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Possibly valid when the ranter has the stones to perform his actions within arms length of those who have let themselves be offended by his existientially neutral actions. For in that instance he lets himself be hurt when they strike him.

Otherwise, he is a posturing little coward.

Nosferatu is notoriously tough, as AV or Elite.
If he won't go down solo on lowest setting, then yep, drop him or find people to help ratpack him.

1) The point: they can't hit you when they are flying through the air/flat on their backs.
2) The scrapper is, if not an idiot, then inflexible.
3) On the other hand, part of the charm of knockback is learning to use it tactically in a group. Position yourself to knock the enemies into a wall, or the floor, or into a tactically useful spot. Learn to knock enemies into the existing fight, not to where engaging them will alert the spawn down the hall.
4) My energy blasters have a note in their team seek message: "If knockback bothers you, we will not be happy together."

Good hunting.

Sorry, I am not clear what the suggestion is. If you mean Praetoria would be an open PvP zone, that would be a pity, as I'd like to see it, but will not enter an open PvP zone.

Apropos of nothing, this reminded me of one of the best throwaway references in an alternate world setting. Poul Anderson's "Operation Chaos" (one of the first "our modern world but magic works like in the old grimoires" exercises) includes a reference by the hero (Steve Matuchek, a werewolf) when he is fighting a demon that has also assumed wolf form: "She didn't know the judo breaks for her animal form."

Just contemplating the backstory behind a concept like judo tailored for wolf-form lycanthropes is dazzling. When did a werewolf sign up at Kodokan (or maybe a loup-garou in French Federation judo)? If there were formal judo forms for werewolves, were they developed while Kano O-sensei was still around (the Goetic Age was ushered in by Einstein's early work, that's the point-of-departure for the novel, and Dr. Kano lived until 1938)? Did the werewolf get a black belt in human form and then adapt judo to his wolf form? Or was this homecooked, military hand to hand developed in WW II (which is in progress as the book opens, only against a heretical Islamic empire, not the Axis we know).

It is doubtless a combination of SF and martial arts geekdom that would make questions like this arise, but Poul invokes it with a single sentence tossed off during the fight between Steve and Cybelita. That's good fantasy writing.

Rather perforce - military spec goodies would not make sense for many of my Nats, just as (presumably) martial arts okuden type Dragon goodies don't for others. Nor does my nanotech powered Tech origin electric blaster load up on cyberware to improve his powers.

etc.etc.etc.

But the designers went with the kicky names for enhancements rather than just SO Tech Damage, or whatnot. Everyone invests their imagination the way they like.

Danger junkies? Masochists?

Seems to me a lot of these "givens" derive from paper and pencil RPGs, which provided the baseline models for quantifying kids games (Avoiding "Bang! Got ya!:" "Missed me!" "Did not!" "Did too!" etc.).

1) Multiple players telling the story of their individual characters.
1a) In a way that is heroic/dramatically interesting.
1b) Affecting the world in which they live (the weakest link for MMOs, where the same challenges are, and perhaps must be, offered to the guy who logged on yesterday as well as the guy who logged on years ago at go live).

2) Understandable rules for interaction (they can be as whacky as you like, viz things like Paranoia or Toon, as long as they are mutually understood by all).
2a) Mediated by a trustworthy referee (the live GM, versus the computer program)

3) Characters can change as they become more experienced/powerful. XP are the earliest form of this (that model itself derived from miniatures rules point cost systems) and certainly the easiest for a program to handle. You do X, the counter increments by so much, until you get Y event/reward.

Point based skill systems are more flexible but harder to manage to avoid gamebreaking results without a live referee.

Systems like the old DC Heroes, where players can modify outcomes of their actions on the fly, are even harder for a computer to handle, and are virtually impossible in a realtime simulation.

Story based systems (for lack of a better term), where players can express rewards by manipulating the world (viz. Feng Shui), are harder still, and run into problems in the "persistent experience for all players" thing.

3a) Most MMOs use character classes with limited flexibility for which abilities players can get on a given character. Again, it makes like easier for the poor program.

4) Many MMO players are demanding (not to say spoiled). If this game offers (for example) banks, they will agitate for banks in other games even where the designers feel they don't fit. Scenarioes that allow for failure, or character designs that can produce suboptimal results, are viewed as insults, as are marketing decisions which do not reward everybody.

If a large portion of the market demands homogeneity, then vendors will tend to be homogenous.

The tech, code base and platforms are so expensive that a startup with a really idiosyncratic (in market terms) design concept would be hard pressed to find capital.

New text parser on the forums activates the event every time someone asks about the trigger for the Deadly Apocalypse.

Issues which have diddly to do with power themes.

Go the whole hog and release a whole range of fetish gear in a packet, not just furries.

Maybe Mike Pondsmith finally noticed?

I say that I would prefer not to go through the inconvenience of server merges (name contention, loss of cpu cycles, sg issues) so that I will be available to play with you at your convenience.