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Gary? Gary! Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaary! GARY! Gary? Gary Gary Gary? Gaaaaaaaaary. Gary!

@Jimmy already confirmed that Page 6 is a deep dish pizza. OMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!

Eh. Big hair ranged from the early 80's to the late 90's (though the roots (pun!) go back to the 50's and 60's) for women. Some of the original grunge bands were fronted by people with hair as poofy as Bananarama's or The Bangles' girls, but they typically looked more like homeless people than rock stars. Long hair was definitely in on men, but not big (teased). Men with teased hair were around, too, but it wasn't a Gen X affectation, it was the hair metal and pop culture that grew out of 80's pop and early metal. Grunge reflects Gen X more accurately. Long, lanky hair, not teased, beanies (ski caps) sometimes, but not mandatory (good way to succumb to heat stroke in the wrong climate). Flannel wasn't prevalent as a fashion choice until grunge spread, though, so early to mid 90's is when that started. Jeans and leather jackets to complete the ensemble (jean jackets were out, those were an 80's fashion. same with the Michael Jackson zip-up leather jackets, too 80's for Gen X). Boots if you were serious about the look, preferably hiking, combat or Docs, as long as they looked used. If anything worn looked like it hadn't been folded, hung or ironed, that was a plus. Actually being dirty wasn't. Clean, but reflecting an appearance of nonchalance, of preferring to feel comfortable over presentable.

This is why Shepard Book didn't want to discuss his past with Mal.

It would work. Everything necessary is there, just has to be used in that way. It would involve creating a lot of mission content (a lot (really, a lot, because what we're talking about here is branching content, so one mission leads to two, leads to four, leads to eight, and so on)), linking the content to contacts, flagging the content and contacts to only display the mission content as available if or when the player achieves specific milestones, etc. The tools are there, the content isn't. Given sufficient time, it can be done.

It's not a question of actually cheating, being dishonest in some fashion, but instead, ignoring certain archetype stipulations laid down by the original development team. The specific point here being "squishies shouldn't have status protection, they should rely on their debuffs, status effects of their own, and/or teammates to deal with that" is a rule, and using P2W buffs to sidestep that rule could be considered cheating by the strictest interpretation of the original vision behind the game. The issue becomes quite a bit murkier when one notes that the rule gradually decayed over the life of the game on the original servers, with status protection being added to *PPs, then a power pool, then Incarnate abilities, then, appallingly, as a paid/gacha option. The vision changed, the options expanded. Bill was promoting a discussion revolving around whether or not the current version of the game, with the paid-for status protection being free for all to use, could be considered unfair, and if so, why. For my part, in response to the topic of the thread, I believe status effects were grossly abused and too widely disseminated among critters by the developers, and the archetypal restrictions poorly followed and unfairly enforced as a means of artificially inflating the value of status protection. It created a massive disparity in which sets were considered valuable and which weren't, it forced players to jump through hoops simply to enjoy the game and it ate into development time and resources when the developers addressed issues as they arose (like having to rework status protection inspirations, rework Defiance, create new status protection powers, etc.). If they had gone one of a hundred other ways with status effects, they could've avoided all of the wasted time, and wouldn't have sunk to the despicable act of cashing in on players' dislike of being mezzed by creating a paid-for/gacha buff. They fucked up. And using the paid-for buff now, for free, isn't cheating, it's addressing an oversight in the design of the game, that being an over-reliance on status effects which make the experience of playing less enjoyable. Also, I don't use it. The old standby of keeping a few Break Free inspirations on hand still works well enough, and after years of playing Trick Arrows characters, I've learned how to avoid being mezzed in most situations. I also rarely remember that there IS a P2W vendor... but it's nice to know that the option is there if I do remember.

That's actually a very good idea. These mechanics should be on a diminishing returns scale, rather than capped or floored. It would create a less frustrating experience, and reduce the reliance on specific powers to achieve build goals.

CoH was my first experience with achievement rewards. Specifically, badges. And initially, I considered them a fantastic idea, but I have to admit that it was only because I misunderstood the purpose of badges. When I looked at the badges available for me to try to obtain, I had the impression that they were giving me a direction. Defeat X of these, but make certain that Y of the X are bosses. In other words, I thought the badges were teaching me what to look out for in the game. Which critters should be focused on, which enemies were of particular note, things of that nature. I realized later that I was wrong. Badges don't actually teach anyone anything, they simply provide another "get" motivation, or, as the narrator of the video stated, extrinsic reward. But... I really believe badges could be redesigned as teaching tools, in exactly the way I thought they worked fifteen years ago. Obviously, people would still collect badges, still pursue that extrinsic reward, but newer players could learn from them, develop a broader and more applicable experience throughout the leveling process and become better prepared for each increase in level or shift to different zones. But what do we do when newer players have collected their "L2P" badges? They're no longer teaching tools, they've returned to being extrinsic rewards. One possibility is a series of dynamically assigned badges, based on the player's progress, which foes he/she tends to fight more, which powers he/she prefers to use and other criteria could be implemented, creating a more fulfilling and longer lasting educational system for the game. These badges could unlock progress on other badges, nudging players toward other goals by suggesting where they might want go for missions, which enemy groups they might try next, perhaps even badges for using certain powers in certain sequences or combinations (especially applicable to power sets with combos and forms), to help these players learn how different mechanics function and can be used to their advantage. By shifting the focus of badges away from mindless accumulation and toward education and enabling the player to grow and become more proficient, we can remove one of the extrinsic reward factors which leads to players feeling that they've completed the game and decide to move on. - Another thought is that, for many of us who are old hands at Co*, playing the game really is the only reward we need. Take away all of the XP, drops, badges, everything, and many of us would still be here. Why? That answer will vary from person to person, but at the heart of it, it's simply because the game is most rewarding to us when it allows us to express ourselves creatively. I play almost exclusively without travel powers. I don't do it because I'm tight on power selections, or because I don't have enough slots to spread around, or even to be the quirky weirdo on the forums. I do it because it's rewarding to poke and prod the mechanics until the game is giving me what I want. I do it because, despite having to work harder to achieve the goal of being comparable to a character without a self-imposed restriction, the end result feels rewarding. And it's not only rewarding to achieve, it's rewarding to continue playing after reaching "the end". The same applies to my latest build, which I talk about in the thread I started a couple of days ago. I have specific goals with this character. Some of those goals could be achieved one way or another, but to achieve them all, I have one path. I've built and rebuilt it in Mids' until every power, every slot, every enhancement, is so perfectly balanced that any change, no matter how seemingly innocuous, has a drastic impact. It's perfect... for me. And that's exactly what keeps me playing. I don't care about what I can do with it later. I don't care about soloing AVs or TFs or pylons. I care about achieving my goal of making exactly the character I envisioned, having that character work exactly as I imagine she will. This is an intrinsic goal, one we all share, and I believe it's the one that keeps all of us here. But can we improve that, so more people share that feeling and experience and discover that they're also still here years later? One way we might accomplish that is to change the *PP selection process, by making it partially free-form. Not completely, but enough to enable players to devise personal goals and be capable of achieving them. We can't redesign the entire engine for free-form power selection, that's simply too big to accomplish. But *PPs are a much more limited scenario, and, in fact, almost all of the code necessary to make this possible already exists. Players can choose from up to 4 standard pools. The newer pools, Experimentation, Sorcery, etc., have a special restriction on them locking out the other newer pools when one is selected. We can take these standard and newer pool options and apply them to *PPs, thereby granting access to more than one *PP for players to choose from when they reach level 35. It will enable players to select two or three *PPs based on how they fulfill their personal goals, rather than limiting them to one *PP and forcing them to accept that there are going to be some powers they don't want, couldn't use or simply can't take because they don't fit the character they've created. Instead of taking a *PP based on one power, or settling on a *PP simply because it has the fewest objectionable options, players could mix and match to better meet their own goals. It becomes an intrinsic reward, rather than an end goal, by making the game better at fulfilling players' expectations and personal goals. Some limits would still need to exist, obviously. We don't want to completely throw the concept of balance out of the window by allowing players to take 5 high damage AoEs, 5 AoE controls, or what have you. But simply having the option to choose from more than one *PP would open up worlds of personal goals by providing a better character creation and completion process, thus potentially increasing retention and satisfaction.

That is good.

Huh. This one's brain is encrypted. We can quack it.

It's been a decade since they changed toggle drop mechanics, but if I recall, the rule should be that if your toggle affects enemies, it drops, but if it only affects you and/or your teammates, it only suppresses. Also, Shield Defense doesn't have toggle status protection. It has to be clicked or set to auto (hold the Control key and click it).

You take over the world your way, I'll do it the adorable way. Also, my requisition for punctuation was refused by the Punctuation Ration Board, so I had to design the weapon without punctuation. So thanks for that, everyone who throws unnecessary apostrophes into words. I'm sending the commandos after you first.

That comes after I finish the Waddle Bomb. But by then, my Quack Commando Team will have located you and delivered a fatal dose of Tail Wiggle (guaranteed to cause squeeing, and possibly cardiac arrest from sheer delight), so you WON'T BE AROUND TO SEE IT! ... Shit. I monologued. *facepalm*

Oh, no. Uh uh. No way. I will NOT start monologuing in the middle of the plan. I'VE SEEN THE MOTION PICTURES, I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!

Oh, the See Duck Ray is working now. Good. Very good. It won't be long now. Not long at all. 😈

I considered it. The sword is necessary for the character, though. No sword, no Antianeira. Sentinel with Ninja Tools Mastery is the only way this one is going to work. And /EA looks like it'll be satisfactory.

Blaster Shinobi doesn't have the +Jump speed buff. That was what attracted me to the set. That was, in fact, the entire purpose of selecting /Ninjitsu in the first place, having the opportunity to hit the Jump speed cap with only a power in the secondary and set bonuses. The damage buff is also highly restricted, and ultimately less than any copy of Build Up would have been. And it would apply the translucent effect (really surprised they never added an option to disable that), which was one of my two primary disgruntlements with the sentinel version. There is one more sword attack in blaster Ninjitsu than the Ninja Tool Mastery APP, which I would definitely prefer to have, but the sword attacks are also the only aspect of Ninja Training that appeal to me. None of the rest of the powers fit the bill for this character, so I'd end up with a lot of mules and not as much of the character I was hoping to create. I'm sure the set fits the right character concept, but it doesn't fit mine. If it did have the +Jump component, I'd probably try to find a way to make it work for me, but without that, there isn't enough to interest me in it. It's actually amusing, because every blaster I've ever made, I've avoided the melee attacks. They've never felt like a good fit for Archery. Now I'm planning around having and using melee attacks on an Archery character, but it's the rest of the set I don't want. Cest la'vie.

Flexibility is an asset in bed. It has no place in my pizza.

She's not your friend. Burn her.

Hurdle and Combat Jumping on these characters, not Hover. I mentioned the flight speed cap because it's a target when I play without a travel power (almost all of my characters have no travel power). If I can't build up enough +Movement to reach or surpass 58.64 mph, the build never makes it beyond Mids'. I do have an Ice/Rad corruptor I'll take to the flight speed cap with Hover, though (eventually... i tend to focus my play on Greco-Roman characters), so thanks for the tips!

I share this perspective. The animations in this game have beaten anything I've seen in any comparable game. The artists who created the animations put an astonishing amount of dedication into making them right. A couple of weeks ago, I was staring at the screen, fuming because Verizon was shoving their depioritization watermelon so far up my forbidden zone that I was spitting seeds. I couldn't even move my character, the lag was so bad. But I could /em, so I was poking around in the list, looking for just the right idle animation. As soon as I tried /em kata, I knew I had it, but while I was watching it, I noticed something. I didn't know what I noticed, I couldn't put my finger on it, until I'd been watching for several minutes. Recoil. Every time my character moved to a new kata position, she recoiled slightly. It was exactly what the animation needed to feel natural, to look... completely lifelike. And that attention to detail went into so many of the animations! Any other game, they'd animate a transition and call it a day. Our developers weren't satisfied with that. They took it to the limit. They created the most realistic movements they could, some of which are still better and more believable than we see in games 10-15 years newer. This is one of the primary reasons for my obsession with Archery and TA. The animations are so right. I didn't expect to like Staff Fighting, and I could definitely do without Eye of the Storm (also known as Toe of the Camel, because it shows the entire world my character's peach-colored panties, from the most shameless angle possible), but overall, the animations are just fantastic. I love using those powers. Even Sky Splitter doesn't annoy me, and my tolerance for 3+ second animations tends to be low. It is all about looking good. Fingers and toes be damned, give me these animations any day of the week.

That will get you escorted out of the grocery store surprisingly quickly. And introduced to people who want your opinion of their smudgy ink blot art.

At 5 a.m. EST, Antianeira breathed her last. As an Archery/Ninjitsu sentinel. A moment of silence for our dearly departed, please. ... At 5:04 a.m. EST, Antianeira was reborn. Archery/Energy Aura. Let us celebrate the birth. 🎂 I also started her as a hero this time. Was a villain, just to mix it up a bit, but there's only so much of that experience I can tolerate, and 26 levels on a deleted character was about it for now. /Invulnerability wasn't going to give me everything I needed. I squeezed, wiggled and jostled every power and IO until MIds' was bleeding, but it never came together. Ultimately, I put together five builds with different secondaries before settling on /EA. 59 mph Jump speed before the Alpha slot (63.3 mph after), soft capped Defense to every type but Psi post-Alpha, ~130% +Recharge... that's a winner. I was tempted to use /Willpower, as it would've created a more thematic match with Legionette, but I didn't feel that the quantities of +Regen, +Defense and +Resistance I could acquire would be sufficient for how I plan to play this one in the 45+ game. On Legionette, it works because she can cruise up past 1000% +Regen. On Antianeira, I suspect it would've had me searching the floor for quarters a lot more frequently than I could tolerate. So Defense seemed the way to go. Even /EA is barely cutting the mustard, from my perspective. I'm going to have to two-slot Sprint and three of the prestige Sprints to break the flight speed cap. Not enough slots to go around for both +Defense and +Jump speed unless I do it this way. But the end result is what matters, and she'll only be ~0.5 mph slower than Legionette, so I know it'll be more than fast enough. I can live with a few wasted slots, especially when I note that the critical powers are already five- and six-slotted, and even where I had to short slots, boosted frankenslotted IOs easily make up any difference. A smidgen more +Defense would also be nice, but overkill after the Alpha, so I'm not quibbling over it. Not terribly enthused about looking like a Christmas tree light all of the time, even with "Energy Glow" selected, but I've already cobbled together an explanation which ties in with Legionette (who only faintly glistens), so I'm good to go with the glaring lack of subtlety or rationalization for why a native Earth human Natural character would be doing an impression of Chernobyl (a no-FX option would be smashing, HC team). It does the job and it doesn't interfere with my ongoing attempts to crash the servers by filling the screen with all things sharp and pointy. 2 a.m. can't come soon enough. I'm as excited about this character as I was when I was playing Legionette. Really want level her up and see if she's going to be everything I envisioned, especially the Ninja Tools Mastery stuff. Pew pew and slash slash. Amazon. Yeah. Oh, and @Heraclea, I know it was you who reserved EVERY FREAKING AMAZON NAME FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORY. I hate you for that. I also love you for that. 🙂

You're off of my payroll. Clear out your desk.

IS IT A PIZZA?! IS IT A CHICAGO-STYLE DEEP DISH PIZZA?! 😍 The HC team is making us pizza! I'm so excited! And hungry!