Venture

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  1. Babylon 5 was created by a perfect storm of the right creator coming together at the right time with the right actors and the right support people and the right network, i.e. one that was willing to let JMS do his thing without interference. It was an accident, and this is borne out by the fact that every attempt to continue the series has tanked in some way.

    Accept it for what it is and let it be.
  2. So, getting back on topic:

    Quote:
    So, everyone who writes for Marvel is "intensely morally disturbed"? Because the Marvel U has been throwing villains in the Vault or Ravencroft, and using them as guinea-pigs for decades now. Have you ever even READ a Marvel or DC comic?! Much less a lot of what goes on in this game right here! Praetorian arcs must induce atrial fibrillation in you. Don't run the MoM trial by the way!! Intensely morally disturbed people wrote that.
    Writing villains who do bad things doesn't make one a bad person. Neither does playing one, either as an actor or as a PC/NPC in a tabletop game. I've had to roleplay some very bad people as a GM. Stories need villains and sometimes those villains have to do things worse than steal forty cakes.
  3. Quote:
    In a way you do control how people respond.
    No, I don't. People choose what they want to be offended by.

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    You obviously don't care that you're a mostly ignorable figure on the forums, as you continue choosing to portray yourself in a superior way without regard to courtesy or manners
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Henry Higgins
    You see, the great secret, Eliza, is not a question of good manners or bad manners, or any particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls. The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you've ever heard me treat anyone else better. Pickering treats a flower girl as if she were a princess, but I treat a princess as if she were a flower girl.
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    and act in a condesending fasion to anyone without an identical opinion. (sic)
    Actually I treat their opinions in a condescending fashion.

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    And people respond to that in a very consistant way.
    No, actually, they don't. Some get their panties in a wad because I wasn't "nice" enough to them. Some take umbrage and blow up; some fire back. The ones really worth talking to ignore the delivery, focus on the content and respond accordingly, perhaps with a good-natured snark or three thrown in just to keep me honest.
  4. The problem with Abrahms' Star Trek is that it just isn't.

    Through all its incarnations Trek tried always to preserve some sense of grandeur and wonder about the future and about what was out there in deep space, and it tried to give us meaningful characters. Abrahms' iTrek replaces the grandeur and wonder with lens flares and explosions and the meaningful characters with people screaming at each other and a near-endless barrage of one-liners and sight gags (which is all those clods Kurtzman and Orci know how to write). Original Trek at least tried to be a more high-brow breed of science fiction; iTrek is only distinguishable from the Transformers franchise by its lack of giant robots.

    That they can't even think of anything better to do than to rehash Khan is just the final nail in the coffin for me. If the next one really is going to be Khan 2.0 I'll pass, thanks.
  5. Quote:
    Actually, you are. You may be able to evoke a reaction sometimes, but don't you ever wonder how much what you say really matters when other people who've been here just as long as you say "ignore him"?
    Honestly, no. I don't control how people choose to respond to what I have to say.
  6. Quote:
    Obvious troll is obvious.
    Trolls are people who post things they don't personally believe just to provoke a reaction. I don't do that. I am a WYGIWYG application: What You Got Is What You Get. I speak my mind. If you can't handle that, too bad. Much like the rest of the world I am not here to spare your delicate sensibilities, which you are cordially invited to shove where the sun doesn't shine.

    I will also point out, for the record, that I did not at any point insult anyone. The inciting incident consisted of me pointing out a ridiculous statement. If someone is so thin-skinned as to consider this a grievous offense that person needs to get off the net. We'll manage without them, trust me.

    Quote:
    Someone comes in, gives the canon description of where the Rogue Isles are, and you probably just clicked on the profile, saw a relatively short-time player, and decided to get your jollies.
    I didn't even look at the post count until later in the discussion. I don't really care one way or another. Arcanaville's gotten the same from me as I gave this scrub.

    Quote:
    Despite your blustering, you had not covered that in this topic, so how was someone supposed to know? Not all of us can commit every factoid to memory, not all of us have the time to scroll through years-old thread archives that discuss where the Isles are.
    Go to maps.google.com and type in "Bermuda". This is the Internet, where most of the accumulated knowledge of mankind lives. I didn't know where Bermuda was until it came up in discussions here -- I thought it was down by Florida, actually. In any case, it only takes a moment to fact-check small details like this and if you can't be bothered to take that moment then you deserve to get called out on it when you screw up.

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    Newsflash, jackass: just because you think you're all that doesn't mean you are.
    Actually that's kind of the problem with the net. As it was explained to me, decades ago (back when we had those BBS things instead of this newfangled 'intertubes' hibbity-jibbity...I go back to 300 baud ), people come out here who are used to being "the smart guy" in their own little cliques only to find out that everyone out here is "the smart guy". People on the net aren't going to treat you in that nice, comfortable deferential manner you're probably accustomed to. They're going to get in your face, call you out on your mistakes and challenge your opinions (which, let us note again, can be wrong) in ways you're probably not used to. All of that is a good thing, frankly. If you can't deal with someone being confrontational on the Internet then why should anyone believe you have the chops to deal with "crunch time" in the real world, situations that have gone pear-shaped?

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    An ill-tempered, mean-spirited, sad, powerless little troll.
    Putting aside the inaccurate classification, please make up your mind. If I'm driving people away in droves I'm not exactly "powerless".
  7. Quote:
    And just in general, can I not post anywhere on the internet without getting hostility and grief for the effort?
    No.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sparkly Soldier View Post
    No, I'm STATING it. You're the one who jumped in and went all Yosemite Sam on a complete stranger for trying to be helpful, just because you don't like the answer. I don't care one way or the other, except that the Rogue Isles not being a part of the U.S. explains why nobody's stormed the place yet.
    You're new around here.

    You didn't post anything no one had seen before. We've been over this material many, many times, each time many of us pointing out that the official lore on the Isles is *****. So what really happened is you jumped without looking into a minefield in the middle of a shooting war and were shocked, shocked! when you caught shrapnel and stopped a bullet.
  9. This is the movie Michael Bay wants to make when he grows up.
  10. Quote:
    Okay, why are you acting like I WROTE the story?
    Because you're defending it.

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    That's not some archived quote, it's the website as of right now.
    I know.

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    It's apparently closer to Bermuda than anything else, or the description wouldn't have mentioned it, and it's around the 50 mile marker.
    Or it's just poorly written. I mean, you could describe New Jersey as being "west of France" and technically you'd be correct. The Bermuda reference is most likely an artifact from earlier (long-since deleted) references to the Isles being in the Bermuda Triangle.

    Quote:
    If you need to reconcile this with real-world geography, tell yourself a teleporting supervillain moved Bermuda or something. Just don't jump down my throat for quoting the site.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Megajoule View Post
    Goes hand in hand with the Cardboard Prison, Joker Immunity, Villain With Good Publicity, etc etc etc.
    There are good ways to implement such tropes and bad ways. This would be a stupendously bad way.
  12. Quote:
    Edit: Reading through the whole history, yep, it's an island nation in the neighborhood of Bermuda.
    Dude, do you know where Bermuda is? If the Rogue Isles are anywhere near the 50-mile line they are nowhere near Bermuda. And vice-versa. And if they're "a suburb of Paragon City" then the idea that they're not wholly under US jurisdiction is laughable.
  13. Quote:
    I'm not too familiar with corporate law, but I'm pretty sure you can't convict an entire corporation of any one single crime, just people involved in running it, and you can't seize all of a corporation's property unless it files for bankrupcy or is bought up.
    RICO laws. Crey, Inc. would have been seized as soon as the Countess was arrested.

    Of course, it's also supposedly canon that the arrest didn't stick, which in and of itself would have all my blue characters either turning vigilante or retiring.
  14. Not in dispute; the problem is people keep trying to go from "bad" to "great" without doing the steps in-between. You have to actually climb Wittgenstein's Ladder before you're allowed to throw it away.
  15. Quote:
    C'mon, Batman and superman wipe the floor with huge mobs all the time.
    And then, when the plot requires it, they get taken out by one mook. Things that work in non-interactive media don't necessarily work in games.

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    The whole point of the Super-Hero genre is to be as ridiculously over-powered as possible.
    The point of the superhero genre is that the characters have superhuman powers. Nothing less and nothing more. They can't be ridiculously overpowered or there's no story and/or no game.

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    Now I'm gonna have to call bull here. I mean you're doing something you hate purely to for the sake or profit? Kind of selling your soul there, aren't you?
    My what?
  16. Art has lots of rules and if you break them before you learn how to follow them the results are likely to be "not entirely successful".
  17. Play "Psychophage" (#283197) and get back to me.
    • Destroy Ouroboros -- I would remove all forms of time travel. Ouroboros would be retconned out as a Nemesis plot. The flashback system would be recast as an AE/holodeck type system used by the PPD and Arachnos to allow operatives to re-live noteworthy cases.
    • Destroy all parallel worlds, including Praetoria -- "Parallel world" being defined as usual as worlds in other dimensions similar enough to the "homeworld" as to be recognizable but with one or more key differences. Like time travel they're a lazy writer's tool and they promote continuity snarls of epic magnitude. Think them as a serpent's egg which, hatched, would grow mischievous, etc. They're out. The thus-far unrevealed Rikti homeworld would be revealed as an "alternate world", however, and not a parallel.
    • Another round of nerfs -- If you can solo past +1x2 or thereabouts, you need to be nerfed. If you can solo at +4x8 you need to be nerfed badly. Included would be a fix for the absurd buff/debuff stacking system, a mistake MMO granddaddy EverQuest managed to avoid making 5 years before this game launched.
    • Open zone PvP -- I don't like PvP personally but it sells. I'd shore up the PvP system and work in a PvP switch that would allow characters to visit the "enemy" zones with the stipulation that their switch would be forced on. We'd also have PvP missions; frinstance a villain might be able to do a mission chain that results in him building a deathray (etc.), which attracts hero PCs. Eventually godmoding NPCs (Freedom Phalanx, e.g.) show up and smash it but the longer you hold out the bigger the reward at the end.
    • Remove Caltrops -- replacing the power with one that builds a small cottage. Oh wait, no one would hate that.

    Just off the top of my head.
  18. Quote:
    It's a lousy design and I'm really unhappy that you're foisting it upon us.
    Seconded.
  19. Way behind on this thread, but:

    Quote:
    I found it. It is indeed a Paragon Times article.

    http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Times/20050615

    It seems like Tielekku was mainly upset at the fact that teaching mortals magic would encourage them to stop worshiping the gods (thus weakening them
    Take this with a huge grain of salt. It's extraneous material, it's told from a particular character's point of view and it doesn't jive with in-game material. Akarist's writings in-game claim the Oranbegans still venerated Tielekku. She also left behind her titular scroll with instructions on how to summon her if the Banished Pantheon returned, which doesn't seem like something she'd do for people she wanted to beat up. And when she does finally show up she doesn't go all "insolent mortals!" but more like "o hai u can haz ant-death god ritualz". Hequat's extremism appears to be limited to her.
  20. Quote:
    They have exactly one option when it comes to "restricting what players are allowed to do": specifically code it into the game.
    That's not in dispute.

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    Every time you use the market you're benefiting from the largess of farmers.
    No, every time I use the market I look at uncommon salvage that used to cost 1-5K and now costs 50-100K or rares that used to cost one million now selling for three. I'm not seeing anyone's "largess" and much of the time get what I want through alternate means rather than pay outrageous prices.
  21. Quote:
    Something a lot of people in this community don't understand (including, apparently, devs) is that you don't get to dictate what other players think is fun.
    No, but developers do get to dictate what players are allowed to do, and they should. Lots of people think lots of things are fun for them that are actually bad for the community and game as a whole. Farming has done nothing positive for the game in general and helped destroy MA in particular. Of course, if the devs actually wanted to shut down farming in MA it would be trivial to do so. It all just goes back to the "disappointing toy" vibe they seem to be giving off about MA.
  22. Quote:
    I will say though, for style points I have to give the Knives of Vengeance credit. They were at least flashier than any other mob and kind of entertaining to fight.
    Actually they come off as someone's first attempt at a custom MA faction. Their costumes are an explosion in a junk factory and their powers are a random assortment of the most recently-released "cool" powersets.
  23. Quote:
    Its a shame that such a great labor of love by the Devs not sits mostly unused due to the company's Legal Dept who are so overzealous in their job they actually made the MA system near useless for those of us interested in creating stories with it.
    Three of my arcs are blocked because of this filter. A fourth is technically playable but damaged. It's been over a year and nothing has been done so I think it is fair to say that nothing will be done.
  24. Oh gods, the pains are coming back....

    Quote:
    There's a big difference between knowing in your gut that a government is evil and actually having tangible proof about it.
    Tangible proof of corruption and violation of human rights in a totalitarian government's police service is found by putting on a badge and showing up for work. This is hammered home in-game in Cleo's arc, wherein you enter a police station to see the cops matter-of-factly beating the living daylights out of a suspect while you are investing three officers all of whom have something going on the side. One of the corrupt officers later tells you point-blank that Tyrant's regime is killing people on a daily basis to keep his little charade going. In case that's not enough for you we were also told this straight-up, Word of God, by the devs at the HeroCon (or whatever) live panel that introduced GR.

    Criminal behavior is endemic in police states.. If you are involved in any capacity related to state security in a totaliatarian government you must at least be willfully blind to what is going on around you. The fact that your government is torturing and murdering its own people will not be some deep dark secert only known to the inner circles. It will be something your fellow officers joke about around the water cooler.

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    Or are you saying that every police officer who worked during Nixon's administration should be shoved against a wall as well?
    Nixon committed a litany of sins but running a police state was not one of them. In any case your question was already answered in the previously-quoted material so I suggest you add slots to Reading Comprehension.

    Quote:
    And before you question the Responsibility PC's actions, keep in mind that this story arc doesn't care what faction you belong to.
    Well, actually, it does, at least until it doesn't (i.e. after level 20; whether or not you leave the story assumes you've at least defected from the State.)


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    Heck, even Power Loyalists can probably be considered good guys, apart from one wild night out where you drank a little too much.
    No, they can't. Power Loyalists use people for their own purposes at every step of the way.

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    The only thing that really stinks about Praetoria is the treatment they give to the Seers
    You're giving them a pass on the mind control drugs in the water, then? Just to get the ball rolling.

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    Half the PC Warden' career was spent cleaning up the messes of the Crusaders, culminating with a fight against Calvin Scott at the last mission (unless you think it's a good idea to blow up the only source of clean water in the city).
    If you refuse to blow up the Enriche plant, you defect to the State.

    Sure, sometimes the Wardens stop individual Crusaders from going too far off the deep end, but they're still married to the Crusaders body and soul. Thus the Julius Caesar quote. The Wardens may pride themselves on having clean hands but they accept aid and resources from people they know can only provide such through "vile means".

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    So... are you accepting that the heroic side in Praetoria consists of responsability loyalists and warden resistance? Or are you saying that there is no heroic side in Praetoria?
    There is no heroic side in Praetoria. If you are looking for heroes in a totalitarian state, you're going to need a shovel.

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    Interestingly, my loyalist saved Vanessa DeVore from Mother Mayhem, because she's just like me: She accepts that her allies are extremists, but is determined to try to guide them onto a better path from within.
    Whatever gets you through the night, baby, but anyone who actually believes something like this is deep enough in denial to have tea and scones with Stanley and Livingstone.

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    The point of the responsibility story line is to slowly build up just how corrupt the system is.
    No, you are immediately shown how corrupt the system is.

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    "Rescuing" the poor deluded Praetorians and teaching them the wonders of western democracy becomes the point of the iTrials, but I think this is doing a disservice to the theme of Going Rogue and, as others have pointed out, suggest that the original idea of Going Rogue has been largely discarded at this point. Which is sad.
    Again, we were told straight-up that Tyrant is the bad guy and his government is evil. The idea that there was going to be some kind of moral ambivalence about it is some fantasy some of the players concocted.