Samuel_Tow

Within the context of what you quoted, i.e. Recluse vs. the Destined One, I assumed red-side. Furthermore, red-side's meeting with Recluse is in a solo encounter, whereas blue-side's meeting with him is in a mandatory-team TF. The difference is that in the former he scales down, but in the latter not only does he not, but he's powered up, too.

Naturally, I wouldn't bother trying to solo team-designed content, but since I can pretend it doesn't exist and the game gives me a free pass on him, I don't see why not.

Furthermore, Recluse is fightable solo (kind of) in the hero version of the Mender Silos TF, where he's the one holding the Statesman. Of course, I had the whole Freedom Phalanx with me by that point, so it wasn't exactly "solo."

So, basically, this sign has sharp edges?

That's a bad position to hold, though, as not all Tankers have these sets, and even the ones that do aren't always built for double-stacking Rage. This is an outlier example and should not be the base line.

Furthermore, the problem with Tankers is not raw damage per se, at least not from where I'm standing. Rather, it's a problem of efficiency, as by far the most common complaint I've had and heard relating to Tankers is running out of endurance before you can fell big targets or lots of targets. Granted, that can be worked towards, but as compared to the high-damage ATs, even Brutes, Tankers just spend more energy for less feedback. They have the staying power to take it, but the drain is higher just the same.

Certainly, it's a question of character concept and character design. On a purely technical level, though, anthropomorphic characters tend to have enough detail on their own natural bodies to where they don't always benefit from clothes, stylistically. That's not to say clothes are bad to put on them, so much as it takes an extra step when designing clothes for anthropomorphic characters, since they don't have to just look good, but also fit the character's body design.

That's minimum support right now, though. There's nothing saying maximal settings won't require a later version of OpenGL to run Ultra Mode. That said as far as I'm aware most recent cards and operating systems support all recent versions of OpenGL, so I don't see a problem with this.

Quick question: Whose design was OpenGL? I remember the "OpenGL vs 3DFX" debates back in the day between nVidia and Voodoo, if I recall correctly, and it seems that 3DFX died in that face-off, but was OpenGL an nVidia design, or did they just use that at the time?

If you're going to try and run a Mastermind, you may want to eventually track down a solid set of Mastermind binds, because they are rather complicated to control, and whoever was responsible for making UI extensions for controlling them seem to have had his brain loafs reversed and forgotten that we STILL don't have a decent set of built-in controls.

I'd personally suggest one of two things: either track down the Numpad controls guide (can someone post a link to that?), or just PM me and I'll give you a custom-made set done to your specifications. Yes, seriously. Just give it some time to amass a few more pets and get comfortable with the game itself, as they'll make things a bit more complicated. I'd probably avoid looking for binds at least until you get your lieutenant-class henchman.

See, this... You can do this with the most innocuous type of power, like Martial Arts or Super Strength. Luckily, City of Villains syphoned off most of these bizarre characters, so I haven't had the misfortune of running into yet more dead baby demons who crawled out of hell through bile and blood so they could eat the hearts of the innocents and... Apparently help old ladies across the street.

I tend to take offence at the term "anti-hero" for this precise reason. While its connotation is obvious, its history and practical use tends to basically take an unambiguous villain, make him only SLIGHTLY ambiguous and then try to pass him off as a hero for no other reason that because all the OTHER villains are needlessly dickish about being jerkasses for no real reason. Yay less-evil-by-comparison "anti-hero!" Preposterous!

That said, this still comes down to what you do with your powers and much less to what your powers actually are.

To be fair, not every hero needs to be heroic in the classical sense, and certainly not through an inherently heroic power. Some heroes, for instance, have the power to kill, which isn't something you go around displaying at pep rallies, but which can still be used by a genuine, if rather conflicted hero.

It's a question of storytelling. A hero whose power is inherently evil and harmful, but whose morals are good is a very interesting concept for a deeper story. It can go along the lines of Power at a Price, only in this case it's less a price to YOU, as much as it is a price to other people, which is what turns this from a simple choice of self-sacrifice into a choice of sacrificing others, which can really complicate things and thus make for a more interesting story.

At the end of the day, not all people have to like all stories, but the potential is there nonetheless.

To be honest, I think what bugs people (or at least me) the most about this one is the Samurai Belt looking upper leg armour pieces. They really distort her shape by giving her an artificially big butt, which just serves to accentuate what looks like the Vixen pose. That, and your colour scheme just blends in a bit much, with purple, grey and black for the fur, but black, green and teal for the armour pieces, which kind of makes it a bit too colourful to follow contour lines, at least to my eyes.

If you'd hear my unwelcome suggestions, I'd probably go for more contrasting colours between the underlying fur and the clothes. You already have blue and red in the purple, and you have blue and green in the green and teal, so they tend to meld when they're paired up with just themselves and red. That colour scheme would probably benefit from yellow, or at least all-green gear just to make it stand out, possibly colouring the larger surfaces and leaving the black just for contour lines.

I don't think the design itself is bad, mind you, or even questionable. Given the limitations you're working with, that's as good as you can make it, though I kind of have to ask a couple of questions about it:

1. Why go with all this fur, yet with a human-skin face and arms? I mean, this way it looks like a girl wearing fur clothes, rather than an actual were-girl, which is what I assume you're going for. It just makes it look a bit dissonant.
2. Do you really need clothes on her? Serious question here. If the fur is a suit over human flesh, then that can serve as clothes, and even if it's not, you can just go the typical werewolf rout and have her run around in just gender-concealing fur. It's what I did for my panda girl, and I've gotten complimented on her a few times. It might simplify the concept so it's easier to grasp in one look.

But again - unwelcome advice is unwelcome, so don't take me too seriously

As far as I'm aware, there is no restriction based on which version of Windows supports which version of OpenGL, as all Windows versions currently in use support all versions of OpenGL. To be perfectly honest, I don't know why Microsoft decided to restrict DirectX 10 and up to Vista and up, beyond simple monopoly.

Basically, your version of Windows is irrelevant in regards to how much of Ultra Mode you can see, so long as your system is powerful enough to handle the load.

Quick question - if my reason is Ultra Mode, wouldn't it actually make the most sense to buy now or soon, given that I17 and Ultra Mode seem to be looking at an April release date?

Not a very good example there, as Wolf Spiders use Katana animations with their mace, and those just look... Really odd with a bashing weapon. For what it's worth, I actually think the current Axe/Mace/Sword animations look REALLY heavy, especially with a big sword.

That said, I've always wanted to see a two-handed version of Broadsword, Battle Axe and War Mace. Well, Broadsword, anyway. Axe and Mace options aren't big (rather, long) enough to be two-handed, as the hand tends to travel on the hilt with them, and there isn't enough hilt for that. With swords, by comparison, the hands remain on the hilt at all times, as there really isn't too much room for them to travel anyway.

Since we're highly unlikely to get a two-handed axe or mace set, I've always thought that the next best thing would be for us to get a two-handed HAMMER set. It could work kind of like Super Strength, with a Ground Slam power right at the end

You should see my bookmarks. Actually... Scratch that. NO-ONE must see my bookmarks.

But let's try and be a little more subtle so we don't get the thread locked

Given how I geeked out over his movie, I'd say my opinion of his work is a bit higher than it may seem from what I said. But I've found that when people ask "Who is this guy?" (whether genuinely or in jest), it's best not to respond with "ZOMG! THE BEST ARTIST EVAR!" even if I just might feel kind of like that. It just causes people to roll their eyes and not take me seriously... Well, take me even LESS seriously, anyway.

Suffice it to say he's one of the VERY few artists whose artwork I can always spot from a mile away and who's been making great art practically for as long as I've seen it. And that's quite a while. I first spotted Gilligan's Island something like 15 years ago (yes, that would make me 10 at the time), and it was one of the best works around the time. It still remains one of the best even today, despite the much more significant proliferation of artists over the 'net.

And while his stuff isn't furry in the traditional sense that people love to hate, practically very little is furry in the traditional sense that people love to hate. That's part of the irony. He swaps between full humans and anthropomorphic humans very much free-hand, and he DOES have a lot of work which qualifies as the general genre.

That's a good point, actually. I checked my purchase specs, and it turns out I have some kind of "economy" box that, aside from being tiny and crammed, also has a weak-ish power supply, something like 300 Watts. Ew! Don't want my computer resetting on me when I load it, only to have the people in the shop laugh at me when I take it in. Once was enough.

I think I'll just kick this box to the curb and swap parts with a much bigger one that should have an equally good motherboard. I don't have much to keep, currently, apart from two hard drives and a sound card. A sound card I'm not using, mind you, sine my video card is using the only PCI slot. I HATE compact models!

Also, City of Heroes currently only uses two threads, but do we actually know whether Ultra Mode programming won't let it use more? From what I've seen, they're digging VERY deep inside the engine to swap out parts and bolt on upgrades, so maybe we'll get a bit of a tune-up of the existing game? What better way to please customers than a graphics upgrade that makes the game run BETTER?

Too bad Aliens vs. Predator (the new one, that is) insulted my honour with its combat system, or I might have stuck with it for more than a couple of days.

Me, I'm excited about I17, much to my own surprise. I don't want to say "very" or "greatly," because for me, "just excited" is about 3/4 of the way up anyway. Tails got me thinking of lots of cool things to add, but it's not just the tails themselves that do it for me. It's another wave of warm fuzzies to the effect of "Holy crap! They really WILL give us what we want!" It's a combination of really liking where things are going and enjoying the pleasant attitude and love with which Paragon Studios treat the game, as well as just loving the new things I'm hearing about I17.

More stuff, better graphics that I think I'll snag a 275 for, and... Well, Going Rogue stuff in, like, a week, possibly two

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with where I am right now.

Real nightmares tend to be their own particular brand of scary not so much because of what they have in them, but rather because of what they DON'T - consistency. The brain typically "sees" a very tiny portion of the world at any given time, with the bulk of its mental image of its surroundings being... Well, just mental. In our waking hours, we constantly receive incoming information with which to sync up with the real world, so mistakes never build up. In a dream, you don't have that feedback, causing people, settings, locations and even basic functionalities to change from moment to moment. That's also what makes it hard to impossible to read anything - the beginning of the text changes by the time you get to the end.

Certain games and movies have made that kind of horror into an art form, yanking the protagonists out of their senses and placing them into a reality which cannot be predicted or relied upon. For instance, coming into a room, finding something scary and attempting to get out could cause you to find out that the room you are in actually has no doors. Not even the one you came in from. Trying to get somewhere can see you walk, but not cover any distance. Walking around a pillar can place you in a room that looks like the same one, but actually isn't. Basically, any time the environment gives you the illusion that you have your orientation about you, but constantly gives you things that "should not be" until it causes you to give up on your sense of location and direction, get lost, get confused and grow paranoid. Horror titles that manage to give the person just enough of a grasp on "reality" to keep them from throwing their hands up and changing the channel, yet never enough to be able to predict what comes next, tend to be the most unsettling. In fact, horror without gore tends to be some of the hardest, yet most rewarding types of scary stories.

Again, this applies to characters just as much as to the environment. Every time you have to depend on, or be close with, something that you cannot trust and which feels like it's just waiting for the right moment to harm you, is the basis of most instinctive fear. Whenever you can't just "back off" or "let go" from the fear that something bad is about to happen is when fear turns into panic. This applies to malevolent architecture just as much as it applies to creepy characters, as the uncanny valley covers more than just people-like things. A house that is more than just a house or a ship that is more than just a ship falls right in there, as well.

In fact, here's one of my own paranoid "uncanny valley" moments. I have a web camera, but I always keep its cap on and have it pointing at the ceiling and away from me. I have no illusions that someone could be using it to watch me, but I simply don't feel comfortable with a camera staring at me all the time. It's not a question of privacy or security, it's a question of instinct. A camera is an eye, and even when it doesn't actually do anything, having an eye look at me in my private space and time is not comfortable for me. By extension, a house with security cameras in every room that constantly track you wherever you go would be smack-dab in the middle of the uncanny valley, as it looks like a house, but not a "normal" house. And even if no-one is monitoring them, there are still cameras watching your every move. Each person's fears are different, but each can conceive of a house that would look normal but creep the hell out of them nonetheless.

Be sure to share anything you end up making. Not just with the forums at large, with me in particular. I'm curious to see

A pretty decent artist who does a lot of good comic books and a lot of... Unprintable comic books, besides. I'm sure his style doesn't appeal to everyone, but he is definitely one of the better artists out there.

Most of those have a pointy end a long blade, allowing them to stab and slash. A Spear has no blade, so it can't slash. A scythe has no pointed end, so it can't stab, and a staff has neither a point nor a blade, so it can only bash. It's not a question of realism, it's a question of basic common sense. A sword cuts or stabs, so it deals lethal damage, while a mace tends to bash, so it deals smashing. Asking for a quarterstaff in a polearm melee set is like asking for a morning star for Battle Axe because it has spikes.

I'm not against a polearms melee set. I WANT a set like this. But I don't want weapons in it that don't make sense to be able to damage the opponent in such a way as the animation would suggest.

You don't have much of an argument here, other than "make it so."

Tweaking their base stats doesn't work, partly because a WHOLE LOT of stats scale with level, and partly because a few stats don't actually originate from the character. Base accuracy, for instance, is set per class, not per instance of pet.

And, really, what do you hope to get out of this? Even if they make them your level but tweak them to be functionally -2, what did you gain? A bigger number that means nothing? You're not going to make Mastermind henchmen any stronger than they are. In fact, Masterminds are more than strong enough as they are, and it's fairly easy to make an argument as to why they're overpowered.

Yes, about three times that I can remember. Why?