Alissara

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I didn't see this question answered (not sure if it was asked actually) but will trial accounts be able to rate missions/arcs?

[/ QUOTE ]Hopefully not, lest we get flooded with arcs full of RMT ads. (I had to have this pointed out to me, I must admit.)

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(emphasis mine in inner quote)

They definitely should not be able to rate arcs, the griefing potential is just too great.

As for creation, I'm on the fence. Part of me says "No" for the reasons given in the outer quote, but part says "Yes" so that they can "try before they buy."

The ideal solution would be some sort of personal mode: you can write an arc, play it yourself (maybe with a team), but it can't be seen by the general public.

Status Report
Star Strider Force
Name: Alissara
Global Contact: @Alissara
Reporting on Assignment: Rikti Dropship assault in Talos and Peregrine Islands
Star Strider Force Unit: Virtue
Time/Date Location: 17:00H EST, 11/20/2008, Talos Island
Level of Alien Threat [High]


Report Details:

Dropship assault was executed successfully. Human casualties were remarkably low, considering the massive firepower of the opposition.

Assault squads assembled in Talos, prior to first invasion

We should maybe try and contact The Dark Watcher, since it would appear at first sight that someone was feeding misinformation to the Rikti. Hardly had we finished organizing teams when the warwalls dropped, the sky took on that sickly green shade, and we heard the Vanguard transmission, warning us of an impending invasion force approaching Talos. As expected, the Rikti ships followed their usual routes, allowing the Assault Force to concentrate on the squadron taking the southern route. Initial reports indicate that entire squadron was destroyed.

There was some confusion over which route was to be the target during the second wave, however we were called to assemble over Exarch Industries, a well known landmark. Once we had done so we were able to concentrate on the squadron entering on the eastern side of Talos, and again initial reports indicate that all ships in that squadron were destroyed.

It was not immediately clear where we should go next, but the question was resolved when we received a Vanguard transmission informing us of a Rikti invasion force heading for Peregrine Island. I must request a commendation for Captain Erika Janssen of the Melody, for putting the ferry at the disposal of such a large force of heroes on such short notice. Hardly had we docked at the ferry terminal on Peregrine Island, when the first Rikti dropships hove into view.

Once again, the assembled force of heroes carried themselves flawlessly, taking out two squadrons of ships, and a few additional stragglers. Rather than provide a verbal narrative, I'll allow the following demorecords to show the action from my perspective. I must apologize for the tendency they have to induce motion sickness, but the combination of teleport and flight in use can be rather dizzying for those not used to it.

Demorecords of Peregrine Island action

Once this was over, we assembled in Portal Court for a quick debriefing and celebration for a job well done.

Some well earned R&R at Portal Court, after the second invasion


Analysis of Current Situation:

This is surely a major tactical blow to the Rikti. The complete destruction of 41 dropships must represent a large material loss to the Rikti. We cannot, however, know for certain what effect it will have, if any, on their morale. Doubtless they will continue the current wave of invasions, but who can tell if this will cause them to be more cautious when it comes to committing a large military force to an invasion in the future.


Suggestion of Action:

Continue to be watchful during the current increase in Rikti activity. As time and manpower permits, we may be able to mount similar attacks in the future.


Personal Notes:

The complete destruction of the ships, as seen in the demorecords, means that there is very additional benefit gained by attacking them. However, the very act of destroying this many dropships made Talos and Peregrine Islands a little safer for the civilian population of Paragon City today. Working together with a large force of like minded heroes to achieve a common goal of this magnitude is reward enough in and of itself.

Name: Alissara
Global Contact: @Alissara
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Science
Super Rank & Super Group: Guardian: Angry Angels 5.0

http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alissaravv4.jpg

Who can say what she really is?

There are times she will wade into the middle of a fight, wreaking havoc on all those that would oppose, with as much subtlety as a bull laying waste to a china shop.

But she is equally at home moving silently through the shadows, like an invisible wraith, seeking whatever objective she may. Then with a precision comparable to that of a watchmaker, she plucks out just her target, leaving those that would guard it totally oblivious to her presence.

But always she fights for what is just. If someone or something threatens Paragon City, she will eventually turn her attention to it, and deal with it in whatever manner is needed.



And a very happy birthday to your grandpa.

Just a quick update on today's raid (11/8/08).

We were very tank heavy, and were able to assemble a second team of five tanks, above and beyond the normal tank team that handles Hami.

These guys replaced the scrappers that normally solo mitos, allowing all scraps to be on their respective spike teams.

The difference was very noticeable, the yellows fell a lot faster than usual. We probably can't do that very often, but it's definitely something to keep in mind if the opportunity arises.

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How on earth will that work for the people that took the powers you are taking out and like them?

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Simple.

You log in to find your Stalker Snipe now builds a small cottage.

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Is it an Evil small cottage?

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No. Small cottages are good. Gazebos are true neutral, it's those multi-story parking lots that are the evil ones.

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great architectural endeavors, taking on a life of its own (really, we mean it!)

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You heard it here first, transforming buildings!!! <_<

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I had a sudden vision of one of those Steel Canyon skyscrapers turning into a giant robot and trudging around.

It's... all a Nemesis plot...

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FTFY.

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I’m primarily responsible for making cool stories and missions, ...


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Can you provide us with an "end-to-end" view of the steps involved in creating a major story arc, such as the Midnighter Arc.

What needs to be done to get from "nothing", to a working arc in the game, that's fun to play and tells the intended story.

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We'd love to have some great options to put in front of the dev team (from Community) for use in optional in-game advertisements. If anyone else out there reading has some ideas or images they would like to share, we'd love to hear and see them!

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I don't know what you guys would think of this Lighthouse, but an idea that occurs to me is to use the IGA to billboard upcoming game features. Once we get some hints as to what's coming in I13, for example, you could put up the occasional image on one of the IGA boards that covers it.

Just my 2 inf worth ...

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Hmm ... I wonder if the villian groups will have to match the level. Should I be able to create a map of Skulls set at lvl 52?

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I suspect you can't do that. Many moons ago, one of the devs explained that their mobs were table driven, and could only exist at levels provided for by the table. That's why (for example) regular clockwork stop at about level 20, because the table simply doesn't go higher. There's a whole other table for psychic clocks of course.

In the same vein, there's probably no table data for skulls much above level 20 or so, therefore you can't make a mission and populate it with L52 skulls.

Just increasing the HP and damage is not enough, I also remember a redname stating that higher level mobs have more attacks. That's presumably the reason for the table, to hold all those sorts of parameters.

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Custom story arcs... this is the best birthday present I've gotten yet.

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Are you absolutely certain about that?

To quote Sean Connery from the movie Outland ... "Think it over."



-- Edit --

Re-read this, and realized the OP was referring to just this year. In which case carry on, my quote assumed (incorrectly) the implied existence of the word "ever" between "I've" and "gotten".

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[u]Most Wealthy Archetypes[u]
Heroes: Scrappers


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How is this not Controllers?

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At a wild guess, if you looked at the distribution of wealth, you'd find a pocket of extremely wealthy controllers *cough* *cough* fire/kins *cough *cough*, with the majority being "non-farming" characters, and hence not as wealthy as scrappers.

Conversely, just about any scrapper can be an effective influence generating machine, so the average for scraps is higher, but with a lower standard deviation. Meanwhile the controllers chime in with a lower average but a higher standard deviation.

Disclaimer: I am not a statistician, nor do I play one on television. I can't lie convincingly enough to be one.

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I probably be flamed for this because it is a radical idea. But ...


Why not remove the e-mail system all together? All MMOs have e-mail which is why I say it is radical. But, it's usage here is limited compared to some others. We cannot transfer influence, enchantments, salvage, or recipes like other MMOs. It is really only text based communication. In my opinion communication is handled much more conveniently with tells and offiline messages. It would be curious what the actual usage numbers for e-mail would be without those reported for spam. My perception (which is limited and quite possibly wrong) is that it is not used much outside of sending RMT and now p0rn messages. Removing it would stop one of their more powertools, the ability to send spam while the player is offline.

Just my .02 influence.

--Rad

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The way I've heard this idea described is "cutting off your finger to deal with a hangnail." I concede it would solve the problem, but loss of ingame E-mail would impact people. Among other things, the SuperGroup I'm in uses E-mail to send announcem,ents to all hands about upcoming events, status and so on.

Loss of that would be a major problem for us.

Rather than taking extreme approaches like that, I'm willing to wait and see what the devs have lined up for us in I12. Lighthouse as good as said that trial accounts will be unable to send e-mail. If they add some easier spam reporting tools, such as the "this is spam" button on the e-mail screen, then hopefully it'll help.

That said, looking at this in the cold, hard, light of day, now that the game has an economy, this problem will never go away. All the devs can do is make it as hard as possible, and reduce the spam for us as much as possible.

I've said this in the past, and I'll say it again. The one thing I want, above all else, is a client side filter that allows ME to specify that if an e-mail or tell contains a particular string, it is to be considered spam. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out a couple of the strings that would show up in it pretty quickly.

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* Inspiration Conversion: Right click an inspiration to convert three of that kind into any one inspiration of another kind.

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Woot! We finally get our Horadric Cube!

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I'm almost tempted to say let's not go there. That could open a can of worms bigger than greater metropolitan Chicago.

That said, I'll admit I almost went ABS when I first read this, because I was thinking that it'd work the same as gems in the H. Cube. Which would have been a "bad thing" (tm). However it simply converts at par, so it'll be OK.

And yeah, my Regen will love it too

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"Why do Skulls hang out in Perez Park?"

"How come the Clockworks don't attack cars or make nasty cars to attack people?"

"Why are Trolls green?"

"Where do the Outcasts get their power?"

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She should be lead dev for this game.

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That's Hero 1's job (the new story bible guy). He just had a baby, so he should be a sucker for these questions...

Okay, Hero 1 (if you do vanity searches for your name like the other Devs, you'll see this), would you please answer the child's questions? If you can't, then she can rightfully claim your job.





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Castle sent the link over all of us. War Witch, Positron and I are all laughing and enjoying the read. As many have said, it's nice to see stories like this come up. It also makes me glad I updated the profanity filter yesterday

As far as answering her questions, I'd be more than happy to, but something tells me my answers would be no where as interesting as hers.

I'm sure someday Hero 2 will join the forces of justice and hopefully people like Sister Flame will be there to help him along.

Stay True
Hero 1

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I don't care about the answers. I just want Nasty Attack Cars in the game. I think I'd buy a whole game called Nasty Attack Cars for that matter.

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You had your chance. It was called Auto Assault.

Rimshot.

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But doesn't the Cape Technology only render a flat image?

Who wants flat hair?

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IANAD, so I can't speak for certain, but my guess is that the cape technology uses some sort of inverse kinematics. I'm guessing now, but I think it animates a few key points at the bottom of the cape, and uses IK to move the remaining vertices in the cape.

There's no reason this could not be applied to a "non-flat" hairdo.

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With the advent of the Valentines' pack, you can now have a tuxedo buttcape and a normal cape at the same time. Enjoy!

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That's not what this thread is about. It's about having the ability for your character to have hair that is longer than waist length. Knee and ankle length hair is what this thread is about, and the ability to have it flow.

Well there seems to be good news on that front. If you've seen the bridle veil, then you know that having really long hair IS possible, and there's not need to use any tricks to explain why it only flows from the shoulders down.

The veil flows just like a cape, but it's attached at the HEAD! A talented costume creator like sexy Jay could replace the veil texture with various hair textures and create different ways of blending it with the hair on the head (various ties, etc).

We now know it's possible to have things flow off the head and we know Sexy Jay's got the skills, and now we just have to wait and hope he works his magic (and hope they don't charge us 10$ for it >_&gt.

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However it may be extremely relevant to the use of cape technology attached to the head to create long hair. In particular it would hint that if back cape and butt cape are possible at the same time, then long hair == head cape will be possible at the same time as one of back cape or butt cape.

And yes, that is a pre I7 glam hairdo on my avatar.

That said, can anyone comment on whether a long shoulder cape and a tux butt cape play well together?

0.02 inf.

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At no point in your rambling, incoherent post were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.

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Par for the course.

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Really. I mean, the day I have something people could consider a "rational" thought is the day that Pigs finally reach level 14 and take the "Flight" power.

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Unless those pigs started during the winter event and have a jetpack at level 1.

Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnn.

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At which point, when the Moon Zone finally arrives, we shall see...

PIGS IN SPAAAAAAAAAACE!

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Stay tuned for the next exciting episode where Miss Piggy finally expresses her feeling for the Captain.

*HIiiiYyyyyaaaaa!*

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OK, but what's her secondary?

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Hahahaha... I made out like a bandit during double XP, some people PvP, some people play the market.

If anyone needs a loan, hit me up.

Ex

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No fair!

Think about it for a second.

Not 100% sure if this belongs here or the main CoH/CoV discussion section. It is a "story" related question, and hence RP'ish, so I'm putting it here.

** minor spoilers **

That said, I just had an "/e facepalm" moment.

I've done the mission many times, the one from Gordon Bowers in Croatoa where you have to defeat all the ghosts. The mission boss is a ghost by the name of Penelope Nemmers.

I only just made the mental connection that she has the same last name as Kelly Nemmers, a contact (rather ghostly herself) that you meet later in Croatoa.

So ... is there a connection between these two, and if so what? The obvious one is that they're sisters, but I can't find any mention of this in game.

Any thoughts on this?

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My knowledge of base raiding is somewhere between zero and none. That said, I completely understand the problem raised by the OP. Or at least I think I do.

It may not be a workable solution in the case of taking out the main power generator, but the following idea occurred to me.

Does the game engine support, or can it be modified to support, the concept of damage to an object without complete destruction? Meaning as the generator becomes more and more damaged, it's output gets lower and lower. At 100% damage it's output is zero, but it does not vanish in a flash of light.

Instead, it remains as a "corpse" that can somehow be repaired.

OK, there's the seed of the idea. Can we pick it up and run with it?

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...
Invisibility Concealment 611 NEVER be suppressed
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Are you sure invisibility from the concealment pool is NEVER suppressed? In particular, have you tried clicking on a mission glowie while under its effects, in close proximity to mobs that otherwise have no perception bonus.

Granted, this is a PvE situation, which is handled rather differently from PvP. It MAY, however, be relevant in Warburg.

Which is a polite way of saying has anyone tested how invisibility behaves at the moment you click on the computer terminal to launch the rocket in Warburg?

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... KER SNIP ...

Only recently did I get it hammered into my head that almost every other MMO in the history of the genre considers the street sweeping your way a half a mile to a mile across the map, being forced to fight every spawn between point A and point B, to be the most important content in the game, to be an essential part of the MMO formula. That, I'm finally given to understand, and not the technical obstacles in 3D travel, is why other games are so resistant to flight. And I cannot thank you enough for having the courage to bet that you could continue to raise the development budget to replace all those endless hours of street sweeping with enough instanced missions to keep us playing for the same number of hours. No, really, no amount of thanks I could give you would be enough. Thanks!

... KER SNIP ...


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11 minutes to fly from Auberdine to Theramore.

Nuff said.

Jay, most sexy dev.

Is it intentional that the Talsorian Claws look like they're attached to the radius bone (real bones now), rather that where I'd have expected them, on the back of the wrist.

IMHO, the current location looks a bit funny, and doesn't seem right considering the animations.

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It would be cool if you offered in game item codes for a small amount for those players that want to give, but don't have the moola for the pricey stuff.

Things like the VIP edition codes or the special GVE Edition goodies. This way I can also donate without having a t-shirt I'll never wear shipped to me in gas guzzling trains, planes, and automobiles.

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QFT, one thousand times.

I'd pay $5 or $10 for some cool ingame item, knowing that the cash was going to a worthwhile cause. Not having read too much of this thread, examples I can think of are, St. Jude's Ranch, Third world relief, etc. etc. etc.

Examples of ingame items: unlockable costume pieces or patterns, maybe a "pet" like the vet reward mech man. Oddly enough, I would not want to include a badge in this, since I want the donation to be for it's own sake, not something that every badgeaholic feels they must do.