Ironik

It is only for advanced space adventuring. See: Darth Vader. Also: G-Force (Gatchaman).

Congrats!

Also, sleep-deprived Alex art is going to look so, so groovy.

...and you named her Hexacutioner.

Oh. My. God.

"Say Timmy, have you ever seen a grown man fall down because of awesome?"

::: thud :::

Looking awesome. Is it too much work to do an alternate top that doesn't have the zipper? Because those things look hugely out of proportion.

I gots the agreeance. I've tried them all, too, and I keep coming back here. Even the things I dislike about this game aren't enough to keep me away.

I don't know about "highly prejudiced" but a game that is set in either a faux medieval realm or a post-apocalyptic wasteland is going to receive an instant "REJECTED" stamp from me, no matter its pedigree.

IOs don't work on Premium? Did not know that. Certainly explains a few things about my characters.

Are SOs the same as always?

There's nothing obvious that says "You don't have and/or can't do such-and-such" as far as I recall. Hence the fact I did not know we couldn't use IOs.

Movies that are designed to be seen in 3D like Avatar or How To Train Your Dragon are great fun, provided you aren't one of the people who suffer from physical ills just by using the process. But movies that are post-converted are almost universally terrible in 3D.

I was going to go see Ghost Rider 2 because it's by the guys who made the Crank movies, so it's assured of being demented -- which is a compliment -- but I discovered that it's only being shown in 3D in the theatres near me. (Ironically, the one theatre that specializes in digital projection and 3D film is the only one in the area showing it in 2D, but it's about 45 minutes away and only twice a day in the middle of the afternoon.) So I won't be seeing this movie until it comes to Netflix streaming.

I used to work with a film critic who had never seen a B&W movie. In fact, he hadn't seen any film older than Jaws. He refused to see Raging Bull because it was an "old" movie. I was, as my British friends say, gobsmacked.

In Cincinnati's indie paper (CityBeat) some years ago, their movie critic reviewed the 1998 release of Gone With the Wind, and one of his chief complaints was that the studio had already clearly designed the new print with TV in mind because they had "butchered" the image into a square TV-like format. He later corrected his review when I and dozens of others pointed out to him that the aspect ration of movies used to be square. Which is where TVs got their aspect ratio. (Technically it's 1.375:1, aka the Academy ratio.)

You wish.

Welcome to the party, pal. (Sorry, watched Die Hard earlier.)

Couple ideas:

Lightbulb-over-the-head.

Attacks in the form of waves or tendrils of energy.

.=o.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´ ¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.
../|\/´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸¸ .·´¯`·.
..\|
...|\
.././
.......

You get faster progress than the current solo path by playing Angry Birds, so that's a rather low bar.

As I said earlier, they're going to make a ton of money using this gambit. And that income will more than offset the bad feelings generated by some people who are turned off by practices such as these and stop paying for things altogether. These sorts of practices are so endemic to our culture that people hardly even notice them any more. Even when they're pointed out, most people are like you: they just go, "Meh, so what?"

For someone like me, though, I can't see spending anywhere from $10 to $25 on a Superpack to get the items I really want -- the costume -- or even more to get the rare thing such as the wolf. Not when the precedent all these years is that costumes have come for a nominal fee when they weren't free.

I really hope they don't gate the Retro Sci-Fi stuff behind such a pack and just sell it for the usual $5 to $7.50. As I mentioned in one of the poll threads, the Retro Sci-Fi pack is so exciting to me that I will actually re-sub to get it on my many, many characters whose concepts are built around that whole idea. But not if it's in a superpack. Historically I have abysmal luck in getting drops. In all the time since Purple IOs have been in the game, I've gotten fewer than 6. I *never* got one of the cool costume pieces like the rare wings or rocket boots until they significantly altered the drop rate, so I missed out on all the amazing profits made from those things.

So I'm fairly certain that I'd end up being the guy who has to spend $50 to acquire the costume pieces I want.

Since you're not an unintelligent person, I'm assuming you're being deliberately obtuse. It's impossible to actually believe that these things aren't a mild form of gambling without an ulterior motive that's either conscious or subconscious. Using the extreme comparison of BB guns to nukes is just bombastic (ha) hyperbole trying to shut me up.

Let me correct your analogy and reiterate what I said earlier:

A BB gun and Weatherby Mark V rifle are both guns which reside on a continuum of weapons. BB guns are less powerful, while the Weatherby is on the other end of the scale. But here's the important part: they're both guns. Just as spending money to take a chance at getting something in the Superpack and spending money to take a chance at roulette are both forms of gambling.

I know people dismiss BB guns as "not real guns" but they actually are. Every year a half-dozen kids are killed by BB guns. Many more are seriously injured. The FBI uses them as training weapons in some instances. Now, are they as dangerous as a Weatherby Mark V? No. But that doesn't diminish the fact that they are still weapons that can -- and do -- kill people.

But they aren't technically firearms. Just as the Superpacks aren't considered gambling under the law.

However, that is playing semantics to score points, using political and corporate verbiage that's been negotiated and compromised.

I also want to repeat the part that you snipped in order to bolster your mockery of my point:
...nevertheless, it doesn't change what the things ARE.

Most people aren't. I'm not most people.

But that's exactly the issue I'm talking about: "a difference of degree rather than of kind."

The Superpack and casino games such as roulette are on the same spectrum of all games of chance. The former may not be as detrimental to one's bottom line as the latter, but that doesn't alter the fact that they are both forms of gambling. They appeal to the exact same parts of the brain and the operate with identical mechanisms: paying money to take a chance on winning something.

I don't think this represents a serious threat to kicking off someone's addiction; I'm just tryin' to lay out some knowledge for you'uns to pick up.

That's true, as I mentioned in the longer post. But for the majority of CoH's existence it was unlike other MMOs in that there was very little randomness involved. This game primarily rewarded steady achievement. There were very few exceptions, such as the HOs you got from Hamidon Raids. It's when really cool things started getting randomly dropped that the game shifted. It's bad enough when those things are merely virtual items such as a rare set of wings or rocket boots, but now it's starting to move into the territory of exchanging real money for random chance.

I think that's the part people are starting to react negatively to.

On the other hand, it's good business practice because it appeals directly to the deepest impulses of a person's psyche. If someone really wants that wolf or all those costume pieces, they have to keep paying. But I'm old-fashioned in the sense that I don't believe that whatever is good for the bottom line is the right thing to do.

I got TM and it feels very much like GC to me. The videos I've seen of TW look quite similar to BS. I know there are minor differences between them, but I want to stress the "minor" part of that. TM doesn't feel different enough. I feel the same way about Street Justice. I like it, but it doesn't feel terribly different from my Martial Artist who uses the alternate (subtler) animations and the fighting pool.

Compare then, for instance, Katana and BS to Dual Blades. Those are qualitatively different in style and play.

I don't have any direct experience with TW -- I haven't even teamed with someone who has it. Just going by the description and the videos I've seen, other than the jumbo-sized weapon I don't see enough of a difference between that and existing sets to get excited about them.

Whereas Staff Fighting doesn't look like anything else in the game. Similarly, the Whip powerset for MMs needs to be ported over to other ATs because it has the potential to also be incredibly different. Can't you just see a level 32 power that "grabs" an enemy and then spins them into a tornado to knock down a group of baddies?

To me, that sort of thing is something to pique my interest, rather than hitting someone with a slightly different punch or a slightly bigger blade.

I want to point out this part of your post. You seem to be overlooking the exact aspect of "random roll" in the baseball card packs and this Superpack.

Psychological studies have determined that the single most powerful reward system people respond to is one of intermittent rewards. Working steadily towards certain reward doesn't thrill people, and even gambling with a guarantee of eventual success doesn't get people as excited as intermittent rewards. Which seems counter-intuitive, but it works. Gamers need only look around them to see examples of this: random drops on massive raids, CCG sets, baseball cards, etc.

If you want to train your kids to behave, then set ground rules for when they'll be punished, but reward them randomly. It's the most effective way of programming them to obedience. The dark side of this quirk of human psychology is when abused women stay with their abusers because often the guy will be nice to them, apologize and treat them to something. Intermittent rewards keep women in those situations for years. The abuser has to do it just often enough to trigger the response, but many of them learn at a young age where that sweet spot is.

As you just said, opening a pack of baseball cards is "fun." The reason why it's fun is because it is hooking directly into your compulsion to respond to intermittent rewards. It's the identical mechanism that makes slot machines, scratch-off tickets and other types of random gambling fun: every once in a while you get something worthwhile. And it happens just often enough to get you coming back.

Exactly. That's how powerful intermittent rewards are. Even people who are against gambling in general will often succumb to the siren call of maybe getting something cool.

I can't stress this enough: intermittent rewards are the crack cocaine of your subconscious.

Just because they CAN do it doesn't mean they SHOULD do it.