Ravenswing

And one person's anecdote does not evidence make.

I'd have to say that, at this point, I really don't care one way or another what happens. When GR comes out, we'll see what actually gets done. In the meantime, if I log in, I'm happy if the friends I have are there. There is some chance that a merged server list will result in them not being, or they suddenly end up with a different name. So for now I'm happy as things are.

In in the current situation, where I'm doing an abysmal job of actually getting in-game, even when I plan to, the forums let me keep in touch with what's going on, and drop hints about what my characters are up to and how they may be interacting with those they know in scenes which would be off-camera anyway.

I've never been a fan of forum RP, because of the disconnected nature and because I simply can't be attached to a computer 24/7 which seems to be what's required. However, using the forums for illustration and coordination seems like an excellent use of resources. What I have done regarding in-game plots is to use the forums for handling 'offline' work: I like investigative scenarios, so having forensic results and investigative findings reported through the forums works very well.

When LotRO kicked off, they decided to create a RP server for each language. They created an extra set of rules for the RP servers governing names and behaviour on the RP servers. LotR has, perhaps, one of the best known environments for roleplaying in the fantasy genre.

Pardon me while I wander off and laugh my lungs up.

The rules were actually enforced for about a week. The GMs clearly had absolutely no understanding of Tolkien lore, in fact, about the only people who had less understanding than the GMs were the majority of players. I was actually contacted by a GM and more or less told off for reporting a dwarf's name which was, frankly, mindlessly stupid. I wouldn't have minded being told the name was okay by them, it was more the fact that the GM just about reprimanded me for doing what their own rules told us to do. As is normal, anyone who did report anyone for even the most outrageous behaviour was called names on the forums and accused of being antisocial on the level of a serial murderer. Inside of a week, more or less all the female elves were nymphomaniacs (Tolkien's elves are paragons of virtue, yes, all of them).

Now, I went to LotRO after CoH, and I came to the conclusion that, for all the faults, an RP server which is voluntarily so (like Union) is actually better than an official one.

Meanwhile... I freely admit to ignoring plots that I don't like, but isn't that better than becoming involved and being a pain? I've never ignored canon stuff though, that's just crazy.

Heroes for People: I remember that. Now, I had some objections to it on OOC grounds, but fundamentaly I reacted to it IC. IC, the letters and such which were sent to various businesses and the like did read like heroes were useless glory hounds, not worth the recognition they got. That may not have been the intention, but that was the way it read. As I recall, the majority of the responses stating what the intention was were done OOC in forum threads and my characters don't read the forums.

That was a 'plot' which required the entire RP community to accept some invisible change to the in-game world, which was kind of asking a lot. On the other hand, it resorted to OOC mechanisms to try to persuade people to behave IC the way the plot's owner wanted them to. Intersting basic idea, but the execution was flawed. When people did not react, IC, in the way expected, things kind of went to pot.

Large scale plots, to be honest, take a great deal of careful running and even then are unlikely to work well. This is why I much prefer plots run among small groups. Easier to control, primarily because the GM can actually take into account all the abilities of the characters. Even then, it just takes one grandstander to ruin things for everyone.

I'll go away and be depressed now.

Near total aside: Law enforcement officers typically use more lethal rounds.

There are basically three types of jacketed round used in modern firearms: hollow point (HP), soft point (SP), and full metal jacket (FMJ). HP and SP rounds are banned in the accords of war because they are more likely to cause large wounds and kill the target. Worse, the wounds they cause tend to result in later death due to internal injury even if they don't kill immediately. FMJs tend to punch a whole right through the target, and have better armour penetration characteristics anyway.

Policemen, however, have a different criteria for their ammunition. They need to put down the bad guy without harming anyone else. HP rounds blow up like a small bomb after penetration. The wound effect is massive. The probability that an HP round will go through its target and hit a bystander is next to none. Equally, if you miss and hit a wall, the bullet will typically fragment immediately so the danger of ricochet is more or less nothing. So, for the application of law enforcement, a round banned under the rules of war as inhumane is the most humane option. Hmm, maybe this wasn't such an aside after all.

For those still reading, soft points are a kind of half and half solution, better penetration than an HP, but not as much as FMJ, and slightly more stable in flight than an FMJ to boot. They get used for hunting large animals and for target shooting, or so I'm told.

These people may kill in the line of duty, but would (in our world anyway) still be subject to prosecution if they just go around killing villains. It's not so much an 'authority to kill' as a recognition that they might kill people in the course of their job. Don't forget that (again, in our world) if a police officer even fires a gun, that officer will be filling paperwork for a week. If the bullet hits someone, that's vastly more paperwork, and if the shot kills the officer is off-duty until a board of enquiry clears them of unjustifiable shooting.

Some States (you'd need to look up the specific rules in Rhode Island, which may be different in CoH RI) have rules about citizens killing to save others. 'Maverick' might be able to get away with it. Rhode Island, for example, has what's called a Castle Defence where a citizen may use lethal force on someone breaking into their home. I used that very defence for one of my characters after Hellions broke into her flat and she had to kill one of them.

My impression from attending the panels: Rogue villains in Paragon City would follow the rules there if they want to keep being Rogues, or redeem themselves further. They may have a more relaxed moral attitude than those starting out as heroes, but they are aiming to be good. Heroes going Vigilante have decided that their own way of doing things is better than the official way of doing things. They have already stopped obeying the rules, that's why they are Vigilantes.

This is kind of an aside, but: Homegrown. Don't think of Praetoria as full of fallen heroes, or whatever. People coming out of Praetoria will be either heroes or villains. The heroes are fighting for the Resistance, the villains are working for Emperor Cole. I get the impression that the moral progression within Praetoria (levels 1-20, remember) is somewhat different from that outside it. You get to initially pick Resistance or Loyalist on character creation, and there is a second opportunity to pick your side before you leave for the Rogue Isles or Paragon City.

That's the whole point, really. That's what every character is trying to work out, and something many of us have been roleplaying for years.

The one thing you can be sure of is that society as a whole generally thinks that vigilantism is wrong, though the citizens may agree with an individual vigilante under the right circumstances. Those same citizens may then turn on that same viglante when circumstances change.

In truth, the answer to you question is no. But that's only because it's very hard to find anything which is 'absolutely wrong' just as it's hard to find the opposite. Specific circumstances could make acts of true horror 'right' in some way. The best example I can think of offhand is war: an utterly horrifying, terrible thing which has been justified (even correctly) for millenia as 'for the greater good.'

But this is all kind of the point of adding the Going Rogue mechanic. It's applying some consequences in-game for those who wish to play heroes who don't with to follow the path of the True Hero. We've made them before, and just had to ignore the fact that the world ignores our misbehaviour. Now it need not.

Given that Going Rogue is on the skyline, I'd have to agree with AP (at least as far as blue-side is concerned). Otherwise, there's little point in having the Vigilante status.

That's from an 'official' standpoint. Roleplay-wise, we already have people who are members of the PCPD, who do employ supers, and therefore have the same capability to use lethal force as any other police officer. Of course, a policeman who does use lethal force is subject to various rules. They will be required to appear before a board of enquiry to justify their actions. They could be charged with murder (or similar) if the killing was found to be unjustified. Policemen do not have any form of licence to kill, and it's probably wise that people remember that.

I want this framed and stickied to the top of every 'why haven't they fixed bug X yet' thread.

To be fair, if you think that (for example) the Spice Girls (which were listed as examples) sound like you and your friends, then you and your friends do not have particularly strong accents and you're singing in a 'generic English language speaker' manner. The fact that you state they sound American, does indicate an insular attitude, perhaps with little experience of the rest of the world. i.e. It was asking for that comment, really.

Now, you don't get so many English (nation, not language) singers who actually do sound like American singers these days. I'm talking about American singers where you can really hear American intonation and some accent. In practice, everyone just sounds like they were manufactured in a small factory, probably somewhere in India, where the labour is cheap.

Not all the graphics stuff happens indoors. They did mention in the Keynote which things operated inside, but I didn't write it down. I think if you can find a video of it which includes the questions afterward, it was a question about whether the graphics improvements applied to bases. I figure the same comments apply to interior missions.

Things are, indeed, much worse than you thought, though maybe not for that reason. It's a kind of Zen thing.

However, Simon Cowell is to blame... for everything...


PS Always loved that.

You realise that's only a nice thought when it's like a thong or something. If we're talking Brigit Jones control pants...

I recommend reading as many reports as possible. I took a lot of notes, but I may not have written down everything, and I could not attend all the panels, nor did I spend a huge amount of time talking to developers. Like, I didn't hear the thing about Hamidon mentioned by Fuzun, and apparently others didn't record the comment about adding extra colours.

Not that I'll take my own advice and read the other reports. Not soon anyway. I'm still shell-shocked.