• QJo (unregistered)

    The real WTF (apart from the sections named after the de rigueur TSR AD&D(TM) module names - I recognised S1, S2 and S3, and the sequel to Village of Hommlet whose number I misremember, it was after my time) is mandatory overtime.

    No, the real WTF was me lending my copies of S1 to S3 to a friend back in the early 80s and never seeing them again.

    I recently sold my entire collection of D&D stuff for an average of £30 a unit. And that includes issue 48 of Games & Puzzles from 1976 which contained a 3-page article on the game. The money some people will pay ...

  • (cs)

    I remember my frist D&D adventure. My character was almost immediately beheaded by a free optical moose

  • RFoxmich (unregistered)

    I flee frist

  • (cs)

    There hasn't been any version of D&D in recent memory where a natural 20 decapitates, unless you're using some shitty critical hit system (or playing Hackmaster). And an adventurer capable of using Fireball (3rd level spell, so minimum 5th level Wizard/Sorcerer) wouldn't be facing kobolds, unless perhaps they were super ninja kobolds like this one old Dungeon adventure had had a group of kobolds with actual classes that were pretty damn beastly, simply to show that Kobolds aren't always pushovers.

    D&D Geek minutiae aside, story was actually entertaining. Gotta love a company that has a tech executive who just so happens to be a partner in a consulting firm.. .yeah, that'll work out well. And having more executives than developers because we all know that executives do all the real work, and programmers just need to fill in the details and whip something together using scripts and databases which shouldn't take very long at all because everything has been thought of.

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    There hasn't been any version of D&D in recent memory where a natural 20 decapitates, unless you're using some shitty critical hit system (or playing Hackmaster). And an adventurer capable of using Fireball (3rd level spell, so minimum 5th level Wizard/Sorcerer) wouldn't be facing kobolds, unless perhaps they were super ninja kobolds like this one old Dungeon adventure had had a group of kobolds with actual classes that were pretty damn beastly, simply to show that Kobolds aren't always pushovers.

    D&D Geek minutiae aside, story was actually entertaining. Gotta love a company that has a tech executive who just so happens to be a partner in a consulting firm.. .yeah, that'll work out well. And having more executives than developers because we all know that executives do all the real work, and programmers just need to fill in the details and whip something together using scripts and databases which shouldn't take very long at all because everything has been thought of.

    I call racism.

  • (cs) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi

    Vorpal weapons decapitate on a critical hit. You usually roll to confirm, though- presumably that was the second 20. Now, I have played games with house rules where three 20s decapitates (roll a natural 20, roll to confirm the crit, if it's a 20 roll again- if that's a 20, bastard is dead).

  • (cs) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    Vorpal weapons decapitate on a critical hit. You usually roll to confirm, though- presumably that was the second 20. Now, I have played games with house rules where three 20s decapitates (roll a natural 20, roll to confirm the crit, if it's a 20 roll again- if *that's* a 20, bastard is dead).

    Kobolds with Vorpal weapons? Hardcore. I have played in games that used the 3x 20s in a row = instant kill house rule though.

  • Sir Galahad the Pure (unregistered)

    Liked the story very much! Well written, entertaining and with D&D.

  • populus (unregistered) in reply to Sir Galahad the Pure
    Article:
    "Hah! That fireball hits all six kobolds! Burn!" Alanna whooped as she knocked over each of the little plastic figurines.

    A woman playing D&D? I call bullshit on this one!

  • ANON (unregistered)

    A consultant company to develop a game? Is that common? (I really have no clue, but sounds strange to me)

  • (cs) in reply to ANON
    ANON:
    A consultant company to develop a game? Is that common? (I really have no clue, but sounds strange to me)
    Outsourcing game ports is fairly common. It does seem a bit odd, though, to outsource your core competency, which seems to be the case here.
  • EvilSnack (unregistered) in reply to pjt33
    pjt33:
    ANON:
    A consultant company to develop a game? Is that common? (I really have no clue, but sounds strange to me)
    Outsourcing game ports is fairly common. It does seem a bit odd, though, to outsource your core competency, which seems to be the case here.
    I looks to me like they outsourced their core incompetency.
  • (cs) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    unless perhaps they were super ninja kobolds like this one old Dungeon adventure had had a group of kobolds with actual classes that were pretty damn beastly, simply to show that Kobolds aren't always pushovers.
    You may also be thinking of Tucker's Kobolds. Huge flaming demons, pffffff. Kobolds, runawayscreaming!
  • EvilSnack (unregistered) in reply to EvilSnack
    EvilSnack:
    pjt33:
    ANON:
    A consultant company to develop a game? Is that common? (I really have no clue, but sounds strange to me)
    Outsourcing game ports is fairly common. It does seem a bit odd, though, to outsource your core competency, which seems to be the case here.
    It looks to me like they outsourced their core incompetency.
    Cursed CAPTCHA. TRWTF is any form where hitting 'Enter' in an entry field submits the form.
  • ceiswyn (unregistered) in reply to populus
    populus:
    A woman playing D&D? I call bullshit on this one!

    Wow, you must have the world's most rubbish gaming group.

  • (cs) in reply to EvilSnack
    EvilSnack:
    TRWTF is any form where hitting 'Enter' in an entry field submits the form.
    Except when the form is just a single one-line entry field and a single button marked "OK" or "Continue", in which case *NOT* submitting the form when pressing Enter is a WTF.
  • Stop scaring the chicks off, ffs. (unregistered) in reply to populus
    populus:
    Article:
    "Hah! That fireball hits all six kobolds! Burn!" Alanna whooped as she knocked over each of the little plastic figurines.

    A woman playing D&D? I call bullshit on this one!

    Presumably you prefer a sausage fest, eh?

    You're the guy spoiling everything for the rest of us aren't you, you misogynist bastard.

  • asd (unregistered) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    The real WTF (...) is mandatory overtime..

    I don't live in the states, but that country seems to be very shitty to work in. OP was fortunate he could find another job. The rest were not..

  • Dave (unregistered)

    TLDNR

  • (cs) in reply to Dave
    Dave:
    TLDNR
    tl;dr
  • (cs) in reply to ceiswyn
    ceiswyn:
    populus:
    A woman playing D&D? I call bullshit on this one!

    Wow, you must have the world's most rubbish gaming group.

    My (and many other nerds I'm sure) fantasy is to play in an all girl gaming group as the only male. Giggity.

  • cwallenpoole (unregistered)

    Just as a point of note, AS2 most certainly did have multiple options for IDE's. They weren't perfect, and they certainly weren't on par with what you can do with Java (or even AS3), but they existed.

    As far as debuggers go, I seem to recall that Flash Professional had some sort of options (though nothing serious). That said, since AS2 didn't have any real notion of "private" (things were compile time private, but if you can access an object dynamically at run time, anything goes), I was able to build my own...

  • anon (unregistered)

    How many links can you include, that was WAYYYY too many backreferences. Maybe come up with a lightbox-type popup if you're planning on doing that again.

    Captcha: jugis. The jugis is a cross between a ...

  • (cs) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    There hasn't been any version of D&D in recent memory where a natural 20 decapitates, unless you're using some shitty critical hit system (or playing Hackmaster).
    This was an optional rule mentioned in AD&D 2nd Ed. That's not "recent" by most people's terms, but people still play 2nd ed.
  • (cs) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    ceiswyn:
    populus:
    A woman playing D&D? I call bullshit on this one!

    Wow, you must have the world's most rubbish gaming group.

    My (and many other nerds I'm sure) fantasy is to play in an all girl gaming group as the only male. Giggity.

    BRAZZERS

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    ceiswyn:
    populus:
    A woman playing D&D? I call bullshit on this one!

    Wow, you must have the world's most rubbish gaming group.

    My (and many other nerds I'm sure) fantasy is to play in an all girl gaming group as the only male. Giggity.

    That'd work.

    "Right, let's smash this door down and get the treasure!"

    "Hmph. You can, we'll chip our nail-varnish!"

    "Nah. We're off to the kitchen to see if there's any cake.

    "Ooh look - an orc! Mmm, scrummy! He's more of a man than you'll ever be, right girls?"

  • anonymous (unregistered)

    I don't know about you all, but I like my articles with a sprinkle of UTF-8 flavour. Yep.

  • Chelloveck (unregistered)

    I just spent the whole time reading the article thinking, "Decapitates? How does a short little kobold reach high enough to decapitate an elf? What was it, a midget elf?"

    Midget elves. TRWTF.

  • Valued Service (unregistered) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    ceiswyn:
    populus:
    A woman playing D&D? I call bullshit on this one!

    Wow, you must have the world's most rubbish gaming group.

    My (and many other nerds I'm sure) fantasy is to play in an all girl gaming group as the only male. Giggity.

    That'd work.

    "Right, let's smash this door down and get the treasure!"

    "Hmph. You can, we'll chip our nail-varnish!"

    "Nah. We're off to the kitchen to see if there's any cake.

    "Ooh look - an orc! Mmm, scrummy! He's more of a man than you'll ever be, right girls?"

    Stop scaring the chicks off:
    populus:
    Article:
    "Hah! That fireball hits all six kobolds! Burn!" Alanna whooped as she knocked over each of the little plastic figurines.

    A woman playing D&D? I call bullshit on this one!

    Presumably you prefer a sausage fest, eh?

    You're the guy spoiling everything for the rest of us aren't you, you misogynist bastard.

    Both of you seem to be people who only relate to artificial stereotypes in movies. My, what facebook has done to people.

    For the first quote. The OP means that it's rare to have a girl in the group, not that he doesn't want a girl in the group.

    For the second quote. Not all girls are that cheap. None of those girls know what a real man is, and will probably marry future drunks.

  • Paul Neumann (unregistered) in reply to Valued Service
    Valued Service:
    None of those girls know what a real man is, and will probably marry future drunks.
    Why wait for a future drunk? I'm a drunk now!
  • Nagesh III (unregistered)

    For all the bitching around here about poorly written stories, apparently all any author has to do is make a D&D reference and they can get away with anything?

    Holy shit, this was a looooong fucking yarn, and not the least bit interesting. If you are going to write 1,600+ words, at least have a point.

  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to EvilSnack
    EvilSnack:
    Cursed CAPTCHA. TRWTF is any form where hitting 'Enter' in an entry field submits the form.
    That's what the captcha is there for. It's a fail-safe. It's like the little red plastic bit on the LAUNCH MISSILES switch. You don't enter it until you're ready to submit. It's not like it isn't already in your web browser's auto-complete list anyhow.
  • dguthurts (unregistered)

    "They" were ScriptCloud Actionware, a local startup dedicated to reinventing the world of mobile app development.

    Stop right there. "Reinventing" implies that what follows is the usual plethora of WTFs.

    One could argue that the real WFT was Eric for taking a position with ScriptCloud in the first place.

    Possible scenario:

    Eric: what do you mean by "reinventing" ?

    SC: Well, you know, we want to make it possible to write apps without code.

    Eric: Thank you, but no.

  • (cs) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    Vorpal weapons decapitate on a critical hit. You usually roll to confirm, though- presumably that was the second 20. Now, I have played games with house rules where three 20s decapitates (roll a natural 20, roll to confirm the crit, if it's a 20 roll again- if *that's* a 20, bastard is dead).

    There's an emacs keystroke for that //ducks

  • He's still a misogynist bastard. (unregistered) in reply to Valued Service
    Valued Service:
    <some pyramid quoting>

    I think you meant second post when you said first post, and first post when you said second post.

  • (cs) in reply to cellocgw
    cellocgw:
    Remy Porter:
    Vorpal weapons decapitate on a critical hit. You usually roll to confirm, though- presumably that was the second 20. Now, I have played games with house rules where three 20s decapitates (roll a natural 20, roll to confirm the crit, if it's a 20 roll again- if *that's* a 20, bastard is dead).

    There's an emacs keystroke for that //ducks

    I think you mean a customization:
    M-x customize-group vorpal-weapons

  • (cs) in reply to operagost
    operagost:
    This was an optional rule mentioned in AD&D 2nd Ed.
    Not in the core rulebooks, to the best of my knowledge, but perhaps in one of the more obscure supplements (of which there were almost as many as for D&D3.x). The normal suggested optional rule is to roll for damage twice on a natural 20.
    operagost:
    people still play 2nd ed.
    *raises hand*
  • (cs) in reply to Chelloveck
    Chelloveck:
    How does a short little kobold reach high enough to decapitate an elf? What was it, a midget elf?"
    D&D elves aren't much taller than kobolds.
  • (cs) in reply to Gurth
    Gurth:
    Chelloveck:
    How does a short little kobold reach high enough to decapitate an elf? What was it, a midget elf?"
    D&D elves aren't much taller than kobolds.

    Depends on the version; I'm pretty sure at some point they went with elves that were like close to 6 feet or taller.

    And of course there were Dark Sun elves that were what, 7 feet tall and blue-skinned?

  • (cs) in reply to Gurth
    Gurth:
    operagost:
    This was an optional rule mentioned in AD&D 2nd Ed.
    Not in the core rulebooks, to the best of my knowledge, but perhaps in one of the more obscure supplements (of which there were almost as many as for D&D3.x). The normal suggested optional rule is to roll for damage twice on a natural 20.

    Combat & Tactics, probably. 3.x had a house rule of the triple natural 20 = auto kill, but usually it was double damage (or triple and for a pick I believe x4 damage), which in 4th edition changed to automatic maximum damage.

  • (cs) in reply to ANON

    Sure, it happens. I briefly contracted at a place where the mobile developers were working on a version of what (I think) became Words With Friends--of course, for the vendor that would get all the money from sales and advertising on it.

  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh III

    This:

    Nagesh III:
    For all the bitching around here about poorly written stories, apparently all any author has to do is make a D&D reference and they can get away with anything?

    Holy shit, this was a looooong fucking yarn, and not the least bit interesting. If you are going to write 1,600+ words, at least have a point.

    Also, it's one of those questions that you ask in an interview, right up there with technologies used and source control and all that:

    "Will I be working with consultants?"

    If the answer isn't an immediate "hell no", then you look for another job.

  • (cs) in reply to populus
    populus:
    Article:
    "Hah! That fireball hits all six kobolds! Burn!" Alanna whooped as she knocked over each of the little plastic figurines.

    A woman playing D&D? I call bullshit on this one!

    Clearly you do not know some of the women that I know. :D

  • (cs) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    This:
    Nagesh III:
    For all the bitching around here about poorly written stories, apparently all any author has to do is make a D&D reference and they can get away with anything?

    Holy shit, this was a looooong fucking yarn, and not the least bit interesting. If you are going to write 1,600+ words, at least have a point.

    Also, it's one of those questions that you ask in an interview, right up there with technologies used and source control and all that:

    "Will I be working with consultants?"

    If the answer isn't an immediate "hell no", then you look for another job.

    Yeah but in my place we all are consultants.

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Matt Westwood
    Matt Westwood:
    chubertdev:
    This:
    Nagesh III:
    For all the bitching around here about poorly written stories, apparently all any author has to do is make a D&D reference and they can get away with anything?

    Holy shit, this was a looooong fucking yarn, and not the least bit interesting. If you are going to write 1,600+ words, at least have a point.

    Also, it's one of those questions that you ask in an interview, right up there with technologies used and source control and all that:

    "Will I be working with consultants?"

    If the answer isn't an immediate "hell no", then you look for another job.

    Yeah but in my place we all are consultants.

    I can't help but notice that you didn't call it a workplace.

  • (cs) in reply to Matt Westwood
    Matt Westwood:
    Yeah but in my place we all *are* consultants.

    You're "the exception to the rule" personified.

  • (cs) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    This:
    Nagesh III:
    For all the bitching around here about poorly written stories, apparently all any author has to do is make a D&D reference and they can get away with anything?

    Holy shit, this was a looooong fucking yarn, and not the least bit interesting. If you are going to write 1,600+ words, at least have a point.

    Also, it's one of those questions that you ask in an interview, right up there with technologies used and source control and all that:

    "Will I be working with consultants?"

    If the answer isn't an immediate "hell no", then you look for another job.

    "Hell, no! You'll be kicking back and partying with all the rest of us! The work's going to be done by the regular staff!"

  • (cs) in reply to Paul Neumann
    Paul Neumann:
    Valued Service:
    None of those girls know what a real man is, and will probably marry future drunks.
    Why wait for a future drunk? I'm a drunk now!
    [image]
  • I forget (unregistered)

    But.. But.. But.. they programmed in in HTML5 with XML and other buzzwords! how could it possibly fail??!

  • (cs)
    ScriptCloud would make their flagship game into a customizable platform for making any game without writing code. A library of assets could be dragged-and-dropped into the app, and it would be split into scenes through which you could navigate. In other words, Eric realized, they wanted to use Flash to make... Flash. A non-programmable subset of Flash.
    At this point I would have just started making a high pitched noise and slowly left the room.

    (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbG9rhC5wXQ)

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