Sunderstone's page

Suicide Squad
Legion Lost
Legion of Super Heroes
Red Hood and the Outlaws
Teen Titans
Supergirl
Superman
Action Comics
Wonder Woman
Flash
Green Lantern
Aquaman
Catwoman
Batgirl
Nightwing
Batman and Robin
Batman: Dark Knight
Batman
Detective Comics
Earth 2
World's Finest

Might drop Suicide Squad soon, Earth 2 and Finest are 3 issue trials for me before I decide to keep going, etc
Im also not crazy about the Titans, Red Hood, or Legion Lost atm. Nicieza has never been as good as the old days (especially New Warriors).

I believe the tradition is that a horrible dress rehearsal means a good opening night.

Nobles group is good at breaking traditions. We shall see soon enough. ;)

For AP#56, please change it to UPS Ground instead of standard mail. Thanks :)

All future AP issues seem to be set to UPS Ground which is ok.

We'er actually trying something of a "megadungeon" in Shattered Star... sort of. It's actually six different dungeon locations rather than one giant location, but each volume of Shattered Star will feature a relatively large and iconic dungeon site as is primary location.

That said... there's other stuff going on as well—Shattered Star isn't all dungeons all the time. There's wilderness and urban elements here and there, and lots of non-combat encounters (or combat encounters that can be resolved via things other than combat).

Egads! Ill have to re-subscribe to the AP line when I get home. I have no home group anymore but this is appealing.

James Jacobs wrote:

Power Word Unzip wrote:

And it's highly unlikely that we will see another dip into Varisia for awhile after Shattered Star commences. I think the Paizo crew know not to go back to that well too many times. But for Paizo's tenth anniversary, and to coincide with the re-release of RotRL, I just don't think it's a bad choice. Clearly it's good for sales, because people like the region and want to learn more about it. Heck, I'd buy a 300-page hardcover on Varisia and probably get more use out of it than I do out of the ISWG today (not that the ISWG isn't awesome, but its scope is VERY wide).

I wouldn't call a return to Varisia after Shattered Star "Highly Unlikely" at all to be honest.

It's kind of the heart and soul of the campaign setting in my opinion.

I'm very pleased to hear that. It's my favorite region, by far.

I'm also hoping for a hardcover, eventually.

+1

Realm of the Felknight Queen is my favorite Paizo stand alone module to date. A good balance of combat and role playing.

Other favorites.....
Carrion Hill (PF)
Witchwar Legacy (PF very high level).
Tomb of the Iron Medusa (PF old school ToH feeling).
Darkmoon Vale series (3.5 traditional goodness).
Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale (3.5 compact mix of Kingmaker and Keep in the Borderlands)
Crucible of Chaos only when mixed with River into Darkness as a jungle-based mini campaign (both 3.5).

I'm for and against the HC compilations.
1) The 3.5 APs need a conversion to PFRPG. It's that simple. :) 3.5 is outdated, the classes are radically different with Paizo's bread and butter PFRPG rules, add to this that the first 4 Paizo APs under their own banner so to speak (after Dungeon mag) deserve the update to compete the collection for us OCD folks.

2) The others don't need HC compilations imho, until they get sold out and there is a demand from the fans for it. Some of the wonky optional rules could use refinement (kingdom building, caravan rules, mass combat) but an accessory HC covering these would be sufficient.

Just my 2 coppers.
I recently cancelled my subscriptions as my tabletop group has dissolved over the last year or two BUT I would buy HC compilations of the first 4 APs. I still kept my RotR anniversary preorder along with the Magnimar book.

You have to understand that in the last couple of decades, Marvel and DC went absolutely nutso with the "collector" side of comics. It got to the point where every issue of their mainline series was pumping out multiple covers of every issue. Amateur comic book stores were opening faster than you can sneeze, only for the bulk of them to fail with a year or two as the bubble burst.

I don't know what year time your collection spans, but I'd say it's very likely that it's from those years of glut, which is why while there may be good stories in that batch, the collector value, hence the resale potential is probably nil.

We (about 5 of us hanging out at a local comic shop) discussed the very same issue years way back then when they were flooding the comic book market. Die cut covers, Foil covers, multiple covers, etc. That was toward the back end of my collecting years as I stopped right around the time frame of Uncanny #365 or so. We all knew it was going to blow up soon.

I meant the quality of comics before that like during the years of Uncanny X-Men before that, like the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix years, the Hellfire Club, the original New Mutants and X-Factor, Inferno, Mutant Massacre, etc. The McFarlane and Bagley runs on Amazing Spider Man (not the all-splash page 2nd McFarlane spidey series), Dale Keown and Gary Frank's Incredible Hulk, Avengers at around the late 100s to early 200s, John Byrne's FF when the Fantastic Four felt "Fantastic", etc.

Lots of good DC titles at the time like the Batman examples above,the Broderick run on Green Lantern, Giffen's darker LSH, the JLA, Bart Sears JL Europe (before the book went to hell), etc.

The more I think about it, it may be time to revisit the books as I have most of these full runs. The more I reflect on this, the more I want to hang on to my collection too. My other half is supportive of me keeping it all anyway, so who knows.

It figures that act 4 would agree with me. ;)

41. This thread? ;)

I don't see how Northstar getting married is a headline grabber. He hs to settle down sometime. And he's been gay since I was a kid.

Ditto.

Plus, Northstar (heck Alpha Flight for that matter) has always been a B-grade character, maybe even a C. Even when Alpha Flight had their own book for abit, other members were way more interesting (Vindicator, Puck, Marina). Come to think about it, the siblings were my least favorites in that book. TBH, Aurora's mental state made her a hair more interesting than Northstar.

Last week I stopped at a comic shop in LI (where I was just passing through from a Roosevelt Field Mall trip) on Jericho Turnpike. I wanted to see if I could snag a first print of Avenging Spidey #6 and Punisher #10, because they crossed over with a current story arc in Daredevil (the only Marvel book that I read).

While there, I noticed a good selection of back issues at VERY reasonable prices. I asked him if he was interested in buying my old collection, about 46 boxes worth (4000+ books) for a low bulk offer.

He looked at me and said most of us who are looking for the books that I had are the older sort, and were collecting at that time and probably have most of them. Books from the 60's were easier to sell, etc.
Then he adds "the people nowadays that buy comics are..." and he makes a gesture of himself holding a gameboy or PSP and adds "they dont really care about back issues". We then talked about me making more on ebay, shows, etc.

I was kind of saddened by this not because it would be hard to get rid of my old stash before I move, but because most of the newer comic generations really missed out on what good comics were all about. To them the New 52 Teen Titans are "THE TEEN TITANS", the new Peter Parker publically known to be Spider-Man is the original Spider-Man to them. It's all about splash page art, characters that have "Dead and Blood" in their names, etc.

So I feel even older now, yet happy that I got to experience the books like Frank Miller's historic Daredevil run (which this shop owner said he would unload for a dollar or two a book if he still had them which is sad indeed), Claremont's Uncanny, Byrne's FF, Norm Breyfogle and Kelley Jones Batman (among others), the old Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes (even Giffens awesome run), etc.

I am somewhat hopeful of DC at the moment despite the butchering of the Titans and mixing well loved characters into other books to sell (like Red Hood and the Outlaws and Ravagers). The other mainstream books have been good so far.
Every time I loook at Marvel's tables at my local comic shop and see 20 x-books, 19 A-books and even a title called The "Avenging" Spider-Man,etc. I get sad and yearn for the old days.

YMMV. Just a semi-rant and some opinions here. Hope no one takes it the wrong way and gets offended.

P.S. I wound up getting the variant cover versions of the 2 books I went in for because thats all they had. They were stickered at 20 and 15 bucks each, he gave me both for 20. I felt crappy about even spending that much on Daredevil tie-ins considering I will cancel DD this weekend.

The Alan Scott thing would bother me, but at this point it's pure speculation. It wouldn't make much sense considering Obsidian, as you have said.
Your Superboy examples I can agree with. I never liked his character pre-reboot regardless, so it wouldn't change any feelings toward the character.

Marvel on the other hand, I couldn't care less. Since the "Civil War" storyline, they have been pretty much crap for me. I only read daredevil at the moment and that will likely change as soon as I get to my comic shop for this week's books. Marvel continues to butcher their characters every month and the "House of Ideas" hasn't had a good idea for a decade or so. YMMV.

A big thanks to TarkXT for taking the time to be our overlord over this last year, and here's to another year of gallivanting to come.

Seconded.

Great group of regular posters despite losing Tok and Sclivian during the campaign. Some nice editions to the family as well with Tal and Petronicus.

Its kind of a funny thing, CoT was one of my least favorite APs before playing it. Between Tark's very capable hands and the way that the characters have been fleshed out during the campaign, it has become one of my favorites.
Kudos to Tark for dealing with the insanity that is the Nobles group and kudos to the rest of my compatriots for making some really interesting and well developed characters. This is definitely one of those campaigns I will be talking about years from now with fond memories.

Ah Mr. Betts, always at the center of anything abrasive. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

To the rest, I love the game so far. I played several hours of coop with some WoW guild mates last night but.....
1) I really hate the idea of a real money auction house and I agree it's a BS money grab as well as an excuse for the draconian "must be online to play diablo 3" policy. I prefer sp to mp with this game.
2) the server load/ instability thing should have been squashed in beta, that's kind of the purpose for beta testing.

Some (me among them) are cool with having got a fun game, even if it is likely forgotten much faster then its predecessor, some are dissappointed enough to let that dissappointment spoil what they actually got, and that is whet we see in the negative reviews (at least in those that don't just say 'duh, DRM bad'.

edit: reply to Sunderstone, not to TerraNova.

This I can agree with. :) Nice response Feytharn.

I loved StarCraft 2, but it was forgotten way faster than it's predecessor. Diablo 3 will follow the same trend IMHO. That's fine as I bought it for what it is and I'm not disappointed at all.

I also think alot of the anger about the servers crashing is IMO Blizzard should have know better by now.

Blizzard has run one of the most popular MMORPGs for the last 8 years. I have gotten every wow expansion on launch day, installed, played on launch day without any issue at all.

If any company should have been able to handle this, it should have been Blizzard.

I agree 100%. This release was sloppy, server load should have been the first thing squashed in beta.

Beyond that, I love the game. I don't want change with the classic games like Diablo and StarCraft. Check out C&C4 or DA2 for what too much change do to a classic. Updated story, graphics, minor changes to the interface is enough to keep the kool aid formula intact.

You know, just because you don't use a given method, doesn't mean you have to be snarky about it. Rolling doesn't guarantee variety as I've seen people abort bunches of what they considered fail sets of stats until they got what they wanted.

And not everyone who uses point buy uses the messageboard munchkin formulae.

Agree.

Getting kicked out of a single player game because I lost server connection (happened thrice in the last two hours despite a stable and very fast DSL connection on my side) is kind of annoying, especially in a game you can't 'quicksave often',

I like the game, it is a fast, quick timewaster, just like Diablo 2 - if you ar looking for the RPG of the year, better look somewhere else.

Just finished messing with the Witch Doc and Wizard, the game is fun. Tried single player and abit of coop so far. I never really considered Diablo a true RPG, it's more of an action/RPG imho.

I'm on cable internet and it's rock solid, no crashes, lag, instabilities, etc. Played for a couple of hours hitch free.

The only thing I'm not so happy with is only 2 attacks active at a time. I havent had time to mess with the interface all that much either. Beyond that I like it so far.

Side Note* - I think I'll do the Witch Doctor for single player and the Wizard for MP with my WoW guildfolk.

Never much cared for the Guardians of the Galaxy in any incarnation. If they want to do a spacer, I'd go with the Infinity Watch or even the Starjammers over the Guardians.

I'll keep Magnimar, thanks. :) Love Varisia.

I prefer point buy in my older wiser age. ;)

My problem with the rolling of stats are that they are too random for such a permanent number.

I've had people who were extremely luck with rolls in the same group with people who barely get a stat over 13. Of course as a GM, I've allowed those people to reroll, etc.
Im also way past (and have no tolerance for) the superhuman character phase that some people can't seem to live without. For this reason, I prefer point buy. Also from a GM standpoint, having to DM characters with most stats 16-18 (if they get that lucky, which also has happened through the years) is tedious because I now have to adjust almost every encounter upward to challenge them.

So yeah, Point buy for future games.

Like others, I'm not thrilled at the 'must be online' component. Having said that, the internets aren't exactly hard to find these days...so really I find that argument to be kinda silly. If you really don't have access to the internet, well, maybe its time you joined the rest of the world?

Agreed.

Even though Im not thrilled about the internet req for the single player side of games, I've gotten used to it already. Especially with crappy front ends like GFW and Steam (regardless of play-offline options).

Please cancel all my subscriptions for now, except my preorder of the Runelords Anniversary.
My home group disintegrated awhile back and Ive had no luck finding a new group locally. My table-top RPG GMing days seem to be at an end. :/

BTW, sorry for my slowed down posting this weekend. Mother's day weekend was really busy for me between my better half and my mom. :)

More Merax to come!™

Just saw it. It was fantastic!

I was kind of hoping for Ultron and the Vision for the next one but the Spoiler above works for me. :)

I really hate what Marvel has done with the Avengers in recent years and I hope we dont see the new Avengers (Wolverine, Spiderman) taking the place of the older ones in the movies. I just dont see the newer comic book roster as Avengers. Call me old-fashioned. :)

Ill be happily swimming in the kool-aid. Mostly single player though. Ill be on with my WoW buds though with a seperate toon too.

And whether or not you think "Sharktopus" is a bad movie... it's certainly a FUN movie.

All of those syfy channel gems are fun movies. :)

<-- Brooklyn

Of recent times...
Solo healing Ultraxion (WoW Dragon Soul) 3 weeks ago on my uber-Priest after we lost the pally healer on the first twilight.

I've been playing the MMOs since City of Heroes and I'm still playing WoW to this day since it's release. I've tried others such as Rifts, SWTOR, etc. but have always come back to WoW though it's not because of the addiction anymore.
The reason I'm still playing is the friends I have made in the MMOs. We are casual now (as opposed to vanilla WoW), and we pretty much hang out in our private Vent server and chat all night long while we play. I have a main toon in a pretty good raid guild for the times I feel like raiding and I park every other toon in my friends guild.
My guildies and I have gone on to play other games together (co-op, MMO, etc) like Borderlands, StarCraft, Red Alert, etc.

About the "Barrens Chat", or "Trade Chat Syndrome".... I find it easy to ignore general chat without using the ignore list feature. Between vent chat and what we are doing with Raids, questing, Dungeons, I have a hard enough time even noticing trade/general/raid chat let alone reading it.

Tired of MMOs? Kind of. It is a timesink, I hate farming or Grinding levels but I love the social aspect of it all with the right people.

My advice is find the right people and keep busy with the fun parts of the game. Ignore the things about it that get you upset or quit if you can't deal with this genre of game anymore. Idiots will be idiots, and MMOs will always be full of them.

Side note- My pals and I are looking to try Guild Wars 2 (looks interesting), but if "teh shiny" wears off, we will wind up back in WoW until the next thing to try comes along. It happened to us with Rifts then SWTOR....

/sigh

Maybe not Dead but...

The Micronauts
Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch
The New Warriors

Great Books in the day, would be nice to see relaunched.

Jemstone,
I just don't see Batwoman as part of the Bat mythos. With the exception of a few scenes with Montoya, there's nothing connecting her with Gotham or the Bat family for me.
The book is well written ( I stopped at #6) and her lifestyle is a bold move on DCs part (kudos here), I just can't seem to get into the character or her backstory.

Batgirl is more appealing to me as a character, even Catwoman (despite the not so good #1) is much more interesting. Actually Catwoman is pretty high on my list lately as the book has gotten better by leaps and bounds.

Beyond that I'm still looking forward to a Shazam relaunch. I'll give "weird billy" a chance until we see more of what they have planned for him. Aren't most/all of the new 52 supposed to take place some years before what we knew of them? Maybe we'll see some life changing event that goes on to shape the rest of Billy's life (at least that's what hoping for).
:)

DC is still better than Marvel by far. I'm hanging on to Daredevil, but two big guest stars in the first 10 issues doesn't bode well for me. Man, Civil War really wrecked the Marvel universe IMHO.

I figure it's only a matter of time before the Martian Manhunter rejoins the league. :) I'm also an old fan of Captain Marvel (which was nice to see as a backup story in the JLA), but the weird take on Billy Batson has me worried.

Suicide Squad needs a better lineup. Keep Deadshot, Harley, and maybe Boomerang, ditch the rest for better people.

Out of the 17 or so titles I get very month, I think ive settled in for now. Suicide Squad, Teen Titans, Red Hood and LSH/Legion Lost are potential drops still.

JLA, Superman, Action, Supergirl, WW, Flash, GL, Aquaman, and all Batbooks except Batwoman and Batwing are definite buys.

I'm still here lurking. I don't have much to add to the groups luncheon with Thesing. Just letting you know I didn't vanish. :)

To the GM from splitting away from the group but Meraxilar is the lower profile type both as a follower of Rovagug in Cheliax (which would get me killed by the Rack), and a former scion of a destroyed/culled house. I don't mind reading along, so don't anyone rush on my account. The Luncheon was cool. :)

I just hope they don't change the game too much. Looking forward to this release. I finished the Original Bgate and Tales of the Sword Coast. Bg2 and it's expansion are still on my desk after all these years, just never got around to it. :)

I hope they do an update to Planescape: Torment as well, I would replay it in a heartbeat.

Besides for Jessica Alba, the two seasons that it lasted were pretty good. The Jam Pony supporting cast wasn't that bad either. The second season main plot was good overall and the last episodes were handled well and left it open enough (with decent closure), should it ever get picked up.

Jessica Alba at her hottest. Nuff Said!

Does Pollux remind anyone else of a Johnny Depp who never quite let go of his Edward Scissorhands role?

lol :)

Congrats Cal! Best Wishes :)

Welcome back, Nic. I haven't kept up with the Savage Coast thread but good luck with the freelancing. I've always enjoyed your works.

Wasn't Logue's whole Savage Coast thing just like a kickstarter program? ;) I'm aware that buying something does pay development costs (either recovering costs later, or in future projects), I'm just not on board with the whole practice of paying for development and then paying for the product. Preordering is different as I'm leaving a deposit (or committing to buy) for that specific product then paying the balance off at release instead of more than the original price tag with Kickstarter.

Seems that with all the add ins this is an AP you will drive to level 20.

The Feast and Carrion Hill, while worthy additions will affect the overall XP, as will the Ruby Phoenix

He can easily switch to slow progression track xp during his additions.

Nice work, Never. :)

Lol, I meant paying for development costs from an end users perspective. :)
(for other peoples clarification)

Don't you think this post is Abit on the nerd rage side? I vote you leave the guy alone, he's been bashed to death already.
He's a good writer, I'd buy his stuff again if he wrote for pathfinder.

The thread title itself is "over the dramatic top" to say the least. Don't buy his future stuff (if he does any) if you feel that strongly.

I did not preorder his Savage Coast, but even if I did, I would still buy his Paizo stuff. I just wouldn't preorder anywhere else but here at Paizo. I don't believe in preorder/kickstarter programs anyway.

testing my new laptop. :)

Just got Asus g74sx. Woot @ high powered gaming mobility.

Positive Note (for now) -
Teen Titans is looking better. They are rescuing Superboy (maybe he'll join). Now all they need is to get Arsenal and Starfire away from that idiot Red Hood and back into the Titans (then they can cancel the Outlaws), and hopefully delete Rampart too.

Alot of wishful thinking on my part with the latter but "oh well."
:)

Small Rant-

I'm not a fan of the Image Comics of old in general and I wont buy the new Grifter, Voodoo, Stormwatch, books etc. and I was happy they werent crossing into the books I like. Now there's some crossover coming with those books and Suicide Squad (which I am a fan of), and Superman has Hellspont in it. I really hope the trend doesnt continue or happen often.
With the exception of Daredevil, DC is al I buy atm. I'm not liking the Image fungus in the DCU. It's been small for now but if it grows too far, I'm out.

Bad thing is there's no running back to Marvel. It seems like Marvel is barely recognizable in this day and age. Just about every book crosses into another in one huge mess. Spiderman seems so deeply rooted into Avengers, Avengers have a million books, now they are blending into the million X-Books via the A vs. X crossover, etc. Daredevil and the Hulk are the only ones that seem seperated from the mess that is the Marvel Universe, and I've stopped reading Hulk due to the mediocre unresolved initial story.
Daredevil still is good despite 2 guest stars in less than 10 issues (spidey and cap) and the upcoming mini-Xover with Spidey and Punisher.

Comics have indeed fallen far, IMHO. YMMV of course.

This would have been a day 1 must buy, going to wait a few weeks and see what the majority of people think about it.