Dr_Mechano

I think once Noble Savage clears up what exactly he means by option 1 (made much easier now thanks to EmperorSteele's example) then it may or may not change the voting.

Wow that is actually a great post EmperorSteele.

Mainly because it really allows David to show what he means by 'sprucing up' the textures.

If I could +rep people still, I would.

Perhaps sullied is too strong word...

Considering we got invaded by ModAdamanstor and his legion of Undead I was hoping for a title like 'unlife of the party' or 'Joined the Danse Macabre' or some such.

I will say this.

I do feel kind of...sullied...having gone and got a golden title which calls me a 'party pack promoter', I went for the chance to win free stuffs...not because I support the party pack...

Hmm you could implement a 'sell all' button for enhancements and Salvage.

1) crafted IO enhancements can not be sold to vendors, no problem with selling random purple IOs there.

2) If you click the 'sell all' button on salvage and lose a rare...its your own damn fault besides you only lost 2 million inf at the most.

Having recently had to sit through Flubber again with my nephew, I remembered something that REALLY bugged me about that film and always has since I originally saw it.

The subplot where the Professor's AI hoverbot thingy falls in love with him...is actually vastly more interesting than the main plot of the movie.

Firstly, she is a more interesting love interest than the actual love interest...who seems to exist purely to be the love interest, there is no other reason for her existence than something for Robin Williams to faun over and to faun over Robin Williams (in the end). Ms Hoverbot actually understands the Professor and loves him for being him, even for his rather major faults (of which there are many but that is a different story).

When I first saw it I actually thought the movie was going to end with him realising that perhaps he wasn't the best man for the human love interest even though he'd been trying for so long to make himself an ideal for her, especially when he had someone who was more understanding, more caring and had been admiring him from afar for quite a while.

He would then set to work actually putting those amazingly mechanical and chemical skills to use to build the hoverbot thing a human body, heck if the dude can create AI and Flubber the dude can create a human body or atleast an incredibly realistic approximation of one.

Of course going said route does end up in a slightly creepy place, sure he built Ms Hoverbot but he didn't program her to love him...that came about all on her own.

The thing in the movie that conscerned me was when she makes mention of the design of the new version of her having 'removed some of her faults'. What is caring for someone you love a fault or do you mean 'being more interesting than an insipid, dull woman' is a fault?

Sorry folks just always been a strange bugbear of mine with that movie.

Any other movies you can think of where the subplot was actually vastly more interesting than the main plot of movie, or heck even supporting cast members who were actually more enjoyable than the main cast?

Actually had an interesting idea a while ago called 'reviewing the reviewers' which is where a lot of this stems from, that particular topic just encouraged me to post a tarted up version of my notes.

It stems from the fact that myself and friends were watching someone doing a video review, the guy was terrible and was trying to be Yahtzee but he kept tripping over his words and leaving long pauses.

So we hit upon the idea of actually doing a review on these kinds of people.

Now whether that idea is original or not...I doubt it..there are probably a lot of people who thought the same idea...

Due to the recent hoo-ha over a certain internet review (go look at it in the main topic) I've decided that I'll do my own interesting take on things...

...however as the only audio options I have are a headset and windows recorder, I doubt it'd make for great listening, instead I present it to you in text form. Unlike the poster of said topic, I welcome feedback, however I will admit the following faults before they're brought up.

1) Run on sentances.
I ramble, a lot, in real life so it tends to come out in the way I type.

2) Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.
Infact I'm guessing I've probably spelt Grammatical wrong there but yes a few typos will creep in here and there. Puncuation was also never my strong point.

3) Sleep deprivation!
Yay for lack of sleep, forgive me for this but in an actual audio dialogue I would wait until I was fresh faced and all prepped before speaking, so expect tangents.

So sit back, read and imagine this being spoken to you in a South East English accent (...no..not cockney...not toff English either...think short, sharp clipped words rattled off at a fairly speedy pace).

The rough guide to being an internet video reviewer:
Opinions are much like a certain part of your anatomy, in that everyone has one. With the rise of the internet and youtube we have seen a new form of opinionated person rise to internet fame with it...that of the video reviewer.

Little aside here, I'll explain internet fame compared to regular fame at the end of the review. It'll be obvious to most of you but explanations are best to clear things up.

Now many of you will have heard of the Angry Video Game Nerd, Nostalgia Critic, Spoony and possibly Lord Kat, for most of us they're funny, entertaining and sometimes even informative.

With the rise of these big names has come hundreds, possibly even thousands of hopefuls trying to weasel their way into the annuls of internet history. However, most of them forget quite a few key things when they make their break for stardom.

I'll be running down a few of those points with you now, yes you probably know them, no I don't think you're idiotic but just play along with me for a while, you may find it informative.

Point the first: Who are you?
This is pretty much the key point, the corner stone if you will, who on earth are you and why the hell should I listen to you for a good length of time?

Now I can already hear the calls of "why the hell should I listen to you then, you subterranean dwelling troglodyte?" and you would be correct, well apart from the subterranean part...the rest is true.

Just because you have an opinion doesn't mean people will want to listen to you, you may think you're funny, amusing or somebody worth listening to. The truth is, much like myself, you're probably not. So what makes you more worthwhile to listen to than me?

This leads nicely on to my second point.

Point the second: The hook!
A very, very common failing is seeing the popular guys and imitating them. The only people who get famous for copying other people are Impersonators and they have to be GOOD at what they do to get famous.

You decide that like the Angry Nerd you are going to turn the air blue as you rant about how rubbish a game is. This would be your first mistake. The Nerd is already famous for this and will probably do it damn well better than you can. It is the easiest thing to do (everyone can get angry and ranty) but it is one of the hardest things to do in a manner that is entertaining.

Let us take a look at two very similar internet reviewers, the Nostalgia Critic and the Cinema Snob. They both do very similar things, review terrible or interesting movies. However while the Critic rants and raves the Snob will often resort to mere biting sarcasm. They also tend to review very different types of films. While the Critic focuses on things from his childhood the Snob focuses on the more oddball classic films such as Caligula or 30 days of Sodom.

They are similar and yet different enough that the two can co-exist.

Work on something from a unique angle, don't try to copy anyone else, imitation is the path to ruin.

Point the...ah you get the idea...point three: erm err dead air erm err dead air
Reherse! You may feel you nailed it first time but the chances are you probably didn't and left a lot of dead air pauses, erms and errs. All the best video reviewers will have a script and run through it time and time again until they've gotten it perfect, just like any actor. So should you!

Point four: Why is this fat man talking to the camera when he could be showing me the thing he is talking about?!
A picture is worth a thousand words, if you're talking about a game, show some footage, if you can't get the footage then atleast show SOMETHING. Nobody wants to watch you talk to the camera for twenty minutes solid (atleast not yet anyway).

Point five: Luck
You're going to need a lot of it.

Now I'm not saying if you follow the first four points that you'll become insta-interweb famous. Much like releasing a webcomic, you will face a LOT of competition. It will come from already established faces (why should I listen to this guy review Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition when Spoony does an equally entertaining job of it) and other people flooding the field. Everyone believes they can do what the many big names do and that they will ascend to awesomosity through sheer talent.

Truth be told, just like any regular actor, you have to be in the right place at the right time in order to get famous and that requires a little energon and a lot of luck.

I could actually make a vastly bigger list and I may come back to it one day. Lets just say if you're either very monotone or a squeaky voiced preteen that you'll just bore or annoy people, sorry folks but that is the truth. I can barely stand five minutes of a shrilled voiced sprogling when I'm working, let alone twenty minutes of him pretending to be angry about why the latest game their playing is either awesome or awful.

Oh and you will suffer a lot of the brown stuff thrown your way, try to look through it and find stuff that is constructive, you may think everyone is just trolling you but some offer advice which would greatly improve your act.

(oh and I full expect a tl:dr comment to be the first one I see...)

Last of all before I let you good folks go off and do whatever it is you plan to do with your day.

There is a very clear and obvious difference between regular famous and internet famous. Show any member of the public a picture of George Clooney and Brad Pitt, ask them to identify which is which and a good 90% will be able to.

Show that same person a picture of the Angry Video Game Nerd and the Nostalgia Critic and ask them to identify which is which, a good 95% of them won't be able to do it without a lucky guess.

If you do make it big remember that, you may think you're a big shot but out there, you're just another guy on the internet.

Alright folks, God speed, Cthulu's blessings be upon you and thanks for reading.
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So any suggestions for software to record my voice, any suggestions or feedback you'd like to give the article, please respond and yes...I do expect some trolling, it would only be fair.

sweet googley moogley!

So how is the inherent fitness pool going to work?

Will level 6 give swift and hurdle, level 14 give health and level 20 unlock stamina automatically?

Will they balance powers around the fact Stamina is inherent (like the arguement against making Stamina inherent is often that the devs would make powers cost more end or nerf Stamina thus making it pointless?).

*coughs*

Citizens of Union RPtopia...

Now I have run several big community based plots, the Chronodyne incident has been mentioned and that grew into one when originally it was just going to be a smaller, more character based (Dr Mechano isn't the harmless old man you thought he was kind of deal) but quite a few people took a lot of umbrage with what Edward was doing and stepped in. Mind you I already had the end planned out before even starting.

As someone who has played a terror to the heroes of Paragon through several 'attacks' (mostly harmless to be fair) you CAN have large plots which do alter the community slightly and still not go overboard.

The key to building for these plots is 'ignorability', heck other characters mentioning the events can be seen as 'background news' for the characters not involved in the plot ("Did you hear Dr Mechano tried to blow up city hall by filling it with a selection of liquid cheeses?" "What happened?" "Oh we stopped him in the end..." to which the non-plot person can simply go "hmm that was interesting news..." and carry on with their lives).

Admittedly my big plot style is quite different from both the usual American and EU plot bases, I am a lazy, lazy GM most of the time. I present a situation ("The president has been kidnapped, are you a bad enough dude to save him?") and then go to the people involved, "you may solve this situation any way you see fit...but atleast send me private messages asking me if certain things are ok first if you are unsure...".

The main example of this was the biggest plot I ever pulled, the simultaneous pranking of three hero SG bases, three villain SG bases and two private individuals, after much talking with the SG leaders and private individuals I merely explained what happened to each of them and the rest was built from the reaction to those situations.

Edit:
I will point out this question only really affects the EU side of things since the US side is very fragmented and as such doesn't really have a Shared Universe approach that the Unionverse does.

Yes but you'll know those games you mentioned were built with PvP in mind from the outset

City of Heroes had it randomly stuffed in and much like a lot of the early work of Cryptic on CoH not a lot of thought went into it, it was an "Oh god we've got to have PvP!" kind of thang. That legacy continues and because of that PvP was NEVER popular, the community isn't just small..it's damn near microscopic.

PvP in MMOs CAN be fun, but PvP in CoH...SUCKS!

Sorry but they killed a very, VERY large chunk of the PvP community with the Issue 13 changes in an attempt (probably from orders on high from NCsoft) to try to draw new people into PvP, which was just as stupid as the original implementation of PvP.

It failed because, despite what you think, in City of Heroes...an amazingly small percentage actually likes to PvP, especially compared to other MMOs.

Also you failed to mention the PvP focused MMOs that failed miserably, they focused on PvP at the cost of PvE, the opposite of what CoH did and they suffered because, well if you want PvP in a fantasy MMO, other MMOs can do that for you already AND you can go do raids as well if you get bored of the PvP. Most people don't like PvP...the dedicated PvPers are always a vastly smaller number than the 'off again, on again' casual PvP players (like I use to be prior to Issue 13) or the 'why bother?' purely PvE crowd.

City of Heroes just wasn't built for PvP, the community just isn't there for PvP (anymore at least) and being brutally honest you could strip it out and probably only 1%-2% of the CoH community would complain (prior to the gutting that was the Issue 13 exodus only about 5% of people did PvP with any kind of regularity if I remember what a dev said at the time correctly).

Overall, really enjoying Going Rogue there is one annoying niggle though...

Originally when Dual Pistols was released for those who pre-paid for Going Rogue the devs said the reason for the lack of any kind of Unlockable Pistols was due to the fact that all the unlockables would be featured in Going Rogue...

...Going Rogue gets released and there is zero, zip, nadda unlockable weapons for Dual Pistols or ANY weapon set.

For Assault Rifle you could have both the standard Resistance assault rifle and the Heavy Barrel one.

Dual Pistols could have the Resistance Energy Pistols and a whole host of other things that got suggested in BaB 'Dual Pistol suggestion' topic but instead nothing.

Dual blades and Claws could use the new armblades that both IVy and Nightstar use.

Just checking that it isn't just us in the EU that have suffered this.

Since the emergency hotfix everyone on the EU has lost their global channels AND global friends list, there is no option to rejoin said global channels either.

It isn't just an EU issue is it?

I do like Game Overthinker but one thing has annoyed me about him.

He admits he is a huge Nintendo Fanboy but he'll often criticise games for making mistakes and seems to be that Nintendo can do no wrong no matter what they do and so doesn't provide a balanced opinion. Just put me off him for a while when I noticed it.