Redbone

Or, you know, they make 4 in a year and charge 2,400 points for each....

Under the assumption it works like other F2Ps with Subscription "Elite Level" set-ups, it is likely that many (if not all) powersets and "really cool stuff" from here on out will be a Points buy.

It's likely (but not a sure thing) that our Points will have similar uses to and similar "free with the update" stuff as other F2P + Sub games. That means some special mission content, super boosters, super booster bits and pieces, rare zone access, powersets, respecs, renames, transfers, perm boosts (for instance, +10% to your tohit on the selected character forever), temp boosts (for example, +15% damage on the selecte character for 500 hours of play time), temp powers (jet packs, jump boots, melee gauntlets, wand of magick miss-iles), base items, custom titles, badges, costume slots, character slots, ATs and so on. They could even add alternate paths on existing powers (IE, a second set of powers at the same levels that can be taken as an alternate to the existing one) and other as of yet unheard of things, all avaliable for points.

My guess (and it's only a guess at this point) judging from other micro-trans F2Ps with a "higher level for sub" games is that the two currencies (as outlined in the quoted post) will be used for markedly different things with some possible overlap on some items.

RPTs will act the way Vet Badges currently do. They'll be used to buy Vet Reward items and ONLY Vet Reward items. The set up will be somehtign lie a list of Vet Reward Items that is added to occasionally. For instance, they will have a list of the Existing Base Item Rewards (Base Item Pack 1, Base Item Pack 2 and so on), Costume Change Tokens, Respecs (Respec 1, Respec 2 and so on), Powers, costumes and such along with some "New Shineys" right off the bat and a relatively regular stream of "Newer Shineys".

Paragon Points will be "split" into two groupings (informally, I doubt it will be as obvious in the UI). One group will be "stuff ViPs get for free" and the other will be "Stuff no one gets for free." The first group will alow freebie players to get some ViP stuff a la carte by buying Paragon points in microtransactions. The second group will be things that were in booster packs (including the current boosters). New things iwll be added to both groups regularly, likely on at least a monthly basis with a few irregualy gaps from time to time because of the whims of development problems. There will likely be (eventualy) a third group where you can buy Vet Items (or RPTs) using paragon points for the impatient folks.

However, to keep the income up, there will be regular months where the ViPs also have to spend money on Points to get the stuff from that month. So rather than the release for August being a group of items that, added together, cost 400 points, they have a group of items that cost 600 or 800 or 1,200 (the cost will likely align to 10 or 15 bucks in points) but is larger than the group released in the preceeding month, containg special "super neat" items like booster packs did. The next month we're down to 400 points again for a while.

Now, they make take a less "friendly" approach with both systems, but I hope they don't. Releasing items with a cost much higher than your "free" points award every month, so you're having to consistently use "purchased points" of both types to "get all the stuff." That would effective make the old style "sub + occasional booster pack" player into a "sub + monthy purchase of Paragon Points/Reward Tokens" player to get the same "stuff" he did the former way at a likely higher outlay.

And that list is a good bit shorter than it was in the 70s, 80s and 90s. A lot of missing material turned up in quick succession in the late 90s with some great finds happening one right after the other for years (the Aussies were real packrats when it came to TV shows apparently), including prints that weren't standards (for instance, black and white prints of colour eps and B&W prints of B&W eps that actualy had color correction information on the stock, meaning the eps could be "colourized" digitally to what was actually filmed even though there was no intention of it being in color).

A lot of audio tracks also survived in one form or another along with still images, leading to the telesnap projects, which "reconstruct" missing stories and episodes (I prefer the name "Telesnap Reconstructions" to the original "enhanced radio drama" idea). There is currently a CGI project using the audio tracks to reconstruct other missing eps as full motion "close to realistic" CGI eps but it's a very slow and expensive project run entirely by fans on donations.

Unfortunately, the sudden finds of episodes and episode related material dropped to a trickle and then ceased completely. There is a very good chance we won't find any more than we already have without a lot of luck. Sadly, the original stock used for copies is degrading very quickly now and even if we do find more, the quality will be seriously degraded, possibly to the point where it's nothing but slag.

These days we're luck to have things like the Doctor Who Drive, which is a set of external hard drives duct tapes together ocntaining every episode and reconstruction, special, confidential, DVD extra, soundtrack, audio and ebook, among other things in the hands of dedicated fans. It will be very hard to "lose" the eps again with as widely dispersed copies are now in several formats (including some expensive "downgrades" from DVD to 35mm film stock).

The Trek to Trek metaphor for the old show vs the new series is prety apt. I have a friend who uses it when introducing people to both runs and it has the advantage of also expressing your feelings about the new eras quite well. In his case he uses DS9 for the 9th Doc, TNG for the 10th, Voyager for the 1st series of the 11th and Enterprise for the current series. Needless to say he's less than happy with Moff/Smith Doctor Who, but the analogy does work instantly getting that across plus how dfferent the eras are from each other and the original series.

The fact that know historical character ARE a limited resource is what says you should treat them as a limited resource, unless you think they can be manufactured and place into time. They didn't KILL Stevie Wonder; had they done so, yes, they would have closed off an avenue to him. The fact that Moff thought this was the way to go about things is precisely the point. If he wasnt interested, he should have left it alone rather than letting his hubris close off a story to someone else, that merely makes him look worse since it comes donw to nothing but ego if that's the case ("If I don't want to use him then no one else should either ever.")

Again, there were better ways to go about it than what was done. It wasn't good writing and would have been one of the first things changed by a ghostwriter called in to clean up that mess. No mention needed be made of Jack AT ALL for the scene to work. It's the sort of thing Sci-Fi/SyFY Original Movies do in order to keep from having to actualy show us the character is a badass rather than tell us they are.

True, the show has occasionally step on it's own history under the old run. However, the philosophy was quite different at that time period. I myself mentioned one of the bigger ones with the two Loch Ness Monsters. However, the NEW run has been handled diferently with an eye towards contunity across all licenses, Thet's where the initial comment came from, the anger by some license holders at what moff did and that the BBC allowed him to do it whereas they consistently stopped things like that from happening in other media.

Actually, I'm concentrating on the new series and related media products ONLY. Again, the Beeb, when the new series began, asked for and received tight control over scripts and story ideas from associated media specifically to keep the series and other media from becoming a mass of discontunity. They have final veto on all aspects of the associate material now and stories/scripts have to be okayed by them for that very reason. They approved something because Moff wans't going to use it, then moff used it for a throwaway line. That is not in dispute. The producers of the associated media are now a wee bit miffed because they've "played by the rules" and scrapped scripts and stories that were entering production because they were told "Moff wants to do that." Now they've been blindsided by the Beeb not playing by those rules and they're a bit (not a ton, but a bit) upset by that.

There is a secondary issue of "burning a bridge" before anyone can cross it by using an interesting historical figure for a purpose that ocudl have been filled in other ways.

As a side point, the original run tended to be much more loose with canon, letting people decide how to "retcon" things on their own. There are two Loch Ness Monsters after all. The new series wanted to avoid that as much as possible, going so far as to demand it from their license holders as well, something unheard of prior to 2005 in the series, they didn't even keep a tight hold over the novelizations of the actual eps, letting the writers have a free hand altering them as they saw fit.

And let's not forget that it is a vastly different story-telling style than the current series. Stories are long and at times intricate, lasting several episodes (and in some cases most, if not all, of a series). The pacing is much slower, with time taken to lay out what's happening and goign to happen, reliance on pauses ot build tension, and "cliffhanger cuts" being very common inside episodes. The old series, compared to today, is a different country.

As I said, it's my view the show itself takes first concern over other media, but the Beeb made specific statements to those in the other media and then went against it. They do have a right to grouse a bit.

As for establishing the time period, that could have been done in the same way thet told us about "Demons Run" with a bit of text on the bottom of the screen if the clothing and language usage wasn't seen as enough to establish it.

In short, Moff messed up. It's a small error, but an error. In the future some other writer will have to throw him and the Silurian badass under the bus if they want to do a Jack story, reducing his Queen Badass Lizard into a misguided fool contrary to what we're supposed to see on screen. That's bad form and bad writing on Moff's part just for a throwaway.

Actually, while SlyDoctor was a chess player, the way he was written showed the First Doctor was the real Chess Master and that Doctor7 was merely making the final checkmate after centuries of letting everything fall into place properly. The First Doc was hte one who started most of his grand schemes with the Seventh being the one with the fortitude and will to actually checkmate the baddies.

And 11 cannot hold a candle to Doctor 7's planning and scheming.

Dead AND human. A prevous story (agian, outside media) established he couldn't be killed.

Colin Baker was told to play the character that way, against his better instincts and complained about it bitterly for years on the convention circuit to anyone who would even think of listening. To see how HE wanted to play it, you have to get either the Big Finish audios or track down The Stranger (DW knockoff). Baker's take is much better than what we got on DW from him.

Correct. I never meant to indicate I thought she WAS jack, just that she had a throwaway line (well, several) about Jack and had done away with him, thus closing off that story avenue for other uses, some of which had already been used with the Beeb's approval and assurances Moffat wouldn't be using Jack at all in any capacity.

I wouldn't go so far as to say they SHOULDN'T have used him (I firmly believe that the show takes priority over the other media), just that those who had already used him under an understanding with the Beeb that they could without running into canon problems with the show, the very thing they'd agreed on with the Beeb as the reason the Beeb would have such a large say in the scripts and stories not entirely in the Beeb's control, do have a point that Moff suddenly tossing in something that was unnecessary is a bit of a metaphorical low blow. Beyond that, Jack's interesting and would have made a good episode had they not somewhat closed off that avenue for a "gee, look how cool and badass this character is" line. In a way, he shot himself (or a future producer/writer) in the foot a bit with that one for no reason other than to make a never-before-seen-or-heard-about character look cool quickly.

If you go by the Audios (many of which are extremely good) then he was sort of a fusion betweew Tom Baker and Peter Davison with a touch of William Hartnel's "crochety old man" tossed in at times. He had a "bohemian" attitude modulated by the Davison "calm."

There is a tendency for people to play (or be told to play) their Doctor as the Anti-Previous-Doctor to set the character apart as a new era in the show. It's the easiesy way to tell the audience, "we're making some changes here to keep the entertainment value going, but don't worry, he's still the same guy."

The Second Doc is wild and insane compared to the First, The Third is witty, urbane and an "action hero" Dandy compared to the Second's Clown ("These are my replacements? A Dandy and a Clown?"). The Fourth was quite mad compared to the Third's very level headed approach. The Fifth was a bit milquetoast and bland compared to the Fourth's wild bohemian, the Sixth was intenst and possibly psychotic compared to the Fifth's blandness and the Seventh was brooding and comedic (ye,s strange combo) compared to the Sixth's intensity. I skip the 8th because he has so little screentime. The Tenth was "rakish" and a "fated philosopher" compared to the Ninth's brooding "Wounded Warrior" persona and the Eleventh is "silly and immature" compared to Tennant's more nuanced and pensive performance.

It's a good bet that "play the opposite" type idea will continue until the show leaves the air again.

I think you've missunderstood the line in question: "Under Moff Who it's become difficult to tell which is grousing and which is informed speculation from people working on the show. Moff's ego is legendary and his attitude is well known. Both lead people who work with him to dislike him personaly and professionally."

"Both (his known ego and attitude) lead people who work with him...."

Not

"Two people who are show leads...."

As to your rumors about why the season was split, the BBC set this season for a split last year to stretch the show farther (BBC Wales was on the record years ago stating the idea that following a USA Television -the channel not the country- model as being a good idea or the show). It was filmed in exactly the same way as every other season (in a set of long runs), which would do exactly nothing for budget or scheduling troubles. Additionally the two producers who left immedietly moved to other high profile jobs, not something one would do if they were inept. Add to that this is the second set of brass that's left in two years.

These are not "rumors" these are statements in various mediums (especialy cons, but not limited to them, facebook and twitter are often places where venting gets done) directly from people who work with him that they dislike him for those reasons (some even made directly to ME and an associate at Chicago TARDIS this year). Add to that that if you plug yourself into the writers (not to difficult if you have facebook and twitter and a bit of charisma though having done some writing definately helps), they're even more likely to slag him for those same reasons and a few extras specific to them.

Now that's "okay." Moff isn't there to be liked, he's there to get a show made, but not being liked can make that task a bit more difficult and makes it especially dificult to differentiate between "Person X is merely venting" and "Person X has a line on a serious problem happening internally."

Now, to expand on that, the Beeb has ordered 14 new show in the future with Smith and Moff. However, they themseves say that they do not know how many will air in 2012. Again, this is evidence that my statement on the matter are accurate, that there is some internal business that's effecting the show on a very deep level, to the point where even the people comissioning and paying for it cannot say with certianty if they'll have a full run next year.

So you are correct, we should be mindful of what rumors we listen to, especially when they do not line up with the known facts.

As to your closing line. That is a subjective evaluation that you are entitled to. Not everyone shares it and some have precisely the opposite take; that this was the worst half season of Doctor Who ever. I fall into a third camp, that is was stunningly average overall. If results do matter, then you need an objective result and audience figures aren't objective either, they're merely a reflection of a large group of opinions (and are easily countered by the rating generated by trash/reality TV). Opinion is not results, it's merely opinion and you know what they say about those.

It should be noted that the BBC made this anouncement in a scramble after Smith announced her was heading to LA to feel out some movie possibilities for next year. That started some speculation he was done with Who well ahead of schedule. Stack on top of that some insiders grumbling about Moffat in public the week before plus the show losing another set of top brass and the rumor mills were cranking up for a "the BBC is getting rid of Moffat and Smith" run.

However, it is intersting to note that the BBC originally included the words "next year" in this announcement and within short order (an hour or two) removed those words. It appears that the BBC is possibly planning a set of specials next year in preparation for Smith being a bit troublesome on the scheduling, which is, again, backed by statements made by insiders at conventions.

Under Moff Who it's become difficult to tell which is grousing and which is informed speculation from people working on the show. Moff's ego is legendary and his attitude is well known. Both lead people who work with him to dislike him personaly and professionally. Because of that a lot of people working on the show both above and below Moffet tend to be a bit bitter about him when they're away from close observation by the BBC, which makes it hard to tell how much is standard "Moff's a rat bastage" venting and how much is "given what I know bad thing X is going to happen" speculation.

The BBC is currently trying to keep a some form of control on canon contunity and so maintains a good bit of approval power on the "side lines" of the series (the audios, books comics, games and such) in an attempt to keep one from contradicting the others (they usually shoot down ideas from the side lines as being possible for the show, and if you believe some of the producers of those side lines steal plot ideas fairly regularly, especially under Moff). The mention of Jack the Ripper has sent a small ripple of discontent through those product makers and license holders since the IDW comic series did a three issue series on Jack with assurances Moff had no intention of using Jack. The fact it was a throwaway line just made it worse.

Prior to that, Jack's been "in" Doctor Who three other times: once only tangentally in the series in The Talons of Wang-Chiang (more a reference than directly addressing Jack), once in another comic featuring the 8th Doc and once in the 7th Doctor Novel Matrix (where The Valeyard is using Jack for cover). Needless to say, neither of the last 2 are directly canon and no overarching control fromt he Beeb was in place like now. However, given the current agreements and practices with the Beeb on keeping things straight with the new series the argument could be made for the IDW comics being "in universe" canon.

As a sidenote on this, during his last series appearance, Omega attempted to duplicate himself onto The Doctor's template during Peter Davison's run in the part. According to IMDB (who for it right last year on the cast list well ahead of the episode) Peter Davison is in the final eps this year. Beyond that, we still don't know who "The Voice" that took control of the TARDIS was in last season's final eps, so it is possible they're setting up Omega. I still doubt they are, but I freely admit it is possible.

And yes, it is established that The Doc had a family and kids and such. Doc 10 mentions them several times (and Rose is none to happy hearing that).

At the moment, the technology is just too young. Sure it is amazing successful, but it's not matured into a medium that's gotten stable enough (in terms of market penetration, hardware similarities and software longevity) and powerful enough for it to make business sense for existing products to see a retro-fit onto it. The cost of doing so cannot be definatively outweighed by the increased income from it.

Odds are the 800 ton gorilla MMO (or one of its smaller, but still gigantic cousins) with the capability to take a loss if things go poorly will have to make the move first to show a proof of concept before the smaller, and more cash strapped, will take such a risk.

Then you have to add in the tight control the nice folks at Apple love to have over what's going on (and into) their tablets and things get a little more complex. And then you have to consider the difficulty and expense of upgrading a tablet if and when the system specs for bare minimum software function change.

All in all, I would seriously doubt any currently existing MMO will make the leap in anything like the near future. In a few years we may see new MMOs regularly have three "versions" of the game (Tablet, PC/Mac, Console) but given the difficulties with getting just two versions off the ground, it's possible that day will never come.

When I initially ran across it (on a neuroscience blog's "fun post") I was reminded just how long this sort of 'biofeedback" tech has been around. I remember when a company had a series of games for the Commodor 64 that used a headband to "read your brainwaves" to play at a cost of several hundred bucks for the "controller" and the software. It's really surprising that it's taken at least 20+ years to see many commercial applications of that same tech like the Star Wars Force game and these ears.

Had that happen twice the other day. Someone decided to do that "funny" little bit where they dance next to the AV in the cut scene. Unfortunately, their pets were out. He aggroed and the idiot's pets were heading right out the door with him. Instant fail. Reset, start again, he does it a second time, AV aggros again, out the door. Reset, start again, just before we kill the last crate, I check where he is (take a guess). The league leader was bright enough to pop outside and do the same when we finished the containers, gave him one warning then booted him when he didn't respond. Succeeded, exited and he's begging to be back on the next one.