Zombie Man

[ QUOTE ]
For nearly $10 (including shipping) one can get a CoV or a CoH game with one month free. Is 240,000 prestige (12 slots) worth $10 to you?

[/ QUOTE ]

Ooops. If it's just one side of the game, it's only 8 slots and 160,000 prestige.

For nearly $10 (including shipping) one can get a CoV or a CoH game with one month free. Is 240,000 prestige (12 slots) worth $10 to you?

REST

That's right, it's not just for healing; it fills the blue bar, too. I've seen many a player go from spawn to spawn with little END left and then crash during a fight without ever stopping to use Rest. There's no shame in Resting. Create a bind or macro:

/bind ctrl+r "l I'm gonna rest for just about 10 seconds, you can go on without me if you want, I'll catch up.$$powexecname Rest"

Then it's your team's decision whether to wait for you or not. While Resting, you can turn on any self-buff toggles you want, especially if you had to turn them off to save END. A recharge in Rest should bring it up to make it available every second or third fight.

For protracted battles, I've even backed up around a corner to Rest just to refill END and then jump back into the fight.

And just to be clear:

If you're working on the Debt Badges, you get credit for dept wiped out through gaining XP. Since this is not a grant of XP, this debt wipe doesn't count for the badge.

For those working on their Debt Badge, this is not very good news. Please note that others have voiced their concerns over this, and yet, they will be going through with the debt wipe. It is highly, highly unlikely that any complaining at this point will make them change their minds.

However, you have a month's warning. If you're going for the Debt Badge, finish up any debt you have on your own before Dec 10. Wait for the wipe date, then start dying again to continue working on the Debt Badge.


For those who aren't working on the Debt Badge and have no debt, this may seem like a non-gift. Well, it is. Not all gifts are usable by all people. Some have more costume tokens then they'll ever use, and yet, costume tokens will continue to be given out as gifts. Some have more respecs than they'll ever use, and yet, there will probably be more freespecs given out as gifts. Some can use the gifts while some can't. That's the way it goes.


Knowing that the wipe is coming, why not try to experiment with dangerous stuff: Soloing AVs, playing at the highest difficulty level, see how many bosses you can herd. With the debt wipe coming, there'll be no lasting penalty. Go crazy.

[ QUOTE ]
Any updates on this awesome guide?

[/ QUOTE ]

The way spawns spawn in relation to the difficulty slider has changed. So, the info from this guide is completely out of date. Someone would have to repeat the steps taken and take down the new data points.

I'm guessing the vault door triggers the typical 75%, 50%, and 25% hp spawns that so many other multi-spawn critters do.

Also, there are two other bank spawn points: 1. Right in front of the entrance to the bank; and, 2. Opening the bank front door. So, if you rush to the bank door and immediately open it, congratulations, you just triggered a double spawn right then and there.

Also note that if you really, really, really want to rush to the bank door, but want to reduce ambush spawns, there are three tricks:

1. Fly up to the zone ceiling then travel horizontally. There doesn't seem to be positional ambush triggers up there.
2. Run along the outer boundary of the map. Doesn't seem to be positional spawn triggers there.
3. Teleport to the bank door. Either you wind up at certain spaces where there are no positional triggers, or, you hit very few of them.

Note that none of these three tricks eliminate the two spawns at the bank front door (one outside, and one inside).

I'm pretty sure a magic origin contact will always introduce you to the magic origin contact as your first choice of the next tier. Thus if you do just enough missions in the in the 1-10 range and keep getting new introductions, then, regardless of origin, you can stop when you get one of these three:

<ul type="square">[*]Genevieve Sanders[*]Laurence Mansfield[*]Paco Sanchez[/list]
They are the level 5-10 magic origin contacts. When you hit level 10, one of them (you can only get one of those three, by the way) will introduce you to one of these three:

<ul type="square">[*]Dr. Trevor Seaborn[*]Haley Phillips[*]Hugo Redding[/list]
And one of these three will have the spelunker mission, "Rescue the Mystic."


Or, once Issue 11 goes live, you can get to Ouroboros at level 25 and you can do the Rescue the Mystic mission as a Flashback mission and get the badge then.


Oh, and BTW, the Hollows is a really good and fun zone if you follow these two rules:

1. Wait until you're level 8 to start those arcs. (As others have said, when you first talk to Wincott, you do not have to accept his mission. Click on him and then get away from him. Do not click on the mission he offers until you're level 8. And even if you do click on that mission, don't do it. Walk away and let it sit in your mission list until you're level 8.)
2. Get your fly pack from the Kings Row Safeguard mission first.

Great guide. Dwizka does make a point that a lot of the terminology is geared for those in the know and would be a bit dense for the newbie.

It would be helpful to hammer these points:<ul type="square">[*]Attacks and the damage they do are treated separately in CoH/V. The term "Attack" deals with the act of *attempting* to do damage to another player, or to a non-player character (NPCs are often called 'critters' by the programmers). If that Attack 'hits', then that attack has the chance to do damage to a player or critter.
[*]Attacks and the damage they do are classified by the game mechanics into different types. Attacks and damage are countered by the other player's or critter's Defense and Resistance, which are also classified by type. A player's TYPE OF DEFENSE (Defense_Type) can counter the TYPE OF ATTACK (Attack_Type); while a player's TYPE OF RESISTANCE (Resistance_Type) can counter TYPE OF DAMAGE (Damage_Type).
[*]IOW, it is Attack_Type v. Defense_Type. And then, if there is a 'hit', Damage_Type v. Resistance_Type.
[*]Attack_Type can be categorized into two realms: 1. POSITIONAL ATTACK (Ranged, Melee, Area of Effect [AoE]); and, 2. ELEMENTAL ATTACK (Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative, Psionic, Fire, and Cold). Most attacks have both a Positional and Elemental Type. However, some may have only one or the other [edit note: Is there any attack which only has a positional type without an elemental type?], or, in the case of The Hamidon, neither.
[*]Damage_Type doesn't have positional damage types. It does have the seven elemental damage types (Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative, Psionic, Fire, and Cold) plus one more: Toxic.[/list]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Welcome back, Manticore!
I still remember you at a test server party, and how many of us waited patiently in line for you to give us funky yellow titles.
I still have the screen captures of mine- "Skyscraper Incarnate".

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're talking Halloween last year, then it wasn't Sean. That Manticore admitted he wasn't Sean, but one of the other devs. Then BackAlleyBrawler posted recently he spent last Halloween in a costume stuck at a computer in a cubicle handing out titles for hours while suffering a cold. So... my powers of deductive reasoning tell me that last year's Halloween Manticore was played by Christopher Bruce who is now the BAB.

[/ QUOTE ]

Guilty. I borrowed Sean's moniker for that Halloween event, the Cuppathon, and many other events...all the way up to the "Season's Greetings admin spam fiasco" of last year that got me grounded from playing around on the live servers.

[/ QUOTE ]

No one likes Season's Greetings!!

[ QUOTE ]
Welcome back, Manticore!
I still remember you at a test server party, and how many of us waited patiently in line for you to give us funky yellow titles.
I still have the screen captures of mine- "Skyscraper Incarnate".

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're talking Halloween last year, then it wasn't Sean. That Manticore admitted he wasn't Sean, but one of the other devs. Then BackAlleyBrawler posted recently he spent last Halloween in a costume stuck at a computer in a cubicle handing out titles for hours while suffering a cold. So... my powers of deductive reasoning tell me that last year's Halloween Manticore was played by Christopher Bruce who is now the BAB.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What if one has a character which was created in capital letters and now one wants to keep the name but correct their mistake. Will that cost $20? Is there any way around this?

[/ QUOTE ]I believe you can make that change with a singe $10 purchase.

[/ QUOTE ]

The game doesn't care about title case, if you try to rename and it is only a case sensitive change, you will be told that the name is already taken. I accidentally made my global @Gel and it should have been @GEL, I tried to do a rename and got the name already taken response.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's global. Global can be changed only once (except for the times we had a database corruption and were allowed a new chance to rename); also, it may be that Global won't allow a "change" based on capitalization change alone... However, the name change feature for *characters* in the character selection screen will allow a name change based solely on a change of capitalization (for a $10 fee). Test it out on Test first where name changes are free.

Welcome, back, Manticore.

BTW, what's the secret project you're working on in Austin?

[ QUOTE ]
Brian: ...We have an experienced team of Cryptic and NCsoft MMO development veterans that will continue to drive this franchise to new levels never before possible. I can’t underscore enough that...

[/ QUOTE ]

Now we know where _Castle's_ underscores went... Brian's going crazy using them up like mad!!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
how did this become a cov vs Coh Discussion, we have other threads for that

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
how did this become a cov vs Coh Discussion, we have other threads for that

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm waiting to hear back from Ex and LH to update the The Dev Tracker.

[/ QUOTE ]

And.. heard back. It's now up to date. Seems many of the rednames we haven't heard from for a while had moved on to other projects long ago.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What about pohsyb? He's a programmer and posted sometimes. Is he coming with us?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually we acquired the whole COH team +1 pohsyb is coming with us!

Ex

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty curious about the programmers. Like, I know Wraith was working on the CoH graphics engine. Did he move over, or was he long since lost to MUO or the "other" cryptic project?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm waiting to hear back from Ex and LH to update the The Dev Tracker.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
perhaps Cryptic knows their MUO game is so killer, they knew CoX would not be able to compete and figured it may be a better idea to sell the healthy cow than have it die in their hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bingo!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, sit back and get ready to rumble. Because NCSoft is saying, "We will not go down without a fight."

With one or two more years to add content to City while MUO is under development, if MUO doesn't come out with 200 hours of game play, it's going to look pretty anemic compared to City, even if it looks prettier and you can hang with Wolverine.

Why Did Cryptic Give Up It's Child?

Probably the main reason is that it's receiving money from Microsoft to develop what could potentially be a "City" killer. Microsoft probably doesn't want to see any staff or resources that are supposed to be working on MUO to help out City. And, understandably, NCSoft was probably pressuring Cryptic to keep up it's resources on developing City so that it could compete when MUO came out. Though I don't know for sure, I'm betting that the "3 issues a year" promise was pushed by NCSoft.

Secondarily, City is using a legacy game engine. Everything else Cryptic is working on is using the new animation rig. So, Cryptic had to keep a separate team for City and probably didn't have the luxury of moving developer resources around freely. So, Cryptic had to keep City as it's own separate world within its building for the game engine and for accounting reasons (M$ and NCSoft looking over their shoulders).

And let me play armchair psychologist: While City was Jack's baby; MUO is Jack's new baby... Baby 2.0. Under the old regime there would never be a CoH 2.0, because MUO would be their CoH 2.0. That leaves NCSoft out with a baby that's not going to age well. If NCSoft wants City to grow well or for there to be a CoH 2.0, they'd have to take complete control. If Cryptic was reluctant to let go of City, then the pressure from NCSoft to care for it properly would be incentive to give it up for adoption to a better home that would take care of it.

Besides MUO, Cryptic has three or four other MMORPG unannounced projects in the works. With M$ money and the sale of City and the revenue from leasing the City engine, they may be able to self-publish like they want to with their other games in development.

[ QUOTE ]
Thought some of you would liek to see this. One of the job listings for the New office and CoX is for an animator. Here is the job description. Take a look at the part that I bolded.

[ QUOTE ]
Description
NCsoft NorCal, a software game development studio focused on creating outstanding innovative Massively Multiplayer Games (MMORPGs), is seeking an exceptional Animator to work on the award winning City of Heroes franchise at their Mountain View, CA location.

This individual must be passionate about games and able to animate with creativity, strong posing and excellent timing. Exciting actions and good quality cycles are what we’re looking for in a reel. Previous game experience is a definite plus but not necessary. If hired, you will be working on a wide variety of characters, creatures, vehicles and props. Effective communication with engineers and designers is critical.

[/ QUOTE ]

So I do think there is some good stuff comming in the future

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't get your hopes up too high. While it's possible vehicles will come to City, it's unlikely.

Those job postings could be for other projects the new NorCal Studio will be working on. Most studios have several projects they work on concurrently.

[ QUOTE ]
Well...

Speaking as an old-timer from way-back when CoH was merely a dev forum---with reams of speculation and excitement over at least 3 years; and then on into Beta1, live launch and all these years later, I must say my initial reaction was a mixture of anxiety, dread and nostalgia at this announcement.

:S

I'm fearful and hopeful all at the same time.

I'm afraid that things will change for the worst--creative control, overall success, future development. Ex's answers, while greatly appreciated, are couched in familiar ubiquitous jargon typical of all mega-corps and presidential campaigners. It's corp-talk, plain and simple. No help for it but to wait and see what happens.

I'm hoping that this dramatic, staccato change in ownership will mean we players can finally see a great many of the 'features' we've been asking for since Beta1---and you all know what they are: PC being one of the foremost, etc and so on.


I don't like radical changes disturbing my online gaming. I dislike very much any hint of uncertainty as well. Because of Sony and what they did to SWG, et al, I cannot help but demonstrate a serious dread---which I hope will be completely unfounded and transformed.

Until I see definite signs that Co* is going down, I'll be around.

Cal2


[/ QUOTE ]


Ummm... radical change? Staccato change?

That's a terrible mischaracterization of what just happened. One party that had 50% now has 100% control. How is that radical or staccato?

The developer team that has worked on the game will still be working on it for at least the next year. How is that radical or staccato?

It's hard put to think of a change of ownership that is less radical or staccato.

Yeah, my bad. It was Robert, the CEO of NCSoft who visited the devs last Friday to assure them of a 'hand's off' approach.

Richard is Executive Producer of Tabula Rasa.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[*]NCSoft will be relocating the current "City" QA (Quality Assurance) team from the Austin studio to the new NorCal Studio. That's right, their QA gang will be able to stand up from their computer, walk down the hall, and say, "Hey, BackAlleyBrawler" found a bug with an animation you should see." How freakin' efficient is that?

[/ QUOTE ]

Whoa, whoa. Do you have a source for that? I thought I'd been through all the Dev/Community posts, and I don't remember seeing that.

[/ QUOTE ]


[ QUOTE ]
My issue is 9: I don't see where Ex mentioned any hint at 'single server' - she replied to my query about servers with "we're getting new hardware". Not "we're getting new hardware and it'll all support one big gigantic megaserver". Sorry on that one, but *eeeent*. nope. New hardware = 11 servers. Down the way? sure, but not while they're investing so much in this. I don't see that at all.

[/ QUOTE ]


The QA info was a private chat that I know Ex Libris intends for general consumption.

The server info was also part of a private chat but mostly from the history of the little hints dropped here and there. There definitely will be new hardware. The one server system is something they're 'looking into,' with no promises and no more information than that. [IOW, if they can do it, and do it well, they will.]

[ QUOTE ]
And what does Garriot have to do with COH? Nothing, so... shrug on that one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ummm.... he owns it now.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For those interested in gainful gaming employment, check out the NCsoft North America Jobs Listing. Positions for "Mountain View" would be in our newly formed NCsoft NorCal Studio.

Ex

[/ QUOTE ]

*BOGGLE* ...why would they need a 2D/Concept, and "Powers Designer"? Those 2 alone implies ambitions for a lot more New-New content than we've gotten in years. The list taken as a whole is staggering and I have a hard time believing all those resources would be going to Co(X).

[/ QUOTE ]

Paid expansion? Yeah, I think so.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's possible that NorCal will become the site of development of new NCSoft products. Most development studios have several irons in the fire.