SuperOz

No cousins until we get a Hulk movie that actually performs as a movie, I think. And Red Hulk won't fly, but the Leader was beautifully set up in Norton's movie. Logical extension of that movie.


S.

The easiest out of those three is Mar-vell, though they may have to do something about the name (imagine the groans of the audience hearing what they think is the worst in-joke ever...) but he'd introduce the Kree and Skrulls.


S.

Broadly I agree with you except that unlike DC's big three, where the origins of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman can be quoted verbatim by even the most casually interested person, but with Marvel it could only be said that Spider-Man and the Hulk (due to the television shows) had any real form of lasting recognition with the public.

And even much less so with Iron Man, Thor and the rest of the Avengers. These movies reinvented and resold the core Marvel characters for audiences who thought Marvel entirely consisted of Tobey Maguire, Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman. DC has had the advantage of being in existence since the 1930's, nearly eighty years now, and Marvel has had half that and with nowhere near the cultural influence thanks to movies like the original Superman.

Whedon's mark of quality comes from recognising the Marvel characters and remaining true to them above anything else. I'd argue he has to take more care here to present them authentically because with his own creations, there's no preconceptions with them. They're new and freshly minted. His recent run on the X-Men comic showed that he took the time to get to know the characters and didn't try and reinvent the wheel. And I strongly feel it taught him the structure and styling of what Marvel wanted in their team movie.



S.

I think it's more Joss doing what he enjoys doing, sneaking in swearing in ways the censors can't deal with. Firefly loved doing that with constant swearing in Mandarin, I believe it was. Using the q-word was entirely consistent for Loki to say and it was great to have him use it in the venomous tone that he did.

Proves to me that you can swear in a story and not be as crass as a lot of modern films are.




S.

He's already been inked in for six appearances as Banner with cameos in Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2, The Avengers 2 and 3, and finally, a Hulk movie of his own.

Ta-da. Amazing what one great film does for one's career.



S.

Thanks. I think good manners costs nothing, as the old saying goes. No sense arguing when the argument isn't going anywhere.

Well, I think the focus shifting the Incarnate System and so squarely making it about raiding instead of individual TF's or perhaps scripted events/missions is what made it so homogenous. There's never going to be room for diversity in groups above a dozen people. It's interesting that the old Mothership Raid actually works against that notion because the emphasis is squarely on the individual teams doing individual jobs either leading up to or as part of the actual attack on the Mothership.

People have roles there. Take down the pylons, take out the bombs. Focus on a certain type of Rikti. I find it small wonder that Mothership Mondays on Virtue have been refined by their raid leaders with incredibly concise and on-point leadership given that the raid is surprisingly elegant in its simplicity and does, in fact, allow individual teams or even individuals to shine.

I haven't seen anything (as ironically indicated by Forbin) that suggests the coding of the game can't handle AT-specific 'moments'. And surely people would like them? I have trouble seeing a good argument contrary....



S.

I think he does....and yeah, that's easily my best Banner line ever in a movie. Some of my favorite comics stuff (the stuff with the metronome in Hulk 2 is lifted from a critically welcomed run in the book) has snuck into the movies, and now....now Bruce can change.

At will.

Be afraid, bad guys. I'd love to think this will lead into a bit more of a talking, even snarky Hulk like Peter David used to write. There was nothing more hillarious for me than having someone try and beat down on that Hulk and him making some smart-alec comment and then smashing them. One of my best remembered lines was from the long-ago House of M storyline where he just demolishes Sydney and the Opera House in the course of defeating the bad guys and is asked

'Hulk, why did you destroy the buildings? And the Opera House?'

'Can't stand opera.'


That's my boy. I still want a 'Hulk' transformation costume change!





S.

The number of times I had people try and BS a column shift to Beyond...

Such a great system and so evocative, for mine. I hear the new one (which I own but haven't sat down and properly read) is similarly pick up and play.


S.

This is why you play a SS/Inv Brute. Moments just. like. this.

Btw, when can we have the tearing clothes costume change? I mean like...who doesn't want to 'Hulk Out' in the game? Or is that Marvel copyright?

'I'm sorry, but Marvel informs us the shedding of clothes in this manner is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any form.'



S.

As someone who's a long, long time Hulk fan, and owns both the other Hulk films (I know, I'm a glutton for punishment) it's been a long time coming to see the Hulk have some personality beyond being just angry.

Ruffalo's said in interviews that this is Banner stopping running and facing the world. And he summed it up beautifully in his at-will transformation scene.

'I'm always angry.'

But that builds on that telling moment from the end of Incredible Hulk with Norton smirking, eyes aglow with gamma green. All of Ruffalo's acting as Banner and Hulk, even the on all-fours hunching, and roaring at Stark to wake up tells you Hulk is concerned about his friends. And that is tremendously cool. Little wonder people are saying he's the standout character in this movie.

Well, he is to me, anyways.



S.

I'll consider that....I'm on Virtue, by the way. I consider a large part of what happens at least from a personality perspective in the movie during that scene is roleplaying. Now, I know that a lot of people don't roleplay and don't necessarily credit a dramatic scene with the appropriate 'dramatic reaction' for want of a better term, but things like movies in those situations play it straight; they're not certain if this is the end of the world and they may even die. Unlike us the viewer who know about things like script protection and actors not dying because they're on the marquee, the characters are totally into it.

I do think something like the Coming Storm/Battalion could or should have a lot of these elements in some format; the Praetorian 'War' has felt like a lot of back and forth tit-for-tat exchanges where the actual intentions of both sides, at least for me, weren't really defined beyond 'do a lot of collateral damage to Primal Earth' and 'reveal Emperor Cole as a bad guy'. I felt the Rikti trying to establish a beachead on Earth had that really tight focus to it where you could easily envision set goals like preventing the Mothership from launching more ships, or preventing Rikti troops from capturing Terra Volta. Some may feel the Apex/Tin Mage II/Sutter and other TF's do that well, but I found it to be disjointed as a story.

I'm definitely aware though of the gamer mentality of if you're offered two paths for a reward, players will invariably take the easier path. The path of least resistance is a long-standing game theory and I have no doubt that's why Dark Astoria was put on the table. You could argue that Trials are the faster and easier way to get the 'rewards' of Incarnate powers, but Dark Astoria's only limitations are the ones that players put upon themselves on how quickly and often the arcs are run. No pressure to get into a League, no rush to do a number of them in order.


Me, I just want some feeling of that cinematic experience. I'll freely admit I want game balance to be put aside in favor of story, but for no other reason that I feel doing that not only breaks from the notions that all tasks are able to be done by all characters equally (and I'm not arguing this be universally true; just for these particular circumstances) but allows individuals to shine in an otherwise collective 'lump' of experience.

It's selfish but also human to want to be recognised individually for your efforts. I don't think it'd be wrong at all to have moments for Scrappers/Tanks/Brutes/Controllers/Blasters et al to show off. After all, a lot of the story of this game is about you being the hero, not 'you all'. But in a 'you all' gathering, I think it'd be great to highlight just what makes your AT and powerset special, and let other people see it too.

That can't be wrong, right?


I'll send you a PM, Winterminal....maybe we can nut something out.



S.

Then that's your subjective opinion and not really measurable, as opposed to my own personal opinion of what I think would draw people to it. Pretty straightforward, I'd say.



Oy. I'm not going to bother.



And I'm putting the majority of these events and the instanced ones and saying the elements are there. To say it's not possible is to say that the individual components couldn't be combined.



No, not really. You have a particular opinion of what you think doesn't work, and I've never challenged your right to have that and instead of addressing it, you say 'no, it's not going to work'. That's sidestepping, mate. Opinions can be really absolutist if you let them, and I'm not really concerned about whether you agree with me or not. But have the courtesy to address them rather than just be dismissive.


Or, more importantly, you have a set opinion about what people do and don't like, how they do or don't respond and you're not inclined to accept any other stance than the one you've taken. There's no point in trying to make a point if that's the position you're coming from.




And I've seen how you've responded, Forbin. You've got your opinions, you're entitled to them, I disagree with them and I'm cool with those two things not being reconciled. I'm not going to discuss this with you further because what I personally think and what you personally think are not going to find middle ground. I am really genuinely fighting the urge to take some shots at some of your comments, but I'm not going to do that, because that was never the purpose of this thread, and I see more people offering constructive discussion rather than just trying to disagree.

I think you can respect that, so we'll move on, shall we?



S.

Wow, aren't you a little ray of sunshine? Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed or something? 'Oh, yawn...not a big attraction.'

In what alternate universe where apparently breaking all these components up into seperate events become somehow more fun than putting them logically into one continuous scenario? Are you seriously going to compare a moving, dynamic event such as what occurs in the movie to something like a Rikti Raid where the 'strategy' is 'stand in one spot and wait for the waves of spawn to appear in the huge cluster of heroes that stand around for the free XP?'

COME ON.

And you didn't even attempt to answer my question...instead, you sidestepped it by saying 'oh, nothing new.'

We don't have anything like that scenario in the game and you know it. You're just being disingenuous at this point because of that. And you're also talking about a zone event when everybody, including myself (the originator of the thread) agreed it'd work better in a Trial or a TF. If the concept doesn't interest you that much that you're simply just nitpicking, then it'd be better to just say 'I don't like this' and move on, because that'd be better than what you're doing now.



S.

Okay, be nice first of all to people who haven't seen it yet and may appreciate no spoilers (I and others have made an effort here...) and please refrain from any more?

Alright, of the above list...how many exist in the same scenario? You only get destructable environments in Safeguards. You don't get the nukes, you don't get the alien invasion, nor the side-switching, nor the apparent inability to get along, nor a base nor a base raid.

The specific scenario I mentioned has all of those in the one package. CoH does not.

Or are you now going to tell me we're somehow better off because we can't combine or have multiple of the things above? Because if we could, we'd have what appears in that scene, everyone would have a moment to shine in a team environment and you'd have not only an exciting and dramatic scenario, but also an entertaining one.

Those things you listed are often isolated. Rikti raids. Bases. Safeguards. Nukes. Destructable environments are so isolated I'm not sure if they even get used much anymore. You can claim we have them, but in this case the sum of the parts do not equal the whole.

So to turn the question back on you: What do you think we do have that's comparable?



S.

There's a lot to be crazy for, trust me. I'll be the first to say a new skin for the Team Teleporter, for one. Of course, that'll be a copyright thing...and speaking of copyright, is the Hulk's transformation costume change (for want of a better term) copyrighted as well? I think a lot of people would want that whole 'ripping and tearing of clothes' thing (more sounds than anything else, I guess) and I've never really seen it come up.

And hopefully my ideas on what I thought made it a great team scenario shine through, too.


S.

Actually, I found full Marvel and DC conversions to the system online. As soon as you added in Adventure! (their pulp era prequel to the game) you were able to cover all the talented Natural heroes.



S.