Eisregen_NA

Well, that really is a matter of taste. Mind you, I didn't think he was funny in the 'Meet the...' movies. Then again, I don't really like Robin Williams' straight comedies either. Mrs. Doubtfire was pretty much stale **** compared to, say, Patch Adams, What Dreams May Come, Good Will Hunting, Insomnia or Dead Poets Society.

Psh. Of course he could. Did you see Stardust by any chance? Not quite the same, but close enough for my tastes.

You should have gone on to include Inherit the Wind. For such an old movie, it still gets me really riled up in all sorts of ways, and considering the modern day Creationism shenanigans going on in parts of the world, it's actually timely again.

Oh, one more for those into theatre adaptions. Well, two actually. Julius Caesar with the young and very yummy Marlon Brando as Marc Antony giving a very interesting and riveting version of Antony's speech on the senate steps. It's certainly not how I'd expect the speech to be delivered, but Brando really makes it work. And then there's Al Pacino's outing as Shylock in the recent adaptation of the Merchant of Venice. Not my favourite Shakespeare play, but Pacino brings his trademark fury to the character of Shylock and manages to make you feel sorry for him and despise him at the same time.

...meh, while I'm at it I should point to Branagh's version of Much Ado About Nothing. Possibly Branagh's best (at least his most entertaining) attempts of adapting stage plays for the screen. Even Keanu Reeves rocks in this...

I figured so when you spoke of 'a thinker's movie' in the OP. Several posters on IMDB have apparently actually gotten lost in the story because they got hooked on details. On that note, I presume you've seen Ronin (the Frankenheimer movie with De Niro and Reno) which uses a smilarly subdued narrative. A lot is implied about the various characters, their motivations and backgrounds, but you really need to look for the clues to get an idea of who they are. Plus, it has some amazing car chases.

To be fair, he's not really acting. His role really is that of a more passive Hamlet who's just observing everything around him going to hell. Most of the time, he's just required to stand there and vapidly stare at stuff happening.

This.

Though it's not the worst survey I've come across by far, it's very biased and leading. I'm pointing this out because I don't know how your Prof will react when he looks at your survey as part of your source material. While I trust that you will have other sources to draw from, a dodgy conclusion based on unreliable evidence gained from a dodgy survey might spoil things a little.

The worst one for me was the question that implied a connection between the level of violence and the morality represented in a game. I'd personally see the two independent of one another, but moreover there is a tradition in the west of the 'good guys' in entertainment media getting away with being incredibly violent as long as they only perpetrate their violence on the bad guys.

Not to mention that based on anecdotal evidence, a lot of problems regarding kids getting access to media out of their age range has to do with parents being oblivious of the content and (rightfully) not trusting or believing in broad age rating systems. Which leads me to a wholly different can of worms that is differing standards of propriety in different countries, which, given the multi-national pool of people you're drawing from, further blurs the 'morality' question.

Well, I'd gladly tell you how it runs on my 4850... unless I upgrade my graphics card beforehand.

Somebody give the man a cigar. Mostly because I like him, but also because he's smarter than the entire ******* CO Dev team taken together.

Yeah, this right there makes me totally want to keep talking to you.

I'm holding my (also very out of date) empirical evidence against yours. Since neither of us can prove our claims, this is pretty much it. I definitely don't have any videos from 10 years ago, but if I tell you I've known guys who (admittedly in close quarters) could circle-strafe okay players dizzy and kill them with their MP5 without getting hit once and that these players never cared to touch a Colt or AK, you'll have to take it at face value. I've also known people who racked up insane amounts of kills with knives only, but admittedly that is more a psychological issue than one of knives' in-game performance.

Likewise, the Colt and the lesser Assault Rifles are great for people with a bad aim cause they give you chances to correct your problems. The AK is much more powerful but requires you to know what you're doing. Which one of them is the best gun you speak of? In your post, you've already attached conditions. This is the best for them, this is the best for the other team. Which one is that 'best' gun you postulate in the post I was replying to? So far you've mentioned three possible options plus the AWP.

Speaking of the AWP. The G3 Scenario is again based on empirical evidence I've gathered in my time. You can disbelieve it, but that doesn't change the fact that I've seen it. Now, you can be a cnut about this and try to attack my character or you can accept that I've played with different people than you know.

No argument, the Colt, MP5 as well as the basic CT pistol are easiest to make work. The AK, Deagle and AWP require you to aim a bit more since the rate of fire is lower. My point was that people can use other guns just as efficiently, or use one of the above more efficiently than people would give it credit for. People will go the path of least resistance, because they're lazy *****, but, and this is what I tried to get at, this doesn't invalidate the alternatives.

In CO, by comparison, there really are no alternatives. It's like having the choice between a Colt and a bag of oats to throw at your enemies, not the choice between a Colt and an AK.

Oh, I know. I have a few Stamina-less builds myself. An ELA Brute, a Cold Corruptor, sundry. And yes, Fitness CAN be explained away, and Hasten too. You CAN explain everything away inside your context if you really need to. Still. My DM/DA Scrapper to this day doesn't have Hasten because I don't want him to have glowing hands. It's jarring to me, it doesn't fit. Other people only care for the numerical benefit and gladly slap Hasten on anyone and anything.


The lack of energy-type melee attacks of any kind really bothered me as well, incidentally. You'd have thought that their much-vaunted power customization would allow you to just tack something neat-looking onto Might or Unarmed MA attacks. "Who cares about the damage type, I just want it to look like he's punching people with burning fists."

But really, with the advanced technology of most any superhero universe, carrying drones and mines is a non-issue to rationalize. Just think of it as a super-powered arms race. "My powers didn't do it by themselves, so I stopped by Nerdy Ned's Nuclear Nonsequiturs and loaded up."

Okay, that doesn't sound very heroic, granted. But it's still a valid IC explanation.

As an old-school Counter-Strike player I'd have to disagree. I've known a lot of people who were unstoppable dervishes with an MP5 and used it to a much better effect than the M4. Me, I used the AK-47. At close range, you were dead anyhow, and at long range I'd headshot you with a double tap. Can't do that with the M4. On sniper rifles, most people gravitated to the Arctic Warfare, but people who took the time to learn how to use the G3 to effect casually outperformed them. There definitely wasn't a best gun.

I could repeat the comparison for UT but you catch my drift, I hope.


That said, yes, balancing still isn't easy, and I'm totally in favour of certain specs being situationally better than others. The problem with the game in question is that it doesn't even give you a real option to build anything other than a damage dealer. And since you only need 2-4 powers to be an efficient damage dealer, you stack the rest with options that increase your survivability. Because if everyone takes care of themselves, everyone is taken care of.

If each free form selection offered viable power multiplier powers that were not a pain to use (because they are for example mutually exclusive when used by the same caster), I think people would take to them. WAR has made sure that most classes have some kind of team buff at their disposal, so almost all classes add to a team. And people don't need to be told to use them either, they do so automatically when teamed.

I'm of the opinion that if you build it, they will come. But CO hasn't even really bothered to build anything but damage powers and personal defenses, the occasional speck of crowd control notwithstanding. As such I simply feel it's an inappropriate example of the possibilities or shortfalls of an open system. Because it's an open system that is bereft of viable choices.

I dunno. Isn't this kind of down the same train of thought that has almost every character in CoH pick up Stamina and Hasten, no matter whether it fits the concept?


If it was done right, by professionals who know what they're doing, I think it's a viable alternative to hardbaked class systems. It just hasn't been tried by those people yet.

But that's really the game developer's fault for not making all options equally viable. If damage trumps crowd controls and buffs/debuffs, but you want all choices to be equally viable, make the latter two options more desirable. If ranged attacks trump melee attacks because they're easier to apply, make melee attacks more desirable if you want people to use those too.

In theory, this is pretty straightforward. I realize that practice is a different beast altogether, but really. At the core of good MMO design is making all skill/power choices equally viable. They don't need to perform exactly alike or be numerically weighted to the nth degree. It's okay for one option to situationally outperform another if the other option too gets its day in the sun and they come out roughly even.

This is not just specific of one game with an open power structure. This is MMO building 101 and part of why the development process for MMOs takes as long as it does. If you make a game with 12 classes and everyone looking for an easy time plays the same class, your design is faulty. If you make a game with an open skill selection process and everyone gravitates towards the same basic setup in lieu of more varied builds, your design is faulty.

The open nature of a pick and choose process might exacerbate the issue, but it's always there. The difference between good and bad MMO design is in how pronounced the imbalance is.

Entlüft is shortened from either entlüften (to vent, to deflate in case of tyres) or Entlüftung (outbound ventilation). Seems like the button was used to force air or gas from somewhere. Presumably something modern-day cars do automatically cause I haven't seen one of those in my 15 years of driving.

What language barrier? The one that precludes you and I from communicating you mean? Most Germans I know who play online know enough English to read an intermediate complexity novel. They might not be able to express themselves as easily as they may comprehend, but they'll be more legible than a native speaker who talks in all single letters and numbers.

True, you'd want to save Polanski for a Teen Titans movie.

I'll be in my Fortress of Shame now.

Pssst. I am a bully. I just prefer to pick on other bullies because, well, it's more fun.

Don't be. I encourage people to be critical. I mean, it's not gonna change my ways, but I'm definitely not gonna give you bad Rep just cause you disagree with me (see? I still know what the thread's about). This is what works for me, and I can live with it. Noone else has to live with it. Well, except for the broad on the bike.


Funny thing, though. Remember that discussion about morals a while back? We were on different sides of that argument too. Not saying I find my actions in any way defensible. She was being an *******, I was being a bigger *******. We both ended up being unapologetic. If this was a movie we'd have fallen in love and raised a bunch of hellions together. Alas, it was not to be.

As for me stepping out of the way being the better way? I don't know. Morally, maybe. Sociologically, maybe not, or maybe too. At least she knows she won't always get away with this. Something I already knew and accepted. Chances are, I'll pull a stunt like that on the wrong guy some day and get my comeuppance. I accept that, too, but I'm not stopping doing what I feel I have to do.


I'm also not really bragging. I was giving an example. I tried to keep it as neutral as possible, but of course I'm not exactly objective here. The lady in question felt not only entitled to drive her bicycle through a crowd of people and inconvenience them, but I'm the bad guy for not having it. Had this been a broad-shouldered guy muscling everyone out of the way, would that have changed your opinion of the incident? Needless to say, I do those, too.

Yeah. Back on topic actually. Someone gave me bad Rep for the original, too, citing, "First of [sic], this obviously didn't happen. Second , promoting violence in rl is verbotten. Post reported. Now go suck it."

Now, I can't drag the lady with the bike on here to prove it, but I'm that kinda guy. And I'm not alone. Take a closer look next time you walk down the street. There's a good percentage of people who just kinda walk around as if noone else existed, and those people with the decency to pay attention have to bob and weave around those daydreamers. But once in a while there'll be a guy who sees these distracted individuals and his only reaction will be to grin and quicken that last step just before the other guy bumps into him so he has the advantage of inertia to carry him into the collision.

Secondly, I'm not 'promioting' violence. I told a story. In the same situation, I'll react the exact same way all over again, but I'm not telling people to do the same. Little difference there.

Lastly... 'now go suck it'? That's the best they could come up with? That's something you whisper in your girlfriend's ear. Which means it's on the level of saying 'why don't you wear the crotchless panties tonight?' Not exactly making me cower in fear.