TheOtherTed

"Always it is the brave who must die. The soldiers."

Awesome. Even the hair is iconic.

Wear and tear? How do you mean?

Not an easy question. First, we don't have anything to approximate an iconic phaser pistol (at least, not to my knowledge). Second, future tech and non-human aliens place you squarely in the space of "anything goes." But off the top of my head, here are some powersets that might work for a good old fashioned human that, IMO, would fit in from TOS to DS9: Beam Rifle (Blaster, Corruptor, Defender, Sentinel) Devices (Blaster) Martial Arts (Brute, Scrapper, Stalker, Tanker) Martial Combat (Blaster secondary) Ninja Training (Blaster secondary) Ninjitsu (Scrapper, Sentinel, Stalker) Traps (Defender, Controller, Corruptor, Mastermind) Street Justice (Brute, Scrapper, Stalker, Tanker) Super Strength (Brute, Tanker) * Super Reflexes (Brute, Scrapper, Sentinel, Stalker, Tanker) Willpower (Brute, Scrapper, Sentinel, Stalker, Tanker) In addition, any armed melee set not mentioned here would work for enthusiasts, as well as human-adjacent aliens with martial traditions.

It's been a hot minute since I played, but by and large I enjoyed it. My only gripe is that the developers do what all MMO developers seem fated to do, and that is to make rules that they think the players want without really understanding why they want it. Off the top of my head that's packed with fuzzy memories, I remember that mechanic rogues switched from being masters with locks, traps, and secret doors to becoming crossbow DPS. That said, I've compared the game to COH in that each class has (or at least had) a wealth of options to choose from.

I was scrolling through my Steam library this morning, and discovered that hadn't played Elder Scrolls Online since 2021. As you can probably tell, it's never really been my first choice, but I like the general idea of it, not to mention the flexibility of character design. Is anyone here actively playing? If so, how is it these days?

I'm late to the party as usual, but all I can say is that I find ETFs to be far more frightening than Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Or whatever alien tribe they're culturally appropriating from. ...but maybe, just maaaybe, part of me hopes they're on to something.

Nope. Uh-uh. Nobody's taking my psychotic Gandhi away from me 😡

Fair enough. I may be showing my age and failing eyesight here, but I found the Civ 6 map itself to be weirdly distracting. And, yeah, Civ 5 was a very different game from Civ 2, which, even though it wasn't my first Civ, sort of set the benchmark for me. The Giant Death Robot eventually won me over, though, even if I only built them in one playthrough. If you've ever played Eve Online, it feels like the equivalent of building a Titan. Scary to encounter, but not exactly an optimal use of resources.

So what was it about Civ 6 that made it feel like it was no longer Civilization?

I sort of felt that way about Civ 5, but I chalked that up to a learning curve. Took me longer than I'd like to admit, but I did eventually climb that curve. That said, I never got into Civs 3 or 4. This is ancient history, and thus involves very fuzzy memories, but I thought Civ 3 added mechanics that I just couldn't grok. Simple enough design wise, but left me with a feeling of "... but, why?" As for Civ 4. I was too deep into MMOs at that point, and seeing Civ 5 pop up on Steam was a something of a wake-up call.

I just discovered that VII dropped recently. However, that discovery was through a youtuber whom I kind of trust, but who left a mostly negative impression of the game. I won't get into that person's complaints, but I would like to hear some opinions, good, bad, and/or weird. I also wouldn't mind some impressions of Civ VI, while we're on the topic. I'll admit, I dropped that game for the dumbest of reasons - the bobble-head leaders really annoyed me for some reason. Much preferred the more realistic portrayals and animations of Civ V.

My only reservations with The Sims 2 are 1) the music (the OG Sims had a fantastic playlist) and 2) the awkwardness of making basements. I'd imagine that modding Sims 2 might be tricky now, as well. Old mods might still be out there, but they may need updating, and I wouldn't be surprised if the modding scene has to "ramp up" before we see working mods again. I might check it out. Someday.

Ugh - where's the "ow, my ears!" emoji?

Back when I lived in a college town, I had neighbors who would blast their music as loud as they could while taking their morning shower. Knocking on the door didn't work. Pounding on the wall didn't work. Leaving notes didn't work. So, though I hated to do it, I brought out the big guns, the show stoppers. Yep, you guessed it, I placed the speakers of my deceptively innocuous looking stereo against he wall, cranked up the bass to brain-shattering levels, and let the boys from Primus do what they could with "My Name is Mud." The neighbors got the point after about a minute and twenty. What's more, the second time I did it was the last time I had to do it. Never heard a peep from after that. I'd be interested in finding out if it works for buzzards too. You know, for science.

True. Speaking for myself, I stopped caring when I stopped teaming. That said, I remember the month or two after AE first dropped - seemed like there was no one in the open world anymore. Just out of curiosity, has PLing changed much since Live? I know that super-sidekicking killed the 46 level tell spam, but has it been affected otherwise?

I had an idea for a tech character that I gave up on, as it was too big for me. Literally. The character was a heavily augmented cyborg from a parallel Earth in which Boudica's forces had overrun the Roman Empire. The timeline that ensued featured much faster technological and scientific development than ours, but reached a point where it was possible not only to destroy the earth, but to shatter the timeline itself. And that's what happened. "Shards" of that timeline were scattered across the multiverse, and my character was to be one such shard who got embedded in the Praetorian timeline. Thus, the idea was literally too big for me. I destroyed a universe to create one character. I even had an uncharacteristically long and soul-searching bio for the character that I lost when I switched computers. Figured I'd throw the general idea out there anyway in case it jogs someone's neurons in a good way. Edited to add the final part of the bio: "It's strange, isn't it, when you have to lose everything you had, and forget everything you knew, to finally realize who and what you were meant to be."

David Lynch - a true genius who could see genius in others. It wasn't until the internet happened that I found out that: And I'm not afraid to admit that it still haunts me to this day.

I'm saying the supporting cast in the Netflix DD did more "heavy lifting" in terms of emotion and real-world consequences than Cox was allowed to do. Murdock may have been the "speak softly" type as InvaderStitch pointed out, but as you say, Foggy and Karen (not to mention Wilson Fisk) were more interesting as characters. Certainly, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage held their own among their supporting casts (like 'em or not) - why couldn't Murdock? I'm not knocking Cox's abilities as an actor - rather, I get the sense that he didn't get the chance to show any range in the NF series. For his sake, I was hoping he'd be allowed to show some emotion this time around, and, no, I don't expect overplayed grim-dark nonsense. Just a little more of the Catholic self-doubt that he occasionally did reveal could do the trick. After all, there is a fundamental contradiction there that cant' be so casually dismissed with his "...but I was also raised to believe in retribution" line.

Not that I'll watch anything on the Big D, but does Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock have an actual personality in this series?

Yeah, it's too bad that Hill got squeezed out of the show because he wouldn't work Saturdays (he was an Orthodox Jew). IMO he was capable of projecting an intensity that Phelps never really could - though Hill didn't really capitalize on that much in the show. This isn't a knock on Phelps - he was as iconic for me as he was for you. I just found Hill interesting and different. Never liked the M:I movies. Probably because I couldn't stand Tom Cruise. At the height of his popularity, I felt like you couldn't swing a cinematic cat by the tail without hitting a Tom Cruise.

... I found out that the original theme for Mission:Impossible is based on the Morse code for M I. Now I can only hear "dash dash dot dot" when I watch it.

I'm not sure that lore means as much in this game as it does in other games. A big part of that is the variety of power sets you can choose with each archetype. Take tanks, for instance - in FFXIV you can start with one of 4 or 5 starting jobs, but here, the Tanker archetype chooses from 11 primary power sets and 22 secondary sets. Thus, there is no "archetypal" tanker, and therefore no official lore that you can tap into. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I almost never consider the in-game lore when making a character. My MO is to come up with a general idea for the character I'd like to play, and see if I can find an archetype that has the toys that would make it work. As for RP, Everlasting is the official unofficial RP server, but all servers are likely to have some themed super groups ("free companies" in FFXIV-speech) that may or may not have their own internal lore, as well as their own RP guidelines. Check out the Servers section below. Also, don't worry, we were all wrecking balls at some point. Run solo missions until you get used to your character's strengths and weaknesses, then maybe try some repeatable team challenges like Frostfire in The Hollows. Once you pick up the do's and don'ts of teaming, you'll have the experience, and therefore the confidence, to try tougher teamed content.

Yeah, his troubles hit a bit close to home for me personally as well. A few years back, I was doing contract work for a big pharma company. Things were going well, until I came down with the flu for 4 days. Got a call from my contracting agency saying that the contract had been terminated for "attendance related reasons," and that was that. I got some grim satisfaction when the guy I directly worked for told me that the group we were in got disbanded about a month later. I had already known that the project we were on was basically some exec's vanity project destined to go nowhere; I figure a slightly higher exec caught on to that and slapped the clown down. ...huh. That sounded like a rambling life-story monologue from a companion in FO4. No flirt option this time, though. Sorry. In other news, another game has since surprised me - FFXIV. I'd tried playing it several times before, but could never get into it. For reasons I can't figure out, though, I'm kind of digging it this time around. Could be softening of the old brain, or it could be the chocobo porter music. Never used one before this run, and for some reason that music tickles my funny bone.

There's a reason I associate this clip with Xmas... Regardless, enjoy the holidays, stay safe, and stay sane.