Olantern

Yet another reason the next Epic AT should be "Rikti Monkey." Primary: Monkey Attack. Secondary: Monkey Gas Manipulation.

The AT after that should be File Cabinet.

Yes, it's pretty terrible, particularly now that it includes Super Stunners, with their auto-rez that drains more than half your endurance, even if you kill them from the next county over. (I ran a Sister Psyche last night, and it's amazing how much the addition of this one enemy type slowed it down since my last run a month or two ago.)

The sad thing is that, awful as it is, it's one of the better i0 Task Forces. I mean, at least Freakshow look interesting. Wait until Synapse is a Strike Target, and then we'll see real wailing and gnashing of teeth. (My first TF ever, back in i3, was a Synapse. It took six and a half hours straight. Even with the buffs, speeding tricks, and experience we've all gained over the years, it still feels almost that long.)

At least the villain counterpart is Silver Mantis, which is one of the better Strike/Task Forces in the entire lower-level half of the game.

***

It would be nice to see the rest of the i0 TF's revamped and a level 30-35 Strike Force added. However, I don't see that ever happening. The devs seemed to have realized that, unlike a story arc, a Task Force can't just rely on a decent story to carry it, since only the team leader ever sees that. (Ironically, when I'm leading, even on non-speed runs, the team always seems to be in such a hurry that I never get to read the information.) Therefore, the devs try to make TF's special with unique maps or unique mechanics. Witness the new Posi TF's (almost all unique maps) or any SF. Those things, unlike writing and setting a mission to spawn a faction, take extra development time. With the game now focused on a rush to 50 and then repeated running of the same "raid" content, I don't think the development priorities are there for lower level stuff. Even if they were, it would take literally years to crank out an entire, new villain SF and revamp five (six, counting Moonfire) hero TF's.

Some of mine:

"Laugh with me!" -Vernon von Grun (already posted, but it can't be said enough)

"PRAETOR BERRY IS STUPID." -some Praetorian clock

"Now, everyone listen to my evil plan ..." - scanner mission bosses

My first character, from just before i4 release, was an Invulnerability tanker, because the old Prima guide told me that was an "easy" set to learn the game with. (It also claimed that Kinetics is only useful on teams. The sad thing is that I believed it for years.) I didn't take Unyielding until 44 because I wasn't aware that it had been tweaked to enable the tanker to move while it was running. Fortunately, I ran with an Empath much of the time, with Clear Mind taking the place of real mez protection, but soloing was a challenge at high levels. That build made me pretty good at "active defense," though I'm embarassed to admit that I learned about that concept from playing a tanker.

I'll be running some Task Forces (weekly and otherwise), thinking up a character on whom to use the Animal Pack, finishing the book I'm reading and starting another one, providing comments on some student stuff for work, and possibily doing some writing. And, this thread has made me crave some French Vanilla coffee, so I'll go get some of that.

This would normally be a weekend I'd go to see the Metropolitan Opera Live at the movie theatre, but this week is Nixon in China, and I don't think I can handle four hours of Singing Nixon and Mao.

This sounds like a fairly lousy idea, but I do sort of like that white outfit on Spider-Man. (Of course, his original outfit is better- please don't kill me!)

That was a really nicely done trailer. It presented the pack much better than trailers for some previous releases I've seen, which tended to feature a lot of standing around. This one had a nice flow to it, along with better costume design (not costume parts; I mean the skill used in putting them together to make a character) than I've come to expect from official videos.

Also, I suggest that the animal biker gang be referred to as the Wild Pack, after its ferocious leader, Herkimer Wilde.

It's wonderful to see there's someone out there who despises Batman as much as I do, but in my opinion, he's got the character completely wrong. Backward, even. Explaining why I think so, unfortunately, would violate the forum terms of service. Oh, well.

The Black Panther has long been a favorite of mine, so this is potential good news for me. I'm not sure how well some of his distinctive features would translate to a movie, though. Aside from his interesting superpower (ruling his own Ruritanian country), the thing I find most interesting about the Black Panther is that he's usually portrayed as a character whose greatest power is a super-genius brain and the ability to plan effectively, which doesn't necessarily make for the same kind of narrative tension in a movie as it can in print. The Black Panther needs to be more than some African guy who wears black and kicks people. We'll see, I guess.

The City & the City, novel by China Mieville.

More to come later if any occur to me.

If we must have a "realistic" Bond, I've long felt that the movies should follow the early books more closely. The novel Casino Royale, for instance, relies on Bond's experiences as an agent during World War II for much of its narrative force. What I guess I'm suggesting is that I'd like to see a "historical" Bond movie, though I'm probably alone in this.