AmazingMOO

I do not get all the slavering for Street Justice. I mean, I was excited for Beam Rifle and was happy to buy it first day it was available... but the excitement over SJ goes so far above and beyond what I understand that it seems odd to me... like waiting in line for a Star Wars prequel odd.

Would someone explain to me what makes Street Justice so hypeful and eagerly anticipated? Is it the new mechanics? Is it the animation? Is it the fact that it's a punching set that scrappers can use?

I don't get it.

I can confirm a workaround works for this. I had a premium SG leader invite me, a VIP, to their SG. I was able to pay the rent to get the base turned back on.

Step 1. Find willing VIP to stand between you and the registrar
Step 2. Set your permissions so that any member of you group can pay upkeep.
Step 3. Invite said willing VIP to your SG.
Step 4. Willing VIP/New temporary SG mate takes the check from you and hands it to the registrar.

There is NO WAY this is working as intended.

I21 had a ton of new content. It's no surprise that there are some things rough around the edges, simply due to time constraints.

One of the areas that continues to need work is the Paragon Store. It will likely continue to need work the entire time its in operation, just like the rest of the game. There are some serious shortcomings in this sub-application that really should be addressed.

Please note that this is not a 'You're doing it wrong! Fix it or else I'll leave!' post. This is a critique of data flow, e-commerce site design, and usability.

Some of the things I mention here may already be in development. If so, great! Some may have been mentioned before, especially during the VIP beta.


- "Sort by" currently has 4 options: "Best Selling", "Lowest Cost First", "Highest Cost First", "Alphabetical by Name". The options its missing are "Newest Items First" and "Sale Items First".


- The Item List contains 4 items per page, despite there being plenty of space for scroll bars. Instead, we have a page selector below the four items to jump to different pages.

This is not ideal for players or sales. Players should be able to browse more casually and scroll between two different items to compare them if they want. They're more likely to see items they want and therefore more likely to purchase those items if they don't have to hop around or try to remember which page they're on.

I recommend also adding a 'Show X items per page' widget next to the page number indicator. There should be a 10, 20, and 50 selector here.


- Detailed View isn't very. It contains an expanded textual description of items, but misses a lot of other stuff.

The screens for purchasable enhancements don't contain any enhancement data such as 'This enhancement boosts Accuracy by X% at level 30 and scales to boost Accuracy by X% at level 50.'

The screens for purchasable costume pieces merely contain a larger version of the icon for that item. There are no 'in-game' screen shots of the item in use.


- Detailed View doesn't have a 'Back' or 'Continue Shopping' button. Players have to re-navigate to where they were if they decide not to put an item in their wish-list or cart. That's bad flow. It means it's that much more likely that a player will give up shopping rather than continue browsing.

Note that there IS a '<-' button at the top of the shop browser window, but that it does NOT return the player to where they were. It returns them to the beginning of the category. It works like a browser 'back' button until you're actually depending on it taking you to the last page you saw. Then it doesn't work that way any more. Inconsistent controls are design flaws that needs to be fixed with high priority.


- There is no purchase history. If you navigate to the 'My Account' area and go through the confusing hassle of logging into the NCSoft website, you will be shown a purchase history of things you have bought with your credit card... subscription time or points.

What you are not shown at any point is a history of what you've bought with your Paragon Points.


In a similar vein,

- Bundles don't seem to indicate any sub-items you may have already purchased. It makes sense that a player might buy an item as a once-off, decides he likes it so much that he wants the bundle, and then buys the bundle to complete the set.

However, there doesn't appear to be any place that shows a player which or how many items he has already purchased in a particular bundle.


- Actually, There is no indicator that you have already purchased an item by itself or as part of a bundle at all. Again, this gets doubly confusing and is inconsistent because VIP players have 'Buy Now' buttons removed from items they received as part of their VIP subscription. Those buttons are not removed from items they've already purchased.

Likewise, if you've purchased a bundle, items that are part of that bundle still appear to be purchasable.

Even if you purchase an item or bundle, the 'Buy Now' button does not disappear.

Again, this is an inconsistent control and needs to be fixed with a high priority to avoid making potential customers confused or angry.


I think that, overall, the Paragon Store is going to be a great, profitable addition to the game. It has the potential to be a great resource to players, and a great resource for NCSoft to help encourage players to part with their cash. However, it needs work. It's ALWAYS going to need work, but right now it's in a 'barely finished' state and needs a lot of polish and love before it can live up to its potential.

In 'Confront the Skull Leader in the office complex' in the new Atlas content, the player speaks to Deborah Rosenfeld and agrees to watch her via a hidden camera from inside a building.

This mission works basically like a disguise mission. The player's model is changed to that of Deborah's and the powers are greyed out.

However, the player's name is not hidden, so it appears that Deborah has changed her name:



Either way, it gives away that it's a 'disguise' mission in disguise.

Last night I was in Atlas, recruiting for 'Death from Below'. I noticed some serious problems.

The first problem was that while F2P players seemed interested, they were having trouble finding me to express that interest since they couldn't respond to me in broadcast or private tells.

A couple of them who were in visual range of me walked up to me so that they could express interest in local chat.

The second problem is that there was some friction in the help channel when f2p players started using it to look for groups. The channel nazis (in /help, really? *sigh*) discouraged them from using it.

There are a few things that can be done about this. First of all, as a player, you can make it easier on f2p players by telling them where you are when recruiting for an open team. 'I'm standing in front of City Hall' or the like.

Second, right now, /help is the closest thing to a global channel that f2p players can get. Don't discourage them from using it. Heck, treat them nicely as possible. We WANT these guys to stick around and play with us, and hopefully become premium or VIP players!

The devs can also help us out here.

Give f2p players access to the /req channel. It's a channel that can be easily filtered by other players who don't want to see it, and can be used to better coordinate groups.

Additionally, to help avoid the friction in /help, it'd be a great idea to create a similar, server-wide channel that can be used by f2p players. Call it something like /f2p or /lfg.

Female tattered pants are not available in the costume creator.

However, unlike the Scarves for Female shirts, if you have a costume save file with tattered pants, it can be loaded successfully.

My thoughts on board changes:

I've always thought it a bit odd that there was a separate section for "Supergroup & Villaingroup Recruitment" and "Player Events" outside of the Server boards. I think that these should either be merged into the Server boards or made a sub-board of the individual server boards.

"Player Guides" is another distraction. It should be rolled into the individual areas the guides cover. If I'm looking for a guide on how to build a scrapper, I should look in the Scrapper board rather than 'Player Guides'.

We need a new board for Trial and TF strategy. Right now there are guides mixed into 'Player Guides' that really need their own sub area.

"Archetypes & Powers General Discussion" needs to be rolled into the individual AT boards. The AT boards themselves should probably NOT be merged. Keep one for each basic AT, one for Khelds, and one for VEATs.

PVP areas should probably be merged. PVPers may not agree.

Euro Lounge and Oceanic Lounge should probably be rolled into 'General Discussion'. Ideally, they should be made sub-boards of 'General Discussion' if possible.

"Screenshots & Fan creations" should probably be merged with "Multi-Media City of Heroes and Villains".

In various places, the game designers and developers have made it known that they dislike hoarding and try to prevent it from happening in the game. I've never really thought much about it other than a small, schadenfreude-fueled grin from time to time.

However, last night, I caught myself thinking, 'Of course I don't have enough incarnate salvage to make a new enhancer. I hardly ever do trials anymore. Those massive piles of Astral merits? What about them? Ah. Well. Yes... Er..."

I haven't spent a single empyrean or Astral merit on threads or salvage since well before the Incarnate Vendors were added to the game. Despite the fact that I've purchased all the costume pieces available from Astral Christy, I just KNOW there's a chance that the developers are going to lock more costume pieces behind the incarnate system and am, indeed, HOARDING, against the day whether it comes or not.


Why do people hoard? In the real world, people hoard because of fear or worry about possible shortages in the future.

Grandmother Schmidt hoarded canned food up until a few weeks before she died. As a young woman, she'd starved during a WW2-related famine in Europe. Despite the fact that a famine would likely never hit Montana during her lifetime, she'd be damned if she was going to go hungry again out of simple lack of preparation.

The rich hoard money to ensure that one day they and their descendants will still be rich.

Geeks hoard comic books because someday they may want them to reread or sell (despite there being massive DVD collections and a poor market for comics).

In game, players hoard because they perceive that, sooner or later, there's going to be a situation when the hoarded items will come in handy-- like me hoarding Astrals and Empyreans in case new costume pieces are locked behind the Incarnate content.

I had a buddy who played some time back. He was one of the i3-era fire tanks who'd herd vast numbers of enemies and kill the with burn patches. Even after i6, he'd spend hours soloing in the Crash Site (pre i9).

When I chatted with him about it, he was CONVINCED that he was hoarding experience points. As soon as the game developers raised the level cap, all those Rikti he'd been slaughtering would be retroactively be added to his experience bar, and he'd immediately be at the level cap again when everyone else would be struggling to reach 51.


A lot of the players I've spoken to are convinced that as soon as new incarnate abilities are added to game that they will be accompanied by yet ANOTHER currency. If we're very lucky, there will be a crushingly punitive exchange for Astrals or Empyreans to the new currency. Having looked at the above, I'm starting to agree with them.

Hoarding is a natural result of purchasable content. As long as there is content in the game in the form of costume pieces, new powers, or the like that is purchasable through the invention or merit system, players are going to hoard.

If the devs dislike hoarding as much as they indicate, the only way to stop players from using hoarded resources to buy this new stuff is by introducing a new kind of merit or game currency.

"The Aspect of the Pillar remains dark despite your best efforts to coax it to life."

I've verified that at least one other player is experiencing this same issue.

One of the frustrations I and I imagine at least some of the other players have is logging broken items and then not hearing about them again until they happen to show up on a patch note, which could be months or even years away, depending on the priorities of the developers tasked with fixing them.

For example, there's a thread on the bug forum about missing costume pieces since i21 launched. It's had no developer posts and the posters there have no clue whether or not their concerns have been heard, whether or not anyone's working on fixing the issue, or even what priority the issue has been assigned. When it's actually going to be fixed is a complete shot in the dark at that point.

Of course many of the developers don't have rednames, so even if one is going to fix a certain bug that's a player complain, they may or may not have access to post an acknowledgement on the forum.

To help address this issue and reduce player frustration, I propose opening up whatever bug tracking system the developers are using so that players can submit bug reports directly to it, view the priority assigned to bug fixes, and see if those bug fixes are being addressed or delayed.

To ensure developer privacy, dev comments and posts to this system could be hidden from players.

Thoughts?

I was playing with the Barbarian costumes today and noticed a few problems as they apply to female models.

First, unlike the Victorian/Steampunk corsets, the Barbarian corsets cover much lower on the body. There are no 'With Skin' pieces that fit completely under the corset so that it will appear as the only thing your character is wearing. Even 'Eden' and 'Bandeau' poke out the top on both back and front. The closest piece is the new 'Barbarian' top, and it protrudes from the top on the front just a bit.

Of course a 'nude' top is out of the question. However, we could really use a minimalist top that fits just under these corsets.

Second, that Barbarian top with skin is awesome, but it comes with a REALLY muscular texture for the model's chest, arms, neck and waist. I say 'muscular', but if you're using it on a character with a slender physique, it looks more 'wrinkly'. Worse, it contrasts with the more smooth bottoms. Even the Barbarian bottom with skin is quite a bit smoother.

I'd personally really like to see this expanded into 'Barbarian Muscular' and a 'Barbarian Smooth' options.

-- Edit --

Again, unlike the Victory Corsets, the Barbarian corsets do not show up as usable details with the Steampunk Jackets.

-- End Edit --

Thanks for this great set, Artists! I hope you can add some refinements to make it perfect soon!

Sam and Aura have pegged the way I feel about both Incarnates and this issue perfectly.

I did the new Non-Abandoned Sewer Trial this evening for the first time. It was fun, quick, rewards communication, and limited to a group of 8... pretty much every darn thing I've asked for in trials.

GOOD JOB, DEVS!

/Applause

That said, I distinctly remember playing it before as an AE arc.

I think I read and/or heard that Dr. Aeon (maybe?!) got his job with AE arcs as part of his resume. Is this the ultimate expression of one of those arcs?

I can confirm the missing scarves as well. I have a character who wears one of the school uniform shirts over a leotard. The scarves appear for her when I log her in, but when I try to load her saved costume, it generates the following error:

The Sailor Scarves for female shirts appear to be missing from the costume creator since the revamp.

Dang! They CAN be turned off! Thank you guys for pointing out the options. I spent quite a bit of time looking for them last night and never saw them.

I count buttons on the main menu, the enhancement screen, the crafting screen, the costume creator, and two big 'ol buttons on the main game window that can't be hidden or turned off. Bit much, don't ya think?

Yes, I get that it should be presented to F2P customers at all time since that's going to be NCSoft's primary revenue stream from 'Freedom'. However, VIP customers are already paying customers. We don't NEED buttons on the screen that we can't hide or get rid of to encourage us to spend money.

Can we, VIPs, please turn the screen real-estate-eating buttons off?

Rough rollouts are a pain for both the customers and developers. What a lot of people don't know is that it's also torment for people who stand between them, like community reps, network technicians, and everyone else involved even tangentially in the rollout process.

Zwillinger broadcasted via his UStream for about 12 hours yesterday. My throat would be so sore I couldn't talk.

I imagine that a LOT of folks at NCSoft had at least one if not two sleepless nights as they worked through the rollout and subsequent troubleshooting.

Having been through that myself, I would like to give you guys a very serious 'Thank You'.

/respect knuckles

Wow. Uh... perky. And pointy. Very pointy.

So why can't my more voluptuous characters be that pointy?