Wing_Leader

I am surprised, then, that the consequences of not backing down and fighting the Marvel/DC suit has turned out to be the present policy of "generic first and sort it out through a cumbersome petition process later", which is a guilty-before-being-proven-innocent philosophy that ought to feel alien to most people (and probably does given the surprise it engenders in the innocent who come here and plead their case in the court of public opinion).

I've been around since Issue 2, though I took about three years off and am just returning to the game again with the release of Issue 21.

I don't mind repeating content, to an extent, with my alts. Though I just don't think I can choke down another Frostfire arc in the Hollows, to be honest. Experiencing previously played missions with different power sets can feel like they are different missions I guess, but there's a limit to the efficacy of that psychological dynamic, at least for me.

I just wanted to get a sense of how much the current Incarnate Trial content can fill out a character's Incarnate slots, assuming only very modest repetition. I realize that there will be more Trials coming in the future, but there will also be more slots to unlock/fill coming too.

These appear to be tier 8 rewards, not tier 7.

The awful and litigious nature of American society is a serious problem, I do not dispute that one tiny bit. However, there's more going on here than merely one company's penchant (or ability) to bring expensive suits against another. In this particular case, we're talking about the very nature of "intellectual property", how we define it, how we value it, and to what extent we are willing to protect it (as a society). Everyone who creates or provides tools for creation is involved in this larger social project. It costs nothing to care about it, talk about it, and think about what it means to do business within the creative domain.

Your point about NCSoft taking on legislative responsibilities seems mis-targeted to me. They are in a business in which their customers are seeking to express a virtual identity through a name in a game. To the extent to which another company can restrict NCSoft's customers from doing perfectly legal things within the game they pay to play, NCSoft has a responsibility to defend against predatory legal action lacking any real merit. If NCSoft wants to sacrifice their own rights (and those of their customers) in order to save on legal fees incurred defending bogus lawsuits, then that is their choice. But that is the sort of "responsible business practice" that allows protection rackets to flourish. I don't find it particularly laudable even if it is highly "practical".

So you wait until you have tier 4 Alpha slotted out before doing the Incarnate Trials or "working on" the other slots? I'm curious about the reasoning behind this strategy.

Also, could someone explain to me why the game designers decided to have three levels of "ingredients" for this Incarnate stuff? There are shards, threads, and components. And, just to confuse matters (for me anyway), threads are a component in themselves, right? What is the point of all that? Why not just have components and keep things streamlined (the way Inventions just have salvage)?

You and I have very different reasons why RPGs appeal to us, it is as simple as that. I play RPGs in order to recreate the genres I love as I've come to love them. I do not play them in order to break molds, blaze new trails, or defy genre conventions. It is the conventions themselves, and their intrinsic constraints, which provide the very flavor of a genre. Without them, a genre doesn't really exist; instead it is just a mish-mash of every idea any human ever had.

The superhero genre is broad enough in its scope--containing elements of fantasy and science fiction--that I do not feel creatively limited by conforming to the conventions that have applied to the majority of superhero stories (and characters) past and present. My personal idea of the kind of superheroes I want to see in Paragon City are typified by the classic Avengers. A little tech, a little magic, a little super science, etc. Nobody in the classic Avengers line-up, not even Thor (except perhaps in the most extreme modern renditions) looks like a refugee from World of Warcraft, whereas given many of the new costume options, one could easily be forgiven for thinking a wormhole had suddenly opened up and armies of toons from Asteroth had started pouring forth into Atlas Park instead of Rikti soldiers. I try to just pretend those toons simply aren't there.

I don't think these guys do it for the xp/inf. They are 50 (+x) toons, set-IOed up the butt, and probably sitting on 2B infl on-hand plus whatever they can leave sitting in Wentworth's. They seem to be in it purely for the challenge of +4/x8.

This sounds like a good plan.

I definitely want to run through all the Incarnate Trials. I just don't know how often I will want to do them with each of my toons. I get bored with most mission content after I've done it more than twice. I'll usually repeat content in order to help others, but if I were to solo the entire game I wouldn't want to do the same thing over and over again. The need to do so in order to accumulate merits, shards, threads, components, tickets, etc. for the things you really want (new abilities, added survivability, etc.) is called a grind. I'm into this game to meet new challenges with new abilities. I'm not playing this game to have a Groundhog Day-like experience with the content.

This raises another question for me. If a character runs through each of the four Incarnate Trials just once, how many (if any) Incarnate abilities can s/he reasonably expect to be able to slot based on component drops and Incarnate xp earned?

In deciding if something is genre-appropriate, I ask myself, "How often do I see <blank> in the comics?" When it comes to the rocket board, my answer is "virtually never". I was never much of a fan of the Green Goblin's "goblin glider" so I tend to discount its significance in the genre as a whole. Hence, the rocket board fits no character concept of mine. Maybe if this was the Back to the Future MMO...

Sometimes. I usually give them Super Jump or Super Speed to stand in for swinging or driving vehicles.

Their goal may also be to do the least amount of work (they are just farming the dang thing, after all) to reach 20th so they can start doing tips missions.

This is very sound advice, and I will definitely follow it from now on. I will note, however, that it doesn't always work as well as might be expected.

I was on a team doing L50 Hero tips the other day and everyone was scattered around the map taking on +4 Arachnos mobs on their own. I didn't know who to pick as mamma bird, and since no one was a tank, there was no obvious choice. All of these players were exceptionally good at drawing aggro, but none of their toons were particularly effective at keeping it. Letting them take the alpha was one thing, but avoiding the swarm that inevitably followed became the next survival issue that I wasn't equipped to cope with. Rather than just quit the team, I followed the team leader around and kept a safe distance from most of the enemies, picking one-on-one fights with lieuts here and there on the periphery of each combat. This strategy "worked", but it wasn't very glamorous.

If the body of players you refer to was large enough and influential enough to actually get the Blaster AT removed from the game, then I might worry about what they think of my "argument". However...

Everyone and anyone who is in a position to be legally challenged on grounds of IP infringement has a stake in the laws themselves, whether they choose to acknowledge it as part of their business or not. This isn't about the First Amendment, by the way, but about the mess we call intellectual property law. IP law is a body of laws intended to protect the commercial interests of "artists", not to protect free speech. Any company that must change its practices because of IP law or the threat of IP lawsuits is part of the crusade for rational laws in this arena whether they like it or not. It's just that backing down and, in many cases burrying one's head in the sand, is simply the "safer" fiscal policy. But that helps nobody but the huge media empires in the long run. Just saying.

Right, well, this sort of perspective is part of the reason why the current state of IP law is in such a miserable shambles. I realize that very little would be gained in the battle for reasonable IP law by NCSoft (and other companies in a similar position) sticking up for themselves, at great legal expense no doubt, but it is still disheartening nonetheless to see nobody even trying.

Makes sense, certainly.

But is this a truly binary situation? Are we saying that pool powers would either be too good to be allowed or too weak to be useful (like boxing/kick), and that there is simply nothing possible in between?

I mean, blasters get melee attacks in their secondaries depending on which set they take, yet I don't see energy melee brutes, for example, complaining that blasters with energy manipulation are threatening their roles on teams. Why would blasters or corruptors be threatened by a scrapper that could fire a couple of decent ranged attacks here and there? After all, any melee toon built for melee is going to spend most of its time doing what it does best anyway, which is melee dps; the ranged attacks would be mostly situational, just like Power Thrust, Bone Smasher, et. al. from the energy manipulation set is for blasters.

Absolutely true.

But by the same token, are the GMs really doing the right thing by "enforcing" rules pertaining to copyright and trademark when no copyright or trademark is actually being violated? I think in a great many cases, the GMs are just making snap judgments out of fear. While this might be a sound strategy from a business perspective, it can't exactly be lauded as an admirable example of navigating the choppy waters of IP law in an informed or enlightened manner.

Even though they are faster, run/jump powers aren't as versatile as flight, what with its ability to hover in place and control altitude without changing position. And believe it or not, the rocket board does not fit all character concepts (in fact, I would argue it fits virtually none that are inspired by conventional four-color superheroes). But then, I am one of those nutjobs who usually only picks powers to fit a strong concept rather than for maximum game effectiveness. The idea of not taking a travel power is unfathomable for me (as in, I can't fathom ever doing that with my own toons), so much so that I have always felt that all characters should have access to a basic travel power at level 1, just like Kheldians.

You make it sound like the only reason anyone takes kick and/or boxing is so they can get tough and/or weave.