Techwright

Sorry..."Red Guardian as Goliath"? Is that something from the comics (which I've not read)? Last I knew, Bill Foster was Goliath. Did the comics take a super soldier and make him a size-shifter as well? That would be, well, interesting. I'm all for having Zemo in an action sequence. MCU Zemo is supposed to be ex-Sokovian special forces, but most of what we've seen has been his mental skills, his tactics, but not his fighting prowess. "Ten" was a miscount on my part. It should have been "nine" since I was taking the Contessa into account, admittedly in a strategy role rather than physical (possibly). But I also wasn't considering Zemo, as current lists haven't mentioned him. Considering how important he is in the comics, this may be a silence tied to some special appearance or role in the movie. Perhaps he's third-party viewpoint/interference? Likewise, after re-reading some news, Melina, Yelena's surrogate mother, is also surprisingly absent, so there may be some surprise with her in store as well. USAgent, Red Guardian, Black Widow II, Bucky (they really need to ditch his villainous name and either make White Wolf stick or give him another name), Ghost, Taskmaster, Ross (and presumably in alter-ego form), Sentry, and Contessa de Fontaine were the nine I was thinking of.

Sooo...Norberta, then? 😁 The team actually already has two gender-flipped characters: Ghost and Taskmaster. While I'm mostly not opposed to this tactic when considering its a multiverse of infinite possibilities, and the MCUniverse is a different one than the comics. three on a team of ten is going to appear excessive, or at least raise charges of such. Now if you make the third a species swap to, say, a talking raccoon or tree, now we're talking.

I was reminded yesterday of a favorite of mine in the 1990s. I thought I'd posted it around here somewhere, but the key word search came up blank after several different keywords were attempted. I'm referring to the comedy, Renaissance Man. Danny Devito headlines it, but it has a recognizable cast: Gregory Hines, James Remar, Mark Walberg, Ed Begley, Jr., and Cliff Roberson to name several. Directed by Penny Marshall, it came out 30 years ago (ugh, has it been so long?) Basic premise: a down-on-his-luck ad man takes a job teaching down-on-their-luck military recruits. It's not deep, but I found it funny and it has a surprising amount of heart to it. I'm not a big fan of Devito, but I loved him in this role.

Posted to the Star Wars YouTube channel a few hours ago. About 11 minutes of demonstrated gameplay with commentary from the game's director:

2) Ah, I seem to have forgotten. I thought her "mother" was destroyed in the events of the Black Widow movie, but then, I only saw the movie once. I may be mixing it up with "What If...?"

I'm game for this. Like @biostem my first thought was a CoH version of Marvel's "What If...?" series, and you have some nifty ideas there. I'd add one extra thought: how are we in the Prime Universe (and by extension Praetoria and Rikti which both seemed to have benefited from Prime tech) the only ones in a multi-verse to have an active portal program running? What happens when we encounter others who have a fully functional program? We've already seen how it enabled the Rikti to do great harm, and Praetoria to save its remaining people. So what happens when your Nuclear Nemesis, or a dominant Arachnos, or an overzealous Longbow (theirs, not our overzealous bunch) begins a full portal program? I'm 100% on board with this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the original idea to make half of KW red-side to begin with? I'm definitely down for getting the zone fully functional. The spot by the west side of IP might also serve as cause to improve the west side of IP, and bring more activity to that area. Much as I hate to abandon "Galaxy City" (which itself was a rename of the former Paragon Heights), this does seem par for the course for CoH. In addition to what you wrote, Overbrook became Faultline, Eastgate became The Hollows, and Woodvale became Eden. It seems the city names its changed areas after the destruction that caused the change. Therefore, an alternate name I'd pitch might be "Starfall" or "Firefall" as the destruction came with a meteoric attack.

I think that's one of two big issues for the Shadow Shard: transportation. If you're telling all your non-flyer characters that they're going to need jetpacks to get around (or some silly geyser jump techniques that don't auto-land a character on the next island), then you've basically just admitted to a design flaw. The second big issue is the content. Sure, the SS has some of the craziest, most-creative NPC opponents of the game, but so much of it has a homogeneous look, and is basically street fighting, that one or two islands can bore a player clearing them. Retconning is a classic tactic in comic storytelling, so why not retcon the Shadow Shard with elements that fix these two problems? Lore-wise, a modification of the medical teleportation system might be a good start for island hopping. Each fort has a teleportation power tower for hopping islands (at least the dominant ones) in its proximity. Functionally, this could be an extension of the Long Range Zone TP. Currently that will take us to a single location in each Shadow Shard zone. But if we could name the islands, or at least some military designation, players could make an initial tag of a designated spot on an island and use the LRZ TP to get around later. Jetpacks would only be needed once, then. Story-wise, that seems more of a creative challenge to improve beyond the whole Rularuu stuff, but we've had other zones go through dynamic changes before (Faultline comes to mind), so why must the Shards remain stagnant? Just the incursion of red zone into the Shard should be enough to set up a whole new parcel of stories for both sides.

You're probably not alone. While you were typing this out, I was reading the comments by the actor who plays The Leader stating they were in the middle of reshoots. Further reading revealed that the first attempt at the film had low test-audience scores, resulting in the rewriting/reshooting of 3 or 4 critical spots in the Captain America movie. As to the toys spoiler: sad, just sad. I mean about Ross, not the spoiler. 😉 Though, I'd have thought by now that there would be contractual obligations in place to not reveal any details of the film until a production company-specified date. That could be a major liability for a film.

A bit more info coming to us, spoiler free. It does reference the storylines of a few previously-released Marvel projects, however, and I'll discuss that since enough time has passed, so be forewarned if you want spoiler-free everything. Summary and Thoughts: 1. Practical more than CGI. 2. A "human story" and "going back to their (that is, the MCU's) roots". If that means they're going back to what made the first Ironman film a success, I'm all for it. There's been too much flash and not enough substance of late. As to a "human story", IMHO Marvel, both comic and screen, has always done better at the individual level rather than the "phenominal cosmic power" level. It's what makes the different Spider-men a success, a "one of us" gets the mantle viewpoint. It is interesting, as I read the character roster, that at least 4 of the team are characters for whom we've already seen a very human story with both successes and failures: Bucky Barnes, John Walker, Yelena Belova, and Ava Starr. We've not seen much of that with Red Guardian, and absolutely nothing of that from Thunderbolt Ross. We're aware of a lot of suffering for Taskmaster, but they've not laid down enough story for us to emotionally connect strongly with the character, so far. If The Sentry has been in a previous MCU work, I've missed that work. 3. Thunderbolts* (as a reminder, the asterisks is part of the title) will be Marvel's version of Suicide Squad. Got it. Guessing now fatalities might be Taskmaster, Ghost, and/or Red Guardian, the last being especially significant as he is the last living "family" member for Yelena. Guessing Bucky will survive this as he's integral to the current Captain America storyline. of course, that depends on timing of film releases, too. One can only hope Thunderbolt Ross doesn't survive this. He's been a major pain-in-the-tights for a lot of MCU folk to this point, and possibly my least favorite character of the franchise, due to his manipulations and power trip in the supposed name of the greater good. (As a side note, I remain very surprised at the casting of Harrison Ford in the role. Yes, he's one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, but he's 81. There's not much room for 3-year-apart sequels before he's either physically unable to play the role, or worse. Which leads me to believe the days are numbered for character Ross as well.) 4. I saw Black Panther: Waukanda Forever, and don't recall Fontaine's step up to CIA director. Interesting. I'm trying to figure out how a person maintains both their European "contessa" title, and be a ranking officer in the USA structure. Did MCU Fontaine marry into European aristocracy?

Hope you're wearing gloves when milking that cactus. Cacti hate cold hands.

Sounds similar to what they used to call "twinking" back in 2006 in WoW PvP. Use one or more PvE characters to fund an obsession for a tricked-out PvP character. (Maybe they still use that term, I dunno. I've not done PvP for quite a while.) I built a couple of "twinks" back then and had a ball in Warsong Gulch. I'd no problem with putting in the work to enhance the characters. But if someone is pushing for free enhancements, too, that sounds more like WoW arena PvP, which I never got into, but the concept might not be amiss for CoH. I stated sometime back that if I were to get into PvP in this game, I'd prefer there'd be a "locker room" screen in which characters donned a dev-created, standardized set of enhancement gear for the archetype/powerset combo. Maybe a pick between 3 sets to add a bit of strategy, but the idea was to eliminate the build from the victory, and focus entirely on skill.

Get a pair of friends to make the same and then you can have a Blue Manchu Group

Circling back to this to let you know that Farewell North will release on August 15, 2024. The demo has gone through multiple updates, including one that dropped today. Still interested to hear if anyone has demo'ed other potentially good games. I'm currently trying out the survival mode for the Steam demo for Honeycomb: The World Beyond. (trailer in link) The demo is available through June 17th, I believe. I know there will be a PS5 version. Not sure of other platforms.

Getting you to blame Nemesis for everything...is a Nemesis plot.

Of course, one could always experience Founders Falls again if they joined a team with someone of the right level leading.

The problem is, if you see them, they didn't really make a good ninja, did they? 😉

I noticed this series in a list of shows on a reactor's YouTube channel. I'm not budgeted for Max right now, but hope to see the show at some point. Oh, and who is the "My" in the title? Or is that a spoiler?

Thanks for posting this. We see a baker's dozen paratroopers in this video. Now add 13,087 to that number. Admittedly, they were dropped in the dark hours before dawn, but if one could have seen it must have been an awe-filled sight. The recreators even used a black/white striped Douglas C-47, the right plane with the right markings for the occasion. Most of the original paratroopers arrived via special towed gliders as I recall. I've never been to France, but should I ever unexpectedly get the privilege, the Normandy D-Day site is one of two places more important for me to see than the Eiffel Tower. The other is the grave of the Marquis de Lafayette.

I can think of a lot of possibilities, but most all of them tie into someone's licensed product. Licensing lawyers are going to have a field day suing violators, or perhaps a nightmare considering the volume of cases coming at them. Our own beloved MMO comes to mind. Imagine what could be done with an animated Tales of the City? Properly authorized, of course. Content could include historical events like Brass Monday, or the focus could be shifted to a team of newcomers who experience everything about the City from a wide-eyed starting perspective (meeting the big names, getting a trainer, experiencing their first costume fitting, their first fight drawing blood, etc.) through their growth and lose of naivety on the way to Security Level 50. Other properly licensed products I'd like to see: 1. A proper reboot to The Wild Wild West. Honestly, that movie did so much harm to the brand, and it needs to be corrected. 2. A series taking an MCU approach to the pulp heroes of the 1930s/40s. The comics did it at least once when they crossed over The Shadow with Doc Savage. I'd like to see that again, but expanded to include other characters like The Phantom, The Spider, etc. 3. Green Hornet & Kato: Generations. Taking cue from NOW comics excellent run in the 1990s, Have a show dealing with all generations of the Reid and Kato families, including flashbacks to The Lone Ranger (the character was from the same creator and was meant to be a great uncle to the first Green Hornet). That would mean Hornet & Kato for WWII era, 1960s era, 1990s era, and one team for the current day. The comics suggested the two families had both grown financially powerful from the original silver mine of The Lone Ranger, and their close bond resulted in love interested between their descendants. 4. Narnia: Forgotten Tales. I've long wondered on such a book series potential. C. S. Lewis noted within his writings that there were initially many portals into Narnia, diminishing over time. From these came multiple injections, for lack of a better word, of humanity into the world of Narnia: the originals were the cabbie and his wife who Aslan set up as the first king and queen (from "The Magician's Nephew"), but there were other group incursions of humanity at various times. Prince Caspian was a descendant of one of these groups, which, if I recall correctly, came from corsairs that floundered into a portal to Narnia during a storm. (Narnia's timeline was deliberately weird when interacting with Earth's.) This I think forms a viable foundation for telling "forgotten" tales of the settlers and their interactions with the non-humans of Narnia. A couple of original projects, no licensing, I'd like to see: 1. A Victorian/Edwardian Lost Worlds genre show. Steampunk acceptable. 2. An alternate history Dieselpunk show. 3. A French & Indian War series told in balance from all points of view (French, British, colonial on both sides, native tribes on both sides), in the style of James Fenimore Cooper. (But not his writing style. Ouch.)

You should get that looked at. Even if you didn't suffer the venom, spiders are not exactly known for brushing teeth, so you may have a bacterial infection.

I could see a revival of WildSTAR, though I agree with the critic who was linked in the article that the leveling was a bit grindy, so it would probably need a fresh look to some elements. I played the game for about 6 months and enjoyed my time in the game. Personally, I'd be all for a revival of Firefall (not on their list), but due to several incredibly poor command decisions, especially from the last owner group that was stunningly incompetent, I imagine any hope of a source code from which to start is next to nil.

Thank you for that! It looks great!

That's what I seek. Sounds like you enjoyed it, and I appreciate the link.

I just tried out the free demo of Star Trek: Resurgence on Steam and have added it to my wish list for when the game budget can next afford a purchase. New-ish company Dramatic Labs last year released this game on several platforms, and perhaps several of you have already played it. Let me know what you thought, spoiler free, of course. But they just released it May 23 on Steam, which is what I use. It's a "choose your own adventure" type game: part game with action sequences, part interactive holo-novel, if you will. I've actually not played one of these before, so the experience was, well, novel. I am a big fan of what I'd call "old-school" Trek: everything through the end of Star Trek: Enterprise. I know little about the recent Trek series on Paramount's streaming service. Fortunately, this story is set in the days not long after the last Next Generation movie. Much more specifically, the demo, the opening of this story, shows it is set immediately before: Observations: While not cutting edge visuals, the look is good and not debilitating to the experience. I've already seen a few moments where the designers thoughtfully gave us viewpoints rarely seen in Trek (at least what I've seen, that is) including a viewing window perspective in a star base that shows just how massive even one of the smaller fleet ships actually is, and an engineering walk on the bottom side of the hull that has that ability to mess with your mind as to the orientation of "up". Voice acting is good, and I recognized several actors including Bumper Robinson. Clicking on credits also revealed that Jonathan Frakes (aka "Riker") is in the voice actors list as well. Most impressively, though not in the demo, is Piotr Michael, who does a dead-on voice match of a major Trek character. Character development, at least early on, feels right. It felt like I was watching, or rather interacting with, an episode of Deep Space 9 or The Next Generation, just with a different crew, and they each had distinct personalities, which can improve or degrade based on your choices as you interact with each. Walking is a bit slow. I guess it does allow you to enjoy the environment, and there is a way to run at times, though not always. It's not a deal breaker at all, just a minor inconvenience. My one big concern is control selection. It felt like I was constantly learning how to control things. Many situations had entirely new methods of control. At one point, for example, I was instructed to rotate my mouse to unscrew/unlock a mechanism, while moments later when putting a replacement in place, I was instructed to tap "D" and hold down my left mouse button to trigger the act of screwing in the replacement. Some control choices pop up on screen mere moments before a lethal event, so you're scrambling to figure out the technique. Perhaps this was meant to engage stress in the player in a way to simulate the quick-decision stress of the character, though I've seen nothing to confirm that so far. It's also a demo, so it's entirely possible that at some point in the full game, these control choices iron out into a consistent pattern that the player can anticipate in rapid-timing situations. Again, it is an annoyance, not a deal breaker, and I still intend to get the game. Despite being an interactive novel, of sorts, I believe the game is replayable, not only for those action moments of dodge and shoot, but also because the player choices shape the story and each selection moment offers 3 choices. I imagine this probably creates several new paths.