all time too. Wishsong was good too. The other Shannarah series were less related, but still quite good. Allanon (sp?) is really the only character who reappears in all the books because he

(click to show/hide)

appears even as a shade (ghost) after he is killed in one specific book.

All in all, whether or not you agree that it copied some elements, it is still a good book.

[Mark]

Okay.  I suppose I failed to convey my opinion of Lloyd Alexander.  I only remember one of his books (the high king), which is the last book in a series (I didn't read the other ones because this book was a gift), but I think I have read several others by him.  The High King was good, but way to short.  I also had trouble with the Gothic namings e.g. Gwythaints (Hawks), Caer Dallben (A city), Fflewddur Fflam (A bard), and Dyrnwyn (The magical sword).  However, I think all fantasy books should have at least some Gothic names cause they sound 'kickass' if I may borrow your speech style.  I want to read the rest of his books too.  The reason I don't like Lloyd Alexander as much is because his books are shorter than other books that I like to read.

TERRY BROOKS! Any book by Terry Brooks (that's the author). He is a master. Start with his first series, the Sword of Shannarah (sp?) and all his books basically take place in the same area at different times. Either way, he is probably one of my favorite writers, and my dad and some of my friends will certainly agree with me! This is probably the closest thing EVER to LOTR, and should NOT be overlooked. Dunno how many books he has, but I own at least 10 and have read others from libraries/friends.

I don't know if you are saying that Terry Brooks is the author I was looking for or you were clarifying yourself.  I think my schools library has some of his books, though I have never seen his name... funny.  I will look into him.  Thanks.

Bleh.  I don't care for Terry Brooks.  "The Sword of Shannara" copied way too much from LotR for my tastes.  Take the main group for example.  What do we have?  A dwarf (Gimli), an elf (Legolas), two quaint peasant folk (Frodo and Samwise), a ranger (Strider), a human warrior (Boromir), a wise old magic guy (Gandalf)... yeah, the only difference is that the main protagonist and his brother aren't hobbits.  Plus, it was way longer than it needed to be, in my opinion.  I read one of his later books (the one with the airships) and it was decent, but not something I'd go out of my way to find.

Do they really have the same names for the exact same characters?  That is interesting, though not necessarily a turn-off.  A mark of this authors originality, maybe, but not the entertainment the book will provide.

Harry Potter may seem like an unlikely choice, and may not be waht you have in mind, but don't pass it over, the series is excellent.

I have read some of it.  It seems to have a very unlikable character (though many books start out that way).  Also, I never understood why Harry Potter decides to wear huge glasses forever when he has magic at his disposal!    Also, I would say that the target audience is girls, not boys, and certainly not 13 year-old kids.  More like 8-9 years old.

[John.d.h]

Okay.  I suppose I failed to convey my opinion of Lloyd Alexander.  I only remember one of his books (the high king), which is the last book in a series (I didn't read the other ones because this book was a gift), but I think I have read several others by him.  The High King was good, but way to short.  I also had trouble with the Gothic namings e.g. Gwythaints (Hawks), Caer Dallben (A city), Fflewddur Fflam (A bard), and Dyrnwyn (The magical sword).  However, I think all fantasy books should have at least some Gothic names cause they sound 'kickass' if I may borrow your speech style.  I want to read the rest of his books too.  The reason I don't like Lloyd Alexander as much is because his books are shorter than other books that I like to read.

A ton of the names are straight out of Celtic mythology, many of them Welsh.  Wales has, shall we say, "interesting" phonetics.  The books are probably kinda short, as I remember reading the whole series of five books over a four-day span, back when I was something of a bookworm.

Do they really have the same names for the exact same characters?  That is interesting, though not necessarily a turn-off.  A mark of this authors originality, maybe, but not the entertainment the book will provide.

No, I meant that they were essentially the same characters as in LotR, just renamed and less interesting.  I can't actually remember what any of them are called.

[Omega]

Well, the main character of Sword of Shannarah was Shea, accompanied by his (step) brother Flick. Alanon is a druid, and there's a number of other characters, some who's names are slipping my mind, and some who I am mixing up with the other books in the series, since he often uses the same line of families (ie: the main character in the elf stones of shannarah is the son of Shea, from the Sword of Shannarah). But there was definately a Leah in Sword of Shannarah (possibly Menion Leah?).

Regardless, you will enjoy the books, I should think. I've read through most of his books multiple times and they're still very good.

[Mark]

Thank you.  I enjoy most books I read.

[Omega]

Jee, back to school. First day today, so I'm boggled down with this schedule:
P1: English
P2: Chemistry
P3: [Days 1,3,5] Phys Ed / [Days 2,6] Theater / [Day 4] Study Period (WTF?)
P4: MathA30
P5: Physics (I <3 Physics!)

That's just semister 1... No history till Sem 2... :'(

How's your guy's school starting (if it has started yet)?


Interesting... Google... phone?

http://www.google.com/chat/voice/

Hey, it has free Canada/US calls, I gotta try it sometime... Though I wonder how good VoIP technology would work on my internet...

[ultifd]

Interesting... Google... phone?

http://www.google.com/chat/voice/

Hey, it has free Canada/US calls, I gotta try it sometime... Though I wonder how good VoIP technology would work on my internet...

Hmm, I think started last year, but now it is integrated to Gmail, nice.
Yep, free for now. Maybe I should try too...

(click to show/hide)

Not bad...kinda catchy? The future Radio edit might be better though... Depends.

[Loronal]

Hey, does anybody know of good fantasy book/series selections?  I have read LOTR, some Lloyd Alexander (don't really like him), Suzanne Collins, Eragon and other basic ones... if you can find it in the middle school library, I have either passed it by (sometimes unjustly), or read it.  Mostly read it.  But if you know of any good fantasy involving orcs, elves or dwarves, or magic, I would like to know.  I Know that many are longer, harder to read books, but I read The Two Towers in one night, so I can read the longer ones.  I also know that there is a book or series similar to LOTR (similar characters, conflicts), but I don't know what it is called.

Drizzt Dourden is pretty good and all the forgotten realms books

[Mark]

@Phoenix: Thanks.

Just started school.  Actually, there was very little homework.  I got it done in 30 minutes.

[John.d.h]

I've no idea if you're into fantasy fanfic, but I really enjoyed this one: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=30782
As I recall, it's only about 88 pages when exported to PDF, so it doesn't take tremendously long to read.  It takes place on Irdya (the world of Wesnoth), but I don't think you really need any background knowledge of the setting to enjoy/understand it.

[xxcatmysteryxx]

Jee, back to school. First day today, so I'm boggled down with this schedule:

That's just semister 1... No history till Sem 2... :'(

How's your guy's school starting (if it has started yet)?

My school Started Tuesday Augest 31st. I have been having a great start already been making new friedns and such. I'm a feshman now. oh and you know what PICTURE DAY WAS THE SECOND DAY OF SCHOOL AND 3RD. like whoa wtf never heard of such a thing. Anyways cuz of school i won't be on much anymore so yea.... TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!!! Happy Birthday to me. I'm 15 now . Later I will explain my classes.

[Gabbe]

dang, stil some days til im 15..

ANY WAYS GZZZ!!!!