Silver Gale

Duh. Epic not paying attention.

He's not. If you put up a stack of salvage and each piece sells for a different amount, they show up in separate slots under the "sold" tab.

There, was that so hard?

I think it is a silly and pointless rule. I think it will generate more needless work for you, as you have to carefully prune out otherwise perfectly civil discussion, and more frustration for us as we try to rephrase our discussion to stay within the bounds.

You already have rules against posts that are inflammatory and posts that make personal attacks. You do not *need* additional rules against posts that *might potentially* become inflammatory. May I draw your attention to the fact that posts about PvP in CoH almost inevitably descend into PvP vs. PvE flames, and yet you've made no rules against talking about the PvP in this game?

I know this is probably not your fault and you're just the guy stuck with enforcing this, but I hope you're at least passing on our comments to someone above.

(Actual in-character explanation go! This is based on Silver Gale's beliefs and knowledge, which may or may not represent the "reality" of how the CoH universe works.)

That's an interesting question! Is someone who is very powerful a god? Is someone who has many worshippers a god? Is immortality a requirement? Is it necessary to represent something?

I'd say a good working definition is "anyone who can ignore the laws of nature at will". Now, I know what you're going to say - "Gale, you awesomely cool person, you're an Archmage, you break the laws of physics on a regular basis, wouldn't that make you a goddess?" - and the answer is no. Magic is as much a force of nature as gravity or, I dunno, the strong and weak nuclear forces. It has its own rules and limitations, all of which I'm subject to.

Going over the other stuff: immortality in itself is not necessary, but someone who's immortal and unchanging does break entropy, which even magic is subject to. You can prolong your life more or less indefinitely, but you have to be doing things - often unpleasant things - for it to work. So, working upkeep-free immortality, definitely a tip-off, but probably not sufficient. I did say "ignore laws of nature *at will*", which means you have to be able to do impossible things, not just break laws by existing.

Followers. Gods will often inspire followers because of the natural human tendency to follow powerful leaders. But definitely not a requirement, and given how easy it is to do impressive things by harnessing the collective magic abilities of a group... having lots of followers makes it less likely that the person is actually breaking laws and not just working with very high levels of magic.

Representing something, well, again with the collective magic. Working with a symbol that many people strongly associate with something else, that's pretty much how all elemental mages operate. And a lot of heroes will declare to be standing for something just as a reflection of their philosophy. Just having a symbol doesn't make you a god. So there you go.

Are you seriously going to suggest superhero comic books are targeted equally at female and male fantasies?

Yes, the superhero genre touches on a whole lot of fantasies - but the male characters are *generally* (this is a generalization, don't name specific examples to the contrary) the ones the reader is supposed to identify with - "I wish I were this guy" - and the female characters are generally the ones the reader is supposed to covet - "I wish I could have this girl". Everything from the character design to the stories reflects that.

Yes, it's a fantasy, it's not supposed to be realistic, and all that - but it still both emerges from and contributes to a world where every woman has to struggle against being perceived as an object. We have to talk about these things, we have to point them out, and we have to try to change them, otherwise they'll never get better.

I saw one quite recently in Talos. A character with a website in the name, sitting in WW doing /em panhandle. I had to laugh. (Then I /petitionned.)

No they're not.

5 missions every 20 hours doesn't translate to "4 hours per mission". It translates to "do 5 missions and then go do something else for 18 hours". The "70 days to earn 35 merits" part is correct, the number of hours is silly.

You can make *money* on flipping?

Guys, guys, we've all been doing it wrong!

Everyone who wants Ferraris needs to do at least one of those things, yes.

Or one of the many other things that produces lots of Inf, like running Hero Tips until you have two Hero Merits, and turning them into a high-value recipe (like Luck of the Gambler +7.5% Global Recharge or Numina's Convalescence Regen/Recovery Unique) and selling that on the market. Six days of running 5 missions per day (and the Morality mission every second day), you get over a hundred million inf easily.

Really, it's much more fair than in real life, where unless you are born into a wealthy family or you get exceptionally lucky, you are unlikely to ever become rich.

It's not possible to write a parody of stupid theories that is so obviously untrue it doesn't need a smiley or disclaimer.

So you don't think all those are worth more than 10-50k each? In that case, I will be happy to take them off your hands for that price.