Father Xmas

Vahz projectile vomit attack followed by their normal melee vomit attack can literally be killer for a new lowbie. I always seem to remember getting hit with both attacks from all three minions seemingly more times than not. You run away while you are DoTed to death.

I've always used below $2K weekend box as an indicator of a mass reduction in theaters. I use it to guess if a movie is going to be pulled the following Friday. Combine that with Rotten Tomato numbers and I've been able to catch a few highly rated movies just before they left.

The reason I go on about per screen box is when films like Vampire Sucks are kept for their 3rd week while SP, who had box per theater, had it's theater number eviscerated. Sure, VS had better opening weekend numbers, it was a straight up parody of a series with mixed popularity. It didn't matter if it was dumb, people went to see it because it made fun of movie they didn't like. Vampire Sucks is still going to be in 1600 theaters this weekend while last weekend it earned only $1300 per theater while SP earned $1900 but will now be in only 600 theaters, basically 2nd run houses.

Who else made less per theater than SP last weekend but will be in more theaters this weekend than SP.

Scott Pilgrim - $1925 last weekend - 616 theaters this weekend - Week 5
Eat Pray Love - $1803 - 2339 - 5
Nanny McPhee Returns - $1305 - 2350 - 4
Vampires Suck - $1313 - 1670 - 4
The Switch - $1655 - 1595 - 4
Despicable Me - $1865 - 1371 - 10
Piranha 3D - $1360 - 825 - 4
Lottery Ticket - $1642 - 905 - 4
Toy Story 3 - $1279 - 13

Almost but not quite
The Expendables - $1948 - 3398 - 5

My point is Universal allowed theaters to opt out of SP a week to soon. I think it would have showed it had more legs than several of the films that came out the following week. It got kneecapped and the rapid reduction in theaters had everything to do with it's rapidly shrinking box office. Most box office news articles don't mention how many theaters thus allowing the average Joe to draw the wrong conclusion.

Option 1 on two conditions.

First, all the pieces in a set is done together. Wouldn't want snazzy new tech pants with old fuzzy top/gloves/boots.

Second, they don't degrade badly between UM and no UM and lose "features". There's a post on the Tech board I think that describes that when you turn the graphic settings down on the new glowing mutant or maybe it's the new Pretoria pieces, so the glow vanishes, you lose the ability to set the secondary color entirely.

And let me interject, if you are going to make more pieces "shiny" think about also having a matte option. Ninja black pajamas or special ops/tactical outfits shouldn't always be shiny.

They need a better data wrangler/version control at Paragon Studios when it comes to costume parts.

/bug it and PM Avatea or theOcho because this is serious, paid items shouldn't be left out of a build EVER. Somebody keeps dropping the ball and should be smacked up the the head for not triple checking that assets, such as costume parts, emotes, etc. don't get left behind.

Once added, they should never disappear.

Part main problem with MMOs is content creation. It takes a lot longer to create than it takes to consume.

Take a TV show. Takes a long time to film a season but limiting the viewers to one episode a week is hopefully enough to keep them coming back. MMO content is a lot like season DVD box sets, someone can set down one rainy weekend and blow through an entire season. Months and months of work, consumed in only a few days. This makes it hard to rationalize a subscription.

Same model applies to premium movie channels like HBO. When I got cable at my first apartment in the mid 80s I went nuts over HBO and Showtime. Watched tons of movies I wanted to see or simply see again. But after a few months I've seen everything that I wanted to see the 4-6 new movies per month, only a few I care about watching, weren't enough to encourage me to keep the subscriptions.

The bread making anime/manga, Yakitate!! Japan is a fun spin on the classic sports/rivals genre with numerous parody elements from anime/manga classics. I remember an episode that parodied Fist of the Northstar that had me rolling of the floor. Plus it has baking tips at the end of each episode.

If anyone cares. CW 9p EDT. Right after new Vampire Diaries.

Sorry, Peta Wilson will always be Nikita for me.

Well sort of.

Flash still doesn't exist for iOS (iPhone/iTouch OS).

What Apple banned was development tools that didn't code directly to the iPhone OS. A lot of quickly knocked off apps/games used a Flash -> iPhone app converter, they banned that.

Apple's concern was if they added some new hardware or software feature into their phone, these tools may be updated quickly enough to encourage developers to use these new features. Also these tools could also be used to develop apps for both iPhone and Android.

Obviously Apple got enough bad press, upset app store developers and the US government looking into them that blinked.

For us old timers here, debt due to defeat is now simply laughable. Back in the first couple of years, the debt cap was so high that some ATs simply ran with debt all the time. Didn't help back then that the game sent you, just as you qualified to accrue debt, to a zone where large purple coning mobs were between you and your mission door (thank you original Hollows).

Since then with the tweaks to XP leveling curve (by increasing XP of critters at various levels), debt reduction by both amount and cap and patrol XP countering debt, the problem now is getting into debt to qualify for the badges.

Saw this today, thought I should share.

Well I laughed.

Edgar Wright has a fairly successful cult following here in the US even though his previous movies never had a wide release or great box office revenues. Both Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz were fun and quirky takes of two genre mainstays, zombie horror and buddy cop movies. But they were both very English humor.

But this is his first film based on an adaption of another work, a quirky comic book about a slacker's pursuit of the girl of his dreams, couched in Japanese video game metaphors. It's set in Canada so it's not too culturally different than the US.

I think the execs simply misread why his previous films didn't break out here until after they came out on TV and DVD (they were too British) and hoped that they could translate his following into box office upfront as well as DVD sales later. So they went with a very wide release but lost the gamble, partially because I think they didn't get the movie. So they panic and let theater owners an out at two weeks rather than three or four.

At least the film seems to be holding it's own at a per theater basis at the theaters that kept it.

I have a RP character that for me was great in concept but difficult to solo.

First I took World Weekly News' bat-boy, turned him into a wolf-boy/teen and made him a sonic defender. For his secondary I decided that his outfit is designed to harvest and store the static electricity generated by it rubbing against his fur while he moves. He wears a pair of gauntlets that allow him to discharge electrical blasts at his foes.

Had a nice big bio written up. He's Romani, his English is so-so but understandable. Thinks he's a big star due to his tabloid and TV exposure. He's pretty fun to RP.

He played great at the lower levels but when he got into the low 20s he became a debt magnet. Has the toughest time defeating mobs even at the lowest difficulty setting. Playing him after playing any of my blaster, scrapper or even my controller characters is like pulling teeth.

Think this had to do with deleted characters locking up slots.

Is it rubberbanding? Do you find yourself moved back to a spot you just passed?

His initial goals were good.

Instancing common content to eliminate queuing at key quests found in sucessful MMOs at the time.

Letting players customize their characters appearance right away.

Shoot for a more relaxed casual play style by eliminating item based loot and try to prevent min/maxing by eliminating hard numbers.

Have a system to allow lower level players play with higher level players somewhat effectively.

Have a large complex zone environment that require very little memory and that was easy for the devs to create but the engine had to allow the players to explore them from all angles, not just from the ground. When I first played this game I had a system with 384MB of memory and the game played well with hundreds of players street sweeping in a zone.

And he's right about it being very tough to introduce new features like PvP and crafting into an already thriving game without breaking existing systems.

I was walking through Wal-Mart's toy department to see if they had the new nerf automatic with riot shield and I noticed GI Joe figure packs that are in the style of Super Hero Squad. Was there a goofy GI Joe animated series I didn't know about?

Yeti?

Edit: Even I was getting a little Pokemon seizure there.

He voice both The Brain and Monsieur Mallah on Teen Titans.

There's been Chinese live action Mulan films before, even a couple of TV series.

I agree with Ultra Troll, not all that excited by the director and am a bit fearful about an English script.

I think a lot of the poster's "hate" with anime can be demonstrated by walking into the DVD section at BestBuy. There are dozens of anime series, most that came out here within the last five years.

What do we have from our "iconic" western comics. Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League Unlimited, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Most over five years old.

My, what a wide variety (Batman, Batman, Batman, oh Superman, Batman).

Similar on Marvel's side. A couple of X-man and Spiderman series. Toss in a few animated movies from Marvel and DC and now compare the amount of shelf space for those series Vs anime.

Same can be said with bookstores. The manga section is usually multiple times larger than the traditional DC/Marvel trade paperbacks.

Again is it Japan's fault that they have a broader comic market than the US? Where a major chunk of our comics are superhero based theirs are all over the genre map.

Your choices boil down to what makes a Netbook attractive to you.

Size?

Battery Life?

Price?

As long as you accept that the average Netbook is only really good at browsing on battery power, not game play, not heavy multitasking then your only decision is which has the most battery life.

Heck if all you are going to do with it is offload photoes from your camera into it and maybe upload them somewhere then you even go with one that runs Linux. You can get most of the third party browsers for Linux and Flash. At least it would discourage you from trying to turn it into something you will only be dissatisfied with.