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[9:45:41 AM] Brigs: Just registered my username as Elimbier. [9:45:59 AM] Brigs: Time to go native. [9:48:30 AM] Fush: Not Elimbeiber? Missed opportunity [9:50:10 AM] Brigs: Hey, the more the merrier. [9:50:59 AM | Edited 9:51:06 AM] Fush: yeah, uh, no, thanks

I hope you stick around Polaris, because you've pretty much said what we secretly wanted but didn't know how to say it, and expressed it so coherently and impressively. That's a fine post. Please make more in the future. Take note DDI, I think Polaris is right and you need to stick with LRR's form of gameplay. No one else does it the way LRR does.

I've got some things to say. This little rant is meant to be read by both the developers of the new Rock Raiders game and the fans and forum posters alike. So this is going to be a long post - I apologize in advance - but it is only because I feel very passionately about this issue. The final word count clocks in at 2,100+ words, but good words, I believe. I encourage you to read through what I have to offer because I think it is some of the most CONSTRUCTIVE advice you're going to receive. Also included in this post are several illustrations I made trying to convey the concepts I have in my head. I'm sorry if they are confusing or difficult to read - I'm not the greatest artist, but I'm also not a tech guru, and I felt that a pencil and paper would better represent the thoughts and suggestions I had. Okay, let's dive in! First things first. There is great concern for the whole "Minecraft" thing being a large part of this game's inspiration. Though I too share this concern, I want to explain and possibly defend the developers stance on this. Minecraft is a game which is so deceptively simple to learn and universal in its approach that it has won the world over. What developer wouldn't want to make a game like this? Also, the obvious connection between mining in Minecraft and mining in Rock Raiders is valid and an understandable conclusion to make. In addition to this, there are many great features of minecraft that would serve a Rock Raiders game well - like a large sandbox to explore and mine in! I remember being a kid and playing the mission "Frozen Frenzy", (one of my personal favorites). I knew darn well where the Tunnel Transport was, (it was in the only spot of the map that when you scrolled over it, the screen dipped down because of the hidden waterfall!) but I would play the level just to collect resources and build my base as big as possible, just like a sandbox game. And that's where the similarities end, and honestly, should end. Someone once told me that Minecraft is the Pac Man of our generation. I wholeheartedly agree. 20 years from now, people will remember the cultural legacy that this game has created and any game that follows too closely in its footsteps will be forgotten in its wake, just like all those Pac Man clones of yesteryear. I'll get back to the Minecraft thing in a bit, but for now I'll move on. So from the looks of this discussion, it seems the developers have come to conclusion that there are two ways to approach the mining in this new Rock Raiders game - I'll lump them into two categories titled "Freeform" and "Grid". Here's a picture comparing them both: In a previous post, there was concern for "Freeform" mining because it would be tricky to fit vehicles into tunnels you create and I 100% agree. "Freeform" is not the way to go. Well that leaves us with "Grid" mining like Minecraft right? Wrong. "Blocks" are the devil. Remember that. It's important. If you make a game world out of blocks, you are making Minecraft. Simple as that. I could stop now honestly. Minecraft's influence over culture is so strong that simply making your game world consist of blocks that are breakable and buildable, you are creating a game that can and will be seen in the public eye as a Minecraft clone. Same with making an objective-less open world sandbox game with an emphasis on mining - you are making Minecraft. Simply put, do not make Minecraft. But let's get real. There is money in Minecraft. And money is important! It should be! You, as a game designer, have every right to make money off of your product. Hopefully, a lot of money! But I have to explain something that is vitally important to this new game's success - as it stands, there is literally NO market for this game in its current direction. Let me explain. You have two fundamental fan bases you are targeting: fans of the original Rock Raiders and fans of Minecraft. Original Rock Raider fans aren't actually that hard to please! They understand that legal limitations restrict certain things and mainly just want a game that plays much in the same way and recaptures the spirit of the first game. For the most part, they don't care that it's not Lego, or that you can't reuse music or textures or whatever. They just want something faithful to the original. Not really a tall order if you ask me. Then you've got the other targeted fan base: Minecraft fans. This is where the real money is. It's important that you get these people to buy your game! But here's the truth: Minecraft fans don't want this game. At all. I'll try to explain why by using an example. I'm a big guitar guy. I have many electric guitars and one of my favorites that I own is my Gibson Les Paul. If you're not familiar with guitars, think of the first guitar shape that pops into your head. Then think of another - it's that one. Anyways, say there is a new guitar company coming out, and for the sake of this comparison, let's call them "Raider" guitars. So Raider guitars come up to me and tell me that they've made a guitar they think I'll like. So I take a look at it - and it looks just like the Gibson Les Paul I own and love! Not only that, but they've got new features like and 3rd pick up and a whammy bar - things I don't have on my guitar! For intents and purposes, this guitar could sound even better than the one I have right now! But I hate it. I can't explain it, but for some reason I hate it! Logically speaking, it meets every criteria I look for in a guitar so I should naturally like it, right? Well, there's a little part of my brain that shouts "it's nice and all, but they just copied my Gibson! They just emulated the Gibson and added fancy features. They didn't innovate on an original idea". This is so important to understand. The Raider guitar didn't fail because it was a bad guitar, or because it was competing against an already well established guitar - it failed because it tried to take on a powerful BRAND. It's stupid, I know, but we are but animals and brand loyalty is a powerful, sometimes unbeatable force. I'm somewhat partial towards Gibson guitars, so I passed up the opportunity to play that Raider guitar. I gave up the chance to play a better guitar. And now, more to the point. Minecraft is the Gibson of gaming. No matter how great your product is, if it specifically emulates Minecraft features to reach that audience, they will hate it. If you try to take on the brand of Minecraft, you will lose. So how do we fix this? We hide our influences. Right off the hop, "blocks" are a dead giveaway, so we can't do that. Also, marketing your game as Lego + Minecraft isn't doing anyone a favor as you own the rights to neither, so what are we left with? Rock Raiders. Of course! The answer was there all along! So let's look at the original Rock Raiders and what it did right. IMPORTANT: Now is the time to really tune in, because this is where things get CONSTRUCTIVE! So here's the basic layout of an RTS game, like the original Rock Raiders: It's awesome! Keep it. So let's look at the basics that made the game great. The game was based on a single flat plane in which a grid system dictated where you could build, mine, and move. Mining was done in the form of breaking down rock "walls" that allowed passage to new areas previously unseen. I have to stop for a second to point out that this is brilliant. This format of mining based solely on "walls" is so brilliant, creative, and easy to understand, it baffles me why you would look anywhere else for inspiration. Game designers should be copying your system of mining, not the other way around. So this is my proposition for the direction you should take with this new game. It should be a grid based RTS mining game set on a flat plane that utilizes the "walls" mechanic from its predecessor, with the option to play the traditional "mission" styled gameplay, or a sandbox mode. That should be the basics. Forget "blocks", (they're the devil, remember?) "walls" are where it's at, brother. So now I'll give you some ideas expanding on this premise that may inspire you! First off, I understand the need for verticality. You want to mine deeper and deeper for new materials - I get that! I do too. But the flat plane is essential to make the "walls" format work, so here's my solution: Multiple planes. This diagram will show it better: So let's say you start on Level 1, (LV1). There are some materials and resources for you to gather, limited monsters, and that's about it. You don't have access to the better materials you need to make better buildings and vehicles. So you need to dig deeper. The deeper and deeper you go, the more difficult the game becomes, with more monsters, landslides, and other hazards. In addition to this, this allows for interesting color schemes and level features as you progress to deeper layers, greatly expanding the creativity you can pool into your project. Now, either at predetermined spaces or at viable spaces based on what's underneath them on the lower level, you will have the ability to build "ramps", allowing you to travel into a deeper level, in this case LV2. These pictures will show it better: Now you may be thinking, "how will I keep track of all these different levels during gameplay?". Well to be frank, that's your job as game developers, but here's one way I think would work great - basically, only one level will be "active" on your HUD at a time, the others will move to the top or bottom of the screen and become greyed and translucent, moving them effectively out of the way, while still keeping them "within reach", so to say, so each separate level doesn't feel like a whole new map. Then you simply could scroll the mouse wheel up and down to switch between levels quickly. In this instance you'd scroll up to move to LV1 and down to LV3. On the Wii, all it'd take is a quick upward or downward sweep of the hand. Simple. Effective. Awesome. Beyond that, please continue with some of your great ideas - the vehicles, (and possibly buildings) based on parts is also brilliant! This would work flawlessly in the format I have suggested. Basically, make this game an expansion on the direction you originally took with the first Rock Raiders and you'll please everyone. The original fans will love it because it gives them what they already love. The Minecraft fans will like it because it is DIFFERENT enough not to offend them and offers things that Minecraft doesn't have. This makes it appealing to everybody - the true thing that made Minecraft so successful. If you've managed to read this far... thank you. I am very passionate about this matter and it made it very easy for me to go on forever about this, so I apologize again for the lengthy read. And if the developers of the original game actually are reading this, I only have one more thing to say to you. Thank you. I cannot express in words how much your original game meant to me in my childhood. It was basically my first step into the world of gaming. I spent countless hours playing and replaying missions, (never could beat that last one though! And I love the Rocky Horror Picture Show reference there!) and even had to get my dad to buy me the Lego sets from the game, which he later told me was very tough to do, as they had discontinued the Rock Raiders line before I had played the game. I tell you honestly that the Rock Raiders series is still my favorite Lego series that they have ever released, no matter how short lived it was - largely due to the awesome game that you produced. Me and my brother still say words like "Dirt!" and "Tool Store!" like the characters from that game time to time. And when it comes down to it, even if you screw up this next installment, I'll always have the original to play. I hope you don't, mind you, but if "blocks" are in any way a fundamental part of this games structure, you can consider it DOA. Finally, I'd LOVE to hear feedback on my points made, as I feel all are constructive and supportive. We all want to see the best final product possible. Thanks for reading.

It has always been said Cyrem wrote the book on LEGO Rock Raiders modding. I found the book to prove it.

[10:03:51 PM] High Weedmeigh: She essentially cheated on her boyfriend (Problem A) at least 5 times to gain favours with people in the press and other developers (Problem B) for a game regarding a problem she's never had and didn't research (Problem C). [10:05:27 PM] Alcom Isst: I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this was pulled off. [10:05:36 PM] High Weedmeigh: Simple. [10:05:42 PM] High Weedmeigh: Girl meets Person 1. [10:05:51 PM] High Weedmeigh: Girl f****s Person 1. [10:05:55 PM] High Weedmeigh: Girl meets Person 2. [10:06:01 PM] High Weedmeigh: Girl f****s Person 2. [10:06:02 PM] High Weedmeigh: etc etc [10:06:39 PM] Ciprian: So now she has 5 babies who don't have dads. [10:06:41 PM] Ciprian: That is sad. [10:06:56 PM] Fish: I... don't think it works that way

I've had this for awhile… and I have no intention of ever touching it again so you can haz. "Linked" means that it will change with anything else marked as "Linked" I wish tabs would work in posts, but this is good enough I guess… Edit: Wow, those spelling errors that went right over my head.

This is irrelevant. Minecraft is popular, that's what matters. …? *because they work and the simplicity of it makes the hardest part of making a custom map scripting the NERPS or whatever. It is questionable at this moment if you actually read Polaris' post. Because it is not possible to get a big bulky ANY vehicle, such as that the equivalent of a Chrome Crusher, through blocky terrain? I thought this had been established already. So what do I call all the Minceraft clones, then? The people who copy Minecraft do it with the intent of copying Minecraft; For all I care, they don't even know Infiniminer exists. (And they probably don't considering they were stupid enough to think they could get money from a Minecraft clone in the first place.) The only similarities I see between Infiniminer and the other is the basic concept - Manipulating the environment and mining for resources. I hope you understand what I'm at here.

You don't need "more research" to see what we're talking about, it's already on the "analysis screenshot". I've added a line to illustrate. Though the screenshot of the PC/PS2 island on there is flipped horizontally - did you flip it, or did Xiron flip it, or was it taken with the mirror mode cheat on, or...?

It was something that struck me when I was thinking about the direction of this future game. If you've got the name "Rock Raiders", and you intend on making a spiritual sequel, some things from the original have to carry over. Since they don't have licensing to use Lego figures, (or Minecraft elements for that matter!) there's only the gameplay system left to reincarnate. A "wall" system is where it's at! Thanks for seeing eye to eye with me on this! I can only hope DDI does as well.... Also, Sandwiches FTW

10/10 would buy my own book.

atdstrings - ATD strings converter Converts the binary strings files found in LEGO Racers 2 and LEGO Drome Racers to and from their binary formats. Downloads Windows Mac GitHub Repo Usage On Windows, you can simple drag-and-drop the file you want to convert onto the "atdstrings.exe" file. On other platforms run "/path/to/atdstrings FILE_PATH" by the command line. Note, if the file you are trying to convert to already exists, it will not overwrite it. You wil need to move/delete the file out of the way manually before converting (when run by drag-and-drop, you won't see any notification of this). Notes The best encoding to open the text files using seems to be either "Western (Windows Latin 1)" or "Western (ISO Latin 1)". If some of the non-English characters look funny, this is the encoding your text editor should use. The ATD strings format allows for single-byte characters and two-byte characters. Two-byte characters are represented in hex in the text format, escaped with the pipe symbol ("|") on either side. For example, the multi-byte character "0xABCD" would appear as "|ABCD|" in the text file. Now you might be thinking, "How can I enter the pipe character?". Oh ye of little faith. Although the game does not use the pipe symbol anywhere (though it appears to be is in the LDR font), you can escape the "|" with another "|". So a single "|" in the binary format would be "||" in the text format. I'm not sure anymore what the multi-byte characters in LR2 and LDR are, but the Swedish LR2 and French LDR strings files have them. P.S. I haven't actually tried MOD-ing in-game text, but it does convert the game's binary files to text and back to binary perfectly, with the files being 100% identical. Let me know if you have any trouble. P.P.S Sorry this took me so long, but this was a low-priority project for me and the encoding issue was tougher that I originally thought.

I'd thought I'd post this for the sake of knowledge. The two(more if you count the one in each language folder) LRS files (QBUILD/DEFAULT) in MENUDATA are quite simply save games. You can in fact replace your normal save game file with either and the game will work fine... and you'll get the racers that come with them.

Hello, here's a new music for you! It's inspired by electricity, and it's very serious and spazzy. More than Mech. http://youtu.be/x0lQrHiWpts Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/c24dubstep/c24-tesla

Original text: "Ultimate Skill Points is going to be another form of point, as well as Mad Pain Points." ...35 translations later, Bing gives us: "This crisis has also hurt." Hmm, so the crisis ITSELF brought on more Mad Pain Points. We are also privileged to see "The endpoints is pain."

Three raiders left. Mael, who had just finished his sandwich, had to cast the deciding vote to find the Mafia once and for all. *heavy drumbeats* Mael looked up and said "Seaborgium. And that's final." *boomm boomm* Seaborgium was told to leave RR HQ and see how, if at all, Xiron was doing. So he left and went into the tunnel, armed with a drill, a scanner, and not enough sandwiches. What he didn't know was that aidenpons had secretly placed dynamite buried half a stud down into the soil. So he waited... until ever so faintly "Unit Teleported Safely." Checking up in his personal Chrome Crusher they found nothing. Except that there was a little hatch where the shouldn't have been. Inside the hatch was found bottles of poison, large quantities of dynamite, energy crystals with a note 'For luring monsters,' and a piece of dynamite reskinned to look like a Sonic Blaster. Seaborgium was the Mafia. Seaborgium, you deserve a round of applause. This is your first game here, and probably the first in your life or else you'd have joined sooner. Congratulations on dodging blame, placing blame, cleverly lying, on a first round. *can't be bothered finding a confetti gif* But what I do have is my Chrome Crusher set around here... and there's a green laser... CONGRATULATIONS END ROUND... 9? 8? Yah, I think it's 8.

Thanks to a comment McStudz made, I, the impulse addictgamer that I am, have opted to create a blog following my rant in a status update on the recent proposition to split my state into six states. -------------------- Some of you might claim 50 isn't enough. Some of you may think splitting each of the Hawaiian island into their own states should be our next course of action. And some of you outright believe Scotland is the home of my kitty, Mr Prinzer Fluffypants the third. Believe what you want, but I don't even have a Mr Prinzer Fluffypants the third. Now then, Quignas (I thought that's how the first word was spelled? Daaang. I was so off Sorry about that!) Quisoves Pugnat took my wild ranting, sat down, and actually thought about it (or maybe he stood? I wouldn't know). He proposed that possibly, just possible, one of the six new state governments would be fiscally adept, -- If only. This is America, after all. I once remarked on some fellow's exuberant spending habits, and he nonchalantly replied "Welcome to America, baby!" -- although such an occurrence would be unlikely, in his opinion. Anyway, me being the glass cannon that I am, I set off on another rant about turkeys and pajamas what these states could do theoretically and practically. For one, never ask people to come up with 6 new flags. That stuff's scary, man. Consider 6 financially responsible governments versus one government that just throws money out its window (does anybody actually do that? I'd camp out near that Window. Not under it, though. Because if they're throwing out money, they're likely throwing out other things too). Yes, a reboot for the one government, giving 6 new governments a chance to take responsibility for what they're doing with all these new officials and whatnot has a chance of resulting in a fiscally adept government. However, there would be many redundancies introduced. And money would be lost for all of these redundancies. Like choosing new six state birds, and hunting down 6 new state minerals. Geeze, you know how hard it is to choose a state mineral? Should we go for the light blue chalcedony, the dark blue, or carnelian agate? And what about pets? You can't brag about your pampered San Francisco poodle anymore, since you like one bridge too far to even be in the same state! Guess you'll have to give up the idea of using your poodle as the state flag, too. the education system in particular. The more pieces the state would be broken into, the more money'd be wasted. All of those additional bureaucracies, legislatures, 6 concurrent debates on where to build the stadium for the Sacramento Kings instead of just 1, officials, and systems. All superfluous and a huge waste of money and time. So, it's unlikely that even if the resulting 6 governments are more fiscally adept than the 1, they may very well not end up outweighing the permanent whirlpools of money waste the redundancies represent. But(t) if we're talking practically, that's not the only thing to consider. There's a big difference between interstate and intrastate such as the complication women are from Venus and men are from Mars represents. More overhead is never a good thing. You learn this when you use computers and don't have frequent flyer. Interstate adds complications that would end up costing even more time and money the government, businesses, and even people because who gives a cat's buttocks about businesses? We're people, not TV stores, for crying out loud! Somebody change the baby's diaper, it's stinky and noisy in here. And don't forget hidden losses. They're like the invisible ink writing on contracts that lets the company play spoy. And finally, the tank in question:

Original text: "It's been a while since my last post here, let's see what we can do." ...35 translations later, Bing gives us: "It was here, in the United Kingdom post office know what to do." It seems that in the UK post office the employees have a certain experience and ability at finding lost stuff. By the way, "post" in the result has the same meaning as in the original text, just noticed in the path. Original text: "I completely finished Ratchet and Clank, the first game, yesterday! The last skill point was pretty difficult to get though." ...35 translations later, Bing gives us: "The seventh game of the best of today's technology, it is difficult to achieve." Let's take a look at the path: "A seventh game is today the best technology, hard to reach." This means that game producers like Insomniac Games, to make their seventh game had to spend time and money on a new technology?

"Written by Cyrem" needs more space on the cover.

[8/20/14 6:00:39 PM] Alcom Isst: On 8/20/14, at 4:54 PM, juliette.eu wrote: > heyy Oh no, my pet skype bot is back. [8/20/14 6:02:07 PM] Stan McStudz: hah [8/20/14 6:04:30 PM] Alcom Isst: I think I broke my bot. [8/20/14 6:05:04 PM] Stan McStudz: I had a bot once. [8/20/14 6:05:09 PM] Stan McStudz: I killed it.

Hmm... I'm not so certain. Why would the lighthouse be on top of the cave? I suppose it's possible, but your placement hinges on the existence of a correlation between the geographies of Sandy Bay in both versions of the game, something I'm not seeing from the picture you posted. Even if there is a correlation, I'm not certain why the cave makes sense. There's nothing suggesting it's existence in the GBA version. Surely that peninsula to the north of it makes more sense. It even corresponds to the map better, by virtue of being on an extremity of the island.

[8/14/14 8:50:21 PM] Fush: On 8/14/14, at 7:52 PM, jamesster wrote: > it's 10pm, do you know where your tights are? It's 10:30, there's tights everywhere LATER, MCJOBLESS FIXES SKYPE... [8/15/14 5:18:57 PM] xx7xxxpowersxx: OMG YES [8/15/14 5:18:58 PM] xx7xxxpowersxx: IT WRKS [8/15/14 5:19:01 PM] xx7xxxpowersxx: SKYPE WORKS [8/15/14 5:19:05 PM] xx7xxxpowersxx: AND IT LOOKS BETTER [8/15/14 5:19:07 PM] xx7xxxpowersxx: ABOUT TIME [8/15/14 5:19:52 PM] noghiri: There's a GOOD update? [8/15/14 5:19:54 PM] noghiri:

[8/9/14 4:26:55 PM] Alcom Isst: On 8/9/14, at 4:26 PM, Arthuriel Aurillion wrote: > or did it just slowly turn into the today's version of tumblr? OR DID IT SLOWLY TUMBLE INTO TODAY'S VERSION OF TUMBLR. [8/9/14 4:27:06 PM] xx7xxxpowersxx: f****ing Alcom. LATER.... [8/9/14 11:27:47 PM] jamesster: MWAHAHAHAHA [8/9/14 11:28:04 PM] jamesster: I HAS DONE ITTTTTT [8/9/14 11:28:11 PM] Hugh Wotmeigh: Telling people in a drama forum to burn, baby burn. [8/9/14 11:28:12 PM] jamesster: SUCK IT NETDEVIL I CAN HAX UR DEAD GAME [8/9/14 11:28:16 PM] Hugh Wotmeigh: What a way to spend sunday. [8/9/14 11:28:23 PM] Hugh Wotmeigh: On 8/9/14, at 11:27 PM, jamesster wrote: > SUCK IT NETDEVIL I CAN HAX UR DEAD GAME ohgoditfinallyhappened [8/9/14 11:28:27 PM] Hugh Wotmeigh: he's snapped