Samuel_Tow

Aside from punching his face (which you discount) and arguing with him (which is a win for him regardless of the outcome), what else is there to do? Serious question here.

Also - I'm really not concerned about what the "right" thing to do is in this situation. There's really only one unambiguously "wrong" thing to do here, and that's to kill him... I guess two if you count torture, but that's besides the point. So long as the choice isn't unambiguously wrong, it shouldn't really matter if it's the most "right."

Sadly, that's how I feel, as well. I've always wanted a good story experience, but recently it seems we've been getting so much "story" that we're left with barely a game at the end. It's like if I went to watch a movie but spent so much time window-shopping at the mall that I missed half the movie. At its core, City of Heroes is a fighting game. Text should supplement that, not try to replace it. Fancy mechanics should try to spice that up, not avoid it completely.

Here it is in a nutshell - if I've played for half an hour and in that time fought a total of about 10, maybe 15 enemies... Something is terribly wrong.

Since I haven't embarrassed myself lately, I figure I should confess something - I haven't read a book in my life. Not a whole one, anyway, just chapters and self-contained stories here and there. It has more to do with me not liking the drawn-out narrative almost all writers like to use, but my point remains - I don't like to read books. I still love to read stories in City of Heroes. I just prefer those stories to be mixed in with actual gameplay more often than not, or else I might as well just be reading a book anyway.

It does. When Power Customization first came out, all powers were given two "themes" - Light and Dark, which correspond to an additive and a subtractive colour model, or more loosely to the models of mixing coloured lights vs. mixing coloured pigments. I'm not sure if something special needed to be done to the game to support this (I don't think so), but we really never had a choice before this.

Now that we do have a choice, however, I would VERY much like to see Dark/Subtractive versions of all the existing auras we have. Just as a random example, I have a Fire/Fire Brute who uses Dark Fire, yet his flaming eyes HAVE to be bright fire. Would it be too much of a bother to add Dark versions of existing auras?

*edit*
I'm talking about costume auras, just to specify.

And that's, um... A golf club aiming at an empty tee?

My point is that for a game to be immersive, it needs to involve the player as much as possible. If something needs to happen, YOU need to do it - either you need to initiate it, or if it's auto-initiated you need to END it. Events don't progress until you do something, and specifically until you do something that you understand and can repeat if need be. "Do you really need me here?" is a question a player should never find himself asking from a game, because a game should never, ever be playing itself. And the Tutorial pretty much plays itself.

Sure, if you really want to make the tutorial immersive, you can, but that's not a sign of good game design, it's a sign of a dedicated player. The tutorial should feel like an accomplishment by the end, it should make the player think "Hey, I did this!" Mind you, I'm not talking about challenge or achievement, just the sense that your presence actually mattered, that you did SOMETHING which had SOME effect.

The long and short of it is that even in the 21st century when some of us have never done a day of manual labour in our lives, people still like to build things "with their hands." Games obviously can't deliver that since they're all virtual, but they can at least simulate the feeling by asking the player to be involved and asking the player to interact. The more the game involves the player, the more results feel like you reached into your screen and did something with your own hands. Make the player click on a door, make him click on a button, make him clear the monsters on his own, make him aim that laser or that airstrike, make him use his powers, make him read his clues. Make the player feel like he needs to interact with the game as much as possible in order to get the best outcome, not just "push button, receive bacon."

Something just occurred to me. You say that for aesthetic reasons, you don't want lots of thick smoke covering up player models... But could I request just that, please? I have a couple of concepts who more or less require that the characters in question are, essentially, constantly obscured by thick black smoke. I can sort of do this with the Thunderhead aura right now, with a pure black tights character underneath, but I can still clearly see the tights reflecting light underneath.

This is something I've wanted for a VERY long time - character auras and character powers which are NOT transparent. I think one of the worst aspects of games transcending from hand-drawn 2D into modelled 3D has been that sprites became very transparent. In olden games like Street Fighter, Golden Axe, Mega Man and so forth, if you shot out energy, fire, ice or anything of the sort, you shot out a solid, opaque effect. That is precisely what I want to see in City of Heroes. If I'm shooting blasts of pure energy, I don't want that energy to be transparent. If I'm setting the ground on fire, I don't want the ground to show through the thick of the blaze. That sort of thing.

Probably the worst offender when it comes to transparency is Dark Armour. I don't know what mix of additive and subtractive particles that set has, but it's almost entirely transparent both in pure black and in pure white. In pure black it looks like very thin smoke and in pure white it looks kind of like very sparse steam. The only way to make it stand out is to pick a bold colour, for some reason. I have a Dark/Dark Brute whom I named "The Tenebrious" and whose general design goal was to look like "a living shadow." Neither Dark Armour toggles nor any costume aura could make that character look the part, because I could always see the black model underneath.

In short, making lots of thick smoke which obscures our characters is not a bad thing in terms of aesthetics. It's a GOOD thing, as it's a new look and effect and right now, we have no means to achieve it.

Because a lot of them come from other MMOs and they're conditioned to want to powerlevel to the end and do end game stuff until their brains leak out of their noses. That's one reason why I keep saying MMOs need to innovate sooner rather than later, because the market right now is so stale you can swap MMO brand names and still be playing the same basic game.

City of Heroes is, as of right now, one of the very few non-WoW, non-EQ models out there, so people treat it like those anyway as that's what they're used to. If more MMOs innovated to the point where playing a new game felt like playing a NEW game, more people might actually approach this one as an actual new game, rather than as just a WoW interface skin and map pack.

Because "QQ" looks like two eyes with tears coming from them, hence its reference to crying. The same place O_o came from.

What you're thinking of is the fact that they simply never used to talk. The most they'd say is "Bzzt." Then, all of a sudden, there's "I hate Samuel Tow!" and your contact is like "Wait, what?" They could talk, they just rarely did, and I'd prefer if they went back to doing that.

The Knights of Malta are not merely "the old guard," they are an Illuminati/Knight's Templar conspiracy within Matla itself, ironically enough using the Malta group as their own puppet so that they can control the world as the shadow masters of the shadow masters. Malta itself has a board of directors, but I don't recall it ever being mentioned to have factions.

Precisely. I'm not talking about turning off the game. I'm talking about walking out of the zone the same way I came in, then taking the portal back to Paragon City to spend the night at a nice hotel and have a fancy breakfast the neck morning, and maybe a relaxing massage. What's that? People in First Ward are suffering? Eh, they can wait.

It's like playing Silent Hill, but always being able to just get into your car, drive out of town, buy some guns, hire a security firm and come back in force. Or drive out of town and never come back. "Survival" doesn't work if nothing threatens your survival, and in First Ward, nothing ever does. Who cares if the Gumbo gets overrun? I can always take the same door out I used to come in.

The only thing keeping me fighting for the First Ward is because I don't WANT to leave, and the only reason I don't want to leave is because I want to help. There's no practical benefit to be gained from getting "embroiled" in events and the LITERAL door back out to the old world is always wide open if I want to use it. That's not survival.

Thank you

About the fingernails - I mean that it seems like her gloves are shaped like fingernails. I suppose the point was that she's dressed in impossibly-think, incredibly clingy material (then why doesn't she have nipples?), which just happens to stick into the little groves around her fingernails (yet not in the lines of her hand?) and that could explain the fingernail shapes. Hmm... Unstable molecules, maybe?

About the back - Good catch. I tried looking around the lettering, but it's possible it's in the way. I'd like to see a pick without the overlay.

And, yeah, it is the best Numina pick I've seen, though to be honest, I never read any of the comic books. Troy Hickman's run on the Top Cow series was good, but beyond that they just weren't interesting, even with a naked Sister Psyche in them. I never much cared for the artwork, either. As far as loading screen posters go, though, that one's by far the best of them all. The Galaxy City poster is just... Bad, and the comic book in there is just so awkwardly written. The SSA1 poster was actually pretty good, but the characters are too small to really see details on them and the posters look like they were drawn up in a much lower resolution than the 1920x1080 that I run, so I couldn't get extra details from having a larger monitor.

This one's by far the best if you don't aim to nit-pick (like I did), and it's a credit to the author. I generally have a VERY critical eye for quality, so considering I didn't have anything major to bring up, I'd say that's a pretty good deal overall.

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The story arc itself was very good, too. Is Binocolo's name supposed to be ironic because he only has one eye? Anyway, he's a pretty cool contact and his dialogue is surprisingly well-written and natural-sounding, plus his look is kind of cool.

For someone who doesn't know who the Luddites are and who Dr. Aeon is, the original introduction is quite confusing, and Binocolo doesn't do much to explain exactly how batty-nuggets the Luddites are or what they're fighting against. Still, Binocolo isn't exactly a Luddite and more a supporter with mystic-hunting experience, so that plot point doesn't really matter. Actually... Why was he made a Luddite to begin with if the Luddites don't add anything to the plot? Not a complain, just curious.

The first mission is weird, in that... Why did Darryn Wayde show up? Doesn't he want to "bring Rularuu to the here and now?" Why does he have Warshade powers? Still, the standoff was cool, and it was nice to see Montague actually doing something, other than being murdered by Master Midnight.

The Rulu Shin are a really cool faction, even though it kind of bugs me that they're using such weird boots - Bone and Organic Armour. Still their look is unique and I WANT THEIR GEAR! That chest piece with an animated eye in it is SO going to work wonders on my avatar of armed conflict. I hope they come out before Titanic Weapons. However, they have really weird description text. It seems like the writers wrote ONE description for the Rularuu's Might minions and then just copy/pasted that for all the others, despite the lieutenants being called Rularuu's Word. Giving them Rularuu weapons was a good idea, but it just makes me wish those were in the Paragon Store for sale.

The second mission was a little weird, and I KNEW where I'd end up as soon as I came into the crypt. Nice use of that transition room, though. The riddles for the Wisp were also a clever idea, though I honestly didn't get the second one. I answered all three, of course, because I've spent many hours pouring over the Shadow Shard lore, so I could have answered the questions even without the hints. The idea was good, though - it gives only faint glimpses of Rularuu without making us fight level 40+ enemies. The cell phone on the cultist genuinely cracked me up, too. It makes total sense

The last mission was even more weird. I didn't know I could speak with anyone in there, and I didn't go into the vault because... The rest of it is portal-hopping, and I'm happy to see the Horta Vines being used. I do wish they'd get a bit better graphics, though, as they remind me of the Xen teleporters from the OOOLD original Half-Life. Still, nice idea. Ending up in the Abyss was a cool move, as well, and without actually letting us reach the Hamidon, I don't think. The elite boss at the end was kind of annoying, as I realised all too late that the lieutenants could heal him to full. Oh, well. Still beat him without dying.

The resolution cutscene was confusing, but now I get what the stories are getting at - someone's powers will be absorbed by the Checkov's Obelisk and that someone will die. I don't know why Tammy Arcanus showed up right at the end since I couldn't speak with her or anything. I wish I could, even if it's just one text screen congratulating me.

Also... Why did a man named Tommy name his daughter Tammy? Did he WANT their names to be confused for each other?

Overall, I like the arc very much. I still don't think it's worth $5, but that's for no fault of the writing or mission design. I just don't like being charged $1.66 per mission. Now, give me the Rularuu weapons AND the Rulu Shin gear in a set and I'll pay you $10 for it I guess it doesn't matter, though - I'm already paying for the arc via my VIP subscription, so it's clearly worth at least that Unlike SSA1, I will actually play this one a second time, just because I really like the writing, and I actually do like Monoculo as a character.

No, that actually IS the typical way. That's why I don't do TFs any more. Every time I've started a TF with people I don't know specifically, it's been a speed run. What this means is I spend so much time sitting at the door, holding my head in one hand and flipping channels on my TV with the other that I wonder why I even bothered.

Communication solves nothing. All communication does is establish that, yes, everyone wants to stealth as many missions as possible and I can either put up with it or leave. This isn't a disconnect between new people and veterans. It's a disconnect between speed runners and people who want to kill stuff. Neither is decided by veteran status.

If you have a mission selected as active, the game won't let you enter an instance from another mission unless you specifically select it. That's how it's always worked. Also, once you have selected a mission as active, the "Abandon Mission" button disappears from that mission. You need to pick another mission, manually select it as the active one ("Select Task"), confirm the pop-up telling you you'll lose progress if you get one, then return to your missions window and the button should have reappeared.

Yes, it is, and I don't like it one bit. I vastly preferred the old red-side starting experience to the new one. New players aren't all you need to worry about. This game focuses heavily on replay, and just like I can watch a movie despite knowing what happens at the end, so I can enjoy a game despite knowing the answers to the mysteries.

How long I stared at the pic to write the post about it? Give or take half an hour. None of what I mentioned are immediate first impressions. My first impression was "Wow, this looks good... But what's up with that right hand?" It sort of snowballed from there.

Like I said, overall, it looks good. Best poster I've seen yet. I'm more asking for clarification than anything else, as I'm not an artist and I may just be seeing things wrong.

Um... NO! Of course not! The set is awesome, and ever power in it is incredibly cool Well, OK, I guess you can skip Confront if you really wanted to, but you really should take everything else. Those powers are just too good to pass up. They are to me, anyway. I have them all but Crushing Uppercut, and I wouldn't give up any one of them for the world. In fact, I'm thinking of adding Kick from Fighting just to add even more brutality

I've said it before, though - just because something happened in comic books doesn't necessarily make it a good thing to bring here. Comic books have their good bits and their bad bits, and I honestly see no reason to specifically and intentionally bring the bad bits when they can be avoided.

And, yeah, I've had a problem with killing a signature character as a publicity stunt. To me, it demonstrates a profound disrespect for canon characters, to be reduced down to marketing ploys. There are better ways to make an emotionally engaging story.