Mr_Samoa

Of course I remember you, Sonic! I remember just about everyone I played or interacted with consistently.

Cat - You & Mags are some of the best people I've met online. I really, honestly, wish you and your family happiness.

I'm very, very excited about NaNo this year. For the first time, I'm a Municipal Liaison(like a regional leader, if you don't know) and I think I've got a really cool novel idea.

Best of luck to everyone writing this year!

I doubt we'll ever get something like this, honestly. Sure, it'd be great to be able to follow the "magic track" or to follow the "Circle of Thorns track" and learn everything there is to know in those areas. It'd be really, really cool. But the Devs have a hard enough time updating old arcs with the new retcon of what REALLY happened with each new issue. To really do this well, they'd need to do "Issue 25: The Content Update!" which was just updates of the old stuff, better mission story progressions, and maybe revamped contact skins. Sad truth is without something New and Shiny or For Sale Now in the Paragon Market, we probably won't see these sorts of big sweeping content updates.

Some of these have been addressed over the years. The travel power thing and the weapons thing, specifically, aren't in because it's a hellish amount of work for a simple visual QoL improvement. It was a big thing to be able to use Brawl with a weapon out. Would I love to use my Dual Pistols with an Energy Punch for some kind of super-pistol whip? Sure, it'd be rad. But that's a heck of a lot more coding, plus adding in an option to turn that on/off for people who didn't want weapons out all the time. I understand why those are on the backburner, or not on the list at all.

I have noticed the costume thing, too, though. A lot of the face masks don't really look like the material they'er supposed to be, and it makes the costume lose some of its flow. But again, coding textures for every mask on every head size type (normal, intellectual, this, strong, etc...) is just a staggering amount of work. I do think, however, that there's a face or two with whited-out eyes. But that would limit you to that style of face, I suppose. *shrug*

This is something I've been thinking about too, and it's especially noticeable in the level 20 area. First Ward is great. Faultline is great. There's a couple great villain contacts there. Tips start. There's so much going on right there, there's no way to do it all. Faultline was crawling with players when they updated it, and for good reason. But now it's as empty as ever because the Next Big Thing keeps overwriting it.

A lot of content takes multiple characters to really see. We start learning about Vahzilok, for example, and fight a bunch of his schemes (including the Sewer Trial), discover his full backstory, and finally defeat him once and for all in Posi pt. 2. There's a full story arc that we're supposed to accomplish there. Same thing with Clockwork King and the Synapse TF, with a bit of Penelope Yin thrown in. Clockwork King's story arc again becomes important when you're experiencing Praetoria and some of the cross-dimensional high-level missions, and many players aren't even going to know who he is. I see problems like this fairly often in the brand new lowbie content, as well as the newer high-level stuff. I've been playing for nearly 7 years, and I know a goodly amount of the game's lore. These missions expect that I know that. They're putting the Praetoria/Coming Storm storyline front and center, but that story is built on the foundation they've spent several years building. So to understand what's going on, I'm supposed to know seven years' worth of content, even as a new character. I do feel bad for the new freebie players in this respect. I've got several freebie friends and all they want to do is team and do the new stuff like the Sewer Trial. One friend started Jim Temblor's arc because I encouraged them to, telling them Faultline had a cool storyline. First of all, they didn't know anything about Faultline's destruction and reconstruction. Secondly, they didn't read most of the text and had no idea that there were other contacts that would continue that zone's story arc. This problem is mades worse by the lack of Ouroborus- as a VIP, I have the luxury of running as many characters as I want. Freebies get two, with no potential of going back and doing missed story arcs without teaming with a lower level character and reading their mission texts. It's a real shame that they're going to miss out on so much of this great game.

I loved this movie. If you liked the Iron Giant, you will too. It's like that, but with way more awesome fighting. The advertising wasn't even as bad as I'd expected based off reading this thread. The majority of it was in places you'd expect to see ads, like around an arena. The robot fighting was very well done and the robots looked great. I was very impressed, to say the least.

I don't really see why Time Lords couldn't have Earth origins. I think it's fully possible that they're humans, so many years in the future that they've forgotten their original roots. Plus, who can say exactly when Gallifrey is? With exposure over centuries to the Time Vortex evolving them into Time Lords, they could exist at any point in time, really.

The same thin happened with the Guardians of Oa. In Blackest Night, we find that they originated from Earth, but moved to Oa to hide the importance of Earth. Over centuries, they all but forgot they'd come from anywhere but Oa. I think this model suits the Time Lords just fine. Now, would it be that great of a reveal? Not really. But it does have interesting story possibilities, especially if you consider some of the old stuff alluding to the idea that The Doctor was, or will be, instrumental to the creation of the Time Lords.

It really wasn't as creepy as I expected it to be, though I did get he feeling that this episode was just simple setup for more creepiness later. I got more of a "weird" vibe from the show, and I mean that in a good way. I enjoyed the first episode and it seems like it has a lot of potential (though, like their last show Glee, I can't see the premise lasting more than two, three seasons tops). They fit a surprising amount into one episode, and I'm looking forward to next week's.

I'd love to see an issue go through and re-tool all the missions hinting at future stuff, which are particularly noticeable in CoV. When CoV came out, the Devs had a lot of ideas for the future. Some of them are happening or are still being hinted at, some of them have been taken off the table. For example, there's lots of references in the lowbie levels redside to the Blood of the Black Stream, which was once going to be part of the Incarnate System and is now gone away. Marshall Brass gives the Echo down the Aeons arc, which deals with time travel and a man who has discovered a way to control Shivans. That's practicaly tailor-made for a Coming Storm tie-in, but all we get is the hints that Aeon and Echo are the same man (see: MA backstory). Also in this arc, they mention Dr. Brainstorm, the man who started powerset proliferation and is now simply "in hiding". Then, of course, there's all the stuff pointing to Rularuu (Darrin Wade) and that goes nowhere.

I also agree that there's very little on the FBSA and what they do. The only thing we've seen them do is respond to Galaxy's attack, really. That and lose powerful magical artifacts. There's a cool framework there, as in the Shadow Shard, and it just isn't being used.

My problem with is is that the scroll bar doesn't quite go down all the way. It makes it difficult to see what I still have unclaimed. I think I'll try this "hide unclaimable" switch, though, that should help out. Thanks!

Most evenings/nights (but not always) and usually on weekends, yeah. I'd recommend you join the channel "Triumph Watch 2.0" if you haven't already, most of the recruitment and setup goes on in that channel.

I agree with the early reviews that said it's great, if you don't think too hard about it. I loved it in the moment, but in the after-hours, reading what others had said about it, I realized how very much was wrong about the episode. There's a lot to not like. But I'm glad we got all the answers we did, though it's surprising that Moffat is leaving plot threads from Smith's first season still running into his third (we still don't know why/how The Silence blew up the TARDIS in last season's finale). I'm glad it didn't end on a whopping cliffhanger. I'm happy with what I got, though I wish I didn't have to "timey wimey!" away so much of it. (don't get me wrong, I loved the episode... this post just sounds critical)

I haven't seen any elitism on Exalted. Worst I've seen was some off-topic Help chat, but who care about that? For all the off-topic stuff there was just as many people answering real questions. I've been one excellent teams there.

For me, Exalted is a server with people. I mainly play on Triumph, and it's nice to have a more crowded server to play on (I also have characters on Virtue, but I don't play em as much). I swap back and forth between Exalted and Triumph, and try to answer as many questions as I can. Even on Exalted, returning players need help. I'm having fun.

Ran Graves today and thought I'd pitch in my two cents.

Yes, I ran Graves so that I never would have to again. I'll do the Sewer Trial and just skip right to level 12-15. I gotta agree that Graves was awful, but not quite for the same reasons I've seen here (admittedly I skipped some of the middle pages). Yes, the dialogue trees are a problem, as is the very vague premise of the whole arc, as is having five characters all talk at once so it's impossible to know what the heck is going on. What I have the biggest problem with, though, is that I didn't learn squat. To clarify, I know the tutorial stuff, I'm a 7-year vet. But doing Twinshot's arc, I felt a great sense of learning the game inside of a story. It was done great. But with Graves, it was like they saw what Twinshot was doing and tossed that stuff in afterwards. It was just kind of "here, this is what this is, I guess." Not only did it fail on the character level, but it failed as a tutorial.

I know it's hard to write a helpful mission arc teaching you things when you're darkity dark villains who don't play nice or help. I'm having trouble coming up with a suitable alternative. But you Paragon people are smart and you've made a great game and I know you can do better than this if you really sit down and work on villains.

I finished First Ward last night (did it in 4.4 levels, but I soloed it all so I'm glad they upped the range to 29). I gotta say, I'm really impressed. It's very very cool to, over 30 levels, meet characters and see how they grow and develop. I think they're gonna do the same thing with Twinshot and the Shining Stars, and this continuation of personal relationships is very fun to me... but it does make a lot of assumptions about what kind of person you are. Personally, I love Noble Savage. I think he's really cool and when I thought he was going to his death, it affected me- but it needn't have affected my character.

The other thing is that this is a *really* weird zone to drop Primals into. I don't really understand why random Primals, and not "graduated Preatorians" (those who had left after 20) were contacted and brought here. Sure you don't *need* to know the 1-20 stories of the characters, but it helps. They talk about the history of Praetoria like you'd know it. Most of all, it is REALLY dark. Here's an example: My character was a Primal, heroic, and went in there with the best intentions to help the Praetorians who needed him. Once there, he was forced to kill or manipulate his friends or watch them die and it was surprisingly dark! Once he got out of there, I got him into a much darker costume and turned him into a Vigilante because of all the horrible things he'd been forced to endure. He now had the mindset of "kill or be killed" and was willing to sacrifice the lives of some for the good of many. The initial idea of Going Rogue was choice and I didn't see much of it here. I'd have loved to see multiple paths to take (and I do appreciate the extra work this takes, but bear with me) that culminated in easier or harder fights based on your choices. For example, if I hadn't sent Noble Savage on his suicidal distraction, Marauder would have been right on top of me and I would have had a much tighter timer in that mission to get the loot and get out. The mission *felt* rushed, but I could actually take all the time I needed. No distraction, slap a timer on there and tell me to run like a scared rabbit. I would like to experience heroic content without turning into a bad person.

I think all we need is a bit of a spring cleaning. By that I mean go through and clear out the old, unused threads, the out-of-date announcements, and pretty up these somewhat outdated looking forums a bit. Y'know, make them presentable and a bit more accessible- specifically in the guides/player help area. These forums are for VIP players, correct? That's us. We're the ones who will be posting and discussing here and these forums seem to be working well enough for us. Clean up the stuff that freebies will check into (guides/player help/maybe even some servers) but I don't see the need for a big overhaul.

Also, another vote for keeping ATs separate. Most of the updates to the forum rules seem pretty cool with me.

I thought this episode was excellent! Better than the last few. I thought it was well-balanced with humor and seriousness, though more on the light side because of the "calm before the storm" thing mentioned. Craig is a great foil to have with the Doctor, and Stormageddon is both witty and charming (I'd love a future episode with him grown up).

The Amy/Rory cameo was great, the running gag of "can he REALLY speak baby?" was continually funny and used to great effect, and there was just the right amount of lines that made you stop and realize, yes, the Doctor is going to die tomorrow... but he's so fun right now.

This did feel like a sort of extended version of one of the scenes we saw David Tennant jump around in, as he was nearing his own death. It did feel like the Doctor was saying his final farewells, like he really was going to die, once and for all. Of course, we know he's back next season and that somewhat spoils the mood, but I'm very curious as to how it all plays out. This episode convinced me that it isn't a Ganger or any of the other theories around, it's actually The Doctor walking towards his own death. But to paraphrase the Doctor himself, he's going in with no plan and no one to help him. Doesn't that terrify you?