How to participate in the liveblog chat:
Option 1: Whenever you watch the episode, comment on this post as you watch with whatever responses you feel like posting!
Option 2: Go to http://webchat.freenode.net/. Enter a nickname, then for the Channels field enter ##rabbitcube, and finally fill in the Captcha and hit Connect! We'll be watching Vision of Escaflowne and commenting there starting at 2:00 p.m. EST.
Except I won't, because I'm hanging out with Viga and Linkara. If one of you who is there could post the chatlog in the comments here, I'd appreciate it; I'll update the post with my own comments once I've watched the thing.
Three gorram weeks later, it's finally done! Chatlog with myself under the cut.
01[19:56] <Froborr> Say what you will about this series, this opening continues to be spectacular and I *will* watch it every time.
01[19:57] <Froborr> This recap is exceedingly helpful, because I have COMPLETELY forgotten what was going on last time in the weeks since I watched it...
01[19:57] <Froborr> Okay, yeah, I remember, Van got manipualted into dueling so he can legally be kuilled and Palas can take his mech.
01[19:58] <Froborr> Of course he instead kicks everyone's ass.
01[19:58] <Froborr> Because only a named major villain can seriously challenge a hero, everyone knows that.
01[19:58] <Froborr> The reactions of the mercenaries getting slaughtered was very Slayers somehow.
01[19:59] <Froborr> Hitomi's surprised face is lolarious.
01[20:00] <Froborr> So wait, is the king just on their side now, or is this another attempt to maneuver themselves into control of Escaflowne.
01[20:01] <Froborr> Hitomi is about to get falling down drunk isn't she?
01[20:01] <Froborr> The older princess' earpieces make her look like a Vulcan.
01[20:02] <Froborr> I wonder if the Star Trek universe has Vulcan wannabes who wear fake ears and play logician?
01[20:03] <Froborr> I see Dilandau is in the giggly phase of Anime Supervillainy.
01[20:03] <Froborr> Of COURSE there are four generals. Also: Power Spot? Is this all going to turn out to be just one giant game of Archon?
01[20:04] <Froborr> (Obscure 80s video game reference ftw!)
01[20:05] <Froborr> So Mole Man sold Hitomi out, of course, and now she's going to get kidnapped into slavery, as you do when you fall into a fantasy world.
01[20:06] <Froborr> Allen continues to be a creeper, and Eries is aware of it.
01[20:07] <Froborr> The three of WHAT?
01[20:07] <Froborr> Oh. Okay. I guess dream-Tarot can have fish in it.
01[20:08] <Froborr> It's almost like Van is a shonen hero stuck in the wrong genre...
01[20:08] <Froborr> I really like the swords in this show, have I mentioned that.
01[20:09] <Froborr> Ah, and Millerna has an arranged marriage, paralleling the king's willingness to sell Hitomi off into slavery.
01[20:10] <Froborr> I do like that, thus far, the romantic lead and the heroic lead are two separate characters.
01[20:11] <Froborr> What the FUCK are those things on the ceilign!?
01[20:11] <Froborr> Wait, is Merle being... not entirely horrible?
01[20:11] <Froborr> Wait, no, she's still awful.
01[20:11] <Froborr> It's an entire clan of Nightcrawler!
01[20:12] <Froborr> Frog-people, I guess?
01[20:12] <Froborr> No, those eyes, they're chameleon-people.
01[20:13] <Froborr> ...Why does Escaflowne look completely different tonight?
01[20:13] <Froborr> Oh, right, disguising it.'
01[20:13] <Froborr> Ooh, "shadowgraph." I like it.
01[20:15] <Froborr> Man, Escaflowne is REALLY not designed for use in the water, is it?
01[20:15] <Froborr> It's not even watertight!
01[20:16] <Froborr> Oh great, now Hitomi gets a crush on Van, too, and love quadrangle bullshit begins.
01[20:16] <Froborr> Ah, they were Gecko-people.
01[20:17] <Froborr> Damn. If ONE Guymelef can do that to the CAPITAL of a major power, how the hell do kingdoms and empires even exist? They should be getting conquered or having civil wars every five minutes!
01[20:18] <Froborr> And off they go to protect the city. This feels very much like the end of Avatar the Last Airbender, "Kyoshi Island," except they left Allen behind... sure he'll be back soon.
01[20:19] <Froborr> And here to make up for the awesomeness of the opening is the terrible ending.
[11:05] <@Sylocat> Click
ReplyDelete[11:05] <@Sylocat> Ah, this opening
[11:06] <@Sylocat> Huh, Millerna's hair DOES look a little green in the opening... I didn't notice before
[11:06] <@Sylocat> It's because the shot is at sunset
[11:06] <@Sylocat> "And Van was reunited with his big brother." She makes it sound so nice
[11:07] <@Sylocat> Ah yes, when we left off, the crooked king had put Van in a ring with these three
[11:07] <@Sylocat> Van's gotten way better
[11:08] <Arrlaari> Huh, Van just effeciently disabled the mechs without harming the pilots
[11:08] <mere_oblivion> I thought Van would be in trouble if he won, too. Instead they're sort of welcoming him? Pretending to?
[11:08] <Arrlaari> That foils the plans Froborr and I speculated on
[11:08] <@Sylocat> Uh oh... Hitomi, don't shout that out loud
[11:08] <@Sylocat> Ah, Allen phrases it more "diplomatically"
[11:09] <@Sylocat> Meiden is a lech on top of everything else
[11:10] <mere_oblivion> Hitomi can sure put it away (who'da thunk?)
[11:10] <@Sylocat> Aaaaaaaand suddenly the king is actually helping out
[11:10] <Arrlaari> It may be an act, it may be that Vaan impressed him enough and he's betting on him being the winning horse.
[11:10] <@Sylocat> True
[11:10] <@Sylocat> Oh, Millerna
[11:11] <@Sylocat> Ah, that's Millerna's sister
[11:12] <@Sylocat> Ouch
[11:12] <@Sylocat> Dilandau gets bored easily
[11:13] <mere_oblivion> Does Dilandau ever NOT doing something rash?
[11:13] <@Sylocat> Probably not
[11:14] <@Sylocat> Folken's up to something
[11:14] <mere_oblivion> I'd forgotten how great some of the music is.
[11:15] <@Sylocat> Mole Man sold them out? Oh, but they didn't believe him... that helps
[11:16] <@Sylocat> (no, we haven't heard "Marlene" mentioned before, you didn't miss anything)
[11:17] <@Sylocat> Is this a dream? It looks too overexposed
[11:17] <@Sylocat> Yep, it's a dream
[11:17] <@Sylocat> Oh, a vision... right
[11:17] <@Sylocat> Ahahah... Merle
[11:17] <mere_oblivion> That's good to know.
[11:17] <Arrlaari> They really are comitting to the catgirl thing
[11:17] <@Sylocat> Merle didn't even wake up from that? She IS a cat
[11:17] <mere_oblivion> (About Marlene, I mean.)
[11:17] <Arrlaari> Also I guess they're friends now.
[11:18] <@Sylocat> So he's gone from not charging aggressively enough to charging TOO aggressively
[11:18] <@Sylocat> This show really was ahead of its time
[11:19] <@Sylocat> You can't figure him out? He's a shonen hero
[11:19] <@Sylocat> Ah, the "I just want to be normal" Princess
[11:20] <@Sylocat> I'd forgotten about Millerna's mean streak
[11:21] <@Sylocat> Whoa
[11:21] <@Sylocat> Uh oh...
[11:21] <Arrlaari> Frog Ninjas!
[11:21] <Arrlaari> How many years before Greninja is this?
[11:22] <@Sylocat> How many evolutions, you mean
[11:22] <@Sylocat> MERLE!
[11:22] <@Sylocat> Ah... well, she didn't wait for TOO long
[11:22] <@Sylocat> Whoa, their eyes
[11:23] <@Sylocat> The king is playing both ends against the middle, or is he really just stalling Folken?
Delete[11:23] <@Sylocat> I like that Van wants to rescue her, not out of chivalry or a savior complex, but really because she saved him before
[11:24] <@Sylocat> Of course, Dilandau is already heading out to attack
[11:24] <Arrlaari> Who does Folken think he's talking to
[11:24] <Arrlaari> What is the point of even saying that
[11:24] <@Sylocat> Yeah, Dilandau is really going to listen to that order
[11:25] <@Sylocat> Wait, the paint they used to disguise Escaflowne just washes off?
[11:25] <@Sylocat> Maybe it just wasn't dried yet
[11:25] <@Sylocat> They did just paint it that afternoon
[11:25] <mere_oblivion> Hmm. Not very efficient, that.
[11:26] <@Sylocat> Oh, Merle
[11:26] <@Sylocat> And oh, Dilandau
[11:26] <Arrlaari> Already setting the city on fire
[11:26] <mere_oblivion> He tends to go a tad overboard. As you said, what was the point of Folken even warning him?
[11:27] <@Sylocat> Dilandau is just barely sane enough to be aware that Van will be more likely to stay and fight him if he starts threatening civilians
[11:27] <@Sylocat> But instead of just "threatening" them, he decides to torture them instead
[11:27] <@Sylocat> Er, "torch," I meant to say
[11:28] <mere_oblivion> But what about torch-ure??!!??
[11:28] <@Sylocat> Allen, let him go. Van's trying to lure him away from the city where he can't burn people
[11:28] <@Sylocat> or at least, not as many people
[11:28] <Arrlaari> It wasn't paint btw, it was a cloth and it caught on the bridge
[11:28] <@Sylocat> Ah, I didn't notice that
[11:29] <mere_oblivion> Ah.
[11:29] <Arrlaari> Once it was torn, it's natural that moving around in the water would pull it off
[11:29] <@Sylocat> True... I hadn't notice it was cloth
[11:30] <@Sylocat> So anyway... that's episode 7
[11:30] <@Sylocat> Have I mentioned I like how fast-paced this show is? They didn't spend, like, six episodes dawdling around Palas waiting for the attack
[11:30] <Arrlaari> Catgirl basically likes Hitomi now
[11:30] <mere_oblivion> Heavens! Out of . . . 26?
[11:31] <@Sylocat> Yeah... she makes and loses friends almost as easily as a 100% cat
[11:31] <mere_oblivion> Does she like her because she knows Hitomi likes Allen, not Van?
[11:31] <@Sylocat> Well, part of the reason for the fast pacing is that it was originally supposed to be 32 episodes, and when they found out they'd only get 26, they wanted to keep as much of the story they'd written as possible
[11:32] <@Sylocat> Probably... Merle is territorial, also like a cat
[11:33] <mere_oblivion> And hilarious, which makes it easier to forgive her . . . ALSO like a cat
[11:33] <@Sylocat> Eeyup
[11:34] <mere_oblivion> So . . . next week?
[11:34] <Arrlaari> Next week. I'll copy the chat.
[11:34] <@Sylocat> I guess so...
[11:35] <@Sylocat> Arrlaari, any further thoughts?
[11:36] <@Sylocat> I guess s/he's busy copying it
[11:37] <@Sylocat> Anyway... mere_oblivion, are you free tomorrow? Rehearsal, I just found out, is canceled
[11:37] <Arrlaari> I'm thinking about saying something about the king being willing to sell Hitomi to merchant dude
[11:37] <mere_oblivion> Huh.
[11:37] <Arrlaari> But I dunno if there's anything non-obvious to say\
I meant to ask, did you get my e-mail with the draft of my post?
ReplyDeleteYes I did! But Sean sent his first, so he got the first slot.
DeleteOh, I know he gets first slot. I was just worried I had the wrong e-mail address for you or something.
DeleteRevisions incoming, BTW.
I remember that Linkara was active on the Girl-Wonder.org message board during the same period I was. I wonder if he remembers me.
ReplyDeleteI've installed STO, but I haven't created a character yet. It looks like for free I have 3 "unrestricted" character slots, which I suppose is enough. From what I can tell, my class effects away missions, while multiplayer content (where most MMOs allow classes to really matter) is generally in space? Does it also influence ship availability? Is there any reason for me to think about which class is in high or low supply among the player base?
Near as I can tell, multiplayer is mostly for after you hit the level cap. I've done *one* multiplayer mission so far, and it was purely on a lark. There do appear to be both multiplayer and away missions, though.
DeleteYour class does affect space missions to an extent--Tactical gets "attack pattern" moves, for instance, while my Science character just got the exceedingly nifty "photonic fleet," basically a summon spell--but not as much as it does away missions, since it determines your Kit, whcih in turn determines most of your ground abilities.
Also very rarely an encounter will have an alternate solution if you're a particular class. That generally appears as a dialogue option, and can be on the ground or in space.
There does not appear to be any reason to care about the supply of classes--I've seen plenty of people trying to recruit for Fleets (the guild-equivalent) and none of them have ever requested a specific class. Ship choices are likewise not limited by class--although the three broad categories of ship (research, cruiser, escort) map onto the character classes (science, ops, tactics respectively), that's more to do with the bridge officers than your character--for instance, a research ship will have more (and higher ranked) bridge officer slots for science officers than the other classes, meaning you'll be able to access more and better science officer abilities in combat. There's also general statistical differences--VERY broadly, cruisers are slow, hard-hitting tanks that buff allies, research ships are slightly more maneuverable, slightly less tank-y tanks that debuff enemies, and escorts are fast, maneuverable DPSers.
Conveniently, the number of free character slots is the same as the number of factions AND the number of classes.
Oh, and in terms of away missions, the general pattern I've seen is that tactical officers get offensive buffs, science officers get debuffs and healing, and ops officers get defensive buffs and summons. Damage is mostly a factor of what weapons you hand out to whom.
DeleteUpdate: Made a Romulan, whom I plan to put in the Feds and join your fleet, if possible. Got through tutorial mission & logged out at the planet for my first mission on behalf of the Republic. I was never prompted to select a server or shard. Is sharding not done/automatic in this game?
Delete