Ynaught

If NCSoft decided to reverse their decision to shut the game down and start taking payments again, would I re-sub?

Hell no!

Don't get me wrong, I love CoH and planned to be playing it for years to come, but this whole closure thing has just been so ugly and needless that I have ZERO faith in NCSoft anymore. Them deciding to keep the game alive at this point would simply be another money grab and I will never give them a single penny again.

Unless I somehow came into a lot of money, enough that I could BUY CoH from them and potentially restart it/keep it running.

NCSoft gutted the game. They burned Paragon Studios to the ground and utterly destroyed the soul of the community on August 31st. Even if the entire staff of PS were to come back and obscene amounts of money was thrown at them to increase the development on the game, I'm not sure players who have already left, would return. (I would, though I am still here so...)

And without Paragon Studios the game just wouldn't be the same as far as future content releases. Sure, the possibility is there that perhaps some of them could be available but a lot of the more involved Devs have new jobs already and I couldn't see them giving up the "sure thing" they have now to take a chance with someone new running the game.

Bottom line -

If the entire shutdown debacle had never happened, I'd still be paying and playing CoH. But it did happen and NCSoft can go rot in the pits of perdition for all I care.

Looks like the WST blueside is the Admiral Sutter TF, so I believe that would make the redside one Mortimer Kal.

I'm glad they are actually updating these.

I have my reasons for not wanting to play Guild Wars 2. To be completely honest, this debacle with NCSoft killing off City of Heroes is not the main reason.

Simply put, I don't really care for the "fantasy" style games.

Which is kind of weird considering how much I like The Lord of the Rings and a couple other fantasy books. Shoot, the LotR MMO is f2p and I've never even bothered to download it.

So considering there is a game out there that I actually may have even a slight interest in, is completely free for me to play and I haven't even given it a look, why on (Middle)Earth would I PAY NCSoft to play their game? Not going to happen.

NCSoft could pay me and I probably wouldn't play Guild Wars 2, although it would depend on what kind of stipulations would be involved.

To those that are enjoying Guild Wars 1 and/or 2, I wish you nothing but the best. I won't sit here and hope that NCSoft closes your games down anytime soon. I hope they stay running for as long as even 1 person enjoys them.

As for me, I'm likely to never play an MMO as a subscriber ever again, at least not on a permanent basis. If one comes along that does grab me then cool, but there hasn't been one yet.

City of Heroes was my first MMO. It won't be my last, but it will be the last that I get as invested in as I have here.

I've played on Infinity (off and on) since CoV launched. Up until about 3 years ago, I was someone who rarely teamed so most folks probably won't even know me. Also, as someone with sever altitis and not a lot of extra money, I've had to branch out and play on almost all the English speaking servers. Anyway, I saw this and decided to answer.

Is anyone else having problems lately with the NCSoft launcher?

I've been having trouble getting the NCSoft launcher to work properly for a few days and now today I can't log at all. I keep getting a NCSoft Launcher Update Error "Unable to Contact Launcher Update Server". It says that "There is either a problem with your internet connection, or the update server is currently down.

I used to just skip it since it would never connect and just go on to play. Today though, skipping isn't a solution as when I do that, the game won't load and I get an error, "Value was either too large or too small for an Int32."

The launcher can't/won't update and I can't do a repair so I'm unable to play.

I've cleared my DNS cache, checked to make sure no firewalls were blocking the updater, downloaded a new version of the launcher, renamed my CoH folder in an attempt to reinstall the game and rebooted my modem.

Nada.

I saw on the server status page that some servers are up while others are Unknown, so maybe that's what the problem is, but if anyone has any advice on what I may be able to do on my end to get things running again, I'd appreciate it.

------------------------

Problem solved.

For some reason completely uninstalling the game from the launcher didn't work alone, and neither did removing (renaming the CoH folder in my case) separately. However, doing both allowed the launcher to connect and update to an even newer version than the one I downloaded from the NCSoft site.

No idea why it did what it did, but things are working fin now.

Well, it may be a small gesture, but it looks like someone up the chain has listened to Zwill about his request to turn on Double XP.

With any luck, maybe this is a sign of more good things to come, both in-game and out!

One of the reasons *I* think the community is so great is because the Devs allowed us to be.

Think about it, when they game started they gave us so many chat channels that folks could easily keep in touch with their friends and SG members at the same time, yet keep them seperate if need be to not annoy.

Then they realized that since the game encouraged players to make multiple characters and that *some* players made so many new characters that they needed to go to a new server to keep up with the altitis demand. So what did the Devs do?

They created GLOBAL channels. These channels allowed people to keep in touch with anyone anywhere in the game. How freaking cool is that? And they increased the number of Global channels a player could be in at least once showing just how committed the Devs were in keeping the players connected.

Maybe not the largest contributor to the great community we have here, but definitely in MY top 5.

I've said it MANY times after the MSR's end, but I want to say it again here.

THANK YOU!

These MSR's have been a blast and it amazes me how each and every week we seem to have someone new on these raids. I think that speaks VOLUMES to not just the Talsors, but to the game itself. 8+ years strong and still getting new people into the game, even with the news that hit us all on Friday.

Again, thank you Winter and the rest of the Talsorian Guard. If only there were some way myself and others could pay tribute to you for all you've done.

Well, it's not like things would have to STAY free if the game were eventually sold. They could just make things free until the game gets sold. After the sale the new owner/s could put the prices back to what they were. Sure a lot of use would just buy everything now for free, but if the game lives on, there could be future items that would NOT be free on the market.

Besides, from everything I'm seeing, the chances of NCSoft actually selling the game are kind of remote. If they wanted to SELL the game, they'd have put word out that they are selling it, not pull the plug entirely and FIRE the devs.

I wish I could say that I was the first to come up with this idea, but I'm sure I'm not. I did look to see if there was a topic on this already but didn't see anything that was this specific. Granted I only looked for a couple of minutes, but still...

Since the game is shutting down and we as players can no longer buy points AND since the market is still going to be a part of the game, is there any way possible that the items on the market be made free for everyone?

It's an extremely small gesture and at this point, does it really matter? They are digital items, there is no inventory for them, no money can be made off them anymore so why not just do it?

Of course, if there would involve ANY coding for this to happen, I suppose it never will.

Still I have to ask.

I look forward to more Incarnate powers and trials.

But only if they aren't handled like Hybrid. Although I'm guessing Genesis will be unlocked in a similar fashion to Hybrid. I'm okay with that as long as the power is worth it.

I heard all the talk about Hybrid over the course of beta testing and it seems what we wound up with is rather *meh*. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to complain too much because I didn't bother with the beta. And since I didn't test at all and let my "informed" opinion be heard, I have to live with what I got.

I stopped beta testing around i18 or i19 because I found that I spent WAY too much time on beta testing things that when the issue went live I was already bored with the new content since I'd already played (tested) it so much. This led me to growing tired of the game and contemplating unsubbing since I wasn't having fun anymore.

Since I stopped beta testing I've enjoyed the game much more and haven't left once, aside from a 1 week unsub due to my computer dying on me.

Hybrid is the first Incarnate power that I really haven't bothered with on my characters. I have a couple dozen Incarnate alts and they are all t3 on everything up to Hybrid, but only 2-3 of those have even unlocked the Hybrid slot and none of those have anything slotted in it even though I have enough salvage to actually put something in there. I'm sure I will unlock/slot Hybrid on all my Incarnate alts eventually, but I just haven't found a reason to do so yet.

I enjoy most of the Incarnate content we have thus far and I look forward to more. I also realize that not every piece of incarnate content we get (whether it's missions, trials or powers) is going to be OMGWTFBBQ!!!1!

Honestly, I do think that they should give some of the Incarnate content away for free.

Allow free/premium players access to the Alpha slot only.

This would give them a taste of Incarnate content and might just entice them to subscribe to try more. And since Shards drop everywhere outside of Incarnate content, there's a LOT of things that the free/premium players would have access to to collect their shards.

Right now, once a free/premium player hits 50, there is very little for them to do except exemp down and run stuff they missed on the way to 50, or make an alt. The problem is, free/premium players only get 2 slots per account, unless they buy more, of course.

Some players when presented with limited options will still play for a while after hitting the level cap, but at some point they want to make progress again. But once they get that second character to 50, they may feel there's just nothing else for them to do and leave.

Sure, they can (and probably do) start up another account and continue making alts that way, but allowing them Alpha slot access would let them progress for quite some time on just one account. And the longer they stick around, the more invested they become in the game.

Not sure how hard it would be to actually allow something like this, but it doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Does it?

Just to clarify, I don't really want to "chat" so much as see people forming teams or answering questions IF there are things forming that I don't know about since I usually ask these types of questions as soon as I log in.

When I log in and ask if anything is forming and an hour or more goes by and not only do I not get a response but I see no activity whatsoever that I start to feel disconnected.

And THAT is where I'm having problems. I want to do some itrials on my 50's I have here on Infinity but I never see any forming and when I ask, there is nothing but silence.

It just seems that while the population still seems higher than some other servers, forming teams is done outside places I normally frequent. I do keep an eye (tab) open to the Help/LFG channels as well, but it's mostly low level stuff like DFB.

I only have room for one Infinity global channel due to all the other globals I belong to so maybe it's that I'm not seeing activity on the one I happen to be on at the moment and things are hopping on the other Infinity globals.

Perhaps it's just time to move these 50's to another server, which is too bad because I enjoyed getting these character to 50 here on Infinity.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I dropped Infinity TF's and went with Infinity Badges since there were slightly more people on that channel. Problem is though, no one says anything. I chat in channel and I get no response.

And no, I'm not silenced.

I've seen an hour go by with no one saying anything, besides me.

I'll keep trying, but it's kind of disheartening.

Been looking for a good and active global channel here on Infinity, but I can't seem to find one. Infinity TF's is the channel I've found with the highest population, but there rarely seems to be any activity.

So, what Infinity global channel has a good mix of team, itrial and TF forming along with maybe a little bit of chat?

I have one of each and I have to say that the Beast/Thermal is a lot more fun to play than the Necro/Thermal.

Not saying that Beast is a better set, just that I find it more fun. As a matter of fact I found it so much fun that it's the first character in my nearly 8 years in the game that once I started playing it I couldn't stop playing it. Got it to 50 a couple weeks ago and have been running Incarnate content off and on between playing a new Staff/Elec Brute and other alts.

From a purely min/max outlook, I can see that Beast is probably not going to do as well as Necro simply because Necro has a LOT of different damage types in it (smashing, lethal, toxic, neg. energy) where Beast is limited to lethal (maybe a bit of smashing) and is mostly single target at that, and some cold (AoE) damage from the Dire Wolf.

I say if you're just looking for something fun to play and you feel like paying the 800 points for Beast Mastery, make them both and play them to at least 32 so you can see what all 3 tiers of pets can do with that last upgrade.

I would say though if you're on the fence about Beast Mastery then blowing 800 points may not be a good idea. Ask around and try teaming with some Beast MM's and see what they do and form an opinion that way.

Now, I don't HATE my Necro/Thermal (or any of my other alts for that matter, otherwise they'd be deleted), I just don't find it AS fun as the Beast/Thermal. But now I think I'll go dust it off and see if I can get back into it.

Do you have any procs in Possess?

If so they can be what's causing the problem.

I know that the AoE proc in the purple confuse set can draw aggro and damage procs might draw aggro from other mobs in the same group as the one you confuse, though I'm not as sure about that.

Eh, not a huge week for the store but I did pick up some stuff I'd been wanting for a while.

I bought the Animal costume pack, Beast Run and Beastly Rage aura. 755 points well spent in my book.

Of course, now watch Staff Fighting come out next week and I'll have to wait for my VIP points to arrive before I get it, but I'm good with that.

The new and on sale items may not be things everyone wants, but the last couple of weeks have seen me spend more PP's than I have in the last few months. Which is good considering how many PP's I had saved up.

Personally, I've almost exclusively used Talos to get my tips. The mobs can vary in size in Talos since it's not a hazard zone, but there are usually good sized mobs around.

The few times I tried the old DA, I never got the results that others seemed to get. After about 10 minutes I'd give up and head back to Talos still needing 3 tips. Random number generator is random so I never told anyone to avoid DA in the past, it was just never "lucky" for me.

I've even had some decent luck in IP when I get one of those tips that sends you there and I'm unlucky enough to get another tip in the mission.

Now that I think of it, Croatoa may not be a bad place to try for tips. Usually large groups around the tram and even quite a few bosses. Doesn't hurt that if you don't already have the defeat badges for the Croatoa critters that you'll be working towards badge credit as well.

Yup, I created a post here last night about this same issue and later added my own screenshots. I even sent in a bug report and a petition about it and had a GM actually show up at the "Clockwork Graveyard". (I love that and I'm gonna use that from now on )

I explained to the GM that the ridiculous amount of Clockwork being summoned was locking out regular zone mobs from being spawned, thus making it "impossible" for certain zone hunt missions to be completed.

The GM basically told me that the Paladins were a normal event in Kings Row and that I should get some other players together to take them out.

Well, there were 3-4 other people with me, but the lag was just so bad we couldn't make any headway until myself and one other switched to Incarnated 50's (we were both on lowbies) and took them out.

The thing that gets me angry now though, (not last night, which was probably a good thing) was trying to explain to the GM that other zone spawns weren't being able to be created due to the Paladins constantly summoning more minions. Even telling the GM to go look around the zone for other enemy mobs only got the same "This is normal" form letter answer.

I've been in the game for nearly 8 years and play pretty much exclusively on hero side, so I've seen my share of Clockwork Paladins and their groupies hanging out in the Clockwork Graveyard. I've never seen that many before. And definitely not so many that they are keeping regular zone mobs from spawning. Also I've never seen them continually spawn the minions when not actively aggro'd on a player.

I didn't bother going on the Beta for i22 so I didn't know that this was a problem that was addressed there already. But seeing that it made it live is troubling.

I pity anyone who runs a Numina and doesn't know about this problem, they'll not be able to finish the TF unless a knowledgeable player steps up and helps them out. Because I doubt that contacting Customer Service will net them any help at all.

And heaven forbid it's a team of free/premium players only, since they can't get any kind of live support.

I remember a few years ago it was common to become out of synch with the servers and while you could wander around a zone and not see any enemies, your character actually never moved from the spot where it zoned in. Which was why they added the /synch command to help out with those types of situations.

However, in this case I wasn't out of synch, there were simply too many Clockwork being spawned by the Paladin Giant Monsters for the zone to handle. Myself and 4 other people tried to clear them out, but I was on my lvl 14 dark/dark Dom and had a lvl 2 SK'd. I can't remember what the other folks were but at least one was a 50. We didn't have enough to take them down. So, my SK and I switched to 50's and mopped them up.

I got a few screenshots of the mass of Clockwork before we made our first attempt to take them down.

Here is a shot of just one Paladin and its group.


And now all 3 Paladins but with only 2 groups showing up...


And now all 3 Paladins with their mass of followers.


I had filed a bug report and a petition about this issue and in the middle of the first fight a GM showed up and basically said that this was normal and that "you may need to get a group of players to take them out".

The GM didn't seem to understand that while the Paladins and even a decent number of Clockwork minions hanging IS normal, what isn't normal is that all 3 of the Paladins were summoning new minions to join the already out of control numbers every 10 seconds or so.

Should the Paladins be summoning minions while players are actively trying to destroy them? Yes, that's normal.

Should the Paladins be summoning minions with no one aggroing them and continue to fill the zone with so many Clockwork that regular zone spawns are essentially pushed out? No, I don't think that is working as intended.

In all my years in the game, I've never seen this, and I somewhat regularly drone the Paladins so that a Paladin Construction can have a chance to start so I can try for the badge.

Once the Paladins and their followers were defeated, the regular zone mobs were able to spawn again.

I still think this could become an issue though since folks tend not to bother with the Paladin Construction anymore and having 3 Paladins up in that little area is fairly common. If they are indeed broken and spawning minions even when not being actively aggro'd they can and will overwhelm a zone and this problem could indeed happen again.

I think there was a similar problem with the Troll Raves in Skyway, the Super Trolls wouldn't despawn after the event, leading to them piling up throughout the zone.