Amentep

Another series that is only spottily available here (unless you import and can read French).

I was older than a teen when I played BG2. I thought Minsc was bland (thought he was bland in BG2 and wouldn't have used him but I thought Dynaheir was the best of the bad mage choices). Edwin I didn't like, he was IMO banal evil. Aerie could be a useful party member but a lot of her dialogue is overwrought and as subtle as a brick to the head. Jan Jansen was funny though, but even then it was broad and unsubtle and very easy to see why it'd turn people off. Part of the benefit of the Torment NPCs IMO was that you only got out of them what time you invested in them. BGII had a overabundance of character - in both positive and negative sense. Great game, but again I see no problem taking a critical eye to it and seeing what worked and trying to figure out why it worked (and what didn't work and avoiding it).

When the new 52 was announced, Demon Knights was the title I was most interested in. There were a lot of DC's fantasy characters and others that could fit the title. Paul Cornell was coming off two well done comic book works KNIGHT AND SQUIRE and CAPTAIN BRITON AND MI13. Cornell in interviews was playing up the idea of an adventurous fantasy story lobbing around references to LOTR and Dragon Age. And then the book we got was a group of people stuck in a town being snarky to one another while the big bad went around killing everyone in their path (for no clear reason) while searching for some MacGuffin. Needless to say I thought it was terrible. After four issues I gave up on it; sadly it was the Paul Cornell who'd written some really poor Doctor Who stories, and not the one who wrote some really good Doctor Who stories who showed up. That said I'd agree the SoS 1st issue was bad. If I hadn't bought the 1st and 2nd issue together I'd probably have dropped it with #1. Same thing happened with the recent KATANA title; although in KATANA's case, I think the 2nd issue was actually intended to be the 1st and the published 1st issue was a last minute editorial edict comic. Mark Waid's 75th Anniversary Quiz: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=44987 I only got #3 and #8.

I'm going to try and see Oblivion tomorrow. See how that goes. RE: GI Joe, I think they were trying to do a "soft" reboot. That said the way they did things, I think a lot of the characters (if not the actors) from the first film could come back. And finally G. Reeves is the best Superman, IMO. What can I say, I was an impressionable kid and I've never liked the modern Superman films.

I just finished Sword of Sorcery's most recent 3 issues (I think the last hasn't came out). it's amazing for a fantasy semi-anthology that they shied away from fantasy world, instead doing modern age urban fantasy. Also too much New 52 John Constantine.

They gave away the bullet in the eye in the trailer though, so it was hard to be impressed by it. Heck they had Noel Neill in it for a cameo and they made it creepy. So it was impossible to enjoy even that (at least Jack Larson fared a bit better). I did think Routh did his best though; there's just no way he could have saved it.

I was trying to come up with some way to describe PST that I could then combine it with elements from BGII and BGI and not come up with IWD. Forgive the word choice, as its not really the point of my statement. I was merely trying to counter's argument that Josh hating (elements) of BGII meant that PE was IWD + PST /= BGII with a similar comparison that BGII + BG1 + PST =/ IWD; in essence there's no transitive property with this type of equation. I feel its misleading because of the reasons you describe above. It so nebulous, so open to interpretation, that's its virtually meaningless. Its a carefully constructed term designed to evoke positive responses yet leave so much wiggle room as to not mean anything. I didn't expect the same mechanics because Obsidian doesn't have the DnD license, but I also didn't expect for most mechanics to have a random turd (a "twist" specifically designed to discourage use) attached to each either. So, for me, "spiritual successor" just turned into throwing $52 bucks in the toilet. No biggie, but lesson learned. Eh, if someone said they were doing a spiritual successor to Wizardry I'd expect magic, variety of classes, party based and a 3d view with turn-based battles. Beyond that...well here's the thing, I care about the mechanics being fun rather than some absolute position. I haven't liked or agreed with every design choice I've heard but (and its a big one) if the game ends up being fun and balanced, IMO, how the game does it is irrelevant. PST didn't do inventory the same as BG1; IWD2 didn't use the same rules as BG1; IWD had little character interaction, BG2 did. The IE games in between themselves gave a wide variety of options and implementations. Heck, IWD2 tried to address a lot of the inventory issues people complained about in the other games by adding a lot of containers so people could get around various inventory limits. I'm not surprised to see some of these things being looked at for another "IE like" game.

Aka Super-Creepy Stalker Man Returns Really, really disliked that film. The plane set-piece being the only thing of merit, IMO.

A lengthy isometric fantasy RPG with a number of well drawn, well written joinable companions, with a strong story and sidequests and a fun and involving combat system. And an emotional/philosophical exploration based narrative like Planescape Torment combined with the stronghold building of Baldur's Gate II and the explorable map areas of Bladur's Gate I doesn't sound much like Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter. I'm not really sure how you can combine these three games and ever get Baldur's Gate unchanged back. So I'm not sure how you can take a concept that promises "Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment" and assume it'll be exactly like Baldur's Gate II. PE to my mind is a game that pulls elements from all of these games; by its nature it can't be BALDUR'S GATE III or ICEWIND DALE III. Really? Because what I read was: and the above quote about how they planned to use elements of all three games, neither of which to my mind promise a continuation of Baldur's Gate replicated ten years on. YMMV of course; but that's not what I got out of the Kickstarter video.

Since when is PE the spritual successor to Baldur's Gate only? Seems to me there is a lot of room in being the spiritual successor to BG, BGII, PST, IWD, IWD2 and expansions than you want to acknowledge to do a variety of things. And really what I take from a line like "I really disliked most of the CNPCs, I really disliked being forced to go find Imoen, I really disliked the style of dialogue, and I really disliked being flooded with a million quests by every shmoe on the streets of Athkatla. Basically, there wasn't a whole lot I did like about it." has more to do with disliking the way the story, joinable NPCs, and quest design was implemented. We already know that the system is different (different engine, no D&D rules). I'd imagine the "impact" of Sawyers "hate" is that he won't tell the story the same way BGII did or implement quests the same way it did or have NPCs built the same way and interact with the party the same way. Which, to be fair, neither did BG1, PST or IWD and IWD2. And I doubt PE is going to be exactly like them either. I'm not sure where the problem is, to be honest because I never expected PE to be slavishly devoted to recreating any of those games, but taking the style of game and making something new.

I have two people who work for me now who started their careers (long ago) as tellers. Looks to be good work - particularly for those putting themselves through college.

I dunno, Dan wasn't looking so good when Isabel "Izzy" Dare visited after becoming Smasher in Hickman's AVENGERS (yeah I know its just a fun wink & nod) I need to look into some of the Dan Dare Frank Hampson reprints from a few years back.

Silver-Age Superman built all kinds of super-science stuff, but it was all very wacky silver-age stuff as compared to the Kirby-Tech of Reed Richards.

I stand corrected then on Hulk in vacuums; I blame my memory. I don't remember the Superman bit in the new 52 - was that in Lobdell's Superman or Morrison's Action (or some other book?)

They haven't announced anything on how reputation would work in P:E. How is this even supposed to work? Like Bingo? Reputation is a broader concept than individual reaction, and the words you've placed tend toward personal perceptions. How can an entire faction feel "affection" for an individual? Unless this entire faction is a hivemind, your idea doesn't make sense. You haven't actually added an additional dimension to the concept of reputation, all you've done is placed a linear reputation scale vertically, repeated it three times and given positive, neutral and negative reputations different names in each column. What the grid is is showing what the parts of the Cartesian graph would be Sympathy (X,-Y) Affection (X, 0) Admiration (X, Y) Indifference (0, -Y) Neutral (0,0) Respect (0, Y) Disgust (-X, -Y) Hatred (-X, 0) Fear (X, -Y) I'd quibble on the naming system (as some of the names are loaded), but really the idea is "quantitative value vs qualitative value" and there maybe better ways to describe it, but it is two dimensional. Now in terms of reputation, I'd argue that having "Liked" as a status per the Fallout example in a large group is pretty silly too. For example I might get my reputation with the NCR to liked without having met more than 10% of the NCR people. How is an entire faction suppose to "like" me when they haven't met me. Being villified by some powder gangers (who attacked me first and who I killed to the man so WHO TELLS THE POWDER GANGERS I DID IT?) is also silly. But that's how game reputations work. If you were trying to be less abstract you could have a "reputation" for factions and a seperate "opinion" for individuals in the factions.

Just like nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition? Only with more duckbills and poison spurs.

As far as I know the Gamma radiation didn't effect Superman, but also as far as I recall Hulk hasn't really been shown to be actively giving off gamma rays. I seem to recall Radiation Roy in pre-Crisis trying his power on Superboy and it not working and he was shown to emit Gamma rays so my thinking is that pre-Crisis Superman at least wouldn't be effected. My expertise in that area is limited.

Again, I'm not pledging money I can't live without. If the company is upfront about the delays - why, how long, etc. - I'm okay with that. If the project dies and I lose my money I won't be happy - but I accepted that risk when I pledged.

I don't have pets currently, but when I did my cats would come when I called him/her too. The two cats socialized with each other and the dog. The big difference is that the dog seemed more protective than the cats when strangers came around (mind you one of our cats did jump over a fence onto the back of a loose doberman that was barking at it and rode it like a bronco through the front yard, so I'm not sure I'd have tested the theory. )

Superman has been vastly depowered. Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Kryptonians could move planets (and in some cases, suns) around if they really wanted to. This they did with their hands. Post-Crisis Kryptonians are just, very, very strong but can't really move a planet on their own. Officially in DC vs Marvel Superman beats the Hulk (very controversial though). My guess would be Hulk wins in a physical fight on the ground, Superman wins if he can get Hulk into outer space (Hulk still needs to breathe, IIRC, Superman doesn't*). (*or holds his breath a really long time, depending on which version of Superman we're talking about although a few versions have had him using a breather in space).

They said "Semiaquatic" so think beaver, otter, platypus, yapok, etc.

Hmm, maybe I should go back and reread the fifth comic in the series because I thought he did unleash his full power on the Hulk. Even going so far as to say (paraphrasing); "so this is what it feels like to finally let go". I think he did - but I don't think he did at the beginning of the fight (as I recall - I might be wrong). The going theory on the Hulk at the moment is the angrier he gets, the stronger he gets. As Gorgon said there's no upper bound on this. So unless, at the beginning of the fight (Act I, Scene I) Sentry uses all of his power, he's going to only at best be able to tie the Hulk (which he did as they both ended up exhausted and out of their powered up forms). The longer the fight goes, the stronger the Hulk will be.

Sentry always defeated himself. Usually by non-action - The Avengers got their assess handed to them by Black Bolt which wouldn't have happened had the Sentry not decided that to act and fight BB would risk unleashing the Void IIRC. Given that he'd never unleash the full brunt of his powers on Hulk at the start of the fight - which is the only way he'd win - I think the fight (really fought to a tie) is reasonable.

Ehhh... the difference, though, is that that's really kind of just "Good" vs "bad," blending together in the middle. It's like a single quadrant of the Cartesian plane. Midnite Rule's proposal would extend that to the entire plane. Sort of. It's got a good bit more complexity, even in its base form. Actually its two quadrants - the green is quadrant 1, the red quadrant 4 and the black the horizontal origin line. Essentially you have one variable that can be either positive or negative; something in a single quadrant is either positive or doesn't exist (0). The only way to do a 4 quadrant plane is to have two independent variables (emotion-practical or trust-like as suggested) where both variables can be positive or negative.

I think you have to approach it this way. Kickstarter is not a store; its the equivalent of having some inventor pitch you - the wealthy investor - about their new plan. Maybe it'll be the new light bulb. Maybe it'd be the new Radithor. You won't know unless it gets backed and you either win big or lose what you invested. I try to hedge my bets by supporting people who've delivered something before (even if they were work-for-hire chaps) but I understand crap happens and even the safe bets have risk. I have no problem with delays so long as the project is upfront with them and not trying to hide them until the last minute.