Starjammer
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:I wouldn't disagree that it would ultimately be the mugger's fault. But there is such a thing as pouring gasoline on the fire, otherwise known as contributory negligence.Originally Posted by CaptainFoamerang
In that case I would still say it's the mugger's fault and they were likely to get violent upon meeting any resistance anyway. -
Quote:There's plenty of safe, legal ways to help and protect people without endangering yourself or others, most especially the person you're trying to help. And if anybody wants to wear a costume while doing so, fine by me.Originally Posted by Zikar
While he's certainly putting himself in danger, if more people took an interest in helping others maybe he wouldn't have too.
The fact is, people get hurt and killed, and everyone from all sides is just saying "Don't do anything, or you'll get hurt too." It's nice to see someone who'd rather get hurt themselves rather than let someone else get hurt while they do nothing.
But this guy is attacking "career" criminals. Even if he doesn't get killed in the act, eventually one is going to come looking for revenge.
His own safety aside, how should he feel if a mugging victim or an innocent bystander gets shot while he's trying to show off? -
Quote:It'll be a shame when he gets shot and killed.Originally Posted by sleestack
Article in the Wall Street Journal
So, one costumed do-gooder is taking a more "hands-on" approach and actually intervening in criminal activity. A different group disagrees with this, thinking it will eventually lead to bad things for all of them.
Thoughts? -
Paragon Wiki info on attack mechanics is here.
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Back when he was running the entire show, Posi was pretty dead-set against revamping old content. He seemed fairly certain that nobody ever noticed it, no matter how often people said otherwise. He seemed to fall squarely in the new-shiny camp.
Later, Posi was re-tasked with only inventing new stuff for endgame and WW became the lead designer. Coinciding with that move, we started seeing more attention paid to revamping existing stuff and QoL improvements.
Coincidence? I leave it to the individual to decide.
I kind of expect that once the GR/Incarnate wad has been well and truly shot we might see a concerted effort to overhaul the game to a contemporary standard of quality. -
Here's the dirty secret behind forced teaming and a lot of other time-sink activities in the game:
Instanced maps
Every instanced map the server generates, along with the spawns that go on it and all the activities happening in it, eats server resources. Accordingly, it is far more efficient a use of resources if the game maximizes the number of players per instance and spreads out the number of instances generated simultaneously.
This is why the devs want us to team, the larger the better. This is why the game originally had things like delayed travel powers, return-to-contact, fedex missions, defeat X missions and so forth, to keep players in the public zones. It probably also had a hand in encouraging the devs to develop zone-based events as new content.
Of course, over the years, Moore's Law has worked its magic and the game's population per server has decreased. The devs are no longer bound by the considerations of 2004. Accordingly, we've seen changes over time like newspaper/radio missions, earlier contact call buttons and the like.
However, I'm willing to bet that the game still hasn't reached the level where the devs would consider it a good idea to have thousands of players running solo-spawned TF maps all over the place. If one 8-man ITF causes server lag, imagine what eight ITFs solo-spawned at x8 would do.
I feel fairly certain that the devs track this utilization curve and when it becomes economical to do so, low-entry TFs will become a QoL improvement. -
- "Have you guys considered a PvP game?"
- "Positron, eh? Is that because you annihilate everything you come in contact with?"
- "I can't wait to start working with guys like Castle and Back Alley Brawler!"
- "Why'd you guys ever stop doing timed outdoor defeat all missions?"
- "C'mon! It's not a real TF until the 15th mission!"
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When GR came out, I was pleased to be able to grab Shield of Praetoria on Victory for my FotM KM/SD brute.
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Quote:They rigged Watson with an electromechanical relay to press a physical button at human speed. However, Watson was still pretty quick on the draw and that usually means winning on Jeopardy!Originally Posted by Nericus
Not sure but I think it was noted among assorted articles about the contest that Watson could buzz in faster then a human?
Also while Jeopardy can be fun, I'd like to see Watson pass a Turing Test.
Egad....I just realized, this whole Watson Jeopardy contest just might have given SNL some more Jeopardy parody ideas, if they can get Will Ferrell to host SNL then we might get a celebrity Jeopardy skit with a parody of both Watson and Sean Connery!
I doubt Watson can yet pass a Turing test, at least one where the questioner can ask anything they want. As yet, AFAIK, Watson doesn't have any kind of "internal life" so it would not respond well to questions about thoughts, opinions, feelings and the like. It can answer knowledge-based questions all day long (as long as they're not about U.S. cities and their airports, apparently) but it doesn't "think about" what it's answering.
And yes, there are AI prototypes that do the above, although still not at human level cognition. -
What really puzzles me about this:
The rights to Wonder Woman can't be all that cheap, even for Hollywood. She's a prominent character with an established history.
So why even buy the rights if all you're going to do is strip away everything established about the character and turn her into Generic Vigilante Woman? Just create Generic Vigilante Woman and be done with it.
The project would probably have a higher probability of success (no disappointed fans) and be cheaper to boot. -
Having considered the cool possibility for a while, here's the scary parts:
Any human occupation that's based on a context-sensitive application of rote procedure or analysis is now subject to Watson-based automation.
What's that mean? It means that Watson can eventually take over: pretty much anything to do with applied mathematics including most statistical analysis, a lot of legal practice and analysis, most accounting functions, a lot of simulation design, almost all library functions, a lot of common bureaucracy.
Basically, anything a human does for a living where somebody describes a situation and a fixed or tightly-interpreted rule or procedure is applied.
Really, existing AI/expert systems can already do the knowledge-retrieval and rule-application parts. It's converting a described situation into data parameters that the system can work on that's the hard part and Watson seems pretty adept at that. -
Quote:Really, that's not the cool possibility. Here's the cool possibility:Originally Posted by ebon3
Sweet, I'll be ready to buy a new Mustang in a few years and hopefully Ford's SYNC will be filled with this goodness.
Not that I care for distracted driving, but the Mini brand is set to introduce an option where you can tweet from your car.
Combine these technologies though and I will finally be able to realize a dream (provided the car ahead of me can do the same) of mine - the ability to tell the person riding along in the left lane 15 miles under the speed limit how I really feel in real time.
"Car please contact liscence plate ST XXX-XXXX, I have something I really want to tell them"
A Watson-like computer can solve word problems.
Think about it. Pure math is no problem for computers, provided you tell it what equation you want to solve, what the values/ranges are and so forth. Knowing how to set up the problem becomes the hardest part and the one that people most commonly screw up. Garbage in, garbage out.
With a Watson-like system, you can simply describe the problem you need solved and it will interpret your request, look up the appropriate equations and data and then do the math. Then it can provide the answer in colloquial language and elaborate the parts you may not understand.
With enough "experience" it can even anticipate the misconceptions of the person asking the question and avoid any errors inherent in the query. Or it might ask for or even offer clarification.
Next likely goal: See if Watson 2.0 (or whatever the next generation is) can "earn" an advanced degree through standard education and testing. -
The key thing about Watson isn't its database or search algorithms. It's the ability to process casual language and derive "meaning" from it. Especially when you consider the convoluted answer-and-question format that Jeopardy! uses.
Watson's betting strategy was probably just derived around an algorithm incorporating its own score, its competitors' scores and its history of correct responses.
Apply a few iterations of Moore's Law to Watson and before too long you'll have everyday-use computer interfaces that respond to natural language instructions in conversational form. -
Quote:SGs do have a timer for auto-demoting inactive members.Originally Posted by Vr2LRose
especially demotes so many times ive had a high ranking leutenent thats gone for 6 months be nice to have a on vacation rank you can plop them to so you dont have to kick em. but since you cant demote/promote.
Other than that, yeah, been wanting offline invites and rank controls forever.
Instead of e-mails, I'd say find a way to do it through tells with the option to auto-reject turned on by default. That way J. Random Player has to opt in, usually because they're expecting an invitation they want.
It wouldn't suck either if it could work both ways, with SGs having an option to accept petitions for membership. Also off by default.
Being a member of a SG should automatically reject an invite, of course. -
Quote:Remember how Jon Peters thought it would be great if Superman didn't fly, lost his powers and had to use an armored suit?Originally Posted by Lothic
I remain unconvinced that they are going to go 100% no-superpower/Emma Peel mode with this new show. I accept that it's a possibility, just a fairly unlikely one.
The reason is that even though geeky people like us might remember the travesty of the Cathy Lee Crosby movie or the period of time when the Wonder Woman comic book went through her "no powers" phase I suspect the general public has no knowledge of these things. Pretty much the only default idea -anyone- has of Wonder Woman comes from Lynda Carter's portrayal of the character.
Now when I say "general public" I also sadly include most Hollywood executive types, including the people involved with this new show. This is where Hollywood's relative ignorance of the source material may actually help the hardcore fans for once. It's quite possible that since the only widely known model for a live action Wonder Woman is Lynda Carter the producers of this new show might not be "aware" that a no-powers version of Wonder Woman even exists as a possibility. They may be so blinded by the "Wonder Woman = Lynda Carter" thing that they may be unwilling to radically alter the character as much as we fear they might.
I still think too many people are assuming too much with the "Wonder Woman as corporate executive" thing and jumping to the simplistic conclusion that means we're going to get "female Batman" out of this. Over the years Woman Woman has had many different "secret identities" in the comics and TV shows and they didn't all lead to the no-superpower/Emma Peel version of the character. Why can't her new alter-ego, in 2011, be an executive in a business setting without changing any of the other magical/mythical fundamentals of the character?
Until we know for sure I'm not assuming anything one way or the other.
What he was really thinking, of course, is that it would make for a great toy line to which he'd get a share of the conception rights.
Don't put your hopes on the common sense or fidelity to concept of entertainment industry executives. They all want to leave their fingerprints on something in the hopes it'll pan out for them. Victory has a thousand fathers and all that. -
This is not the first time something like this has been tried.
There was a really bad TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby where she was a secret agent type with gadgets.
The comics also had her go through a de-powered "Emma Peel" phase with the white outfits.
Both went over about as well as you'd expect.
People who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. -
Quote:Add in that DE Devoured are bugged to spawn as bosses even when set to No Bosses.Originally Posted by Korith
While I doubt that this is an exhaustive list:
-Combining Titans (as indicated by Arcanaville)
-Redcap LT upgrades to boss
-Elite Boss doesn't downgrade to Lt, assumed to have Boss-like drop schedule.
-Calystix the Shaper summons bosses (I think?)
-Lord Recluse Boss summon -
Based on a lot of elements of GR design, I kind of get the impression that Praetoria started life as a high-level environment and got kludged into a low-level environment.
It just seems like a lot of elements make more sense when targeted at higher-level characters. Extensive maps, high-intensity ambush waves, tougher critters and so forth. -
You're using Enzyme HOs in Invincible, exploiting the Debuff-as-buff bug. You really want Cytos, because they actually buff EndRdx, Def and ToHit.
Just saying, if the devs ever get around to fixing it... -
It used to be that only base HP counted for damage taken badges, most likely to prevent people "farming" the badges with CoT damage emanators and the like.
At some point in the middling past, it was changed without overt mention so that all damage counted. -
Subjective Feedback:
I also find the avian heads too small relative to the body proportions. In addition to feathered textures, we need a taloned hand glove option and a bird tail. I've been wanting to make a griffon-styled character for years and need the foreparts of an eagle and the hindparts of a lion. For me, that would mean eagle-styled head, chest and hands and leonid legs, feet and tail.
The animation for beast run didn't always match the movement speed to my eye. It made it look like a stationary figure in a looped animation while the surroundings scrolled past, rather than a figure moving through its environment. Also, the wing-beats on the descent arc of a jump seemed more rapid than they might need to be.
The Animal Fur texture needs to show up in every menu that has Monstrous Fur. -
Quote:I always love it when the truth of history gets sifted out from the hearsay of rumor.Originally Posted by UberGuy
That's not the story I know of. The one I know of (and saw a screenshot of) was someone using the Touch of Lady Grey: Chance for Negative Energy damage at a time when it dealt something like six million points of damage.
There's no way that even 68-slotting any attack in the game would one-shot Hamidon, even before ED. That's only 23.7x damage, and he withstands 30-50 well-buffed people beating on him for several minutes.
And I'd love to see that screenie. -
Quote:I heard Warshade but no, not facetious.Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
One shot by a Peacebringer, IIRC.
No, not being facetious.
Apparently this person used the Kheldian respec bug to 68-slot one attack power and WHAMMO!
You can not do this any more. -
Quote:I've heard that's been done as well, though it was a bug exploit rather than a genuine (i.e., WAI) attempt.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
I think everything's been soloed in the game at least once - apart from the Hamidon
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Quote:It's been done.Originally Posted by MunkiLord
Somebody soloed the STF?