Armsman

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The subject line says it all. As a result of some constructive conversations with my wife and several reviewers, I'm about to make some major changes to my arcs. These changes will take some time, and will be very difficult to do in one sitting. Therefore, I really don't want to do them on the published arc.

Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to overwrite a published arc with a locally-stored version of the same arc. So, my only choices as I see them are:

1. Change the status of my published arcs to "Work in Progress" and live with the fact they'll be a little off until I'm done, or...

2. Make all my changes locally, unpublish the published arc and re-publish the new version - thus losing all my ratings and plays.

I've already done that once, losing a 4.something star rating and 23 plays in the process, so that's not a happy option for me.

Are those my only two options, or am I missing something?

Thanks...

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Answer: No (And believe me I wish there was too).

You have two options:

1) Unpublish the existing arc, and then republish the arc using your 'fixed' local file (you'll of course loose all ratings and the curren arc ID number).

2) Carefully cut and paste all changes into your Published arc from you local file by hand; and them hit Republish. (And I've actually don e this once, and it was a big PITA).

Good luck.

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Why wouldnt it happen? If AE is causing people to leave the game, won't they remove it seeming that they want people to stay?

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And you of course have hard, incontrovertable proof that AE is the one, main thing causing people to unsubscribe from CoH?

I'd like to see THAT proof.

I'd say WAI. They probably did this to all possibe 'buffing' allies in the MA to curb explotive farming techniques in the MA (and people say exploitive Farming doesn't affect of players in the game ).

Is DHCP enabled on the TCP/IP stack?

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Hey all, thanks for the responses.

My friend had some RL issues pop up and I was unable to get my grubby paws on his PC last weekend, but when I do I'll post the specs and such.

Thanks again.

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Also, (and the logs will definitely help), have him run the 'verify files' option from the CoX pather, and see if that also fixes anything.

I'd like to submit the Arc in my sig for a review by you:

"Is It Live Or Is It Memory-X" (Arc ID: 70210)

Level Range: 40-54

Keywords: Chalenging, Sci-Fi, Save the World

Key Notes: Generably soloable by 'non-squishee' ATs of the appropiate level; althiough a nfew well speced Blasters have commented to me that they did in fact manage to solo.

I've just done some changes and updates (to Contact text, Clue text, and my Custom Group) based on recent player feedback since I15 went live, and would like to get a review/analysis of this 'newer' version if and when you have a chance.

Thanks,

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Im interested in arcs that use complex mechanics in telling their story. Chained objectives, non-standard use of Allies, Bosses etc, interesting use of animations, that sort of thing.

Eco

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You can look at the Arc in my sig It uses such 'tricks' in missions 2 - 5. (and especially the 4th mission)

Also, if you want to do a review of it in your review thread, please feel free as I'm always looking for feedback.

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Pretty much.

The biggest issue is that you can't really test it before republishing. I'm going to make some changes in the finale of my latest arc, but I'll have to run through the whole arc to see if those changes did what I wanted.

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Actually, you can always save the current version of your published arc locally. Make and then test the changes; and opnce you're happy, copy and pastye those changes into your publish arc and re-publish.

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No, this is consistent. Over the last 7 maps, one character is getting 3x the tickets, every time. This way dwarf any minor variations.

Lewis

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You do realize computerized random number generators aren't really random right? When you start your client it picks up a 'seed' (base number) and then calculates a mathematical progression pattern that appears random; BUT iof you were to get the exact same 'seed' again, you see the exact same 'rolls' on screen.

One of yoyur clients probably has a seed that generates a really low number pattern. Kill that client instance, than restart and re-log into the game, and see it the trend on that character continues. I'd bet it will not.

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In I16, you will be able to set your AE mission to spawn as if you had a full team of 8.

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You are jumping to a huge conclusion there. It is just as likely that this feature will not work in AE at all.

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Why not? AE uses the current challenge level system (Hell, it tells you the Level you'll be playing an AE mission at due to your challenge level setting when yoiu first interface with the Virtual Contact). Why would it NOT use the new challenge system when spawning player created missions?

new Escort bug:

IF you have your Escort NPC set to 'betrays on arrival' and have his melee set to 'Fight (Defensive)'; when he/she betrays, he/she will just stand there and not fight back as the PC pounds your NPC.

(Workaround: if the NPC is set to 'Fight (Aggresive)', he/she reacts normally and starts fighting the PC when he/she betrays.)

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It has more to do with the drastically smaller population of players on the servers than it does to do with AE. AE is keeping the game afloat as people can actually find groups due to the mechanics.

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Except that the server populations AREN'T getting drastically smaller than they were a year ago; right now, they're about the same (and they did spike up for abot a month after the AE went live. Using the 'Find Team' tool, you can get actual logged in numbers from the Blue side (if you're on a Hero) and Red side (when playing a Villian); add them together and you have a total population snashot of your particular server (Sans 'hidden' players).

Don't use the number it shows when you first open it; make sure you have everything set to all (all zones, all levels, etc.); and hit find. The number at the bottom is all players on that 'side' on your server.

I've done it when I've logged in periodically and seen that the pop for Guardian at my peak hours (6PM -9PM PST) runs between 600 - 750 total (both sides); and has stayed constant since I started doing this a little over a year ago. So, at least on my 'home' server not much has changed pop wise in the last year.

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All the details are here.

And I'm posting this in this forum for one very good reason...

'Our players -- and this is probably true with most MMOs, but moreso of City of Heroes -- because of the costume creator and the level of detail people get into it, you kind of get a different mindset of player. You get a very creator-centric mindset. Now we've added on to that with Mission Architect. Now they can become creators of their own stories and everybody wants to be good creators with each other. So it builds this positive feedback where you see all this stuff going. You know, if I ever need to hire a new mission writer, guess where I'm going to look? I'm going to look at the highest rated guys on there. Because that's your resume. You've done it and people love your stuff.' - Positron, Massively interview

(no, I'm not able to apply. I'm in the UK. ;P)

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Why not? Just telecommute and video conference via web-cam

As for Positron's comment: Great, this means they'll get a designer who specializes in making 1 mission XP farms.

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iam a 24 vet player, and now my 50s have nothing to do. i go to PI and no one there, then to RWZ and nothing. finally i step into Atlas Park and everyone is there doing boring farms. Game should be renamed to "City of Atlas Park AE". Since most players are in one building trying to Power Level.

Even if i try to stay away from AE, i still can't find or get enough people to do regular missions... Gonna have to move on to another game looks like...

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I've been a player since closed beta; and pretty much from day one - level 50ies honestly haven't had much to do; as aside from the Hamidon, the Devs have never really put in ANY 'Post 50' type content (eg bigger NPCs and Villians TFs that any player under 50 would have a hard time completing). The Statesman TF/Lord Recluse SF is probably the only TF/SF that comes close. With I8 and inventions, I suppose you could then IO out your 50 (took me two weeks and I was all that focused on it either.)

So, saying "My 50ies have nothing to do' is definitely NOTHING NEW for CoX; and is still one of my major complaints of this game.

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Thanks so much for the help guys.

Just an update: I forgot to include this error message which occurs once in a great while as I'm actually playing:

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./piggs/texVWorld3.pigg: Corrupt pig file detected
Read failed for file: texture_library/WORLD/V_COV/Villian_Lairs/Bus_Interiors/Bus_Rooms/Bus_Bank/CEL_Bank01.texture
-1

Your data might be corrupt, please run the patcher and try again

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I've also gotten the same error involving the pawn shop texture.

Anyway, I took all of the advice here--ran chkdsk, which was pretty alarming since for some reason there was no video during the scan (some conflict with the onboard video card I think--at one point after installing the 9800gt, the video was going to the vga out until windows started and then switched to the new card, even now every time I boot it tries to install the onboard video), then deleted soundpowers.pigg, texVWorld3.pigg, and coh.checksum. Then I ran a defrag, rebooted, and ran the updater.

No errors so far, but it's only been a day and a half. I've got my fingers crossed and I'll keep you posted. Thanks again.

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Honestly it sounds like either your Hard Drive (one or more of the heads or drive surface area) or the hard drive controller chip (but my money is on th HD itself), is starting to die. If I were you, I'd starting backing up/moving critical data OFF that drive immediately.

Let's see:

Processor x86 Family 15 Model 95 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~1808 Mhz <---- SLOW CPU

Total Physical Memory 1,024.00 MB <---- Low amount of on board memory for this particular game (and ANY new MMOs made after)

0xF8000000-0xFBFFFFFF NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS <-- Old video card (Not all that old, but still given the on-board motherboard memory of 1GB)

So, honestly, the lag you're seeing is most likely due to your (now) low end system specs. Sticking another GB of physical memory in that box would increase the performace of CoX dramatically on that system though.

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Thanks very much for the review. (and sorry for posting my review of yiou arc in the wrong thread - I guess I suck at reading comprehension.)

As to the timer in Mission One; you're definitely not the first to comment on that, but I kind of like teh 'shock value'. That said, i know 'time is of the essence' is definitely not a clear indication of 'Timed Mission Ahead'; but it is something I am finally considering being more up front about.

As to the 'All Custom Characters' - I need to look into that because I did re-do the 'Memory-X' custom group's powers (made them all custom selections to try and get the balance I wanted with them); and I guess in re-saving them something changed, although it's strange in that I checked my Enemy Group Selections in missions 3, 4 and 5; and the all are corectly pointing to 'Memory-X' and th 'Memory-X' group still has all the custom Mobs it should, ad they all have the custom power selections I gave them; so chalk this up to an undocumented change in I15 - but I definitely do need to try and correct this.

As for Mission 4 incorrectly labeled as 'Part 3'; I consider the very first mission (the Bank Heist) as the Prologue to all this and even called it 'Prologue', so that is indeed intentional (and I've seen similar in actual Dev missions).

As for sticking with the default text for the objectives I actually don't in any of the 5 missions. In MA Mission 3; were I to leave it at the default text - it would just read '4 Online Compter Terminals'; not '4 Online Computer Terminals to Find'.

As for the Portal Corp. mission; I'm actually using a an MA trick to get the 'clue' given when you defeat the mobs surrounding the President NPC to 'pop' precisely at that point. In earlier versions, when I used the more standard 'Escort' feature, the president's clue doesn't 'pop' until you reach the door with him, and people were VERY confused by that so I resorted to the trick in place now. I also tried to make sure you encounter the 'President' before 'Statesman'; but hionestly, Front, Middle and Back still don't seem to always work as advertised (about 80% success rayte from most comments I've gotten), so it's something I just have to live with as that's the only Portal Corp map that really works for the story. If the Devs ever take that map out of MA, my arc is roally screwed.

As to using default bio text for my Hostages in mission 5 - I'm between a rock and a hard place as I can either select on hostage type and flesh him out, or do what I did and use the Random' setting with the in game 'Paragon Citizens' which doesn't allow you to change teir defualt descriptions. It also sometimes gives you Villians, and at first I had an issue with that until I looked at what I had written; and if a machiavellian A.I. were goig to manipulate the world behind the scenes (and NO, I never concieved all this as a 'Nemesis Plot' (tm); some players have commeted they felt this arc 'stole his sthick).

Also happy you liked the color coded Contact and Clue text. In comments people either love it or very much hate it; and every time I consider removing it, I get a 'loved it' comment that puts me back on the fence with that.

But again, I do want to thank you for a very fair, honest and objective review.

Also, given what you said about the Challenge Level situation with your GP arcs, I think I will now moveon to Part to, but at a different Challenge Level. (Gotta love those MA quirks ef? ).

I played:
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The Galactic Protectorate - 01 --> 47143

Character Used: Level 42 SS/INV Tanker - (No IO's all SO's)

Challenge level: 4

Review follows:

Technical:
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Grammar: No spelling errors or typos (but I myself use a spellchecker; but nothing jumped out in that respect)

Map Selection: Good, varied, fit the story.

Mission Objectives: Also good. They serve the story and allow you to receive more details if you read the clues.

Overall Impreession of the Story: Nicely thought out. He even gives you hints that intimate things may NOT be as they seem as you speak with Synapse.

Custom Group: Here's where for me, the design and execution falters a bit. The look of the Customs is great, the descriptions fit, and they are somewhat varied; BUT in combo/concert they are (imo) INSANELY tough. Two main healers, a MM (with only one Bot though); a debuffer that can also heal, and a controller (this is often a MOB group makeup) made for some very long and at times redious fights. Again, I can tell a lot of work and thought went into their creation, but I had a 15 minute fight (using the mission door to survive and regroup) with 4 minions and one LT. I DID finish the arc, but the 3 missions took me 2 1/2 hours to complete, and I was trying to AVOID combat to just do the objectives.

Also, a couple of minor story nitpicks:

After mission 2, when you come back with a lot (and I mean a lot of clues and info, Synapse has the nerve to say: "That's all they had?" (imo) - SHEESH!

On mission 3, Synapse states he wants you to go to a computer and type up a false report RE: Maticore (who you're freeing); and the purpose is so 'Lord Cosmic' believes Maticore was executed as ordered. Now, this may be overly nit-picky, but given that it's a Paralell dimensuion that your character has scant knowledge of, perhaps it would be better if Synapse GAVE you a pre-written report that he wanted downloaded onto the computer.

My final rating: 3 Stars ( Some of the combat was so tedious, I thought about gving it 2 stars because of (imo) the overpowered Customs; but it's obvious a LOT of work and thought did go into this. If it were me, though; I'd consider reworking the Customs so you had one main healer, and either a debuffer or a controller mixed in, but I have a feeling this arc is close to the filesize limit).

Again, I did like the setup, and what I experienced of the story.

So, with all that said, I'd like to request a review of my Arc:

Is it Live or is it Memory-X (Arc ID: 70210) when you have a chance.

Thanks,

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Hmm. I could check netgraph. It seems random though. I can be in there for a while and have no problems. and this problem isn't isolated to just the AE building. It was just an area where I saw it happening repeatedly with nothing really going on.

Sometimes I'm on a full team of 8 and it does this. Sometimes it never crops up. I usually can't go a day without hit happening either. Sometimes it'll happen when I first get started and then I wont see it the rest of the day. sometimes it happens when I'm just starting to think about heading to bed. Sometimes I'm just flying around or just talking to people. sometimes I'm just fighting. This is what drives me nuts. Nothing I am seeing indicates a pattern.

That's why I'm trying to report situations like the AE building. I know exactly what was visually going on at that time and it happend more than once. It's easy to report. Most of the time I can't do that. If you guys think it'll help Ill try and report what's going on every time this happens as it happens.

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Post a Hijack this log so we cab see what you have running in the background. There could be a task/app that's 'stealing CPU cycles in short bursts, which could cause what you're seeing.

Question: Do you have ANY software set to automatically check for updates from the web?

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One of my characters yesterday went from level 9 to 16 within the span of a single AE mission. Total time spent was around 30 minutes.

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This is not unheard of in non-AE content... with a full team on a higher difficulty, it is possible to level fairly quick outside of AE, so I would say that the XP rate is about the same.

Where AE DOES break this IMO is that it totally eliminates the time sinks of traveling; needing to report back to a contact etc. Instead of having to run across the Hollows or Steel Canyon back to your contact to get the next mission (or even just travel to the next mission), you run all of 10 feet to reset the arc and play it again.

I think this is something the developers did not take into consideration.

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yeah cuz it is super fun running across the map -

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Not debating whether or not something is "fun" since that is subjective to the player... just stating fact. Time sinks due to travel are part of most every MMO.

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Oh please, with all the zone teleportation, and he fact you can get a travel power very early on your caharacter. Bringing CoX 'travel time' into this arguement is ludicrous. Travel time in CoX is NOTHING compared to ANY other MMO on the market, bar none. In fact, it truely amazes me when anyone says omething in this MMO is 'hard' as this is truely and 'easy mode' MMO from start to finish (and that's NOT really a bad thing as sometimes you want a more relaxed MMO exprience). But please, 'travel time' is not, and never really has been a large issue in this MMO.

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I thought coh was d3d.?

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Only for audio. It uses OpenGL for the game graphics engine.

Yes I have, it's behind the

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Can anyone tell me why CoH runs my CPU usage at about 85% when my other MMOs run it around 20%?

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Not all MMOs are created equal. CoH is VERY CPU and Video Processor intensive.

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Even the patch notes don't seem to have a lot of the nice little features of this issue.

Like I just did a kidnap mission, and the hostage shows up on the map as a small green arrow. Very handy.

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Something that I haven't seen any comments on is the visual effect applied to characters at the end of a cutscene during the Anniversary TF. It's a screen-space effect, something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the game, which required whole new tech to make happen (and which we're already trying to figure out ways to utilize elsewhere).

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I didn't experience a single Cutscene on the Live Kahn TF (Heroside) when I did it the day I15 went to the Live servers. That's why I haven't commented.

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If every MMO were working on your principle, there would probably not have any left going on the market. You know that?

Devs certainly did not create 50 leveling steps to see them bypassed in less than a week, a day or even a hour.

This is non-sense.

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Are you a complete newbie to the MMO genre? If you're not then you're doing a bang up job in sounding like one. Do you actually believe that the PL issue is exclusive to CoX alone? News flash, PL has been around since a decade ago when MMOs were first introduced. Some may even argue that they've been around even longer, since the days of MUDDing. Through all this time, people like you have been predicting the doom of MMOs due to PLing or farming. Yet games where PLing is rampent such as Everquest 1+2, FFXI, WoW, are still all around. In fact, coming back to CoX, PLing in every shape or form has been around and 4+ years later, the game is still alive and kicking.

Your act is nothing new nor is your candidness refreshing. The only non-sense here is your penchant for making melo-dramatic, far-fetched exaggerations regarding issues that has time and again been proven to be less of a concern than some drama queens made it out to be. Way to beat on a dead horse of an issue. Color me unimpressed.

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Yet you FAIL to mention that EQ (at least back in the day when I played it) and WoW (which I played for 2 1/2 years and finally burned out on) BOTH enact HARSH penalties for explotive PLing - and they don't bother to warn you either, you just try to log in to find your accounts been banned and you can no longer access anything.

Yes, PLing does exist and is indeed tolerated, but explotive PLing in quashed by EVERY MMO currently on-line, and some are not as nice or selective about it as the CoX Devs were (again WoW just bans entire accounts, as opposed to just locking or deleting the 'offending' character on the account).

So, while forms are indeed tolerated, it's clear that the Devs of all MMOs would rather the majority of the playerbase play the game as they intended - and DO try to shift the playerbase toward that end.