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This is some strange semantic quibbling. It seems obvious to me that the people complaining about progression aren't griping about access to badges and accolades that are not required to actually level up in the game. They're complaining about growing their characters, getting access to primary powers, secondary powers, slots to improve their powers, and cash to pay for those improvements - things you need to survive in this game as the challenge difficulty increases.

If there's anything people in this thread don't seem to be bent out of shape it's your throwaway accolade power, badge, and possibly, your witchy hat.

It's awful tempting for me, too. The non-Incarnate endgame of running costume contests in AP isn't worth $15/month. At least WoW raised the level cap so you had an alternative to make progress without raiding. CoH has...player-created thumbtwiddling.

At this point, I'd probably dump MMOs altogether.

The length isn't really the issue with the trials (or even with the TFs these days). It's the repetition of the same content and scenarios. Running BAF 10 times with the same toon for what basically amounts to a carrot to entice me to run BAF 10 more times with that very same toon for a slightly nicer carrot to entice me to run BAF 10 more times to get another carrot...is what I do the day before I blow my fool head off.

I tried the similar endgame system in that extremely popular fantasy MMORPG we cannot name and it drove me crazy. So, I quit pursuing it, did my own thing for a couple of years, eventually ran out of new things to do, and ultimately left the game. Some people have fun with a system like the Incarnate System. I simply don't. Part of CoH's appeal all these years was it had no mandatory system for anything but a couple of TF and Trial-dependent badges, accolades, and costume pieces, none of which were required to progress in the game.

So, let the folks who like the Incarnate System do their thing while the people who opt out are given something else to do that is meaningful and consistent with the gameplay of the last seven years. As it is, the last infusion of something else meaningful - not to mention free non-aura costume pieces - was Going Rogue. By the time Issue 21 and its rumored new zone, etc., rolls around, the expansion will probably be at least a year old. Two and a half issues out from GR, the wait is kind of starting to suck.

I burned out on TFs pretty early on in the game's lifespan. The eight-hour-long Positron TF hellhole I mentioned earlier in this thread? That really happened. And what's worse, it wasn't even a successful TF. We *bailed* at 8 hours. If you like them, that's fine, but no more TFs for me, thanks. The appeal is long gone.

Up until November 2010, my dislike of TFs was just fine. The game didn't require it. I got multiple toons to 50 by doing everything else. All I missed was a couple of badges and an accolade or two. I've even run the Mender Ramiel mission and freed up alpha slots. The game requires TFing or trials to make further progress.

I learned to drive automatic, got really good at it, spent years doing it, and now I have to drive stick or I run out of road. After such a long time - and seeing universal content like auras and emotes tied up in the system - it's very discouraging.

It tells me you're as full of it as TonyV when he says 99% of players are happy with the direction of the game.

The percentage of people who shun all other player contact might be tiny minority, but the percentage who don't want to raid in a game that didn't have mandatory progression-by-raiding-drops system until six months ago is probably bigger than you think.

That "weird play style" wasn't weird for 6.5 years. In terms of character progression, until Issue 19, everything multiplayer was completely optional. I think this is because designers knew how weak the initial multiplayer offerings were. If players were *forced* to slog through the eight-hour, hell-on-Earth wipefest that the original Positron taskforce could easily become with every single toon in their character list, CoH would have been dead before it turned three.

I prefer to solo. I interact with other players just fine. I team up occasionally. Do I want to be stuck in a dungeon/raid/trial with *anybody* for hours at a time, and then have to repeat that experience indefinitely just so my character can upgrade himself enough to run the next dungeon/raid/trial? Hell no.

You can have more than 36 per account. That is just the current limit of slots you can get on a single server.

I've seen this, too, but so far only on male toons.

It still displays on the one female toon I've got wearing the belt.

Their decisions are based on their opinions, which is the same thing yours are based on.

Your opinions just happen to be more optimistic about the results.

He will learn the error of his ways when my controller's forcefields aren't around to keep his blaster from being knocked out of the sky like a pinata.

After almost six years of not-quite exclusivity, the more, the merrier, I say.

$5 pink prestige power slides for everyone.

Edit: I was off by a year...

Because...?

The prestige power slide also came in the "hero kit" that was available at the NCsoft store at one point. It was $20 for the power, cape, V.I.P. badge, color map, a heroclix figure, and a month of game time that got mailed to you. Supposedly, they were still selling them in boxes at the "Wentworth's Store" at Herocon 2009 at that price.

NCsoft should repackage the power, cape and badge as a store download.

But if it isn't true, the issue name makes zero sense in relation to what we do know is going to be in it.