battlewraith

A bit of a tangent here, but I recently watched a video comparing Aragorn to Jon Snow. George R. R. Martin wrote the character of Jon Snow as a sort of rebuttal to Tolkein's version of Aragorn. However, the Peter Jackson movies complicate Aragorn's character in a way that somewhat answers Martin's complaints. But then the tv version of Jon Snow is seemingly influenced by Jackson's version of Aragorn--which actually works to the detriment of what Martin was going for with that character lol.

Snyder is really good at doing a certain kind of visual style. There was a project for one of the Iphones where they had people make short films with their phones and his entry was remarkable for what he was able to accomplish with a phone. It was also pretty recognizable as his work. I liked the Dawn of the Dead movie he did and Watchmen. He's one of those directors that had some good work, but once they had clout, a bigger budget, and more control over every part of the production, things started to go south.

None of the MCU characters are accurate to the superheroes that I followed in comics as a child. Antman wasn't a goofus. Thor spent half his time as a physician who walked with a cane. Iron Man was more of an engineer than a scientist and he didn't have expertise on time travel and all the other stuff he does in the MCU. The classic Reed Richards from the comic books is basically like a character from one of those "father-knows-best" sitcoms. An accurate portrayal to how he was in the comics would be laughably anachronistic in 2025. I get the complaint that "I don't picture this actor as ....", but you really don't know until you give them a chance. Ian Flemming didn't want Sean Connery as Bond initially. Roald Dahl hated Gene Wilder as Wonka. An actor's performance sometimes drives an evolution of the character. As people have pointed out, not being accurate to Kirby era Reed might be a good thing.

Maybe they could do motion capture of Pedro and then map it on to a digital avatar that screams "smart man." Noam Chomsky? Stephen Hawking? The possibilities seem endless.

Well, after reading all the withering contempt for this project and then watching the (actual) trailer I'm interested. One thing that works for me on a superhero or fantasy film is a strong visual aesthetic. If they let the designers do their thing I'm in.

There is no stigma. People have been complaining about PLing since 2004 and they will continue to do so as long as the game is around. If someone is annoying you for any reason, you don't have to play with them. If you can't find a team, join an sg, go to a more populated server, etc.

I started rendering art in ballpoint pen. I do a very light linework sketch in Photoshop and print it out on vellum bristol paper. Then I render everything out in black ballpoint pen. After that, I scan it in and then do whatever digital tweaks/additions/alterations seem necessary. The goal is to ultimately master the traditional process to the point that this third step isn't needed. Anyway, this is a reworking of a piece I did a few years ago:

You know it's no joke. You know that movie sucked. It objectively, cosmically, ontologically sucked. It's not about fact, it's about the feels. If you've ever had your heartfelt opinions and clownish whimsy pruned by VIDEO GAME FORUM MODERATORS (aka, the system, society, The MAN, etc.) then Joker is the movie for you. If you've ever endured the absurdity of trying to explain your online beef with video game forum mods to disinterested, ordinary people--Joker: Folie a Deux is for you. And here you are shining a light on people's bad emotional investments with a joke. About Joker.

Yes, they were BOTH garbage. The first one tapped into some sort of incel zeitgeist, but should have just been framed as a movie about mental illness, not a Joker movie.

The director on Kraven did Margin Call. Margin Call is a great film that I've rewatched many times. He also did a Film called Triple Frontier that I think was pretty decent. It was done during Covid so most people who saw it probably did so on Netflix. Given the mess that this film seems to be, I have to blame it on the studio and a death by committee situation. My wife was going to make me go see this with her but finally relented upon reading reviews that said Kraven suffered from bad filmmaking--things like bad edits, bad overdubs, etc.

The studios see this as a way to maximize their profits and reducing labor costs (ie actors). The unnecessary appearance of notable actors in films right now via AI is a way of advancing the technology and normalizing it with audiences--as if there were some compelling artistic reason to use the likeness of an actor who is deceased. The endgame is probably not to continually cast notable actors of old in new films. It will be to create new digital "stars" who are based on samples of great actors that are remixed into another persona.

There was a time when KM was amazing in zone pvp. It had two ranged attacks that were useful and then that big whirling jazz hands attack did massive damage because that ridiculous animation time factored into how hard it hit. There was a reason to bring a scrapper rather than a blaster, stalker or some other damage toon. Pixels were crushed, kills were stolen, and there was crying. Lots of crying. It flew too close to the sun. It's current level of mediocrity is spiritual penance for that time of high performance. And that COH development follows the Japanese maxim "the nail that sticks out will be hammered flat." It's not good enough or bad enough to merit attention.

So there is no reason to pick a brute over a tank? I would've thought that farming at least was the one area where brute would shine over other ATs.

Thanks peeps!

Anyone here use the incarnate hybrid control? The description talks about a chance for applying effects/damage to controlled enemies. My question is what does "controlled" mean in this context. Is it just related to holds or does it include other effects like disorients, fear, confusion, etc.?

This is a game. In order to keep people paying $15 a month, there was a variety of gameplay options added to grind for things. I don't know in what context Matt said "players are always going to find a way to get as much as they can with as little time investment as possible" but to see someone quote that and then start talking about people acting badly is hilarious. What Matt is describing there is a good capitalist. Or simply anyone who values their time. If you're a developer for an MMO and that is some sort of major revelation--maybe you should be working on a more linear, story driven sort of game? Maybe after all these years the solution to the concerns about things like leaching is for a portion of the Homecoming budget to be spent on mailing Xanax to the people who can't seem to let things go.

Bullshit. The biggest moment for me in terms of people leaving happened in the first year (2004). I had two mid sized sgs just basically get bored and quit because the content wasn't rolling out fast enough. Half of them went to WoW. I think that early period was the starkest decline for the population and there wasn't even AE yet. I don't know what "countless" means, but I played Age of Warhammer, WoW, Guild Wars 2, and SWTOR--and didn't see people leaving in droves because of pling in any of them. Pling was frowned on during the duration of the subscription years--because they wanted people to have to grind slowly to keep them paying. The fact that it was there kept certain demographics (min/maxers, farmers, pvpers) from going to other games. If you completely got rid of it right now, I'm pretty sure it would take a sizeable chunk out of the around 11k daily players you have right now. There are tons of great single player games out there. There are tons of great multiplayer games out there as well. Games that are not based on design decisions and graphics engines that are 20 years old. So it's really bizarre to have people argue that there is a proper "mmorpg concept" that should be followed here. It's a sandbox as much as anything else and that's why it still works.

That was satire, not making shit up. I was mocking the judgmental tone of it. Is your perspective on people taking your advice unreasonable? Not really. What is? 1. Insisting on lumping all players into one box to fit how you feel people should learn the game. ["I disagree that it depends all that much on the player."] 2. Ignoring that these discussions about how people should learn or experience the game are centered on baseless platitudes that have been around since PLing became a thing (ie from the beginning). I've never seen any evidence that it causes people to get bored and leave the game faster or there is some sort of epidemic of bad teaming from people who pled to 50 and don't know how to play. Neither of which is a problem now that the game is f2p. Now maybe you think I'm strawmanning you. You said people should spend "some" time playing. Ok, how much time should they spend traditionally leveling. And how are you arriving at this amount?

Yes, the consequences. The utter ruin that will befall someone if they stray from the honored path. The fact that people like you will turn their back on them... Oh well? If someone asks me a question, I just answer it. If a newly pled 50 asked me what to do, I'd probably ask them what they wanted to do and give them some tips. If someone on a pickup team dies, i rezz them. If they keep getting killed, I maybe keep an eye on them and try to stop that from happening. Probably the worst case scenario is that they would friend me and then later I would forget who they were or something.

It's not an argument, just an impression based on the assumptions you seemed to be feeding into that post. The simple answer to your question-- "is it in the best interests of new players to do X" -- is that it depends on the player. You want to picture people that need your wisdom--knock yourself out.

I suspect you can't relate some of the perspectives in this thread because you assume some kind of blank slate player that somehow hears about this game and just picks it up with no preconceptions. I don't. I think people like that do start the game but are brought in by friends or family--so they have some sort of mentorship/help. My image of somebody seeking out and starting a 20 year old MMO on their own is that this person is a gamer, has played a variety of games, and most likely understand what drives MMOs-- grinding resources. That person might know, before they even roll a character, they they want a maxed out character that will be able to efficiently grind resources for other characters/objectives/etc. It's in that person's best interests to cut out the grind and let them go straight to what they actually want to do. I think the "learn after you're 50" part would be pretty trivial. At that point, they may or may not be interested in the 1-50 leveling content.

It just came in the mail a few days ago. We have Orthanc and my wife has been waiting like 10 years to get a Barad-Dur (wtf Lego?), so she's going to have the building be a deliberately slow process. The only thing assembled so far is the fell beast.

Yeah the rationale behind it doesn't matter. I don't care about downvotes in a discussion. So to hear someone say "I spared you" a downvote, like it's the scarlet letter or something, is just funny. Also, HAIL SATAN!

Looks like you did not get spared a second time, lol.