Chad Gulzow-Man

Anime hatred was already well underway when I was in high school back in the late 90s, in a small community with very little internet access as it was (not to mention predating 4chan).

But then again, anything that's not "normal" in high school is frowned upon, so the few anime nerds there were generally lumped together with the comic book nerds... with the comic book nerds vehemently stating that "we're not with those guys."

... Dude. Spider-Man's ideal is beaten into your head throughout the entire series, and you still got it wrong: "With great power comes great responsibility."

And that whole "ideal" thing doesn't work for every hero. The Hulk just likes to smash things and wants to be left alone. Wolverine just likes to carve things up and wants to be left alone (preferably with some good cigars and a bottle of bourbon).

But excluding them as "loner" archetypes, would, say, Cyclops' ideal be? Being a gigantic whiny dou...doofus?

Issue 5 contained a bunch of anime-inspired costume options, such as Japanese high school uniforms (both male and female) and anime-like faces (which were for the most part renamed as "young" faces).

Of course, that was also about the same time that they launched "City of Hero" in Korea, which quickly bombed... despite them actually getting a standalone costume creator application. (Lucky jerks. )

That's pretty much the same place all hatred comes from, really.

Freedom (and the Paragon Rewards Tree) didn't go live until September 2011; any purchases for anything outside of subscription time prior to Freedom's launch didn't count towards Paragon Rewards status. Therefore, the previous year worth of credit card statements should suffice at this time.

The game is balanced around standard SOs, so having generic IOs will make you more powerful than that. (However, even generic IOs will be lost to you if you drop your VIP status and aren't at least at Paragon Reward tier 7.)

The thing is, generic IOs will only enhance the things your character can already do. Set bonuses from the IO sets will add bonuses that begin to shift the balance from enhancing your strengths to covering up your weaknesses.

With IO set bonuses, you can start adding new things to your character like defense against incoming attacks, recharge bonuses that affect every power you own, health regeneration and endurance recovery bonuses that allow you to fight harder, longer and faster, etc. As a Mastermind, you're also privy to some special IO enhancements which further enhance your pets' defensive capabilities when they're within range of your AT's inherent ability.

The flip side to slotting IO sets on a Mastermind is that most, if not all, of the set bonuses you achieve will affect your character but NOT your pets. Anything that does not specifically say it affects pets will only affect either your character or the target(s) of the power that bonus is slotted into. So slotting for set bonuses can really enhance your Mastermind's personal survivability, but tends to do little for enhancing his/her offensive capabilities, as the majority of damage done by MMs comes through their pets.

Educated guess: second half of September, leaning towards the 25th.

Doesn't change the fact that it now looks sillier than it does scary. I think it'd work fine if they did a dark layer of face paint beneath the mask to ring the eyes and black out the nose.

In the words of Prof. Farnsworth: "Oh, the Jedis are really gonna feel this one..."

Hey, me too! (And thumbs up for Ball Park hotdogs... *homer drool*)

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ANYWAY, my actual feedback on the Skulls revamp: I like everything EXCEPT for the noses poking through the Skull masks. The first time I saw that, I thought it was just a buffering mistake. It looks silly on a group of dudes (and now dudettes, thumbs up for that as well) who glorify death like the Skulls.

I'm sure there are a few Necro/Nature Masterminds out there who would beg to differ.

... Dammit. Now I have to.

It shouldn't be. New issues generally don't get patched onto the Training Room until 1-2 weeks before it is intended to go live. Bad bugs can obviously delay the live release beyond that 1-2 week period, though, and it's not a rule that's set in stone anywhere.

She IS surprisingly readable, once you add zombies into the mix... >_>

To be fair, the last Resident Evil movie that came out a couple years back had some of THE BEST cinematography (and definitely the best live-action 3D) of any movie I've ever seen. Plot/action/story-wise, it was better than parts 2 and 3 by a pretty wide margin, but still not as good as the original.

That said: while I'm cautiously optimistic about the new one, I don't expect it to be as good as 4, and definitely not as good as the first one.

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Now, as far as the people complaining about the impending Bill & Ted sequel, an interview with Keanu Reeves a year or so back actually made the movie sound appealing to me. Apparently, the premise he wants to go with is that Bill & Ted never managed to change the world, faded into obscurity and are rapidly approaching their mid-life crises. I think there's a lot they can do with that, and I'm actually looking forward to the sequel.

I'm only sorry that the late, great George Carlin won't be able to reprise his role as Rufus (though a part of me hopes they do something like a CGI hologram Rufus, as long as they don't overdo it).

True dat. They hit on the exact same day.

Nature Affinity was by far less broken than Bio Armor right from the get-go and hasn't changed much since the first or second patch after it was first offered, so it's kind of a no-brainer to release it on the live servers first.

Note that it is perfectly fine to say, "I would rather have Bio Armor than Nature Affinity." In fact, that is exactly how I feel... But trying to argue that Bio Armor should be released first in light of the significant amount of developer time spent on it over the month and change since it was introduced (and the fact that there are still a few complaints about its performance)? That's just a fool's errand.

Called it.