Olantern

That is a really interesting post, Zwillinger. Thanks for sharing the detail there. I am always curious about how things work internally at the studio. Often, I think we as players and forumites get to see only a couple square inches of what is actually a very large elephant, leading many of us (sometimes myself included) to include those few inches are all there are.

Also, thank you once again for doing your job so thoroughly. As always, it impresses me that anyone can manage this sort of thing and stay (sort of) sane!

Two thoughts I'd like to share here:

First, on the "realism" of comics (or any kind of fiction, really): I think some people here, on both sides of the fight over whether this is an issue for Superman, are confusing "realism" and "believability." Something "realistic" closely resembles, well, reality. A very, very realistic superhero story would probably not be very interesting, since it would mostly involve the characters getting slain by accident, sitting through the criminal procedure process, or both. A "believable" story feels coherent within the context of its own setting. I would argue, for instance, that while The Incredibles is not a very realistic superhero story, in terms of either the characters' abilities (a guy who can create ice? "zero-point energy" gauntlets? Come on.) or their psychology (a marriage where the spouses have strongly differing needs and beliefs about how the children should be raised that hasn't ended in divorce yet? Come on.), but the characters and their deeds certainly make sense and act consistently, or surprise in a convincing way, within the context of their world. To take an even better-known example of "realism," I don't find the characters of Watchmen that realistic (one's a caricature of Ayn Rand-ism, another a caricature of supervillains, for instance), but Rohrschach and Ozymandias are still "believable" characters within the scope of their melodramatic world.

With these ideas in mind, I believe Superman can be presented believably, even if he isn't necessarily realistic. Note, too, for those alluding to his portrayal in the animated Justice League in which he flings Darkseid through buildings and such, that believability can change based on the medium. What looks good in a cartoon, even a serious one, might look silly, and thus out of tone and not believable, in a live-action film. This may explain why we've seen a lot of Superman lifting things and not much fighting in his movies up to now.

Second, about the appeal or lack of appeal of Superman: It saddens me to say this, as someone who loathes Batman and likes Superman, but I think society has moved past, or forgotten, a large part of what makes Superman interesting. Yes, he is an icon of heroism, but historically speaking, that hasn't been the core of his appeal for most of the character's existence.

Rather, his appeal can be summed up in the tagline from the first Superman movie: "You will believe a man can fly." Superman's more-than-mortal powers are actually part of his draw. Think back to the days when Superman was first introduced, when there weren't many, if any, characters with superhuman powers out there. In the early days of Superman, part of the appeal is seeing his amazing powers in action, even if they make things "too easy" for him. To give another example, it's popular in geekdom these days to criticize '50's Superman stories for making him "too powerful" by having him tow planets on a giant chain, travel through time, or what have you. But for the readers of those stories, the very fact that the character had such powers was part of the interest. The way he used those powers to overcome obstacles was also important, but it was not the sole matter of importance, as it is in more modern superhero stories.

Superman became a victim of his own success. Now, audiences in any medium are inured to heroes who can fly or have superstrength or use any number of previously "amazing" powers. We're left with Superman's amazing-ness being reduced to his moral power. That has a lot of appeal, but not as much as it did in these days when melodrama is viewed as infantile even (especially?) in superhero stories.

That's all for now.

I don't much care for the theme, but the parts look well-made so far.

I, too, would like to see grime-free versions of them. (I'd love to know, by the way, how surprised Dink and other costume folks are by how many people have requested that. I am always interested in what surprises the developers in this kind of endeavor.)

Happy birthday to Black Pebble!

Special thank you to Hit Streak for providing a new image for my nightmares for the next several months!

I'd ask, "What's the deal with Hamidon?" I'd like to know if the inconsistencies between Primal Hamidon (was once a human, turned into a strange creature sometime between the mid-'90's and today, probably born no earlier than the '60's, has a personality) and Praetorian Hamidon (appears to have always been a strange creature, appeared before Primal Hamidon was born, has no personality and is instead a pure "force of nature" in the literary sense) are intentional, inadvertent, or a mixture of the two. I'd also like to know why there have been so many "slips" over the years where amoeba-Hami has been referred to as a god. Is this in the original write-up for the character or just a sticky note someplace?

I'd choose this question not just because I'm interested in the character, but because it would show a bit of how the lore develops, badly or otherwise. There's a ton of player criticism of the lore's development, some legitimate, some just founded on the fact that the player doing the criticizing would have done things differently. This question would show me how justified or unjustified the overall criticism is.

Also, this thread is making me want to work on my "if the players wrote the lore" idea again.

To my surprise, when I thought this through, I came up with "none of them." All the factions seemed limited in what they could offer in terms of character individuality (Coralax, DE, Rikti, carnies), too simple to sustain a multilevel story (Freaks, Sky Raiders, most of the "gang" factions), or just plain uninteresting (Crey, Malta). I'll even provide a bit more on each point.

On the first, CoH has many factions where the threat they represent is a loss of individuality. Sometimes this is literal, as with the Devouring Earth, Carnival, or Praetorian Seers (the "group mind" factions), while other times it is more metaphysical, as with the Talons of Vengeance and Banished Pantheon (the "cult" factions), and still others it's on the level of metaphor, as with the 5th Column, Malta, and Praetorian Resistance (the "anything for the cause" factions). Take away that forced lack of individuality, and you take away what makes the faction the faction. While you could have a story about the one guy who tries to break free of the conditioning, it is my opinion that once you do that on a large scale, as with a whole AT, it diminishes the entire faction. Moreover, I just can't see a free-willed rock monster as part of the Devouring Earth, even if it looks just like a Granite or a Boulder.

The second point is simple. Most of the low-level factions are one-trick ponies. For instance, Warriors smuggle artifacts and geek out over ancient stuff. Once the Warrior AT has had its arc about where the artifacts come from and its arc about the ancient stuff, what more is there?

The last point is personal opinion and design philosophy. I've always felt that the so-called "realistic" factions were not only nothing of the kind, but also incredibly dull. It continues to surprise me that these factions are so beloved by players (at least in story terms).

So, all in all, I'd prefer not to have a faction-based AT. I wouldn't mind some faction-focused arcs, but I submit that we have those already. They just don't meet everyone's standards.

I vote for Hamidon, the villain who literally wants to make everything and everyone on earth into himself. He gains points over, say, Rularuu (who does sort of the same thing) in that he's willing to do such sadistic things as devour his own girlfriend in pursuit of his agenda. (Echo and Narcissus taken to the most extreme level imaginable!) Further, he has a kind of insidious charm, in that I've read not a few posts over the years that see him as just a devoted, misguided soul. (Even the devs tend to view him as more a Dante's-Satan/Godzilla mash-up of mountainous mass of non-being and unfocused destruction than an actively evil force, though there are exceptions, such as the Terra arc and the villain arc in which he speaks to the PC.)

Runners-up for me include Westin Phipps (his "power" is acting evil), Mother Mayhem (kind of like Hami in a less literal sense, as well as destructively crazy), Mot (nihilism given a personality and will), and Requiem (he promotes a fascist organization not even because he cares about its agenda, but for personal power- that's pretty scary).

I wish the devs wouldn't (presumably accidentally) use terms that have come to have their own meanings in forum-speak. A "fix everything" issue is a case in point. From what I've read, the devs mean, "Tweak lots of underappreciated powers and mechanics." But in forum-speak, judging from the past four years of posts, a "fix everything" issue means "go through and fix all the typos and bugs in the entire game, as well as whatever additions or changes I, the poster, want." I see a lot of disappointed forumites in the future once people realize the devs are doing their own thing, not borrowing someone's forum post idea. But then, disappointment is pretty much the theme of the fora, anyway, so I suppose it's to be expected regardless.

Oh, and what I've read of the changes look pretty good.

There's probably also some under the hood installation of upcoming material, such as assets for some of the things currently being tested in beta. That doesn't mean those things are imminent, though.

Further, it may have something to do with whatever next week's market release is, since the usual Tuesday release comes right before a U.S. holiday.

Embarassing question: is the Space Piracy hat the same one leaked a while back as the tricorner hat? I'm sad to say that I'm not sure.

If it isn't, will that wonderful tricorner hat ever be sold/seen/given away/used for anything at all?

I finally got my image hosting working, after several years of trying, and while going through some old screenshots, I found a couple of action shots worth sharing:

Reluctant sorcerer-hero Sidereal Knight battles fanatical Legacy Chain traitor (and SF contact) Virgil Tarikoss in an AE arc:
"Light the darkness!"


Kid Eros, Champion of Love, looks on as the heroes of Liberty blow a Rikti dropship to bits over Talos Island:
"Ka-BWHOOOM!"

I took a whole series of ship destruction sequence shots, but this one was the most spectacular.

My main reaction to this is yet another wave of disappointment that I didn't save the column from the Wall Street Journal a few years back where the author spent seven paragraphs describing horrible, annoying things that were still better than Ryan Reynolds. (Internet video reviewers don't have a monopoly on complaining about things geeks can't stand using outrageously hilarious hyperbole.)

As for Highlander, I have long considered it beheaded, i.e., beyond revivification.

Arrr. Too late, the Battalion realize that their families are their only true treasures.

Looking forward to the tricorner hat, very much so (I've had a character built around it since it leaked onto the live character creator a while back). Looking less forward to trying to beat the RNG to get it out of a Superpack (I still have yet to get the Elemental Order pants, despite having acquired something like 150 cards with veteran reward tokens). Looking forward least of all to having to wait several more weeks or months for that hat.

In an unrelated matter that I might as well toss out here, "Cord Carney" (the real name of developer Think Tank) would make a great superhero secret identity name.

Do you all think it's possible for Martin to finish the series in only two more books? Given that characters rarely die or get written out and that new major characters are introduced (or promoted from minor characters) all the time, I'm wondering if there will be either a major change in pacing style in the remaining books ... or three to four more books instead of two.

Assuming he does wrap things up in two books, I'm expecting them to arrive about four to five years apart, wrapping up the entire series in 7-9 years (since a book just came out last year).