Zortel

I enjoyed telling him that I'd been working undercover the whole time for the Loyalists, and in reply to his 'You aren't the first to betray me':

"I'll be the last though."

*ASSASSIN'S STRIKE*

Mission complete.

Zack Tanner is level 10, Praetorian, Katana/SR Scrapper.

He has 30 Invention Inventory Spaces (Well, 35 due to having one of the vet badges that grants 5 extra), 7 Recipe Spaces (Well, 13, due to having one of the vet badges that grants five extra.) He has 30 Personal Inventory Storage spaces (That'd be the bank stuff) and 10 Auction House slots (Well, 11, due to having one of the vet badges that grants 1 extra)

Glacier's Edge is level 6, Praetorian, Ice Armour/Dual Blades Tanker.

He has 30 Invention Inventory Spaces (Well, 35 due to having one of the vet badges that grants 5 extra), 4 Recipe Spaces (Well, 9, due to having one of the vet badges that grants five extra.) He has 30 Personal Inventory Storage spaces (That'd be the bank stuff)

Now, at very, very low levels, you have a small amount of storage space. About enough to hold a costume recipe and the components to make it.

Invention salvage doesn't drop till level 4. Recipes don't start dropping till over level 10 IIRC.

I find that soloing or teaming, it takes a good few missions to fill up one of anything. CoH and CoV side, there's plenty of Wentworths/Black Markets/Vault Reserve buildings to go and stash your stuff in. Some, like Steel Canyon and Talos Island's, are near two of the major transport hubs through the CoH (The Yellow and Green Tram Lines), and Cap Au Diable's is right by the Rogue Isles Ferry port and the University.

Praetoria has a Imperial Bank of Praetoria/Underground Storage area in each zone.

The travel time in City of Heroes/Villains is nothing to what other games have. I've played other games. Area to area travel, the only game that's quick IMO is due to map travel, and even then the zones you travel to are huge.

When it comes to slotting enhancements, it takes me much quicker to do it here than on other games, where I have to check auction houses for gems, enchants and so forth, or find the mats, or check alts, mail things to myself, so on. You complain about optional powers and pre-requisites, other games have things like Tiered Talent systems, where you have to take not great pre-reqs to get to the good stuff at a higher level.

Regarding the mission/quest things, if I were doing a review, I'd have a note at the start of the review, or just before getting into missions saying something like this:

"City of Heroes uses some different terminology for those of you more used to other, Fantasy MMO's. What you'd call quests are termed missions, and their equivalent of raids and dungeons are trials and task forces, or on the Villains side, Strike Forces." And from there, refer to them as Missions, Trials, Strike Forces and Task Forces.

While there's IO sets and Common IO's available at a low level, I tend to find that holding out for the level 30 IO's and higher level set IO's is much better for me. There are scant few low level IO's worth bothering with, and those ones are typically the ones with good effects. (Steadfast Protection's +Res/Global +3% Defence All, Steadfast Protection's Knockback Protection, Kismet +6% Accuracy, so on.)

And lastly, again, if you rush through all the content, pay no heed to what you dub 'the flavour text', and don't pay attention to the missions, of course it's going to be a grind and not be fun. It's like buying a well made, lovingly baked pie and cramming it all in your mouth, gulping it down and then complaining that you couldn't really taste it and it was over too quick. The 'Get to the end' mentality is one that is common place in other games but here, thankfully, not so much.

If you slow down and savour the pie, you can enjoy such missions where you get to take on a horde of drug-crazed minions as a reporter comments when you layeth the smack down on them.

And doing that on a Stalker, solo?

I was having the time of my life running, jumping, sneak attacking from around corners, and scaling buildings to rest up on a handy sign before jumping back down into the fray.

This here says what's wrong with your review.

You're looking at City of Heroes like every other MMO, where you have to rush rush to the yayo, I mean, level cap to start enjoying things, dismissing missions as 'flavor text' and saying that the new missions are the same as the others in the old game, the issue 0/6 content?

I -wish- some of the mission tech from i18 made it into i0/6 missions. I wish some of the i0+ missions had the story writing that the i18 (and even the i6) ones did.

To put it quite frankly? You're playing the game wrong.

That's it pretty much.

The fact you got from 1-50 in 97 hours doesn't say much to me about the kind of gamer you are, except that you grind and grind and power level and then moan how it 'isn't fun'.

Know how long it took me to get to 50 on my first character? One and three quarter years. I did missions, task forces, levelled other characters, got badges, talked to people, and dinged fighting a huge freaking snowman atop Portal Corps roof.

That, to me, was fun.

If I'd have ground my way there? Then I would not have found that fun.

This new expansion, I have 9 characters I've been playing through. Some soloing to explore the new content (that you dismiss as flavour text) through the different paths available, and only three so far are at 20, and I've not even left Praetoria with them yet, I go and help others team if needed, or roleplay, or badge hunt.

What do I do with my 50, all these years on? Play new missions when they come out, badge hunt, help friends, tinker with the build, and ponder about earning inf, salvage and recipes to start on IOing her up beyond Common IO's. And it's fun.

I'd have a hard time keeping my characters IC through every single story arc in this game, as well as quests and such in other games. I can play the missions and enjoy them, but when it comes to IC business, I prefer the more personal narrative. Seeing as MMO's as a whole like to shove you into the CHOSEN ONE status, this makes more sense than having a legion of people saying they arrested Dr. Vaz or beat up and beheaded ye olde stonemason bandit.

I was playing another MMO a while ago and posting on the forums, on a topic where the general jist was IC and OOC seperation in game. Someone told me that if I was at a certain area with my character, who in character is most unsuited to galloping about on a horse with a big stick to poke people with, then I have to be IC there, and if I'm not I'm a terrible roleplayer and shouldn't do anything in the game that the character wouldn't do.

I personally thought that exact view point was nuttier than trail mix and continued to get rewards to get my cool pet and gear stuff, happier that when I did go IC, I could look cool doing so. (And leave a trail of clean floor behind me thanks to magic broomsticks.)

Neutropolis Power Arc IIRC.

What's your stance on OOC doing the missions, but keeping the alignment and general jist of the characters in place while weaving a more personal, fitting IC story for them?

Just curious, is all. :> I found that doing so means less of the 'I was sent to get flowers for Cleopatra' 'So was I!' 'Me too!' 'She's dead though!' cropping up.

HP for me is the special effect. 0 Is not death/ Rezes arent' returning people from the death. 0's kind unconciousness, or badly injured.

Back in WoW, we played it like this: Once defeated and rez'd, a character had taken an injury, and we simply played it like that. Further deaths meant more injuries, and time spent at the healers of Silvermoon once off the mission.

In game, I sometimes translate hit points to a different type of thing.

Take Fear Trigger for example. She wears a suit of light combat armour, but she's still a young adult female underneath. Her psi abilities, particularly Drain Psyche, represent her telekinetic shield. It can take a certain amount of damage before it breaks and a serious injury gets through. She can leach off others to bolster it (Drain Psyche's -Regen Foe + Regen Self), she can apply a burst of telekinetic will to restore it (Respite), should it burst she'll either mediport hack or use a burst of will to restore herself (Awaken), and with practice and training can boost what it can take (Health, +Regen IO Bonuses), and perhaps in time even how much it can take (If they ever give Blasters Psychic Mastery with Mind Over Body)

Nachtbrecher's represents his Dark Will. He can use this to drain the soul energy of others (Dark Regeneration, Dark Consumption, Soul Drain, Siphon Life) to boost his own abilities. (Health, Recovery, Damage). If he takes enough damage and starts to lose form, he'll either restore himself with the soul energy of his foes (Soul Transfer), summon the will from the depths of his nether powers to restore himself (Awaken) or go incoporeal and reform at a special ritual site in his home in the city. (Go to Hospital.)

Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit!

Mitchell and Webb explain all.

Also, yeah, there's some power limitations that make certain characters not easy to make. For example, an ex-Troll, there's no SS/Regen or Regen/SS. And if they made /Martial Arts for Blasters, I'd be tempted to remake Cindersnap.

There's a moon base run by the US government, and an undersea research facility IIRC. The former is out from Eastgate, the latter... Armstrong Lunar Base. It crops up in badges and minor story arc details IIRC. Technology jumped up by leaps and bounds when the Rikti invaded and their tech was reverse engineered.

Zortel went to Washington to have a chat. D.C, not the state. The terms and conditions of Unity Station are as follows:

1: No Earthward facing offensive weapon systems. This means no orbital cannons, no lasers, no missiles, so forth. All that's on the underside of the station is the shields that protect it from the mundane (Radiation, debris, so forth) and can be bolstered to protect against the non-mundane.

2: It has spaceward pointing scanning equipment and shares data with various scientific bodies, and the military. Its purpose is both civilian (to monitor the stars) and military (To watch out for alien invaders. Several Rikti Motherships did leave Earth's atmosphere after all. Any unexplained/unannounced invasions from deep space can be explained by various means.)

3: It has regular, if unannounced inspections by a team of DATA, NASA and DoD scientists to check things are all above board.

4: It shares research done inside the station with other scientific bodies.

5: That it houses a system that, in times of emergencies, could be used to aid communication between relevant organizations.

The station's main purposes are for research, training, habitation and to provide a non-Paragon based command center, so that if a strike say, took out Unity Tower (Which will soon be sold off as the group downsizes their earthbased presence to a smaller building), that the group would not be left headless.

Also, Zorielle had to turn over some of her private research data to the government as well to get the go-ahead. They went for the eye-teeth in getting the best deal for them.

(Interestingly, the comms system was supposed to be 'Herolink', an IC way of facilitating communication between superheroes and quickly sharing locations and arranging back up to arrive. I just kind of forgot about it.)

That too, yes. Currently I have no plans to take Fitness on my Bots/Traps MM from Praetoria, which has meant I've been able to add the Medicine and Leadership pool to the character and am still finding it not that grueling, endurance wise. Granted if I was on my Poison or Thermal MM I might have some more issues.

Same with Sprint. And the HEAT's inherent flight/teleports.

Exactly! Hero 1, Alpha Team, Omega Team, Atlas, the Original Freedom Phalanx, a big mural for Eastgate by the gates to The Hollows, one for all the soldiers and police officers lost in the Rikti Wars, among others, and for other heroes that died for the people.

Hey, let's take a little look at this end bit.

Yeah, I feel that's not cool.

I have a character that is patriotic, proudly American and a defender of truth, justice and the American way.

I also don't do well with forum RP, don't do well with forum RP that involves a large number of people, and currently have a fair amount of RP time at the moment taken up with other plot.

Do I read every open RP thread on the forum?

No.

Do I read most of them?

No.

Do I only read the ones that I might happen to be involved in?

Yes. That's it.

The Open Season stuff was, from a quick glance, a Night Hunter and Court plot. I am in neither. My characters haven't had many interactions with them, if any. I tend not to do much Villain RP, I tend not to go to PD much, I'm more of a GG/S55 and personal plot person.

If the post in the Newspaper thread hadn't been made, I'd still likely have had no knowledge of it. I always check IC Newspaper and IC Stories though, along with the GG thread and any interesting OOC or story posts.

Open RP can get crowded and confusing. Do I wish to add to that for those involved by getting my characters in on something that previously was of no interest to them? No, because I know how confusing and troublesome that can get.

The destruction of a school with a high casualty toll reported in the news however, makes it a little difficult to do what's right for the character, and what's right for me, the player.

A bus and some cars on a bridge that gets destroyed by a robot? That's a tragedy, yeah. Is it such a blow however, that it would get my hero from worrying and preparing for a possible Praetorian invasion of his country (which gives him his metahuman ability) and takes him away from all the other heroing that he does? I'd say no, because there's others who'll do that, and two many heroes makes a situation complicated. IC and OOC.

So, here's the question.

Would I personally enjoy getting involved with a plot like this, feeling I have to to maintain my character's... well, character, when I don't wish to, I don't have the time to, I feel it would prove problematic for others who were involved in the plot first, I feel it would make the plot harder to deal with by virtue of more numbers, and that I feel I would not have fun in? And as such, should I?

The answer, of course, is no.

Am I happy to say: "This plot, despite it's world impact, is taking place away from the areas that I usually RP at, so I am happy to ignore it. If it comes up in conversation at the places I usually RP in, I am happy to blank that bit of the conversation and any involved in it."?

The answer for me, of course, is yes.

Does this make me a 'bad roleplayer' and is something I should be ashamed of?

Well, that's not up to me. Personally, I think I'm an average roleplayer. There's things I need to work on, and things that slip my mind, and I really need to tune up some things that glare at me at occasion, especially re: Personal plots. I've got flaws.

If someone were to think that of me, that would be their choice. They're free to think I'm a bad roleplayer. Heck, maybe I think they're a bad roleplayer. That's my choice too.

Does the issue of whether I have been deemed bad at roleplaying due to defensive measures taken to ensure I enjoy -my- roleplay bother me?

Not a jot. :> During 5 years of RP here, where I was pretty new at the start, I've been called bad, good, elitist, and probably some less savoury terms to the back of my internet presence. If I get called good, I tend to cite areas that I felt I've been particularly bad at, such as the plots I mentioned earlier on in. I still feel tremendous guilt for some of them, and hope that I don't forget those errors or in some misguided line of thought make the same or new ones.

If the plot runs, the plot runs. I hope those involved enjoy it. If those involved aren't, that's an issue, yes. I hope the stance I've taken doesn't cause some to feel a lack of enjoyment, but it probably will have. I'll be doing stuff in game that I find enjoyable.

And I've gone on and rambled. Bad me.

What was I talking about again? Anyone? Heeeelllllp!

Edit: Oh yeah, that was it. Why, when there's a perfectly reasonable full user name or several commonly cited suitable abbreviations (So that's Floating Fat Man as the full, FFM for an acronym, Floaty for an abbreviation, or Harkonnen or some Dune reference should you be taken with the source material and the avatar. (Me, personally, I thought it looked like Cracker at first.)), does someone use Floating Fatty instead? It seems a little... cutting. The latter is a word with a heavily implied social negative value, usually cropping up in Primary and Secondary schools.

Edit 2 - Return of the Edit:
Reading the post below made me remember something. If plot creators reduced something to a more ... let's use the word below and say 'realistic' level, then yeah, I'd go about acknowledging it. And the part about blanking above was only short term for that conversation, not like... blank blank oh is there a cold wind when these people who aren't there are speaking, kind of blank.