TheOtherTed

Finally found the right theme music for my not-exactly-a-hero Lee Three: Side question - is there a way to place inserted elements next to each other?

Post-script: I agree with you, @Solarverse, that things like IOs, Architect, and DFB made the game too easy and, in the case of the latter two, did a terrible job of introducing people to game mechanics. Even seeing the "hospital" in The Hollows for the first time made me leave the zone in frustration (although I've visited it frequently in HC for nostalgia's sake). However, I still need to be convinced that the challenge you seek, the "order" that you apparently need, is unattainable even in the game's current form.

Ad hominem detected and processed appropriately. From your very first post, my default hypothesis was that you were seeing the old game through Solarverse-colored glasses. As of yet, you have offered nothing to make me doubt that hypothesis. There's a present for you; you have a fixed goalpost around which to stake your own. That isn't a quaternity - a quaternity is an assemblage of 4 components (usually with religious implications, but that's neither here nor there). What you provided is a statement about the potential effects of higher difficulty on player behavior. That is something completely different. In fact, I explicitly acknowledged it earlier; I'll repeat it here, in case you missed it. Note that the "gelling" I refer to has little to do with the makeup of the team, and far more to do with the spontaneous actions of the individual players. They stepped up their game, just as you say, but usually only did so after a very chaotic "The spit got real" moment. The team composition was usually pretty random, and therefore couldn't always be described as a "trinity" or "quaternity" or any other -ity. More often than not, the team was willing to bump up the difficulty afterwards. I acknolwedge that much of this is anecdotal, but it was a pattern that I consistently observed. Interesting that you call that order. I call it boring. That's not to say I didn't strive for some sort of team composition, but I had my own "color wheel" of ATs which allowed for a lot of oddball combinations. Or sometims I went with a team of 8 from 1 AT just to see what happened. Granted, I'm working with old memory now, but I don't recall a team composition that couldn't step up and deliver when the going got tough. Again, that says more about the players than about team composition. Please note, though, that I also said this: Later in the game, when it was supposedly easier, my experience is that many people felt the need to complain whenever anything went wrong, and as far as I could determine from their mode of talking (or berating or complaining), it was because someone (never the speaker, of course) wasn't doing their assigned job. We're talking easy mode stuff here; default difficulty or lower. To their credit, those people would step up for that mission, but as soon as the mission ended, at least one would bail with some choice parting words, which in turn led others to bail with hard feelings against the people who had already left. No words could convince them to stick together, and I had no doubt that they would repeat the cycle with their next team. That "gelling" had apparently disappeared in the wake of the most holy trinity. TL:DR version - all this talk of trinity or quaternity or game design here means much less than the attitudes of people who play it. That's my alternate hypothesis - another fixed goalpost for anyone to dance around if they so choose.

As I've said, you're describing a quaternity (which has 4 components), not a trinity (which only has three), and yes, I will happily pick nits about this. In addition, you have yet to show that your quaternity guarantees a level of gameplay that cannot be achieved by, say, 8 Repeat Offenders or any other non-quaternity selection of ATs.

I have no recollection of your specific definition of the trinity. I suspect I'm not alone. I have to assume that you're shifting goalposts unless and until you can supply evidence that your definition is the standard definition.

Show me.

Perhaps it would be better to call buff/debuffers and so-called healers "support" instead (even though that's a bit insulting as well). Of course, your "trinity" would still really be a quaternity (tanks, controllers, support, and DPS), or maybe an omninerty (all roles and all ATs). I posit, however, that you'd still be underestimating the importance of player skill (e.g., knowing one's own strengths and weaknesses, having situational awareness, etc.). Having an optimal set of optimized powers is still at least a step removed from having an optimal team. That said, optimal teams are overrated. I've been on a couple, and I was bored out of my ever-loving skull. Bailed at the first opportunity. If that's the "ideal," I don't want it. What I loved about teaming was that moment when the chaos of a handful of random heroes (or villains) suddenly gelled into a coherent fighting force as members of the team started to understand their own abilities in relation to that team's compostion. Unfortunately, that usually didn't happen until a team wipe, but, hey, omelettes, eggs, etc. What killed my interest in teaming? Well, I'll tell ya - it was when we had a small influx of new players in the year or two before sunset who had "trinity" gameplay so firmly ensconced in their heads that they couldn't conceive of anything else. It didn't make them better - it made them clueless, and it made them flat out reject any advice that went against it. Just like I'd witnessed repeatedly in That One Overgrown Trinity Game, such teams would immediately fall apart when they encountered one bad pull or one seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Kind of took the heroism out of heroes, and the dogged determination out of villains.

Maybe it's a typo of "deadly a svelte weapon"? (good catch, BTW!)

Full disclosure - I joined after I6, and I have no idea what the game was "really" like before then. That said, I'll offer an alternate hypothesis: The perception of "chaos" vs the supposedly ideal alternative may have more to do with the tactical thinking (or lack thereof, or tactical thinking that looks like a lack thereof) of teammates than in any structural elements of the game. I suggest this for two reasons. First, I've seen a lot of messy, stupid "chaos" in MMOs that have much more rigid trinity elements baked into their design. Second, in the cases in which I've seen situations go sour in this game, whether "live" or currently, trinity gameplay would likely not have saved them. I was going to provide some anecdotes from this and other games, but I won't, because 1) they're anecdotal, 2) we could all probably dig up a few with a bit of thought, and 3) it's past my bedtime. I may be in more of a mood to humble-brag tomorrow.

I don't know where I got the idea, but my interpretation of The Tower was this: Anything you rely upon or have faith in could be destroyed in an instant - but the fact that it existed is eternal and unchanging. I found that to be a comforting thought. I know I got the idea from somewhere (I'm just not that deep), but I can't trace it back to a source. Could be that I'm conflating it with some other card(s), or something else entirely. Recently re-read the "classic" Gibson books myself, i.e., those in which Cyberspace was arranged as a quasi-physical space filled with day-glo geometry. I find his more recent books to be somewhat dry. Interesting, fun, definitely more topical, but dry. I figured he'd finally educated himself about how computers worked and, in doing so, lost that "fantasy" quality of his early novels, but that's just me making stuff up. MERPS - ugh. Ran a campaign my first year in college, had fun with it, but had fundamental problems with the magic system. About as un-Tolkien as you could get. Then I fell in with a Rolemaster crowd and got lost in tables, tables, and more tables. Sooo many look-up tables. Then I found GURPS, and the heavens opened with light.

For a moment I was excited for National Punch Day, but then I realized it wasn't the sort of punch I was thinking of.

I get the tarot reading thing - had a college housemate teach me the basics, which I used to fill in holes in my tabletop RPG campaigns. Even ran some one-shot adventures that were literally me pulling random major arcana cards and making stuff up on the fly. That said, the only card I remember is The Tower, but, ironically, it apparently means pretty much the exact opposite of what I thought it meant. On a related note, I'm casually working on a set of house rules for GURPS, an RPG system that I played the heck out of back in the day. Using GURPS to run a Middle-Earth campaign has been my holy grail for decades, but it wasn't until just a couple of years ago that I was hit in the face with an idea that promises to bring the whole thing together. Ironically, the idea came from an argument I had with one of my sisters. Haven't decided if I want to give her credit, but I don't expect it to see print anyway.

These last 30 seconds brought to you by the American Cat Fanciers' Association.

I apologize to the moderators, but this has to happen. The responsibility is mine and mine alone.

Pallas cats best cats. ...Uncle Ted?

You want this. You need this. You don't know how you've lived your life without this. Enjoy! Bill Bailey - The Doctor Who Theme (sort of)

Speed Boost, pre Null-the-Gull era. An AV's henchies and minions would take advantage of it far, far more effectively than the typical group of players ever could. Why, yes, I am still in recovery from my days as a Kin defender. Why do you ask?

A quick Civ5 update after... what, two years? As I'm sure you must recall, I was gearing up to take on a runaway Greece with my elite Kris army (22 Kris units - the RNG was good to me - and at least half a dozen rocket artillery). Initially the war went well, even though I didn't quite have the navy I'd hoped for. I managed to take a good chunk out of Greece and had Athens well in my sight. What stopped me, you may ask? All-out nuclear war. Within the space of 3 turns, every other civilization on the map decided my homeland would be an excellent testing ground for their nukes. I managed to keep defensive forces out of range of the strikes, but the strikes just kept coming. Over and over again. It was one of those moments where I just couldn't understand how they could sustain the barrage; uranium deposits were scarce, and the yield per deposit was relatively small. I broke in another 4 turns. Decided Emperor level wasn't meant for me. Or vice-versa. I still play, but strictly just for fun - King level only, 10 civs if playing Indonesia (or any other underpowered civ), 12 civs otherwise, all on "Continents Plus" maps. In the process, I'm discovering interesting tidbits about the game mechanics - for example, I've managed to confirm that it's relatively easy to get a cultural victory just by beating civs to the cultural Wonders. Go figure. I've also discovered that the Great Wall breaks the game, even after it's officially made irrelevant. Seems like just having that Wonder keeps everyone at bay - except the Ottomans, for some reason.

...so, basically "Lower Decks" for "The Boys" universe? As much as I liked the first two seasons of TB, I'd pass on this even if I still had Prime. Young adult superhero angst just isn't my bag - though, perhaps ironically, the puppets were the only thing that caught my interest. It also seems a bit early to do spinoffs but, to be fair, 1) I became used to waiting years, even decades, for a spinoff long before this new-ish mode of television-making, and 2) not having Season 3 of TB, I have no idea if it would permit a 4th. Maybe the OG show has already tapped all its potential. That said, I'm sure it will do well, ratings-wise.

Similarly, I'm shocked that no one posted this natural follow-up to High_Beam's Lionel Richie meme. You must all be anti-Dentites. Or something.

We need more philosopher-comedians. Like, right now. In other news, I was going to post a clip of David Tennant singing "West End Girls" by the Pet Shop Boys, but the music quality of the one clip I could find was so terrible that I'd be embarrassed to post it. Consider this a PSA for those who really, truly, need it in their lives. Also, it seems to me that we have about 1.5 generations posting in this thread. No Baby Boomers? (The real ones - Gen X doesn't count.) No Millenials? No Zoomers? (The real ones - Millenials don't count.)

The following article suggests they did. Though, to be "fair," it also notes that the Pinto's development and release was rushed. https://philosophia.uncg.edu/phi361-matteson/module-1-why-does-business-need-ethics/case-the-ford-pinto/ In any case, this thread really isn't the place for this sort of discussion, and I apologize to any and all for my part in dragging this out.

I'm given to understand that Ford released the Pinto in spite of numerous rear-end crash tests both by AMC and the Ford company itself, all of which failed. I haven't read that there was a misunderstanding, but I could be missing something. There's a lot to unpack there, to be sure. However, I stand corrected on the explosion thing. Or, rather, sit corrected.

Pintos - the greatest secret weapon in the arsenal of democracy.