New efforts!

[Arcana]

All right then.... No more absurd than a baseball player knowing how to play a tough grounder or a ball off the outfield fence, or a soccer player knowing how a ball bounces off different sections of their shoe, the ground, and the goal posts.

I suspect its still more absurd, because literally thousands if not millions of people know how to do those things, and absolutely no one knows how to do Captain America's shield throws.

The critical aspect of Cap's shield throws that make them superhuman is that human beings are literally biologically incapable of measuring angles in three dimensional space that precisely and consistently.  When baseball players play the ground ball, the ball is moving towards them.  Its doing so in an area they are familiar with, with sight lines that allow for computing angles intuitively, with sufficient practice.

To throw a shield off a tree then off a wall then off the ground then back to your hand, representative of many of Cap's throws, even accounting for being able to move to make the catch, requires being able to measure depth distance with precision in an environment you've never seen before, because that depth distance then affects the required throw angles.  With multiple rebounds that requires three separate such judgments almost instantaneously, with the multiple rebound magnifying the required precision of the first throw by at least an order of magnitude.  Most of Cap's multiple bounce shield throws have a level of difficulty comparable to bouncing a quarter off of your desk, and having it land on its edge, with the heads side facing towards you, and right side up.

Feats of accuracy are sometimes less impossible than they look.  When I was in high school, I played basketball with my friends often.  We would often try to make trick shots.  My favorite was standing on the baseline at one corner, then taking a giant step out of bounds behind the backboard, then shooting over the backboard into the basket.  I got to where I could do that almost half the time at one point.  But one day we were doing our thing when a mutual friend, who was a multi-sport athlete, showed up.  We challenged him to try an impossible shot: shooting from directly behind the backboard across the court to the opposite basket.  He said sure, wound up, and catapulted the basketball practically straight up into the sky.  Whereupon it swished into the far basket without even hitting the rim.  Neither he, nor anyone else to my knowledge, were ever able to make that shot again, or even get close.  But its obviously possible.

Cap makes that shot every single time, with one hand, blindfolded, on a basketball court with random dimensions, while riding a motorcycle.

[Arcana]

I never had a problem with the idea of Cap being able to ricochet his shield around the way he does.  He's a super soldier, everything about him is the peak of human ability.  I can suspend disbelief long enough to buy that.  What bothers me about it though, is the whole vibranium thing. 

Cap has been shown to use his shield on numerous occasions, to prevent himself from taking damage from a fall.  Or absorbing a bunch from the Hulk, or to block a rocket.  Now, I know that in the past, his shield has been said to be a unique combination of Adamantium and Vibranium, then later was all or mostly vibranium.  In either case, it is the vibranium that makes him able to use it to absorb the energy of a fall, or other impact.

How does Cap ricochet his shield off from stuff if it has vibranium in it?  When it hits a wall, it should absorb the kinetic energy.  It should just stop and fall once it hits the wall.  You can't have it both ways.

Perhaps its the shape.  When the shield absorbs impacts, it generally does so on the face of the shield.  Its possible that the shape of the shield causes that energy to be fully absorbed by the shield.  But when Cap throws the shield, the shield typically hits things edge on.  When the shield hits something on its edge, its possible the energy isn't absorbed fully by the shield, and instead the shield elastically rebounds off the impact.

Supposedly vibranium had the ability to convert kinetic energy delivered through momentum (impact) into molecular cohesion energy (i.e. it gets stronger).  There are limits to how efficiently and effectively it can do that.  Its possible the amount of kinetic energy per second it can convert is not high enough to overcome the fact that the shield is striking with very little surface area and for an extremely tiny impact duration when its thrown edge on.

[Ohioknight]

Quite true, but I saw many a red white and blue shield user with red white blue and stars on the shields anyway.   While the costume pattern didnt match Captain America I wonder if the mods ever pulled out the generic stick and whacked a few of those characters to play it safe.

I'm afraid I was Quite naughty in this one instance -- my U S Avenger was as close a Cap clone as I could make with the character creator:
https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/998990_623244791028609_1018793429_n.jpg?oh=0f45c6114e01b8372a681a1b12c4de0e&oe=55E8BE7D

It was nerfed (quite properly -- this was around the time the movie came out) so I re-created him without the mask as a blond guy and never had the least problem again.  I figure it was the wings... but C'MON what ELSE are those wings for?

[Power Gamer]

I'm afraid I was Quite naughty in this one instance -- my U S Avenger was as close a Cap clone as I could make with the character creator:
https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/998990_623244791028609_1018793429_n.jpg?oh=0f45c6114e01b8372a681a1b12c4de0e&oe=55E8BE7D

It was nerfed (quite properly -- this was around the time the movie came out) so I re-created him without the mask as a blond guy and never had the least problem again.  I figure it was the wings... but C'MON what ELSE are those wings for?

I believe you are correct Ohioknight.

I made a Cap-clone that was very close to the Jack Kirby version, but without the wings. And I did not get generic'ed even to the shutdown.

[darkgob]

My Martian Manhunter was also genericed.  He was remade as the Martian Marauder;  willpower and dark melee, costume tweaked a bit (but only a bit).  The devs never touched him again.

hnnggggg

pet peeve

The devs didn't generic anyone.  That was the work of GMs.

[RGladden]

hnnggggg

pet peeve

The devs didn't generic anyone.  That was the work of GMs.

Err....pardon me.  GMs eh?  Generic minions?  Giant monsters?  Government morons?  General Mills?

;)

[MegaWatt]

Gonzo 'Muricans, Great Matri' D' ? Goliath/Mazza 4 ever ? wait no ignore that last one Greg said it wasnt physically possible MOVEING ON !

[blacksly]

Err....pardon me.  GMs eh?  Generic minions?  Giant monsters?  Government morons?  General Mills?

;)

Googley Moogleys.
Unless they're really large, in which case they're Great Googley Moogleys.

[Triplash]

Googley Moogleys.
Unless they're really large, in which case they're Great Googley Moogleys.

*claps* Nice  8)

[tripthicket]

One thing I never quite understood, but just had to shrug and move on, was why Claws was designed by the devs to so very closely mimic Wolverine's claws. I think the variations came later? But I'd have thought, after the Marvel lawsuits or whatnot, that those claws would have been replaced with something that didn't so clearly cross the line into copying. There were many ways for clever players to mix and match costume parts to make fairly close approximations of various established superhero costumes, but that type of claws was, IMO, the most blatant. Ah well, it was a long time ago. Sure hope CoT has real hand claws.

[Sinistar]

Another thing I wouldn't mind seeing changed and I think the devs mentioned it as a possibility for in the future, before shut down was ever announced.

That thing is this: a face lift as it were for Granite armor.  Don't change its stats as far as resistance and def, just change its appearance.

I always made nice costumes for my alts but for stone armor I didn't bother since once in granite mode your costume and aura goes bye bye until you change back.

How about altering granite armor so that your character's SKIN changes color and texture so that it looks like a moving version of the statues that  were in zones like Atlas or Galaxy?   Your height doesn't change, your costume doesn't change and your aura stays as well. Only your player's SKIN would change to the same grey scale color as the statues.   All movement penalties remain, all resistances and defense stats do not change.

[Arcana]

One thing I never quite understood, but just had to shrug and move on, was why Claws was designed by the devs to so very closely mimic Wolverine's claws. I think the variations came later? But I'd have thought, after the Marvel lawsuits or whatnot, that those claws would have been replaced with something that didn't so clearly cross the line into copying. There were many ways for clever players to mix and match costume parts to make fairly close approximations of various established superhero costumes, but that type of claws was, IMO, the most blatant. Ah well, it was a long time ago. Sure hope CoT has real hand claws.

Not much to understand.  The devs wanted us to be able to create characters that evoked our favorite comic book heroes, but they also didn't want us to do anything illegal.  The game's costumes, character designs, and other gameplay elements reflect this contradictory set of desires.  As the players often wanted mutually exclusive things, so to the devs.

[Arcana]

Another thing I wouldn't mind seeing changed and I think the devs mentioned it as a possibility for in the future, before shut down was ever announced.

That thing is this: a face lift as it were for Granite armor.  Don't change its stats as far as resistance and def, just change its appearance.

I always made nice costumes for my alts but for stone armor I didn't bother since once in granite mode your costume and aura goes bye bye until you change back.

How about altering granite armor so that your character's SKIN changes color and texture so that it looks like a moving version of the statues that  were in zones like Atlas or Galaxy?   Your height doesn't change, your costume doesn't change and your aura stays as well. Only your player's SKIN would change to the same grey scale color as the statues.   All movement penalties remain, all resistances and defense stats do not change.

They couldn't just change the granite armor visual appearance, because that would just cause an uproar from the players that liked the visual appearance.  They would have needed to create a way for the players to be able to choose whether to inherit, or suppress, the default granite appearance, and that probably required some new tech to make happen.

[Von Krieger]

"The Darkness cannot stand the Light,
The wrong cannot endure the light
I swear that by this gem so bright
Evil will fall to EMERALD KNIGHT"

*twitch twitch* But... but you... you... you just CAN'T rhyme a word with the same word! That's not the way it works!

[Shadowe]

Googley Moogleys.
Unless they're really large, in which case they're Great Googley Moogleys.

Which I always read as "Great Googa-Mooga", which inevitably leads me to "I think we've established that 'ca-caw ca-caw' and 'tookie tookie' do not work".

[Ironwolf]

Wow all this time I thought it was Godzilla or Mothra doing it.

[pinballdave]

*twitch twitch* But... but you... you... you just CAN'T rhyme a word with the same word! That's not the way it works!

To me it makes better comparative sense for the second line to read:

The wrong cannot endure the right

[darkgob]

Err....pardon me.  GMs eh?  Generic minions?  Giant monsters?  Government morons?  General Mills?

;)

Giant Monsters, if they were feeling particularly saucy and/or vindictive.

[darkgob]

They couldn't just change the granite armor visual appearance, because that would just cause an uproar from the players that liked the visual appearance.  They would have needed to create a way for the players to be able to choose whether to inherit, or suppress, the default granite appearance, and that probably required some new tech to make happen.

Wasn't BaB working on that when he "left"?

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

*twitch twitch* But... but you... you... you just CAN'T rhyme a word with the same word! That's not the way it works!

Which is why i occasionally do it for specific reasons.