Acyl

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lol we have this same problem BEFORE issue 14.

long live the AE.

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Well, PL'ing and farming isn't new...but AE's has shifted it from Peregrine Isle and Grandville to Atlas Park and Cap Au Diable. PLing/farming in AE is also much easier and more profitable.

And the fact the PLing/farming now takes place in lowbie zones means that there's a lower barrier to entry. Previously you had to already know where the farming was to get in on it. Now, any new player starting the game can get sucked in.

I'm not sure we should be having this discussion outside the official farm thread, however. I kinda fear this thread will be locked.

But for the time being, well...I think we shouldn't deny that there have been negative consequences of AE - the farming explosion can't be all good. Yet it ain't all bad.

There's been some awesome player-created arcs, and for every farmer there's a writer who's really embraced it as a storytelling tool. I mean, you only need to look at the AE section of these official forums to see that there really is a huge amount of interest in writing stories.

(QR) As others have said, all editions give you full access to the game. Just pick the version that comes with the in-game perks you want.

If you decide to stick with the game for the long-term, you can always purchase additional codes to get the perks from other game editions, and apply them to your existing account. So you're not losing out by picking one version over another.

True. I recall there was a pretty common 'unofficial' update to Mids floating around when VEATs came out, IIRC - coincided with a lag period in Mids releases, so someone else worked up the powers. You can do quite a bit to add data to the program.

But most players are lazy. Including me.

(I've used all of the following lines in-game. One of my villains is a Spider-Man homage.)

Circle of Thorns Mage/Archer/Guide: Uh, I guess this is a bad time...should I give you guys a few minutes to get changed out of your bathrobes?

- (Follow up): Oh, wait, I get it. Oranbega's a freakin' maze. I bet you haven't seen your closets in years.
- (Follow up 2): I'm guessing the real reason your civilisation collapsed is 'cause folks couldn't find the bathroom.

Luddite Hacker: So...do you go on the Internet with an abacus or something?

Nemesis/Fake Nemesis: You do know 'Nemesis' was a Greek goddess, right? Hey, I'm not judging or anything. I just can't help but notice you're carrying that staff all the time...and are those smokestacks compensating for something?

Positron: Ack! ACK! PUT YOUR HELMET BACK ON, DAMNIT! Oh jeez, my EYES!

Mynx: See, I'm trying to figure out why Synapse chose you as a sidekick. Where did he find you, Pocket D?

Statesman: Oh, wait, you got your powers from the Well of the Furies, not Furries. Right, sorry. My mistake.

Ms. Liberty: Hey baby, will ya increase my security level for US dollars?

Rikti: Well, you guys are aliens, right? For a small fee, I can get you a green card...

Rikti Monkeys: Wait, wait, stay right there. I've got a Controller friend who wants to set you on fire...

Carnies: Hey, you girls should merge with the Oranbegans. I mean, they already wear dresses and funny hats. The Circus of Thorns! It'll be a sensation!

Mu Striker/Adept/Guardian: Sooo...does this 'blood of moo' thing mean you guys take animal husbandry to the next level?

Warriors: Warriors...come out and plaaaaaaay.... o/`

Any Nictus/Kheldian NPC: So, are you a Kheldian in 'idiot form'?

Romulus (ITF Final Mission): Yeah, I know you're proud of finally hitting 50, but jeez, humanform Warshade ain't a great build...
- (Follow Up): And the SG colours don't really suit you. I liked your old costume better...

Yeah. Which is fair enough, really; after all, Mids ran this thing for years. And he had the good grace to pass it on to someone else rather than just leaving the program hanging. Most other build planners have just flat out been abandoned.

Of course, we don't have anything right now...but I'm hopeful we'll see something soon enough.

The original programmer of Mids has stepped down. Mids doesn't have the time to maintain the program anymore. Original post here.

So what's the status of the program? It's been taken over by Steiner of the Titan Network. From what I've heard, Steiner's working on a major revamp of the program and is aiming to get a new version for I15.

Cut the guy some slack - Steiner only took over about a month ago. I imagine he's been working pretty hard.

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In wow, when you reach the lvl cap, you have to start with 5man groups, then 5man heroics, then a 10man raid, then a 25man heroic raid, then they release a new 10/25 man raid that you have to be geared from the prevois 10/25man raid in order to be worth anything in it.

CoH seems to lack that from what you guys are telling me. Imo that makes for a huge gap in stuff to do at end game, considering 70% of my time on wow now is working on the new raids, gearing myself out to beat the last boss in the raid (raids average from 4 to 14 or so bosses), then working on getting the best items from that raid before the next one is released (typically 2-5 months later)

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Yeah, you understand correctly. We do have rare enhancements and stuff in CoH, and a character with an expensive build will usually outclass someone with a normal build. The difference can be huge. And the devs do add new enhancements to the game all the time.

BUT - that kind of expensive build isn't required to play the game. You can do all the content in CoH with a totally normal build. If you join teams with a regular build, nobody will complain that you suck. There isn't really any pressure to get the latest and best 'gear' in CoH. You can get by with your basic stuff.

Now... as for endgame content in CoH... there are a lot of story arcs in the 45-50 range. However the closest thing to WoW raids are Task/Strike Forces, for the most part. There are a bunch of cool endgame TF/SFs that can be very difficult and need good teams to complete. But I don't think there are as many as WoW.

We have two big raids in CoH, ones that need around 30-50 people - the Mothership Raid in the RWZ and the Hamidon Raid. But there's no real pressure to do this, you don't HAVE to do 'em to succeed in the game. Many players haven't, since the raids can easily lag the hell out of an lower-end computer.

Ultimately, World of Warcraft is a game which requires a great deal of time investment from the player. You need to constantly upgrade your gear, if you want to see everything the game offers. CoH isn't like that.

I play CoH because it's a lot friendlier to casual players. This should be pretty obvious - Issue 15 and 16 are introducing a ton of new visual customisation options. That's pure vanity stuff, no game effects at all. But this game's about looking cool.

WoW is a different animal. I played it a long time ago, and I thought it was a great game - just not my sort of game.

Heh, there's some awesome names in this thread. Anyway, most of my characters are in my sig, but the one I'm most proud of isn't:

Steam Engine

I picked that up after the first name wipe way back when. He is, of course, a Victorian steampunk technologist.

Ah, thanks. I wasn't aware that you could omit the quotes.

(But then, I've never bound a single command, always composites.)

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the most speed oriented attack to me is shield charge. if you can stand having to hold a shield. not sure if you can do martial arts with shield or not. never looked at that combo to be honest. but what could be more speed oriented than kicking one guy and immediately crossing 30 feet with a shield charge almost instantly.

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Yeah, you can do Martial Arts/Shield scrappers. That's a good point.

Hell, you can do an Elec Melee/Shield Brute - that gives you two damage teleport powers - you can REALLY zip around and sow havoc that way. The elemental electric shield or energy shield effects go well with zappy attacks as well... and hell, Electric Melee has a lot of quick punches and stuff.

Plus electricity and lightning meshes well with speedster concepts - look at Synapse. The Flash often is depicted with thunderbolt-like effects as well.

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I might try Justice server, so I can play with the Aussies who are 4 or 5 hours behind my time.
It is good to know that I can play any class and still be able to solo, I was afraid that this game is team oriented like FF11 and if I pick a wrong class no one is going to team with me.


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Playing on Justice is a good idea. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from continuing to play on Virtue and making other characters on Justice.

Bear in mind that although Justice is the unofficial Australia/Oceanic server, Virtue has a lot more people than Justice. I've played on both, and I actually have an easier time finding teams on Virtue at strange hours.

I know all about strange hours, since I'm a) not in the US, and b) used to work rotating shifts. Sometimes early morning, sometimes evening.

But that's my experience - your milage may vary. See what works for you.

City of Heroes/Villains is very solo friendly compared to other MMOs. Everyone can solo. It's just that some will solo faster than others. It's not just your archetype (class) that matters, but also your power choices.

But honestly, play what you want. Any combination can work in this game. Some work better than others, but anything will work - pick what's fun to you, and make the superhero you wanna play. Don't worry too much about efficiency and cutting edge builds. There's folks who push the limit in this game, but the majority of players are quite laid back.

Don't you need to enclose the bind string in quote marks?

eg: /bind H "cce 0 cclightning"

Also, the preferred bind for the CCE commands seems to be:-

eg: /bind H "emote none$$cce 0 cclightning"

The '/emote none' portion clears any existing emote/combat stance, which may cause the animation to screw up (the animation won't play, but your costume will still change after a period of time).

(repeat post deleted)

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Character concept motivates my selection of travel powers not AT.

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See, I sorta assumed the OP was talking about concept. I mean, 'speedster' to me refers not to the travel power but to the whole package. Guys like The Flash, Quicksilver, Johnny Quick, Speed Demon, Northstar...

...or if we're talking a signature character example, Synapse.

I figure the OP's asking - given THAT kind of character concept, how do you represent such a thing in CoH?

My oldest CoH character is a Dark Melee/Regen Scrapper. Regen on the basis that her speed's based on accelerated biology - she moves fast and heals fast. She uses Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Maul and Boxing as attacks; I can handwave the black clouds away as motion blur.

Obviously my original choice was motivated by Shadow Maul - but it works okay

More recently, I made a Soviet supersoldier speedster who was an Energy Melee/Energy Aura brute. I think Energy Aura looks pretty damn good alongside the superspeed travel glow, and especially awesome with the prestige power sprint that gives golden lines.

Energy Melee works...enh, reasonably well. However, Energy Transfer and Total Focus are kinda deal-breakers for me on a speedster. They're long and slow attacks - they have your character standing there and winding up for a single big blow.

I realise that Shadow Maul has comparable root time in terms of game mechanics, but visually speaking Shadow Maul is KAPOW-KAPOW-KAPOW-KAPOW-KAPOW.

Energy Transfer and Total Focus are like...okay, well, I'm gonna stand here for a bit...maybe a bit longer...hm, I wonder what's on TV...hey, maybe I should check the news...where was I...oh yeah...POW.

I don't think they're very speedstery.

Kinetics...works pretty good, actually, for speedster-type stuff. But then you need to figure out what other powerset you'll pair it with - gonna need to be a blast or control set, and that's kinda tricky. Pure comic book speedsters usually punch or ram into their targets - thus a melee AT fits better than a ranged one for simulating that, I think.

I have a Kin/Sonic defender - I see the Sonic blasts as controlled shockwave attacks and stuff like that.

You're correct. City of Villains launched together with Issue 6, 'Along Came a Spider'. A lot of folks think this means Going Rogue is likely to launch alongside an Issue as well, possibly Issue 17.

But there's some who believe it'll be launched without an accompanying Issue.

There's even a few folks who insist that Positron's statement that Issue 16 is not 'Going Rogue' doesn't mean anything, since strictly speaking Issue 6 wasn't 'City of Villains' either - Issue 6 was 'Along Came a Spider'.

Right now, we don't know. Your guess is as good as mine.

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There are still at least a dozen APP/PPP's that have 4 powers, while others have 5. When do we get more? I believe I heard a dev say that they would add more to the 4-powered APP/PPP, but when?

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See...the original plan wasn't to increase the epic pools to five powers. The devs wanted to keep the pools at four powers each. They were going to replace powers in the pools with new ones.

Why? Well, they apparently did datamining and concluded that some pools were better than others, some powers were unpopular and should be replaced with 'better' ones, etc.

A lot of players were very unhappy with that decision... especially folks who actually liked some of the powers they were taking away.

The devs realised that we really didn't like the idea, so changed their plans. Instead of removing stuff from the pools and replacing 'em with new stuff, they just added the new stuff in as additional options.

So the situation we have now is actually a compromise, not what the developers originally planned. As such, I doubt they've placed a high priority in expanding the remaining pools. It may still happen, but I figure it's low on their to-do list.

Remember, the power changes were supposed to benefit pools that weren't as good for whatever reason. That means the ones they didn't change are okay.

(QR)

1. We still don't know if we can customize the visual buff effects applied to other players. We only know for sure that you can colour a) your pets, and b) your own power effects. Until more information is released, this discussion is premature. It's a valid concern, but we don't have enough data.

2. As people have been pointing out, the game currently doesn't know the difference between buffs and debuffs. That's why we can't just delete most buffs; if you could, you could delete debuffs as well.

Empowerment station stuff can be deleted, as can the rewards from Mayhems and Safeguards, but those function as temporary powers - you're deleting the power that grants the buff, not the buff.

The devs could probably set it up so there's a difference between buffs and debuffs, letting us delete one but not the other. Or do some other kind of workaround - it seems some folks would like a Yes/No dialogue box for accepting buffs, like the Magic Pack tarot cards have now.

But while that's all theoretically possible, the devs would have to do a lot of work to make it happen. It's not an easy or trivial change, as some folks seem to think.

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The title to this thread is uninformative and encourages me to respond to it, as opposed to your actual question. I would suggest changing it to something more informative.

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Well, the original poster is named FinnegansWake ...

Wikipedia:[ QUOTE ]
Finnegans Wake is a work of comic fiction by Irish author James Joyce, which is recognised for its difficulty for the reader and its experimental style. [...] The entire book is written in an idiosyncratic language, consisting of multilingual puns and portmanteau words, which attempts to recreate the experience of sleep and dreams. Due to its expansive linguistic experiments, stream of consciousness writing style, literary allusions, free dream associations, and its abandonment of conventions of plot and character construction, Finnegans Wake remains largely unread by the general public.

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Clearly, this entire thread is art.

Point. =D

I stand corrected. I didn't know what Mono was, and didn't look the name up when it was mentioned earlier.

Good point, actually. I think you're right, and I'm wrong - it seems Dev Choice arcs don't give you progress towards badge or quasi-badge rewards.

I...uh, think. But that sounds more likely.

(QR) Mids Hero Designer is based on the Microsoft .NET Framework - it isn't a stand-alone programme, it needs the .NET Framework's base infrastructure to function.

Obviously the .NET Framework is only intended to run on Windows operating systems.

Therefore it's unlikely that we'll ever see a Mac-native version of Mids Hero Designer. I imagine it'd be possible to recode Mids, but you might as well make a new planner from scratch. It'd probably be easier.

Short Answer: No.

Long Answer: Kills in AE don't count towards such things, unless it's a Developer's Choice arc. DC arcs award things normally.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

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How is it that people think you can't play CoH from other countries? European servers aside, there are plenty of folks not in the US who play on the US servers....

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Yeah, I mean - I'm playing from the UK right now. They sell the European version of CoH on the shelves here, but I was already playing the US version of the game when I moved to London. So I didn't switch. I like my server and SG.

Heck, I didn't buy the game in America, either. I'm from Singapore. They sell the US version there. There's a whole bunch of folks in my SG from Asia and Australia.

Most MMOs do have region-specific versions, but there's nothing stopping you from getting an account for another region. Europeans tend to get separate servers from the US (partially for language reasons) - but a lot of British in particular like to play on American servers all the same.

Latin America and the Oceanic region rarely get their own servers, so folks from those parts of the world usually play on US servers too.

I have, though, encountered at least one MMO that DID restrict players to North America only; they could tell I wasn't in the US and didn't let me play. =P

(Suffice to say, they didn't get my money)

The fact that the top 100 ranking is based solely on prestige is very misleading, as Catwhoorg rightly notes.

A lot of SG/VGs are there just because they're old and have a lot of built-up prestige. There's a couple SGs on my server that are securely within the upper half or even upper third of the top 100 list...

...and I know for a fact those SGs are no longer active. They were very big when they were active, and so have tons of prestige. But the groups are now kaput. They still exist because there's a few characters left in each SG, belonging to people who don't play anymore.

I can say this with complete confidence; I was a member of both the groups I'm thinking of. I suspect a few others in the top 100 list are similar 'dud entries'.

My main SG's also quite highly placed in the top 100 for the server, but we're not well known. We have a lot of prestige...simply because we've been around for over four years. We're not a large or busy group.

First of all, I'm kinda puzzled why you said there isn't CoH in Europe. There's European servers.

Granted, the Euro population is much smaller than the US-based servers...in part because, for the most part, only European folks play on the Euro servers. The US servers get folks from Australia, Asia, South America, even some Europeans.

But...well, yeah, there's probably nothing you can do to get back your old SGs.

However, there's been some changes to SG management recently - there's a new 'Super-Leader' position and how leadership passes on is a bit different these days. If you do start a new SG, you shouldn't face the same problems in the future...if you learn the new system and do it right.