anachrodragon

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Got a quick question for all, I m 37 and i was thinking of taking my son(12 yr) with me to check it out. He loves playing city of heroes and i play a bit. Do you all think it might be overwhelming for him and tiring?? Or too crowded.

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My father first took me to the Comic Con when I was about 12. I remember complaining "But Daaad, I don't even like comics that much." The truth is I didn't like comics much, but I loved sci-fi/fantasy and played D&D regularly, so it was the perfect place to take a geeky kid... I just didn't realize it at the time. But once I got there I was in heaven, and I went back every year until I was about 20 and moved away from San Diego.

It's amazing how the thing has grown over the years, but it's still a great place to take a 12 year old. I'd definitely go on Sunday if it's your first time... then next year you can both get four day passes.

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Too bad you aren't going to the Wizard con in Chicago!

And will anyone be bold enough to dress up AS their character? Surely someone has done that before!!

-?DS

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My niece was considering it, but she decided to dress up as Ms. Liberty instead.

Given that my main character right now is an atheletic looking, spiky red-haired, male electric brute, so yeah the prospect of even trying it is frightening to say the least. Even for my other characters, the female ones, I don't think I'd want to go there.

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My partner of 10 years and I will be traveling to San Diego for our Wedding on the 24th and we have our tickets for the Comic Con on Friday!!!

If there is a meet up send me a pm We would love to try and hang out there

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Congrats!

My husband and I will be celebrating our 8th anniversary at the Con this year. We got married in San Diego and spent our honeymoon at the con shortly thereafter.

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Also just a thought for other folks attending the Con... I'm planning on putting together like some one page sheets with screenshots and barebones information for a couple of my characters. I'll see if I can hit up some of the folks on artist alley for commisions, and I'll have something to hand them.

My niece had this brilliant idea last year. I think she spent all of her Con spending money on commisioned artwork of her CoH character.

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anachrodragon, I was considering doing something like this myself since I'm usually in AA buying commissions anyway. Is there any chance you could post an example of what your niece put together since it soulds like she had gerat success with whatever she used?

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I think hers last year was pretty simple, probably just some screenshots. I can imagine her getting all animated describing the character to the artists though: "She's an ancient princess with HORNS AND CLAWS! And she's really short but she KICKS BUTT!"

Here's what I'll probably do: find some good screenshots and then describe some features that the screenshots don't quite cover. Not like a character bio, but things like typical facial expressions, eye color, other prominent features.

Like for my brute I'd say he has angry eyebrows, green eyes, a scar across one eye (but it doesn't have to look the same as the in-game scar), an atheletic build but not muscle-bound.

I'll post mine when I get around to doing it.

Also just a thought for other folks attending the Con... I'm planning on putting together like some one page sheets with screenshots and barebones information for a couple of my characters. I'll see if I can hit up some of the folks on artist alley for commisions, and I'll have something to hand them.

My niece had this brilliant idea last year. I think she spent all of her Con spending money on commisioned artwork of her CoH character.

It looks like my husband and I will be there afterall. My parents are changing the date of their party. Yay!

Thanks for the heads-up that it's a 21+ event. My niece will be bummed, but she's going to the masquerade anyway, so she can't complain too much. Personally I'm looking forward to hanging out with a bunch of CoX folks instead of braving the crowds at the masquerade.

Yeah I'm wishing it wasn't Saturday night. Lots of folks will be at the masquerade. Personally I'll be attending my parents' 35th wedding aniversary dinner that night, but just about everyone else I know will be at the masquerade.

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Latest rumor is that Barack Obama is going to make an appearance at Comic-Con.

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That would be awesome, but I somehow doubt it. It would be damn cool if he did though, especially if he showed up in costume.

Yeah it's a long interview. It was nice of Hero 1 to give them that much time actually.

He did say "Freem Fifteen" which is awesome. Also, a nice little tidbit, there are some easter eggs in the form of clues scattered around Cimorea (sp?). They're objects you can click on (one is a skull for example) for little bits of information about the history of the zone. You get a badge for finding them all.

Even if you can't design your own boss/archnemesis when this thing launches, you can bet the first thing I'll do is make myself a villain arc where you can beat up Recluse for forcing his patrons' attentions on you.

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I think the 'build your own mission' qualify for the use of the word 'flabbergasted', which I am.

I tried my share of mmo (DAoC, E&B, AC2, EvE, WoW, SWG, GW), and there's only one where I spent 33 months of hard spent money, and it's here. I surprise myself with being regularly impressed by the devs, their ideas and the implementation. I'm not always happy with everything, but nowhere else did I wonder as often "How come nobody provided that already??? It's so stupidly obvious, it should be available in just every mmo!?"

Warhammer Online and AoC will have to wait open beta before I even look at them...

Curse you.

You spoiled me. /em raise fist in anger.

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So flabbergasted you made your first post on the forums. Welcome!

I'll bet there will be a penalty for XP and drops on player created maps. I mean the devs aren't completely stupid, they do know about farming. What would it take, maybe a 25-50% penalty to discourage farming/PL maps?

Personally, I'm really excited about these, just to see some of the stories you guys all come up with. I was pretty into the whole Neverwinter Nights community thing, and although there was a lot of crap out there, the good stuff got noticed and appreciated.

Londerwost (my husband) and I will be there. The meet & greets the past two years have been fun. Lets do it again!

Sweet. My husband and I are going to both Comic Con and PAX this year. Hopefully Lighthouse doesn't get too sick of us.

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I understand that, but I'm not necessarily advocating taking all their names away either:

Only that: if someone asks for a name that they haven't been able to get, that they are allowed to petition to have a GM check on the account which owns it. If the account is paid up, obviously there's no issue: they can't have it. If the account's NOT paid up, there are other conditions to think about including whether the account's ONLY active during "Free weekends".

When I ran a comic shop we would have reasonably regular sales. There was one customer who bought a LOT of manga for her daughter and some of her kid's friends. Thing was, we ordered the books specifically for her - and she would often wait until we had a deep-sale on books to buy them. She cut directly into the profit we could make, by doing this, even though we were making the effort to provide her with the books *on time* when they were available.

On one hand, I see her point: the books cost 10 bucks a pop. On the other hand: my business *suffered* because all she did was essentially leech a box and hold on to those products - or worse, put them back on the shelves until the sale. From a business standpoint, I did have to change the rules: if they were ordered for you or subscribed, no matter *what* product it was (comic, book, manga, etc) it *did not get the sale price*.

She stopped buying regularly and continued to shop only during sales. That's the kind of customer I actually resent - for her cheap attitude. The books still cost us the same to order, whether she bought them full price or not - and in an ailing market with a huge bookstore right across the street which carried the books too - she forced our hand. (and no, she wasn't the only one who would only show up at sales and then demand deeper discounts for buying 'so much' stuff... sigh.)

To me, as someone who *has* seen both angles of this, it still strikes me as 'give the paying customer, the regular customer, MORE'. Because those who do wander off and come back - unless they come back and PAY for several months again, then fall off again, there's no reason to support a bunch of people who will only arrive for the free lunch.

Add to that: those names have never, ever been a huge deal to anyone. Only a few specific names, some near and dear to individuals, but obviously - great minds think alike. There have been plenty of discussions about this in the past. There's no such thing as 'hoarding' a name, because there ARE plenty of good names.

The reason that the policy was even rescinded long ago in the first place, was that it wasn't freeing up and actually USING enough of those names. It wasn't worth their effort, in other words. So to have a much more specific-use rule, petition for a gm to go search for info. Not saying they should SHARE that info of course! Just "yes, you can use this name, we determined it'd be okay" or "no, sorry there are circumstances that won't let you use it." In, I would imagine almost all cases, there should be no issue at all: a 30 month absence or a fly-by-night appearance during freebie weekends does *not* constitute a player who is worth fawning over. Those who are here, consistantly, paying up month by month - or those who have to skip and come back regularly and play actively - those are the ones who honestly, from a business standpoint, will always mean *more* to a company. Been there, done that.

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Wait it sounds like you're asking them to change things so GMs/support staff have to do manual work on a case by case basis. Wouldn't it make more sense to update or otherwise make changes to the policy, and then run new queries for available names?

I mean from a customer support business standpoint introducing new manual work sounds like the least scalable solution, and something that a smart business would try their best to avoid. If you think about the costs involved, would you really rather have the cost of customer support increase proportionally to costs spent on development?

"Hey there pretty boy, want to touch my zombie legs? I waxed them this morning"

(When an afternoon at Ouroboros turns into a nightmare)

Disturbing picture

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The unlockable contact idea is a good one.

The contact total and zone total have been pressing issues since day one. I consistently ran out of missions while leveling up my first brute. I had paper missions of course, but even that got really old really fast.

Oh, access to the shadow shard! It's a freaking cool area with a mix of drop types for 40+ characters. I don't care if it's a PvP area... just don't make it co-op. Heck, just make a hero one and a villain one. Identical except that we can't meet each other there. That's would be fine. I needs my shard

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I've always thought the Shadow Shard would be a great place to add cooperative content. If they added better story lines, revamped the existing TFs (made them shorter and coop), and improved the travel options (special Shard temp jetpack?), it could be a fantastic setting for 40-50. Hell, I would much rather go from 40-50 on a villain in the Shard than in Grandville.

I love the Shard, but it really doesn't live up to its potential right now. I really hope it gets some significant work in upcoming issues.

Lots of folks wanted Electric for Tanks and Scrappers, but I don't think Dark and Fire are bad choices. I'm sure they'll turn out fine, and hopefully we'll get Electric in a later issue.

SR for Brutes? I'm not sure anyone wanted that. Hopefully they figure out a way for Ice to work for Brutes in a later issue.

I'm liking Storm for corruptors (which we knew about) and for MMs (which we didn't). The controller and dominator choices will probably work out fine as well, though I'm not fiending to play them or anything. Defenders with Cold are probably a good fit.

Psy blasters still sound beastly.

Anyway, keep up the good work devs. And please please get us more cross-over sets for I13.

I'm such a sucker for new costumes. I paid the $9.99 immediately after I got the email. I've got a couple of characters that like to get dressed up, so no way I'm gonna pass up formal costumes.

This was actually a Christmas present for our niece, but I'm in love with it, and I told Londer that I want to frame the original. I think the best thing about it is the expressions. He managed to capture the personalities of all three characters, which is no small feat. That and all the bold color is sexy.

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Honestly Im gonna give my most honest opinion here, unlike the sheep that just say "GRATS UR TEH BEST" and actually have nothing informative to say.
I think I speak for many that will remain quiet about the situation when I see that the winner of the costume contest didnt really deserved best hero overall. When you look at the detail and colors Komic Kitten selected and or found, you can see who the real winner is. And no before I get any tail bitters, I dont know Kitten never played with her nor have i met or ever will meet. All that aside in MY honest opinion she had more detail and honestly a better look. The contest winner chose black and pink... the most simplest color combination for women since Clueless the movie. I have spoken to quite a few people and while they do agree she deserves to be part of the list, she doesnt deserve best overall. Its good to see the Devs are as clueless as people who pick Cow Costumes as winners in the game. If you dont like my post fine your entitled to your own opinion, just dont bother posting back at me as I will ignore you. For those who have a solid reason/opinion to why you think Cutest little hero should have one by all means do post. also for those who think anyone else deserved it, please post up.
Again I dont care what you think of me or my opinion, just post your own.

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Please speak for yourself.

That's a very cool picture; kinda abstract and moody. I like how the background has a little warp to it, made me think of The Scream for some reason.

Here are two sketches, by myself and Londerwost. The subject is my Eng/Electric brute, Payback in Spades.

Character screenshot
A most excellent drawing by Londerwost
My drawing - be gentle, I haven't drawn anything seriously in many many years

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I was playing WoW when the Armory launched. For those that don't know, it's a site that displays all the character information for active WoW characters. This includes all your gear, your faction reputation, your trade skills, and your complete character build. It was like instantly making every WoW character naked to the world, and there was no way to opt out.

I have to admit I felt a little sensitive about it at first. I remember my husband and I talking about it the day it launched and one of us said "this would never fly in CoH, people would go insane about their privacy." I'm guessing the devs knew this would be the case and came up with an opt out option from the get-go.

For the record, our WoW experience wasn't really any worse off because of the Armory. I didn't get any more spam than I was before. I didn't get criticisms of my build, and I never saw anyone kicked from a team because of their build. I did use it to look up the opposing faction at times, but usually after I'd killed them: "Oh that's why I pwned his butt so easily." I found I actually enjoyed using the Armory to show off my character, and to look up my friends' characters.

I'd welcome something like this in CoH: especially if it shows costumes and character bios. I honestly love reading people's bios and admiring a good concept.

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I have never played WOW. Truthfully, I never had any interest in MMO's until hearing about COH even before it was in beta. Once I was in COH beta it was all over and I was/am hooked. COH has brought me in to the fold of MMO's.

After reading your post, Anachrodragon. I checked out the Armory site and was blown away. Something like that for COX would be incredible, very impressive use of ingame information to enrich community immersion. I could see the Titan Network or some other fansites growing into that and more.

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The EQ2players site predates the Armory with many similar features- character data, profiles, even guild portals with an (oft-broken) java chat applet that went straight to the in-game guild chat channel.

As is common, WoW took the idea and polished it considerably.

From what I heard, LOTRO was supposed to have something similar, with some sort of built in "journal" blog-ish thing, but I can't find it.

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Holy crap! I just found that my WoW character is still listed on the armory. This is strange because characters from innactive accounts are supposed to drop off. Well, for anyone who cares, this is the kind of data the Armory has, and this is my character.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...amp;n=Joscelyn

Here's the armory page for my old guild. It would be great to see SG stats or something like this in CoH:

http://www.wowarmory.com/guild-info....=Relax&p=1

I was playing WoW when the Armory launched. For those that don't know, it's a site that displays all the character information for active WoW characters. This includes all your gear, your faction reputation, your trade skills, and your complete character build. It was like instantly making every WoW character naked to the world, and there was no way to opt out.

I have to admit I felt a little sensitive about it at first. I remember my husband and I talking about it the day it launched and one of us said "this would never fly in CoH, people would go insane about their privacy." I'm guessing the devs knew this would be the case and came up with an opt out option from the get-go.

For the record, our WoW experience wasn't really any worse off because of the Armory. I didn't get any more spam than I was before. I didn't get criticisms of my build, and I never saw anyone kicked from a team because of their build. I did use it to look up the opposing faction at times, but usually after I'd killed them: "Oh that's why I pwned his butt so easily." I found I actually enjoyed using the Armory to show off my character, and to look up my friends' characters.

I'd welcome something like this in CoH: especially if it shows costumes and character bios. I honestly love reading people's bios and admiring a good concept.