Techwright

Marking myself as safe from hurricane Helene. 🙂 We think the eye went right over us. Hard to tell because all power failed at 5:20 am, and we didn't get a sense of that quiet that storm eyes are known for. As I write via phone, most of the western half of my state is without power. I realize to a coastal area used to bad hurricanes this is probably nothing, but it is a different story 250 miles inland. We're used to getting tropical storm remnants this far inland, but we've never seen amounts of water, wind, flash floods, and outages like this, and the area just isn't prepared to a level like our coastal cities are. I am hearing there are many deaths, tragically. I'm hearing the mountains close to Asheville, North Carolina are even worse. The village of Chimney Rock, for example was apparently wiped out ( The Last of the Mohicans movie was shot nearby), Lake Lure, where Dirty Dancing was shot, is so saturated they're fearing the dam will break. I know many other states are hit, I just have limited connectivity at the moment and don't know their details. Power restoration time here is anyone's guess. The closest we've ever seen to this was a great ice storm in 2005 that knocked out all power, and it took up to 10 days to restore all power to the state. Hoping to be back up to full annoy-the-forums mode quickly. I am certainly not the only player in this mess, so keep your friends in mind as they recover. I'm now seriously thinking the next big game event threat should be environmental, and supers have to help out during and after the storm, including rescues and dealing with gang looting.

My etiquette requires wiping the blade of the last victim's blood before striking another. Less chance of infection that way. Joking aside, if you want to do non-PvP stuff in a PvP zone, might Grant Invisibility from an Empowerment Station help? Or is that only for PvE fights? I've not tested it in PvP, since I've not been to a PvP zone in at least 4 years.

It's a fair point that it was late in his career and he wasn't top form. I never read "From the Earth to the Moon", but I did "read" HG Wells' "The First Men in the Moon" via one of the old Classics Illustrated comics which were pretty fair adaptations. Suspension of disbelief is a must have with that, but it is still a lot of fun. (I'd love to find those old Classics Illustrated and re-read them.) I did not know that Verne was that prolific. 🤯 It rivals, maybe even surpasses, Alexandre Dumas.

Of what, exactly? The Thunderbolts haven't formed yet. In baseball (and there's sports folk out there who understand this better), an asterisk is used to denote an accomplishment, but with a condition that makes it suspect or sullied. A player might have an achievement score with an asterisk beside it, because of steroid use proven after the fact, but not proven in conditions that would remove the score. I'm wondering if Thunderbolts* is due to something like that: it's been pitched to its members as a lofty-ideals team like the Avengers, but they'll discover they've been manipulated (something we already highly suspect due to scenes with the contessa) and the victories they have are actually being used for the wrong purposes.

If they do have an equal chance, then there's something gumming up the works. I've often had play sessions where 8 out of 10 inspirations dropped are accuracy ones, and the other two are orange damage resistance ones. And it goes on long after one counts up 10 of them.

While I do like Verne, I must say I was sorely disappointed in "Master of the World". I read it for a couple of reasons: 1) I'd heard it focused around another superweapon far ahead of its time (much like the Nautilus) 2) I'd heard Verne wrote it after he visited the mountains of North Carolina and decided it was the perfect locale for a new book. Well, I live a mere couple hours drive from where the story centered. I'm up that way frequently and consider it part of my region, so I was intrigued. But...Verne got the idea of a volcano in the Appalachians all wrong. Not only would that look completely awkward, but the people in these parts, by the scores, would not hesitate to climb that thing and look inside out of overwhelming curiosity. In essence, what would have worked as a disguise in, say, Washington State, would be a complete failure of a hiding place in the Carolinas. In addition, the superweapon, though concept-wise was intriguing, was ridiculous in execution, in comparison to the Nautilus. I think there were a couple of other "off" things I've forgotten. I really tried to like that book, but it just never took off in my mind. Perhaps some Hollywood writer can make it work some day. I know there was a 1950s movie from the book. As to Earthsea books, I discovered the first story on a bookshelf when I was house sitting at age 14, and stayed up reading all night, finishing the book around dawn. I read the rest over time, but none ever had the impact for me as that first book did. Growing up, at a time when paperbacks were $2 each, I had hundreds of dollars in Star Trek books. I eventually sold the lot, but looking back now, there are only two authors whose works I'd consider re-reading: Diane Duane, and John M. Ford. Duane's Trek masterpiece, IMHO, was My Enemy, My Ally. It advanced Romulan society concepts, and presented really fresh concepts, for its time, in out-of-the-box Trek combat tactics and alien crew appearances (meaning no humanoids for these). Ford's masterpiece was The Final Reflection, and although it was outdated the moment Worf first hit the screen, it's study in pre-Next Generation Klingon culture was astonishingly good. Fans still try to get Paramount to incorporate elements of his take on Klingon society, especially many versions of "Klingon chess", including the live, gladiatorial version. There is one series I only read one book from, and always wished I'd read the rest. I refer to Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan series. Perhaps I'll look into that soon. Other childhood reading collections included a Tom Swift book series from the late 1970s/early 1980s (now sadly forgotten, but in my mind superior to the 1950s books which I also read), and a collection of works on Sherlock Holmes. Dad started me off with the complete set of the original Conan Doyle stories, then I started collecting the works of other authors. Some were really wonderful. Even picked up some cool games along the way. I retain everything I bought in regards to Sherlock Holmes, though most is packed away. I'm not a member of the Baker Street Irregulars fan club, but it's likely I have one of the largest Sherlock Holmes collections for my region.

Dancing with the Stars just gets crazier every year.

You might actually get me to watch sparkly Snarky wannabees with that setup.

Setting aside "what about Bob?" for the moment, I know you know Ross is more Rogue (by CoH definitions) than he is hero or anti-hero. Did you forget about him, since he's not in the teaser? I'd consider him at very least a nasty, scheming, controlling menace, though perhaps not the Big Bad. Perhaps no CGI in this teaser, yes, but ...did you forget about Ross?

Okay, no teaming with any guy dressed like a cross between T-Mobile and Verizon.

So you made a love child of the AT&T logo and the old Sprint color scheme? 😛 J/K. It does look sharp, truly.

Additionally there are players like myself who are actually affected by the long dark, both in the real world and in the game. We actually had a forum chat about this years back, though I don't recall a lot of details other than the devs stating their understanding of the issue and limiting the amount of "night" during the event. Remind me please: what triggers Jack and Eochai in P.I during October? Is it a trigger that works anywhere, in this case Kallisti Wharf? Because tackling them is a second thing the "murder motel" crew do in PI.

Interesting. I wonder if it might be handled slightly differently, with sound being a feature to be placed like a fountain jet is. Click a spot then drag either across a floor or perhaps three-dimensionally to define a space where that sound is to play. That way, as but one example, you could have a restaurant that plays sound both inside and in the al fresco dining area, and it would not be limited to a specific item. You'd be able to place an item, a mute item, in the sound area to imitate sound coming from it.

I'm all for new concepts, but I hope you realized you just described Martial Arts' Dragon Tail and Eagle Claw.

Welcome to the majority opinion of the last two decades. 😛

Would that be set to their account rather than the character? And what if they're running a second or third account? I'm certain Okie has been running events on multiple characters. Either that or someone is really skilled at imitating him. I do agree some sort of stand-out recognition is in order for those who consistently go above and beyond. Is gold lettering the way to go? Not sure. Haven't we had a history where devs have handed out gold titling for fun stuff beyond what you mentioned? I think the OG devs used to do this for fun but silly reasons when they'd make appearances in the game.

Hey, it could still happen. If MCU's Crossbones can become DCU's Rick Flagg, Sr., Daredevil become Batman, Jonah Hex become Thanos, and several other swaps, it can happen. There. I've ruined another minute for you. Perhaps two, even.

I've not run it in a few years now, but immediately what comes to mind are the characters running to you then flittering around you like a storm of moths to a porch light. Your first sentence has merit. I'm not sure I explained the concept very well, judging by your response. I'm not talking about farming any last missions. When I mentioned a hypothetical checkbox system, I was referring to it being applied to every character. If character A is running the arc, and character B joins on the second mission and stays to the end, then B gets credit for each mission run, but doesn't get the suggested arc reward because B missed the first mission. However, if B ran the first mission at another time, be it solo or with another team, then all the boxes are checked and character B gets the arc rewards. For that character, they'd actually drop once all the boxes are checked, so they may receive their reward in the middle of a second team's attempt at the arc. As I said, it's part of a plan. You do make a good point. I'd love to see patrols with significant attacks (spawned close to the call box), hopefully randomized. I'd like the call boxes to be randomized as well. You make a point regarding the "padding and filler", but if I were in the NPCs shoes, separating hostages and having decoys for my McGuffin of the Day would be exactly how I'd operate.

Yeah, I messed up. In my not-so-much of a defense, I'd just read an article about Tom Holland as well. I'm drinking another cup o' joe to compensate. ☕ Thanks for pointing it out. I've now corrected it.

Interesting article that starts by noting that Smallville star Tom Welling is distancing his brief performance as Clark in the multi-verse crossover of the "Arrow-verse" version of DC with his more famous performance as Clark Kent in Smallville. The article then goes on to say that the actors and creators of live-action Smallville, are pitching a continuation series to be done in animation. This could resolve a few issues, such as what to do with Cloe and Lana in light of their actors' real life problems. Just cast new voice actors. I'm intrigued that Michael Rosenbaum is pushing this. He wasn't exactly in to continuing Lex in the series. He'll do fine with the voice acting though, as he's also known for voicing the Wally West version of The Flash in animation. Personally, I'm down for it, so long as the writing is tight. I dropped out at some forgotten point in the series as I'd felt the writing had deteriorated.

I'm one of those guilty of running the DFB repeatedly. Even if it was the same XP as contact missions it's hard to beat. It recruits well (usually), often restocks the team quickly after a run, and it is compact. That is, you're not running from one part of a zone map to another, or worse, to another zone. So the efficiency of travel plays to your favor. I get a nice set of 4 bonuses that stay with my character until level 22, and there are several trainers within the trial. I could wish for a vendor or two, but it's still pretty sweet in it's efficiency. In contrast, Atlas Park contact missions are mostly not efficient, and the Shining Star ones are exceptionally buggy. I point this out because, first we have notably lower XP, then we waste time running all over the place, even having to do some missons where we assume different personas and are restricted to slower movements. Lack of matching reward and reduced efficiency of travel will play heavily against doing the missions, at least until DFB and DIB are exhausted. Do I have a plan? I have part of a plan. Set an automated checkbox system that will reward a substantial XP bonus only upon completion of a contact's entire arc, regardless of what position one holds on a team. Give enough of an XP bonus to closely offset a full run through DFB. Set termination of arc XP bonuses to level 22, the point at which the DFB temporary rewards terminate. (I think DIB's temp rewards also terminate at 22.) That should better match DFB, and get the player to complete what they started, rather than flitting around to various things for XP. If they do that, they'll still get the mission XP, just not the arc bonus. This also would mean that going back at level 50 to do Atlas contact arcs would not reward the bonus XP because one has already leveled past the cut-off point. (I'm not sure how S.T.A.R.T. XP bonuses would play into this, as I've not thought that far into this partial plan.)

I agree on the waiting to see bit. It's just that Ironheart wouldn't go with Thunderbolts anyway. She'd be teamed with the Young Avengers, which by the time the MCU will finally be getting around to assembling them will be the Old Avengers. It's one of the MCU problems at the moment: too many irons in the fire waters down the potency (to deliberately mix metaphors). So T* will still need an armor technomage. I'd suggest someone other than Justin Hammer.

Someone who is ridiculously overpowered in the comics. I'm grossly understating. I'm not clear from this trailer if he's to be the antagonist, or if he's joining the team, but if the latter, he's definitely taking Thor's role. With that, Thunderbolts will have analogs to Black Widow, Captain America (tripley), Hulk, Hawkeye, and Thor. They're lacking an analog to Iron-Man, and I suppose Ghost will serve as an analog to Ant-Man or Wasp though with phasing rather than size changes. If that is a teaser, I'll probably love the trailer. This raised my anticipation for this film. Ghost's new outfit looks great. Still wondering what the asterisks in the title is meant to imply about the team.

I'm ah...I'm not available at the moment. Which moment? The one when you're inviting. Sorry, I'm tied up in my base making certain the flower vases are the proper distance from the edges of the side tables. It's a tedious, time-consuming job, but it is important to get it done. Repeatedly, if necessary. A word of advice as you go into Posi2 TF: when you get inside the dam, it's best to tag as many CoT groups as possible so they all accumulate together for slaughter. It should be a piece o' cake that way. When you finally confront Dr. V, be sure to charge him straight on. Have your knockback specialist hit his adjacent minions with the best aoe attack they've got, making sure to scatter them off the bridge and across as wide a field as possible. That way, they're not close to supporting him, so they'll not matter at all, right? They can go their merry ways wherever. With them out of the way you can turn your back to the bridge ends, as nothing's remaining on the bridge to attack except Dr. V. It will be smooth sailing from there.

I believe the donut shop chain gives you a 5% discount on Tuesdays between 3pm and 3:15pm for your contributions to aiding police, but no, no badges except... 👆 ...this. I'd note that some of the badges to be found with Safeguard missions are exploration badges only found in said missions.