Thinking about getting a DS finally, but I have a question about the wifi. The DS doesn't support WPA encryption, right? I have a Wii, and it supports WPA. Is there any way to use the Wii as a gateway for the DS or something? I really wouldn't want to turn off the WPA encryption, because I live in an apartment with hundreds of people within wifi range. Thanks!

Ok Pixy (and anyone else who is playing and enjoying Etrian),

I'm going to give the game another shot but need a generally recommended party. I think the dancer and the whip using class are kind of cool and would love to see a party where they could be used well. Any recommendations?

Don't know about WPA but it supports WEP... can't you use that instead?

I would suggest having a landsknecht, a medic and an alchemist as the required members. This covers your damage dealing and damage healing. The last two slots you can fill with any of the other classes for support roles. Your two choices would make great, fun assists. The dark hunter can really screw up monsters indirectly and the troubadour has most excellent stat boosting skills (as well as a delicious experience boosting skill).

I'm actually going to create a second party soon once I've unlocked the last character class. :D2:

Wait, there are new classes to unlock?

The game is sounding much deeper than i previously thought.

Nope, DS is WEP and unsecured only. The only other option you have (and I don't know much about this) is to get the wireless Nintendo USB dongle for the PC. It'll basically share your PC's connection using a WEP-subnet, so to speak. You keep your main network WPA and the DS uses this portal.

My understanding is that only DS/Wii clients can connect to the dongle, but don't quote me. It is certainly worth checking out.

Etrian v. FF3
 

Thanks for all the discussion about Etrian Odyssey and FF3.

Final Q: I am coming from an 'old school' turn-based RPG background (Ultima Series, etc), and more 'recent' games like Arcanum (PC), KOTOR (XBOX), etc. For those that have played FF3 & Etrian, which one of those would you recommend for me?

Use WEP and MAC filtering.

You can hack it to connect to anything with wifi.

Here is link with step by step instructions
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/390312

Note it would be far better and cheaper to buy a wireless router. Just pick one from nintendos list to insure it will work before buying.

Both games are wonderfully old-school, but Etrian Odyssey would be closer to the old PC games like Ultima. You get to create your party out of several character classes and then build them as you wish as each class has something like twenty different skills to put points towards. The entire game is a first-person dungeon and there's more emphasis on exploring and building characters then following a story. FF3 is a good choice for a more casual-fare RPG.

Thanks for the tips. My party now has a Land, a Dark whip-wielder, a medic, a mage, and a troubador. So far it has been very hard and pretty fun.

In honor of the help you gave me Pixy, i named my big burly warrior Pixyjunk. :lol:

Awesome. :lol:

The first stratum is probably the toughest simply because you're still learning your characters and skills. Build a skill path for your characters now. If you go to the "Custom" menu you can see which skills require previous skills to unlock. Also, unless I'm already focusing on a specific skill path, I usually save up a few points (3-5), then I'll save and assign the points to skills to see how they work, etc. and reset once I know what I want. But don't be too worried or picky about it, you can reset all your skill points once you get to level 30 (at the cost of 10 levels, but you'll go back up REAL quick at that point). Try to have about three points for each gathering skill (chop, mine and take) early on.

I just made it to the fourth stratum last night. I got a rare drop that allowed me to craft what appears to be an ultimate weapon (114,000 gold) so I'm on the quest for cash at the moment.. even though I've got new weapons and armor ready for all my characters.. the stats on that weapon are preventing me from even spending money at the inn! I've been behind on quests, so I'll probably try to tackle a few of those now.

Yeah, planning out the skill tree is kind of rough because it is just a list. I wish it was more graphic (like a branching tree) like in Diablo II. It is also rough to know what is useful and what isn't. For instance my whip person gets all those bind skills but i wonder how effective the binding really is. I could see investing in them and then finding out the bind effect only occurs 5% of the time and then they were a waste of points.

Resting sounds good though, because if i am enjoying the grind i could rest and try out new skills.

Do you eventually get a way to warp to a deeper level? It would be horrible to get to a 3rd or 4th level, come back to heal, and have to walk all the way back down.

The skill paths are pretty easy, most advanced skills just require a couple levels in a previous skill. There's nothing that would require a "tree" per se. All I know about binding is that at its simplest, it prevents skills from being used. Binding the head disables magic and binding arms disables melee skills, for instance. Since it's pretty much the dark hunter's specialty, I'm sure it's not a mere 5% thing.

Also, concerning "resting," you get a massive experience bump for beating monsters above your level, so dropping by ten and fighting the same monsters you've been fighting (you will still have all of your stronger weapons and armor after all) will get you back up to speed pretty quickly. If you're truly hardcore, you can "retire" a character and make a new one that has more starting skill points based on the retired character's level.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the game.. just keep your bearings up to and through the first major boss and you'll be fine.

That's what I do.

How come this thread isn't a sticky like the other system threads?

I read his original request as he already has a wireless router running WPA and doesn't want to shut it off because of the proximity of neighbors.

WEP & MAC filtering would be better than just WEP, but that's still not very secure, is it?

I always thought MAC filtering was fairly secure. I don't know much about it, but it seems like you'd have to somehow get the list of approved MAC addresses off of the router and then spoof one of them. Unless you've got something valuable on your network, I'd think the nogoodniks would just move on and find one of the many unsecured networks (the ones still named "linksys" with the default admin password still in place ;) ).

I asked that on page one, and it was because the threads isn't as active as the others :shrug:

:hscratch:

Am I the only one totally addicted to the game, in Brain Age 2? I can't stop playing it! :D

I've had the game since launch, played it every day, but haven't unlocked it. How do you unlock it?

In the 'training menu', I just selected the last '???' and it opened up.

Thanks, I'll give it shot.

As for why this isn't a sticky -- equal time. Due to this forum's strict "no console bashing" rules we need to give the same treatment to all consoles. So, while there is enough activity in this particular threw to justify a sticky, there's not enough in the PSP thread. So this one can't be a sticky until there's more postings there.

Hudson is updating their classic Gauntlet clone Dungeon Explorer for the DS. To keep it up with the modern times it now appears to be more of a Diablo clone.. and yes, it has four player Wi-Fi play! This is another day one purchase for me.

http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/2...76666,0,0.html

Drawn to Life comes out in a couple weeks and looks interesting. It's a platformer where you get to drawn the main character, vehicles, weapons, and in-game objects. Could be a lot of fun if the gameplay outside the drawing segments is worthwhile.