Lothic

*** SPOILER ALERT ***




It's interesting to note what kinds of "violence" seems to be acceptable to show on cable TV these days.

In the first episode of this series we see a guy getting decapitated and another guy getting his guts get cut open. True both scenes were shown very quickly and with a minimum of blood, but still we are shown these things.

By contrast the scene where the wolf is killed is handled in an almost "off-screen" manner. We see Stark kneel down next to the wolf and draw his dagger, but the actual motion of him stabbing the wolf is concealed below the level of the camera so that we really only see Stark's face as he does the deed.

If aliens were to land on our planet today and watch this show they'd have to conclude that we consider violence against canines more taboo than violence against other human beings.

I really don't have -that- much of a problem with Lady Gaga being this generation's version of Madonna. With the way Hollyweird is recycling everything else that's 20 or 30 years old now-a-days I'd pretty much expect there to be a new Madonna/Gaga every 20 or 30 years as well. *shrugs*

Yeah they make a difference all right: On full teams/leagues the only thing that Lore Pets represent is massive pointless overkill. As of April 2011 just about the only thing a league with a bunch of Lore pets is tactically useful for is trying to do a MoLambda run during the final fight with Marauder. But beyond that what else is that kind of firepower needed for?

Clearly Lore Pets are far more useful to players "pound-for-pound" while trying to tackle big fights solo. And as such they are quickly (because of their excessive recharge times) becoming relegated to the same niche that things like the Archmage and Geas of the Kind Ones accolade powers live in - powers you save for key AV fights because you can't really use them effectively for anything else.

I just don't want to see Lore Pets become yet another "use them once in a blue moon" situation.

Uh, what if I want BOTH of those things...

Sure there's the classic notion of "even if the Devs try as hard as they can they'll never make everyone happy" and then there's the "let's do it in a way that we can MAKE SURE people will scream bloody murder over it" way. Your idea of making "remote auction access" and "remote tailor access" be a mutually exclusive Vet award choice is probably the absolute WORST way to handle this.

Please, if anyone wants to come up with alternative ideas for this at least don't bother with the ones that are clearly not desirable in any form or fashion.

I see what you did there...

Yes, these were the "other" things I just mentioned a few minutes ago.

We don't really need a TP power to get us to a tailor. We already have portable workbenches, remote AE consoles, and now with the latest Vet award access to the markets remotely. After all that the idea of getting a remote tailor console doesn't really seem all that far-fetched to me. And none of these other "conveniences" cost any more to use than the "real" thing so I see no reason a remote Tailor would have to cost extra either. *shrugs*

You bring up some valid points. My argument is that my characters which are "fully incarnated" are already godlike enough as it is even when my Lore pets are not out. There's a fine line between being good for "situational solo AV fights" and "whoops, I forgot to use them again because I never really -need- them for anything anyway".

We may not really know how to accurately assess the usefulness of the Lore pets until the rest of the Incarnate powers are revealed to us. But at this point, for me at least, the Lore pets are effectively useless for 95% of anything I'd could face. If the Lore pets were usable a bit more often then I would grow more used to actually USING them in the first place. *shrugs*

Yeah maybe from some kind of abstract logic point of view it is a bit weak to "force" players to have to spend Influence on a jetpack just to face a challenge in a trial.

On the other hand if you're playing a level 50 Incarnate that can't afford the trivial price of a jetpack then you've got far more serious trouble to worry about than how to reach those Lambda guns.

Whatever works for you. I actually like all of the flyposes so I hated getting locked into just using one of them. With my bind I can use any flypose I want at anytime, or even not use -any- of them (because my autorun is not hardwired to a flypose) which effectively gives me 5 poses to choose from. As always YMMV.

Yes the show even hinted that the Stark children are "connected" to these wolves in a special mystical/family way. But that's still not going to make it any less silly if we can just start expecting these wolves to jump out of the woodwork every time one of the kids are threatened. I just don't want the trick to get so overused that it becomes some kind of "drinking game" trigger for this show.

Once in a while = cool and special
Once or twice every episode = dumb and overused

That's all I'm saying.

As I said I'm assuming that a character like Tyrion has a "master plan" at work and has reasons for going to the Wall that aren't all about Jon. Still it's clear there's the beginning of a friendship there that'll likely become more significant later on when all the s*** starts to hit the proverbial fan. At the very least Tyrion probably figures if he can have a member of the Stark family friendly to him then that makes his position all the more secure.

Yeah I don't have a problem with the dire wolves being fiercely loyal to their owners and I don't even have a problem with one of them coming out of nowhere to maul another person who's threatening their owners. But twice in one episode? I thought that was pushing it a little. Now I'm almost going to be expecting a "random wolf attack" in every episode. All I'm saying is that from a literary point of view that kind of minor deus ex machina can quickly lose its significance if it gets used every half-hour of the show.

Other than that I thought it was a great episode and looking forward to seeing more of this series.

Clearly there's something building between Tyrion and Jon. It could just be the fact that he's interested in another person who's also, like him, sort of the "black sheep" of a noble family and sees a younger version of himself in Jon. Of course they could take it to extremes and we could find out that they are somehow secretly related via the "mystery" mother. Either way Tyrion's interest is likely not random in any case. He doesn't seem like the type who would waste any effort on anything that wasn't deviously planned for well in advance.

Just remember that badges were introduced in Issue 2 long BEFORE CoV went live but long AFTER CoH started.
Villains never had an excuse for missing Jailbird the same way pre-I2 heroes had for never even having a chance for Isolator.

You ought to check this thread out to see why your suggestion, while interesting, will probably never happen.

BTW, the "level -1" thing was ALWAYS a temporary bug. The Devs didn't change that "to keep the challenge". The Devs changed that because it originally did NOT apply but a some point a bug allowed it to happen so that bug had to be fixed to return it to how it worked -before- the bug.

Obviously Positron was simply being an "noob Dev" about RV Isolator in the first place. If it wasn't obvious that he was just using his power to pull our collective chains with that one then I don't know what is. There were certain people out there (I was never one of them mind you) who keep whining about getting a post-tutorial Isolator so badly that they literally told Positron they'd be willing to "do anything" to get it. And Positron being the easily tempted Dev he obviously was decided to take the bait, throw sensibility to the wind, and thought it'd be funny to devise the most sadistic way he could think of to "accommodate" the whiners. Thus RV Isolator was born.

The final joke was on him though because there were still plenty of other badges to get in RV at the time so "forcing" players who were collecting badges to spend time in RV really wasn't the "punishment" he hoped it would be. While I was on teams working things like the RV AVs, pillboxes, Toxic Tarantulas (200 at the time) and Mu Guardians we had plenty of time to get the Contaminated spawn when it popped up. Actually now that it's long over I kind of laugh at Positron and his rookie Dev mistake of letting players get him upset enough to do something stupid like this. I think he's learned his lesson in the long run and it's made him better for it. *shrugs*

I think the main problem with allowing anyone to insta-level a character on the Test server is that there are likely still a handful of people out there who play on it as if it was their "native" server. In other words they play "for real" out there. I know it's weird, but it'd be unfair to allow people the chance to have instant 50's that they'll turn around and use for real.

Also as far as I know people still use the Test server as the unofficial PvP server. Again I'm pretty sure the Devs don't want to allow anyone the ability to auto-level characters that they may end up actually using for serious play.

Basically apart from future powerset beta testing I don't really ever see it happening. *shrugs*

It'd be nice if it was retroactive but I doubt it will be.
As long as it actually works after the patch it won't be too bad to run it one more time.
At least we can get a few Shards while running it now.

How could the Devs do this!?!
Everyone knows the game hinges on the health and well-being of the Gladiator system.
With the Gladiator system unbalanced this game will shut down in a week!!!
DOOOooommm!!!