TheOtherTed

My young cynical self hated Uni with a passion. My old cynical self figures he was a sleeper agent for Venger.

Whoa - good call-out. I never would have made that connection, and I watched that show religiously as a kid. It does make me wonder who that first group at the 55 minute mark is, though...

I should have heeded the warning. I've never experienced a clip that so completely destroyed my interest in a movie before. To be fair, though, I was hanging on by a thread anyway. It took a Google search, but I'm guessing that

I started playing because I was looking for "something different" from the usual tropey fantasy or sci-fi video games. When I first found this game back in 2006, I rolled my eyes at it - and then realized that my eye-rolling was a good indicator that, for better or worse, this game would likely be "something different." I stayed because of the mechanics, the diversity between and within ATs, and, in no small part, the player base. All that said, my characters in this game are either "real people" in strange circumstances, or modern interpretations of mythological figures, or parodies of the genre or the game itself. As for my general "benign neglect" of the superhero genre, I do have one weakness, and that's Batman. Couldn't give a living fig about Superman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, or the Avengers, but through a process that parallels Techwright's experiences above, I fell hard for Batman when the Burton/Keaton movie dropped. Only for me, the turning point was a friend's description of "The Killing Joke" when I erroneously claimed that Batman would be better as a light-hearted parody. Holy carp, Batman, things got real! I keep thinking I should read "The Killing Joke" myself, but somehow, for some reason or another, I just never got around to it.

Just watched the following interview blurb with Scott Menzel (no, I don't know who he is). He touches tangentially on the "disconnect" that can exist between the writing and/or directing for a character, and the actor/actress hired to play the character. It made me realize why I'm not fully on board with the D&D movie with Chris Pine, and cemented why Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor didn't fly well with me. IMO neither actor "is" the character they play, but not for want of their skills as actors. I'm not a fan of superheroes in any kind of genre (comics, movies, series, even games), so maybe people here will glean more from it than me.

I don't know, seems like a natural segue at this point. (Warning: Dana Carvey's solo bits may not be to everyone's tastes. Consult your doctor before watching.)

I'll be honest - I let myself get sidelined by an Archery / Martial Combat blaster and a long-standing character I hadn't played for a while, my Martial Arts / Ninjutsu scrapper. As for the tanker, I'm strongly leaning towards DA/FM, but at some point, I also want to try FA. I just don't have a concept to go with it yet.

Okay, alright, I can appreciate a bit of Abbott & Costello style humor. Consider me warmed to the movie by about 1.5 degrees.

From the Buzzsaw mission "Retrieve Dr. Pierce": Dave: Whoa, villains! Nifty, but also super unsafe.

Based on some sparse and scattered comments on the trailer, apparently Apple TV was originally planning this as a sci-fi flick of some kind. I... just... don't even want to imagine it. @Techwright I hear ya. Add to that the sheer incompetence apparent in some recent releases, and I'm squarely neutral about the whole thing. Even cautious optimism is asking a lot of me these days. Still, I might watch it, but I might also wait for a trusted buddy to tell me it's good first.

I can imagine. That, Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," and Matkosky/Sembello's "Maniac" have all been ingrained in the brain DNA of a generation and a half. Maybe we'll hear those as well...

It doesn't look terrible, might be good, but did they have to rip Europe's "The Final Countdown"? I'm assuming that's a deliberate callback to "Rocky IV," but that just raises the question as to whether people even make original movie scores anymore.

You know, once in a while I come across a classic superhero theme song, and I find myself shocked - SHOCKED - that it's not in this thread. So here you are, complete with lyrics. Pepsiman - James Shimoji (I can neither confirm nor deny that I got this from a popular Youtube channel)

Thoughts on Fiery Aura/Dark Melee?

Rad armor was my first choice when I started working on this character, but I can't quite do it. Those rad circles in the auras make me a bit dizzy for some reason. If I use darker colors for power customization, I'm fine - but as someone suggested in another thread related to this character, space genies aren't about subtlety 😉

I'll be honest, I've been having a "should I? could I?" dilemma about those boots. Which tells me they need to go into the character's "final form" costume... Also, is that spine a backpiece, or part of the torso piece?

That's what this thread is for, right? Thanks to @Troo for the headpiece - I never would have thought of it (or the snakes) myself. Not sure yet where this will actually go, but I'm now considering having 2 costumes - a vaguely human-ish being somewhere between my original design and yours, plus an "it's OVER 9000!!!" costume with the snakes and the headspikes and all the sticky-outy bits I usually ignore. Will have to learn how to use them costume change macros that I've also been ignoring forever. In any case, I may regress a bit and use a dark gray as the base color to match the ashen skin, and to give a singed look. The trim will likely be orange or the gold-yellow just under orange, but brighter than I'm usually comfortable with. Will have to play with it after work.

A term that was still kind of relevant when the game launched. I think CoH was the first online game for which I used broadband instead of a dial-up connection.

Dear God, people, what have you DONE?!

Entering "too many choices" territory here... 😄 So far, the suggestions include: SD/FM DA/FM FA/FM FA/BS or Katana FA/Staff All have good arguments for them, not only in terms of effectiveness, but also for style. My reason for avoiding a "pure" Fire Tanker apparently no longer applies - I had a pure Fire Scrapper before shutdown, and though I liked the concept, the powers felt very weak for a melee character. However, it sounds like FM at least has been souped up a bit since. Maybe FA has as well? As for the rest, I've played SD, DA, and Staff (though only DA as a Tanker), and I've gotten a lot of mileage out of all of them. I wouldn't mind pairing any of those up with a Fire set to see what happens. I haven't gotten much playtime with blades (BS, Kat, DB); my short dabblings with those sets left me a bit unimpressed, but I'm open to other arguments in favor. Right now, though the front runners in my brain are DA/FM, FA/FM, and FA/Staff. SD/FM is a runner-up. It looks like it has the best overall synergy with Leadership, but as I mentioned before, I'm actively playing a Mace/SD right now and I'm concerned that the two playstyles may be too similar, even with customization. I guess my first job is to compare customizations and animations for Fiery Melee and Staff. It may come down to style points, unless more suggestions are made...

@ZemX Good points on Shield Defense, both in terms of synergy and in terms of customization. In fact, that was my original plan for the character. The drawback is that I already have a SD Brute, so I'm concerned that the playstyle would feel too similar. That said, a space-tech shield might add enough visual difference that I don't notice it as much (had a similar dilemma with another pair of characters, and the costumes made a surprisingly significant difference). Already committed to getting Combat Teleport on this character, and will likely get Teleport Target as well. I'm strongly considering dipping in to Sorcery, but I don't want to dilute out Leadership too much. Are Rocket Board and/or Magic Carpet customizable now? If not, I appreciate the suggestion, but I'll have to pass. @SeraphimKensai I already have a Dark/Dark Corruptor (another insane space genie) and a Staff/DA Stalker, and I played the heck out of a DA/Mace tank on live. TBH, I'm trying to break the habit - but DA/Fire is seriously tempting, and would have menacing-looking auras that would fit the character nicely. Might have to retire my Stalker, though. From both your posts, though, I'm getting the feeling that Fiery Aura isn't your first pick for a primary. Is that true?

I started some time after Issue 6, and much of what I could say has already been said. However, the one thing I remember most is the team-friendly nature of the game. Not just in terms of design, but also in terms of the players. On the design front, there's no quibbling over loot, no such thing as a "useless" AT, and the game introduced the first level-matching system I'd ever known about (and for a long time, the only one I'd ever seen). Granted, that first system was a bit clumsy and open to exploitation, but at least there was an attempt to get different level players together. On the people front, in my experience it was pretty rare to have a truly "bad" team. Borderline incompetent teams, sure, but that just meant more jokes to be made and stories to be told. Sometimes the game would surreptitiously change from "Beat Down the Bad Guys" to "Keep Character X Alive." Plus, there was often that magical moment when seemingly bad teams just sort of fell into a groove, almost by accident, and became a force of destruction. I'm sure people will say that's all still true, but before the sun started to set, I noticed a steady trickle of players who came in with expecations gained in other, bigger MMOs. More and more people had the attitude that a team "needs" a "healer," or needs a tank - and, along with that, a surprising amount of people would blame the tanks or "healers" for not doing their jobs. Other vets may remember otherwise, but I remember people being pointlessly and unnecessarily combative about who should have been doing what when, and quitting with bitter parting words when a relative old-timer like me would say "We can make this work" and why. Not a happy note to end on, maybe, but I remember my teaming experiences in those first few years quite fondly.

I've been struggling with this character's costume for too long. The character is basically an insane genie from outer space, and the nominal leader of a trio of insane space genies. I'm also struggling with powersets, but that's for another thread in the Archetypes forum. I want her to look sinister (hence the oh-so-edgy black trim), with a main color that's vaguely reminiscent of fire (hence the wan yellow color). Plus, she needs a mask that covers her lower face. The character will be a Fire tank of some description - just not sure whether I'll go for Fiere Aura or Fiery Melee. Definitely won't be both. Specific points of frustration - I'm not fond of the cow-catcher mask or the color scheme. I'm not typically a fan of bright colors, but maybe this character needs some Zazz and I just don't realize it. You know, Zing, Zork, Kapowza. Anyway, here's a current pic and the costume file, and my thanks in advance. SpaceGenieBlech.costume

I have an idea for a "space genie" character, but I've been fumbling with different powersets for too long a time. My interest was sparked (pun retroactively intended) when I found out that Tanks get Controller-level bonuses for Leadership powers, so I'd like to build around that. In addition, I'd like one (but not both) of the character's main powersets to be Fire. I'm leaning towards Fiery Aura, because you're on Fire, but can be talked into Fiery Melee instead (Breath of Fire would fit the character well). I've considered Dual Blades as an alternative to Fiery Melee, but am open to other suggestions, so long as Fire is involved somewhere. At the moment, I'm not looking for detailed IO builds - just some general feedback on what seems to work well with Fire and what doesn't.

Agreed, and I hope Miller the best in that regard. However, I'm going to be "that guy" and say that I feel like there's a double standard at play. Mental health issues aside, many of the allegations would pose a significant threat to the careers of binary actors or actresses. To read the zines, it sounds like Miller's getting the "aw, that poor kid" treatment instead.