Excraft

Bizarre response. Try putting some thought into this - in the real world, Jeff Bezos (billionaire) launched William Shatner (92 year old actor), Katy Perry (singer) and his own girlfriend into space. Who gives a shit if he didn't design the rocket? He still did it and that's real life. You've got Elon Musk designing ships capable of sending real life people to Mars. But a super genius doing it is somehow not believable.

Bizarre response. If "modern audiences" were getting what they want from Hollywood and buying what movie studios are selling, then Hollywood and box office receipts wouldn't be in decline. Bizarre response. No one other than you is suggesting that Sue Storm is June Cleaver sitting around the house baking cookies, making Reed dinner and doing the laundry. That's not her character. Neither is her character being the leader of the FF and the boss lady, which she is rumored to be in this film. If that's the case, then that's diverging from the source material and the character that the built in fan base is familiar with. This isn't rocket science to understand. Bizarre response. Yes, Ellen Ripley was a mother in the first film. Watch Aliens again. Nice attempt to deflect though. No question Sarah Connor became a bad ass to protect her son. Bizarre response. That's complete bullshit. I've no issue with strong female characters. You seem to have a real disdain for anything feminine about the maternal instinct. That just shows you're very shallow and narrow minded and can't grasp that female characters asserting their maternal instincts doesn't make them "weak", "shallow", "boring", a "shit show" or whatever other bullshit you want to call them.

Where's the guy on fire and the guy made of rocks?

Bizarre response. Jeff Bezos launched William Shatner, Katy Perry and his girlfriend into space. That's real life. But some super intelligent guy bringing his girlfriend and her brother and his best friend into space isn't believable.

Bullshit. Let's see whose responses are "bizarre" here... Bizarre response. It's a film based on a comic that started in the 1960's and has had a loyal following since then. Look at the setting and set design in the trailer. They're quite clearly going for something of a 1960's retro period piece. The Fantastic Four has had a loyal following ever since their creation. It's absolutely about what happened in the comics throughout their 60+ year history. That's what the fan base is familiar with. The last FF film changed the characters radically. It failed. Miserably. Bizarre response. Sue not being the "mother type" figure she's always been is "unreasonable" and "unbelievable" and "shallow", but characters being literal invincible gods, getting bitten by radioactive spiders and gaining super powers, surviving full on nuclear blasts and turning into unstoppable green rage monsters, having magical powers are all "reasonable" and "believable". Bullshit. Bizarre response. They've already "lost the viewers". Changing the characters and the plots people are familiar with that drew them to the characters and have held their interest for decades is what the built in fan base is looking for, not "re-imaginings" for "modern audiences". See the previous FF film. How's changing characters people have adored for decades working out for Disney with their princess flicks? Superhero films and films in general are unquestionably on the decline. Box office receipts prove that. "Modern audiences" aren't buying what they're selling. Bizarre responses. These show a severe lack of understanding on your part on what a mother type figure is. Why is being a mother "shallow" and "disappointing"? WTF do you think Sarah Connor is? What was she doing in T2? Anything and everything she possibly could to protect her fucking child. That's a strong mother type character. WTF was Ellen Ripley doing in Aliens protecting Newt? That's a strong motherly instinct kicking in for a strong mother type figure. Sue looking after her family and doing what she can to protect them isn't "shallow" or "weak" or "boring" or "disappointing". Not in the least.

You do realize that Johnny is a man-child, right? And Reed is an ass. Makes perfect sense for her to be a mother type character. That's fitting. Strong female characters don't need to be the invincible know it all girls boss who kicks the ass of all comers. You do realize these are the same comic books where there are literal gods running around alongside people who were bitten by radioactive spiders or survived a full on nuclear blast and such, right? It's a comic book. It's not supposed to be realistic storytelling.

Given that Hollywood and box office receipts in general is and has been in decline, changing familiar stories and characters "to appeal to modern audiences" isn't working to "putt butts in seats", is it? Namor being Spock in a green speedo is the character people were familiar with and wanted to see, not that absolutely godawful version of whatever he was in the MCU. The Mandarin and Ancient One being changed was entirely to appease China so they'd play the films there. Hollywood has been banking on the Chinese market for a long time now. More often than not, adaptions are being made to sell toys to kids, so we won't see Hank Pym being a domestic abuser.

I agree with you on all points and not all changes are inherently bad. However - These are the kinds of things that I see as wholly unnecessary and more often than not, done poorly. It's changing the characters from what people know and are familiar with to something totally different that just winds up alienating the built in fan base. I just don't get the need for it, not in the MCU or other IPs. The Fantastic Four has been around since 1961 and has been selling comics since then. They're one of the most popular, most recognizable comics of all time. There have been and still are people of all races, genders and orientations who enjoy the FF comics, have since the start and have never needed "someone who looked like them" for them to enjoy the characters and reading the stories.

This is absolutely beautiful work. I like the minimalist functional design for the research facility giving you the essential base functionality while opening up the alien vista to explore. It's a shame that there aren't more people on Indom to appreciate this. Love the story behind all of these bases and the Paragon Corps. It's a fun amalgamation of Trek, Stargate and the Lantern Corps. Will there be Paragon Corps bases on other servers?

I've been pleasantly surprised at how good this was. I'm looking forward to more. Definitely worth watching.

I'll wait and see with this. If I'm being honest, reading that there's been character revisions for "modern audiences" is a huge red flag for me.

Well it's definitely better than the brooding, sullen Superman in the Snyderverse. I don't know if the pendulum has swung too far to the other extreme now though. Wait and see I guess. This is my hesitation with this film as well.

Thanks, I did read it. It's about encouraging people to take a tour of bases entered into the most recent contest. To me, that kind of discussion belongs in the bases sub-forum.... where there is already threads about entries, asking questions and such. That's what the bases sub-forum is for, just like we have sub-forums for bugs, suggestions and ideas, comic and hero culture etc. to help organize topics. I'm not suggesting people shouldn't visit bases or enjoy bases or admire and appreciate the hard work people put into them. Far from it.

I never suggested that Jar Jar Binks was anything other than ridiculous and awful. Hayden Christensen didn't exactly give an Oscar worthy performance for sure in the prequels, but he's looked upon a lot more fondly now and being brought back for more work as the Anakin/Darth Vader for Obi Wan and Ahsoka. That's because of how awful the new stuff is. I don't see anyone clamoring for more Finn or Poe or another Han Solo film .....

This should go into the Bases sub-forum.

I disagree. The prequels for sure weren't as well received or regarded as the original trilogy, however you needed the new Kathleen Kennedy/JJ Abrams/Rion Johnson crap to put things in perspective and to realize just how much worse the franchise could get. Lucas adding digital effects back into the original trilogy was done to re-release them and make more money selling the same VHS/DVDs again, and to satisfy his desire to do things with the story he couldn't do at the time due to lack of technology. Personally, I'll gladly take Ewoks any day of the week over any of the crap from the new films. It's the same with Star Trek Enterprise. That show was thought of as the worst of the worst for the Trek franchise at the time. It took garbage like Discovery and absolute sewage like Section 31 to show just how much worse the franchise could could get.

With respect, I don't think we want to start barring people from the forums, even temporarily, for suggesting workarounds to an issue or not supporting an idea.

No. There is no way to know what existing characters played "the correct/righteous way" in order to get the badge.

The "hide and deny" behavior isn't isolated to just Focused Feedback threads. I can give examples if needed.

Sometimes a point needs to be repeated in order for it to sink in.

I'm sure that there are people here now looking for more obscure insults they can use to skirt the "continuum".

Thank you for this clarification. Apologies if my point wasn't clear. I was more questioning the "continuum of insults" part. The neckbeard example is a pretty good one in that it is meant as an insult, and from what I can gather it was reported. Since a GM didn't think someone being called a neckbeard is insulting, no action was taken, so the person who reported it is left feeling like others weren't dealt with fairly. But whatever. I wasn't trying to make a big deal out of it. I get that you all don't want people arbitrarily reporting stuff just to silence others as that makes perfect sense. I wasn't responding to you, nor was I suggesting that GMs should automatically action anything that gets reported just because someone reports a post. You misunderstood my post.

I agree with this 100%. The ignore feature is a wonderful thing. More people should use it in my opinion. I could very well be wrong, but this reads to me as if our opinion really isn't as important as yours or any GM. So long as you all don't find something rude of take offense, whatever behavior was reported is acceptable. That "continuum" of insults can go both ways on many topics. Now, let me clarify since "intent" is difficult to judge by reading text on an internet forum. Please allow me to say that I mean no disrespect by making that statement. I am not looking to start an argument with you, nor am I suggesting you're doing anything wrong. I'm simply sharing my observation to your post and it is meant as no personal insult toward you or any other GM. As to the topic at hand, I agree with those who've said just continue what you're doing.

I don't need to imagine the PL options being gone. It already exists. Anyone can log into Brainstorm server here and roll up as many level 50s as they want with all of the enhancements, badges and inf that they want in a couple of minutes with no restrictions. There are other servers out there that allow you to create a level 50 with all badges, accolades, enhancements and billions of inf right from the start. There's no population there. That's an abundantly clear indication most people don't want an "I win" button. If it were, Brainstorm would be heavily populated and there would be more and more people migrating to other servers. As I pointed out earlier in the thread, and there are many HC posts about this over the years that confirm this is their philosophy as well, people fundamentally want to feel like they've earned something. Given the population here, that experience and feeling like you've earned something is what most people are getting from playing here. That's why they're here and not elsewhere. A great thing about HC is there are options for all kinds of people to play how they like. Don't like the low level content? Don't do it. Hit the S.T.A.R.T. vendor, grab your double XP boosters and DFB/DiB/SBB your way into the 30s, or PL yourself in AE all the way to 50. Want to play through every single story arc the game has to offer? Go for it. There's something here for everyone. These are you problems. There is already plenty of variety in terms of power set combinations and builds you can make. If you're not using powers that you usually skip, then don't skip them. If you're bored PLing and sick of DFBs, stop doing them. I don't know how you're planning builds, but for me, I never take anything I don't need. If you are, then again that's a you problem. Nothing about saga mode makes lower level content "more interesting" to play. This is a non-answer. We're not talking about chess. We're talking about this game, and like other games, this one offers tangible rewards for running content in the form of XP, inf, merits etc. that are used as currency and to incentivize people to run the content. What's the tangible reward with saga mode to incentivize actually playing the content? This isn't "new and exotic" builds though, it's just changing the order in which you take your abilities. You eventually wind up in the same place. You're still stuck within the parameters of your chosen powersets and power pools. So you can take higher tier powers first. So what? You'll have to take your lower tier powers at later levels, so you essentially wind up in the same place, except in saga mode you're gimped from being saddled with SOs only. Correct. You don't need to min/max all the time. You can choose to make SO only builds right now. You can choose to play through the story content the old-fashioned way right now. There are people in a couple of SGs I'm in who have weekly "crawl" teams playing and leveling through running story content. There's nothing stopping you from doing this too.

Given that they've said the very first thing they did when the joined HC was to PL in AE, I imagine the "fun factor" for having a nuke at level 2 would wear off within a few minutes.