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Terrible Opinions posted:Neverwinter Online seemed interesting, but I never played it. Eh, it's an alright MMO, if a bit formulaic. It's got real-time combat, so your At-Wills are the buttons you mash while trying to keep the crosshair on whatever you're fighting. It has Encounter and Daily powers as well, but those just recharge over time/as you kill mobs. I'd say its biggest flaw is that you still can't play a Warlord. 
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Feb 5, 2016 09:51
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Yeah the Neverwinter MMO is a lot more thematic around 4e than "first-person real-time action RPG" might imply, because the general feel of the At-will / Encounter / Daily cycle is still there, along with the broad definition of roles.
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Feb 5, 2016 09:59
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Payndz posted:The first Dungeon Siege movie was the one where Uwe Boll hired actual prostitutes for a scene because it was cheaper than paying extras. It's Bloodrayne that has Meatloaf in a pile of eastern-european ladies.
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Feb 5, 2016 10:05
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That Old Tree posted:I love garbage. D&D fandom in a nutshell
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Feb 5, 2016 12:12
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Kerbtree posted:It's Bloodrayne that has Meatloaf in a pile of eastern-european ladies.
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Feb 5, 2016 12:15
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Pretty relevantquote:Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc. have held talks about merging two of the world’s biggest toy companies, according to people familiar with the matter, in a deal that would bring together the manufacturer of Hot Wheels with the maker of My Little Pony.
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Feb 5, 2016 21:07
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Oh no. This is going to end up with D&D not being profitable enough to save and not unprofitable enough to dump somehow Well, 5 is a nice number to end on!
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Feb 5, 2016 21:18
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Apparently Barbie sales are in a long and steady decline, while Lego has strolled right past both companies to take the mantle of biggest toy company in the world - quite rightly too, because let's face it, Legos are loving awesome, and they've been killing it in a corporate sense on every level for a while now. Merger is their plan to take it back again, or something. I'm not really a business guy.
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Feb 5, 2016 21:22
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Dr. Quarex posted:Oh no.
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Feb 5, 2016 21:36
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I might be getting this story wrong, but I think that at one time, Hasbro had given someone a license to make a game based on Lincoln Logs, of all things. The game was disproportionately successful, and contributed to a general "we don't make licensed games and we don't license games" policy. Hasbro buying WotC was also what triggered renegotations on the Dune license, which killed the plans for a Dune D20 and ensured that Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium never got more than a boutique print run that sold out at GenCon.
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Feb 5, 2016 21:49
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NTRabbit posted:Apparently Barbie sales are in a long and steady decline, while Lego has strolled right past both companies to take the mantle of biggest toy company in the world - quite rightly too, because let's face it, Legos are loving awesome, and they've been killing it in a corporate sense on every level for a while now. Merger is their plan to take it back again, or something. I'm not really a business guy. Hasbro has been loving up a lot in general because they've been playing things way too conservatively. Barbie sales are garbage for the same reason Disney profits on "princess" poo poo has been plummeting, for the same reason "girl toys" in general are doing god-awful - it ain't the loving 50's. Hasbro apparently has a loving massive stockpile of Kyle Ren toys from the new Star Wars movie that nobody wants because "it's the white dude" is no longer proof of a hit toy - and likewise lost a grip of money over their refusal to make toys of Rey. The toy industry period is in a state of weird fluxuation because all the decisions are being made by people so disconnected from the actual average consumer that they may as well be slaughtering cows and reading entrails for advice on what sells, except no, that'd still probably work better.
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Feb 6, 2016 11:14
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Didn't Barbie recently got a set with different skin colors and body types? I wonder how those are doing. Also, how come the people making decisions are so disconnected? It is in their direct interest to produce stuff that their consumers want, how hard can it be find out? I don't care about Star Wars and even I know that a good chunk of the fanbase is creaming their pants for the new black main character and more active Princess Leia. Unless the nerds howling at the evil SJWs ruining their franchise are much more numerous than I thought, it should be pretty clear which way the market is swinging.
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Feb 6, 2016 11:45
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paradoxGentleman posted:Also, how come the people making decisions are so disconnected? Because the upper management of large companies physically do not live in the same world as the rest of us, and take active measures to permanently separate themselves from us as far as possible.
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Feb 6, 2016 11:50
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paradoxGentleman posted:Also, how come the people making decisions are so disconnected? It is in their direct interest to produce stuff that their consumers want, how hard can it be find out? Not making enough toys of Rei and Finn because historically people didn't buy action figures of women or non-white dudes is just pure backwards-looking projection and being out of touch in the changes in fan culture. Granted, fan culture is a hard thing to get a handle on and properly assess, but these companies are led by people earning six and seven figure yearly salaries to do just that, and they failed.
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Feb 6, 2016 14:03
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This also feeds into an issue of toy "scalping", where individuals aware of both the scarcity and popularity of Rey and Finn dolls buy large amount of them on day one to sell on eBay at a markup. It creates a scarcity of the toys in stores while raising the price of a children's toy to the point where children can't buy them because adult fans of Star Wars are paying out of the nose for a Rey or Finn toy. (If you're extra scrupulous, you work in a toy store and buy/steal the Rey dolls yourself before they even go on the shelves. Illegal as gently caress, but you're working minimum wage and is your boss really going to care when or how the toys were sold as long as someone pays for them?)
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Feb 6, 2016 15:14
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Also Hasbro just has had a habit of mandating firings at WotC to increase its profit margin until there's practically nobody left but the Magic team, as folks get cut from anything less profitable. It's a sad thing that the awful loving garbage that is Monopoly is more profitable for them than D&D. I mean, hate on 5e all you want (I'm mostly just apathetic about it), at least it isn't Monopoly, proof that brand recognition trumps a fun game any day of the week.
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Feb 6, 2016 16:07
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Does Hasbro mandate these firings? Do we know for sure with proof? When I expressed concerns this might happen, I was assured it was a silly thought.
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Feb 6, 2016 16:27
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Covok posted:Does Hasbro mandate these firings? Do we know for sure with proof? When I expressed concerns this might happen, I was assured it was a silly thought. Yes, it's no real secret that the rule in early years that Hasbro mandated that Wizards cut staff by 10% a year early on in the 2000s as detailed in Designers & Dragons. Stevens, Slavicsek, and Adkinson were amongst the more notable casualties, which is breathtaking on reflection. It didn't really stop around the time of 4e, which is how they lost Tweet, Heinsoo, Noonan, Baker - and that's hardly all, the list goes on and on. No idea if that's still going on as of recent years or if it stayed at that 10% figure, but it was going on until around 2011 or 2012. It's not like there's physical proof but it's been corroborated by multiple ex-employees, so take that for what you will.
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Feb 6, 2016 16:48
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paradoxGentleman posted:Didn't Barbie recently got a set with different skin colors and body types? I wonder how those are doing. The other companies that have been making much more diverse sets probably ate that lunch a long time ago.
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Feb 6, 2016 18:31
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FMguru posted:Because the decisions to manufacture and market Star Wars toys were made six months before the film came out, and the movie wasn't finished and all they had to go by were writeups and productions stills. Kylo was supposed to be this movie's Darth Vader, everyone loves Darth Vader, so lets build a ton of toys of neo-Vader. They probably did do research before the movie came out, and it probably showed that people were hyped about a new Darth Vader and would love to buy action figures and talking alarm clocks featuring new Vader. The thing Hasbro didn't know was that the movie's big twist was neo-Vader was actually an unstable emo dork. Oops.
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Feb 6, 2016 19:48
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Disney themselves however have gone on record as basically saying "girls get princesses, boys get action figures, and never the two shall meet." Why they then chose to have the main character of their Star Wars franchise revival lynchpin be a girl is beyond me, but I'm not a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate.
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Feb 6, 2016 19:57
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This, I learned, was why the fantastic Young Justice got cancelled despite being really great and proving once and for all that Robin is better than batman. Girls liked it. Girls don't buy action figures. Sorry, everyone, gotta shut it down.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:02
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Kai Tave posted:Disney themselves however have gone on record as basically saying "girls get princesses, boys get action figures, and never the two shall meet." Why they then chose to have the main character of their Star Wars franchise revival lynchpin be a girl is beyond me, but I'm not a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate. I'm guessing that saner heads prevailed in that one case.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:05
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dwarf74 posted:This, I learned, was why the fantastic Young Justice got cancelled despite being really great and proving once and for all that Robin is better than batman. A lot of the people involved in the show keep coming out to disclaim this one. Young Justice got cancelled because it didn't sell action figures, period, to anybody. Other shows, I can't say.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:07
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senrath posted:I'm guessing that saner heads prevailed in that one case.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:08
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Didn't they pull Rey toys off the shelves because they had a lightsaber?
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Feb 6, 2016 20:25
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They didn't want to spoil the movie with it, yeah.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:27
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Rand Brittain posted:A lot of the people involved in the show keep coming out to disclaim this one. Young Justice got cancelled because it didn't sell action figures, period, to anybody. Oh, it's more insane than that. See, they had action figures planned all the way through season 2, even before season 1 was finished; there were previews of some of the new characters and costumes floating around from conventions. But the demographics came back as basically "Girls (And people in the wrong age bracket) are watching this too much, we'll never sell these toys, cancel the toy line." So they didn't sell action figures because -they didn't sell action figures-, because everyone knows girls don't buy them so there's no reason to sell them. It's a recursive marketing loop. There are other similar stories from other shows on Cartoon network at the same time, (See also Symbionic Titan, which was canceled for lack of merchandising when they -never made any-) and then there's the Blade debacle on Spike (Blade was their #1 rated show. It was most popular with women. Spike had marketed itself as being the MAN NETWORK FOR MEN and so all its advertisements were aimed at the MAN NETWORK audience, and they were not prepared for an audience of mostly women, so they canceled the show.) Now take a look at what happens when a bunch of dudes start liking a show made for girls, and it's even worse.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:31
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Kurieg posted:Didn't they pull Rey toys off the shelves because they had a lightsaber? The Rey figures with the saber were streetdated to not come out until a day or two after the movie, to preserve the surprise. Some stores put them out and sold them early. One guy posted a picture of said figure, that he had walked into a Wal-mart and purchased legitimately on the Star Wars Action News facebook page. The post got taken down and that guy got a several-day ban from Facebook for "copyright infringement".
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Feb 6, 2016 20:34
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unseenlibrarian posted:Oh, it's more insane than that. No, I mean, that story literally isn't true.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:39
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With a prestige movie franchise like Star Wars, Disney is smart enough to get the most talented people it can find to make the movies and get them a good deal of creative control. Thus, when the moviemakers decided to make Rey and Finn the heroes, Disney lets them because trying to dictate a major element of the story like that to appease toymakers is a good way to alienate the moviemakers and potentially ruin the film. Toys are important but if the movie sucked, no one would buy the toys anyway.
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Feb 6, 2016 21:02
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To put things in another perspective, how many Black Widow toys are out there despite that character being a fairly major figure in at least three major blockbuster Marvel movies to date?
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Feb 6, 2016 21:15
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Article on this topic: http://sweatpantsandcoffee.com/what-we-love/sweatpants-pop-culture/rey/ Specifically related to Black Widow: "The industry insider confirmed that the Black Widow character is widely considered “unusable” within the toy industry. “She has a tight black outfit. Our main customer is concerned with ‘family values,’” said the insider."
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Feb 6, 2016 21:22
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Kai Tave posted:To put things in another perspective, how many Black Widow toys are out there despite that character being a fairly major figure in at least three major blockbuster Marvel movies to date?
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Feb 6, 2016 21:29
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Rand Brittain posted:No, I mean, that story literally isn't true. I mean I wouldn't be surprised if a wo mm an audience was a factor, but it'd be part of larger demographic issues.
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Feb 6, 2016 21:40
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ProfessorCirno posted:Hasbro has been loving up a lot in general because they've been playing things way too conservatively. Barbie sales are garbage for the same reason Disney profits on "princess" poo poo has been plummeting, for the same reason "girl toys" in general are doing god-awful - it ain't the loving 50's. Hasbro apparently has a loving massive stockpile of Kyle Ren toys from the new Star Wars movie that nobody wants because "it's the white dude" is no longer proof of a hit toy - and likewise lost a grip of money over their refusal to make toys of Rey. Disney's princess stuff does very well, actually. If anything they under-estimate demand for "girl" toys, like when Frozen had a long period where it was impossible to find any toys (also, the idea that boys might like Frozen and buy "girl" toys didn't occur to toymaykers naturally). The total bungle of the Star Wars toys remains hilarious no matter how much you hear about it, but in a way it makes sense, I guess. Disney acquired Marvel Comics and Star Wars as "boy" properties to compliment Disney Princess stuff because they didn't want the Disney image to only be associated with girlyness. The problem with Barbie is that it's being out-competed by Monster High and American Girl dolls right now, because those appeal to older girls as well as younger girls, while Barbies get discarded by late elementary age Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Feb 6, 2016 |
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Feb 6, 2016 22:49
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It's bizarre that one of the only Black Widow toys is a Disney Infinity figurine, which has been pretty good about being inclusive, in counterpoint.
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Feb 7, 2016 03:37
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It's especially weird in that they don't put Black Widow on things aimed at girls like backpacks sold as 'girls backpack' and what have you. 'Family Values'? I mean Hulk is a shirtless berserk roid job. Maybe if they just didn't put her in T&A pose it wouldn't come off so sexualized.
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Feb 7, 2016 06:44
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So only use Winter Soldier screen shots? It'd be hard to get good ones from the Avengers. Otherwise you'd have to go back and get gasp original material for your cheap merch.
Terrible Opinions fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 7, 2016 09:05
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She was in winter soldier too.
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Feb 7, 2016 09:09
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