TheOtherTed

All analogies are flawed. My point is this: Once an activity that people normally do for fun is saddled with some sort of arbitrary "reward," the activity loses some fun factor for the sake of chasing that reward. Again, I saw it happen in WoW guilds, and I'm not a fan of that kind of mechanic.

I'm not in a SG, nor do I have my own private base, but this reminds me of that old story about that psychologist (?) who gave a kid a dollar each day to play in the playground. One day, after a week or so, the kid approached the researcher for his daily dollar, and the researcher said he didn't have any money. To which the kid replied, "then I'm not going to play." (BTW, I'd appreciate it if someone could verify or debunk this story - couldn't find the source online.) I remember when Warcraft guilds got perks in Cataclysm. Killed my interest in guilds entirely. Instead of being social clubs where people chatted and voluntarily helped each other out, guilds suddenly became businesses in miniature, obsessed with chasing down all the little buffs and such. When the guild I was in started recruiting based on their perks instead of their communities, I noped right out.

That would be intimidating... For my part, count me in for a whip set. And a ukulele set.

I am sorry, but I am physically incapable of not posting this. Pray for me.

Ah, yeah, those seem like they'd feel a bit slow in the lower levels. Sounds like you're finding your stride, though. Once you get the hang of them and get some team play under your belt, I'd suggest trying other archetypes and powersets. Even those that sound dull. Scratch that - especially those that sound dull. You may be surprised at what you can learn about the game by doing so.

Sorry if this has already been asked and answered, but what were the characters' archetypes and powersets?

Couldn't tell ya - I have no idea what a Gemordas is, nor why anyone would schmeckt it.

If you're willing to dive into Welsh names from the Mabinogion, this might help: https://welshgiftshop.com/blogs/welsh-gift-shop/welsh-baby-names-from-the-mabinogion-girls-boys Absent from this is Bertilak, the Green Knight, which is weird because Peredur made the list.

The following names are now free: Dash Marlowe Lee Three Snakeman Jones Mister Continuum Melody Fayte Gunnar Aramesh Markatta Divaneh Tianshi Malakeh Thantasia Nandina The Paralegal Arduenne Sorrowful Maiden

Not sure if this applies to everyone, but it seems that imgur doesn't like ExpressVPN. If I disconnect the VPN, I can see the images just fine. Also, this isn't particular to COH HC - the same thing is happening over on the BG3 forum. For me, at least.

From what I can tell, the only link to Jackson will be the fact that Miranda Otto will be playing Eowyn again, as a storytelling narrator - unless that's changed and Wikipedia hasn't been updated. Aside from that, I can't really see how the HH story could or should vibe with the Jacksonverse. Much of the story will have to be made from whole cloth, given that we just have a quick blurb and a handful of names, and I'm guessing that animation will have very different needs from a live action production. That said, I get what you mean about Jackson's "alternate universe" Middle-Earth. It's always fun to read the books and immediately follow up with the relevant movies (except maybe those Hobbit monstrosities). I still get that feeling of "....ohh, THAT's why he did that" from doing so. Mainly, though, I was just kvetching about the AI-seeming voice-over in that clip. It's just a matter of time before AI takes my job. Probably all of our jobs. It's bad enough that I have to compete with underpaid postdocs and unpaid undergraduate students these days.

Cool. I was passively looking forward to it, but had honestly given it up as... whatever the cinematic version of vaporware is. But that narrator, though. Sounded like AI. Clueless, try-hard AI with a smoker's voice no less. Some favorite bits: Saruman pronounced as sa-ROO-mun Edoras -> e-DOOR-as (with two s's) Meduseld -> me-DOO-seld And, finally, the point at which I stopped watching: "The film exists within [Peter] Jackson's universe." ...whoa, what? Whose universe? For all that, I'm glad to hear the project is still alive and kicking. Here's hoping they get a human narrator for the next update, though.

I have yet to encounter a game that I would call similar to COH. I suppose one could argue that Champions Online is closest, in some sense, but then one would be wrong. Even with a chunk of the Cryptic team behind it, CO was basically a single-player game (insert obligatory IMO here) in which teaming up was only for special occasions (raid-style missions, that one really tough world boss, etc.). I could go on about all the other MMOs I did play, but there wouldn't be much point - in all cases, teamwork was always hampered by dumb things like repair costs, speed runs, unmanageably huge and impossibly choreographed raids, and all the other ridiculous things people invent to give games a false sense of "meaning" or "consequences" or "sense of accomplishment." As you can probably tell, I'm pretty much done with MMOs. Give me Skyrim or Civ5 and I'm happy.

...dammit, I was hoping I could give this one a pass. Can't help but wonder if McLachlan is going to go all "Portlandia" with his role, and Emerson has been the voice of my inner monologue ever since I started watching POI.

I took a year of German in high school and majored in French for two years. I ended up deciding that, among other things, French is basically the German of Romance languages. All due credit to anyone learning a language in their later years. I loved high school Latin, but trying to re-learn any of it has been a struggle. My brain just stops at "agricola agricolae" and tries to fit the words into my least loved song:

I have two deliberate homage characters: Dash Marlowe (SJ/Willpower scrapper), an homage to hard-boiled detective stories in general, and Lee Three (MA/Ninjutsu scrapper), whose main inspiration was Melinda Mays from S.H.I.E.L.D. I also had an accidental homage on Live, a Kin/Archery defender. When I described the character to a SG mate, he immediately responded with "So, Wonder Woman, but with a bow." Had an "oh, carp" moment and debated re-making the character, but since she'd already survived a bigger "oh carp" moment previously, I decided to carry on. I never re-created the character on Homecoming, but Melody Fayte (Archery/Martial Combat blaster) serves as an homage to that accidental homage.

A buddy of mine recently asked if video games in general make you smarter. I said "Nope" and left it at that. To be a little more on point, though, my first CoH character to survive past Outbreak became a weird sort of role model for me. Even after all these years, I occasionally find myself asking, "What would Dash Marlowe do?" Decent step up from Hank Kimball.

Not sure what this has to do with anything, but it was too good not to quote. The whole mutationt thing brings to mind the biblical quote, "With God, all things are possible." Just substitute "mutation" with "God," and you've nailed how the superhero genre has always treated mutation. And that's my basic problem with it, and why mutation is always a last-ditch explanation for me. If, however, you can quote a paper describing how a genetic mutation can let you shoot laser beams out of your eyes, or allow you to teleport like Nightcrawler, well, now, that would be something.

On a whim, I just picked up "The Sorrowful Maiden" on my server. Unfortunately, "Sorrowful Maiden" (without the "The") was taken, so I will likely change the name at some point. "The Sorrowful Maiden" was a placeholder name anyway while I learn more about the folklore of the character that inspired the name, so no worries. Do most people not know the "The" trick, or do they not bother? If you type "The Whatever" as a name during character creation, the "The" will immediately disappear from the name bar, but will show up as a title in-game. It's extremely rare that I see low-level character names that begin with "The."

Short answer is that I don't have a good answer. Maybe ask these guys... That said, I'd guess that most mutations don't confer proof against bullets either.

In my active stable, I have exactly one Mutant character. Nothing against the origin, but I literally don't know where to go with it, story-wise. Usually, I choose a concept first, then go from there, but for my mutant, I did the opposite. I started with a powerset combo and tried to find a place for it in the game's origin scheme. Chose Mutant simply because I'd never done so, and it fit well enough. Likewise, I've only ever had two Technology characters. One was a Mastermind, and I promptly decided I didn't like Masterminds, and the other was an Archery / Devices blaster that I could never get the hang of. Said character was quickly replaced by a natural origin Archery / Trick Arrow defender. All my other characters have been about evenly split between Natural and Magic origins. Natural because I relate more to the likes of Batman than to any truly super-powered heroes (yes, he uses tech, but he's basically a normal human with normal flaws putting himself on the line). Magic because I like to base characters on beings from mythology, religion, folk tales, and the like. That said, many of my Magic characters "look" natural, in terms of costume, bio, and story lines. I do wish CoH had done more with the origins, but I can see that it's difficult to do without, say, divvying powersets or quest lines specifically based on origin, or forcing origin-themed leaders for TFs and the like.

Best value: Master of Orion II (1996). I still play it about once every 2-3 months. Worst value: Master of Orion III (2003). Buggy and unfinished to such a degree that I swore I'd never buy any game until at least 6 months after release. The only thing I liked about it was that the Sakkra music was vaguely reminiscent of wood thrush calls, at least to my ears.

This glob of bird... nonsense just hit my internet windshield, and my only reaction is that it seems a bit late for a sequel.