Arcanaville

Zwillinger's desire for a City of Spies spinoff game was a textbook example of passive-aggressive advocacy.

It occurs to me I didn't mention my favorite scene. Its the scene where Banner says "that's my secret Cap, I'm always angry" and then turns into the Hulk.

Earlier in the movie Banner tells the rest of them that at one point he did in fact try to stop the Hulk by attempting suicide: he put a gun in his mouth and "he" spit out the bullet. It reminded me of Peter David's last issue of his run on the Hulk where a future Rick Jones is telling the story about what happened to Banner after Betty Ross died. At one point he recalls that Banner tried to kill himself through increasingly bizarre and spectacular ways, and how it almost seemed like the Hulk was taunting him by letting him get very close to succeeding before changing and saving him.

So when Banner says "I'm always angry" and turns I was reminded of that same comic when Rick Jones recounts when he last saw Banner. Banner had come to say goodbye, and just before he leaves he stops, takes off his glasses, and then turns into the Hulk. No pain, no struggle, one second he's Banner and the next he's the Hulk. Jones remarks how odd it was, as if Banner had finally given in to the Hulk and for the first time he just let the Hulk emerge.

That's sort of what I saw. To me Banner was showing everyone how much he struggles with the Hulk by showing what it looks like when he decides to simply let the Hulk loose. No pain, no struggle, no drawn out transformation: the Hulk simply emerges. I found that to be a pitch-perfect encapsulation of the character in that one moment. What we normally see is Banner losing the fight with the Hulk he normally wrestles with constantly. What we see in that last transformation is what happens when Banner decides to stop fighting for a moment.

I also know there are people who think there are little hints that Banner is in there in partial control of the Hulk, but I think that except for the fact that the Hulk is Banner, or at least a part of him, I don't think that is the case. Rather, I think that unlike the first time the Hulk emerges on the Helicarrier this time Banner allowed the Hulk to simply emerge; his subconsicous and conscious mind were on the same page, and the Hulk behaved accordingly. Banner knew this was a time the Hulk was needed and needed to work with the others, so the Hulk instinctively knew that also and was far more cooperative. I don't think Banner even consciously remembered the events that occurred when the Hulk went on a rampage on the Helicarrier, so he couldn't have taken any satisfaction from sucker punching Thor. But the Hulk obviously remembered.

At least that's my interpretation of those events, and why I like that one moment in the movie. Its a little thing that evokes a lot of background on the Hulk, possibly better than anything in either of the actual Hulk movies combined.

Based on the feedback in this thread, Paragon Studios has revised its announcement.

FOR GENERAL RELEASE

Paragon Studios is pleased, in a manner consistent with appreciating the likely benefits accrued to the playerbase, and in no way due to the potential profit opportunity exposed through psychological manipulation of the players, to announce a new program for the Paragon Market whose structure and details are intended to be a test case for future development and indicative of the limited resources logically allocated to a non-finalized design, where all players of City of Heroes, whether they are free players, premium players, or VIP subscribers, so long as they are physically and mentally capable of satisfying the mechanical criteria for participation within the limited time window designated below, will have the opportunity to purchase an item that already exists in the store but whose price will be temporarily reduced to zero paragon points; said item to be an item selected by the devs in a manner which does not reveal this purely deterministic decision to the players until the market update occurs. This item could be reasonably inferred to be almost anything currently available in the Paragon Market if you are not one of the people who already know which item has been selected, except for things that are exclusive to VIPs, unusable by premium players, or unable to be awarded on an account-basis which would be logically inconsistent with the descriptions or circumstances of the items released to date. This should not be construed as a guarantee the item will avoid logical inconsistency as no such warranty is being offered. The specific selection of item will be different in adjacent weeks in at least some possibly minimal describable way. At the time of this announcement, Paragon Studios plans for each promotional item to be available for purchase at the previously mentioned zero paragon points for a consecutive 24 hour window of time although this may change at any time, including possibly the moment you are reading this. For the first item in this program Paragon Studios will be altering the price of said item at 4:00PM PDT on Thursday, May 10th, 2012 as determined by the US calendar in any region within the Pacific timezone. The item will be available at the modified zero price until 4:00PM on Friday, May 11th, 2012 as determined by the previously specified criteria. You should be able to locate the "Freebie Friday" item starting on Thursday under the "Featured Items" section of the Paragon Market, although Paragon Studios' development staff does not directly support the functionality of the Paragon Market and we cannot be held responsible for the functionality or any malfunctions thereof of any component of the Paragon Market interface.

The process by which a player may claim their item, which will be awarded to the account of the login of the player making the claim, and which can only be awarded once per login, has been judged to be relatively straight forward relative to people of average intelligence, as that criteria is judged in the Northern half of California. That process is represented in, but in no way guaranteed to precisely replicate, the list below.

Step 1a: Wait for the moment in time which corresponds to 4:00PM PDT on May 10, 2012.

Step 1b: This time can theoretically be spent playing City of Heroes although this is not a mandatory requirement.

Step 2a: Log into your game account.

Step 2b: Click on the Paragon Store Icon.

Step 2c: Retrieve the beverage of your choice while the store performs whatever dynamic loading the programmer incorrectly felt was appropriate to this situation.

Step 2d: Locate the Freebie Friday item, which may be located under the "Featured Items" section of the store although this currently cannot be guaranteed by the Paragon Studios development team.

Step 2e: Add this item to your cart and execute the purchase.

Step 3: It is currently unknown what step would be most appropriate here to maximize the probability of the activity listed in Step 8 to complete successfully.

Step 4: Obtain a net increase in overall game content as measured by the virtual currency costs associated with those items.

Disclaimer: Virtual currency costs may not be proportional to material value increase judged objectively by a monetary standard.

Join the individual employees of Paragon Studios that are either professionally involved in this project or have volunteered to participate with or without the application of duress-inducing circumstantial engineering in performing the described transaction which may or may not be the first in a sequence of such transactions made available at seven day intervals, possibly with minor to significant structural changes in the process, items, or circumstances thereof. Also, you are encouraged to leave any feedback to this preliminary test program which conforms to the usage policies of the discussion forums and is either reasonably relevant to the program or sufficiently entertaining to be considered likely to improve the community experience of the forum readership, and which does not require moderation for content.


Note: production has confirmed that the initial item being offered in the first iteration of the preliminary program is not a kick which strikes the players' testicles, or an in-game item which subsequently awards this activity, as no such item is currently available in the Paragon Market at any price and therefore fails to satisfy the eligibility criteria. However, this may change for future iterations.