New efforts!

[Arcana]

For the Dominion is that the Gamma quad or Alpha quad. versions?   

Kind of both.  The Federation did, in a real sense, basically neutralize what was portrayed as the most powerful power in the Delta quadrant by absorbing the bulk of their war machine in the alpha quadrant and incapacitating the founders in the delta quadrant.  The Deus Ex Machina of the Prophets intercepting the Dominion attack fleet near the end was a fortuitous assistance, but given how it all turned out in the end its unclear that changed the eventual outcome rather than just accelerating it (and probably preventing the main characters from being killed before it was accomplished).

Of course in Star Trek the good guys are always going to win eventually; that much I concede and I don't consider that a problem per se.  But its often the case that when they introduce villains more powerful than they are, they defeat them by bringing them down to their level, not by rising to overcome them.  And often its by exploiting a strange weakness that is strange not because it is literally strange but because its strange literally no one apparently thought of it before.  No one thought to use computer viruses against the Borg.  No one thought to use actual viruses against the Founders.  Now that I think about it, maybe the reason the Federation keeps winning is because the Federation is the only galactic power evil enough to consistently resort to biological weaponry.  10,000 gold pressed latinum says we eventually defeat the Iconians by creating an Iconian biological weapon that destroys their minds by exploiting their chronoton-entangled states.  If its Star Trek enough, the weapon might actually send them to T.A.H.I.T.I.

[Arcana]

You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding. I'm losing faith in humanity..... lol

So I take it that means no new updates today.  I'll check back tomorrow.

[LaughingAlex]

Kind of both.  The Federation did, in a real sense, basically neutralize what was portrayed as the most powerful power in the Delta quadrant by absorbing the bulk of their war machine in the alpha quadrant and incapacitating the founders in the delta quadrant.  The Deus Ex Machina of the Prophets intercepting the Dominion attack fleet near the end was a fortuitous assistance, but given how it all turned out in the end its unclear that changed the eventual outcome rather than just accelerating it (and probably preventing the main characters from being killed before it was accomplished).

Of course in Star Trek the good guys are always going to win eventually; that much I concede and I don't consider that a problem per se.  But its often the case that when they introduce villains more powerful than they are, they defeat them by bringing them down to their level, not by rising to overcome them.  And often its by exploiting a strange weakness that is strange not because it is literally strange but because its strange literally no one apparently thought of it before.  No one thought to use computer viruses against the Borg.  No one thought to use actual viruses against the Founders.  Now that I think about it, maybe the reason the Federation keeps winning is because the Federation is the only galactic power evil enough to consistently resort to biological weaponry.  10,000 gold pressed latinum says we eventually defeat the Iconians by creating an Iconian biological weapon that destroys their minds by exploiting their chronoton-entangled states.  If its Star Trek enough, the weapon might actually send them to T.A.H.I.T.I.

Well, it's not good for a faction to always win by simply becoming more powerful either.  Then you start to turn into god mode sue territory.  People want to find out how the hero wins and don't want to already know the answer.  The hero always becoming more powerful to win becomes predictable, and also tends to result in other characters becoming increasingly obsolete.  This creates a god mode sue effect in turn; the character is the only one who can save the day, everyone else who is a good guy is useless, while the character always comes up with some new power to win the day as demanded and often that power is forgotten shortly after.

And that can apply to whole factions to, in which you'd have a "god mode suetopia".  It really boils down to balance.  Focus to much on just increasing power in writing and you end up with the same old same old.  Focus to much on other solutions and you'll have more creativity but it may also lead to predictability.  And it doesn't matter how evil the solutions of the "god mode suetopia" is, they are always the "good" guys.  Because they are the idealized form of society to the writer to a level of perfection in their minds.  Sometimes, even if people in real life quickly note how bad the faction really is.

Edit: And even when they also note how such a society/faction would in reality, very quickly fall apart due to other factors like human nature, corruption, economics ect.

[ivanhedgehog]

You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding. I'm losing faith in humanity..... lol

you didnt get the word? the evil Dr Boris Badinoff from the KGB(Keep Getting Badder) games division kidnapped the negotiation team and was holding them for his own nefarious purposes. Bob Bond, james Bonds younger brother, who is not actually a member of British Intelligence but is actually a mall cop that slept in a radioactive holiday inn express, rescued them in a feat of moderate daring do.

you really are out of the loop.

[Arcana]

Well, it's not good for a faction to always win by simply becoming more powerful either.  Then you start to turn into god mode sue territory.  People want to find out how the hero wins and don't want to already know the answer.  The hero always becoming more powerful to win becomes predictable, and also tends to result in other characters becoming increasingly obsolete.  This creates a god mode sue effect in turn; the character is the only one who can save the day, everyone else who is a good guy is useless, while the character always comes up with some new power to win the day as demanded and often that power is forgotten shortly after.

But that's an extremely one-dimensional way of looking at it: either my +2 sword of photon torpedoes always wins, or his +3 kinetic cutting beam always wins, unless I invent +4 quantum torpedoes then I always win.  That's not how wars are fought, that's not how conflict in general is resolved.  Like you say, its *how* the fight is won that matters, not which side manages to have the bigger stick.  That unreasonable, uninterested, inscrutable force of nature that was the Borg that Q introduced to humanity?  The Federation never really beat that Borg, nor even really dealt with them.  Instead, they went away and were replaced with the confused Borg after Hugh was returned to them, and the Napoleonic Borg introduced with First Contact and later defeated by Janeway with an actual Queen set on conquest, not really assimilation.

The real reason the Dominion should have eventually lost the war in the Alpha Quadrant is because fundamentally speaking, its really hard to fight a war where you are vastly outnumbered and rely on a vulnerable and extreme supply chain.  The Alpha quadrant powers were taking huge losses, but they could afford to while the Dominion couldn't.  One day, after win after win after win the Dominion should have sent hundreds of ships in an attack fleet to destroy Earth, only to discover that while the Federation and its allies were stalling for time, they had managed to build ten thousand starships to counter attack.  The Federation is not a military dictatorship, nor a militaristic society and yet they maintain a starfleet the equal of the Klingons or the Romulans.  Imagine if the Federation faced an existential threat and everyone from the Andorians to the Vulcans decided to devote the next three years to the defense of the alpha quadrant.

Tactics and technology win battles.  Resources and the will to use them ultimately win wars.  There could have been a lot of interesting Star Trek stories to tell, about how the Federation got from here to there.  And then back again.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Well, it's not good for a faction to always win by simply becoming more powerful either.  Then you start to turn into god mode sue territory.  People want to find out how the hero wins and don't want to already know the answer.  The hero always becoming more powerful to win becomes predictable, and also tends to result in other characters becoming increasingly obsolete.  This creates a god mode sue effect in turn; the character is the only one who can save the day, everyone else who is a good guy is useless, while the character always comes up with some new power to win the day as demanded and often that power is forgotten shortly after.

We in the biz refer to that as protagonist powers.  Something super hero movies are the leading culprit in. Blindly expect people to follow with out questioning.  Such as the millions of dollars of collateral damage, innocent people injured in their battles, and more importantly total immunity to the law.  They are incapable of making a bad decision (at least that is un-doable) and you always have to trust they are doing the right thing.  Never do you see superman get thrown into a building which collapses and then kills 400 people causing months and months of man labor and emergency service to clean it up and possibly rescue people.  Not to mention superman get charged with 400 counts of murder, billed for the damage, or EVEN HELP CLEAN THE DAMN THING UP.

Some things you just have to look past.  Protagonist powers are one of them.  Stupid people acting stupidly in horror movies is another.  Some plot's require a touch of ignorance to truly enjoy.

[Twisted Toon]

We in the biz refer to that as protagonist powers.  Something super hero movies are the leading culprit in. Blindly expect people to follow with out questioning.  Such as the millions of dollars of collateral damage, innocent people injured in their battles, and more importantly total immunity to the law.  They are incapable of making a bad decision (at least that is un-doable) and you always have to trust they are doing the right thing.  Never do you see superman get thrown into a building which collapses and then kills 400 people causing months and months of man labor and emergency service to clean it up and possibly rescue people.  Not to mention superman get charged with 400 counts of murder, billed for the damage, or EVEN HELP CLEAN THE DAMN THING UP.

Some things you just have to look past.  Protagonist powers are one of them.  Stupid people acting stupidly in horror movies is another.  Some plot's require a touch of ignorance to truly enjoy.

Megamind helped to rebuild Metrocity after his big fight with Titan( or Tighten, how ever they ended up speeling it).

[Ohioknight]

Kind of both.  The Federation did, in a real sense, basically neutralize what was portrayed as the most powerful power in the Delta quadrant by absorbing the bulk of their war machine in the alpha quadrant and incapacitating the founders in the delta quadrant.  The Deus Ex Machina of the Prophets intercepting the Dominion attack fleet near the end was a fortuitous assistance, but given how it all turned out in the end its unclear that changed the eventual outcome rather than just accelerating it (and probably preventing the main characters from being killed before it was accomplished).

Of course in Star Trek the good guys are always going to win eventually; that much I concede and I don't consider that a problem per se.  But its often the case that when they introduce villains more powerful than they are, they defeat them by bringing them down to their level, not by rising to overcome them.  And often its by exploiting a strange weakness that is strange not because it is literally strange but because its strange literally no one apparently thought of it before.  No one thought to use computer viruses against the Borg.  No one thought to use actual viruses against the Founders.  Now that I think about it, maybe the reason the Federation keeps winning is because the Federation is the only galactic power evil enough to consistently resort to biological weaponry.  10,000 gold pressed latinum says we eventually defeat the Iconians by creating an Iconian biological weapon that destroys their minds by exploiting their chronoton-entangled states.  If its Star Trek enough, the weapon might actually send them to T.A.H.I.T.I.

I just want to say I was always INTENSELY disappointed that the Dominion war wasn't ended by the Ferengi -- in fact they seem to have been relegated to comic relief at that point. Wasn't  the Ferengi supposed to have a massive space fleet?  I seriously expected them to show up at the end and start selling their own reverse-engineered "ketrocel-white" (or whatever that stuff was) to those warrior guys and just take over the Dominion.  I think it would have made a much better resolution.

[blacksly]

You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding. I'm losing faith in humanity..... lol

Heh, heh. Sure, I'll tell you I'm kidding: "I'm kidding".
Now, whether I'm serious about being kidding.... :p

But seriously, I was kidding. Probably. ;)

[Angel Phoenix77]

Kind of both.  The Federation did, in a real sense, basically neutralize what was portrayed as the most powerful power in the Delta quadrant by absorbing the bulk of their war machine in the alpha quadrant and incapacitating the founders in the delta quadrant.  The Deus Ex Machina of the Prophets intercepting the Dominion attack fleet near the end was a fortuitous assistance, but given how it all turned out in the end its unclear that changed the eventual outcome rather than just accelerating it (and probably preventing the main characters from being killed before it was accomplished).

Of course in Star Trek the good guys are always going to win eventually; that much I concede and I don't consider that a problem per se.  But its often the case that when they introduce villains more powerful than they are, they defeat them by bringing them down to their level, not by rising to overcome them.  And often its by exploiting a strange weakness that is strange not because it is literally strange but because its strange literally no one apparently thought of it before.  No one thought to use computer viruses against the Borg.  No one thought to use actual viruses against the Founders.  Now that I think about it, maybe the reason the Federation keeps winning is because the Federation is the only galactic power evil enough to consistently resort to biological weaponry.  10,000 gold pressed latinum says we eventually defeat the Iconians by creating an Iconian biological weapon that destroys their minds by exploiting their chronoton-entangled states.  If its Star Trek enough, the weapon might actually send them to T.A.H.I.T.I.

I do have to agree with this :), I think it was Sisko that said nearly all of the Jemhadar was wiped out, and the Alpha Quad lost a major power. I also agree that at the end the Federation always wins, however, after Dominion war it was said they lost 65% of their fleet. I cannot remember where I read that. :(
I' m just said that after 5 years of build up almost nothing was put in for the Iconians. They could have put one or two ships in the older missions or a fight on the ground with a platoon or two. Something that shows a war, instead of two missions and two group. :)

[LaughingAlex]

But that's an extremely one-dimensional way of looking at it: either my +2 sword of photon torpedoes always wins, or his +3 kinetic cutting beam always wins, unless I invent +4 quantum torpedoes then I always win.  That's not how wars are fought, that's not how conflict in general is resolved.  Like you say, its *how* the fight is won that matters, not which side manages to have the bigger stick.  That unreasonable, uninterested, inscrutable force of nature that was the Borg that Q introduced to humanity?  The Federation never really beat that Borg, nor even really dealt with them.  Instead, they went away and were replaced with the confused Borg after Hugh was returned to them, and the Napoleonic Borg introduced with First Contact and later defeated by Janeway with an actual Queen set on conquest, not really assimilation.

The real reason the Dominion should have eventually lost the war in the Alpha Quadrant is because fundamentally speaking, its really hard to fight a war where you are vastly outnumbered and rely on a vulnerable and extreme supply chain.  The Alpha quadrant powers were taking huge losses, but they could afford to while the Dominion couldn't.  One day, after win after win after win the Dominion should have sent hundreds of ships in an attack fleet to destroy Earth, only to discover that while the Federation and its allies were stalling for time, they had managed to build ten thousand starships to counter attack.  The Federation is not a military dictatorship, nor a militaristic society and yet they maintain a starfleet the equal of the Klingons or the Romulans.  Imagine if the Federation faced an existential threat and everyone from the Andorians to the Vulcans decided to devote the next three years to the defense of the alpha quadrant.

Tactics and technology win battles.  Resources and the will to use them ultimately win wars.  There could have been a lot of interesting Star Trek stories to tell, about how the Federation got from here to there.  And then back again.

Uh well yeah, as I said though, you guys were complaining about the federation always winning the same way though, effectively.  If thats the case then isn't that predictable?  To be honest though the fact the same faction always wins from the looks of it leaves me pondering things though, namely is it really good story telling for the same faction to win all the time?  To me, not really.  But these days everyone just wants the same guy to win every time, it gets old.

[Ironwolf]

So I'm sad today. Defender of Texel, a mobile game I really liked and have been playing for a year and a half, has been announced for shut down on June 30. They'd gone to running events every other week at the start of the year, and hadn't had a new event since April.

Stop me if any of this sounds familiar. DeNA got acquired by another company, lay offs and cutting of lesser profitable game products occurred, leading to a game with a small but steady fanbase being cut off, with the intent of the playerbase being funneled into the company's other games.

I hope we get CoH back soon. I don't think I could handle finding a third game I really like and having it yanked away from me after sinking a lot of time and money into it. :(

I know a guy who can try to find a way to save your game - just saying.

[Remaugen]

. . . <Snip!> Never do you see superman get thrown into a building which collapses and then kills 400 people causing months and months of man labor and emergency service to clean it up and possibly rescue people.  Not to mention superman get charged with 400 counts of murder, billed for the damage, or EVEN HELP CLEAN THE DAMN THING UP. <Snip!?> . . .

One of the major things that bothered me about the last Superman movie. Huge break in character, classic Supes always tried to take the fight away from civilians, not level cities during the fight. . .

[Taceus Jiwede]

One of the major things that bothered me about the last Superman movie. Huge break in character, classic Supes always tried to take the fight away from civilians, not level cities during the fight. . .

I agree but

Spoiler for Hidden:

Zod knew that he didn't want to fight near civilians and was making him stay in the area for that reason.  Doing whatever it took to win.

[Biz]

Megamind helped to rebuild Metrocity after his big fight with Titan( or Tighten, how ever they ended up speeling it).

I think you metracity

[Aggelakis]

I think you metracity

I think you a word.

Btw, Metrocity or Metro City is correct.

[Ohioknight]

One of the major things that bothered me about the last Superman movie. Huge break in character, classic Supes always tried to take the fight away from civilians, not level cities during the fight. . .

Yeah.  I could buy that he had to fight in the city even though it caused EASILY 130,000 casualties, what got me was him pausing after the fight to stare into Lois' eyes, kiss her etc.  I'm just thinking about the guy watching from one building over...

   "Awww, how sweet!  Hey Superman, when you have a minute, do you think you could help with this concrete slab here -- the rebar has punched through my pancreas... but no rush or anything"

[Fanta]

I know a guy who can try to find a way to save your game - just saying.

What. You don't have enough going on as it is.  ;)

[Von Krieger]

You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding. I'm losing faith in humanity..... lol

You still have faith in humanity? I lost mine reading YouTube comments, comments on Yahoo news, and comments on FaceBook.

[Hagis]

It isn't hard to lose faith in humanity, but it sometimes helps to take a step back and look from a broader perspective. For every group of people out there who behead others for not sharing the same religion, there is another group of people who go running into Ebola ravaged nations to help out. For every two armies slugging it out, there are multiple relief organizations working in the background to limit the impact to civilians. The fact that we even attempt to have rules about how warfare should be conducted (Geneva convention) says something about us as a species. Gene Roddenberry was a believer, and for the time, Star Trek was revolutionary because it painted a picture of the future that wasn't bleak or apocalyptic. People responded really well to that (eventually). I think it very much is 1,000,000 steps forward and 999,999 backwards. Anyway, that's my opinion. That and two dollars will get you a cheap cup of coffee.