Lycanus

People are vehemently defending Renner (or excusing him, rather) right now because the Avengers is a highly anticipated movie for this year.

Even people like me, who gave up on Marvel and DC as pointless years ago, are waiting for this movie (mostly because this is a retelling of the classic stories that I enjoyed).

However, the author of that commentary did not say the movie would be bad. He in fact said that he expected that the movie would be enjoyable. He is an archery expert commenting on archery, pure and simple. He started with the Brave and decided to do the other two for fairness's sake. But his focus is purely on the archery, not the worth of the stories, acting or the movie in general.

Given that he is probably correct that these movies will spark an interest in archery, it is a good idea to point out what works and what doesn't to anybody that might be interested in actually doing archery.

He's not advising people not to see the movie. He's not advising people that it is a bad movie. He's advising potential archery enthusiasts on what is proper.

As to why that is a concern for the story.

Put simply, a level of accuracy in the more realistic elements of a fantasy lends credence to the fantastical elements. Everything in a story that has a real life element should be looked at closely. Those elements are dangerous.

Making errors in fantasy is relatively difficult as long as you remain consistent in how things are done. Everything is made up when you're talking about superpowers, working magic and some of the super-science stuff we see in soft-sci-fi (better labeled science fantasy).

Errors only exist in the fantasy elements in relation to the rules you set for them.

However, making errors on real, verfiable elements is cause for alarm. Someone will notice such errors. When errors are noticed, it breaks the state of suspended disbelief you have placed yourself in. If your audience has to remind themselves that "it's a superhero movie" or "why worry about that when there's a giant green ogre fighting aliens?" then you have already lost some of the atmosphere.

Fantasy errors will only be noticed when compared to other scenes in the same story. That will usually be a fridge issue sometime after the story finishes and it's not something that will have too much of an impact unless it is apparent that the writers are making no attempt to be consistent in the way the fantasy elements work. One error in fantastical consistency is a trivia discussion more than anything else.

But errors on anything with a touch on the real has the potential to be immediately jarring. The audience will already potentially have other situations from their past to compare it to. It will often make a person pause right there.

Which isn't to say that always have to be completely one-hundred percent accurate to reality.

As Arcanaville points out, two pistol rigs are more or less ridiculous (one of my favorite parts of Silverado is the way the other three main characters kind of roll their eyes at Kevin Costner's character's rig). However, this is because firing a pistol with one hand removes a lot of stability from the shot. When you're in action movie with larger than life heroes, you can imagine that they are in that prime of a condition that the loss of accuracy is not substantial enough for them to worry about.

Likewise, kicks above the waist are also Hollywood ridiculous. Tae Kwon Do, a very kick heavy art, has competition rules requiring a certain number of kicks in matches or else points are lost. This is because if the competition board doesn't require kicks, then the martial artists won't do them and the competition board wants to show case the kicks.

The only reason you practice kicks higher than the waist is to develop flexibility so that your usable kicks are easy to perform.

Despite my experiences with Tae Kwon Do (which are almost lost now after 7 years of stupidly not practicing), I have no trouble with the high kicks in movies. There ARE people who train so much with kicks like that that they are useful. Those people are rare, but they exist. There are also entire arts based around kicking under the assumption of the developers that the hands would be bound by chains or something else.

As such, I can tolerate high, flashy kicks.

On the other hand, I know you don't practice forms (kata or pumsae or whatever) in actual combat. Katas are meant to be practice in moving from one position to another and teaching you how to move well. You don't use them in a fight. Instead, you use the individual motions and elements and flow them together.

As such, when Equilibrium went on about "gun kata" and how these forms were the best way to avoid fire and what not, the entire movie was gone for me. Especially when the way they portrayed the fighting was exactly that: the character performing memorized routines to stay out of firing lines in the middle of a real fight. Everything was rigid and unyielding and we're led to believe that he could stand in the open without cover and avoid being shot because he knew the standard firing lines. It was patently ridiculous and I obsessed and laughed about the problem the whole movie. The character drama was well done, but I wouldn't recognize that until I watched the movie again a year or two later, because the whole "kata" thing destroyed the movie's credibility.

Likewise, Ed Greenwood's The Kingless Land had similar problems. Granted, I've long said that Ed Greenwood is an excellent game designer and Forgotten Realms is an awesome setting, but I've always said he's a B writer at best. The Kingless Land, not one of the TSR titles but something of his own, took his writing flaws to new heights. Ignoring the fact that he had somewhere around 3-5 separate storylines that never intersected, making this novel feel more llike he'd written several long short-stories and simply cut them up, which is a writing skill error, he had several points in his story that made me simply say "that can't work". Each of which pulled me out of the story and into having to analyze the story.

If I fall into analysis on the first read through (unless I've been specifically asked to analyze it), that tells me that the author failed somewhere. He didn't hold me. I found enjoyment in analyzing the writing. I didn't simply enjoy the story.

There are two of these points that I remember clearly.

The first was a particular mook who apparently had a very powerful backswing and specialized in the backswing....to the point that they'd pull their sword over into position for a backswing on every stroke. That's wasted motion. Worse, it's wasted motion crossing one arm over the other and making defensive action difficult thus leaving you WIDE open. The reason for a backswing is to make every motion you take part of an attack if at all possible. That, however, was one mook and I would have forgiven it as an amateur mook if the other flaws didn't exist.

The second realism point he failed on is having a crowd of men storming up a medieval, common inn's staircase while standing three-abreast....meaning three people standing side-by-side and many behind them in rows and columns. Anybody who has seen medieval style stairwells in commoner buildings will tell you that even a single person fills up most of the space of those stairs and they would be hampered for fighting by close walls. A stairwell big enough for three people to go up side-by-side and STILL be able to fight is not something you'd find in any inn. You probably wouldn't find many of them in the castles of the rich because they're something of a security risk.

You can't catch every nitpicker for the simple fact that you don't know everything and are not professional at everything. There will always be cases where you fail to get the right research, or fail to research at all because it didn't occur to you, and someone will catch you on it.

The main problem I have with Renner is the comment that he was receiving lessons to prepare for this. I probably wouldn't have noticed without it being pointed out, and now that's already been processed I probably won't notice it when the movie comes out...but it is still a very poor lapse in planning and I have more hope that it is because the instructor was bad than that he didn't listen or taught himself.

So, Iron-Man is their puller I guess

sorry I didn't answer in time to be useful....hopefully still interesting though

I had a conversation recently where someone was complaining about Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition being basically an MMO.

This is a common complaint.

A lot of people point to the way the powers are set up and start saying "that's exactly like what MMOs do". I've always returned that comment with the reminder that MMOs were copied from tabletop RPGs and mostly use the same systems of event resolution, health tracking and character advancement and, thus, that any development that works on those elements will also be fitting to a tabletop RPG.

Another main argument is that 4th edition doesn't allow you to roleplay, to which I just cry "bull", because there is no way to systemize roleplay and, thus, no system can really limit roleplay. Especially not when one of the accepted golden rules of tabletopping is "if you don't like a rule: drop it or make a different one." Roleplaying is entirely the responsibility of the players not the system.

My own complaint about 4th edition is that it virtually requires a detailed map in order to play out combat. It is very much a miniatures oriented game. While it is easy to replace minis with dice or cardboard cutouts, you still need the map. The result is that, while fun to play, I have less fun in running it. It requires a lot more prep than other games where I can use cinematic locations and distances fairly easily and not be put to the trouble of drawing an actual map.

But the complaint from this person was "aggro". He claimed that prior versions of D&D did not have aggro and that such a concept was entirely created by the massive multiplayer online roleplaying games. He couldn't understand why, to use his example, a lich would have to attack a fighter instead of a mage or striker. After all this is someone powerful enough and smart enough to become a lich, which implies a hefty degree of intelligence, so certainly they should recognize that the fighter isn't their main threat.

Aggro, for those that don't know, is a term used by MMO coders and gamers to describe how the computerized enemies choose who they will attack out of the players. Different player action generates differing level of aggro with the computer sending the enemy to attack the player that the enemy has the most aggro toward. This behavior coding is meant to replace the gamemaster who would usually decide how a particular enemy would react. Aggro management is an important part of such online gaming and characters designed to attract aggro basically have the job of making sure bad guys don't attack their friends.

4th edition Defender types (Fighters, Paladins, Spellswords, Wardens, etc) have some explicit aggro management abilities in the form of "Marks". The way a mark works is that the defender places it on an enemy. For as long as the mark lasts, that enemy will have penalties of varying sorts applied if they attack anybody other than the Defender that placed the mark. For example, if a marked enemy attacks anyone other the Fighter who marked him, then he receives a -2 to attack and the Fighter in question gets to make a free attack on them (if they're in reach according to the map). Other defenders have other situations, such as the Paladin, which can do a very small amount of damage if their mark attacks someone other than them.

The complaint I've heard is that this mechanic is "too meta". For those not in the gaming community, they mean "meta-gaming" which is basically making your decisions based on what the way the rules work rather than on what a character with your story and background.

"Normal" decision-making process: I'll move around and flank the enemy because that is good tactics.

"Metagaming": I get plus 2 to hit and sneak attack if I flank, so I'll flank.

The first method is choosing based on "what would my character do" while the second is based on "what gives me the biggest mechanical benefit"

Metagaming is basically acting on out of character knowledge. Things the player knows but which the character has no reason to know. This can be very damaging to a game.

That is a fairly mild example because it results in the character making the same decision either way. More obvious forms of metagaming are as follows:

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The character decides to get a torch because the rules say trolls can only die if you burn them. This is despite the fact that his character has never seen a troll before and they are not common in the world setting.

The character trades in the story-important sword of his ancestors for a nameless magical sword that gives better bonuses.

The character decides to attack an NPC because they have a goatee and "this GM always makes people with goatee's evil".

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Apparently the 4th edition marks are metagaming because they force the enemy to behave in a way that some would consider unnatural for that enemy's personality and motivation.

That said, while the term is new, aggro management certainly is not.

The oldest mechanism for aggro control was a combination of features that were party of the basic classes of D&D. The primary method was occupation attacks and these go as far back as 2nd edition.

If possible, seek out and find the D&D classic Gold Box games. Simple little roleplaying games written in the 1980s with highly simple graphics. These are the precursors to Baldur's Gate and the like. The basic mechanics of these games are identical to the basic mechanics of 2nd edition AD&D. The aggro management tool here were opportunity attacks.
When you got into a battle, say with some goblins, the enemies would come charging across the screen (such as they could with their graphics) and attack whoever they were targetted against. Assume that they come running up to the fighter on the shortest path towards the wizard in the back of the group. However, if they passed near a fighter or other melee type, then that character got a free attack against them.

The explanation for this was that in passing by a melee armed character, the enemy involved was leaving themselves vulnerable to attack, therefore, the character got a free attack on the enemy. Originally, in 2nd Edition, there seemed to be unlimited numbers of these (one per enemy, though). In third edition, they limited the number of opportunity attacks a player could get down to one, but made feats that allowed them to gain further of those.

The standard method to do aggro control was to place the fighter types up front in such away that enemies would have to get past them to attack the back ranks. The GM, knowing what would happen if his goblins simply rushed past, would mostly have the enemies stop in the first threatened area around the fighter and attack him there in order to wear him down and get to the wizards. Otherwise, they'd try to take a long way around to get to the wizards, rogues, clerics and such. Or, finally, they could use ranged weapons.

Aside from the third of these, the GM is basically metagaming because he knows that his goblins will most likely die by the rules if he charges them past the fighters. You can say that the goblins would know that the fighter is too dangerous to run past and that's why they stop, and that works, but you can make similar workarounds in logical for other such decisions.

Also, as to the ranged weapons, enemies with ranged weapons are prone to opportunity attack if a character armed for hand-to-hand is right next to them. The answer to this is for the fighter types to move up so that they are right next to the ranged enemies. This is basically an extension of the basic aggro management philosophy that is "stand next to the enemy or stand where the enemy has to go past you." Basically, you require the enemies to have to deal with you first.

Finally, while the goblins would usually be stopped as soon as they can engage the fighter (because to go further is to invite attack), the GM could sometimes choose to simply having them charge past regardless, in the hopes that some will get past. Or, as soon as a mob builds up around the front line, the goblins HAVE to run around and thus avoid the threat of opportunity attacks.

Marking is simply an extension of the D&D philosophy of aggro management by threat of force. Of course, the difference here is that it is in the rules that all beings know the effects of any powers effects they are under. As such, that marked lich knows that if he attacks someone other than the fighter, or uses an area effect spell that does not include the fighter, then he gets a -2 to hit and invites an attack.

This does not force the lich to attack the fighter. In all honesty, a high level lich will not likely worry too much about a -2 to attack or a single attack against them and they will have spells that can be very effective in one action, thus not requiring them to suffer from the mark repetitively unless they desire it. The choice is not taken away from the lich, it is simply given information about the consequences of any choice.

Also, these are not very hard to rationalize in roleplaying. A fighter can only mark people that he has already attacked. As such, a fighter that has marked someone is probably watching them and ready to strike again in a clearly threatening pose that would tell most people "if I make the wrong move, he hits me." The marks of the other Defenders are psionic or magical in origin and read like targetted curses for the most part. At least one such mark reacts to protect the target if triggered rather than by attacking the enemy.

All in all, marking is simply a second form of opportunity attack available only to defenders.

I have to say that there isn't much like that in any MMO. MMO aggro works by numbers, one character might have more threat because of actions taken, but Tank-type characters generally have threat multipliers that make their actions more threatening than they otherwise would be.

The Mark mechanic is nothing like that.

For an active comparison:

In one MMO, say a damage-dealer type hits an enemy for 100 damage and therefore generates 100 threat. The tanker type then hits the same enemy for 50 damage, but his threat is multiplied by, say 4, and thus he generates 200 threat. The enemy then decides to attack the tanker despite the lower damage dealt because the numbers it is fed say the tanker is the priority target.

There is no active, human GM controlling the enemies in MMOs so such unnatural behavior controls are necessary.

The D&D 4E marking system, on the other hand, basically is the equivalent of "Hey, you, yeah, you, I've got my eye on you. Yeah, just give me chance. Go for it!" Since the enemies are not run by computers, there's no number that makes the lich say "I have to attack the fighter even though the wizard is about to complete the spell that will destroy my soul jar." The lich is perfectly free to ignore the mark and attack the wizard, however, it makes perfect sense that a warrior ready to pounce will interfere in any spellcasting or even melee attacks from the lich when he makes his provoked attack and the lich will be risking having his action miss. However, it may be that he can't afford not to attack.

In all reality, the 4E marking system wouldn't work for an MMO. You would still need to determine aggro so that the system had a way to make decisions for enemies without a human GM to do that. Possibly, you could have aggro managed separately and this would simply add more to the aggro measurement, but that would still mean that other actions might level a higher amount of aggro and thus convince the enemy to make the risk for the opportunity attack and other associated penalties of the mark they're under.

As to the common "taunts" in MMOs those are also not unique or original to MMOs.

First edition Champions, the first setting for the HERO system rules, had Presence attacks. Presence attacks were used to inspire allies and demoralize enemies among other things. Essentially anything emotionally based that was sudden and imposing. The levels by which the presence attack worked indicated how likely the affected targets would be to follow along with what was said and thus provide guidelines for the GM to deciding actions. Only really high rolls demanded that the targets followed the instructions given (we referred to this as "putty-ing" the enemies, since they were now like putty). For added benefit, Presence attacks are essentially a free action.

This is completely analogous to the "Taunt" powers common to MMOs for aggro management, and Champions 1st Ed came out in the early 80s at first. Well before the first MMOs.

For that matter, 1st edition AD&D had the Dragonlance setting and Kender which had an insult ability that enabled them to force an opponent to come charging blindly at them regardless of dangers. It was designed to make the target ignore opportunity attacks.

Aggro management has been a basic part of roleplaying strategy for a LONG time. It only got named as such when MMOs needed an easy way to refer to the necessary mathematics associated with behavior AIs choosing targets.

pretty cool...

I like the use of the blast texture and the Roman skirt

(note I'm hating myself right now...did the destroy the knives of vengeance mission and forgot to do it in Tender's new Talon costume....I so meant to be a rogue Talon for that

Once upon a time, it was possible to find two sappers in a single malta group spawn

this was all very logical since the sappers are, by far, the most dangerous unit malta has and only made since that they would try to field them as much as possible

however, there was whining about how hard it was to deal with two sappers and thus their frequency was reduced...sometimes now, malta can even spawn without any sappers...actually, fairly frequently

Now, if you follow the Crey storylines something similar happens...you deal with riot guards and agents and Juggernauts and other such things...then you upgrade to Paragon Protectors and Tanks...then, suddenly, you're back to facing Juggernauts and other older Crey power armor units...for more fun, they're still underlevel to you...

but with Crey, this is explained in storyline as Crey being on the ropes thanks to your actions...so it makes sense

this doesn't happen with Malta, no, they uniformly went from intelligently fielding at least one sapper per squad always, two sappers per squad fairly frequently and occasionally even having three sappers...to occasionally having one sapper across the board...mostly because the player base complained

likewise with status effect enemies...once upon a time they were more common and players complained that being held to death was not fun (agreed) and the effectiveness and frequency of status effect dealing foes was reduced across the board

Another place this happens is with Rikti comms officers and Sky Raider Engineers...you can have two or more commies in a spawn, but only one will summon enemies...if you have three Engineers in a spawn, only one will spawn a Gennie

would it be possible to have another difficulty slider for "annoying" enemies and also one for status effect effectiveness

not sure what you could call it....."annoying enemy" would be wrong

but if you could make a slider that would make more of these difficult enemies spawn or act to full capability...that would be cool

Allow infinite ambushes/waves (even if it means 0 xp from ambushes past X number)

that's relatively simple


Allow us to choose spawn points for encounters

that's rather difficult, I know


Allow us to edit the map ourselves rather than having to use preset templates

note, that would tend to eat up the data space limits on our missions, I know...

Allow us to place spawn points directly into the map rather than use preset ones

would require map editing and also eat up space


Give us more data space per story arch

this is probably the most problematic aside from simple coding/engine issues...if we could have 500 kb instead of 100 kb, we might be able to do more with custom enemies...of course if we add custom maps and spawn points, 500 kb might still be just about the same as what we have now...

I can imagine that 500 kb x 10 max stories per player x however many 1000s of players we have could get to be a large chunk of data space...so...I know it's problematic, but still would like it

By far, the worst culprit here are the Council and Column bases

There are a number of cases where you have rooms that have well designed defensive emplacements that aren't used...such as that four-way cross room with the 3 or 4 level block in the center...I've never found anything in that...no glowies, no hostages, nothing

for further annoyance, if I were the council, I'd have guns in those slots at each level pointing out in every direction...but they don't...instead they hang out in the open and on the bridges around it

Praetoria shook things up a bit by having the spawn points on the map be in slightly different places than they were in the Primal maps. But the spawn points are still static room to room...you just have to know whether you're dealing with a Praetorian or Primal map to know where the eneimes will be

so add more spawn points to every map...add spawn points in positions that haven't been used yet...

make things less predictable

It would be nice if we could have more objects in missions that are there simple for the flavor of destruction.

like computer banks in a council or column mission....bookshelves in an oranbega mission...etc...

now, this could introduce some strategy such as if the objects could block line of sight or do damage when they explode, but for the most part, I'd just like to be able to have super-hero style collateral damage without having to do villain-side mayhem missions

a) Give Scrappers (and maybe Stalkers) SS

b) allow us to hurl things other than a chunk of rock a la Propel

c) give us a super strength themed Judgment...some suggestions I've seen in the past have included throwing busses and repeat smashing the ground a la a hyper-footstomp

huh, I think that's one of the most comic book-ish fights I've had on here

untouchable evil villain, long drawn out scenery chewing fight....it's great