Mr_Squid

The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy: I've long since given up on trying to convince myself that these are actually good movies and have just learned to accept them for the wonderfully silly, dumb, and horribly acted spectacles that they are. They're like the cinematic equivalent of a big dumb golden retriever.

The Transformers Movies: On the one hand the plots make no ******* sense, the humor is agressively juvenile, and it spends far too much time on the humans. On the other hand; WOO HOO GIANT CG LIVE ACTION ROBOTS!!!

Freddy Got Fingered: It's gross, crude, and relentlessly juvenile, but at the same time there's nothing else quite like it's weird surrealistic sense of humor. It's like Tim and Eric the movie.

Independence Day: I don't care what anyone says. Every time I see this movie I remember being five years old, seeing this in theaters, and absolutely FLIPPING OUT at the pure awesomeness of the whole thing.

That's pretty cool, but I really want THIS MJOLNIR.

I dont suppose anyone here has a couple thousand bucks just kinda lying around?

I always kind of thought of the direwolves as this series's version of R2D2. They're both characters who just sit around and act cute until a convenient deus ex machina is needed. And much like R2D2, I love them to death.

So anyways, episode 2 felt a bit weaker than episode 1 to me, but I still greatly enjoyed it. All these guys are doing a great job acting, especially Tyrion and King Robert. I love them every single time they come on screen. The only thing that bugged me really was the way they revealed Mycah's death. In the book it came as a HUGE shocker to me and I figured they would end this episode with that being the big shocking reveal. Here it was just more like "Yeah, he's dead. Never going to be mentioned again. Big whoop". The only other real quibble I can think of was the newly added pseudo-lesbian scene, which came right the hell out of nowhere but...well...was not unappreciated.

Loving it so far! Can't wait to see how they handle the rest of the book!

If it's any concession, I'm kind of in the same boat right now. While I do have a good gaming rig, I wont have access to it until June, and while I can run CoH on my plucky little netbook, I've got the feeling that all the new raids are out of the question.

Oh well, looks like Pokemon will be my game of choice for the next two months...

Oooh! That stuff kicks ***! I'm definitely going to have down some of their albums. It would work in a pinch for the game tonight, but I was looking for something a little more orchestral. Keep em coming!

So tonight is going to be the last D&D game I run for a while, and I want to go out with a bang. Tonight my PC's are going up against the big bad of my campaign setting; Korion, who is a sentient star who leads a group of other stars known as the Solari, all of whom want to destroy the world (Why? Because Korion and the Solari want to be all-powerful creator gods, but the very presence of the world seems to cause everything they create to die or fade away. The PC's don't know this yet though.)

So anydangways, in order to defeat Korion they are going to incarnate him into an ancient magitek mecha, at which point he will hopefully be rendered mortal and able to be killed (the PC's are actually going to fail no matter what they do, but once again, they don't know that.)

Now all I need from you guys is some good music to play during this thing. So tell me. What kind of music do you think would sound good during a fight against a giant-robot-star-god-on-fire?

I heartily approve of this idea, even though I rather do like the more raid centric direction the game is taking. Yeah, the raids are (IMO) more fun, but the fact of the matter is even with the new league systems and LFG improvements and global channels and whatnot, there's just going to be times when I can't find anyone to play with me.

There's a selfish reason for this too. I'm going to be spending the next two and a half months in China and due to the time zone differences I probably wont be able to find a raid, much less participate in one what with the only available computer being my netbook.

There's probably a very good gameplay reason the Lore slot uses Praetorian enemies and not customizable pets, having customizable pets would be far too difficult to balance. Think about it this way. Say the Lore slot gave players an option to create their own pets, using the same interface as the AE critter creation system. You would end up with some well crafted pets, but you would also have a ton of kinetics pets running around that did nothing but cast Speed Boost and Fulcrum shift, and a ton of wimpy pets running around that do nothing except throw out a few blasts then die. Simply put, giving players customization over these pets would allow for way too many game breaking possibilities.

Now on the other hand, say they gave us access to a bunch of other enemies. Those would also have to be balanced around the existing Praetorian enemies in order to keep them from being too weak or too powerful, which would end up creating a ton of more work for the devs that would probably be better spent somewhere else.

People, you have to stop acting like the developers are terrible writers and the quality of the writing in this game has nothing to do with the game itself. It is damn hard to get gameplay and story to go perfectly hand in hand, and if a compromise has to be made, then gameplay should really always come first. In a perfect world they would always live in perfect harmony, but this is not a perfect world, the Devs do not have unlimited money and time, and it's far easier for them to give you Praetorians as pets and justify it in universe, rather than let you customize every little nuance of your pet just so you can have your story exactly the way you want it.

Not as of right now, but after reading that article I'm beginning to seriously consider it...

Before I start I just want to say that everything below is my personal design theory. I'm not trying to say that the devs need to implement my theory now or the game will surely fail, or that some of the other games I mention are in any way superior to City of Heroes. And if you think my theory is a load of crap, feel free to call me out on it.

It's pretty obvious that the support classes are considered the keystones of any good team in City of Heroes. You almost never hear something like "STF forming! NEED SCRAPPERS PLEASE. PST." Now that's fine! It stands as a testament to the class balance in City of Heroes that support characters lack the raw firepower to survive on their own (most of the time) but are capable of greatly enabling the survivability and damage output of said damage based classes, while damage based characters can get along fine by themselves most of the time but are (mostly) incapable of surmounting the games bigger challenges without a support class giving them a boost. It's a wonderful symbiotic system that allows characters to solo but encourages teaming.

And yet, I find support classes woefully dreary to play. Now granted, I don't have nearly as much experience with support classes as I do with damage based classes, but every time I did take a crack at playing a defender or controller or corruptor I never really felt like I was doing much. I only ever leveled one support character to 50, an Earth/Sonic Controller, but the entire time was a dull, dreary slog. I would get on teams, hit people with shields every few minutes, drop tar patches and liquefy patches when need be, and throw out other debuffs as they came. The problem was that I never really felt like I was doing anything, or contributing in any meaningful way. Yeah I would see the little shield auras appear around my allies and see the little debuff icons float up over enemies, but there was no real feedback, no immediate response to my actions that said "YOU ARE HELPING THE TEAM, GOOD JOB!" I just stood in the back and did my little magic tricks while the blasters and scrappers downed the foes and moved the team forward.

Now at this point it might just be easy to say "Well it's obvious you just don't like support characters!". And that might be a perfectly valid response, some people just aren't geared towards the support roles. Except that in almost every other game I play I LOVE playing support classes! When I play Dungeons and Dragons 4E I love playing my artificer and throwing out everything from debuffs to robotic pets. When I participate in NERF battles I love being the guy who stands in the back with the big gun and acts defensive while everyone else goes charging in. When I play (a certain other game that will go unnamed due to the forum rules about other videogames, but I will say that is a class based online PC shooter with nine classes and a very distinctive and humorous art style), I love playing the Medic and healing my team and activating invulnerability. So why is that?

Well the common thread I noticed running through all those above mentioned games is that the support roles still get to act aggressively, and receive just as much feedback about their support efforts as the damage dealing classes. Let's take Dungeons and Dragons 4E for an example. The way almost all support powers in D&D 4E work is nearly identical to the way straight up damage powers work. You target a foe, do damage, and then perform some other effect such as healing a party member, or debuffing the enemy's defense. Yeah you're not doing as much damage as say, a Rogue, but you still know you are contributing to the end goal of reducing the enemy's hit points to zero. Now support powers in City of Heroes don't work that way. Just like in Dungeons and Dragons, the end goal of any encounter is to reduce the enemy's hit points to zero, but support classes rarely get to actively participate in that goal. Their powers almost always target other players, or target enemies but do no damage. There's no immediate feedback, no orange text flying up over people's heads to tell you what you just did! You just have to take the game's word for it that, yes, you are aiding the team.

This notion of feedback is incredibly important too. Feedback is crucial in any good game, since it lets the player know that they are having an affect on the world around them. Let's take that previously mentioned unnamed PC shooter game. When you heal someone in that game not only do you see a beam of healing energy connecting you and your target, but you also see the target's current health, which rapidly increases as you heal them, until they are overhealed to half again their maximum health. There's another class in that game which can throw jars of a vaguely defined and somewhat dubious substance at foes in order to debuff them. Not only are the affected foes tainted yellow, but any hit on them displays the words "MINI CRIT!" above their heads, along with a big red damage total (which is in a bigger font than the normal damage totals), and also plays a unique hit noise. No matter what I do in that game, I know exactly what the effects are. Now let's go back to City of Heroes for a moment. Let's say I'm playing my aforementioned Earth/Sonic controller and I use Sonic Siphon on an enemy. What happens? Well a little bolt of sonic energy zoops out, hit the enemy and then...what? Nothing really. I just have to take the games word for it that I actually did something.

So what can be done about this? Well perhaps the easiest way to make support classes feel tougher is to give them more feedback. When I use Sonic Siphon on an enemy why not have some orange numbers fly up over their head that say "-30% RES!", and perhaps change the font color of any other damage done to that foe, be it by me or by my allies to a darker shade of orange. That way I know that my power had an effect!

Frankly though, that's the only solution I really find feasible. Any other attempt at increasing the agressiveness of support classes would require a massive reworking of their classes and powersets, and that's way too much to do just because...well...just because I say so. But just as sort of a thought experiment, how would an agressive support class or powerset in City of Heroes work? Well here's one idea:

Telepathy (the name doesn't really matter. You could call it Derpa-herping for all it matters)
Available as: Primary for Defenders, Secondary for Corruptors

Tier 1: Telepathic Shock: Ranged Single Target Click. Recharge: 30 Seconds(ish)
-Does minor psionic damage to the target, and casts any stored telepathic charges (more on those in a moment) on the target.

Tier 2: Aura of Calm: Self Toggle. Recharge: Pretty much instant
-Creates an aura around you that slightly boosts the regeneration rate of you and anyone else near you as well as occasionally ticks a small healing effect. Additionally, for every 30 seconds this power is active, you gain Telepathic Charge: Damage, an auto power that stacks up to five times. When Telepathic Shock or Telepathic storm is used, the charges are expended, and do extra damage to the target. More charges equals more damage.

Tier 3: Torrent of Lethargy: Ranged AoE Anchor Toggle. Recharge: 20 Seconds(ish)
-Creates an aura around a targeted enemy that slightly lowers the damage of that enemy and any enemy near them (like by 15-20%). Additionally, for every 30 seconds this power is active you gain Telepathic Charge: Resistance, an auto power that stacks up to five times. When Telepathic shock or Telepathic storm is used, the charges are expended, and the target's resistance is debuffed by 10% for each charge.

Tier 4: Aura of Vigor: Self Toggle. Recharge: Pretty much instant
-Creates an aura around you that slightly boosts the recovery rate of you and anyone else near you. In addition, for every 30 seconds this power is active you gain Telepathic Charge: Endurance, an auto power that stacks up to five times. When telepathic shock or telepathic storm is used, the charges are expended, and the target's endurance is drained by 15% for each charge.

Tier 5: Telepathic Flood: PBAoE click. Recharge: Around 5 minutes.
-When activated this power expends every single one of your Telepathic Charges. In exchange though, it heals any allies within a large radius, the amount healed increasing by the number of Charges expended, and ressurects any fallen allies at half health and endurance.

Tier 6: Torrent of Doubt: Ranged AoE Anchor Toggle. Recharge: 20 Seconds(ish)
-Creates an aura around a targeted enemy that slightly lowers that accuracy of that enemy and any enemy near them. Additionally, for every 30 seconds this power is active you gain Telepathic Charge: Defense, an auto power that stacks up to five times. When Telepathic shock or Telepathic storm is used, the charges are expended, and the target's defense is debuffed by 7% for each charge used.

Tier 7: Aura of Bliss: Self Toggle. Recharge: Pretty much instant
-Creates an aura around you that slightly boosts the recharge rate and movement speed of you and anyone else near you. In addition, for every 30 seconds this power is active you gain Telepathic Charge: Recharge, an Auto power that stacks up to five times. When telepathic shock or telepathic storm is used, the charges are expended, and the target's recharge rate and movement speed is debuffed by 10% for each charge used.

Tier 8: Torrent of Sorrow: Ranged AoE Anchor Toggle. Recharge: 20 Seconds(ish)
-Creates an aura around a targeted enemy that slightly lowers the mezz resistance of that enemy and any enemy near them. Additionally, for every 30 seconds this power is active you gain Telepathic Charge: Special, an auto power that stacks up to five times. When Telepathic shock or Telepathic storm is used, the charges are expended, and the secondary effects of all the target's power are debuffed by 15% for each charge used.

Tier 9: Telepathic Storm: Ranged Targeted AoE Click. Recharge: Five Minutes(ish)
-Does minor psionic damage to the targets, and casts any stored telepathic charges on the targets.

A Maximal survival guide? What, was this written by Optimus Primal? In all seriousness though, great guide!

...no face tentacles?

...no invertabrate parts of any kind?

...sad squid is sad...

Ah, so that's where the hose plugs in! I am a little worried his transformation scheme will end up being a little overly simplistic. Looks a little too much like Revenge of the Fallen leader class megatron for my tastes. Still going to buy it though!

I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I will keep saying it until I get it.

Face tentacles.

That

is

all

I

want

I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but does anyone else miss the more campy, goofy James Bond movies? I mean when I think James Bond I think of an impossibly good looking man matching wits with impossibly devious masterminds by using physically impossible gadgets in order to escape impossible scenarios and bedding a frankly impossible amount of impossibly attractive women along the way. This whole trend of making Bond more gritty and realistic has made for some good movies (well, movie, singular. Casino Royale was pretty good. I thought Quantum of Solace blew) but they don't really feel like James Bond movies. More like generic spy thrillers. Anydangways, given the box office returns of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace I doubt they are going to go back to the old campy style any time soon but I hope they do come up with a stronger plot this time. (Seriously, the plot of Quantum of Solace revolved around a guy who wanted to steal half of Bolivia's water supply. I don't mean to come off as cruel, but why should I care?)

I just picked up the first book in the Culture Series (Consider Phlebas), American Gods, Snow Crash, Helix (I wanted to get Ringworld but it isn't on kindle yet, so I went for another "big things in space" recommendation), and Halo: Contact Harvest.

Thanks for the recommendations all! But more are always appreciated! I'll start reading them all shortly.

Happy successful orbital completion that occurs on some arbitrary date set by some old roman guy wooooooooooooooooooo!