Oliin

Unfortunately it's not the rare that you craft with 32 shards. You take 32 shards and 2 favors of the well to make the very rare piece.

I think the idea was if you're 49, you run the WSF and THEN hit 50 if you run it again would you get the notice of the well.

I've not heard of anyone doing that, but given it's a once per-week per character sort of thing I'd imagine you'd have to wait until the next week to get your notice of the well.

Because nobody ever runs TFs/SFs for merits/xp/fun then? I know it's a high requirement for the badge, but on the other hand I also highly doubt the things will be 'abandoned' like you think. Especially if they give out XP like they're supposed to.

Sure they may not be as 'easy' to get people to run, but certainly not impossible.

I've never actually played with that option tell the truth.

Maybe it's just me, but that's not so much a sob-story as it is a fairly solid, "Congratulations man."

I get what you meant though. Just wanted to say that.

I think the point being that Mononoke was his first 'big' film here in the US. Of course it still wasn't his first film released in the US, but it's likely that it's the first one many people had heard of.

From 2000-2009 four of the best supporting actor winners were from movies that grossed over $100 domestically and there seems to be at least one nominee from a 'big' movie almost every year and several times more than that. The best supporting actress nominees seem to be generally from 'smaller' films this last decade though. I'm not sure why that is exactly since there were plenty of nominees from 'bigger' films back in the '90s.

But anyhoo. This year five of the nominees (from both best supporting actor and actress combined) were in films that have either grossed more than $100 million so far, or have released to more than 2000 theaters. Both The Town and The Fighter released in well over 2k theaters and True Grit is in over 3k theaters and has grossed almost $140 million domestically so far. They're actually doing better (according to those requirements) than the best actor/actress nominees. Only three of them meet your criteria.

Oh, and five of the best picture nominees fit that criteria too. I think you're neglecting the fact that 'blockbusters' very consistently win the academy awards. Going as far back as 1990 there've been a total of two films that had a total gross of less than $100 million and four that grossed less than $100 million domestically and were shown in less than 2k theaters.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of the times I really don't agree with the Academy Awards, and there are a lot of films I honestly though have been robbed with many more that their being nominated just baffles me. However it's a stretch to imply that they don't showcase 'big' films along with the more 'artsy' ones.


*I tend to get all my movie 'numbers' from Box Office Mojo.

The rant itself is nothing terribly special, but I thought it was very nicely presented ... and yes that first bit of the Carmina Burana does make things fantastically epic sounding.

So you're saying that nobody watched films like Titanic, Good Will Hunting, Saving Private Ryan, American Beauty, The Sixth Sense, The Green Mile, Gladiator, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, any thee of the Lord of the Rings movies, Moulin Rouge!, Million Dollar Baby, Little Miss Sunshine, No Country for Old Men, Juno, or Slumdog Millionaire?

Sure they've picked some obscure films over the years, and a lot of films I didn't personally like, but they do tend to pick a lot of the more popular films that roll through.

Edit: Alternately I guess you could be meaning they're trying to drive up viewership and relevance by pandering to the viewers and allowing in 'popular' films (though personally I think they've always somewhat done that). That thought occurred to me after I responded ....

Assuming they're the same type of people I've teamed with who do the same thing in some of the more PvP related games out there (DAoC, WAR), then yes, yes they do.

Sadly I never quite came up with a way to get them to stop though. In WAR I was even in a guild where a good chunk of the members broke off and started their own simply because we wouldn't require across the board that everyone use voice chat. I suppose at least in PvP related games the voice chat thing somewhat makes sense, but those folks were mostly like that across all other games as well (though not quite so vehemently).

On the other hand, if everyone got an /auctionhouse command then what would actually be the point of having the physical wentworths/black market areas in the game? The only other way I really see them having implemented this would have been it being tied to an accolade like the MA one is.

In any case I've never really thought our auction houses were terribly hard to get to, not like they are in some other games at least.

And no, I'm not just saying this because I'll be getting the thing a week or so after it hits live. It's just never been a huge issue for me.

I dunno. It really depends on the recharge length. I mean, if it equates to something like once every play-session I don't know how nerf-worth it is.

Wow, I wasn't invested in the Million Little Pieces thing, (it all seemed kind of fakey overblown to be honest) and I wasn't surprised when it turned out he made a bunch of the book up, but even then I kind of thought he was a lousy human being.

He's actually managed to get me to lower my opinion of him with that. Truly an impressive feat.

If it helps any, I got it before the explanation. You know, for what little that's worth.

This thread had a rail?

To be honest I was expecting her not to be. Since her being his daughter was just too obvious and cliche.

Still, color me not surprised.