SuperOz

Huzzah! #3 is in my hands and I read it twice..... I have to say, I'm enjoying the parodies of the various writing styles you're doing there. I especially liked the Alan Moore-esque english thing, and the multiverse crisis thing....was that a sneaky Freedom Phalanx reference I spotted in there?

Beyond that, I'm getting a bit of a Black Swan vibe from the main story, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm getting a definite impression that a lot of this story is really what she's seeing and may not even be actually real, which is not unexpected given what you've said about the origins of this story and all.

I'm not necessarily expecting this story to end on a positive note, but that's not a bad thing unto itself. What is a bit sad is that I do like TG and hope the best for her.

Maybe you'd consider 'reimagining' her in one of those alternate realities where she is a superhero? I'd really like that. She can join my SG anytime.



S.

I spoke to my local comic book store guy today about it....let's just say it's not flying off shelves....


S.

Couldn't we just give the poor lad something to draw amazingly well without asking him to write anything?

Troy, I've heard you're a writer.....do you think you can help?



S.

I've become convinced Neal still believes he's in the 70's and is on an extended acid trip.


S.

As I told more than a few friends after having seen this: the plot was as deep as the box of popcorn I was eating from.

The trailer told me all I needed to know: Marines vs. Aliens. That's it. No deep concept, well-thought out alien attack. This is a showreel for the FX company (which I understand also was behind Skyline, feel free to correct me here) and nothing more. You can argue otherwise if you want, but I know a point-to-point script when I see one.

The friend I went with to our session and I were literally looking over to each other and marking the checklist of scenes cribbed from other movies, from Alien to Aliens to Independence Day and even bits of District 9.

Aliens attack Earth, Marines go 'OO-RAH!' and whup on the aliens. That's it.

Aaron Eckhart does as much as he can with the script he's been given. He tries to inject some depth into a fairly shallow part, and he's clearly better than the movie he's in. Beyond that, there's a lot of by-the-numbers stereotypes who you could transplant into any other movie of this nature.

It's what it promoted itself as: a popcorn movie.



S.

I disagree, and in the nicest sense of the word. They are the only country in the world (to date) to have had nuclear attacks on their soil and they not only recovered from it, it was the spur to make them the third largest economy in the world.

They have an indomitable spirit, and I have admired them most of my adult life. They will rebuild because they can rebuild.


S.

An interesting note here; he was in Orson Welles' production of Macbeth back in 1941 and was considered to be part of his regular cast of actors. Micheal Gough had an amazingly long career and was by all reports (as well as the previous poster's firsthand account) a complete gentleman and professional.

A truly sad day for the acting community.


S.

Living in Australia, we've had data caps from the beginning.

I'm currently on a new 200GB account, and you'll really push to get up towards your upper limit. Playing online is next to nothing; it's downloads of multiple movies or whatever that's going to even remotely challenge you. Heck, I had a 20GB limit before now and I had trouble pushing that.


S.

The other big lucky break they've had is that all the prevailing winds with a weather change are going to take any radioactive materials out to sea. That rad rating je_saist quoted there will disperse over days.

There's a lot of misunderstanding of this situation, unfortunately. There's a lot of fear (the vast majority of which is unnecessary when you look at the actual situation, which is that the winds are taking this away and that they are continuing to contain this situation brilliantly well in my opinion) and remembered fear thanks to Chernobyl, and every explosion just heightens that along with the 6.3 magnitude quake that happened in the last few hours there.

No tsunami alerts, no extra damage that I know of. The bigger concern for me now is the humanitarian side of food shortages and finding what survivors there are to the north, and the financial side with how the stock markets are reacting in panic to the situation.


S.

This is an interesting topic, Sam. What you're discussing is the very fundamental problem that all makers of video games face in terms of having a game that interests people, and it's not limited to just MMO's. Console games, strategy games, action games, puzzle games....they all have two paths that a player can take.

The first is the difficult route, where the player can engage with the situation and work through the problems or situations presented to them, and they will often involve things that will challenge the player, cause them to think, or in this specific case, take them out of their comfort zone. This is done to not only mark the game as not just something like all the other games, but also in order to try new coding or techniques the makers of these games have come up with for something that doesn't adhere to normal gaming tropes. To be fair, they're not doing this to discourage you from playing the game, quite the opposite. What they're trying to do is encourage you to try a new way of thinking and getting you to try and think outside the box by thinking through the parts of a puzzle, or in the Incarnate Trial's case, learn the pattern of the NPC's and come up with strategies to beat them.

However, this conflicts with the prevailing nature of gamers which is the second path, the path of least resistance. Just about every time, we gamers will want to get straight onto whatever the game's about and that involves something relatively straightforward and not too complicated. This isn't a shot at the intelligence level of gamers or even their ability to deal with new situations, but rather game psychology. We don't want to be taken out of our comfort zones, and we certainly don't like changing our patterns of behavior. The path of least resistance means just that, and changing that is something players generally don't like.

However, you'll find that the same people who enjoy PvP because of the challenge that it gives them are the same people who enjoy raiding and difficult content because of precisely that, the challenge. They don't like what they percieve as repetitive and 'easy' content and want something that tests them.

Really, this is a matter of personality. I like a good learning curve that allows me to fail and doesn't punish me too hard if I fail, but I also don't like something that continues to punish me even after I've learnt what I need to do to overcome the situation. Not having done the new TF's and Incarnate content, I can't say if they suit me. I think the short duration of them suits me; I've done raids and instances on fantasy based games and find them interminable. I don't see gaining aggro here or setting off a trap there as challenging as much as learning a pattern. That doesn't require skill, it requires you having a memory and teaching others what you've remembered.

You have to decide for yourself what your playstyle is, really. I think by and large CoH succeeds far more than it fails in this regard, and we'll have to wait and see if this endgame content is as the devs claim open to everyone.


S.

Unfortunately, I can't add anything but bad news here. Seismologists are predicting a 70% chance of a 7 magnitude quake in the next three days, and a 50% chance of 4 magnitude quakes over the next seven days.

However, I can back up what Arcanaville has said about the reactors; these are significantly better designed and safer reactors than Chernobyl. The primary containment buildings where the reactors actually are have seven feet steel reinforced concrete walls and additional protection to contain a meltdown should it occur.

Seawater is indeed a last resort measure, but the explosions we've seen (which are all hydrogen explosions) are releases of pressure and not dangerous. In a few days, what radioactive material is released will drop to below background levels. In short, the people are safe and the japanese authorities are well on top of people who have had any significant exposure.

We're in a state of wait and see right now, though.


S.

These are all excellent choices....if it's been put in PDF form, the old Dragon magazine had a great article (and spreadsheet) about music for all sorts of encounters, which I still use.



S.

I have the series on my pull list, Troy....socks, eh? Surely you need more pants instead....


S.

I really, really hope that's the case, je_saist. Am I the only one thinking that I've seen and been through more natural disasters in the last three months than in the last three decades?

I watched the Queensland floods from where I live, saw the biggest tropical cyclone in Australia's history hit the coast, saw the flooding in another state, then watched the horror of Christchurch and now this. And as a friend pointed out today, it's possible one triggered the other. With New Zealand's tectonic plate movement, it's possible that this was a 'reaction' of sorts as the plates shift in adjustment.

I am only thankful that Australia doesn't sit on a faultline but rather sits on top of a plate. We only have to worry about tsunamis, floods, cyclones, fires....I have a good friend who lives in Japan. I really hope they're safe.



S.

I could see this happening, really. We know now from the Apex and Tin Man TF's that the conflict between Praetorian and Primal Earths are just escalating, and I'd be all for continuing that storyline to promote a revamp of zones down the track. I think it'd be particularly audacious to try the idea of destroying the War Walls in the 'Incarnate/Praetorian Earth' storyline in a TF or Incarnate Trial, and once that's resolved, looking at revamps.

The way I see it, the story obviously revolving around not just one but a large number of characters going towards godhood and escalating power has to leave a lasting mark on the environment around that conflict.

I've had a pet theory for a while now that if you were going to go down the CoH 2 road, this would be the right way to go as this is the Endgame in more ways than it just being the next tier of where level 50's go. We've got visual confirmation Ouroboros gets involved in the initial Alpha Slot story, the Coming Storm is mentioned more and more and the stakes continue to be raised. If you wanted to bring an end to the current game's metastory, this would be my pick to do it.

Then the fallout from that conflict (as possibly the Incarnates ascend to become what...the new godly pantheon of myths and legends?) would birth the next phase of stories in a sequel game.

At least that's how I'd plan it out, anyways.


S.

It's pretty horrendous, I have to say.

The tsunami warning is stretching as far as Hawaii and will even make the west coast of America with waves of up to seven feet in height. That's the problem with these things, they maintain and in some cases can magnify their energy as they travel across the water.

The disasters in my home country of Australia, then Christchurch's earthquake, now here...I'm wondering when I can book a flight to Paragon. It somehow feels a bit safer than here right now.

I just saw the mention about the reactors. They've been able to shut them down (leaves four and a half million without power) but there's also a major oil refinery field on fire right now too....I don't think we have a true clue as to the size of this yet, but the tsunami waves...I honestly have trouble concieving the scale of it.


S.

I always get confused by these shows, because Kamen Rider and Power Rangers and stuff seem to be so interchangeable! But I do admire the enormous effort that goes into the special effects for these shows, and the huge amount of coordination they have to do for the mass fights.

Just how many of these hero shows do they have, anyways?


S.

I couldn't resist....someone said huge FN spawns.

Heehee.


S.

I hear you on this one, Sam. I truly do. There's a protective bubble that exists around some characters in fiction that leave you not caring about them because you know the script is protecting them.

I was having a very interesting conversation with a friend today about the most recent movie adaptation of War of the Worlds, directed by Spielberg. My friend correctly pointed out that the movie goes to pains to not only show the Tom Cruise character barely escaping by the skin of his teeth on multiple occasions, but also to be apparently the only human on Earth capable of common sense regarding car engines and noticing the blindingly obvious sign of the birds landing on the Martian robots.

Any story that convincingly conveys the possibility however of danger to any and perhaps all members of a story works particularly well. The Joss Whedon Serenity movie's most shocking death comes out of nowhere and suddenly puts the rest of the cast in jeopardy.

I don't agree that should always be the case, but something like this game where defeat normally means just a quick rez in a hospital pod, a sense of imminent danger and threat is hard to come by. Often the best way I've done this myself is by soloing and honestly forgetting to have wakies in my inspiration trays. You're on your toes when you're down to half your health facing an Elite Boss as a Scrapper, let me tell you.

But threat is best conveyed in strong writing, really. I don't think you need a mechanic to represent this fear of defeat or being hurt so long as you as the player are buying into the notion of precisely that. Compare the writing from say Armageddon and Deep Impact (two films with pretty much the same story) and note how Deep Impact makes the threat and the reaction to that threat much more personal and frightening, whereas Armageddon is more of a gung-ho action movie.

It's how the Westin Phipps arcs are reacted to so viscerally because his dialogue and his intentions are so well written that you want to hate him or conversely admire the depths of his villainy. I believe it's the impression you create here that determines the way you react to a sense of danger over some mechanic that lacks an emotional component. You have to care about dying in a video game environment, and a good story will do that every time.


S.

I just wanted to throw in a post here (I have already expressing my opinions on this subject) thanking everyone for posting and particularly Arcanaville, whose opinion I genuinely do respect and am glad to see that they share what I'm percieving as the majority on this topic.

I've felt a little torn over how the Incarnate system was going because my initial impressions were 'wow, this is amazing!' (and I think that really stems from the epic introduction in the initial arc from Ramiel) and that this was the beginning of an individual awakening of power (as has been pretty much stated in the arc and by others here).

To have that sense diluted down to one of an external sense of power (and one that you only have a limited scope to do, especially in terms of choice) I think is disempowering to players, especially ones on this game that has spent the better part of its existence embracing the freedom of customisation that is the hallmark of this game.

I don't doubt that within the dev team headed by Positron that having a strong endgame is a worthwhile endeavor and was given resources accordingly; I think what seems to have come as an afterthought were alternative and parallel means of going down this road, which, from some statements I've read regarding implementing such really have come off as afterthoughts, and that's surprising. It's almost as if full participation in the endgame was assumed rather than optional.

I want to embrace the road of the Incarnate, but not at the cost of individuality and more importantly the sense of individual choice and flexibility that this game has impressed upon me since joining in 2006.

I truly sincerely hope that the Devs do take the time to stop and read this thread (amongst others that have similar themes to this) and look to that design ethic and perogative that has shone through from the 'people's champion for art' in Noble Savage. His level of communication and responsiveness, let alone delivery upon that responsiveness has gained him a deserved reputation in the game community.

A similar level of communication in these areas would go a long way I feel to assuaging concerns and imbuing us yet again with a sense of empowerment.



S.

So what, it's incompatible with any AT that came out before 2009?


S.

Awesome look. Spot on.


S.