Fernandes

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
As a quick aside I think it was always explained that WW wore all the "American patriotic imagery" out of respect for the US flag colors Steve Trevor wore when they found him on Paradise Island. Obviously it also played into the whole "wholesome American hero" thing for kids reading the comic too.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm... not sure the whole "she loses her powers when her hands are bound by a man" weakness she had when she was first introduced counts as a "wholesome" image...

[/ QUOTE ]
Qibble, quibble. I was just talking about the origin of the flag-colored outfit.

The fact that the creator of the Wonder Woman character was into bondage IRL, had as mistress who wore big bracelets and was the guy who actually invented the polygraph lie detector (think Lasso of Truth) are merely incidental to this discussion.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have got to read up more on my comic-book history. That is awesome information!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
As a quick aside I think it was always explained that WW wore all the "American patriotic imagery" out of respect for the US flag colors Steve Trevor wore when they found him on Paradise Island. Obviously it also played into the whole "wholesome American hero" thing for kids reading the comic too.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm... not sure the whole "she loses her powers when her hands are bound by a man" weakness she had when she was first introduced counts as a "wholesome" image...

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, as weaknesses go, the whole idea that she looses her power when bound fits rather well with the whole empowrement theme. What always seemed a little questionable to me is just how often it comes up! As a general rule its pretty hard to grapple and physicaly restrain someone's who's trained in hand to ahnd combat and actively trying to kill you - I tend to suspect it would be harder to do it to someone who can punch through tnak armour. On the other hand, that was the same era where everyone and their brother had kryptonite too, so maybe it wasn't a case of unfortuante implications so much as lazy writting conventions.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It always seems to me that the point of being a superhero is that you can walk through a hail of bullets, route a small army, and slug it out one on one with a pagan deity dressed in your pajamas if you so-choose. Adding armour seems superfluous unless you're going for either a batman style Badass Normal character. Or a powered-armour type. Wearing a bullet-proof vest, and padding just doesn't seem like it would significantly improve Wonder WOman's survivability.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, sure, if a game character's origin story is that of a supertype blessed with some kind of invulnerability, fine, all they have to worry about is public decency laws in Paragon or the Isles. Or the eye rolling of their friends as they tart around.

But there zillions of origins where no invulnerability exists. Batman or Ironman being two good examples.

Sure, Wonder Women doesn't really need armor but she does need to be taken seriously. She could wear a suit that gives her all the freedom of movement she needs without being puerile. The suits that martial artists wear address all this quite well.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well clearly the "need to be taken seriously" is a relatively different matter from whether or not superheroine X needs to wear "sensible" clothing or not to survive fighting crime.

[/ QUOTE ]

Also this.

Superhero worlds tend to posit by definition that garish outfits are the norm for heroes, and looked at no differently, OR (and this is increasingly rare now-a-days) superheroes are vigilantees operating outside the bounderies set by society, and therefor it doesn't matter if they're taken seriously.

Its true that, as any number of woman profesionals have discovered, scanty clothing is not necesarilly a good way to be taken seriously in the real world, but in comic book worlds it doesn't seem to work that way for heroins. WHich may not be TOO unrealistic - think of it this way: if everyone at your office wore bathing suits and skintight outfits all the time, sooner or later you'd get used to it.

True, but the same could be said of superman or any male hero. Coloured spandex is hardly pragmatic, and its certainly no les garish, and rediculous Everyone's favorite amazon and her star-spangled bathing suit (its never been clear to me why an amazon princess would go in so much for Ameican patriotic imagery, but thats a whole other lame debate). Presumably she wears that sort of outfit for the same reason most male heroes elect their costumes - because they think it looks good on them.

Ahh, quite so.

But seriously, if someone's already tough enough to take an anti-personel-rocket to the chest at pointblank range or leap off the top of a 100 story building and walk away (as even teh absolute weekest characters are) adding kevlar is a bit superfluous.

I dont know what that means, but I assume its something cynical, and therefor probably correct.

It always seems to me that the point of being a superhero is that you can walk through a hail of bullets, route a small army, and slug it out one on one with a pagan deity dressed in your pajamas if you so-choose. Adding armour seems superfluous unless you're going for either a batman style Badass Normal character. Or a powered-armour type. Wearing a bullet-proof vest, and padding just doesn't seem like it would significantly improve Wonder WOman's survivability.

LOL! Risk! Risk of what exactly? Debt is a temporary incovneniance,a nd a mild one at that, not a permanent drawback. There is no significant risk to anything at all in any part of this game, least of all beating up random EBs. Tere is o argument to be made there.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Umm... k.

Not that I disagree... but what brought this on? This thread is a non sequitir.

[/ QUOTE ]

This thread was brought on by a desire for fun. It was my only motivation. I think it will be a fun thread, and it has been already. Besides, after hearing for ten thousand times in the forums that most of the girls are really guys, I wanted to disagree. Most don't seem to be to me, or at least a big percentage don't seem to be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well experience is all that counts. In my experience its mostly guys trying to rip people off. The ones I have found out to be real women/girls tend to have issues and bring them into the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

A lot of girls won't let on that they're girls in-games due to the treatment they'll receive (or at least the fear of it). Just before I took my last hiatus from the game I had a guy hit on me in-game, which was a seriously creepy experience (far more so than I would have expected).

From my experience on Freedom, most people really don't care in the slightest what gender you are- unfortunately just a few people can greatly over shadow the masses.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've only had one bad experience in COH so far involving what may or may not have been a girl. I've played a lot of MMOs and have had plenty of 'tee hee i'm such a cutie and i'm new pls donate some money' type of crap. In other MMOs this type of behavior gets old fast. I typically just shy away from MMO populations in general. I solo and keep to myself mostly.

[/ QUOTE ]Sounds like a scam to me. Much better than the usual scam of sending a blind tell saying just 'give me money' that I get.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its a good scam, I assure you! You'd be amazed what you can talk random pickup group people into doing for you. I had one obliging fellow give me the last recipee I needed to complete my Ragnarook set once.

Yes, I know, Im a horrible person.

Interestingly enough though, all but one of the tiems people have made unwated sexual advances towads me in-game have been with MALE characters. People flirt when I play my female ones, bu the blatant, rediculous, "comes up to you in pocket D and tries to stick their hadns down your pants while asking you to become their [Insert strange Fetish Here] loveslave" stuff seemed to happen a lot more ot the man in the 3 piece suit than the woman character in the form-fitting leather bodysuit. Go figure.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not even sure why this is still an issue. It seems it won't go away. It was well established at the Dawn of MMO's that, yes, there are in fact, girl gamers. And how they're dressed does not indicate RL gender. How they act is a much better gauge.

I use "with skin" a lot because that's how I usually like to dress in real life anyways. I mean, the game gets more extreme than I can, but if it was legal, yah, I'd dress like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to nitpickl, but nothign thats you can do in the game is illegal in real-life, at least in most places in Europe and North America. So long as the genitals (vulva, or [censored] and testacles) and anus - and Aeriolas in the case of women - are not visible, the outfit is legal to wear.

On a broader note, I must admire your confidence. I do indeed see both women and men (though more often women) go about what seems like half-dressed to me, but for the life of me I can't imagine how they stand it.

Welcome to the wonderful world of unique naming. Not te best feature of the game, but as many have undobuteldy noted, its not going anywhere, so you may as well get used to it and use some creativity.

Conversly, as a man in real life with female characters, all of my characters /are/ covered from head to toe (at least technically - some of those outfits leave little to the imagination. The most skin my main shows is actually her Little Black (evening) Dress. Im a embarassed of just how much time and influence I spent getting the purportiosn just right for her int aht dress, really.

At any rate, all that to say: hear hear!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Actually Epic Architypes are fullfilling precisly the roel they were designed for - substitute End-game content.

People (like me) who LIKE a serious endgame often complained back int he day that the problem with CoH is that once you got to 50 there was nothing left to do there. Some of us liked our characters and like finally having all the tools we had worked for and didn't want to create six-hundred alts, and were none-too-pleased with the idea of a game who's end-game was to start over. The developers responded to allowing you to start over... but in a different way! Providing a small amount of aditional content, and an extremely different play experiecne, that you could only get if you had made it to level 50, but doing it not through aditional unique content, but through an additional, unique class. I would have preferd more interesting raids and task-forces myself, but even jaded powergamer that I am I have to admit Kheldians are pretty cool, and do represent a meaningful reward for getting to 50. They may not have done it in the wya I'd have prefered, but they did pretty much give us what we asked for.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're a weirdo, and definitely do not represent the typical CoH player.

[/ QUOTE ]

That much is correct - the majority of active accounts do not include a level 50 character (or at least they didn't about a year ago - or os the developers told us; its possible that its changed in the itnervening time as more attention is focused on the end-game and leveling becomes easier). There IS a definate sizable minority, however, who DO agree with me - as the testimonies on this thread shoulod indicate. This is purely subjective observation, but the community also seems to be increasingly moving in tht direction.

All told though, you're quite right, CoH is not the game for me. I dislike almost everything about how its structured. But I love roleplaying a superherop, and at least for another 61 days, 11 hours, and 38 minutes City of Heroes is the only game in town.

EDIT: Also, the mission architect system is pretty freakin awesome. If I have to choose (and for now, I do) I still prefer a more sandbox type game like UO or Eve, or MXO wher eyou make your own fun in a mor direct sense, but MA is a unique and powerful storytelling tool and one that I can only hope other games will copy.

[ QUOTE ]
I suppose I keep forgetting how most other MMOs are structured. I mean, not literally forgetting, but ignoring the mentality they create. For some reason, my brain always makes the connection that "new player" = "new to MMOs," which isn't actually always the case. I remember a time when we here on the forums could get together and pat each other on the back that "Ho ho ho! This was my first MMO!" I mean I'm in that boat - I hated MMOs as a concept before I bought City of Heroes never expecting to play more than a month - which is why I guess it colours my perception. I'm not sure many players remain for whom City of Heroes was a new and exciting experience, as opposed to yet another MMO.

Still, I wish we could spread the message around to new people that it's generally better to go through the low levels "proper" AT LEAST once before you start rushing for the top. Unlike most of us here with 50+ months of game time, we shouldn't expect that new players would be bored of "the low level grind" and want to get to 22 and Stamina and SOs as fast as they can, or to 50 and the "end game" or whatever. And I'm not just talking about farming or powerlevelling or even power gaming. Just the notion that one must level as fast as possible because THAT is what the game is about.

Personally, to end on a weird note, to me levelling up is like earning money: sure, it's very satisfying it earn a lot of it really fast, but money is only worth as much as the things you buy with it, and sometimes cashing in your levels to play a cool low- or mid-level piece of content is more entertaining than still more levels to no practical end before THE end, ESPECIALLY to a player who hasn't played it before. I'm looking at 60 months, and I still giggle like a little girl when I find something I haven't played before. It could be the Kheldian arcs, it could be a newly redone AT (currently experiencing Dominators for the first time) or just some unlockable contact I never got around to.

[/ QUOTE ]

You know Im ussually a great defende rof powerleveling, but I actually agree with you - its worth running through the content of anygame at least once. At least it is to me because Im a roleplayer and a sucker for lore and background, and I like a good story.

Still, there are some people who don't care about ANY of that - to whom a roleplaying game is nothing more than a highly particular tactical and strategic excercise. And you know what? Who don't want to play through the story even once because it couldn't possibly matter to them. Thats a perfectly legitimate position. Whatever's fun for them, after-all.

But like you I do sometimes worry about players who have expectations of a more serious endgame than City of Heroes can provide and are in for a disapointment when they rush past content to reach it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I should have too, but I like to see the train wrecks happen.

[/ QUOTE ]

While on one?

[/ QUOTE ]

It can be amusing. The funny thing is to watch even the ones who think strangers should be PLing them stand around after zoning in and getting an eyeful of a huge group of 50+s staring them in the face... and its someone else's job to get the party started, because they may be new but they can recognize A World Of Hurt when they see it.

On the team I mentioned earlier, after a lot of looking the leader secured a Tank for the team. Everyone was sooooo happy, and then I quietly checked his info while we were waiting outside mission.

He was level 7.

A leve 7 Tank ain't got nothin'. No attacks. No defense, no resists, he has the sum total of jack and ****.

When we zoned in he stood there for about 30 seconds looking at the 50+s and then his logoff countdown began. Without quitting first, mind you....!

Lawltastic.

[/ QUOTE ]

Win!

[ QUOTE ]
It isnt just "other mmo's" that create that mindset in this game.

Look at the epic archtypes and how you unlock them...get to 50...

That was the ONLY reason I ever wanted a 50 on both sides...there was a type of character I had not tried and I wanted to try it.

Between other MMO's, EATS, and the number of farms going on....it is no surprise that there is a giant rush to 50.

They really should have made EATS tied to a mission or a TF/SF...unlock them in a way that has a story and depth.

What is the story behind VEATS and HEATS being unlocked at level 50? There isn't any.

I see posts every other week on "Look how many new Khelds there are!!". And that is because every newb (no negative connotations attatched to that) who comes in rushes to 50 through farms and then makes their Kheld.

Then what? What do they have to do after that? Other than ALTS there is no draw to keep playing.

I am not a negative Nancy...but I do worry for this game somewhat. And that would be about the first time I "voiced" that concern.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually Epic Architypes are fullfilling precisly the roel they were designed for - substitute End-game content.

People (like me) who LIKE a serious endgame often complained back int he day that the problem with CoH is that once you got to 50 there was nothing left to do there. Some of us liked our characters and like finally having all the tools we had worked for and didn't want to create six-hundred alts, and were none-too-pleased with the idea of a game who's end-game was to start over. The developers responded to allowing you to start over... but in a different way! Providing a small amount of aditional content, and an extremely different play experiecne, that you could only get if you had made it to level 50, but doing it not through aditional unique content, but through an additional, unique class. I would have preferd more interesting raids and task-forces myself, but even jaded powergamer that I am I have to admit Kheldians are pretty cool, and do represent a meaningful reward for getting to 50. They may not have done it in the wya I'd have prefered, but they did pretty much give us what we asked for.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Reward at the end. I have done msot task-forces so many times i coudl quote the dialogue from memory, and faught the villaingroups contained in them so often I could do it blindfolded (I actually did that once, with my dom - it was depressing how well it went). Also, an issue in more taskforces than not: I hate the exemplar system with a passion.

As a general rule I'd rather finish the task-force as fast as possible than fight every spawn between the start and the final objective. SOme enemies are moer of a challenge to fight (Cimeroran Traitors and the Soldiers of Rularuu, in particular), but honestly, even then, fighting the same enemies for hours gets old after a while.

I am very goal-oriented in generla though, in video-games and elsewhere. I don't do anything "just for fun" I do it to win - the more effecient path between me and my objective (whatever that may be) is the one Im likely to take. Taking longer than necessary for no significant gain in some other area is just pointless.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, if "fun" isn't a factor, and you take away the combat, then what are you "winning"? Digital data in a virtual world?

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty much, yeah. Rewards that allow me to make my character better at other content - content which may actually be a challenge. But more than that, the same thing you get when you accomplish anything ina video-game; or a real life sport or hobby or activity not direclty tied to your material well-being: an artificial sense of accomplishment.

Reward at the end. I have done msot task-forces so many times i coudl quote the dialogue from memory, and faught the villaingroups contained in them so often I could do it blindfolded (I actually did that once, with my dom - it was depressing how well it went). Also, an issue in more taskforces than not: I hate the exemplar system with a passion.

As a general rule I'd rather finish the task-force as fast as possible and move on to something that I actually enjoy, like roleplaying, or AE missions (real ones - not that I have anything against farming, but like taskforces thats something I do for the payoff more than the direct entertainment value), or raiding, or maybe an STF run, or new content (when such is made avaialble with a new issue). Fighting every spawn between the start and the final objective isn't fun for me, its boring, and its pointless. Some enemies are more of a challenge to fight (Cimeroran Traitors and the Soldiers of Rularuu, in particular), but honestly, even then, fighting the same enemies for hours gets old after a while. The max level task-forces I msotly enjoy (although Jason Augustine is a little annoying), but once again there's only so often I can run them in a set period of time before I just don't care anymore.

I am very goal-oriented in general though, in video-games and elsewhere. I don't do anything "just for fun" I do it to win - the more effecient path between me and my objective (whatever that may be) is the one Im likely to take. Taking longer than necessary for no significant gain in some other area is just pointless.

[ QUOTE ]
I'll happily hold my hands up to the misspelling of "pederasty." It ws about 3am when I posted, so outside effects contributed to my general idiocy. Such as getting involved in this discussion. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Still, I'll carry on because I'm a very particular kind of stubborn.

What annoyed me most about the entire thing was that Smurch was clearly making a straw man out of Fernandes, saying something like "I'm against sexually violating young children over the internet. Aren't YOU?" Which is, of course, a hugely emotive statement, and one that carries a lot of weight.

But why don't we turn that around?

Personally, I'd rather have all the people into pederasty, rnon-consentual fantasy and so forth acting out their sexual desires in a controlled, safe environment rather than going out onto the street and doing it for real.

You're not an advocate of sex crimes, are you?

[/ QUOTE ]

Win!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Has anyone doing the Hero TF see him use his phase power?

[/ QUOTE ]

I never saw it, but I will say that it seemed to me that using the temp powers (though it required multiple stacks) seemed to turn off the "unstoppable" (re: only taking 1 damage from an attack). I think the phase was replaced with crazy huge resists.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was my experience as well. He never phased, but periodically throughout the fight we would ntice that his hit points seemed to have stopped moving even though our attacks were still hitting perfectly fine, so we'd nail him with the Ugly-[censored]-Laser-Guns-From-Hell, and then we'd be back to turning him into confetti.

Because then we would have less need to complete content and/or pay the company to make changes to our characters.

Hmm! I joined a random pickup group, and we obliterated the hero version of the Task Force almost effortlessly (though that may have something to do with having six controllers on the team). Is the villain version significantly harder?

A well built invulnerability tanker can indeed tank the STF, particularly provided he has some influence to throw around. I've seen willpower succeed too.

Even poor, defence-based Ice tanks can manage if they're very good and very well supported.

But on a pick-up-group its easy to see why someone would favour Stone tanks, since its easiest to do it wiht them out of the box, as it were - without a particularly good (or expensive build), or a partiuclalry good player. In other words, there is a higher probability that a random stone tanker you've never met before will make the grade than a random tanker of any other set. That doesn't necesarilly mean Stone is catagorically superior (although its hard to deny that their ability to stand in one place and withstand punishment IS the best in the game), but they are more idiot-proof.

Oh, also, as omeone noted abov,e some poeple like to play tanks who really dont quite live up to the class - they skip some feature like their tier-9 defence, or the actual taunt power, which, while not required for blazing through paper missions, or even hunting down random Praetorian archvillains, is of far more importance in the much more difficult STF. People who want to play high soloable tanks with more damage in exchange for less rediculous levles of defence, generally play other sets though (including Inv). If someone builds a stone tank, it is almost always becase they intend to build the meat-shield - they guy who has no funciton but to take absolutely anything you can throw at him up and including a bloody deaht-star laser without breaking a sweat. Thus, once again, if you don't know the character before-hand you ahve a higher probability of getting someone who can stand up to Recluse with a stone tank. NO offense to people who play Scrankers - being a tank would bore me to tears too. Its simply that the STF, being specificly designed as the single most difficult thing in the game to do, is one of the few places where the ussually superfluous levels of uber-survivability that a "hardcore" tank can manage are actually required, or at least extremely useful.

Edit: all that said, if you think you've got what it takes, as it were, drop me a line someitme. MY most recent character still doesn't have her MoSTF badge and I keep meaning to put together a run.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
With respec to actual sex? No. With respect to cybersex? Yes, absolutely. And the law which you seem to be so fond of agrees with me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again you fail to grasp my point.

This isn't about the law. I honestly don't know (nor really care) what the law says about that sort of activity.

It's about if it's ethically appropriate or not. Apparently this is an area we disagree. I feel it's irresponsible and unethical for an adult to engage a young teenager in sexual behavior of any kind, including phone sex or cybersex. You apparently do not.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats because I don't see it as sexual behavior any more than writting an action sequence is violent behavior. As you say, it seems we simply must agree to disagree on the point.

With respec to actual sex? No. With respect to cybersex? Yes, absolutely. Depending on where you live the law may bare that out as well.