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Posts
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Given how insistant they Doctors were that the FleshDoctor *IS* the Doctor (and so is the original), it puts Moffett's comment earlier about the "real" Doctor really truly dying in The Impossible Astronaut kinda in a different light, huh?
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Quote:They are not having success for the same reason why most other crackdowns in China fail - endemic corruption across the board.Yes, yes, a very LULZy opinion, but this is not an either/or proposition, much less a referrendum on penal theory. In this reported case, the hard labor is part of the regular sentence, and the after-hours gold-farming an illicit activity enforced with physical abuse by a corrupt prison system. I'd be most surprised if this were the only prison in China where this particular private scheme were being exploited.
As for why the whistle-blower would have wound up in prison himself, bear in mind that gold-farming is a significant enough issue in China that the government has been attempting to crack down on virtual currency exchange but obviously without much success - or really understanding the problem, frankly.
In any event, gold-farming is enough of a problem for CoHers that this news is all too relevant.
China is corrupt. At all levels. You have "inspectors" getting paid off to look the other way. I remember hearing stories from my Grandfather - when the local inspector visited his furniture shop, the inspector would ask to use the restroom or take a smoke break, and would deliberately leave his jacket hanging on a chair. On his return, he'd feel the inside pocket to see how fat it was, just expecting the shop owner to have placed his payoff bribe while he was out. If it was fat enough he'd leave with a smile and a wave. If not, well, you might guess what happens.
When the government publicly imposes another level of inspectors to watch the first set as a PR move, the second level gets paid off to look the other way just like the first. And the third level. And the fourth. Everybody lies. It'd be almost comical if it weren't so horrible.
In fact, China calling itself "communist" in the past was just laughable. There was no communism. There was only a council of bullies and thugs pretending that they had changed how things work. The names and details have changed, but the same damn corruption has been around for thousands of years over there.
Note when you read my words: I am Chinese, and have a large number of my family in that nation.
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Quote:Well, here's the thing. If a hacker goes and steal the customer info to publicly expose Sony's lax security, and then deliberately never does anything with it, what happens?Yes, and putting customer's identities at risk for fraud is the best way to teach Sony a lesson.
The customers get a little scared but ultimately nothing happens to them.
Sony get a massive public relations nightmare and possibly stands to lose a massive amount of money from lost customers and whatever legal assessments are levied against them.
Remember, despite the massive amounts of customer info stolen, so far we've not seen any significant reports of proportional mass identity fraud stemming from it.
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Quote:It was all about making the movie accessible to people who'd never seen the series.Oh, it certainly is hard to tie everything up, and I'm sure they didn't want to (future comics or movies, etc.): nor would I have wanted them to try. However, using a comic to tie up the Hands of Blue stuff is a bad thing, and the movie should have picked up with that (and they're hardly something someone unfamiliar with the story could not be impressed by). I was certainly expecting it, and was thrown off by it not being there.
I also thought that Mal's feelings toward River and Tam had regressed a bit from the show to the movie (he seemed more comfortable having them on the ship by the end of the series), but I can go along with that more than the other stuff.
For those folks, the "Hands of Blue" would really be too odd and kooky to make a practical movie adversary, especially given their normally slow and deliberate pace. You would have too many folks going, "What the hell?" It'd be just too distracting.
So Joss went with a covert ops monster. Easy to understand, gets the point across, you don't have to spend half the movie explaining the guy.
Similarly, there was a need to establish there was friction between Simon and Mal quickly and easily. So, yes, they took a step backwards, and had them butt heads early to get the idea across quickly and move on.
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I keep thinking that the Doctor actually got everyone off the planet already, and the people we see after they wake up, gangers and "real" people alike, are ALL actually gangers.
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Quote:This one is pretty easy.- How to have banners where you can change the SG emblem and (for example) get them to spell words out.
Change your Supergroup logo and colors to whatever letter you want the banner to show.
Place a banner.
Change your supergroup logo to the next letter.
Place another banner, OF A DIFFERENT TYPE.
Repeat til done.
Change your Supergroup logo and colors back to whatever you wanted them to be.
The key thing to understand is that a logo object in the base editor will keep whatever logo and colors the SG had at the time it was placed, until such time you either move it or place another object of the same type.
By "same type" I mean for example if you place a "Large Supergroup Banner 10", it will keep the logo until you place another "Large Supergroup Banner 10", upon which both banners will change to whatever logo and colors your supergroup is set to at that time.
Quote:- How to build multi-level bases/stack items. I recall this being quite complex a long time ago, but I also recall something changed to make stacking easier. It's been so long since I did any editing.
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I'll just throw this in:
As people have pointed out, not everyone plays the way you do or enjoys the same things.
Some folks might LIKE a nice fancy base to hang out in. Not because it helps them level faster, not because it gets them more loot or any other benefit. But just because it looks cool.
That's all.
Hell, personally, I've spent weeks at a time when I'd log in not to play the game but to just create stuff in bases. Because it serves as a creative outlet for me. Much as some people draw or sculpt, I create superbases.
Heck, this is not limited to City of Heroes. Take a loot at Minecraft and all the crazy stuff people build in that game.
If your SG doesn't want to change the base to suit you, you might want to find another SG.
Alternately, create another SG yourself, get a base created with the bare minimum of functionality, and see if your current SG is willing to coalition with the new SG to serve as a transit hub.
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Quote:There's a company that specializes in refurbishing and selling missile silo homes:
http://www.missilebases.com/
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Actually, in many zones the hospital is loaded already with the rest of the zone. If you have a marker for a teammate and he goes to the hospital, you'll actually see the marker is BELOW the building model - the hospital interior map is underground beneath the building.
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Well, we know that at least one occupant of the chair vanished into thin air after freezing the room.
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Some of those costumes... a neon colored wig is a "costume"? Seriously?
And at least one girl's costume was someone else's hands, strategically placed.
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Technically Uru: Myst Online is still running, but their active accounts are barely in the hundreds.
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Yah, that chart seems a little dated. Dofus for example has passed the half-million active subscriber mark. EVE Online is approaching that point - in fact, EVE passed the 300K mark in 2009.
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It is true. Everquest at least up until 2009 STILL had more active accounts than City of Heroes. I don't have later numbers for them so I don't know if that still holds true, plus the Station Pass that Sony offers muddles the numbers a bit.
At the time CoH came out, developer discussions on the Beta boards indicated that 100K was the "break point" for success on a MMO. That would allow the development money to be paid back to investors in 18 months or so after launch. Which is about the longest many investors would be willing to see a return on their money.
These days, the target number is probably 200K for a new MMO.
And I was more questioning the use of the word "never".
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I'm just waiting until they sell enough to reach a critical mass, and suddenly they switch from being brain controlled to controlling brains.
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I choose Explosive Flatulence.
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Quote:I direct you, sir, to the title of this message board sub-forum.Why are we talking about a fictional person (ie not real)? Why does this really matter? I mean seriously, come on folks get a grip on yourselves... Its not like say some super important US citizen renouncing their US citizenship.....
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Quote:"You're not going to kill the only person that can answer your questions, are you?"Like how Brits think Americans are all cowboys and Americans think Brits prefer to boil their food until the flavor goes away!
"Doctor! They're Americans!"
"Oh! Right! Sorry! Please don't shoot!"
Quote:I'm thinking that there are two parallel time lines now. The Doctor's idle question to Rory about his remember wasn't so idle I think. And the answer was very illuminating. That sometimes he could remember and sometimes he didn't, like a door in his mind.
I'm pretty sure Rory is human after the universe reboot, because that's how Amy remembers him, just with Auton-Rory's memories.
Huh. Technically, Rory is older than the Doctor.
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Quote:So, pretty much the Red King from the DC universe?As for "cheating," well, that's the point of creating multiple worlds, isn't it? You can set up certain restrictions upon yourself and play out infinite lifetimes on infinite worlds in infinite combinations. "In this world I can do magic, but only on a Tuesday." "In this world I can fly, but never after 5pm."
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Quote:And yet, despite the roll calls, a lot of people couldn't tell who was on the screen half the time because they ALL had that "walking humanoid-shaped mass of scrap metal" look.They named every single Autobot in both the first and second film. There was a roll call when they met Sam, and they named all new autobots during the battle in Shang hai. They had a roll call for all bad guys in first film, which I wish they had prior to final thrown down in Rotf though they did name a couple of the major villains.(such as Soundwave, Ravage, Rampage.) (perhaps to avoid any naming accidents like the first film with Brawl.) Most of the Decepticons were going be mowed down like foot soldiers, so I suppose them getting much developement was unneeded.
All major characters on both sides, Optimus, Bumble bee, Ironhide, Starscream, Megatron and the Fallen got enough screen time to flesh them out a bit. Unfortunately in team movies someone always gets the shaft in terms of screen time. It happened in the Xmen films, as there's only so much time to show so much.
One of the important elements you learn in sequential art, movies, and video games is to make every character visually unique. One exercise is to being able to easily identify them from each other just by their silhouettes. Making the designs too complicated with tons of little fiddly bits is also considered a bad idea.
The Bayformers often fail this aspect completely.
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Yeah, if they wanted to make actual relevant political commentary it'd help if they mirrored what actually happened.
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