SlickRiptide

As someone said upstream, I dare you to walk up to Michael White and tell him that he's ANYBODY's sidekick...

It would be like suggesting that Johnny Cash was sidekick material because he was "only" a member of the Million Dollar Quartet (Cash, Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis) instead of a member of The Traveling Wilbury's. I guarantee you that Dylan, Petty, Orbison, Harrison and Lynne would never dream of calling Johnny Cash a "sidekick" and nobody in the Phalanx would ever have a glimmer of a dream of calling the Back Alley Brawler a "sidekick".

Anybody who doesn't realize that the Brawler has a stature every bit as high as the Statesman's doesn't understand their history.

"What do you mean, 'We', White Man?"

I'm going to reserve judgement on what they plan or hope for or expect because the reality is that the people who actually sign up for those free and premium accounts are only going to care about their own self interest and aren't going to give two figs for what the developers want. I've seen it before and while I think they have a pretty good plan, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men.

Because he has his own history that sits alongside that of the Freedom Phalanx. The history of the Regulators is the history of the drug war in Paragon City and specifically the history of Superadine. He's a pivotal hero with his own legacy. I'd rather see him as a representative of the old-guard and his own concerns than subsumed into the Phalanx and its agenda. I'd be much more interested in learning what's become of the rest of the Regulators, and maybe even see them revived.

In any case, I like the idea of there being some recognizable Signature Heroes who have an existence that doesn't depend on or depend from the Signature Super Group.

Except that he was never supposed to be in the group in the first place. That was sort an osmosis thing, as evidenced by Positron's question as to why anyone believed it.

Pffft. Yeah, you're right. I reversed my 400 and 500.

Hmm... Ouroboros finally having some measurable effect? Yeah, that's the ticket...

At least a Dev could use it to write his way out of the bind. heh

Maybe he's sentimental?

*handwave*

Must be his "golden age" costume! See comic issue, uh, 7, I think it is. The first of the BaB/Manticore,Sr. <-> Protean <-> BaB/Manticore,Jr. triptych.

On another note, I wonder how Justin Sinclair reacts when someone calls him "Junior"?

Oh, I know, but after having a discussion with GoldenGirl over the topic just recently, that was my initial reaction to the "news". :-p

Is there a way to change a thread topic header?

I tweeted Matt that "people assume" but if there IS someplace where he's specifically stated to be in the Phalanx, it's probably a good idea to point it out.

That's just the Paragon City version of Steven Hawking, isn't it? ;-)

*Makes a note to add wheelchair to list of potential vehicles*

Well, that's the beauty of the game, really. You've got something for the straight-up melee guys, something for the straight-up ranged guys, something for the swiss-army-knife guys, and a whole spectrum in between.

I like the idea of a buff that makes my other time buffs better, and a debuff that makes my other time debuffs better. It's a bit like the combo mechanic from dual-swords, and it puts some focus on Time Manip as being a self-focused set as opposed to a set that provides support for my primary set.

Info about Time Manipulation is up. Looks pretty interesting, especially the idea of "acceleration" and "delay".

If I was ever to start a petition about something, it would be this.

It's a travesty that Talos is so one-sided against the Warriors. Even when they went to the trouble to update the zone with the "Tsoo and civilian struggling over an artifact" animations, they still couldn't be bothered to put in any "Warriors threatening/beating up Freaks" animations.

It's even more mysterious given that the film is peppered throughout the game. What dev created a whole group inspired by the film, added quotes from the film to all of the gang chatter, made their solo spawns all about mastery of martial arts, and then setup their home base as a place where every single encounter between them and their rivals involves them cowering and getting a beat down?

It just ain't right, I tell ya!

I had made a decision to lie low on this and another thread for awhile, just on the policy that if one or two voices are dominating then it's not really a conversation.

However - I would like to explore the quoted statement a little.

Let me say up-front that I respect anyone's choice to avoid advertising and I am in no way judging that choice as something "bad".

That said, I don't really understand the decision to make that kind of choice quoted above. Standing on principle is one thing. Stating that you'd walk away from an activity you enjoy because it supplies a completely voluntary opportunity to obtain something cool (presumably cool, anyway) by partaking in a different activity, strikes me as nonsensical.

Someone brought up the facepalm emote upstream, which is a good illustration of this conundrum. I know people who are so anti-Facebook that they would prefer to do without the emote than click a "Like" button (and do the attendant facebook account creation) in order to get it. I know many more people who would say "what's the big deal? gimme my emote" and click it without thinking twice. I might expect those anti-FB people to live without a /em facepalm but I'd be raising an eyebrow if any of them quit playing City of Heroes over that being the only possible way to get a facepalm emote.

When you oppose something so strongly on principle that you're willing to dump the game over it, where do you draw the line? HeroCon was a pay-for-it venture (though I'm sure that the profit was negligible if there was any at all). Was it okay that it was the only way to get a particular costume code? Was that worth quitting the game over? What about costume codes given away at Pax? What about the Facebook promotion? What about codes given away on Twitter? What about people who hate the NCSoft launcher but really wanted the wisps aura? Would quitting the game be a reasonable response to that being the only way to get the wisps aura?

Which part is the objectionable part? The idea of some exclusive way to get something or the idea that it's a third party that's sponsoring the giveaway?

Qualitatively speaking, I don't see any difference between clicking a "Like" button, whose purpose is to increase the awareness of City of Heroes and/or Paragon Studios on Facebook, and clicking a "free soda bottle emote" button and watching a Coke commercial whose purpose is to increase awareness of the soft drink selections of the Coca Cola company in my household.

Maybe the difference is that the former feels "broad" while the latter feels "narrow" or "targeted" and the targeting and/or the submission to the targeting is what feels offensive?

The mucking around happens by Cornelius and Zira showing up in the past. Before that, it was Aldo who was the first to speak and say "No". That was Cornelius reciting history as he knew it. Now, you can argue that he was wrong and that he didn't know the true history, but there's only a shaky basis for making that argument. Caesar wasn't there to lead a revolt before Cornelius and Zira did their time traveling. It's NOT a closed loop, unless you want to believe that Caesar somehow accomplished a grand cover-up of his own role in history. Or maybe the Orangs did it the same way they tried to coverup the history of the Forbidden Zone. It's a whole lot of hand-waving to make that work. Never mind that we see the Lawgiver telling his story to a mixed society of humans and apes instead of an all-ape society.

As for the writer saying that,I suppose he's welcome to his opinion, but what was filmed and edited to create the story was a final chapter in which the apes and humans came to a compromise and were living together at the end. How that leads inevitably to the state of affairs in Taylor's future, I can't even begin to imagine, no matter what the scriptwriter intended or desired. The screenwriter is only one small part of a film and not the most important part by any means. He doesn't get the final say about what it all "really" means.