BladedEdge

So, I answered my own "Is Impact worth watching?" question, by giving it a try.

And my answer is..yah kinda. Totally inoffensive commentary. Not insulting story-telling, characters who make plenty of sense for someone who knows very little about the people on the show..except for the main-event (since I happen to just randomly watch their last "PPV but on tv") whatever it was called, and that had Austin Aeries vs Pentagon Jr., both names I know are good/I like. And that match was..I dunno, I can't rate matches but they told a decent story, and the ending felt very old-school in a way I really liked.

Might not be for everyone, but a 2 hour show sans commericals (so condensed to an hour 24 minutes) on demand made for a pretty solid evening of viewing when I had nothing better to put on. I'm not sure its fair to compare a PPV (but on tv) to any random episode of most shows. But man, the totality of what I saw, character, story, match quality..

I'm just gonna go ahead and say that Impact seems better then Raw. Smackdown, maybe not, but Raw? Absolutely. If ya'll can watch it, and end up in the camp I am falling into of "I think I'll skip raw this week" but still want some wrestling.. give Impact a try. It might click with you now when before it didn't.

@wonderboycoz: Yes I heard rumor of there being a 'don't kill anyone or drink any blood' ending which is something I might enjoy trying for on a subsequent play-through. But unless combat is completely avoidable and/or there is a non-lethal option, I did wonder how they handle that. Like, if you cant' kill any of the people actively hostile too you to get said ending...etc.

Thus I have wondered re:can you totally stealth through the whole game, is there a non-lethal way to complete combat, etc. Any signs of that in your play-time thus far?

The game looks interesting, I almost jumped in. But after reading a lot of the steam reviews, this feels very much like a 'wait and see what they end up releasing as the final product'. As the general consensus seems to be "Generic and repetitive, only distinguishing feature is the 40k skin; Only recommended for major 40k nerds". Whom, I assume already play/have made up their mind on the game.

The issue with anything 40k I've ever had is pretty simple. Please reproduce the real-world physical game-play/collectible nature of the game in digital form already! The licence holders fear of producing a digital version of the actual game boggles my mind, and always will.

Like, I might be willing to spend a great deal of money on the game, if I could just play it digitally. I don't have the time to travel to play in person, the skill to paint, the room in my house to store a decent collection, etc etc etc. But as an adult who has always wanted to play, who has a lot of friends who either are in the same boat or liked playing back when they had lots of free time and a decent collection they have now sold off, we are all in the "If it were only digital.."

Like, they could make it as costly as the real-life thing. Have digital versions of units that can only be unlocked with codes you get from buying said units physically. They could nickle and dime every last bit of the experience...and I would STILL gladdly start spending money on the damn thing. I can't be alone in this.

I love 40k lore, its goofy and nerdy and etc. I have -always- wanted to have my own army of..well Gray Knights because I am boring. (Also I once read a rule that said Grey Knights could field any emperial unit from any other human faction, cause lore. This gave me visions of a small elite Grey Knight Squad flanked by the biggest Imperial Tanks and the coolest unique/exclusve units from all the other Space Marine factions). A thing I am sure you can't actually do..but whatever!

Their inability to realize just how much money they stand to make, even if they take the single most cut-throat and un-consumer friendly stance for how they monetize it just confounds me. I am convinced the people in charge are just old and scared of technology and still clinging to the completely false idea that a digital version of their game will eat into physical product, instead of providing potential to feed back into it (again, only let me have digitial versions of miniatures I buy in real life if you have too! Just let me paint and play with digital versions of them please and thank you). Let alone the fact that something like Magic the Gathering has had a fully realized digital version for well over a decade, and its been one of (if not the) biggest profit-producing parts of that games bottom line, without hurting the physical market at all.

@drdarkstryfe: Which means, to paraphrase something a podcaster called Solomonster I follow said; Fan feedback means less today then it ever has before.

There is a certain amount of absolute disgust to know that WWE is producing as horrific a quality produce as it does, and getting rewarded for it. Like, holy hell I'd love to be able to do the horrific job they do and get a billion dollars for it, geez.

Which is not a fair reaction, good on WWE for getting the money they can. Good on, one would hope (but I don't expect) the employees (which they are..) get a big pay increase (which they won't...).

But, as a fan of story-telling above pure wrestling, its a massive shame that the people with the biggest stage are getting paid big to put on a truly terrible (with some exceptions) television show each week.

Starting a discussion by declaring any opinion but your own completely invalid, How can you expect to have a conversation?

Yo, I get it, the trailer might be bad, the game might seem horrific. But starting a thread with the title "I think this, how can anyone else think anything different!" is just bad form over-all. Doesn't matter how strongly you feel about a topic. You don't open by rejecting any other reaction being valid in the opening line.

Honest question.

Is anyone who was hoping this might be a brand new game, now excited for what it appears to be?

Or is the general reaction of "YAh a new fallout..oh multiplayer/non single-player rpg, shit never mind" pretty much universal?

Late to the party but I just really got into this game. What I really wanted from it was a sandbox where I could slowly build up my mech collection, tackle missions at my own pace and hit the story-missions when I was over-prepared for them..and you only really get that post tutorial and after the first major story mission. Now, I'm not sure I am gonna tackle the second story mission until I've got an entire lance of customized heavies if I can find them.

As it stands right now I've finally gotten around to being able to field 200ton+ lances, though I have yet to run into any heavy mechs. I lucked into one-shotting the shadowhawk (in my game at least) that accompanied the pirate queen in the first story mission, and was able to get pick up all 3 parts at the end of that mission. Which lets me field a pair of them now with what I feel is a very busted setup.

For me, the shadowhawk gets a bunch of SRMs (as many as can fit), ammo and 1 big gun (a large laser in my case) which is often turned off, but nice to have). with everything else devoted to maxed armor. It over-heats like crazy, but between the really high melee damage and the burst-down the SRMs can do at close range, these are the most deadly mechs I've got.

I've also made the call to specialize pretty much all my other mechs. They are either close-range, or long range, and almost all of them have more then the default starting armor values. Bulwark is so broken that the higher armor values start, the more that 50% damage reduction matters. I don't think I am going to have a single pilot who doesn't have that skill.

Otherwise, I've finally gotten a heavy enough mech to load up on a decent number of LRM10s (which is the best I can buy/find at the moment). And am getting to experience the joy of a LR missile boat. My other Long Range mechs is going down the dual AC/5's route and essentially stands in for my scout. Its the mech I'd put the one pilot with sensor lock I take with me, the one I put on top of the hill, and thus one who is down in firepower a bit because it tends to take the first round or two of attacks before my short-range mechs can fully engage.

And that is how I have always played these games. Overheating? Psh if I don't cross the line I don't have to worry about it. A lot of fiddling with guns so I can fire the max amount every single round etc.

My biggest regret with this game is that PPCs suck. Those were/are my favorite weapons in any of this universes games. Battletech or mechwarrior. I adore them. But they just don't compare well to other options. No indirect fire, extreme heat, etc. If I ever mod this game, making PPCs broken so I can field a mech with 4+ of those things (as is always my dream) and not be gimping said mech by doing so, is first on my list.

Serious question time.

Has anyone gone back and given Impact (Formerly TNA) a chance since the change-over in leadership and such? Any thoughts on if the quality has gone up at all, if its worth watching, say, in place of raw every week?

Something I am constantly ashamed to have myself, for I did nothing but get born into having a family and friends who provide it, and supremely humbled by the very thought that given the amount of stress dealing with my own issues causes, that they would continue to support and love me as they do.

Support is drastically important, and even that is not enough. The amount of shame and sadness that comes from receiving it is like..survivors guilt? A form of "I know for every 1 person with my support network there are hundreds, thousands without anything close..what did I do to deserve such?" Which feeds into the absolute lack of self-esteem and..on and on.

I am glad though it sounds like the doc did a good job of showing people a bit of what going through this shit can be like. The more coverage and sunlight we can put on mental illness, the better everyone will be. (One reason I am using this as an excuse to share my story a bit).

But hey guys, know that any amount of empathy and kindness you show to people can help. Even simply letting someone like me ramble and post pages worth of text without telling me off can be enough to make me feel welcome and part of a friendly and welcoming community. Ya'll are part of my support network too in a light kind of way. So, if you take anything away from all of that just know, the acts of kindness and simply non-cruelty you show people, online or off, can have more positive benefit then you will ever know.