X-COM THINK TANK (Out of Character Discussion about X-COM and the Series)

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Thenlar

Thenlar

Active Member
So, I was bummed out when Chen died, and disappeared from here, but then I thought, "I wonder how the XCOM RP is proceeding? Let's go take a look." And then it's "Uhh.. 400 new posts in the Think Tank." I still read through it all. And skimmed the videos on the appropriate days.

Man, that went sour fast. Lamarque going down was just unhappy all around.

Looking forward to Season 5 myself, and I'll be coming up with a new soldier as well. Gonna havta think up a new character angle instead of "the base smuggler" to hang my big hook on.

I've long considered an XCOM RP Let's Play myself. I actually did an LP on a Facebook group for my friends, where I inserted them into XCOM and simply posted albums of screenshots with captions. It was far easier than video (I've tried) and XCOM lends itself really well to screenshot story-telling. Too bad none of my FB friends posted anything RP related.

Also, I'm in a weird position in terms of game skill. I'm too impatient for the harder difficulties, both Classic and Impossible, and end up screwing up base management and then getting people killed because they're under-equipped. Yet Normal is really just too easy. So I've toyed with the idea of Normal with certain options to help increase the difficulty, such as Damage Roulette, Red Mist, and turning off enemy health bars (I shot the Muton! ... No idea how much damage I did, no idea how much health is left. Can I throw a grenade to finish him off? Is a sniper headshot overkill? Argh!). Also, to vary the game, I do love me some Training Roulette.

I'd leave major decisions to player vote and then try to do my best with whatever abilities players picked for themselves, the direction of the research they picked, and which abduction countries to visit. Soldiers would be grouped into squads once an initial cadre was formed, so there would be battlefield familiarity (in an RP sense at least). It's all ideas I have, but I don't have a forum to do it all in, unless I just register a random forum for myself somewhere.

Either way though, it was a fun creative writing experiment here as Ryan Chen, and I intend to stick around!
 
S

Sarge-Pepper

Guest
http://season4-5.proboards.com/

Got a rough forum up, and an application process! I'll be trying to stream by the end of April, so that we can spend our time awaiting the True Commander's Fifth Coming!

Also my stream name is Sergeantatams. So people can follow.
 
ZombieSplitter53

ZombieSplitter53

Game Master
Staff member
A sad ending to a short season, but what can you say? This is an alien invasion story, and they don't always end well. If this is anything like last time, all this loss will do is motivate Odd to come back stronger then ever. I only hope I can get in this time. I was disappointed when I wasn't picked, and I'm hoping the character I worked so hard creating will get a second chance. However, I'm happy some new people got a chance.
 
Brian

Brian

Active Member
After I got all my computer issues fixed, I kinda lost the fun in it. Being a scientist really isn't my style.

This time', I won't make such a cliche soldier.
 
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Vlakvark

Vlakvark

New Member
You know, sometimes Xcom is one of those games that just makes you want to uninstall it and never play it again due to some utter bollocks the RNG throws your way.

But then, sometimes stuff like what I've had in my current playthrough happens. I have found what may be the best soldier I've ever gotten in any game of Xcom.

Shaun 'Odin' Gardner was one of the original four, and is currently my most prized soldier. As a Colonel, he has 7 HP, 94 Aim (as a heavy, no less) and 100 Will which I have bumped up to 150 Will with a mind shield and Psi armor. Second wave is a fickle mistress, and she has chosen to be kind to me.
 
Suryce

Suryce

Game Master
Well, it's to be expected with the lack of plan for a new season, but it is also due to a lot of people having troubles accessing this forum recently (this problem has been reported on Sarge's forum).
 
Taxor_the_First

Taxor_the_First

Well-Known Member
Suryce said:
Well, it's to be expected with the lack of plan for a new season, but it is also due to a lot of people having troubles accessing this forum recently (this problem has been reported on Sarge's forum).
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I can verify this. Kept redirecting me to some site trying to sell me website coding. This is the first time I've been able to actually access this site since zombie arose from the dead and posted.
 
ZombieSplitter53

ZombieSplitter53

Game Master
Staff member
Taxor_the_First said:
I can verify this. Kept redirecting me to some site trying to sell me website coding. This is the first time I've been able to actually access this site since zombie arose from the dead and posted.
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Same here. I was finally able to get on by taking the "www." off the URL. Quite frustrating. Of course, I also agree that news of a new season would help liven things up.
 
Dahlexpert

Dahlexpert

Well-Known Member
You no iv been watching a lot of origin story's, so I have a challenge for every one.The challenge is to tell your character story before during and after X-Com,and if your character died during what ever season,don't worry this is just story telling so you character never died, the rules are you have to mention there child hood what they did during X-com,and yes you can change what they did during x-com,and mention what happen after x-com.And if you had a character from season 2 and brought them to season 3,well there different people so they get there own back story,but give them a different what happen after x-com story.
 
Gahlo

Gahlo

Active Member
Dahlexpert said:
You no iv been watching a lot of origin story's, so I have a challenge for every one.The challenge is to tell your character story before during and after X-Com,and if your character died during what ever season,don't worry this is just story telling so you character never died, the rules are you have to mention there child hood what they did during X-com,and yes you can change what they did during x-com,and mention what happen after x-com.And if you had a character from season 2 and brought them to season 3,well there different people so they get there own back story,but give them a different what happen after x-com story.
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Thought I'd keep this one relatively short and I did ZERO editing, so it's super rough.

Name: Rick Warren
Occupation: Soldier
Season: 2

Rick had always lived a good life, for the most part, but everything he strived for was just out of reach. As a civilian, he was able to play college ball, but a knee injury kept him from ever going pro. As a soldier he was recruited into XCOM, but he was never able to see any field work. He was resigned to constant prep and trying to make things easier for the active troops.

One, in particular, needed more help than most. They had met before and chatted a couple times, but nothing like this. Everybody was trying to get through the day, to get over XCOMs first loss. But Aribeth? No, she was in the memorial wading waist deep through her own guilt. Through consoling her and the wake party later that day, they had grown closer. However life in such a hectic time can keep people busy, occupied with responsabilities instead of pursuing their own goal. Things go unsaid or undone, and some times it never happens.

Soon, it was his turn to fight back tears at the memorial. All that was left was a picture that he half remembered through the alcohol at the party telling her not to take and a request. A request that took him to Israel, to give the worst news. That parents have outlived their children. Word had spread that XCOM had been defeated and with no clear path forward, Warren decided to make his own. He would keep her parents safe in this crazy invsion, now running rampant. It was the only thing left in the world that seemed to matter.
 
ZombieSplitter53

ZombieSplitter53

Game Master
Staff member
Name: Ayame Kasagi (Season 2 Version)
Occupation: Soldier (Rookie)

Taking advantage of season two's lack of regulations and character rules, I designed Ayame to have a supernatural background. Based on a Chinese Hopping vampire/zombie known as a Jianshi, Ayame was a "young" woman who wandered the earth for over five centuries after her unclean death resulted in her unexpected resurrection. A victim of her gift, having been shunned by her closest friend in life and seeing that her interference with the living realm could have dire consequences when her actions resulted in the death of her sister, she spent most of her time alone, traveling the world, learning everything about life and history by experiencing it. It was a lonely experience, though it improved when she happened upon a woman who was like her, and they started a relationship. This, like most things in both her life and un-life, resulted in tragedy when the two were sold out by another of they're kind, and the love of Ayame's life did not make it.

Ayame avoided interfering with the course of human history as much as possible, and this included staying out of wars. But when the planet as a whole faced a threat from the stars, she knew she couldn't stand ideally by, and joined X-COM. One who had lived as long as she had plenty of resources to get herself into X-COM, but she still had to work her way through the ranks. While there, she made a number of friends, for despite her jaded history, she was still a fairly charismatic person. One of her biggest issues was the fact that she was quite young when she died, and thus was forever trapped in the petite body of a young teenager, but she made anyone who underestimated her pay. She also faced the issue of restoring the life energy she needed to function, a problem exacerbated by the strange mental feedback from the alien bodies and materials, but she overcame this problem thanks to two of her closest allies, Joseph Andrews and Anna Stone.

While she never saw any action, her time at X-COM was far from wasted. The interactions with her fellow soldiers melted an icy block she had built around her heart. They even stood by her side during her most unusual times, such as losing consciousnesses due to a lack of energy, temporarily regressing to a child state, and even trying to force herself on another solider thanks to an extremely low tolerance for alcohol and then nearly giving him a bad name when he did the right thing by rejecting her. Her friends even planned to defy the rules and risk getting booted from the program when she was imprisoned due to a unfortunate series of misunderstandings revolving around two brothers who liked to abuse their authority.

After the fall of X-COM, Ayame helped as many fellow soldiers as she could escape. Using what little equipment they could salvage, she started her own resistance group, with Anna Stone, too injured to fight but still a cunning strategist, taking over as Commander, and Joseph Andrews and Ayame acting as her top generals. They opened recruitment to everyone, with Ayame using her ability to read people as a way to weed out dissenters. It took fifteen long years, but by turning the aliens weapons against them, the forces of Earth were finally able to succeed because to a daring raid completed thanks to a massive battle that distracted the aliens long enough for the Mothership to be infiltrated and destroyed from within by the undead couple of Jessica Andrews and Ayame Kasagi.
 
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