Galvatron Review 07-20-08

Hurrah more reviews. :) Man, we've been busy lately in the Decepticons! I hope that we stay that way. TPstaff has a lot of awesome plot submissions in our +plot box and all of them include Decepticons at the very least, so things should be hopping for quite a while. Big ups to all the submitters, keep it coming! More ideas means more fun.

'''001 Meg's has helped me somewhat since my short stay here. He answered some easy applying questions (which isn't part of his job as far as I am aware) and also gave me a pointer here and there. I only had the chance to run one TP idea by him, but it was already taken/being used (Unicron's head).''' '' The staff all try to be helpful to guests and such, really. I do consider that part of all our jobs. Sorry about the Unicron head thing being taken, but you know, now that it's landed on Magnaron who knows what might happen with it, so you may want to revisit that.''

'''002 I think you're a pretty solid fac-head but I wanted to call attention to something I've heard you mention a few weeks ago. You said it is much easier for you to join scenes as Galvatron/Megatron and harder for you to start them. It would be really nice if you could break through this limitation by extending yourself more often to getting things started and rolling.''' '' Forming/joining scenes as Galvatron/Megatron is kind of a feast-or-famine deal. There are days when I log on and all day and night the +where shows no more than one Decepticon per room and all of them are fifteen minutes idle or more. I pop into these rooms (the public ones anyhow), demand status reports and chew the fat a bit with the Decepticon in question, and when we're done if it wouldn't work to tell them to go do something, pop out again. Other days, I log in and everyone jumps on me going MEGATRON MEGATRON HEY HEY and I end up alternatively helping people out with stuff and being a badguy and assigning my officers to missions and so on and rack up six hours of IC/act in one shot. So yeah, it would be cool to be able to begin more scenes (outside of plots which I begin because that's part of my job here) but a lot of the time it just doesn't seem to go anywhere. This may be because of the inherent limitations in being Megatron. I can order people to do stuff but I can't order them to like it, so I have to (mostly) order them to do things they OOCly wanted to do already. Ultimately this means that on slow days when people don't feel like doing much, I can't really begin anything with them either.''

'''003 First thing I want to say a few things about the TP itself. Personally I have really dug how this whole civil, civil war has turned out, esspecially with Galvy's version of Megs and Blue's version of a rather crazy Galv. I know I am not alone on this, but I hope that 'Megatron' stays around for a long while.''' (rest of review redacted at player's request to keep it private) '' Now see, if it was up to me, I would use the Unicronian tech the Constructicons are learning by dissecting Galvatron's body, and become Tank Megatron or Helicopter Megatron. I never liked Galvatron as much as Megatron anyhow (also I would rather have Bombshell back instead of Cyclonus). But ultimately the TPwiz and Charwiz aren't going to allow that, it's too much of a deviation from the theme and I have to turn back to Galv as soon as the Constructicons are done rebuilding my new (purple) body. Crazy Galv was awesome though, I loved that radio debate I got to have with him. :)''

'''004 Firstly I'd like to say how amazing you are. Friendly, really approachable, a good sense of humour, and you've started to lengthen your poses a bit, which is always good! I'm not always getting the vibe that you are an evil villain who wants to crush the world under his heel, but then again, it is down to personal interpretation, player's perogative.'''

''Keep in mind that Megatron lies. I mean he lies like ALL the TIME. It's one thing to want to crush the world under your heel, and it's another to come right out and say it. I want it to be uncertain as to what exactly Megatron wants; is he telling the truth or is he just saying whatever he thinks his audience needs to hear?''

'''I do have two comments though that I'd like to see addressed in future. Don't take this as a negative review, it is positive, and you are a great guy!

1 - Itchy trigger finger. In my last review I asked if you could stop cannoning people straight off, and it seems to be still going on. The cannon is an insanely powerful weapon and one shot can pretty much take someone instantly out of a scene and lay them up in medbay for a while. There are always other options, from a lower setting attack to thinking your way out of situations. And always, always, always page someone asking OOCly before you use such an attack, no matter the circumstances. Its the polite thing to do.'''

''I don't know if I mentioned this before but apart from the heat rays I shoot out of my eyes, all of my ranged attacks are named 'Fusion Cannon.' Most of the time I actually open up with an Electricity or an Area_Ranged. Cannon usually comes out when the battle has been going on for a while so that folks have had a chance to stop attacking Megatron before he blows them away. The exception of course is a punitive cannoning; on occasions I have to put a Con in their place, and sometimes this is Slap but depending on how "firm" I need to be with them I'll just Cannon them. You have to offend Galv pretty badly to get the Cannon though. Laying a hand on him disrespectfully is a good start. Anyhow, what LOOKS like just going 'cannon cannon cannon' is actually 'electricity a_ranged disruptor' because of the +attackname thing. Not counting the melee attacks I use, I mean.''

'''2 - You need to be more proactive. Turning up to things is all well and good, but the leader should really be driving RP and pushing it forward, especially when you're the leader of the more proactive faction. I'm not saying you need to be there at every fight (heaven forbid!) but that you're behind the scenes giving orders and ideas for people to carry out to keep RP going. Thats it from me, just address those two things and you'll be awesome!'''

''Ask Catechism and Mesa how much RP I push forward, and you will find that when Cons come to me with a problem, I'll usually assign them or someone else to fix it, resulting in a mission being created and an event or small plot being run for that person. Now, some folks are not really missionable because they're busy blogging or whatever, but for the most part if you ask me for something I'll give it to you. Also, sometimes the things I turn up to were actually started by me off-stage as a TPstaffer. Showing up on time can be tricky! As for leading from the front in conventional "hey guys let's all go do stuff" events... the problem with this is that I'm Megatron (or Galvatron) and unless Ultra Magnus or Grimlock or both at once show up, the Autobots are going to be stuffed without a clever plan. Clever plans are often hard for the Bots to come up with on short notice unless the TPstaffers write in a back door for the Bots and tell them what to do. I mean, heck, you see what happens when just Avalanche or Sixshot show up. Rodimus and Megatron/Galvatron are ridiculously powerful and having them appear can cause the other side to think twice about even coming out to play, as review 005 can attest...''

''' 005 Hi Megatron (or should that be Galvatron? I'm so confused!... ;) I looove the job you're doing as fachead. You're generating or enabling all kinds of RP for the Decepticons. I'm also fairly sure a lot of the cool TPs and IC developments lately are partially your idea or are at least benefitting from your input. I also VERY much like your portrayal of Megatron and Galvatron. Great job, you are a truly awesome RPer in so many ways.'''

''Thank you very much, this means a lot to me. :) The TPstaff all work together on the events that we do, so with a few exceptions (Blueshift has been doing the Book of Primus stuff all by himself) you are correct, most of the TPs and the IC changes that follow on do have my hand in them. It's not the only hand on the wheel, usually, but I'm glad that you can see my touch on there and like it. :)''

'''I guess my main suggestions for improvement revolve around being a little more considerate of the IC power level of your char and how it can affect RP, especially in a Bot/Con scenes. I hate to say it, but you're so far above all other characters in power level that I feel you ought to reign yourself in when possible even at the expense of not being totally IC. Galv/Megatron will just dominate every scene otherwise, and that can tend to just stomp out whatever RP was going on at the time and replace it with 'good guys better flee for their lives'.'''

''See, Reviewer 004? This is the problem with leading from the front. Sure, it's fun for you guys as Decepticons, because you get to rally behind the flag, wipe the mat with the Autobots, and if one of their heavies comes out to give you trouble, Megatron beats them down with a sneer. But for the Autobots it can be very discouraging. You have to show up knowing that you're already probably not going to prevail, that at best you'll save the kitten in the tree or stop the dam from breaking, but that the Decepticons are going to steamroll you, and if your champion shows up, Megatron will humble him. That's not fun for them. That's one of the reasons I give people assignments a lot more often than I just grab folks and lead them in an attack.''

'''Also, I notice that you tend to talk trash while you're making your enemies run and hide, which is a little unfair and is like rubbing salt in the wound. Sure, it might be perfectly IC for Galv/Meg to be condescending or arrogant or claim the Decepticons are well within their rights doing whatever they're doing, but I'm sure it gets a little demoralizing for 'good guy' players to have to sit there and listen helplessly or else get cannon'd.'''

''Actually there are two reasons for this, apart from that it's very much in character for Galvatron to humiliate his opponents: First, that once the Decepticons' overlord shows up it is a good idea to change one's plan from "victory" to "success." The difference being, are you going to run the Cons off and be left standing tall and proud while they retreat, or are you going to save that kitten/dam? Galvatron usually says something along those lines, like "you would be wiser to flee!" or "save yourselves while you can!" The other occasion I talk trash is when the Bots engage me in banter. Ultra Magni are usually pretty good at this. The sad thing is that Ultra Magnus is also likely to get beaten silly by Galvatron, so what happens is Magnus jumps out of a shuttle, starts telling Galvatron he can never win, he's a small-minded madman and so on, and Galvatron schools him while countering his argument. Anyhow, I take your point, but you might want to consider it less intended to embarrass the Bots and more as plain advice: if Galvatron tells you you can't possibly withstand his power, that means you should get creative and find some other way to win besides standing there and letting him punch you. :)''

'''006 We got started off on the wrong foot because of listening to rumors but let's hope we can move on from here. ' Ooooh, 006. I was hoping you would put a review in. The funny thing is that even though these are anonymous reviews I knew that I would know you immediately, because of course you would return to your favorite themes and give that dry bone another incoherent, wild-eyed gnaw for old times' sake.''

What I've found is that Megatron is first of all far too quick to anger,

''"Megatron is too quick to anger" is not a phrase that has any meaning in English. Megatron/Galvatron's anger is basically instantaneous. The mean time from him being stabbed in the neck by someone in his own faction to being murderously angry, for instance, can only be measured in scientific notation.''

'''and I think some of the policies such as OCs not being as valuable as the FCs, or chars being nothing but gumbies, need to be revised. As soon as a character gets a name and a player that's when they -stop- being a gumby.'''

''This part does not make much sense either since there is no such policy and player characters are not able to be gumbies even if they try. Even Warmonger is technically not a gumby by virtue of being a PC, although he basically apped a gumby. The definition of a gumby is an NPC, emitted and unstatted, apart from troop objects, which are comprised of gumbies.''

I was disappointed to see nonsensical RP and plots, the likes of which a great many have mocked TFU over, over the years, happening on 2k5, though I am told there are good plots in the works as well.  Those "great many," assuming they ever existed, are so beyond my concern that my lack of caring about their opinion can ALSO only be measured with scientific notation.

I'd love to see Megatron actually RP with the rest of us but maybe with a bit more of the fachead mentality that they're there to help all of us have fun, not just some, and less of the "I can pkill you at my liesure".

''This complaint would be more accurate if "the rest of us" was redefined as just you, and "not just some" was redefined as "everyone else on the game." At any rate, I assure you, it's not leisurely. The facheads actually have to do a lot of paperwork any time someone in their faction defects to the humans or engages in obscene behavior with members of enemy factions or whatever else eventually gets that character killed. Reams of the stuff! Man, I only wish it was leisurely.'' ''' I have not seen, personally, enough of Megatron to know how he does in terms of playing Galvatron but I feel like he needs to greatly improve on his actual OOC leadership and communication skills. A fachead is there for everyone, and to help us all have fun, not just for the buddies we know IRL.'''

''Sadly I don't even get to play with the buddies I know IRL because they're too busy or burned out or not feeling enough creative spark to come up with plots to submit (I don't run things for my friends, just for the people who submit plots... it's a personal regret of mine that they tend not to be the same), so this paragraph of this review is also not only a misconceived and unfounded supposition but actually the OPPOSITE of the easily observable truth. In fact I think your review has set some kind of record for being comprised almost completely of nonsense, dishonesty, and nonsensical dishonesty. Now, it's not that I don't want you to have fun, and I think I've been quite clear, so communication is certainly not an issue, apart from your tendency to lie constantly to anyone who can't avoid listening to you (OOCly, unfortunately... if it was IC it would be laudable). The problem is more that you don't seem to actually be particularly interested in having fun that isn't some kind of gross breach of acceptable behavior. So far you either complain that no non-combat RP is available, when there are multiple non-combat scenes going on which you insist you can't join in on for any number of patently absurd reasons, or else you ask if anyone's available and then when someone replies you either ignore them or find some reason to avoid them (such as for instance lacking the Detecting_Autobots_Who_Are_Brightly_Colored_With_Autobot_Symbols_Clearly_Visible_And_Located_Directly_In_Front_Of_You skill). My only hope for you is that these are all just teething issues since you apparently suffered some kind of debilitating brain damage since the last time you played here, and it has caused you to forget... well, everything. We will see if the mentor I assigned you to, or maybe your new alt, can help you get back into the swing of things and learn all the different ways that you can have a good time without defecting to the humans. ''

'''007 Dude, didn't we just review you like.... just the other day? Well, I still think you are doing a great job and I'm diggin all the interaction that you are causing, so like, zoinks, keep up the good work, Scoob!''' '' Thanks, Shaggy, I do my best. :) I know, it doesn't feel like it's been that long. Maybe a smaller staff corps is causing the review machine to cycle around more often?''

'''008 Megatron! Er.. Galvatron! Er.. Someone! Well he's going great whoever he is, protraying a more subdued leader than some of the ear-chewing maniacs in the past. Not really too much more to say, other than I particularly enjoyed seeing him on film (or broadcast or whatever) the other night. More Megatron on film!''' '' That's really the only difference between Megatron and (the non-crazy version of) Galvatron, as I see it. Apart from the voice, I mean; Megatron is a little more stable, or at least he knows how to make himself look more stable. Galvatron and I both had a great time on that show for KNUJ by the way, so I'm glad you liked it too. :)''

'''009 Wow. From the perspective as a Decepticon and as a player on 2k5, you're doing a bang-up job as a fachead and as a font of RP. LOVE your portrayal of Megatron, which must be a fun departure from being Galvatron.''' '' Thanks! And it really is. :) I've gotten a lot of compliments and encouragement about what started out essentially as my own personal complaint that Galvatron's character design sucks and the post-movie Decepticons were just nothing to write home about until the Pretenders and Masters started showing up. It gives me a grin to get pages from so many other people saying "man I wish we could keep Megatron :/" and the like.''  CANON doesn't seen to come up so much, at least not publically, but as a CANNON you're doing great.

''It comes up behind the scenes. There's a balance that we strive for between what is dumb canon (the original cartoon was super ridiculous at times), what is cool canon (at other times it was righteous) and what we actually DO here, which is usually more like Harry Potter fanfic. A lot of the wackier plots that we do are actually the most canonical ones. Remember our ultimate source; a spinoff movie of a children's merchandising cartoon from the 1980s, hastily slapped together in order to kill off the old merchandise and introduce new toys and simpler animation models. The closer we hew to canon the kookier things get.''

Although it's not your responsibility to make RP for the 'bots, I'd like to add that the current TP does kinda leave them in the dark, and I'd like to hear your $.02 on the matter.

''I might argue that it kind of is our responsibility to make RP for the Bots since canonically they are pretty reactive. Left to their own devices they would mostly be peaceful scientists and fishermen and hairdressers and such. We have to cause trouble in order for their heroic side to see more usage than the occasional natural disaster. But yeah, this whole thing must've been pretty bewildering for the Bots. If only they had a man on the inside to explain the hidden parts of the TP to them! Apart from Counterpunch's dead drops to his contacts in the Bots, I actually made a deliberate move to not give the Bots too many hints throughout the plot, because they have some new intel characters who asked me for opportunities to spy. You need secrets to spy out, so I had to keep stuff secret for them. This will probably continue in the future in various forms as long as the Bots have an active intel group.''

''' 010 He's the man...though I wish he was Galvatron and not Megatron. The civil war is super and love whoever thought of it...I assume you, maybe Blueshift. He thinks of good TPs like this. Nothin but good things to say!'''

''I thought of it, yeah. Blueshift helped a great deal though, mainly by being Galvatron. He has been waiting all his life to play Galvatron, and it shows. :) Don't worry, I will change back to my usual look soon, they wouldn't let me stay Megatron if I tried!''

''' 011 Megatron=Are you really Galvatron, or is Galvatron the real one and you're an imposter, or is Galvatron the real Megatron? Help me out here!'''

''OOCly, I Megatron am the real Galvatron, that is to say, I'm the fachead and Galvatron was the TP character. ICly, they're both about equally real (how 'real' is your identical twin?), but the TP character was the original Galvatron and Megatron is his perfect duplicate.

That's why Galvatron went crazy and Megatron went sane (when Megatron becomes Galvatron he won't be crazy anymore, you see), and why Megatron won in the end (by lying and cheating). It firmly establishes the final, permanent Galvatron as the non-crazy one and I figured it would be less expected for the clone to kill the original and take his place, more of a surprise for the audience. Also I love Megatron and Blueshift loves Galvatron so that was a natural. :)''

'''012 First off, I would like to talk about Megatrons RP. As far as the character of Megatron goes, I have never been a big fan. I would have described my feelings about the character as "the positive side of neutral". I never really understood why my friends loved this character so much. However, Megatron's RP has made me sit up and go, "Wow!" I get it now. I understand why my friends love Megatron now, for he is awesome. That said, I do feel that Megatron is perfectly IC. He is not different from canon, just better explained and fleshed out.'''

''I think that this is about all we can hope for as far as FCs go on here. We have a funny sort of a MUSH. :) On the one hand we've got scores of FCs, most TV/movie MUSHes only have a dozen or less. On the other hand, our FCs only have as much personality as you can fit on a cereal boxtop. Some of them were given a one-horse personality and a few lines in wacky accents to sell toys, some of them were just shoved into the background to sell toys and never given any characterisation at all. So whatever life is in them, we fans have to breathe into them ourselves. This is what I meant earlier about balancing canon (honestly our canon sucked a lot of the time but we remember it fondly because we were eight years old at the time) against fanfic (quadchanging half-dragon quintesson monsterbots in love with Soundwave). If I have given you the impression of Megatron as being authentic and memorable but with personality and depth, then that's the very best that I can hope for because that's really all that any of us do here with FCs. :)''  Some people may complain about Megatron being too soft, but seriously, he was a fellow who would go out and get totally overcharged with Seekers and tapes.

''Yeah, I remember that bit. Megatron is sitting out in that generic desert they seemed to like so much (it was easy for Korean slaves to draw, I guess) with Starscream leaning on him and tapes stumbling around while he stares into his robooze and mutters about how things used to be better in the old days. Sometimes he gets a bit soft that way. I think of him as a father figure in some regards. An abusive father figure. o_o''

'''He is a merciless hardaft when he needs to be, but he does not need to be one 24/7. In fact, if he was a merciless hardaft 24/7, he would end up hampering RP.'''

''One of the ways to deal with this is to just not be around, but we tried that already with previous Galvatrons. I try to reach a middle ground by being around a lot OOCly and popping in to visit or assign orders or go on important missions, but not always looking over people's shoulders. Of course part of being around so much is just because I'm unemployed right now. I may end up scaling it back quite a bit in a few weeks unless my new job lets me MUSH.''

'''A two faction RP, by necessity, requires that the Decepticons not be genocidal, psychopathic, backstabbers all the time, or else their faction would fall apart entirely. Besides, there are even a few examples of Decepticons using the 'friend' word in canon in a non-sarcastic, non-lying fashion. His portrayal of Megatron really makes me wish that we could just keep Megatron for the rest of eternity, but alas, I know that we must return to Galvatron sometime, for such is the way of things.'''

''Yeah, I know that this might wander too deeply into SNAD territory but I always thought of Blitzwing and Astrotrain as being friends. They're the kind of friends whose idea of a good time together is getting blind drunk and going out at night to engage in brutal Autobot-bashing, tying minibots to fenceposts and beating them with baseball bats and so on, but that's just what they both enjoy. They're evil war machines but they get along together well.''

'''Enough about his RP. As an admin, I have always found him to be friendly and approachable. He rewards those who show initiative, and he goes out of his way to be there when he is needed. He knows when to pull his punches in combat.'''

''It helps that I can see your damage. A lot of the time (you must be one of the people I did this to) when I'm fighting an Autobot and I don't think they did anything to deserve being KO'd, I'll pull it back when I get close to their cou/end, then just start going tap-tap-tap with punches and Disruptor shots and the like, until they go under it and can retreat without being knocked out. KOs can be exciting for Bots as they get to activate their reserves to go rescue the KO'd fighter, but it's usually not too exciting for the unconscious guy!''

I have little in the way of criticism, but I feel that perhaps he could better motivate his officers to get out there and do stuff, as some of the officer Decepticons seem to do rather little.

''Man, I wish I could. This is really, really hard. I mean, none of us get paid or anything but I kind of had to become a TPstaffer and a leader type in order to get to play Galvatron. If I never did anything and refused to take on responsibilities, they could kick me out. But that doesn't happen with any other characters. If Razorclaw apps Razorclaw we don't get to tell him that he has to get out there and invent and/or run plots or else we'll take his big stats FC away. The most I can do is demote Razorclaw to a 1, and if I did that to all my inactive officers I would have like three or four officers at any given time. This is however part of why I am reducing the number of people ranked above 1, and have been for some time. Still working on it really.''

'''As far as suggestions go, I would really like to see some cross-divisional groups, although I am a big fan of more groups in general. Elite groups within divisions are all well and good, but it can be troublesome to fill them out, and also, it creates small, insular groups that are likely to look down on each other. Give us teams the draw from DCI, MilOps, MSE, Aerospace - and heck, even the Sweeps and combiner teams. There is no reason why someone cannot be a Combaticon and a insert special team name here. Such teams would help smooth out divisional frictions, provide perspective, and give players a goal for which to aim.''' '' You basically just described the "squad initiative" I have been working on off and on. We just got a squad mission completed in the quest for the White Book of Primus, for instance; I tasked Catechism to lead it and told her she could take up to three other Decepticons with her. A team of four is usually the best size for adventure roleplay. She took Ramjet from Aerospace with her, Blitzwing from the army (Ops at the time, going to change this name to avoid confusion with the Autobot Ops group) and Reflector from Intel. It worked out very well and I want to do this more often, especially using the awesome new RPG-style +check system to create challenges besides just X shoots at Y. :)''

Some secret police might also be nice.

''Soundwave is supposed to do this. I should talk to him about it though.''

There are only so many command slots, and those are always going to be clogged up by FCs, NFCs, and EFCs, except for rare cases, and quite often, those in such command positions are not the most active of people.

''He's a guardian! Of an entire planet! And he's significantly understaffed.''

'''Having special teams would give players more options, rather than everyone lusting after that same sad XO spot. I rather wish that the current divisional heads were moved up a notch, say to some Council level, which would allow for lesser FCs, EFCs, and NFCs to move up to divisional head level and would provide more open ranks slots for which active, motivated players could vie. I would also like to see the rank structure be a bit more dynamic, such as maybe having a certain rank and position that is purposefully temporary and changes over at the end of every month or so. It is fun to have competitions!'''

''This is a good idea and one I've considered myself, but the problem with making Scrapper, Soundwave and so on into like an elite council and promoting other people to division heads is that there aren't enough other active people to promote. The only way I can be sure of always having an active Soundwave is that Soundwave has real high IC/act requirements and they'll fire him if he's idle too long. That's why Soundwave always ends up Director of Intelligence. Most of the time we don't even have a Counterpunch or any of the tapes, and if I made Mesa into the D.Int... he wouldn't have any active Agents to order around since he's pretty much the only one as it is.''

013 Heya

Sup

'''I think you're doing a great job and I especially appreciated your RP during the civil war. As a faction leader though I would like to see more explaination about a few things, like the recent changes to the Decepticon ranks. CO don't all have the same rank, we now have pretty much 3 military divisions... I'm sure you have good reasons but I would like them to be explained more publicly.'''

''Yeah, I'm still working on this. The old way was to rank down from 8. This resulted in a ton of meaningless ranks where everybody was some kind of officer unless they were dead or a Quintesson clone or something. My way is to rank up from 1. It will go, assuming I don't change it any more, like this: 1 - Regular troops (if they become real idle they go into Reserves and are ICly sent to Cybertron) 2 - Squad leaders (see review 012 about squads and squad missions) 3 - Division XOs 4 - Division COs (these are either FCs with high IC/acts required, or super-active OCs) 5 - Cyclonus 6 - Me

Also I need a new name for the army-type guys. Anyhow I'm still working on this and trying to figure out who to put where, so that's why things look a little weird on +faction lately.''

'''014 Congratulations on another amazing cycle as Decepticon fachead! It is good to see you active, although your hours seem a little weird (IE, geared more toward British times). Sometimes you can be very scarce during weekends, but that seems to have changed with the Galvatron/Megatron TP.'''

My weekends tend to be taken up by socializing, and evenings too sometimes, that's why mornings and days are big for me even though I'm not Welsh.

'''I like that you talk a lot on O-Dec and Public channels, and you are always friendly to Guests when they log in! This is great. I like that you respond to people who come with you for RP ideas (like Catechism with the Book of Primus subplot, etc).'''

''I was pleased with Catechism's proactivity in that regard too. She's gonna get a medal when I hold the medal ceremony for the Civil War heroes.''  In addition though, could you start posting more standing orders to kickstart RP for those who may not have as much energy/creativity/time?

''I probably need to repost the standing orders if they are falling off, but I think lately people have just been so busy with TPs that they hardly need them. :) We will have more standing orders soon to go with upcoming TPs, anyhow, so don't worry, your request is being addressed! :)''

'''I've seen several instances where you have had to step in as fachead to set people straight on IC behaviors, and think you do a good job with being firm but gentle. Looking forward to more time with you as an admin and RPer.'''

''Well, I like you guys. :) I mean, as I noted earlier I don't get paid or anything, I play here because I have fun, and I have fun because you all are here. You have to be really bad to get on my bad side and honestly I can only think of a couple people that I would describe that way (hint: one of them is Anonymous Reviewer 006). Everyone else I like, and of course I'm going to be as gentle as I can with them while still getting stuff done. There have been a few times that I've been obliged to chew someone out in order to stop them from being mean to someone else, and sometimes I'm obliged to take an issue seriously because other people are taking it seriously, even if it doesn't make a big deal to me personally. I regret these times, but thankfully they're pretty rare. In some ways Galvatron/Megatron's ability to just slap around or cannon his wayward charges makes things a lot easier OOCly. I can just be like 'kaboom, now you know what not to do' and we stay amicable. I sure don't envy Rodimus. He can't even cannon his problem guys.''

'''015 Megatron is simply awesome. He's a dedicated player who might not be on as Megatron but he gets the Cons moving with his alts and everything. I appreciate working with him on Staff.'''

''Thanks a lot! I help out the Bots sometimes too with my Bot alts but I keep their identities secret these days. :) Of course you'll know who they are, being Staff...''

'''016 Doh. I don't think I got my review off to you in time. Well, you don't seem to be the type whose feelings are hurt easily so I don't think you'll mind a little criticism. :)'''

''Nah, I have a thick skin. I've been doing this a long time and the worst that can happen is I get frustrated with you. Actually that wouldn't even happen with you, I only get annoyed when people are disingenuous. And then they have to be disingenous in a really obvious way that insults the intelligence of the people they're trying to fool... anyhow no, you're fine.''

Anyway, here's the review I TRIED to send you...

Better late than never!

'''Hey, Megs. I think you're doing a good job with the character, even though it's a little obvious that you actually prefer playing Megatron over Galvatron. Can't say I blame you, too much, though Galvatron has his appeal as well.'''

'''I honestly don't see any real difference between Movie Galv and Megatron apart from the voice and that Galvatron looks dumb. That's not his fault of course, the character designer admits that he INTENDED for him to look dumb, but there it is. Late-series Galv has the fun of going NYAAARGH and cannoning Sweeps whenever it strikes him to do so. Comic Galv also has the fun of having ridiculous armor and being invincible. MUSH Galv is... somewhere inbetween, at best.'''

'''Anyway, you have a good knack for "spontaneous evil," where you just up and do something, out of the blue, that really screws the good guys over. That's a big asset for an evil leader to have, and perfectly in character for the opportunistic Megatron/Galvatron. You also showcased the critical differences between Megatron and Galvatron quite well, especially in the debate hosted by the Junkions.'''

''Thanks. :) Megatron was lying during some of that, mind you. He knew that since he was the clone, and Galvatron was stronger than he was, his only claim to authority was that he wasn't crazy. So he intentionally played up being extra reasonable, because nobody wants to get cannoned by a crazy Galvatron.''  However, I will say that, during the All Hail Megatron TP, that there weren't nearly enough opportunities for backstabbing and fighting between the two camps.

''Yeah, I agree, I would've liked more of this. It's weird how the Decepticons get along so well and the Autobots always seem to be at eachother's throats, isn't it?''  I was really hoping for more of that, but then suddenly both leaders started to say, "Well, our REAL enemies are the Autobots" and seemed to leave each other alone, for the most part.

''This was intentional on Megatron's part. He knew that eventually he would have to kill Galvatron or be killed by Galvatron, and he wanted to get some use out of him first. That's why we had that soiree in the togas at Crystal City that Ramjet proposed.''  Some players I spoke to during the TP also seemed confused about the pacing of the TP, and exactly what was going on.

It was supposed to be confusing but maybe it was a little TOO confusing.

'''Anyway, don't take that criticism too hard, the TP was, otherwise, interesting and unique. I doubt 2k5 has done something like this before. Also, I can't wait for the upgrade to the new combat system, and I appreciate your contributions to that effort (testing and et al.).'''

I am SUPER EXCITED about the new system, and thank you for your thoughtful criticism, it was accurate and useful.