D&D Next

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Zurai
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Zurai »

TiLT: I wasn't counting third-party products when I referenced sales numbers for 3.0/3.5. Why? Because those products aren't D&D branded and thus do not and have never counted for D&D's sales. First party WotC D&D products outsold all other tabletop RPGs combined up until 4th edition was announced. The SRD did not ruin 3rd edition. Lack of an SRD ruined 4th edition.

If WotC hadn't gone moron mode and removed the one thing that made 3rd edition a wildfire success, Paizo would not have made their own game. They were one of the four or five companies that were given early access to the license agreements and such for 4E, and (like pretty much everybody else in that group), decided that it simply wasn't good business sense to take Wizards up on the offer. In fact, it was better business sense to roll the dice and make their own RPG.

The 3.0/3.5 SRD didn't cause the downfall of D&D. Moving forward without it did.

Also:
Also, about a year and a half? As of right now, 4E has been out for 3 1/2 years. 5E is very unlikely to be out before the 5-year mark.
I said 4.E. Notice the "point". I was referring to Essentials, which is the rough equivalent of 3.5 (and it was the second or third time I'd referred to Essentials as a revised edition in this thread). It changes about as much of the game, the only difference is that you can choose to play without it if you want.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by IceBear »

I never really noticed much different about Essentials. The basic rules were the same, they changed some treasure allocation rules and they tweaked some DCs for skill checks (which were done in errata). Really, the only thing I noticed in Essentials was they provided "AD&D / D&D basic" versions of the different character classes - which you didn't need to use, or you could use partly (ie, instead of taking the options provided when leveling up you could choose to use the normal PHB options). Maybe I was wrong, but the only rule changes I saw in Essentials was minor stuff
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Re: D&D Next

Post by TiLT »

Yeah, there's a difference between the transition between 3E and 3.5, and the the one between 4E and Essentials. Where the former was an upgrade to the rules that more or less obsoleted the old one, Essentials is an alternate, simplified version of 4E for a different crowd. It's a symptom of WotC maybe having misjudged their player base, but it's not a replacement for 4E and never will be.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Zurai »

For the record, in case it wasn't clear, I'm not trying to say that Pathfinder is a superior game or that 4E universally sucks. All I'm trying to say is that the market indicates that 4E isn't selling nearly as well as 3.0/3.5 did, and that the reason for that likely has at least something to do with customer discontent.

In point of fact, I don't even think I play Pathfinder any more. I say "I don't think" because our PF game hasn't officially gone on hiatus, but we recently discovered a new system (Burning Wheel Gold) and it's all we want to play right now. I doubt I'll be picking up D&D Next when it releases at GenCon next year, and if Paizo were to go insane and announce a 2nd edition of Pathfinder, I doubt I'd be picking that up, either.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by IceBear »

Rule quality aside, one of the things that didn't help WotC, was buyer fatigue...I know many people were annoyed with having to replace their 3E books for 3.5 books, so when relatively shortly after shelling out for the 3.5 books they were told 4E was coming and it wasn't going to be compatible with their 3.x books, Pathfinder was WAAAAAAY more attractive (again, this is without even discussing which is "better")

Thanks for the recommendation on the new system...I will give it a shot
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Odin »

TiLT wrote:The Invoker could be a debuffer.
The fact that there's such a concept as a "debuffer" in D&D pisses me right off, and is another example of the WOWification of the game that I dislike.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Zurai »

I can't speak to 1st edition or Chainmail, but since AD&D, a Wizard's best role has always been buffing, debuffing, and battlefield control. Damage on spells just doesn't keep up with hit points on challenging monsters, and save-or-dies are high level spells reserved for either oh-shit situations or displays of power against peons.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by TiLT »

Odin wrote:
TiLT wrote:The Invoker could be a debuffer.
The fact that there's such a concept as a "debuffer" in D&D pisses me right off, and is another example of the WOWification of the game that I dislike.
"Debuffer" is just a word and is nothing new to D&D or any other RPG. Any character that specializes in reducing the combat effectiveness of enemies qualifies, and this goes for pretty much every RPG out there with combat. The only relation to WoW is that the word first started being used for this purpose with MMORPGs.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by IceBear »

Yeah all the concepts existed in D&D before, they just described it in terms that video gamers could understand to help them transition to the medium. Classes having roles, for example., isn't so much a hard and fast thing, but more so someone could quickly grasp how to play their character, in general. That doesn't mean that is the only way to play that character but it is a good starting point for someone who is new
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Re: D&D Next

Post by TiLT »

Roles are one of the most brilliant things WotC did with 4E, and I hope they keep something similar for the next edition as well. At first it seems like an obvious MMORPG imitation, and in some ways it is. However, what it truly does for the game is to make every class viable. Previously you always had to have a cleric in the group if you wanted to be anywhere close to effective, even if no players really wanted to play a cleric. Now even new players to the system can at a glance determine which other classes serve a similar function so that they can find something that appeals more to them. Once you choose a class, there's nothing stopping you from going outside of your role and doing something different. In fact, later classes are specifically built so that this becomes a viable option.

It has to be said that the role, which sounds limiting on paper, is anything but in actual play. Take the cleric for example, which is the archetypal leader. He can be built in at least 4 radically different ways (not counting the players' own designs), but the two that immediately come to me without opening the books are the traditional distance healer and the melee leader. As a ranged healer he'll stay out of fights and focus exclusively on healing and buffing. As a melee leader he'll be in the middle of things, dishing out damage and inspiring his companions through action. They play very differently from each other. Then you have other leader classes, such as the Artificer from Eberron, that play nothing like either of those again. Despite sharing the Leader role (which is essentially the healer role), the Artificer doesn't have all that much actual healing to offer. Instead his abilities are more about making the other players more effective by improving their equipment and by giving them temporary hit points. He serves the same kind of role in a party as a cleric, but they go about it in two wildly different ways.

Those who strongly dislike the role system do it because they feel it's artificially limiting (in addition to being inspired by MMORPGs), at least as far as I can tell. The truth is that it's not limited at all, but only serves as a guideline for players and GMs so that they can be more confident about choosing exotic classes without having the party suffer for it.

In fact, the amount of exotic classes in parties these days may (and I'm just speculating here) be one of the things that are going to be changed with 5th Edition. I wouldn't be surprised if all that was available to us with the core book are the traditional basic classes: Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Thief. Since WotC states that they want to go back to the roots of the system, that's the first thing that strikes me as likely.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Blackhawk »

I always found the very idea of having a 'tank' that could hold 'aggro' in anything other than a fast paced video game to be absurd myself.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by WarPig »

The closest thing we have to a "tank" in our 3, 3.5, and Pathfinder campaigns is a barbarian who had some cool taunting/intimidate feats. And that didn't always work. Can't taunt the ochre jelly.

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Re: D&D Next

Post by hentzau »

Blackhawk wrote:I always found the very idea of having a 'tank' that could hold 'aggro' in anything other than a fast paced video game to be absurd myself.
I really don't get the hatred that a defenders mark gets. At it's most basic, a fighter can mark a target that he is adjacent to, and if that target makes an attack against someone other than him, or moves away from him, he gets a free attack against the target. Plus he screws with your attacks against another character if you do choose to attack another target. Why is that so game breaking and hard to rationalize? It's not like it means the target CAN'T attack another character, just that there will be consequences if you do. I got no issue with it at all.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Zurai »

Yeah, a lot of the complaints against Defenders are just plain uninformed. And this coming from someone who's not especially fond of 4E. None of the Defenders that I'm aware of can force enemies to attack them, except perhaps with a high-level daily. What they do is punish enemies for not attacking them. That's entirely reasonable. It still lets the enemies try to geek the mage, but it makes it a real choice rather than a no-brainer like it was in previous editions. It's one of the mechanical things that 4E actually did quite well.

One of the biggest complaints I have about 3.5, and by extension Pathfinder, is that there's very few (balanced -- Antagonize, I'm looking at you) ways to actually protect your companions as a melee character, unless we're talking about fighting in 5' corridors. One of those few ways is in the Book of Nine Swords (the Iron Guard's Glare stance), which was basically a test run for various 4E mechanics. It really sucks to try to play a sword-and-board Fighter in 3.5 and to have enemies just run past you because there's nothing you can do to stop them, and you can't even complain to the DM because it's absolutely the intelligent thing to do.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by IceBear »

Yeah, you're not "holding aggro" or even taunting the target into attacking you (which is why you can mark an ooze or mindless golem, for example). It's basically a build on of the AoO rules from 3.x where you'd get a free attack if someone dropped their guard around you. The defender is focusing himself on a target (marking). If that target doesn't focus his full attention on the "tank", then the "tank" will spot an opening and attack. And as has been pointed out numerous times, a mark doesn't mean the DM turns off his brain and just has the monster attack the defender, but he will have to make a choice. Hell, in our Dark Sun game, the DM is ALWAYS going for the healer (to the point where he's not roleplaying the monsters in my opinion but trying to "win", but that's a seperate issue), to the point that the guy playing the healer has played every non-divine healer in the game (he tries a different one every time he dies) and that's with the monsters being marked.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by IceBear »

Latest info from Monte Cook. Not sure how they can pull this off, but it would be awesome if they can
First and foremost, as Mike said, this isn't another salvo in the so-called edition wars. This isn't an attempt to get you to play Dungeons & Dragons in a new way. This is the game you've already been playing, no matter what edition or version you prefer. The goal here is to embrace all forms of the D&D experience and to not exclude anyone. Imagine a game where the core essence of D&D has been distilled down to a very simple but entirely playable-in-its-right game. Now imagine that the game offered you modular, optional add-ons that allow you to create the character you want to play while letting the Dungeon Master create the game he or she wants to run. Like simple rules for your story-driven game? You're good to go. Like tactical combats and complex encounters? You can have that too. Like ultra-customized character creation? It's all there.

In this game, you play what you want to play. It’s our goal to give you the tools to do so.

This new approach comes out of a single idea. At its heart, D&D isn't about rules. It's about participating in an exciting fantasy adventure. The rules are just the means to enable that to happen. They're not an end unto themselves. The reason most of us play is for the story that arises out of our games. We talk about the green devil mouth in the Tomb of Horrors. The diabolical plans of Strahd in Ravenloft. The cowardly kobold Meepo in Sunless Citadel. These stories bring us together. As D&D players, we shouldn't allow rule preferences to separate us. In the end, we have a lot more in common than we have differences, even if some of us prefer the simple-yet-wahoo style of old school Basic D&D and others the carefully balanced elegance of 4th edition—or anything in between.

So if this new endeavor is just like your favorite prior version of the game, why play this one? First, we hope you're going to enjoy the distillation of the things that make D&D the game we all love into a single, unified package, with the ability to pick and choose other options as you desire.

Second—and this sounds so crazy that you probably won't believe it right now—we're designing the game so that not every player has to choose from the same set of options. Again, imagine a game where one player has a simple character sheet that has just a few things noted on it, and the player next to him has all sorts of skills, feats, and special abilities. And yet they can still play the game together and everything remains relatively balanced. Your 1E-loving friend can play in your 3E-style game and not have to deal with all the options he or she doesn't want or need. Or vice versa. It's all up to you to decide.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Zurai »

That definitely sounds intriguing, but I'll reserve judgement until I see it.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Blackhawk »

It sounds a little bit like GURPS. Not in execution, but in concept.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Zarathud »

I feel a disturbance in the gaming continuum. The sound of thousands of DMs groaning about meeting the expectations of all of these different players and playing styles.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by hepcat »

Wouldn't it be great if they released the game as 17 books costing around 50 bucks each?
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Re: D&D Next

Post by IceBear »

Well, $50 each might be a bit much, but Hasbro wants money and with everything being called "options" I suspect there will be the basic book and then you buy the options you want to add on. I feel the designers would rather not go that way, but Hasbro controls the business side of things and they do have to make money to stay alive. As Zurai said...I'll wait for release before I pass judgement, but now that I have a son, spending money automatically on new RPG books is no longer an automatic thing for me so this might be the edition where I stop.

As for meeting all the different play styles that's been an issue for awhile and the DMG 1/2 for 4E were pretty good at giving advice for that, but if Monte's update was true above some of it should be transparent to the DM's. Whether or not you have a player that wants story or tactical combat has been an issue since the beginning and compromise has always been required to make everyone at the table happy (roleplayers, power gamers, story tellers, tactical gamers, etc).
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Zurai »

I'll admit, one of the things that's really nice about Burning Wheel is that the core book only costs $25 and the three completely non-essential optional books are also only $25 each. You can get the entire set for less than the PHB, DMG, and MM for any given edition of D&D, Pathfinder included. Also see my comments above about not having bought any hardcover Pathfinder books.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by hentzau »

Just ran a playtest.

Wish I could tell you guys stuff.

But I can't.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Smoove_B »

Does the NDA prohibit you from describing your experience using a color commonly found in a box of 12 crayons?
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Re: D&D Next

Post by The Meal »

Smoove_B wrote:Does the NDA prohibit you from describing your experience using a color commonly found in a box of 12 crayons?
Or putting a marker at an arbitrary distance across the screen underneath a quoted image?

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Re: D&D Next

Post by stessier »

:lol:
Very nice!
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Odin »

hentzau wrote:
Blackhawk wrote:I always found the very idea of having a 'tank' that could hold 'aggro' in anything other than a fast paced video game to be absurd myself.
I really don't get the hatred that a defenders mark gets. At it's most basic, a fighter can mark a target that he is adjacent to, and if that target makes an attack against someone other than him, or moves away from him, he gets a free attack against the target. Plus he screws with your attacks against another character if you do choose to attack another target. Why is that so game breaking and hard to rationalize? It's not like it means the target CAN'T attack another character, just that there will be consequences if you do. I got no issue with it at all.
I'd have to go back and re-read the 4E rules (which I have no plans to do) to remember all of my concerns about "tanking" in 4E, but I'm positive it wasn't just that one ability that concerned me.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by IceBear »

Well, in respect to "tanking" that's really all there is...marking as described above. I suspect, the fact that they codified the roles for the various classes and how they decided to borrow ideas from MMORPGs is what bugged you. And, I've said this before, but reading the PHB and DMG is completely different than actually playing it. I read the books, saw the stuff about marking, thought it seemed silly and obnoxious, but then when I played it essentially did what they wanted to do with fighters since 1E - allow them to protect the rest of the party. The main issue with 4E, in my opinion, is that they really went too far with the balancing so that things were too homogenous. That is part of the reason they came out with Essentials; some people wanted to play a fighter that didn't have powers like a Wizard, but just a simple to play class. From reading some of Monte Cook's posts on D&D Next, it's something they sort of agree with - Balance is important, but how they go about balancing might be different this time.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by WarPig »

Well, in regards to tanking...

There are some taunt abilities (in 3.5/PF at least) that Barbarians can take that work similarly; make the bad guy get negatives fighting anyone else until they attack you. There are other things that can amplify this, but you're not really "tanking", just giving the enebmy incentive to hit you while your caster/glass cannon deals out some nasty damage from afar (preferably).

I am an avid 3.5/PF gamer; never touched 4E other than a cursory read through of the PH. I am currently active in 3 PF campaigns with a druid, monk, and summoner (synthesist archetype...so easy it's almost broken). needless to say, we spend a lot of time interpreting rules ourselves and between glaring omissions that Paizo makes in their publications and just plain "rule fuzzyness", we allow our GM's a lot of leeway. Simpler rules would be simpler, but would quantify things less for our nerd brains. I'm afraid our desire to follow a strict ruleset gets in the way of our imaginations.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by IceBear »

WarPig wrote:Well, in regards to tanking...

There are some taunt abilities (in 3.5/PF at least) that Barbarians can take that work similarly; make the bad guy get negatives fighting anyone else until they attack you. There are other things that can amplify this, but you're not really "tanking", just giving the enebmy incentive to hit you while your caster/glass cannon deals out some nasty damage from afar (preferably).
That's pretty much 4E "tanking" too. DM makes a choice to attack someone other than the tank at a penalty (plus, some class ability, fighter free attack, paladin damages them, swordmage gets to teleport in and get a free attack).
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Re: D&D Next

Post by hentzau »

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Re: D&D Next

Post by hentzau »

Monte Cook has left WotC and the D&D Next project.

Must admit, I'm not heartbroken about this.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Apollo »

I still have a huge box crammed full of First and Second Edition AD&D rulebooks, modules, maps, dice, etc. What I wouldn't give to have a group of geeky friends to invite over for the occasional D&D all-nighter, but I guess those days are gone forever... :cry:
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Re: D&D Next

Post by TiLT »

Apollo wrote:I still have a huge box crammed full of First and Second Edition AD&D rulebooks, modules, maps, dice, etc. What I wouldn't give to have a group of geeky friends to invite over for the occasional D&D all-nighter, but I guess those days are gone forever... :cry:
I figured out long ago that I don't need close, geeky friends to play roleplaying games. Nowadays I call up my closest friends if I'm starting a new game, followed by asking them to ask their friends, and even posting on Facebook (you'd be surprised at how effective Facebook can be at this sort of thing). I've never had any issues gathering a group. I actually run two game campaigns at once now, one for D&D 4E and one for Rogue Trader. RPGs have just gotten more fun to play as I've grown older.

The risk when bringing in unknowns in your group is that they could turn out to be complete idiots, so you'd have to be prepared to deal with that in some way.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by malichai11 »

I've had a really fun group of guys that I've gamed with over the past couple of years and none of them started as close friends. One guy I found on a local message board and he then brought in a couple more guys. The other guys were friends of friends. I dealt with the idiot factor by simply booting out the crap players and replacing them with other friends of friends. Eventually, we found a really great stable group that's been running strong for almost 2 years. 5 of the 6 guys GM, and at least 3 of those 5 are really GOOD GMs. Ages range from 29 to 37.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by hentzau »

Open playtest of the rules has started. If you haven't signed up for the playtest before this, you can head over here and sign up to download the playtest packet.

They've had a few bumps with the launch, with people not getting e-mails and some packet corruption issues and the like. Just an FYI. (I'm still waiting for my e-mail myself...)
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Re: D&D Next

Post by IceBear »

I've kind of lost interest. I saw that Vancian magic was coming back and for the first time I just don't have the finances to justify buying the books :(
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Re: D&D Next

Post by hentzau »

IceBear wrote:I've kind of lost interest. I saw that Vancian magic was coming back and for the first time I just don't have the finances to justify buying the books :(
Vancian magic may be the deal breaker for me as well. I was talking to my 16 year old daughter on the way to school today about the new rule set being released, and she said (quite rightly) "I like the way the game is now! Why should we change?" But, I'll give it a good look and see what they come up with.
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Re: D&D Next

Post by Zurai »

Screw that; they can't even bother to make their account creation page compatible with Chrome. I wasn't that interested anyway.
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IceBear
Posts: 12519
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2004 5:58 pm

Re: D&D Next

Post by IceBear »

Ok, I downloaded and looked at the rules. To me it's basically 3E again with some nods to 4E. All the complexity with reach and monster sizes seem to be back as I noticed it discussed in several places. Vancian magic is there and it isn't. Cantrips are at will spells, and unlike cantrips in the past, some of them do damage. The magic missle spell we're all used to 1d4+1, never misses, with extra missles every 2 levels is now a cantrip, as is shocking grasp and a few others. Rituals are still in the game. Dying is sort of a cross between 3E and 4E. When you are in negative hitpoints you are dying and have to make death saves (DC10 Constitution save - roll d20 add CON modifier and get 10 or better), if you make 3 death saves, you stabilize and are no longer dying. If you fail, you take d6 points of damage. If you ever reach negative (LEVEL + CON SCORE) you're dead.

Healing surges are gone, replaced by healing kits. Basically, you take a short rest and if you still have uses left in your healing kit, you can roll your Hit Dice to see how much you heal. So, if you are a 2nd level fighter your Hit Dice would be 2D12. If you take a short rest you can spend a charge from your healing kit and roll up to 2d12 to regain hitpoints. However, you can only ever spend 2d12 worth of dice until you take a long rest. So, I guess you could take a short rest, roll 1d12 then later take another short rest and spend another 1d12, but then that would be it until you sleep.

Dunno, it's kind of growing on me as I read it, though I don't like that cleric's have to either heal or attack again. I liked that the healer in 4E could heal and still do something else, though keeping other people alive should be enough I guess :)
Last edited by IceBear on Thu May 24, 2012 1:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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