I was just talking about your current avatar as a nice homage to Elemental's inspirational roots. Wintersong's moodiness is interesting, but basically I'm Internet-old and I don't like to re-learn avatars all the time. (I'm really Internet-old now that I think about it. I'd not miss avatars at all if the forums stopped supporting them, and I'd enjoy reading and typing here if it was a plain-text interface.)

No offense meant, Winter. It might have been better to say something like your regular avatar changes are an exception to prove my 'rule.' But in general, I'm lazy, and the human eye seems to seek pictures over text even if the particular human depends on mucking with the latter for a living.

This community is rather small in terms of shear numbers. I count only about 20 - 25 regular active members. With so few people the odds of having numerous repeat avatars is low so you could totally base person recognition off of the avatar. That being said I look at an avatar once and assign it to a name. After that I typically ignore it unless something changes.

I was using Safari 4 but I got tired of not being able to quote. So I'm using firefox now, unfortunately it also has some issues. I tried Chrome but the quote button didn't work for it either and I hate IE 8 with a vigorous passion.

You know, I realized I forgot 3 characters in Master of Magic.

I always assumed the characters in the opening sequence were Tauronn and Merlin, (with Tauron bearing a blue cloak for some reason)  However, now that I have looked at it more closely, I realize, no...  after looking at him, I discover he is rather different.  His face is shapped a tad different, including different hair color, skin color, and ear rings.  (or at least I think they are ear rings, otherwise they are HUGE ears and I'm unsure of the light source that lights them.  He wears gloves, and I've never seen any of the official wizards with a staff.  Of course, the lack of red is a big note.

There are many similarities, like it seems he has a similar collar underneath his hood.  His facial hair is very similar (though I cannot be sure since I think I see a bit of neck on the left side of his chin when he talks, which would suggest he does not have the extended side burns.)  and his hair line is the same shape.

anyway, in case he is a unique wizard that was killed before the opening credits (which would explain why he doesn't look like tamren) here he is:

The other wizard looks very much like merlin (I think the reason I made any relations) however, he has white hair, where merlin has grey hair.   Perhaps he is merlin's father.  Perhaps he is is just merlin again, except "Merlin the White" rather than "Merlin the Grey".  But if that WAS merlin, and the other guy was somebody different, wouldn't that mean he already discovered the spell of mastery?

And lastly, the most important character.   The one without little would have been possible.

The red shirt.  (or red cloak as it were)

I am so thrilled with my "redshirt" avatar, that I think this calls for a funny demotivational poster.

While I was working on the avatars, I came across this idea.  And I was so tickled that I just had to share it.

I approve of anything monkey island related!  Monkey island used to be very on my list of "games that should be remade/sequel'd for modern systems" next to Master of Magic (now pending to be removed by Elemental), Dungeon Keeper, Quest for Glory, Carmagedon, etc.  

to be a channeler you must complete... the trails!

You must show that you can handle magic

You must show that you can lead an army

You must start a civilization

Wintersong!   did they update to allow for animated gifs?   What file type did you use to make that cat avatar?

I'll update the thread this weekend some time guys. Sorry been really, really busy.

About animated avatars, as scoutdaog said. Some time ago it didn't work, now seems to work. In any case, don't bother trying as it would be considered an abuse, ok? Just strict jpg and png.   (there goes my animated Elemental avatar idea....)

Spartan, really, of all the people here, you are one of those few who should never apologize for being busy.

Provided its within the size requirement I don't see how.   I mean, the format requirement is so people don't cry when they can't upload another format.  Also things like BMPs and color-heavy gifs tend to be space heavy.  Naturally animation (gif or otherwise) is talking much bigger files than non animated.   But like, an animated MoM gif?   Wouldn't be that many colors with some tweaking.

I was going to wait until I had more information, but thats exactly what I was hoping to recieve.    I mean if Bara stated that gifs are now working on the forum and I missed it, I'd be all over that.

have you messaged wintersong (the creator of that avatar)?    I've wondered its origins too