Lycanus
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Okay.
Yesterday, the weekly Anime at the Alamo event ran a showing of Madhouse Studios' "Summer Wars"
Normally this is an event that involves us heckling the first four episodes of a Funimation anime and deciding whether or not we like the series enough to buy it. And just hanging out with people watching anime on a theater screen while servers bring you food and drinks. (Free refills at theater! W00T)
anyway....this night the event runners demanded a run-silent time and considering they're both fairly enthusiastic about the heckling being fun, we listened.
and it was glorious.
I am stuck here because I went into it with no knowledge of what the plot, theme or storyline involved and I think that is an element (along with the big screen deal) in how much I enjoyed it.
I want to recommend it.
I so very, VERY much recommend it. It certainly should appeal to most people that play MMOs at least.
But I don't want to give away any spoilers or plot.
Ideally, you go, look for it and watch it without looking up what its about or any trailers on youtube and let your first exposure be the movie as a whole.
seriously.
don't spoil it for yourself.
Just find it and watch it.
Anybody who's seen it please chime in and support me here in this recommendation.
Again, please don't spoil anything here.
Just add your recommendations. -
Quote:he's the person people pointed to when I asked if it was okay to promote my novelsOriginally Posted by MentalMaden
You don't know Troy then. That man is a promotion machine, especially 'round these parts. It's fine to support his cause, we've been doing it for years around here. I, for one, will buy it if I find it. -
personally, I'd do natural
unless you want to end up directly channeling the power of other beings, as the SO enhancement names suggest
I tend to view magical characters this way:
deals/pacts/priests/empowered/artifacts as a focus rather than just a tool - Magic
magical creature/born supernatural - Mutant
use of learned spells/magical items as tools rather than focus - Natural
I base this on the DO selection where Nat/Mag and Mag/Mut combos exist -
Quote:more Hollywood than western cultureOriginally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Hasn't Tales from Earthsea been out already? For quite a while now? I have it on DvD...or is this the US release?
As for Spirited away, and in fact a lot of Miyazaki's work, I get the feeling a lot of it is wasted on Western audiences. Miyazaki Senior uses a lot of subtlety in his work, and I get the feeling Western audiences just dont, for the most part, appreciate plots that, to them, seem convuluted and strange.
Stuff like Spirited Away, where there is really no actual villain. Even the witch Yubaba isn't really a villain, because she has qualities that make her more human. Sure she can be greedy and cruel...so can a lot of people. Spirited Away is more a story about growing up and becoming happy with yourself as a person, not a fight of good versus evil (by Miyazaki's own admission. He's a spectacular artist too, and I envy him)
Howls Moving Castle I admit did fall apart towards the end, which was a shame. It made sense to change the plot, however, because how many Japanese people will understand the part about Wales, and British in-jokes about beer and rugby? Very very few. Heck, even you Yanks likely wouldnt get some of them
It was written by a Brit, remember.
Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke were both fantastic films. Even then, they follow the theme of not really having a main Villain. There are 'Evil' factions in there, sure, but even the likes of Kushada in Nausicaa and Iboshi and Chiko the monk in Mononoke aren't really 'Villains' in the western sense of it.
What I'd give to be able to apprentice under Miyazaki...and speak Japanese. That'd help
Western culture is full of stories where there isn't really a completely bad guy
for example, the Illiad, Achilles and Hector were both considered heroes by that story, as were pretty much all of the other named characters
likewise, the "evil" giants of Norse myth were not as evil as people believe (in fact a lot of the Gods had giant mistresses or lovers)
same with Celtic myths
Robin Hood went back to banditry AFTER King Richard returned to the throne....because he was BORED...some of the stories of his death suggest he was quietly assassinated to prevent him from tarnishing his own legend
Shakespeare's plays often have conflicts between people that are not evil, often spurred by villain, but still...and, in some cases, there aren't any real bad guys
real stories all have a fairly definite complexity to them....
however, Hollywood likes to have a clear cut bad guy and good guy so that they can cut down on the complexity
it's harder to get a complex story to sell after all
look at what they did with "The Eye"
the Chinese version: vague black figures that made the main character afraid for not knowing what they are, but which were really rather comforting
the Hollywood version: vague black figures with snarling mouths and hostile atitudes to clearly mark them as "evil" -
Yes, that's my schoolgirl medusa character...given she's been around for 5+ years now, probably more college age than school girl... -
Quote:I'd always thought of Zerg as shout outs to Aliens...Originally Posted by Lothic
As I implied earlier the trope of these kinds of "three faction" relationships in stories is hardly new. Heck you could probably shoehorn the Elves/Orcs/Humans from LotR into that dynamic if you really wanted to.
humans are, of course, humans
and then you have the Protoss and Predator...which I'm not sure of...though they did have the hand-blades of death thing going on
anyway, considering it is pretty much out right said that elves can talk to each other telepathically in the end of the LotR books, and the way that orcs and other Sauron/Morgoth followers corrupt the landscape, that seems correct.
actually, in one scene, if I remember right (the book isn't in front of me), Frodo, Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel spend a long period of time in telepathic conversation when they encounter each other on the way north, towards the Shire and before breaking up to their individual paths... -
I was looking through CoH Tvtropes.org and the paragon wiki in-game references pages today and noticed that something wasn't mentioned that I thought was in there.
In the level 41-50 range, there are three particularly apparent enemy groups that seem to form a shout out:
Rikti: a race of psychic aliens who enjoy a telepathic network and use pylons to power their nearby equipment
Devouring Earth: a group of creatures that are created by the mutagenic properties of a sentient microorganism and which alters the very terrain of the world around it as it spreads.
Malta: a group of highly skilled humans with high technology gizmos and giant robots.
Soooo....
Protoss, Zerg and Terran? -
Quote:yeah, I haven't even gotten around to finishing a full selection of classes for that yet, that's going to be years away from being ready to use.Originally Posted by Suichiro
Most of those are tolerated because they're offering services that are related to CoH, but this is a little iffy as it's just your own material, essentially making this spam.
Also, you made the Battloids a clone of the Paladin class, which is suffers heavily from MAD and is a flawed defender at it's core. I would have at least tried to fix some of the problems with it, in the re-write.
I'm mostly focusing on creating settings at the moment, like the Zodiacs setting. Next one is going to be a sci-fi setting.
guess I should have put this over in "Comic and Hero/Villain Culture" -
I've seen artists advertise "buy this" stuff here, so might as well advertise this sale here as well.
I'm offering discounts on as many as three titles of my books for the next three days for anybody willing to spread the word.
This would make any electronic formats free and reduce the cost of print copies by $4.
Full information available here:
http://thryth.webs.com/apps/blog/sho...omotional-sale -
thanks, guess I can't fight a horde of dopplegangers of myself...
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IO related wishes
note, the current system is too ingrained for most of these to happen:
******
just tech and just arcane versions of each recipe
a wizard who apparently needs a positronic matrix in order to craft a magical weapon?
or
a scientist who needs an ensorcelled weapon to make a gadget?
so, three versions of each recipe: all tech salvage, all arcane salvage, mixed
This is really unnecessary but it would sort of be nice
******
there should be sets that just about max out each stat of a power:
for example, there should be a recipe set that allows maxing out of range
Ranged sets:
important stats: accuracy, damage, recharge, endurance, range
Sniper sets:
important stats: accuracy, damage, recharge, endurance, range, interrupt speed
Melee sets
important stats: accuracy, damage, recharge, endurance
******
Sets where the entire package is made unified to both theme and mechanics
set bonuses now look like the staff of Paragon put a dart board on the wall with words on them and had someone chuck darts at it blindfolded and dizzy
Touch of Death, for example
2 slot - +2.75% fear duration
3 slot - +1.5% health
4 slot - +2.5% damage
5 slot - +2.2% fear resistance
6 slot - +3.75% negative damage resistance
that's much more thematic of a touch of death set
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Damaging Debuff sets, similar to accurate debuff sets and recharge intensive pet damage sets
for example, a Defense Debuff set with as follows:
Acc/Def Debuff
Acc/Dam
Dam/Def Debuff/
Acc/Dam/Def Debuff
End/Recharge
Recharge -
What it says on the tin.
Where do I find dopplegangers for AE missions? -
Quote:I actually find this is the case for the majority of all fiction in all genres.Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan
It's nothing personal, I just hate the genre. I find it shallow, stupid, massively overdone, and to be quite honest, completely unoriginal. But if a vampire characters player wants to RP with me, that's totally fine. Just bring a non-vampire character.
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remember, the original meaning of the word "evil" is basically "unhealthy"
that's subjective from one species to another and one person to another
the modern definition is really just an extension of that -
Quote:would be good for gorillas, perhaps, do wish we had a scale slider for arm lengthOriginally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Actually, we also have a Monstrous skeleton in the game that's used for quite a few things, Kheldian Dwarf form being one of them, along with things like Werewolves, Shivans, Clockwork Princes and so forth. It's basically a model with a large chest and wide shoulders, short legs and long arms.
It's not player-usable because it doesn't have animations defined for almost any existing powers, and making new ones would not be feasible, or at least so BABs used to say. It does have basic animations, such as running and jumping ones, as well as several but not all emotes (which is why they disabled a whole swath of emotes for Bright/Dark Dwarves way back when), so it's usable as an NPC with few stock powers, but not something that's applicable to players. I don't think that rig has any costume items defined for it, either.
No real point to this, just thought it was interesting. -
if you really want to do personalized stories of rivalry between you and a PC player....make use of AE and write stories personalized to each of you
people might not get some of the references in the story, but that won't matter too much. -
Quote:to be fair, that was my unstated response tooOriginally Posted by Stone Daemon
I have a grav/storm, and I like him....but.......
Really?
but that was his stated reason
I just gave it as a notice that Grav probably isn't as bad as the OP thinks -
Quote:okay...animations and transformations for players is a lot more work than just adding dinosaurs and wolves and sharks as enemies you can fightOriginally Posted by Cptn_Courageous
OK, for all the nay-sayers here's a disclaimer: "I'm sure the developers...being bright intelligent people...know what their engine is capable of and how much time and effort it would take to integrate this suggestion into the game. We all know they'll do whatever is possible within their goals for the game, and what's not or is beyond their resources won't get done."
Now for the person who pulled the "Reality" card out and laid it on the table... Are you sure you really want to do that in regard to a game where people fly around shooting bolts of "whatever" out of some body part?... i.e. this isn't reality.
The proper question is: Can a reasonable story line be constructed for the appearance of said beasties.
The answer is: sure, any writer worth their salt can think up a nearly infinite number of scenarios why one or more beasties should be roaming around Paragon City on the loose.
Question: Should the developers stop what they're currently working on in terms of power sets or other sets to work on this?
Answer: That's a wierd question. They'll work on what they think is important. More content is just as important as more power sets...and IMHO more important. More content = more to explore, more story lines, more interesting situations to experience. I'm pretty sure they're not going to completely abandon one for the other. It's a balance.
The addition of animal forms though represents a huge leap forward in content potential for this game. Not just for mobs but for player content as well. There are all sorts of possiblilities from pets to player costumes (think transformation...i.e. a player could tranform into a wolf, panther, tiger, or bear).
Transformation (a completely different issue) would have it's issues of course> animations for scrappers, tanks, brutes, and stalkers. Most of these could be fairly common among the different types (swipes/slashes, single & two claw/paw). Shooting animations for blasters, controllers, defenders, corruptors and dominators, could eminate from the eyes or mouth. Some powers would obviously not be suited for all animal types... like throwing boulders, an alternative would have to be found.
The work for doing all these animations would obviously not be trivial... but it might be a good job for some summer interns hoping to impress Paragon Studios.
not that I wouldn't love to be able to do it, but that seems a bit unlikely
animals as enemies are easy to fit in story-wise and as appropriate as Kraven the Hunter and his beasties, Penguin's giant condors, Catman's tigers and lions, the Joker's hyenas and what not
dinosaurs, sharks and apes are especially common comic book animals
but I think we're a LONG way from Beast Boy or Beastmaster (though I HAVE suggested animal themed control sets in the past) -
Gravity seems to be one of the reasons my brother eventually quit the game, because:
"I've never had any character in any game that felt so outright powerful as Tejou." (Grav/Kin/Earth)
and
"After that, nothing else in CoH would be near as satisfying."
His main reason: Wormhole, which he felt was ridiculously powerful -
Quote:Cat, rat, lizard and canine tails all move differently too, yet all the animated tails have a cattish sway to themOriginally Posted by Aett_Thorn
Right now, we have three player skeletons (Huge, Female, Male). We also have an additional "skeleton" for cylindrical beings (things like the Yeagers, and I think this also has been applied to the spiders that we have in game. Basically, the legs are just animations, not part of the actual skeleton. On a spider, with so many moving parts, it doesn't look so bad. On something with only four legs though, it would be pretty obvious.
Also, would a robot dog walk like a normal dog? The video you linked sure doesn't look like a normal dog walking. As such, that would be a different skeleton from just a normal dog. A cat would walk differently from either the normal or robot dog, so that would be another skeleton if we wanted to include those.
Is this worth it? Maybe for some people, it is. For me, unless the devs promised that this work wouldn't take away from us getting new powersets, I'm against it, because I'd rather have those.
the jaegers are spiderish, but they're four-legged, the tarantulas are basically six-legged
we already have four-legged critters in game, yes, they're basically daleks with a hologram disguising them as something else, but eh, the entire game is a bunch of geometrics wrapped in pretty pictures
I'm willing to overlook things looking not quite real for the chance of fighting more non-humanoid monsters
yes, this would mean that all the dogs land on their feet the way that spiders do when KBed, but that doesn't really matter with the added variety
be satisfied with the cylinder skeleton and then all you need are powers and animations, which is lengthy, yes, but no more than anything else unique
imagine hellhounds with the hellions, the chimera in cimeroa, and so on
the only thing I'd heard as far as technical difficulties go that makes since are their reported attempt at sharks (I believe BAB made a post on the subject way back when) where the problem wasn't graphics, but behavior: the sharks would follow people on land
and, if they took that behavior away, then the characters would find it easy to sit at the water's edge and shoot at the shark.
two ways to fix that for me: make the shark disappear if the character leaves the water (including flight) as the shark returns down into the deep water
or, make mutated sharks with legs or tentacles or something so that getting up on land makes somewhat more sense
so yes:
I'd like to see more animals -
Quote:it is not necessary to enjoy evil acts to be evilOriginally Posted by synthozoic
Okay, we'll let's expand on that a bit.
How about the daleks or the borg? Are they evil? Maybe the daleks are more so than the borg because, given their repeated shouting and chanting of "exterminate," they do seem to be enjoying their work. The borg (A least before they start personifying them and making them lame.) didn't really give any impression at all that they enjoyed making others suffer. The borg just ruthlessly cut new species up and merge them into the network before moving on to the next solar system. Human emotion doesn't seem to enter into it.
Or how about Brianiac? Pretty much wants to turn the entire universe into a crystal to store all the information in it forever but doesn't seem to be very emotional about it. Brianiac does get kinda personal with Superman though.
the borg in general are not evil because the aspect of free will has been taken away from them and they don't have a choice...now, the fact that we know there are elements of the borg higher up the command chain that do have free will, those I would classify as evil
the daleks are evil because they certainly don't have a need to exterminate others in order to survive, they just think that they are perfection and since they're perfect everybody else has to die because they're not worthy
Brianiac is hard to tell, he seems more along the lines of differently moral rather than evil...as far as he's concerned, the reality is immaterial -
As for characters I have that are evil, I don't play evil characters really, I find it thoroughly not fun to play something I know is bound for a bad ending, to me, evil is sort of like going the wrong way down the highway, you might get away with it for a while, depending on how skilled you are, but eventually you'll be arrested or caught in an accident. And the longer you keep it up, the more damage you'll cause to those around you.
all in all not appealing...
however, I do have my villains for my books and one or two are evil
Adrasteia from Zodiacs is evil and knows it...she also knows that she is beyond redemption and she knows that the reason she is beyond redemption isn't because of some external measure of what is or is not evil, but because she herself does not regret the act that originally damned her...she made a conscious decision that revenge was worth her soul in a particular case...once she made that decision she broadened her revenge to encompass the cultural of her upbringing and manipulated her country into a crippling civil war that obliterated any chance of balance and stability they had in that particular system
once her revenge was complete, she's started broadening her power base for the purpose of enabling herself to live as long as possible and put off the time of final judgment. She does this despite being fully aware that she can't outrun the end and that eventually her life will end so that the only thing she is accomplishing is to pile more crimes on her list and that she herself has no direct care for any of that.
one specific thing is the fact that she manipulates her minions into potential redemption for the twin fact that if they are redeemed they will not suffer her fate in the next life and that she has a ritual that extends her life and requires the sacrifice of a redeemed villain.
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Kali/Karen Jasthi from Bystander could probably be considered evil, but I think she's more insane...she's basically become identified with her code-name and is acting out the part of the destroyer aspects of Kali
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The Weaver from Greenwater is a fanatic and intolerant of those who are different. That is somewhat evil, but of a more generic variety and she isn't the biggest evil out there...not even the biggest shown...the presence in Nenfana is probably more evil, though it, itself is a just a piece of something that was fully conscious of what it did, so in lacking the full Will, I'm not sure you could call it evil or a result of evil....eh -
Quote:The example of the vampire is, again, dependent on the variety of vampire discussed. Traditional myths on vampires indicate that the vampires don't NEED to drink blood to keep existing and get nothing real out of it, but their entire state of vampirism is reflective of their own immoral nature especially embodying Envy (for the state of life in others), Wrath and Lust (for life and existence, not for sex).Originally Posted by Dante
2) He doesnt mitigate the acts with any sort of explanation or rationale. A soldier kills people as part of his job but his moral choice has been made by his commanding officer. Likewise, a vampire (seeing as they are the monster of choice in this thread so far) can point to their need for blood as being the reason why they have to eat people. These almost relieve the character of the moral burden of their choice and in the case of the vampire can make them a sympathetic character rather than a monster. Whereas real evil seems to know full well what they are doing and offer no explanation or justification for doing so other than that was what they wanted to do.
It is a mistake to view mythical vamps as a separate species.
They're humans.
In myths, aside from the victims that are enslaved to become vampires (which is only included in a fraction of the myths, actually), you had to DO something to become a vampire and it was usually marked by an intense will to fight against the natural state of things.
The idea of needing blood and gaining power from it and the tragically afflicted bitten victims started with Stoker for the most part. -
Quote:I don't find the xenomorphs in aliens to be evil. As you say, they're fulfilling their purpose.Originally Posted by synthozoic
But what if the creature is sapient but is so alien we really don't know if they have emotions like ours? Do we really know they are enjoying it when the kill us with abandon? Since most stories on this planet are written by human authors, we, the authors and audiences, define what evil is. Evil is a humanly framed concept.
I might be revolted by the larvae of a parasitic wasp that lays eggs in caterpillars but is that really evil? Stuff like that happens all the time in nature, so red in tooth and claw. Or to strike more closely to home, the xenomorphs in the Alien movies, or similar creatures in Dead Space. Are they evil or just fulfilling their biological function? Are Cthulhu and other Lovecraftian horrors really evil, or just some hyperspatial kids thoughtlessly driving their bikes through the ant nest we call the Earth? I'm sure rabbits and cows, if they could think, would view us as horrific monsters--shades of Chiken Run.
But this repeats things and takes us back into the discussion about vampires being automatically evil or just a predator on humans.
however, they do fit in the classification of a monster
a monster doesn't need to be evil to be a threat
just like I said the Daybreaker vamps aren't really evil, but are monstrous
a horror story doesn't need something evil to be horrible -
Quote:you're both arguing from different viewpoints, this makes an end result unlikelyOriginally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Thats the thing, though. Saying Vampires are 'inherently evil' removes any choice they have. And they most likely (in the games/worlds the exist, obviously) do, just like humans do. Just because a vampire chooses not to be a slaughtering murderous b@stard does not stop it being a vampire. It just means it's not evil. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive (I think thats the right way round..?)
Techbot is discussing the broad term of vampire which is a humanoid being which subsists on blood.
Rockfist is discussing the traditional supernatural vampire.
Techbot's vampires can be born that way and it is natural to what they are, given that they are a natural occurrence, they are not inherently good or evil. They are not human even if they are related to humans, they are a separate species.
Rockfist's vampires are humans that have either deliberately chosen to be an undead, soul-sucking monster, or else the victim of said soul-sucking monster.
repeat
Techbot is discussing a variant species
Rockfist is discussing a dead, evil human
these concepts are very different
as such the end conclusion for either is going to be very different
the confusion is coming in that you are using the same word to describe both concepts