Ironik

I meant Durakken. He didn't see one, but it'll be fun to beat him bloody with his misunderstanding.

This part is so full of fail it's hard to know where to begin. The big screen has so much more power than a monitor or a TV screen that it's not even a contest.

The movie Grand Canyon is absolutely full of menace and lurking disaster. On the big screen it's present in every single shot, but on TV it's almost entirely absent because it's diminished by the size. I told this to my parents who'd seen the movie on HBO. They decided to go see it at the local art theatre and were blown away by the inherent scariness. Which is the point of the film.

Rudolph Valentino had such charisma that it's nearly impossible to imagine any current actor standing side by side with him onscreen and keeping your attention. In Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse he plays a Lothario trying to convince one of his many lovers that he's not really cheating on her. Near the end of his speech he says, "Trust me," and turns to the camera to give a little wink. On TV it's a cute moment. In the theatre, I've yet to see an audience *not* fall all about in hysterics because it's just that powerful of a moment.

If you've never experienced it, it's the difference between watching a roller coaster on TV and strapping into one. You don't know what you're missing.

And what was the plot hole you saw?

The problem seems to be that the Devs appear to be approaching encounters like this from the viewpoint of a few specific characters. When my AR/Dev Blaster went up against Trapdoor, she got spanked, hard. I had to get help. Once you add a second person to the encounter, it becomes trivially easy. Too hard and too easy are both incredibly boring. Making my AE arc, I tested it with my weakest and least-capable characters to ensure anyone could play it. I don't get the sense that happens when encounters like Trapdoor are designed.

When less-capable characters use a perfectly valid tactic used in the entire rest of the game, removing it just comes across as specious. If it were designed the way you would do it, no problem. But changing stuff mid-stream -- things that should have (and probably did) come up during beta -- does annoy people.

I notice you're credited in GR. Use some of that clout going forward.

As someone else pointed, it makes about a billion percent more sense than him just standing in lava and letting you wail on him. "Hey Trapdoor! You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny!" "Yeah, you aren't fooling me with that line." "Your mom said you'd say that... when I was with her last night." "Why you...! Arrr!"

Makes as much sense as anything else. Just wave a magic wand.

"Trapdoor wants this encounter to be just you... and him."
::: Trapdoor casts spell to keep anything other than your powers from working :::

Is he Magic? Doesn't matter.

::: Trapdoor activate stolen Mender way-in-the-future superscience... thing... that keeps anything not from you out of the cave :::

The 3D version isn't worth it. It's not bad, but it's no Avatar. The entire first part of the movie is is 2D anyway. The specifically point that out at the beginning of the movie, in fact.

Wasn't aimed at you, it was aimed at all these yahoos who keep saying "Just get a Shivan!" or "Just get a robot!" "Use Envenomed Dagger, problem solved!"

The way you did it was fine. It's these other people who keep saying that pulling is a cheap trick while insisting that using an overpowered temp pet is perfectly reasonable. As I said earlier, using the stupidly overpowered walking Jell-O mold doesn't make your character Incarnate-worthy. It makes the green guy Incarnate-worthy. Pulling, on the other hand, is using your brains and your character's inherent abilities.

Remember when the NFL disallowed the no-huddle offense by the Bengals? They were trying something new and succeeding wildly with it, so they outlawed it. But they weren't breaking any rules when they came up with it, they were thinking outside the box. "Get a Shivan" is the same thing as telling a football team "Just hire John Ellway and Jerry Rice for this one game because you mooks are too sorry and your coaching is too lame to win the game."

To reiterate, that post wasn't aimed at you.

I said "if." She can offer counter-evidence if she wants.

I can solve the Protean-type-attacks-are-unfair-against-meleers thing by changing one simple mechanic. Instead of his nuke firing where *he* is, make it fire where *you* are. That way both melee and ranged characters have to move when the warning goes out. Also, remove Suppression so we can actually *get* out of the way in a timely fashion. Bam, problem solved. Next!

I offered plenty of alternatives. Go look.

If you do even deeper mining of my posts from years ago, you'll see that I also proposed the mouse-over ability in our enhancements, punchvoke for Tanks and essentially the idea behind Fury for Brutes. Those all made it into the game. Maybe some of the more recent suggestions will, too. I'm particularly fond of "drop the cave on his head." That would be fun.

Honestly, I won't even *touch* LOLBAT because of the title. it screams of juvenalia. Also reminds me of the "wacky" Champions Online signature character Foxbat, and CO left a terrible, terrible taste in my mouth.

It totally is. Why do people find the Farrelly brothers movies funny? That is utterly mystifying to me. Same with every comedy arc I've played in the AE so far. Two of them were so incredibly bad, in fact, that I decided to never read anything by those "guest authors." They were the worst sort of drivel slapped together and it stuns me they have 5 stars.

I disagree. Go read Maus or Ghost World or even selected issues of regular Marvel and DC comics where they take on serious subjects like drug addiction, child abuse, illness and the like. Those aren't "lighthearted" by any stretch of the imagination. There's plenty of room for serious stories using superheroes as metaphor -- the proverbial spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, as it were. Saying that "comics are meant to be fun" is akin to saying "music is just meant for dancing." It completely ignores other valid forms of expression within the medium.

I haven't read your reviews, but if you have such a dismissive, exclusionary attitude toward things which don't fit into your worldview, I can say sight unseen that I will disagree with them. "I watched The Killing Fields and didn't laugh once! Zero stars!"

Maybe some people would like to also play the new end-game content the way they choose, too?

Why do you care if people solo Trapdoor? Does that come into your house and kick over your soda or something? Grow up and stop insulting people who have different preferences and different experiences from yours.

Yeah, it's a shame so many of our powers are designed specifically to ROOT us in place. If you happen to be triggering an attack with a long animation cycle or even just fire one off immediately before he blows his nuke, too bad. Sorry, meleers.

I just craft the temp jetpack and stay out of range of Protean and plink away with the Vet Nemesis Staff and Blackwand. Boring, sure, but it makes an otherwise difficult encounter doable for some of my toons who wouldn't be able to defeat him in a stand-up fight. Hovering near the corner keeps you out of range and he doesn't attack quite as often because he's busy jumping from ledge to doorway to overhead pipe like an idiot. (Watch them disable jetpacks after reading this.)

Just about the only thing Champions Online got right was removing rooting. That alone made the game super fun. Gun-and-run, shoot-and-scoot, whatever someone prefers to call it, is a total blast and makes games feel incredibly dynamic. Remove rooting and the thrice-damned Suppression and players would fall all over themselves in ecstasy.

You missed the middle part of the thread, then.

Pulling isn't the only way to beat him. I hope the Devs take away using temp powers and temp pets, too. That way the rest of you can see why other players are annoyed at having pulling removed.

I said I was.

Yeah, that's EXACTLY the kind of character Flynn is. That traitorous, free love, zen-spouting, pacifistic hippie family man. Abandoning his only son is PRECISELY what such a character would do.

::: eye roll :::

Jeez louise but you are sounding more ridiculous by the post, Dur. You really need to stop.

Not on the internet! We pre-judge without having seen/heard/read anything. Silly wabbit.

"Created by the grid" -- where did you get this assumption? It's wrong.

Just see the damn movie already. Prepare your "mea culpa" now if you *truly* are willing to change your mind as you state you are. I doubt that, actually, given how vehemently you're arguing about how terrible this film is.

I think I speak for everyone who saw the film when I say this in response to that:

...

0.o

The hostility is a reflection of Durakken's attitude on this. Despite several people pointing out how flawed his second-hand arguments are, he keeps attacking people for being "wrong" when he hasn't even bothered to see the movie. I can't respect an opinion like that, based on bad information from someone else. There was no need for Durakken's attitude, frankly, and he deserved the slap-down he's gotten.



Unlike The Matrix, which has gigantic plot holes and a philosophy imposed on it from without, T:L's underlying philosophy stems directly from the characters themselves, growing organically from that seed. Where you see "flat characters" I see people with well-defined motivations and all the actions resulting from those.

You must have missed key scenes. (People leaving mid-movie has always mystified me. Pee first.) The plot is simple, yes, which is one of the reasons it doesn't have these huge holes people keep spouting.

As I mentioned upthread, I think one of the main reasons people find it "complicated" or "hard to understand" or "full of plot holes" is because it doesn't explicitly state things, and you have to bring your own education and intelligence to bear on the goings-on.

For instance, the End of Line Club that everyone is grousing about -- it helps if you're familiar with WHY Mcihael Sheen's character is named both "Castor" and "Zuse." (People think he's named "Zeus," but that's incorrect.) Those names are chosen for a very specific reason, they weren't picked just because they sound cool. I can see if one isn't aware of what those names mean then you are missing an entire level of meaning in that sequence. Once you know what's going on, it takes on a fuller flavor.

This is an entirely different argument. I mean, I can't fathom why anyone wouldn't enjoy Serenity or Citizen Kane, but some people just don't like them. That's valid, since art is subjective and not all art suits all people. But disliking something and trying to actively say it's a terrible movie are two different things. No one has to justify not enjoying a movie. it doesn't float your boat, that's cool. Doesn't mean there are plot holes in the flick.

::: falls down dead :::

Someone call Miracle Max!