Lothic

To be fair the "Mac vs PC" debate is pretty much one of the core foundational forum topics of the Internet. There have been thousands of people posting on it every day around the world for decades now. Even if there wasn't a Mac client for this game I'll bet someone here would be slinging Mac vs PC posts at each other. You might as well get upset at the sun rising and setting each day.

That question has puzzled me for years now. Is there really that much difference between the graphics data involved in displaying a "temp power" that attaches to a character's back and a "costume item" that attaches to a character's back? Surely the same "body anchor points" would be involved in both situations.

They seem to have no problem with the idea of having temp power guns/swords in character's hands the same way they have costume item guns/swords. If different versions of guns/swords can be both temp powers and costume items why can't jet packs?

The idea that it's taken them years to make the "leap" from back-oriented temp powers to costume items is frankly almost mind-boggling.

Yes I'm well aware of the costume save/load feature. I'm also aware we've only had that feature for barely 3 years now. Imagine what it was like before that.

I've been working on revamping my bind files for weeks in anticipation of this. It's a good "problem" to have.

Trust me when I say I'm willing to cut the Devs as much slack about this kind of thing as reasonably possible. Still I guess it just seems odd to me when I hear things that have been collectively assumed to be lingering on the Devs' "To Do" lists for years aren't even on those lists yet.

I've noticed this kind of thing happening in the recent ustream chats as well. Some of the Devs have made comments like, "Wow that's a great idea, I've never thought of that before" in reaction to things that have been suggested here in the forums for YEARS.

It's not like I expect the Devs to be monitoring these forums 24/7 but you'd think that most of the suggestions that've come up regularly for years would not be considered "brand new" to the Devs.

I could accept the possibility that they are worried about clipping issues like jet pack flames burning the lower halves of characters while flying. But that didn't stop them from letting the original static tails clip badly into people's legs while flying for years.

I'm not suggesting they don't do everything possible to fix the clips/gaps. But I also think that people would probably be willing to live with a certain amount of clipping as a compromise to actually getting to have these things in the first place. There's got to be a reasonable trade-off between having jet pack costume items that clip a little bit versus not having them at all.

Just to put things in perspective there's another "superhero MMO" out there which just released several good looking animated jet pack costume items. It'd be a shame if this game couldn't follow suit. *shrugs*

On one hand I agree that if you "self-limit" yourself to only playing on one server then you have accept the possibility that if that server is down you're going to be out of luck.

On the other hand for the last 7.5 years I've been playing roughly 90% of the time on Virtue and I think I can count on maybe 1 or 2 fingers the number of times I've ever sat down to play and been in a situation where Virtue was down but other servers were up.

Sure it sucks when any servers are down for any reason. But I honestly think people like you and Clouded, who are on opposite sides of this issue, are -both- overacting to this unfortunate situation. *shrugs*

It almost looks like they used your pic as a real world model to copy for their backpack.

I really have no problem with this first example being a "literal" backpack, as long as this actually becomes the first of many back-oriented pack-like items available to us.

Besides I think most of the "joke" behind this idea was the fact that Hollywood doesn't seem like it's going to stop axing shows prematurely anytime soon.

There are some of us who don't think 10 will be enough. But since it's been like 5 years since we've gotten any increase in the number of costume slots available I'm not going to be too nit-picky about it.

It's funny but I always had a character background twist with my human-form only Peacebringer that in effect rationalized why she would never use Dwarf or Nova form to alter her basic human body. Using the Light Form power and changing into a big wisp was therefore always something that was technically a "bad side effect" as far as my character concept goes. This I21 change that preserves the human form for Peacebringers using Light Form actually fits my particular character better than changing into a wisp. *shrugs*

Now don't blame me for this change because I never once suggested to the Devs that the wisp form be removed from the game. All I'm saying is that the removal of the wisp form actually -helps- my character's concept.

Having said that I think as a compromise for having it removed from the Light Form power the Devs ought to take the "graphics" for the wisp form and turn it into a permanent "temp costume" power usable only by Peacebringers. This way you can choose to activate that "costume" the same way the Halloween temp costumes work.

It's incredible to think he had such high regard for the integrity of other people's work yet he doesn't seem to consider his own historical work worthy of that same protection from "tinkering". Hypocrisy such as this rarely comes sweeter.

While he seemed to be against all that evil "technology" that would allow older films to be modified he himself has spearheaded the creation of much of that same evil technology. He's almost like those guys who create computer viruses who get so good at it they get jobs working for the anti-virus companies... in reverse.

Fair enough. But it's at least reasonable to say that the overall success of the Star Wars movies led to the initial success of those other bits of his production empire. He's not ever going to cut off the head even if the rest of the body has gotten huge over the years.

The fact that he never really "moved on" past Star Wars is what I was talking about earlier about actually feeling a little bit sorry for him. *shrugs*

Things like Greedo shooting first was just plain irksome. But then again I've seen the original versions of the original three movies so many dozens of times each that I, like you, couldn't really care less what Lucas does at this point. I'll preserve Lucas' masterpieces in my memory -despite- him.

Well like I said I don't hate the new versions but I've also never PAID for them either so I consider it a reasonable compromise.

I think up until a few days ago the Devs were thinking that as well...

I'm basically in that same boat. I've never been much for melee in this game but I'm actually looking forward to giving Street Justice a serious try.

Again I won't argue the Devs' decision that they apparently considered the Mac thing a show-stopper. But I'd have to agree with you in saying I'd be very surprised to learn that more than 10% of the playerbase actually uses a Mac to play this game. *shrugs*

I would give it about 0.001% chance for many obvious reasons...

I can easily understand and accept why the Devs have apparently decided that those two problems are big enough to delay the launch of Issue 21. But since I don't play this game on a Mac and feel that I could be careful enough to avoid double-purchasing things on my own for a few days you can at least see why people like me might feel a bit more frustrated about this delay than others.

Obviously in the long run it won't matter much. Just pointing out that as of today it is relatively sucky. *shrugs*

I wouldn't say I "hate" it as much consider it a disappointingly pathetic effort to leech off a decades old artistic endeavor. In a weird sort of way I almost feel sorry for Lucas. But don't think I live on such a high moral ground that if I were in Lucas' shoes I wouldn't be trying to do the very same thing. He's obviously a very lucky b-astard and he's merely living it to the fullest. *shrugs*

While I enjoyed your predictions it's actually interesting to consider exactly how these movies will in fact "evolve" over time. You see Lucas is shooting himself in the foot over the issue of whether or not people should be able to change his movies after his death. Think of it this way: If Lucas himself is cool with the idea of his movies changing every 5 or 10 years then what would be so bad about someone else changing them after his death? Lucas himself has already proven that these movies are not fixed in stone anyway so why should anyone respect his wishes after his passing?

Thankfully I'm old enough that the Internet was barely a glint in Al Gore's eye as I was finishing up my run through college. I frankly couldn't imagine trying to juggle school now with the wonderful distractions the Internet provides today. Good luck resisting the temptations.