Techwright

Depends. Do I get to work from home?

There's room for both in this game, so long as the rules are followed. If I were recommending to a new player, I'd say build a few unique characters to begin with, and work on a homage down the road when one is more skilled in the character designer and has had time to think about it in context of the rules. Not harping on the rules so much as trying to keep the next sap from the frustration and sorrow of having his/her creation genericized. Been there, done that early in the OG. Besides, good homages can be a blast. Surely there's a trio of players at some point out there running around in cardinal red attire (maybe one with an aviator's hat), dropping in on people and declaring "Nobody expects the..."

Don't forget "Iknownuthing!" What? That isn't German? But Shultz said it a lot. "Sadistic" doesn't cover it? Granted, the word has broadened in use over the years. As I don't speak it, mind clarifying "formalized system"? I had a late friend, a German teacher, once tell me German can push words together in a chain to create one long word. Is that what you're describing?

I'm not surprised, just start by looking at the written alphabets. Modern Mandarin has around 3,500 essential alphabetical character (and can go thousands higher), and modern Japanese has 3 different alphabets with a minimum of 46 characters each (with Kanji having heaps more). For English writers using a 26-character alphabet, German words formed by the alphabet of the same 26 characters and 4 special characters, would seem far easier to learn. Of course, I say that a language using mostly the same characters as my native language is easier, but then I see Icelandic. Despite it using mostly the same alphabet, I'm still trying to figure out the name of that volcano that interrupted international travel back in 2010, and that is but a single word.

Out of my stash of YouTube links, this one spoke to me, possibly because of Snarky's recent discussion on language.

I'm not familiar with that model, but we had a problem with HP batteries in work laptops swelling several years back. Of course, back then, manufacturers courteously let users have a pop-off cover with which to easily swap the battery. Most nowadays seal the back and you need someone with A+ certification to change it so as not to void warranty.

Personal opinion: I'd not be down for rebranding the police scanner. It just means another group of characters (police) needing a repurposing. What I would be down for is a second level of scanner missions: random missions that automatically come in as tougher assignments or assignments with a higher percentage of crazy stuff happening (timers, bombs, nests of evil Kheldians, etc.) I'd been thinking along those lines as well. Hero Corp to me seems like something straddling everything from Pinkerton Security to Private Military Contractor. You'll have some that are 9-to-5, like white hat tech security, some investigative and undercover ops that definitely aren't 9-to-5, and mercenary security ops at the other end of the spectrum. Considering a lot of very interesting Private Military Contractor stories I've seen in the news these last two decades, everything from Blackwater to Wagner, I'd say there are plenty of crazy story opportunities for a Hero Corp update.

Your story is more common than you think. People often mash bits and pieces of languages together for communication, especially in melting pot pocket cultures. A dear, 81-year-old friend of mine grew up in a West Virginia coal-mining valley, and the immigrant, semi-isolated culture there communicated in a mishmash of Baltic languages and English. The result was almost it's own language. American English speakers had trouble understanding him. He came to my state for college, and had 4 full years of remedial English. Ironically, he went into a profession that required constant public speaking, and became well known in his circles for short, pithy, clearly-pronounced (almost clipped) speeches, which insiders know come from intense practice to keep his Baltics-English fusion from resurfacing.

I've learned several basic German words for survival needs over the decades such as: bratwurst, wiener schnitzel, spätzle. Bitte und danke. I've even greater linguistical survival skills in Spanish countries. I'm hoping to figure out Canadian some day. (Oh, my sis-in-law is going to kill me...)

Magic 8 Ball says:

So it's a tower defense game? 😉

Tough choice. I have only a few but love them all. I suppose I'll note 1 hero and 1 villain: Hero: Rainforest Revenant, homage to The Phantom. He's a Dual Pistols/Ninjitsu Sentinel. I've changed his costume's dominant color to forest green (makes more sense in the jungle) and have given him goggles instead of the iconic mask . I couldn't do everything I wanted with the costume, but that's probably for the best. Don't want to get too close to the OG. I've also bought the PW2 wolf to follow him around. If you know, you know. He's posted here in the costume thread of the art forum. Villain: The Eggsterminator: homage to Egghead, Vincent Price's character on the 1960s Batman TV show. Thugs/Forcefield Mastermind. I've chosen two different face looks for the character: one like a solid white egg, one like a cracked-shell egg. By necessity to the game he is more violent than the campy Egghead, but I tend to ham it up with the character, trying to use the "egg-" substitute for the "ex-" when typing, just like Price did. I also consider the force field powerset a tie-in to character obsession with everything eggs, since they look a bit ovoid, and I've colored them pale egg colors. I just wish we had thugs with turtleneck sweaters and sewn-on name badges. Eggy's various looks can be found here in the costume thread.

It's the 2023 holiday buying season (at least in the USA), and as a desktop tech, I'm getting asked again as to which brands of laptops and desktop PCs to consider or avoid purchasing. I'm also being asked for details to consider when weighing options. I have my thoughts on this, and have doled them out to some already, but I know a lot of folks in the forums are techs or power users, and I'd like to ask for feedback from you. Maybe you've seen or considered something I have not, and I can both learn something new and add that to recommendations for shopping friends. Also, I know little of non-iPad tablet PCs, they just don't come up in my work, so those with advice in that field are invited to contribute. One last note, those that ask me are usually not seeking a gaming computer, so if you could clarify gaming choices vs. standard use choices, that'd be great!

Why is it that the first thing beneficent, advanced alien races do when contacting lesser races is...

As the MCU did for Agatha Harkness as well. Ya gotta go through young to reach elderly, so I'm willing to see what's involved.

New Mutants, as I recall, got a very, very late start, with numerous delays, even after it was shot, and then was almost pushed out as a "hey, gotta get this old stuff off the shelf" thing. The flaw with it, did not lie with it, but with the logistics people who were supposed to promote and push it out better. (Well, that and Covid screwing everything up at the theaters.)

That's all more about the woes of the actor than the character, isn't it?

I speculate that using lesser known characters is more about increasing their profile and market-ability over just making a blockbuster of a relatively unknown. Yes, GotG is the ultimate version of this rags-to-riches story, but there are other potentials. Sony has one big Marvel property to work with: Spider-Man, and all associated character. By making a Madame Web movie, if it even comes it moderately successful, it will grow their franchise possibilities, having raised recognition of Mme Web from only diehard comic book readers to a more casual, global audience. As to the Ant-Man movie, I'm still baffled...

Going Orange in Hidden Contents for this.

I never had a problem with Statesman the character, and I was pretty distant from the JE stuff so I never made an association between avatar and JE. Actually, I had one problem with Statesman: I couldn't stand that dorky front-to-back half helmet. I'd been hoping they'd give him a costume upgrade at some point. Also noting: I had no problem with Statesman's personality. He could be a bit of a jerk at times, and that made him a more distinct character than just a Superman clone. I was probably relating because I've had bosses before who could be complete jerks one minute, then mindblowingly helpful the next. I have felt for some time that an advancement of the story should be the healing of Hero One and his assumption of Statesman's old position, possibly feeling a little shaky in the confidence because of what he's been through and how it affected others. I'd never heard that, and the potential implications, now lost to us, are crazy good, IMHO. Rather than Incarnate, we could have gotten an ongoing saga of our character joining the Phalanx and gradually working their way up to Statesman's old position, possibly challenging Posi in some tense moment, then once on top, gained the ability to direct the Freedom Phalanx, possibly to victories or defeats. Maybe have the Incarnate stuff running more gradually in parallel. I've actually never played that segment of the storyline (need to get to it). Is it an absolute kill, or is there a potential for the mind-ride? Just wondering if they set it up to reveal at some future point.

Am I correct in assuming that we're not talking of adding stuff to the game, just re-addressing stuff already in the game? Goldside definitely. I've got a character I'm very slowly working the way through Goldside with, but it's a tad dull running solo, for me anyway. YMMV. Perhaps if team members had full access to all the scripting that the team lead has, they could better follow along in the story, rather just being dragged around to "go there, hit that". Now if we're talking the potential for additions to the game, then address the shortage of events and Giant Monsters in Goldside, to make it more equivalent to Blueside. Also the period of time (aka levels) necessary to reach the moment storywise where you can move your character into Redside or Blueside tends to be isolating. I'm not sure how to fix that, but something more likely to let people move freely back and forth between sides, while still running Gold stories might get more helping out. As to Giant Monsters, maybe get a couple of Praetorian Devouring Earth GMs as something of a testing group, probing borders, and showing Praetorian Hamidon's impatience with the treaty? Might be interesting if, like the flagpole event during Halloween, we have 4 GMs randomly appear around the city simultaneously. Use the characters already in game, promote to GM status, enlarge, and perhaps color their skins a bit different. I'd also like to point out that I'd be willing to do the content related to the Shadow Shard, however, I've never felt there was a dedicated team interest for it, and I have to wonder if it is the nature of the floating islands that is cause for that. How to improve that, I cannot say. I do know I'd be much, much more interested in running the Shadow Shard TFs if they were given the Positron TF treatment and broken into 2 or 3 components TFs. I suspect we'd see a notable boost in Dr. Quarterfield TFs in that case.

Has no one at the various space commands seen 2001? Or played Portal? I have a bad feeling about this. It can only be attributable to human error. -HAL 9000 “Science Has Validated Your Birth Mother’s Decision To Abandon You On A Doorstep.” -GLaDOS https://www.space.com/astronauts-artificial-intelligence-companions-deep-space-missions

That's a question I've seen people debating after the trailer was released. I feel that certain elements of the second Miles Morales movie play heavily into the potentials for Madam Web's storyline, but that might undercut the star of the show if Madame Web was introduced to the Miles Morales animation. As to live action, who knows? I'm aware that there's a fan effort to get Andrew Garfield a third solo movie, so perhaps webs cross there? I'm sure it would be based on reception of this film, first, though.