Stormbird

Don't you go on at times about how your income isn't exactly high - being on disability or something? (I may be confusing you with someone else.)

How much should someone be *required* to buy to use these little gamble-packs? "Oh, hey, gamble on these. Now buy some slots. Now pay to unlock the ATs those others are for. Now pay for a market license." Yeah... no.

What if he has zero interest in playing an AT for the ATIOs he got?

Why should he have to throw money away? Typically if a hobby starts seeming that way - I leave the hobby. Have to wonder how many VIP/Premiums this sort of thing will be the tipping point for.

... which, of course, wouldn't help a Premium player.

You'd be wrong.

I'll grab some CCG packs, or did when I played - but I also went to the store (or later ebay) to purchase specific cards other players had gotten rid of.

If I want a costume set, I have no problem buying it. (And that's really all I'm interested in.) I *do* have a problem gambling on what could be many times the cost of purchase to get it. If I wanted to gamble, I'd go to Atlantic City or Vegas. (Something I never do. I was in Vegas *once,* and that was only to get from one terminal to another for a connecting flight.)

I don't mind if the gambling is "Hey, you might get the costume set cheaper with a pack or two, OR you can buy it outright." (Though what they'd do if you already had the set, I don't know. Have code to put an ATIO in there or something.) I do mind if it's the only way of getting those costume sets - and the devs know full well that, for some of us, the costuming is important. (And yes, I *am* annoyed at having some locked behind E/A-merits... I'd be more annoyed if I didn't think the pieces were kind of awkward looking.)

As was said previously:

... I'm feeling less "VIP" with that $15/mo. at this moment than I did before Freedom's launch. Characters held hostage ("Pay us or not only are they locked for slots, but for powersets!") Powers and missions held for ransom ("I don't care how long you've been loyal to us, NO INCARNATE POWER or SSA FOR YOU!") and now stuff like this.

Blah.

Seconded.

If someone wants to play a Dark/Dark Controller and a Dark/Dark Dom, but aren't VIP, are they going to be burning 2400 points? Or Dark Control as one set and the Dark secondaries bundled at 1600? (IOW, Dark Primary - 800, both Dark secondaries together - 800.) Or is it a Big Dark Pack at 1000, say?

I don't think they've done a thematic pairing like this since Freedom launched, so I'm very interested in seeing what they have planned in this situation.

How about sharing smouldering memos over coffee?

"Remember this one? 'All employees shall now be required to work mandatory voluntary overtime.'" *flicks a bic*

Lots of words, none relating to what you're asking about, though. (I usually prefer "discombobulation," myself. Though I've been in a Fahrvergnügen mood this morning.)

/this
Well, he imagines he has an imagination....

Honestly, I don't think it takes that much "spin" to be bad. To me, it's - well, like testing how long someone can keep their hand in a bowl of hot water. Everyone's got different tolerances, but eventually, you're pulling your hand out.

Besides, the human mind isn't really designed (so to speak) to grasp time on that sort of scale. If I say the Earth is (roughly) 4.6 billion years old, what does that mean to you? You can look at the number and its meaning, sure, but it doesn't *mean* anything to you. If I say the light from a certain star or galaxy we see *now* left there "when dinosaurs walked the Earth," you can kind-of-sort-of picture it, but do you really get a *feel* for that sort of time? (And we're only talking millions of years, there.) Even if I say "we're about 26,000 light years from the galactic center, meaning light we'd see from that is 26,000 years old or so" it's not a time scale most people will *really* grasp (even though it's within the timeframe our species has existed in or near how we are now.)

Frankly, if I wanted to experience the changes in "long time," I'd rather do so with a normal (or slightly extended) human lifespan as a time traveller, hopping through and sampling, rather than living through millions of years... much less eternity.

Edited as you were typing, apparently. Head back.

Short form: What about when you're the only human left? And (assuming we don't kill ourselves off) what about when the rest of the species evolves past you?

That's great... even for a few hundred years. But past that, I can't imagine it being pleasant. I'd see time really wearing on you, with death moving past being a sometime companion to a permanent one you can't go with. (Given theories of eternal expansion of the universe, it would end up with a very *dark* eternity you can't escape.)

I mean, how long can you really go seeing the world change? Parents die, siblings die - people deal with that all the time. Children die. Then you watch your grandchildren die. And great grandchildren. And on and on until you can't see whatsername's face in any of them any more. More than people, cities grow and die. Countries do. Eventually you reach geological time - what do you do if you outlive your species? When you can't even visit where your home was eons ago because it's now part of the ocean floor? When, as mentioned, the planet and the star it circles finally dies?

I don't recall if you play villainside or not, Sam, but there's one villain morality mission that I think touches on that perfectly. (And at the same time irks me, because some of my villains really wouldn't be that shortsighted.) You see yourself at three points in the future (and I'd argue that the second one, though you're ancient and godlike, shows you to be going rather insane) and the third one seems to realize just how much of a curse eternal life ends up being.

This *does* serve an important purpose that can't be accomplished in any other way. It 100%, completely and totally, moves the player characters out from being second-stringers, always under the shadow of Statesman.

Not "under the shadow of the Phalanx," which really, they never have been (and I'd say it could be argued that the *phalanx* was "Statesman and friends," even if the current incarnation, from well before this, was restarted by Positron.) But under the shadow of *Statesman.*

It removes that "Well, I don't REALLY have to do my best, if I fall, he'll pick it up" from the game. And I'd argue it does it at the *perfect* point. You said it would make more sense done as Incarnate content, perhaps with a level shift or two (paraphrasing.) To me, the fact we do this well into our "career" (as opposed to at or near the end - that career being 1-50, and yes, I am excluding incarnate levels as Premium players can play this too) not only passes on that torch but allows the player character to grow more, as well.

I've been saying precisely how I've read your stands in the past. If I've been completely misunderstanding you and have built an incorrect picture of you in my head because of it (a picture which, quite obviously, is being reinforced in this argument,) then I owe you an apology.

But that picture I've seen get built up from your posts, Sam, is one of someone that - if I can *really* boil it down - basically doesn't like change, period. I know that's an unfairly basic way of putting it, but if I had to sum up the way you appear to me in one sentence, that would be it.

Your description of your view above - and I agree with not liking "temporal spaghetti," even if I understand the need and development of it - doesn't exactly match up with that.

Why doom him to that? "Hey, thanks for being a hero, your reward is to just eternally see those you love die, their families die, eventually to watch the Earth get burnt to a cinder unless you leave."

He's *not that indispensable.*

And what was his final reward?

All knowledge, etc, sure. And *the ability to grow old and die.* Something you're denying Statesman by saying he's not allowed to die - ever. (And who says there wouldn't be a bigger threat than Kurgan, etc? The second movie isn't hated JUST for being bad, but for the whole "OK, you're allowed to rest... YOINK! Just kidding, go fight stuff!" nonsense.)

The fact he died with a smile on his face does not make one whit of difference about his ability (or lack) to have decided about his death.

No, they don't. If anything, they show a side of Statesman that hasn't been really highlighted much in game - his feeling that, yes, it IS "all on him," and that he hasn't realized before now that that simply is no longer true.


... They're dead, Sam. They would have no future endeavors.

Also, what the hell, Sam? Nobody EVER gets to rest/die in your book (except the bad guys?) Because that's what it sounds like to me.

... so why keep arguing for a miracle-resurrection? Especially when the majority of the in-game explanations for rezzes are the "brink of death."

What I find amusing about all this, as an aside, is remembering all the mortally offended arguments about why a necro MM could never be a hero....

And yet you argue against it and seem mortally offended, time and time again.

I listed *just the ones we know of, off the top of my head.*

Regardless, the *point* is that Statesman is not the only one at that level of power. He's NOT the "only one" who can carry along that burden. Even ignoring player characters, there's the rest of the Phalanx, their up-and-coming sidekicks the Vindicators (who really need to be let out of their mentors shadows at some point,) the Midnighters... how many other groups?

So, no, him realizing it's not all just on him, that he's actually NOT irreplaceable, is not "selfish." If anything, it's waking up and being LESS selfish and egotistical.

We defeat Recluse at 45, when we're not even at full *normal* power. We did that on SOs. Heroside, we do it in Mender Silos's arc. Villainside, VEATs do it on the spur of the moment in their mid-40s or whenever they decide to run that atrocious final mission with that ridiculous speech.

I'd say, yes, we ARE, if not leaps and bounds, at least a few hops more powerful even before Incarnatization.

Go back to the comics. I mean that in two ways:
1. To illustrate point B, and
2. to see just how ridiculous "Never really dead" gets. We get ridiculously close enough to this as it is without taking the heavily pushed "Permanent change to the game world, major character dying" and longjumping past that line.

No, I'm not.
Where did I say he "could be resurrected but didn't want to?" I never said that.

... he fights the inevitable, something he hadn't faced before, he's HAVING HIS POWER DRAINED FROM HIM PAINFULLY.... until he's convinced by the spirit of his wife that others can take up the burden he's carried, that the players really *are* capable of doing so after years of being inspired and trained by him...

And he's "weak and irresponsible?"

Really?


So, you're all for removing that statue in front of the King's Row tram, the Atlas statue, all the other ones to dead heroes - because, hell, at this rate they could ALL have been resurrected.

We shouldn't call Paragon the "City of Heroes," but the "City full of statues to lazy bums."

Again. Re-watch the cutscene.

Physically, yes, he's struggling.

Internally, he puts forward those same arguments about "being the only one," etc, etc, etc... and is finally brought to the realization he *isn't* the only one.

So, no, not "unseemly," and he didn't just let it happen without a fight.

To keep him from suffering more than he already had? Because fighting would have prolonged the pain? Wade wasn't tickling him and rubbing his shoulders with that ritual.
Not really, no.

Then be glad he did "struggle" (see above) before letting go.

Show you can handle the game world evolving - which you have yet to do, frankly, in pretty much *any* circumstance I can think of - and you can call it an attack instead of an observation.

Oh, wait, it was what, last week you finally decided you can "surrender" to the invention system?

ITF. 35 and higher. Incarnates are definitely introduced.
Praetoria. 1-25, and people from Primal can show up in First Ward at 20. Incarnates are definitely introduced.
RWZ. 35 and up. While not called one "yet," Lady Grey is an Incarnate.
Level 45, RWZ, LGTF. Hero 1 - Incarnate, Riktified.
Level 1-5, Mercy Island (old arcs.) Sstheno. Older (currently sleeping) Incarnate than Statesman - reintroduced at 40-45.
And, of course, the very hero you want to argue about (and his nemesis, Recluse) - level *1* and up.

So, yes, Sam, there are Incarnates. There may not be Level 40 PC Incarnates, but there are more Incarnates around than Statesman.

Edit: I also want to point out that in many of those cases, *Pre-Player-Incarnate* levels, we stomp those characters into the ground.

Good thing Statesman (a) isn't doing that, and (b) doesn't really have a choice in the matter.

You're taking the company president in my example to task for *daring* to die in a plane crash, or have a heart attack or something similar at that time.

And you say that character is selfish.

Guess what. The game world evolves. Pity your view of it can't. But, with your declaration there, you've pretty well declared there's no point discussing this further with you.

... Really.

So, Praetoria and all those trials - which he *has* to be aware of - are all a mass delusion?

...


Yeah. Right. Because, after all, nobody's as powerful as him.

... except, of course, all those Incarnates running around. Which was, metagame-speaking, rather the point of the Incarnate SYSTEM - to match and surpass the signature characters. (Which, in-game speaking, he *knows* is going to happen, because he refuses to give in to the Well. Or expand his powers through it.)

See, this actually DOES deserve a real-life example. If you start a business, it's "all" on your shoulders - payroll, marketing, paying bills, etc. When the company grows, you really *can* hire an HR person/department, a payroll department, let someone else be trained to build your widgets and such. And you get to retire. Doing so is not "weaseling out" of your responsibilities. You did your part. And there comes a time to step aside and *let others do their jobs.*

Covered previously.
(A) Done once, that's more than enough, and
(B) even that required *someone else* to die, and had a time limit, on top of quite a bit of preparation.
And he hasn't been.

OK. At what point does he get to die, then, Sam? Because there's always - *always* - some "bigger bad" coming. When does he get to "pass on the mantle?"

Wade wants to release/control Ruularu. According to you, he's not allowed to die.

We know the Praetorian invasion is underway. There's a superpowered alternate-him still around. So according to you, he's still not allowed to die.

Recluse - who's at his level - is still around. So according to you, he's not allowed to die.

The Coming Storm is - well, coming. So according to you, he's not allowed to die.

After that, what comes? We've now got a ton of Incarnate-level villains running around - *more* powerful than him. So according to you, he's not allowed to die.

And you call him selfish?

Well, given you're making a *real life* request ("If I die with a smile on my face, someone please revive me") in response to a *fictional* character's death....


No, actually, it doesn't. Unless you're using an odd thesaurus that has "ruination" as a synonym for "welcomed final rest."

In the Wheel of Time series, we're told flat out that Graendel killed Asmodean. By the author.

You're seeing that and saying "No, that source of information is suspect, I think actually that some random Aes Sedai did it instead."

You may not *like* it, but being told *flat out by the author(s)* is not "inferring" anything.

Play it and watch the cut scene again. This is already covered.