SwellGuy

And he and a few others work their behinds off to get new stuff out to the public as quickly as possible. I'd be lost without ZM's guides to new stuff each time.

What? I suppose you're going to claim I am not Bender next?

This was the case for me as well however I certainly understood/understand why many were/are angry about it and especially how it was announced.

It came during a season of nerfs on top of everything else. While they may have been necessary I wouldn't expect anyone affected by it to be okay with it. And I think people posting about it have certainly cooled down quite a bit. Two or three years ago it still evoked angry posts as much as the week it was announced.

What about the increased hit points part of Dull Pain?

Me too. He's my only fully purpled character so he will be an Incarnate.

Yeah, once you have saved the 20-25 for a purple you may as well save for the 35 for the currently 2 billion+ PvP recipe.

True. I accepted I would rarely if ever have time to run TFs and pre-merits that meant I was stuck with only getting Pool C rare recipes through the market so I was going to have to acquire enough inf to do so.

Then they added merits so I was able to use Ouroboros to run arcs to get merits to random roll or buy my rare pool Cs in addition to the market.

Then they added bosses random chance to drop Pool C rare recipes so I made sure my characters who could handle bosses changed the difficulty slider to get them.

A lot of people left the game when the inventions/markets were added because they were unwilling to accept the new game changes. Nothing has changed other than the amounts and which items on the market people are complaining are too expensive. Meanwhile those who were willing to adapt to the changes or adjust their expectations are doing well.

No.

There are Vanguard Merits from Rikti stuff once you join the Vanguard at level 35.

There are Reward Merits (old merits) which are spent at Merit Vendors.

Now we have the new Hero and Villain Merits known as Alignment merits by most players. They can only be spent in The Crucible (villains) and Fort Trident (heroes).

You can buy an alignment merit for 20 million inf and 50 reward merits at The Crucible or Fort Trident.

The first time you reinforce a hero or villain morality you get 50 Reward Merits. After that it awards 1 hero or 1 villain merit.

Same.

My warshades, stalkers and most masterminds never took Fitness and ever since the news broke I haven't been taking Fitness on my new characters.

There have been a few times however those people didn't start off as entrenched in a flawed position when they posted and they didn't ignore/insult/complain with the first few responses.

Or to put it another way they actually came in with an open mind though they were unhappy with what they saw going on in the market.

That would be a mercy killing to be sure.

Let me see if I can help you out here though I don't have a lot of hope on that front.

First, this is a game. Unless you are cheating there is no morality in actions. If you refuse to accept this please explain to me how you play Chess, Risk, Monopoly, Battleship, etc.

Second, regarding they are rich. Unless they cheat (sell their inf for real money) they are not really rich except within the game. When I (rarely) win at Monopoly I still cannot afford to go buy a Big Mac with my winnings because they inform me that Monopoly money has no value.

Third, you are viewing the actions of the flippers on only one of their legs: the steady higher price of inpatient buyers.

They create a price floor and a price ceiling by their actions. They give someone who simply wants to sell it now the ability to sell it now for the floor price they have created and they give the ability for somone who wants to buy it now the ability to do so.

Without their activities you see, and it does happen in the market if you know what it looks like, something that you cannot sell in a timely fashion for even the NPC vendor price. Then at times there is a run on those items and people cannot buy them at anything close to a lower price. Then they come here and post about how flippers drove up the prices of X even though the reality is flippers aren't at work on that item.

The final point I would make is a flipper cannot make inf pricing it above what impatient buyers like me are willing to pay. The items will go unsold.

So for all the things a flipper does the only "bad" one is they prevent people from sometimes getting things for less than vendor prices but I see 3 benefits against that one detriment and for me no benefit is greater than saving me time by allowing me to buy and sell now.

Oh absolutely. Ever since that silly season of Dallas getting wiped by Bobby coming out of the shower it's been hard to trust series to not pull something like that.

I also toyed with the thought that he's dead and in hell of some kind.

That chopper is one of my big curiosities. Did he actually see it or was it a hallucination as the others believed?

(I am not looking for spoilers if any exist on this I was just writing out loud.)

/em Marvin the Martian "That makes me so angry."

You know, RMT spammers in AP's Wentworths are made of tin cans.

I got to say while a wild animal would be scary, zombies are still a bit more unnerving to me. But I would still be really unwilling to saw off body parts to get away. Saw open my throat to die quick? Yes. But I would expect I wouldn't live long after sawing off my hand anyway.

I am not going to do well in a zombie apocalypse without super powers.

Correct: In 'Batman Forever' Bruce tells Dick that "Two-Face could be halfway to Metropolis by now."

In 'Batman and Robin' Batman says "This is why Superman works alone."

Maybe he IS wearing one under his clothes...

That sounds like Marvin from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Who I am far too in agreement with.

Me? I am not into realism in my entertainment. I prefer complete escapism. Give me Batman/Superman/Spider-Man/Iron Man* coming to the rescue. Give me happy endings (though not schmaltzy).

This is not to say you cannot work in realistic downers in an escapist show. I often think of how terrific the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was. That ended on a total downer but in the third season they worked it back into a happy-ish ending.

So drama and tension? Yes. Downers like real life? No thank you. Give my hero (male/female) an obstacle to overcome but let them overcome it.

*or any other of a number of my favorite super heroes