Nolgroth

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Big Trouble in Little China Been a long time since I pulled this off of the shelf. Still love it.

Re: List Your CO Heroes! Currently alternating between Green Giantess (a She-Hulk clone) and The Omega Solution (a Blade). Both are right around 18th level. [ATTACH=CONFIG]39272[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]39273[/ATTACH]

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Hazard - Richard Marx

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them? Valid points and....I was just being snarky. Sorry 'bout that.

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online?

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Joe Diffie - Home Feeling nostalgia something fierce this morning.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Burn Notice Season 5, Episode 1 Nice to see my second favorite spy back in action. The plot was a major let down. I only hope that is to set up a more rewarding payoff down the road.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? That's good if you think you are getting your money's worth. I realize my argument regarding monthly subscription is entirely subjective. If YOU are having fun and think it is a good value, then it is. Period. For me it wouldn't be. So yeah, I get that. And my beef with Atari goes with any and all game publishers that charge you for more points than you need to buy something and you always seem to have wasted money. It's not just Atari. And I will now stop flogging that dead horse. I think everybody gets where I am coming from.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? No offense, but not really the point. My main beef is with the way they (Atari) decided to price the a la carte add-ons. I am not opposed to paying them money, I'm just asking Atari (and Bioware, Microsoft and any other company that participates in this kind of scam) to stop it. Give us rounded whole dollar prices instead of using points that are deliberately priced to leave a few points extra. That model forces us to pay more than strictly needed for the upgrades that we want. If they didn't want to release the game for free, they didn't have to. In that case, because I never bought into the monthly subscription thing, I would not have even bothered to try it. As to the Gold Membership, I just think $15 a month (or $180 a year) is about three times what I would pay for a new, non-subscription game. With Steam deals and less expensive games that could become as many as five or six games. So 3-5 games versus one per year and being as the shine of Champions Online has already severely started to fade, no thanks. Not to say that it isn't a game that isn't fun or worth paying Atari/Cryptic for. I just don't buy into the concept of monthly subscription to play a game. Maybe if there was something like Netflix, where I could log into a variety of sufficiently different games and play, then I might reconsider the idea.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? Well, I may try out City of Heroes: Freedom just for kicks but I definitely will NOT be dumping money into Champions Online: Free For All. If the pricing scheme is similar for CoH: Freedom, then they will not get money for that either. I was going to purchase one new "class" and one new character slot for CO: FFA. The problem is that the points add up to 2040. Just a little more than the $25, 2000 point mark. Really? From where I come from, that is what we called a hustle. Even $25 seemed awfully steep, but I was willing to toss some scratch towards Cryptic/Atari as a thank you/incentive. The pricing scheme is, IMO, outright crooked. I also noticed that almost every combination of additional upgrades tend to leave you with a few extra points. That pretty much settles the question in my mind. A la carte pricing is fine, just make each thing a specific dollar amount or forget it. I got caught in that whole scheme for Mass Effect 2 and it will never happen again.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online?

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? Thanks for the information. I do not think that it will change my overall opinion, but extra information is always useful.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? RISE THREAD RISE! Recently downloaded and started playing the Champions Online Free For All through Steam. Keep in mind that this is my very first MMO that I have played for longer than it took to grimace and exit. Character Creation Hands down, my favorite part of the game. The obvious reason is being able to visualize the character. There is another, more subtle reason that has to do with game play. Anyway, my first character channeled all of the Dark Avenger look (though I played him as a Behemoth). I have since deleted him (and man does only having two character slots suck eggs) and built many other characters. Along the way came a techo looking martial artist named Emerald something-or-other. She didn't last long. She was soon replaced by my Inferno character, which essentially used the same design with an altered color scheme. Fun character. Then came my second Behemoth; a Warhammer 40K Space Marine looking fellow. Nice, but something was missing so he got replaced by She-Hulk. She in turn got replaced by a Grimoire character that I tried to make look like a stage magician. He in turn was replaced by yet another character. The cycle ended with the return of She-Hulk (as a Behemoth of course). Sadly I could not name her She-Hulk, but the visual is about as dead on as I could make it. The Tutorial Okay, we now start the game only to find that an insectoid alien species called the Qulaar have invaded Millennium City. Nice and epic. So you get to learn the basics of movement, combat, inventory, interaction and the whole enchilada while fighting space aliens trying to steal our chicks. Well maybe not. It was great with just about every character I played. The notable exception was the Grimoire character. Hated him. Probably the most fun I had was with the Inferno character (named Firelight because Firebrand was forbidden for some reason). Getting used to the control scheme was tough. I am a PC gamer, so the mouse buttons are the obvious choice for bringing the smackdown to the baddies. Not so here. The default control scheme is "MMO" so I am guessing that other MMO games follow the same unusual scheme of using the number buttons to attack and activate powers and all that rot. So I am not going to spoiler any of the specific quests, but eventually I get through the final segment of the tutorial and on to the freshly repainted Millennium City. It's A Big World Out There First mission? Power up of course. And here we get our super movement power. Let me tell you, Flight was worth the price of admission (which being a free game is admittedly not much). I especially loved just flying around Renaissance Center (sort of the safe zone of the game). Kudos to Cryptic for that. Then it's off to do the post tutorial tutorial missions. Fun, but only distracting for a minute. Taking a tour? Sure, you want the players oriented but that was sort of tedious. The crafting thing was okay. Fallout New Vegas did it better. Then I start my first "real" mission. It goes okay, leading me further into one of the big sub-plots of the game. After finishing a series of related missions, Defender no longer seems to like me and dumps me off on some guy in a monster truck. He gives me a mission which I do with little problems. It is the subsequent mission where things start to go wrong. I wander down an alley where the primary antagonistic group awaits. All of a sudden (and for no apparent reason beyond "screw you player") a member of a whole other faction jumps out of a side alley. Despite blasting him with literally everything I had, the dude took me down with barely a scratch on his health bar. I even tried to fly away and to no avail. The bad guys have really long range attacks, superleap and your own super movement powers slow to a crawl when you are in combat. I came back and killed the guy, but that is besides the point. Why is a superhero getting owned by a frickin' common thug? It seriously felt like I was playing a street level hero (and a low point one at that) rather than a character worthy enough to stand next to the Champions. Since then, I have (with my son and best friend or alone) taken several missions. They tend to be repetitive, but I liken the game play to Diablo II. One of the idiosyncrasies of the game that takes me out of the world is the presence of super powered characters everywhere. The abilities that the bad guys show, the sheer number of players, and the fact that my contact for missions can one shot guys that I have to wear down all lead to a little bit of a disconnect. I was worried, at first, that all Behemoths (Bricks), Minds (Mentalists), etc would look the same at a given level. After I got to level 11, I realized that the customization truly begins. There will obviously be similar builds with a leveling class system, but at least you can tailor the character a little bit. I was disappointed with the fact that I couldn't just build my character. I understand why class and level was used, but I really wish a Champions game would include a point buy system. Thoughts and Review This game is the first MMO that I honestly enjoyed playing. Character creation is fantastic, reminiscent of my favorite games like Mass Effect and Oblivion. My son and I (sometimes with the help of my best friend) have really taken Millennium City by storm. The graphics are pretty and there is shine of epic scale. When you scratch the surface, the shine proves to be just glamor. Sure, your character can fly, but he also gets thumped on routinely by common thugs. It is a recipe much better suited to fantasy or science fiction genres than mighty superheroes. While I like the buffet pricing for the add-ons, I don't necessarily agree with the rate at which some of the things are priced at. Additional character slots cost somewhere around $15? No thanks. I realize Cryptic and their publisher are trying to make money and I totally support that. As the discriminating consumer, I vote no. How about a single slot for $5. I would pay for that. And while I am on the subject, no matter what you call them, Atari Tokens, Bioware Points, Microsoft Points, I hate the concept. Give me a hard dollar amount, not this fooling around crap so that I always end up buying more points/tokens/whatever than I need. Honestly, I would like this game a whole lot better if they developed and packaged it like Diablo II; something that I can start a server and take off with my close associations. I would actually pay the current video game rate ($50-60) for that. Heck, make those adventure packs an extra charge ($5-10 seems reasonable) and I'd buy those too. I know that I am not anywhere near being in majority. I can dig that. I will spend my hard earned bucks elsewhere, but I totally understand Cryptic's/Atari's need to cater to the majority crowd and their own business model. Finally, I want to thank Cryptic and/or Atari for making Champions Online available for free. While I have some complaints about the pricing issues and some game play snark, I think it is incredibly kind of them to allow us to play for free. I hope this tactic garners them much business in the future.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Recently introduced my daughter to the awesomeness that is Die Hard. She loved it. She giggled when she realized the big bad guy was the same one who plays Snape on Harry Potter.

Re: Artwork needed: Cat people. Not a commission, but Googling "cat person" is scar A little late to the party, but I offer the khajiit from Skyrim as an example of cat people.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Been the week of formulaic movies. Scream 2 - Yeah I finally got around to it. I enjoyed it much the same as it's predecessor. Some massive plot holes, but I expect no less/more from a horror movie. The Crazies - Watched this specifically because I like Timothy Olyphant's recent work on Justified. I can only categorize this movie as 28 Days Later-lite. I enjoyed watching this show, but nothing new or spectacular came of it. Legion - I can sum up this movie with one thought; "almost." It was almost a good movie. It almost had a good plot. While the concept was great, the movie only "almost" filled the potential. From the acting to the way the scenes were directed, the movie fell way short of its potential. I liked it for all that, but it could have been one of those movies that has staying power. Instead, it just followed the Hollywood Standard Apocalypse Plot #3 with Edgy Bits like the pregnant girl smoking. Justified- Season two finale. At least I think it was. The big feud between families seemed to be resolved. A good, dramatic ending.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Right. Knew that looked wrong, but couldn't figure out why.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Saving Grace Episode 1 and 2. Testing a new TV series. Cute idea, but the idea of seeing the voice of Mrs Fantastic being all barroom slut is a hard thing to overcome. I haven't decided whether I like it enough to pursue it.

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits? Self-deprecating humor is all.

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits? Have you ever read Shadowrun? In those terms, I'd like to stop installing the best grade cyberware when I am at about 0.025 essence. Replacement sensory implants, muscle augmentation, skillsoft, dermal armor, wired reflexes, smartlink. I want it all. Unless, of course, I am a mojo slinger after the Awakening. EDIT: Oh and I am already ugly as sin. Looking inconspicuous is nowhere near a priority for me.

Re: Changing the Hero system All of my rules changes were made with the thought of writing macro code for MapTool. I found it easier to consolidate the two separate mechanics for dealing with multiple attacks (Autofire and Multiple Attack) into one mechanic. It was much easier to write the MapTool macro for it. Now all multiple attacks are -2 per each additional target. The macro works by selecting up to five "separate" (though each slot could be the same target) targets. The first target is at 0 modifier. The second one is at -2. Third one is -4. Etc. There is no additional modifier for spread. No loss of charges/attacks either. The only limitation is how many multiple attacks the power is built with initially. I guess I have given everybody a free Autofire skill in there at the same time. Saved me some headaches. I did not have the scripting know-how to properly handle the Explosion fall-off (highest dice first) so I simplified it to a static amount of damage removed per drop-off increment. Less of a macro issue and more of a time management issue, I limited speed to 2 and use the modified Dex score (Lightning Reflexes, drains, aids, etc) to handle the initiative order. I've been tempted to actually use a randomized initiative with speed serving the same function as Shadowrun Initiative Passes. A lot of people are invested in the Speed Chart though, so I will probably leave it as is when playing Hero. I might even limit my group size to four, so that multiple speed scores are possible. I probably made more minor changes for the purpose of running in a chat based, online environment, but I could not tell you what those changes were right now. I have not run face-to-face in a very long time. I do not know if I would feel the need to change anything from the RAW.

Re: STAR HERO Cover Sneak Peek! I like it. Then again, what's not to like about epic space battles. Definitely more appealing to the space opera crowd than the hard sci-fi crowd.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? The Event Season 1 Finale They had me all the way up to the very end. After that, the bottom just dropped out. And then I hear that NBC canceled season two. There goes any hope of plot resolution. I should have just played solitaire or mahjong. Would have been time better spent anyway. Well, okay, Taylor Cole (who plays Vicky), is very easy on the eyes. But still.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?