Chaos

Thats so awesome. Was the signing epic?

Fortunately for me, the Steel Ministry has plenty of corruption

It's like a gigantic collaborative fiction project set in the Final Empire. If you get on Skype sometime, we can totally tell you all about it, in addition to the tons of guides already there. The way I understand it is that, if you were sick, you could store less health before dying than someone who is healthy, right? You could store health maybe at a 1x rate, but a healthy person could do 2x or maybe 3x. Now, it is apparent that your body remembers your "true" age, because the Lord Ruler snapped back to his true age very quickly. (This isn't totally mysterious, and I remember there being a topic on this. After all, once you finish tapping iron, your body goes to a "neutral" weight. The body remembers what the true one is.) So as the Lord Ruler gets older, the age available for him to store is getting less and less, similar to someone getting sicker and sicker. So at the end, the Lord Ruler could only store a very tiny fraction of his age. So, he would need to burn atium more to get the same effect, simply because he has less age in his stores. That's how I understood it. I think then your question is "Why can't the Lord Ruler store the age he just Compounded?" Well... he can't, I guess Does Miles store the health he receives after he Compounds it?

Yeah, I loved the Final Empire assassination bit. That was so cool, and so useful for MBI. Speaking of that, Windrunner, you should tooootally join MBI It was pretty great. He laughed but not as big as the time we asked, "If you put all the Shardblades and Shardplate in on eplace, will they come together and make a Voltron?" EDIT: Joe, I don't think the Lord Ruler would have made it to the next time the Well of Ascension refilled.

Congrats! That's so exciting, Kim!

You know how sometimes, news stations will say "late-breaking" to say that a story is happening right at that moment? This is not one of those. Needless to say this is a very late report of, let's say, "an event". I got the opportunity to ask Brandon some questions, so I did. I wasn't able to transcribe Brandon's exact answers, but the second I could, I wrote the notes of the facts that I learned. Some of these answers are things you guys have learned since then. So this is the transcription of the notes that I made after this event, along with my comments trying to remember why the crap I wrote the crap that I did. Here goes. Inquisitors knowing how to Compound: some may have figured it out at some point. I got the impression it was not a technique the Lord Ruler taught them. Shards and Shard intents: Holding a Shard is a contest of willpower against the Shard that, over time, is very hard to resist. Shards affect you over time, but your mind will not leave a permanent effect on the Shard. A holder's personality, however, does get to filter the Shard's intent, so to speak. However, if that holder no longer held that Shard, the Shard will not continue to be filtered by that person. Sazed's two Shards do not "cancel out", as Brandon said that it would like being pulled by two huge gravitational tides. You can get to a way that you aren't instantly ripped apart, but that doesn't mean you don't feel it. EDIT: When asked what effect the Shards would have on Sazed, Brandon said, "Read Alloy of Law to find out". Sazed is a Shard. Just like a king of two countries is still a king, a holder of two Shards is a Shard. I don't remember what prompted me to write this, or what impression I had that made me write this, but I wrote: Anyone can take up a Shard. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. I would not have written this if it was not crystal clear to me that this is what Brandon meant. Odium wants to be the only Shard. Odium could pick up other Shards if he wants to, but, he doesn't want to. His Shard is a good match for his personality and he doesn't want to be influenced by another Shard. Brandon said offhandedly, "It is not random who got which Shard." Also, Shards very rarely change hands. Brandon emphasized the "very" there. Seons are remnants of a dead Shard. We asked some questions about the Lord Ruler, like if he knew about chromium and nicrosil. Brandon said he knew about those metals, and then also said "The Lord Ruler knew a lot of things that no one knows." All right then. I continued to ask about the Lord Ruler and his Allomantic strength. There's an upper bound to the amount of power you can get from being a savant. Brandon said that, obviously, the Lord Ruler wasn't using duralumin and Elend could only get that powerful in Soothing using duralumin. He implied that there was a way to Compound to enhance Allomancy. (Note, we have discussed this on the forums a while back. This isn't news.) We asked if it was possible to use bronze to Seek Feruchemy. He said it could be possible. If it were to happen, it was very hard, because the Inquisitors would desperately like to be able to find Feruchemists that way, and it was implied they had not discovered this power. So, it is a freaking hard technique to learn, if possible at all. If you are Smoked, you can't Seek. Ketchup does not exist in the Final Empire, since it is from a fruit, which are flowering plants. The Lord Ruler did not engineer fruit. Mostly people eat vegetables and roots. For people really into the obscure workings of the politics of the Final Empire, we asked about the legality of assassinations. It turns out that you have to ask the obligators' permission to assassinate someone--and permission, of course, means bribe in this context. The Steel Ministry can say yes or no. Presumably more high level people would cost more money to be killed. Of course, if the Ministry says no, you can always risk it and assassinate illegally, but you'd have to be very careful not to get caught. Even with legal killings you need to keep things quiet. Brandon said the Steel Ministry has much more corruption than governments in our world. Corruption which we would abhor is commonplace in the Final Empire. Lerasium overwrites Spiritual DNA. It can do some interesting things, and can overwrite your Spiritual DNA in different ways if you do it right. If a Surgebinder ate lerasium, he would become an Allomancer, but Brandon implied other things could be done. Some other things that I had overheard and noted: Shardblades can be willed down. We see this with Dalinar slamming the Shardblade down into the stone at the end of the Way of Kings. What happens to Seons during the Reod is that the Reod messes with the Seon's spirit. The Shaod is an effect of Elantris. Allomantic pewter strength can be stored in a metalmind, but it's probably easier to just Compound. Feruchemy is about multipliers. The more the Lord Ruler aged, the less "multiplier" he could store in his metalmind. And the more he aged the more he would need to Compound to stay alive. There could exist an upper bound to the amount of time the Lord Ruler could survive off this trick. At one point, the Lord Ruler tried to quit and end the Final Empire. There is a way to get a non-powered person to access a metalmind. (Presumably now, with the Mistborn RPG, we know that this may have something to do with Identity.) One does not have to kill someone with Hemalurgy to charge a spike, but it rips off a large part of the soul. The person would not be the same. As it turns out, there is an error in the Feruchemical table when Brandon put it in Mistborn 2. If you look closely, Determination (insert metal) doesn't belong in its group. The group that it is in is obviously more physical powers. Determination was supposed to be a mental metal, and Warmth was supposed to be in that Physical group. He just made a mistake originally. But it turns out that Feruchemy obeys different rules than Allomancy, so Brandon isn't retconning it, but saying that Feruchemy works differently now. Apparently there was going to be a table of Feruchemy at the end of Alloy of Law, but it wasn't ready because Isaac kept thinking like an Allomancer. Feruchemy has its own rules (for example, Brandon confirmed that pewter does steal Feruchemical health, probably because that second group of physical Feruchemical powers are also "physical", so pewter can steal them.) Hemalurgy also obeys different rules. Yes, so, this happened at Alloy. There's no excuse for this level of lateness. Don't kill me. Meep.

So Partials is out and getting awesome buzz pretty much everywhere. I haven't read it yet, but who has? What did you think? Anyone planning on getting it?

I'm really glad you like it! I know Reputation has been my favorite feature since upgrading in February last year. I really love it, too.

Can you change your character class at the start of the game, like ME2?

That's what happens when you upvote my posts, dude Still, you'll probably get to the next reputation level before me. I would also like to announce that we have also passed 30,000 posts on the site.

That is so awesome. Um, was this supposed to go in another thread? What? I would like to announce that our General Theories boards have over 4000 posts, and our Mistborn boards have over 5000. Holy freaking crap, you guys are awesome.

On the Kelsier write-up, yes, it was woefully inaccurate, but I really appreciated Stacia Kane's response in the comments. She did try to do her research and she's looking to read Mistborn very soon. In fact, her candidness and niceness makes me like her a lot. Also, Sir Read-a-lot gets mad props for diffusing the flame war. Good job, man.

Josh had told me that fact, and he was there personally, so that's good enough for me, if not explicitly recorded down.

Rubix likes Ecstasy as a Shard.

That quote would be more convincing if it was in the interview database format, Zas I would like to announce I am in Maui. It is so gorgeous.

Holy crap, that's awesome. I really don't think anyone has read that "Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for" correctly until just now. (If someone has, please correct me on this) We always focused on the "Realmatic interactions" part. Okay, so. This changes everything, guys... Unless, you know, everyone already figured this out and I just totally missed this. EDIT: I am nothing if not a dude who likes fancy, impressive sounding theory names

Dude... holy crap. You just described the theory that I was going to post this weekend! The Shardworld must have some effect on the magic. After all, everything has a Spiritual aspect, so an entire planet surely has a huge one, which must have some sort of effect. Technically I thought Brandon said the magic was a combination of the Shards and interactions between the Realms, not the world specifically, but I'll need to look it up. So, wow. What did you do to get telepathy, and how can I get it?

This theory is certainly plausible, but we need to know more to say for sure. For example, it is perfectly possible that a Shard doesn't have a pair. However, when I tried to categorize Shards in this way, I did pair Endowment and Cultivation, so that makes sense to me. One thing you should think about is how Shard-Complements deal with different focuses. Ruin and Preservation share a focus, and are the quintessential example of Shard-Complements. Under this theory, should we expect that Surgebinding, Voidbinding (assuming this is Odium's magic, of course), and Cultivation's magic to have separate focuses? It would be logical if Shards can only share magics if they share the same focus. However, I asked Brandon if Preservation and Endowment went to a planet, could there be new magics, and he said it is possible. So that's a problem. We do eventually need a theory that describes why Shards can share focuses, and if they do, which Shards can share focuses. That said, I like this explanation the best why there aren't seven magics on Roshar. Yeah, I think that was a theory, not a confirmed fact. It's a good theory, however. EDIT: I just came up with a wacky idea about that focus problem. I'll try to post it this weekend.

I agree with Eero. Go in order. The decisions in the second game have more weight when you play the first one. I would assume in the third game that gets very key. They are all great games in their own right, but I should warn you, Mass Effect 1 is slightly buggy (they optimized the engine a lot better in 2). However, you won't really know the difference until you progress

I'll be getting the 360 one. We might be able to do that, that'd be cool.

I thought I'd make a thread for this game, even though I do not yet own it (nor even have time to play it if I did ). You know, I used to be a pretty big gamer growing up, but I hardly have any time for it now. It has to be a very special, addicting game for me to want it. Usually this means a story-heavy or some other RPG game. The game I played most recently was Pokemon Black and White, and that was nearly a year ago. Sure, games have came out since, like Skyrim. That's nice. But my time is precious, and if I'm already invested in a series, that makes it so much easier. And never have I been truly invested in a game series like Mass Effect. Since playing Knights of the Old Republic, I've been a fan of BioWare and their storytelling skill (KOTOR had such an excellent plot twist). When Mass Effect came out, I was enthralled. The story, with the conversation wheel, was so engaging, and the universe was so deep and compelling. Mass Effect 1 had another phenomenal plot twist, too. Best yet, the decisions you made would influence the next two games. After how disappointing KOTOR2 was, I thought this was amazing. Mass Effect 2 is the best game I've ever played. From a technical standpoint, it's just a beautiful, well-oiled game. From a story point of view, it was phenomenal. Really, this was such a fantastic way to structure a trilogy. It's a little like Empire Strikes Back, in that things get much more personal, and it's more powerful for that reason. The choices in Mass Effect 2 were some difficult, challenging decisions to make. You're invested in this world so much that the choices aren't really black-and-white anymore. I don't want to say much, in case people haven't played it (and you totally should), but the one at the end of game made me put down the controller and pace around my room for ten minutes. Sure, I'd beaten the game, but there was the imminent threat of the Reapers coming in Mass Effect 3. I had to really choose what would be the best for the galaxy. No longer was a game's morality system just the good option or the evil option. Well, Mass Effect 3 is here at last. The Reapers are invading the galaxy to wipe out all sentient life. Considering the ending of Mass Effect 1 was an intense battle to destroy one Reaper, I'm frigging terrified to fight all the Reapers. I have no idea how to win, how it is even possible to defeat something like that. They've killed sentient life in the galaxy every 50,000 years, like clockwork. How was my Shepard supposed to win? It's going to be awesome. If Mass Effect 2 was the best game I've played before, I want Mass Effect 3 to be even better. I want it to become my favorite game ever. I've never been so excited for a game, nor had such high expectations. I sincerely hope BioWare knows what it is doing. But it seems that from the reviews, it is amazing. Apparently there will be some serious casualties. It isn't like Mass Effect 2 where you can save everyone, but it's your decisions in the past games which will determine who dies. This is incredibly exciting to me for whatever reason. In Mass Effect 2, my crew died because I waited too long (because of some stupid DLC) to get to the Collector base. I had thought I was going to replay the whole game, but knowing that people will die in this game makes me less upset about losing some people before. I have no idea what ME3 will be like. I'm not going to look at any guides to this game; I want to be totally surprised. (Just FYI, since I won't be able to play this game for two months, at least, if you spoil the game for me, I will track you down and kill you in your sleep.) But first, I need to play some ME2 DLC, like the Liara one (I love you, Liara!), and then it is onto ME3. So, has anyone played it? Is it good? I do have a question, for players who imported a ME2 character: can I change my class at the start of this one? My normal Shepard is a Soldier, but my secondary Shepard is an Adept, and I liked the biotic powers so much better.

the mightiest door.

Yup. In fact, I upvoted you. You know who your true master is. (Spoiler alert: it's me). Join me, and we shall rule the galaxy! Man. All this upvoting this early in the thread. It's like, I Would Like To Announce -- Episode II -- Attack of the Upvotes. Obviously, the rest in the saga will be I Would Like To Announce -- Episode I -- The Phantom Upvotes I Would Like To Announce -- Episode III -- The Revenge of Chaos I Would Like To Announce -- Episode IV -- A New Upvote I Would Like To Announce -- Episode V -- The Downvotes Strike Back I Would Like To Announce -- Episode VI -- The Return of the Upvotes I'm sure by Episode III, I will be back on top. EDIT: Oh, I should probably upvote announce something. I would like to announce that I simply can't wait until my new mouse comes in tomorrow. My MX Revolution started registering most clicks as double-clicks, which is endlessly infuriating.