Samuel_Tow

Sorry, to me that sounds like completely random noise. I like what's with the trailer better.

As far as the trailer itself goes, I love what's ON it, but mostly because I knew about most of that stuff in advance and had seen pictures. The trailer itself really kind of is just an animated slideshow. It doesn't linger on any one thing for nearly long enough to get a good look, which is what I feel is its greatest shortcoming. I want to SEE what's coming so I can be excited about it. Don't make me pause it all the time.

You mean like how Tyriel had Talsorian wings?

Despite what I said, I still wouldn't want to repeat sets if I can avoid it. And, well... Samuel Tow is Katana/SR So, yeah, no worry there. I'm also already using Katana/Will, and it wouldn't make sense for her anyway, nor would Katana/Regen, sadly. As far as Katana/Invulnerability goes... Does this outfit really say "invulnerable" to you? Even with tech, that'll be a hard sell

What you've made me realise, however, is that there really isn't much that's left which isn't elemental for a Scrapper. What this means is I'm making a Stalker. I already have a Ninja/Ninja Stalker and a Sword/SR Stalker, but I don't have a Ninja/SR Stalker quite yet. If you can help me explain why a neon purple bunny girl with big feathered wings that you can see from space is a Stalker, I will go with that in a heartbeat

I don't really see things quite this way, and that's not to argue so much as to explain. To me, it really isn't a question of where you got your powers from, but what potential those powers have. I've often written fiction regarding experiments with infinite energy, the tapping of godlike power, "ancient" technology and so forth. Woman Man - the hero bitten by a radioactive woman - could easily end up being just a second-rate hero with limited powers, or through some quirk of physics and chemistry, he could end up tapping into quite literally unlimited power and evolution. I see it more as a question of how far I want to take a character as opposed to what they were made to be.

Hmm... Well, I can discount Kinetic Melee first up (that's a good thing - narrows the possibilities down), because I want her powers to be just her senses, not special energies or other manifestations. Dual Blades, though... Hmm... I kind of like it, actually. Thinking on what I have, I've done DB/Will Scrapper, DB/SR Stalker and DB/SomethingICantRemember Brute. DB/SR Scrapper should be easily doable, and probably more in tune with what Cecity should be about. Good call, I'll get on that as soon as time permits. That one is set, I think.

Hmm... Wouldn't Energy/Dark make more sense, though? She lives in the shadows, exists through feeding on others, but then channels that drawn energy into overt attacks? I'll have to think about this one some more. I'm tempted to just make her an Energy/Energy Stalker, use a Dark theme for both and call it a day. Now that Energy Aura for Stalkers won't have that HORRIBLE Repulsion Field clone, I actually have no more reason not to take it. And I don't have an Energy/Energy Stalker yet

Like I said, though, I'll have to think about this one more.

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Something of an update, as well - writing this thread made me think about these characters harder, and I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I shouldn't make Hatarla a Brute. She's a Scrapper right now, which I guess symbolises her aggressive fighting style and just how instantly dangerous she is but... Nah, she isn't defined by being hard to kill, but more by being dangerous to be around. Scrapper it is, then.

Great... Now what am I going to do with Valeena? I want to make her Katana/Something, but Katana/What?

This actually is a good question, and one we really, really shouldn't be finding ourselves asking: Where does meta-human end and godlike begin? In normal epics, the line where humans can do no more and you start needing magic and supernatural powers is usually when people end and gods begin, but this doesn't really apply to a setting where all of our actors are already godlike to begin with. This really isn't a question that has a good answer, so the mere act of posing it seems like it should have been an easy mistake to avoid. When you want the audience to ignore the man behind the curtain, you don't draw attention to the man behind the curtain and explain all the ways in which he is the Wizard of Oz.

Epics, I think, were the right way to go. You're progressing through your own storyline all fine and dandy and then all of a sudden - BANG! You have brand new powers. Where did they come from? How did that happen? Well, you got more powerful and you naturally developed more powers. Or maybe you didn't. Maybe YOU have a better idea of where they come from. The point is, the game only told us that we HAD these powers, it didn't try to tell us WHY we had them. That's what the Character Description is for, no? I quite literally see no benefit in the slightest to having our Incarnate progression explained, or indeed given a specific name at all.

That's actually pretty close to how I'd have gone, as well. Say one day you level up to 50, go back to your favourite trainer, earn your last three slots, but what's this? The trainer says: "Well, that's all I know to teach you. I'm pretty sure that's the limit of power one can have." Well that can't be. So you go asking all of the trainers and they all say the same thing: "That's as high as you go." So you sit and think to yourself... That's not right. I know I can do more than this. Then a time traveller taps you on the shoulder and says "Yes, you can. I've seen you do it, in the future. I know how to surpass your limits, because you told me. Let's go do that now!" So he starts telling you to do these seemingly unrelated things, like fight invaders or fight Roman soldiers or prove that you're a true hero. You're not sure how these things help, and neither is he, actually, but that's what you did to learn how to surpass your limits in his time, so if you do all of these things now, surely you'll get as strong as you were in his timeline.

Yeah, it's similar to what Mender Ramiel's story constitutes, but without the Well of the Furies, without the mind control and the moral ambiguity and the evil omniscient entity and, most importantly, without the game giving you an overt explanation of WHY you have the powers you do.

It is, I'm not contesting that. But I have observed a strange tendency to make rather LARGE effects, and then give them fairly low-res textures. The easiest example I can think of off-hand, actually, is the Runes aura. I don't know why that is, but the runes are of such a low resolution that I can barely even tell what they are. It's sometimes surprising, especially in this day and age, what high-resolution, crisp textures can do for the apparent quality of graphics. Look at something like the Organic Armour face or the Sinister chest and legs patterns. These are still some of the most amazing parts of the editor which manage to look great with just about anything and look good even close-up. Are they worried about graphical performance?

And again, I'm not dising the wings. I love the things. They give me serious consideration as to whether I should keep the the Herald of Light using the current angelic wings he has, or whether I should swap him over to these energy wings. That hasn't happened before.

AAAAAAaaaaaaaa!

Actually, I think my favourite was the guy who did Mender Silos in the I11 trailer. For something that was largely just panoramic shots of the game, that guy made the trailer awesome.

Good point on the Willpower aspect. I hadn't even considered that. And it makes sense - it's his will to remain bound to his armour and able to affect the physical world which defines him.

On the flip side, the reason I'm considering rerolling him is I just don't like characters who fight with a single one-handed weapon, so anything BUT Titanic Weapons won't work. I'll just have to see whether there's a sword that at least looks like a sword in there, though, and whether it's not more of a blunt bashing set, all told.

*edit*
Thank you

Because they aren't necessary. You're looking for an easy way around a system that is already easy in and of itself. Also, because I've yet to hear a meaningful argument in favour of such a system other than I want it. This, to me, represents an irresponsible approach to character-making, in that people expect to make a character on the wrong side AND still get to swap it to the right side instantly. If you intentionally choose to make a compromise, you stick with it.

I agree - having to make a character on the wrong side sucks. The developers clearly also agree, since they're giving us a way to start almost any AT on either side. You're getting what you want, there's no room to ask for more. Especially now that you have options. If your character needs to switch sides, then have him switch sides. If you don't want to go through Rogue stuff, then reroll. This doesn't need to be any easier than it already is.

Neither of us missed it, we were just replying to someone else.

"After-images" don't look fast. They look goofy. I honestly don't understand how these ever became synonymous with speed, but they don't correspond to any part of optics that I'm aware of. This, as a point of fact, has been a serious problem with depictions of super speed in practically every game I've seen it depicted in - the game TELLS you you're moving super fast, but you really aren't. That's why anime tends to depict super speed as just disappearing, as that's what it would look like to a casual observer.

I've always been a fan of speeding Flurry up considerably. In fact, some time last year, I made this incredibly unprofessional mockup, which people said looked spastic. It still looks fine to me, as anyone doing anything with super speed will look spastic, and I'm doubly sure that an actual graphic artist could make one that looks less goofy.

Right now, Flurry looks like 8 Shadow Punches with the pauses cut, alternating between left and right hand. As such, it has the weight and back action of Shadow Punch, which is what makes it spastic. If we want it to not look spastic, we need to eliminate the upper body movement, or tone it down a bit. The reason E. Honda's lightning arm and Chun-Li's lightning leg work so well is that the characters are performing simple strikes without shifting their weight, which looks less goofy.

To me, fast things should look fast. This includes Super Speed, as well. The current slow-motion super-fast running has to go. I'm tired of taking 100 foot steps. Super fast running should look super fast, not like regular running but while sliding along the ground faster.

So I've heard, and this will definitely make it a lot less cumbersome. I guess I can't really fault the developers for trying to simplify the system for new players, and as long as I can skip the "wizard" and make my characters directly since I know what I'm doing, all will be well in the world.

The reason I bring this up, though, is it reminds me of Windows 7 settings. Instead of letting me, you know, fix my settings, Windows keeps asking me leading questions in an attempt to guess which setting I'm trying to change and what I'm trying to change it to. This is supposed to make it easier for 70-year-old people who've never seen a computer before in their lives administrate their own computers, but it is a horrible inconvenience for ME, because it hides the options I want in unintuitive places.

Good point. I'd read a little about that and, to be honest, I'm not sure I'll like the "user friendly" reorganisation of how AT and powersets are picked. But that's less important than the other side of the equation: For YEARS the development team has approach making additions to the costume creator UI with terror and dread, so maybe now that they have a brand new UI, they'll have a much easier time modifying it. What this means, in turn, is that pool and epic sutomization is one step closer to fruition, since the UI shouldn't be such a pain any more and most of the epic powers, at least, already have customization options in the powersets they come from.

Eh, I don't know. I'm not really a fan of violence against women, but I am FIRMLY in favour of putting women on the same footing as men when it comes to action and adventure, and this has the unfortunate implication of putting them in a position to get punched in the face. We can't really have one without the other.

I do agree with you in that there might be a slightly wrong vibe, but not for the reasons you believe. For YEARS fiction writers of all genres have treated women as victims of violence, stuffing them in fridges and using them as sock deaths. You know, because many male writers are chauvinists and either see women as weak or like putting them in bondage. We are (or at least I am) conditioned to expect that every time a writer creates an action girl, it's so he can have her broken, humiliated and killed. That's why I always feel uneasy watching action girls in even remotely violent stories - not because I don't trust them to be strong enough, but more because I expect the writer to be an *******.

Actually, it is for that reason as well that I feel a Vicky would be more appropriate for the main splash screen. Games where musclebound men hit other musclebound men in the face are a dime a dozen. Games where a sleek, feminine robot kicks your ***, though? Those aren't are common, not by FAR. It's a good way to make the game stand our right from the start.

Actually, to be honest, I have to admit that I've gotten into more than a few games for no reason greater than because I liked a banner on a site somewhere. Hell, all I needed to get me to try Spiral Knights, for instance, was a look at their character design. Good first impressions count for a LOT.

I remember a thread from way back in 2005 titled "What would you do if you were Statesman for a day?" at the time asking what players would change if they were Jack "Statesman" Emmert, lead designer, for a day. And many players spoke about repealing ED, messing with PvP and on and on. One player that I still remember, however, said: "Get a helmet that covers my whole head." I still get a chuckle out of it to this day

And, incidentally, I agree completely. I HATE the Statesman's costume. I'm probably biassed in this regard, since I really don't light tights costumes in general, especially ones with a full head cowl, but the Statesman is even worse because he's that AND a stupid quarter helmet glued to his cheek bones. He looks like a kid wearing a Statesman Halloween mask. All he's missing is the elastic bad around the back of his head. I know he's supposed to be iconic and golden age and all of that, but at least give the guy a whole helmet! Tyrant's old costume is ten times better, and he's just as old of a design!

Nothing to worry about. I wouldn't have spent as much time as I do arguing with people over the Internet if that were true. I just ignore HER.