Kitsune9tails

(KITTEH!!)

1. The Engineer's Guide to Cats : Just so quotable.
2. Surprised Kitty : Undiluted awwwwww...

(Awesomely Bad Music Video)

3. The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody : Unfair, but so much more rewatchable
4. 4chan: The Music Video : Much more rewatchable than the ...ugh

(FAIL!!)

5. Worst Robbery In the History of Robbery Attempts : It works on so many levels.
6. Water Bottle Jet Pack Fail : Ironically, this one has more 'bang'

(Animation)

7. A Gentleman's Duel : A pair of prizes worth fighting for.
8. Slaughter Your World : Props to everything from the composing to the animation to the acting.

1. The Engineer's Guide to Cats
2. Human Cat Perch

(Awesomely Bad Music Video)

3. Tight Pants/Body Rolls
4. The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody

(FAIL!!)

5. Water Bottle Jet Pack Fail
6. Worst Robbery In the History of Robbery Attempts vs How not to deploy a Flash Bang!

(Animation)

7. A Gentleman's Duel
8. Slaughter Your World

The original "Let the Right One In" movie was a great film. Scary, creepy, yet heartwarming in strange ways.

It was also not very American at all in terms of how the scenes were conceived, staged or performed. In had a very old school 'quiet slowness' to the film. There are also some scenes that will definitely NOT be in the American version, no way no how, the morality of movies is too different here.

Therefore I am very interested in seeing the remake to compare them (especially since she is too young to see R-Rated movies, lol).

I am also interested in seeing how Chloe Moretz handles the basic ambiguity of the character. Making the character very emotional yet very reserved and vague in how strong those emotions are and what they mean was central to the character in the first film.

I am also to understand the American film will attempt to be more of a new film adaptation of the book rather than a remake of the earlier film.

1. Nicolas Cage Wants Cake : delicious

2. Half-Life: Full Life Consequences : not better, but the light fun of it draws me back

3. The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny! : Epic, of course

4. Hot Na'vi Sex : he's no Kirk.

5. Scorpion Man : Get over here!

6. A Gentleman's Duel : The best man won.

7. Meet The Spy : Your mom.

8. Slaughter Your World : Both great, but SYW keeps bringing me back.

Pipe dream here:

Elemental alternatives in the movement powers (or even the Fitness Pool).

Like sliding around on a piece of ice (with skateboard like random 'tricking' when you jump), flight with a fire trail or aura, super leaps that deploy shadowy wings, etc.

Maybe certain powersets could include an alternate movement animation for certain powers, like Super Strength having an option for a booming, camera-shaking landing, or Ninjitsu giiving an option for a blurry, super-speedy looking teleport.

It depends.

If you define god as 'creator of the universe in question" then I suppose so. However, I haven't read the story in question, but my thought is that when Superman recreated the universe, he would have been able to define things like "Does this universe have a god? y/n" and "Do you wish to assign yourself the status of god in your new universe? y/n"

So for all I know, Jimmy Olsen could be the god of the DCU now.

The Source is a different entity, I beleive, implied to be more powerful than the New Gods, but not necessarily the creator of the DCU (just the creator of the New Gods).

The Spectre works for the DCU's resident Supreme Being I beleive, which implies 'creator of the DCU' but that has never been definitively stated AFAIK.

By the way, where exactly do you stand when creating a universe? In some other universe, presumably?

1. Water Bottle Jet Pack Fail : It works on so many levels.

2. Elevator Suplex : Karma's a bleep.

3. Bullying The Bully : Next time you get a swirly.

4. An Innocuous Toy That stuff would scare Chucky.

5. LEEEEEEEEEEROY JENKINS!!!! : Going for the classic.

6. The Sprinkler Rainbow Conspiracy This was one I had to show other people.

7. How not to deploy a Flash Bang! : Looks a bit like fun, actually.

8. Worst Robbery In the History of Robbery Attempts : More criminals should fail this hard.

Barton Fink is a surreal, messed-up movie. The ending fits it perfectly; I clearly remember thinking that at the time.

I also thought the movie Silent Hill's ending fit it perfectly.

Also, Memento.

(Awesomely Bad Music Video)

1. Mini Daddy : wins for his attitude. Boy is serious, yo!

2. Insane Clown Posse - "Miracles" : Bleeping drafts, how do they work?

3. Just say <shudder> : Nether of these is watchable or listenable, but this one wins fo being sheerly inexplicable.

4. 4chan: The Music Video : catchy.

5. Tay Zonday "Never Gonna Give You Up" : Gots to love the Zonday.

6. Soulja Boy "I Look Like Goku" : actually well done in it's horribleness.

7. Gimme dat bacon! : Come on, it's bacon!

8. Superman Theme Song parody : Only the parody of steel can overcome the cover of felt.

1. Nora, the Piano Playing Cat : Seriously. An orchestra.

2. Kittens, inspired by Kittens!!!!: She can tell us how to get to Sesame Street.

3. Gesundheit! : Just awesome.

4. Pinky's Revenge : Pinky's not getting adopted this week.

5. Ninja Cat : The stuff of nightmares.

6. Human Cat Perch : Earns repeat watches for cute and patient girl.

7. Dramatic Look Gopher : A classic.

8. The Engineer's Guide to Cats : cat yodeling.

THE PURPOSE OF RUNNING AWAY

The following are just my thoughts and reflect no special insider knowledge...

1: To reduce the amount of rewards/time you would otherwise get for defeating a spawn that you are obviously overwhelming. If your foes can't hit you and you are killing them 'too fast' (regardless of what they con to you), you should get less rewards in this case; you are obviously picking on guys whose combination of powers makes them poorly suited to challenge your build/team. As noted, this also helps balance out the reward/time ratio of debuff heavy teams (or would if such teams did not also liberally use slows, snares, and holds). Not that even chasing the runner essentially slows down your time/rewards ratio, thus acheiving the purpose.

2: To give crowd control an added purpose. CC, slows, and the likes are not only good for helping to defeat a spawn, but when a spawn threatens to give you less rewards by running, some CC can help you recoup the rewards by keeping them around to be defeated. It can be an additional incentive to team for some builds, or to diversify some damage-centric builds.

3: To add immersion. In a superhero game, foes that are obviously outmatched should run. If you are such a badA$$ that Godzilla runs when he sees you coming, that should make you feel good about yourself.

WHY RUNNERS DO WHAT THEY DO:

A: Aggroing other spawns would be overwhelming behaviour versus untwinked lowbies without vet powers. Besides, what good would it do to aggro more foes you can easily defeat?

B: They wander back so that you can finish off the spawn if you have patience even if you don't have access to Control powers. This is fine because it still lowers your reward/time ratio.

c: They run so far because they are 'hoping' you will get impatient and wander off before they get back, thus allowing them to reduce the rewards you would otherwise have gotten from that spawn. This often works.

In other words, the flee AI is a way of balancing rewards to challenge/time. If it were removed, it would likely be necessary to reduce the rewards for all foes in the game.

WHERE IT BREAKS DOWN:

Instanced missions: mob flee AI is of reduced value in instanced missions where the foes can't actually get away, leading to annoying map searches.
This does still accomplish the purpose of lowering the time/rewards ratio, but since you are 'committed' to doing the mission and reaping the Mission Complete bonus, it is of questionable value.
One thing you might consider is programming 'griefed' foes in an instance to 'collect' at the mission entrance for one last big fight (unless the players just use the Exit buton).

Mission Objectives: not only can the foe not flee, but you cannot really choose to let them get away and take the hit in rewards to spend your time on other things.
My suggestion would be to give foes that are specific mission objectives (and Boss Rank or higher) some kind of 'desperation power' like a self-buff to damage and accuracy/to hit (or maybe to recharge speed and mez resistance) that they activate when 'griefed' instead of running away (except for foes like Tsoo Sorcerers or Diabolique, where the fleeing is part of the challenge). They may be doomed to defeat, but perhaps they can deal out a little debt before they go. In my personal experience, it is much more fun to deal with a desperation power than to just chase some guy all over the map when we both know he isn't going to escape.
Another way of handling this would be to program such objectives to autocomplete (with proper 'surrender' emote) after a certain amount of time of being griefed, giving out reduced rewards when autocompleting.

In general, you may consider having foes signal when they are in a 'griefed' state (like an exclamation point overhead), so that the players can make informed choices based on that fact.

Locking my selections in.

It is most certainly a paradise out there.

Eden, you might say.

The question is whether or not it is a paradise that is going to turn you into a DE or not.

Interpretation of the written rule is an art.

Also; fun > written rules.

On the subject of religion, the Emperor is a Physical god that saved humanity. He seems to neither encourage nor discourage worship of him, and a lot of citizens that would normally be agnostic probably do so.

Partly due to Political Correctness needs in the game, there seem to be no organized rules for worshipping Cole. An interesting source of fics might be competing dogmas that worship or demonize him in the literal sense.

Which also begs the question of what that means for other Incarnates (since apparently Hamidon is one: probably an Incarnate of Gaia or perhaps even Uranus).

...

Okay, lots of banal entertainment, possibly some that pushes the envelope but none that truly challenges things.

Which makes me wonder if Fascism is subtly praised by the regime, or demonized as we do in RL? Maybe the ultimate villains rather than Communists or Fascists in literature are Anarchists, Hippies, and Terrorists?

I do beleive there are other city-states besides Mega City- er, I mean Praetoria , but Praetoria proper is presumably the largest and most developed (although it may not be the only one with 'first world' economy and technology. It also implies that more distant cities may be less worshipful of the regime although they seem to basically function under its' rules.

I get the impression that there are probably a lot less than a billion humans worldwide, but that there may be as many as hundreds of millions.

I wonder what is the smallest worldwide population necessary to support a 'first world' city? Tens of millions?

I will have to check this out.

I just wanted to start a discussion of what Praetorian society is like; how it is similar to and different from Paragon and RL.

Here are some of my thoughts, which are not heavily researched and may be wrong:

- Praetoria only really diverged greatly from Paragon history in the 70s due to the massive devastation of the world during the Hamidon Wars. So people older than that remember things that would be quite familiar to us: The Beatles, The movie Psycho, the Hippie Counterculture and the like.

- The Hamidon Wars devastated the earth and killed vast amounts of population and destroyed vast amounts of physical and social infrastructure. Phone systems and the Internet probably ceased to exist, leading to massive gaps in technological development due to a lack of records and intercommunication. Many cultural and leisure-based sports and arts probably ceased to exist, like the Olympics, Superbowl, and NASCAR. The UN and NATO may have been temporarily the primary sources of governance for a time.

- The Hamidon Wars probably saw the world's military using vast scorched earth policies to prevent the spread of spores. Interesting advances may have been made in both biology and the science of psionics to combat the menace, not to mention psychology. With plants being perceived as dangerous sources of likely infection, most people probably turned to meat only diets when possible.

- Those old enough to remember the Hamidon Wars are probably mostly military or political personnel (or were at the time). They probably were forced to see and do traumatic things in the course of the wars.

- After the Hamidon was defeated and contained, nascent Emperor Cole probably oversaw massive relocation efforts as vast areas of land were combed for survivors. The relocation of the bulk of the survivors to Nova Praetoria probably saw the end of most ethnic cultures; strange and inexplicable behaviors are probably a source of major suspicion. Many religions may have fallen by the wayside at this point.

- With the establishment of Nova Praetoria as the final bastion of mankind, there was apparently a vast resurgence of technology due primarily to the efforts of Antimatter and Neuron. With carte blanche to develop any tech that could help mankind survive, economical considerations were likely tossed to the wayside.

- Eventually there is enough wealth and leisure time for corporations and a proper economy to form, along with such frivolities as entertainment businesses and advertising. Nova Praetoria rises to the standard of living of a modern first world city.

Now some questions...just stuff to think about, since a lot of it probably hasn't been established in canon yet

1) Is there physical money in Praetoria, or are economical transactions electronic? If there is money, is it USA dollars or some other currency (perhaps based on ancient Roman currency)? Maybe there is no money per se, just allotments of daily necessities augmented by perks due to employer recommendations and the like (in which case barter would supplement the system).

2) How many channels on the TV? It being a police state, programs that challenge the government are not allowed (no Colbert Report), and most entertainment shows probably also are apolitical or praise the regime. Something like "Praetoria has Talent" probably exists, but Reality TV (with their inherently cynical view of life) probably don't. This immediately begs the question of whether books like 'Farenheit 451' even continue to exist in a controlled state.

3) Everyone with enhanced combat ability goes into Powers Division. So what does that say about sports?

4) With just about everyone crammed into a single city, what are the population controls? Does Enriche contain a birth control compound (or an anti-Viagra compound) or is there some sort of licensing or lottery process that controls who can have children? Are the children raised by parents or the state?

5) What effect, if any, has all of this had on ethical/social things such as dating and marriage? Is being LGBT frowned upon due to the critially low human population, or is it encouraged as a form of population control? How close are family ties? Are there any languages besides (what is presumably) english?

...all in all, just some rambling thoughts...

It all depends on the superhero.

Captain America or Batman probably about the power level of an extremely high level fighter/theif.

Spider-Man hits harder, faster and is more elusive than just about anything available in D&D, but many casters could probably outdo him at least once a day.

Doctor Strange or Doctor Fate are probably equivalent to epic-level D&D casters.

Then you have characters like Thor, Silver Surfer and Superman who are literally the equivalent of gods.

Wonder Woman would pwn all.

In the category of memes I'd like to see added to this game, here's something that should occaisionally happen to the purse snatchers in Paragon City.

The classic Elevator Suplex!

The category is fail, but the karma is win!