Ironik
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Perhaps it isn't universally true but it might be true for him. "Comfort zone" and "discomfort zone" are inherently personal and like everything we can parse it infinitely. "Being challenged" may be dead center of your comfort zone but it may be the essence of Sam's discomfort zone.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I think the best response I have to this is to point out that you're conflating "challenge" with "discomfort" when that's not universally true.
I like this summation. Bait-and-switch annoys customers.Quote:Should games deliberately remove people from their comfort zones? Well, if they signal up front that they are that kind of game, sure. Just like there are movies that pretty much signal right up front that they are intended to make the audience squirm. That's legitimate when its honest. But it is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. Its a thing, like choosing superheroes or orcs, instancing or shared zones, gear or no gear, leveled or levelless combat. Its just another decision to make in terms of the kind of game you want to make. -
Quote:Au contraire, I think it has direct bearing on whether the game will be fun or not. Do you like being confronted with new experiences and challenged on emotional and mental levels? If so, then a game which takes you out of your comfort zone may be just the ticket. If you prefer "more of the same," then such a game wouldn't be much fun for you.Originally Posted by TonyV
Should games take us out of our comfort zone? I don't know, should games have pizza in them? What difference does it make? The question has no bearing on whether a game will be more fun or less fun.
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Speaking of nanotechnology and longer batteries for Kindles and iPads, check it out.
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Quote:All the servers will be on a single list. So if you're an NA player, you get 2 more servers to play on, while EU players get 11 more servers to play on.Originally Posted by Mirai
I haven't been paying attention, and I can't find the announcement, so I have no idea what's going on with this "server list merge" thingy.
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Quote:Perhaps it's what Martin wanted, but unless you're James Joyce and experimenting with the form, there's no need to be so repetitive.Originally Posted by RosaQuartz
It's my pet peeve that someone reads something they don't like and just say "he needed a better editor", or something like that. You don't like a book, fine. But don't suppose that what came out isn't exactly what was wanted or needed.
There will be cries of "broken record" and such, but damnit, I want the awesome of book 2 back, not the bloated shovelwords that the story turned into. -
On Facebook, a bunch of people just succeeded in raising $100,000 to defray the cost of sending SAR dog teams to Japan. Everything helps.
We can only hope the ground settles down there, now that the energy has been released. -
Quote:This is how I feel about CoV; it doesn't offer choice but forces you to do one thing. However, I did give it a try. That's how I found out I disliked it.Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
If I truly feel railroaded into something I don't enjoy, I quit playing the game. A designer who took the attitude that he had to force me to undergo an unpleasant experience for my own good would be a designer who lost me as a customer. It would likely also be a game that was intended for a target audience that did not include me, so I probably shouldn't have played it in the first place.
Completely agree with this. Especially in MMOs, there ought to be more than one right answer to any given situation.Quote:tldr; Designers should offer choice and they should offer new experiences, but players and their competitive and emotional drives determine what a player is comfortable with and what actions he will take even in the face of unenjoyable gameplay in order to fulfill a drive or a need. Most players who feel "forced" into something really mean that they felt a compulsion to fulfill a drive or need and the only path to that fulfillment was one that involved unpleasant activities. The only coercion comes from inside of themselves. True coercion by designers (such as the unpleasant path being the only path to the finish of the game) generally results in player defection and is basically bad design. -
Quote:Rabid Metroid is asking the question that popped into my head: define "comfort zone".Originally Posted by Rabid_Metroid
Part of it depends on the kind of comfort zone we're talking about. Pushing people out of a moral comfort zone (such as putting children into the game to be victims) is riskier than pushing people out of a gameplay comfort zone (adding in new kinds of raids for the endgame).
I agree that the saying "try it, you'll like it" is indeed ridiculous, because it assumes that once you've sampled the awesomeness of [fill in the blank] then you, too, will agree with the person encouraging you to give it a go that it is simply the best thing ever. However, the more reasonable assertion that my mom always makes, "at least try it", is something that I fully endorse.
The only way to know whether you'll enjoy something is to at least give it a go. I've tried all sorts of video games, which is how I know that I don't like (and am no good at) driving games and side-scrolling platform games. I also dislike MMO PvP but I enjoy FPS multiplayer deathmatches. I like RTS games but not turn-based ones. I like MMOs in general but certain aspects of them I hate: looting corpses, raids, gear.
Expanding to the rest of life, I don't hate guacamole but it's not my first choice. Sour cream was something I'd never even consider as a kid but now I like it quite a lot. (Not straight out of the container, I'm not a loonie.) I like western comic books but not manga and very little of the French stuff. I like every genre of cinema including experimental film, RomCom and musicals, but science fiction is my favorite.
I wouldn't know any of this if I didn't, at the very least, try it one time.
*Should* games take us out of our comfort zones? An unqualified maybe. Were I designing games, I'd create as many different ways to advance as possible, so that everyone could try different ways of playing to see what they enjoy most. Essentially the equivalent of allowing people to either kick down the door or pick the lock. Shoot the computer terminal or hack it. Try them both, see which one you prefer. That lets you get outside your comfort zone if you choose. -
Quote:I wear my keyboard on a strap around my neck.Originally Posted by Scythus
Do you have tiny Tyrannosaur arms as well?
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Quote:I've gotten to the point where I ignore a lot of the background information on missions, powers and origins, since they rarely match my view of my characters. Before we could alter the colors of our powers, I chose the Scirocco patron pool for my time-traveling cyborg Elec/Elec Brute because the colors matched. I just ignored whatever the "source" of Scirocco's powers is because it was irrelevant: my cyborg uses a nuclear power pack to generate electricity attacks and defenses.Originally Posted by CanaDixieMan
Laughing Justice is a Natural Blaster (rifle-toting type) who, in my conception, *doesn't* actually possess his Secondary Power, Mental Manipulation, as a "real" psionic power. The guy just has a lot of charisma, and is able to stupefy his foes with screams, threats and crazed wisecracks. It would help if I could make his "mental powers" FX-invisible, but no go, so I just think of the colours & FX as a comics convention, like speed lines. He's not a cyborg or robot, but there's no rule that a total Natural can't put a grenade in his pocket and pull the pin when he's overwhelmed, so L.J. gets "Self-Destruction" as part of his package.
Can I "realistically" justify giving a toon a small ability which seems to belong to another Origin? If so, even if I can't make it fit in his/her bio, then I don't feel I am cheating myself or being a greedhead. It's more like legitimately winning a "No-Prize".
I no longer keep track of how many times the mission entrance pop-up will say something like, "The atmosphere in here raises the hair on your neck." But I'm playing a robot/lizard/bald guy/woman made of stone/etc. So when Sands of Mu says, "You channel the powers of the netherworld to hit people" or whatever, I choose to use that or ignore it on a case-by-case basis. For my sorcerer Doctor Omen? Fine. For my Natural swordsman Capt. Blood? He's just really good at hitting people.
So I say don't let the descriptions limit you. Use the game mechanics you like and ignore their background info. -
Quote:I got to "start" and stopped.Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning
I need to start putting "tl;dr" explanations behind some of my posts.
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Quote:Have you ever read Top 10?Originally Posted by starphoenix
Had this idea for a movie called Nightstockers. Basically, it was a world where superheroes and supervillains exist and a good portion of the world had some type of superpower. However, not everyone had superpowers so they had to work the same jobs as we do. According to the title of the movie, it would be based around the night crew of a store. Could get some interesting characters like Gorath, Destroyer of Worlds. There is not much money in destroying worlds so Destroyers of Worlds has to work somewhere. It would be interesting to see how superpowers could translate to real world situations like taking out the garbage with a Death Ray. Also thought of adding a cameo of a person looking like Deadpool and/or Wolverine since they seem to have the superpower of being in almost anything.
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Quote:Given the context of the dialogue from the book used in the trailer, you see how it's appropriate? It's rare to see trailers invoking (and evoking) a movie's themes.Originally Posted by CaptainFoamerang
Can't say I cared for the smoky effect.
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Quote:Did you see Mad Max? Freedom's like that.Originally Posted by Slazenger
My main will forever stay Defiant.........but I may venture to you NA servers to see what all the fuss is about
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Quote:I think what you mean is "12th home". Call me the John McCain of CoH.Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
So with the excitement of the list merge I got to wondering if I should perhaps make a 2nd home on what will soon become a "former NA server" (isn't it great to be able to say that?
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I am not sure where, but I am leaning heavily towards Triumph, based solely on the fact it's my ride too. But I'd like somewhere open to RP and PVP and everything.
I'm not suddenly planning on abandoning Defiant, far from it - but if I do make a 2nd home what're your recommendations?
Will anyone be joining us on a soon to be former EU server?
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The exact magnitude is something that is entirely academic. My heart goes out to all the people who've lost loved ones, lost their beloved pets and lost their homes. The stuff can be replaced, the lives never can.
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Quote:For some inexplicable reason, I went all cockeyed optimist when we were solicited for feedback (after all these years I really should have known better) and I saw the ape emote and Zwillinger's post about "going ape". I combined the two in my mind and assumed there'd be some simian parts added.Originally Posted by Obsidian_Farmer
Non-human ape features then. gorilla feet and hands, different monkey and ape heads, etc. The savage emote is very obviously a monkey flipping out, yet we don't have the pieces to match that theme.
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I think one of the primary things that bugs me about the animal pack is that it is completely unlike every other costume set in the game in that it can't be combined with other parts. Honestly, this mystifies me because it is such a radical departure from the norm. I can only assume that the pack was rushed into production and therefore the designers were not given the time needed for thoughtful reflection. (The other option being that the art department hates anthropomorphic characters and only did the minimum necessary to get it out the door. Based on the hideousness of the previous animal heads and statements made by some Devs in the past, I'm actually kind of leaning towards this assessment, but I do want to be fair.)
Back to the details thing: I have a comical character named Kung-Pow Chicken, so I was jazzed to switch from the kludgey combination of mohawk, horns and gas mask to an actual bird head. But we can't use anything to recreate the chicken's crest, so she would end up looking like a fat hawk instead. Besides being able to combine animal heads with the other facial details, a feather pattern on the body and limbs would be nice, as would some form of bird tail.
One huge disappointment for me was that the smooth wolf tail wasn't added to this pack, too. I think it was shoehorned into the Mutant Pack because of the tepid reception that booster received and the fact that so many of us had expected the Mutant Pack to be animal themed. (Per Positron's comment.) More than a few people commented that they bought the Mutant pack solely for the wolf tail, so that was a good business decision on their part, but it's painfully clear that it simply doesn't belong in that set since it's a complete departure from the rest of the theme. I intensely dislike the ragged tail because it reminds me of the creepy bag worms that were the bane of my teenage existence. -
Quote:What would be interesting is if some of the Praetorians get to our world and look around and then turn on Cole. Essentially going rogue from Cole's point of view but turning from evil to good from our POV, because they realize that our world is significantly different from theirs and that Cole's rules do not apply here.Originally Posted by Jophiel
Past level 20 on Gold side? Yeah, it is. "Look! All the heroes from your world... but they're EVIL! Rrwar! They're going to destroy the world! Rrwar! Every story is now about Evil Heroes From Evil World coming to destroy you!"
Is it any deeper than that? Do you run the new Jenkins arc or Apex or whatever thinking "Wow, what nuanced characters with complex motivations?" Not really. It's Evil Goatee Earth with a slightly different backstory but ends up being Evil Goatee Earth all the same.
I'd actually like to read the comic based on that. Hell, I'd like to *write* the comic based on that. -
Teaser trailer for Conan.
According to my buddy the all-things-pulp fanatic, the line in the trailer is from one of the books, so that bodes well.
From the Queen of the Black Coast: "I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content." -
I remember in COV beta I made a bots MM and when I logged into the game I was all excited to see that the robots mirrored my MM's color scheme. I thought, "How cool is this? The bots color is based on your costume!" Then I saw others and realized I had accidentally chosen the same colors that the bots had.
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Quote:You lot have teased me before.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
You should, because that's exactly what it means
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Quote:Is that what this means? I mean, that's what I would think follows from the announcement, but I'm not going to take anything for granted.Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
I will second/third/fourth this.
Especially for the EU based altaholics. Congrats on all those new slots! -
Quote:I think you mean "houly", "wouw" and "ouh".Originally Posted by Necrotron
HOLY
AAAAAAAAAAAA
This is... wow, that... EU and US hand in hand? Oh, my. Oh, my.
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I bought one.