Techwright

You are surprisingly well-versed in the details of this horror. I am profoundly grateful I no longer live in pig country, and that this discussion is in cyberspace.

Voice only? Clancy Brown.

We had a dog like that back in our childhood. It was Christmas Eve, the dog was in our fenced-in front yard for a little while, as we were in the living room doing traditional Christmas things. Dad was reading aloud and we suddenly heard a loud electrical sizzle and ZOT! immediately followed by YIPE! YIPE! YIPE! YIPE! Away to the window we kids flew like a flash, when our Dad highly annoyed at being interrupted bellowed "Sit down! He's fine!" The dog had been attracted to the Christmas lights wiring we had strung across the front bushes, and decided to sample some. No worries, the dog was indeed fine, just, um, shocked. He never messed with those decorations again,

So I goofed in saying "server" rather than "shard" (I knew better, but was using a common slang for shard among many on these forums), but wouldn't that make the "Victory" in the OP's post a shard, rather than a server? And why "Victory" when it was a shard of the original game? Victory is mentioned briefly in that 2020 thread you linked to, but in passing, and in regards to the OG Victory. I'm curious to know where the current Victory is mentioned, if there actually is one in the works.

Who is 48? RDJ? He's 59. Unless...he's holding at 48?

I've seen Coleman's mustard on store shelves, but never realized it was hot. It just looked like standard French's mustard, which I ...tolerate. (I much prefer a classier mustard.) Now understanding there's heat to it, I shall have to bring some home, after acquiring the appropriate toxic stickers to apply to prevent anyone else opening the fridge from a troublesome ending. That said, I've a certain 20-something's niece who has gone out of her way to thumb her nose at my choices in mustard, proclaiming her devotion to plain ol' French's. I might have to swap the contents of her's sometime. 😈

I freely admit I'd not heard of any issues with the process elsewhere, just that it existed. Speaking purely hypothetically, rather than individualized MM pets, perhaps it would be more practical to implement alternative skin sets for these. Using the thugs as examples, a costume setting would be added that allowed a skins pick of original street thugs, gangsters, bowler derbies and turtlenecks, etc. In theory, this should work similar to Illusion powerset's customization of illusion characters, with the big difference being that Illusion merely mimic's the player's character's look, and the suggested MM pets draw from a stock skins set.

Me, too, though that's not saying much. I miss a lot of details in the announcements. @Phanto: would you be so kind as to point us to your source of information? Other than improved performance in the "eastern" parts of our globe, I'm puzzled why another server would be added, as we've servers still at lower populations.

Look at you, understanding bright and cheerful! You go, ghoul! I get the humor in that, but that's trading one extreme for another. I'd not say that an Arachnos base needs to be as bright as, say, Fort Trident (though it does make sense for effective operation, no matter how much your army likes black uniforms), but the current design seems to have a misunderstanding of good use of low-light environments. It needs to take a page from other games with darkened or low-light corridors and make better use of atmospheric lighting. I find that would raise the creepiness level, and thereby the interest. We even have a later-designed, in-game example: the ghoul tunnels of Praetoria: Borrowing a few internet examples:

And the villain's ultimate scream of frustrated defeat would have no one better to perform it. I just saw the Comicon reveal again. I don't know why I missed it before, but the Russo brothers did indeed say RDJ's Doom is from the multiverse so maybe the MCU Doom (that is, Earth-199999) will follow-up after RDJ's performance, and then we could get fan's dream casting.

I just saw that interview. It is the first time I've seen this show. I see a lot of comedy, and I may lightly chuckle, but these guys had me gasping for breath from laughing so hard. I do agree the questions were really good, but I was a bit disappointed that such good questions were asked when the respondents were beyond the ability to pair it with a good answer. Speaking as one who is from the state which invented the hottest peppers on the planet I...completely distance myself from those Low Country weirdos. LOL. Among my circle of friends I'm known for taking hot food better than most of the others, but I'm not crazy. I'll max out at about 5,000 Scoville. I've had Thai food prepared at supposedly a 7/10 per the waiter's rating (I really think the chef made it an 8/10), but I've never had Tom Yum (as the local Thai restaurants spell it) that altered my reality. That's insane. To me, heat should always be in balance with other flavor elements, or there's no reason to prepare the food, just guzzle the sauce. 30 years ago, my roommates and our gang had a low-key version of this going on. There was an Asian buffet in town known for delicious fried wonton nearly the size of golf balls and for a particularly hot "Chinese" mustard (mustard with horseradish). We used to getting heaping plates of both, slather the sauce on the fried meatball and chow down, trying to see who could clear the plate without beverage and who wouldn't. Good times, and really, really clear sinuses.

You know...Alan Tudyk would make an awesome Doctor Doom. 😉 That's just it. Doom doesn't take off the mask, at least not so the comic reader can see it (I add that I stopped collecting around the turn of the millenium, so that may have officially changed). I want that Doom, the mystery of what and whom is really behind the mask. You may have the best actor behind that mask, but the mask should stay on, or at least the face hidden except the eyes. It's like "V" (the vigilante, not the aliens). And that actually tells something about a great actor: can they sell a performance with less visual? Anson Mount was the best part of an otherwise terrible The Inhumans, and the reason was that he had to act through Black Bolt's crippling mute-ness. I was very impressed with his effort, and therefore thrilled when they announced him as Christopher Pike in Star Trek.

Here it from some of the YouTube reactors who were in the room.

I agree with your first point. I don't hold to the second point. Too often I see Doom as ridiculous and over-the-top, but I tend to see him as more grounded a character than a lot of the "phenomenal cosmic power" stuff the F4 have to square off against, so I tolerate him. (I see Marvel as getting more ludicrous the higher up the power chain they go. I much prefer more grounded characters.) I definitely agree with your feelings on Doom 2099. That is a character I'd very much like to see brought to screen. A great deal of the 2099 stuff I deeply loved.

Oh, I agree. It's a hard decision as to which I hate worse: dark Arachnos bases or blue caves. The bases have some vertical room to move around, and the blue caves are better lit. I see these positives as cancelling each other in the comparison.

Exactly. It wouldn't be the first time a major character, or secondary character for that matter, was recast in the MCU: 1. Hulk 2. Rhodey 3. Thunderbolt Ross One thing to consider when speaking of Kang: the character is actually characters spread over an infinite number of universes. That credits scene in Quantumania should have shown many Kang variants with different faces, including different skin tones and facial features, heights, sizes, genders, and ages, not just different costumes. This is something that Loki got right. I suspect the reason the Kang storyline was at least tabled if not outright eliminated (and not recast), was because, with the possible exception of Loki, the story was not connecting with viewers. It might be best to hope that it's been put back in the fridge to marinate a bit longer, perhaps appearing at some point connecting to the F4.

That would, IMHO, probably strengthen the story. Justin Hammer is an intriguing narcissistic goofball, and Sam Rockwell is one of the best character actors of his generation, but I'm not sure the character can hold audience attention for a full movie, or series for that matter. As to whether the movie was folded in or not, since my earlier posting, I've found an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article from May of this year stating that the movie had been delayed due to the actor/writers strikes, but has been rescheduled with shooting to start in January at the film studios in Fayetteville, GA (south of Atlanta). The one source they cite does have the January 2025 date, however, curiously the supposed end of scheduling date is August of 2023. Quantum Realm time travel, perhaps? 😏 Clearly there's a typo, but whether it is on 2025 or 2023, I don't know. I do find it interesting that if it is back up and running, so little has been said about that, including on the official Marvel site covering the movie. I also found articles saying the reason the story was converted to a movie was that the powers that be felt it deserved a bigger budget than a D+ series would get. That's a positive sign to me, but again, those articles posted before Disney's slash-and-gash began.

That's a very creative use for the chain mail costume element. Have you used "Sand Flea" for a name yet?

Ah, I see. Apologies for the misunderstanding. This...this could play into Armor (Armour) Wars the announced D+ series that was converted to a movie and was supposed to have Rhodey fighting to preserve Tony's legacy and in specific keep Stark technology out of enemy hands. Justin Hammer is supposed to be the main baddie, however there was a seemingly passing comment that he might not be the only one. I've heard nothing about this project since the Sept. 2022 announcement of the movie instead of the series. That, I think, was before Disney dug out the pruners to deal with the budget losses. Are you aware of anything recent?

Okay Luke Cage, like the other "TV" series of its day (with the possible exception of Agent Carter) was ruled not MCU, though admittedly they've kind of soft-canon'ed it by using the multi-verse. But that technique also means the 1990, 1979, and 1944 Captain Americas are technically MCU as well, and none of that was designed for the MCU. Not to mention the cartoon from the 1960s. So I can see Alfre being used in a different role. Chris Evans turn at Johnny Storm did not start as an MCU thing, the MCU didn't exist at that time, though like the examples listed above, it might currently be soft canon due to their take on the multi-verse. Cumberbatch, Brown, and Cardellini were all playing a character live, and one that was CGI. Big difference to what RDJ is doing. Were RDJ to show up as another member of the Groot species, for example, that would be more in line with their performances. Kenneth Choi, I believe was playing two characters of the same family over a couple of generations. That's not an unheard of technique to show family resemblance. Gemma Chan hits closer to the RDJ situation, though under heavy makeup she's not only playing a different character but a different species. RDJ is playing the same species (presumably). I suppose the mask can substitute for makeup, drawing the comparison a bit closer, but then it would have to be Doom with the mask on constantly, which is pretty true to the comics. Doom has removed the mask in the comics at times, but last I knew, he never showed his face to the reader. Michelle Yeoh is the one name on that list that actually strikes a cord with the RDJ double role. While her Ravager character is likely alien, it is close enough to human to count. The Ravager is a minor character, almost a cameo, if I recall correctly, but the Ying Nan is an important secondary character in one movie. RDJ will not be playing a minor character either time, though an argument could be made that Doom will be a strong secondary character, depending on whom the camera spends the most time. Of course Ironman is not only a major character, but the first of the tentpole characters in the MCU.

DOOM is Nemesis' plot. Okay, I'm really puzzled about RDJ as Doom. Is he... The Victor Von Doom of the MCU universe (Earth-199999)? A Victor Von Doom of an alternate universe where Tony Stark became (or was born?) Doom. (For that matter, is he Victor or is another name in play?) If this is true, they're throwing even more shade on the "can't stay in another universe" problem that the last Doctor Strange movie wrestled with. The MCU Tony Stark miraculously revived but corrupted? An evil twin separated at birth from Howard and Tony? An evil clone of Tony created years before by Hydra? Inquiring minds want to know. I'm not upset about RDJ playing Doom, per se. I understand the behind-the-scenes power play here. The MCU has not batted well in the Fourth and Fifth innings, and they brought their Babe Ruth back from retirement to calm frazzled fan nerves and drum up business. I just think they're going to have to give a very solid explanation as to why it is RDJ. Next question: Why on earth (or nearby space) is Doom first appearing with the Avengers and not the Fantastic Four? Doom is one of two signature enemies of the F4. He represents a world wide crisis. Galactus represents a cosmic crisis. It should be a no-brainer to build from the smaller to the larger. It certainly was in Phases 1 to 3 where we started (storytelling-wise, not internal calendar) with Obadiah Stane, built to the global threat of Red Skull and Hydra, the global threat and European disaster of Ultron, and eventually ended up with the universal threat and complete disaster that was Thanos. I'm not opposed to Pedro as Mr. Fantastic, it's just that I can see other actors in the role rather than him, and yes, John Krasinski is among them. I think this is yet another power play to bring some life back to the MCU by bringing Mando fans over.

What? No cosmic cloud?

I will be reporting Dr. Phosphorous for directly ripping off the licensed look of Batman Beyond's Blight. I can't believe...oh...both DC...hmm...

Base Enhancement Tables offer filters "Show Permissions" and "Show Log". I'd like to request that a filter be added to display enhancements by rank, or perhaps by rank range. While it is true that enhancements of like kind will rank themselves (eg: Accuracy 50 > 45 >40 > etc.) The current setup does take some time to sort through items looking for the level one wants, especially when the base may have many tables. Being able to select "Show only level 40 enhancements" for example, would allow a quick assessment of what one can acquire or need to craft/buy.

I'm hoping "like a 100 items" is a deliberate exaggeration to make the point. There'd be no need for personal storage vaults or base storage, for that matter, if we could attach that number of items per email. I am curious though, and perhaps one of the "old guard" can answer the question: Why was the in-game email set to one item each? Other MMOs of the time were permitting 3 or more items to be attached. Is it some limitation within the game code, or original storage, or...? I am fine with having increase attachments per email but something more reasonable like 3 items or perhaps up to 5.