Armsman

Although peole will tell you CoH no longer supports or uses SLI, I still force split fram rendering in SLI mode; and I get a higher framerate than in Single GPU mode. I'm using two NVidia 7950GT's and get a good framerate 40+ in outdoor and 80+ in instances with everything enabled and World and Character detail at 200%; (with 4X and 16X AA in game settings ) so your rig should really fly.

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There is no debt in MA missions.
You may be only playing those?

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Umm, no, you do indeed get debt from MA mission defeats.

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I know that this isn't probably a bad thing, however I've noticed since I've renewed BOTH of my accounts last month, that none of my toons are receiving any debt whatsoever when they are defeated.

I use the time cards to activate my accounts. They expired last December and I didn't renew till last month (as I've already stated). At first I thought it was something to do with the Anniversary month, but now we are into June and still no debt accrued.

I'm probably just uninformed about something, but thought I would post to see if anyone else is having this issue.

Please be kind if it's something stupid

Thanks.

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Patrol Experience was added to the game in I12 (it's like 'Rest XP' in World of Warcraft); and it's something your characters gain while they are logged out. It does two things until you run out (which you can do if you play a lot):

1) Adds XP to your kills (except in MA arcs).

2) Is used 100% for debt when you die (again until it's used up.

It shows up as light blue on your EXP bar.

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Later today I will be upgrading my game machine from Windows XP Pro to Vista. I don't want to re-download the CoX content after I install... suggestions?

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Honestly (and seriously); SKIP Vista; wait for Windows 7 and save yourself some major headaches.

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2. A lot of us liked that awesome music playing when we installed the game. It's a matter of taste, personally.

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If you're into that kind of music, more power to ya.

But for the rest of us who DON'T want to hear it: give an option to kill it. I've 1000 songs on iTunes I'd rather be playing.

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You can always mute your speakers; and to date, I've yet to see a n MMO that DOESN'T play something in the background as it installs, even WoW.

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It also speaks nothing of this game's age. Sure they are plenty of long lived MMO's, but most of them had a heck of a lot more subs at their prime than CoX. Now they are operating at 1/10th or 1/5th of their heyday and still have similar numbers to CoX.

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Pre World of Warcraft - the MOST subscribers held by a Western MMO (ie don't bring up Liniage was S0E's Everquest at around 600K subs; and THAT was the 800 lbs. Gorilla pre-WoW. Most others either failed (Asheron's Call 2; The Matrix On-Line; Earth and Beyond); or hung around the 100K - 200K mark. Star Wars galaxies started at about 500K but due to SoE design and administrative mismanagement from the start only manages around 100K or so now (and probably woould have been pulled, except Lucas Arts doesn't want to admit ANYTHING in te Star Wars IP as a 'failure - but it is why the contracted with Bio-Ware to do a second Star Wars MMO - still in development).

CoH AT IT'S HIGHEST subscription rate managed about 220K subscriptions; so honestly, there hasn't been all that much flux. Will Champions On-Line (whenever it's released) cut into those subs? For a time, yes; but given that Jack Emeret's still at the helm; I suspect that within 6 months he'll do some sort of nerf of CO game change in the name of 'fun' that'll marginalize CO. As for DCUO - it's being administered by SoE - so for me, it's already a non-starter as I personally WILL NEVER pay money for anything done by SoE; but that's me.

As for the age issue, hell, (and IMO) - COH didn't really start to make major improvements until Jack split off. the fact is - (and for whatever reason) non 'High Fantasy' MMOs don't seem to attract players; and CoH is also still quite a different model in that there is no real 'endgame' structure. CoH 'Raids' - which ARE in effect the TFs and SFs are scattered all through the game - which is something that a lot of MMO players have trouble wrapping their heads areound a in the majoprity of other MMOs the 'game' (meaning big Raids) only start on ce you hit max level.

But again, to the OP's point; CoH ISN'T at one-fifth of it's original starting subscriber base; more like two-thirds; and as far as retention goes, it seems to be doing okay. Would they like more? You bet, but I'd say NCSoft is satisfied as long as this game sees a profit; and it's their only real Werstern sccess; but NCSoft makes their money off Liniage in Korea anyway - and they still have two million or so subcribers on that one.

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Thanks to those of you with thoughtful replies to my post. As you can see this is my first time posting to the forums however I am by no means new to the game. It was interesting to me that someone wrote the devs warned everyone not to use ae as a farm tool more or less. I never once saw this in any information on release notes or about descriptions of the ae system in general. Did I miss these instructions because I very rarely read the forums? Or is it because, dare I say it, I am a selective reader? As for the content of my post it would seem that nearly all aspects of this argument have been covered here in the forums but maybe someone can answer me this: What damage will occur to the game or its players if farms were "permitted" to exist?

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Well, aside from being in the EULA - there was a post made to the Forums by Positron himself that was discussed in game for at least a week afterward. Unless you took a long CoX game break recently, or don't have any of the Broadcast or Chat channels select in you chat window, the uproar/furor over all this was pretty hard to miss in some fashion.

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Wow, I retyped it once more, once again looking at each individual key (bout fifth time I've tried it) it now works.

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Was your Cap Lock accidently on at some point and maybe you didn't notice?

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If it's a Linksys BEFW11S4 throw it against the wall immediately and put it out of its misery.

Oh.

And ping 192.168.1.1 first (your router) and after that ping your DNS address (provider)

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Belkin, which is just as bad
Also, we have a winner. Request timed out about half the time over several attempts to ping DNS IP. Tracert shows packets dropping at hop 1 at the earliest, though my router pings are all coming up clean. Wired connection, if that counts for anything.

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It could be your provider's DNS are overloaded at times. there are a couple of sites that provide free DNS services, and I've had friends who had success wth both of these. Remember that in the modern inyternet, getting ON the net is easy; but if you don't have a reliable DNS to reolve domain TCP/IP addresses, your 'connection may as well be dead. Still you can use these as a test to see if it is your provider or your local router.

http://www.opendns.com/

or

http://www.freedns.com/

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Spoke to soon. It's back again and worse than ever.

I'm back to thinking it's a heat problem. My video card is too hot to touch in certain places if i touch it right after it crashes.

Same video card for the last two+ years and a the problem is only 10 months old.

The on card fan is working.

(It just crashed again while typing this. I was touching the video card at the time. (I know it's not a very good idea but I'm all out of good ideas so I'm moving to the questionable ones.) I have a leadtek 7600GT with the most resent drivers i could find.

Any ideas?

Charlie

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I'd still bet it's your PSU that's dying. PC components need a reliable power flow. I will bet you one day soon, you'll hit the sitch and the only thing you'll hear is a PSU fan. Having items installed that drew more watts than it's rated for probably didn't help either. Remember that PSU WILL do over what their rated to some degree. Plus; if it IS your Video card, you'll need a PSU upgrade anyway to be able to run it.

At a certain point, it becomes more costly to try and 'patch up' an existing rig. At some point you have to either be willing to live with the limitations as it degrades; or bite the bullet andbuild a new 'more modern' one that'll still be somewhat obsolete in 6 months.

(And yes, I'm trying to interject some humor - and also realize that in the current economy finding the funds for a new rig may not be easy, or possible).

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So I seem to be having an issue with the Mission Architect missions that I create.

First of all, when I enter a particular area (i.e. a 'floor' of a mission) all of the NPCs say their unaware and aware dialog all at once. Spamming me with chat bubbles through walls and across maps. They never repeat themselves either. After the floor is loaded there is a burst of talking then dead silence. It's hard to make the place seem alive like that.

Second: When I spawn a new mission objective (via finding a clue or something like that) guarded by enemies, they say nothing until I attack them or are right upon them. Then they spew all of their dialog at once.

Anyone able to tell me about this? I have posted this on the Architect Help Forum, but I figured I should report it here. The general consensus is that this is a bug... not an oversight on my part.

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It's a bug, and it's been there since day one of the MA. I've bugged it for Battle NPCs and Guard NPCs. It may get fixed, or it may not.

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I really find that most people don't leave feedback at all. I think, out of the 40 or so that have played my arc, only a fraction have rated it and only 3 or 4 have left feedback in game with a couple others doing reviews on cohmissionreview.com .

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If you have a (40) after your arc, that is the number of people who rated it. The MA doesn't keep track of the number of players who started it, or played, but didn't give it a rating.

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this game should lower its monthly fee to $9.99 instead of 14.99 imo. its getting old. its 5yrs old now. any game this old should not be going for 14.99/month still. if the rate wasn't so high i would keep my subscription going for a longer time. since its so high i will only subscribe for one more month before quiting.

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all this fuss over an extra 16.6 cents per day?

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Problem is many think that 5 should only be reserved for near godhood perfect arcs. With most stuff averaging a 3. If the person REALLY feels it wasn't good then 1 in that instance to them is perfectly valid. Remember, 1 is NOT the lowest rating in this system. (And yet another flaw of why the system needs to die in FIRE btw).

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Seriously. If the system worked, we'd have arcs in the hall of fame. By rating GOOD arcs with a 5 instead of GODLIKE arcs, we actually increase the number of GOOD arcs to choose from. As it stands, we have crap to choose from and no HoF.

Thumbs up, thumbs down, with a weight on the thumbs up (it takes 3 down votes to counter one up) is the best way to combat griefing. Sure it won't be perfect either but at least it will act as a filter because I have to believe that there are more reasonable players out there than griefers. Over time, the good stuff will float to the top even with the griefing 24/7.

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^^^
No, under that system - with the '5 star cartels' - it just means the mediocre and what remains of the explotive farms will float to, and STAY at the top; and with just a 'thumbs up' to go by; yoiu'll sift through more pages than you do now.

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Overheard in Atlas Park.

"How do I get to Kings Row?" - said by a level 50 tank, who also advertised himself as "best tank ever". Was Invuln, with nothing but passives and no taunt.

"Where do I get level 30 enhancements?" - said by a level 31 WARSHADE.

"How come my tank keeps dying?"
"Did you turn your toggles on?"
"What's a toggle?"
*facepalm*

I've also seen some HILARIOUS builds.

DM/SR scrapper: All of the primary. Had the speed, Teleport, and Leaping pools (unlocked with Flurry, TP Foe, and Jump Kick respectively), no fitness pool, his secondary consisted of: Focused Fighting, Agile, and Practiced Brawler, and NOTHING ELSE.

We invited him on an STF, I wondered why he kept dying and opened his info window in the 3rd mission. I *facepalm*ed and resolved to just let the idiot die, since he was doing some of the stupidest things I've ever seen, and blaming the rest of us for his deaths. He kept yelling at the kin for not healing him from 3 rooms away. He charged Dr. Aeon solo, before the rest of the team was done with Wretch. Yes, he got kicked for that.

From what I've seen, the idiots tend to flock to scrappers and tanks. My theory is they kept dying all the time on the squishier ATs and decided they sucked because they couldn't play them.

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And, yet, the folks defending the explotive farming; and decrying the Devs response still like to claim - "hey, doesn't affect you..." (Hell, I STILL have yet to get past Gohst Widow on an STF - only TF I've never managed to complete; and I've been a good teams - but GW is the proverbial brick wall most times.)

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Specifically, if I make an arc with an AV, what difficulty converts him to an EB?

In the same way, will an EB ever convert to a regular boss?

And in reverse, will an EB ever "convert up" to an AV on max difficulty/team size?

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See Here

(Beaten to the punch too)

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If an arc is unplayable due to patch woes... it should be flagged so that it doesn't show up in the search options AND a note sent to the email address of record.

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QFT - hell, they send two e-mails out each time you /bug something, so I don't see why this wouldn't be doable.

The funniest grief I had (zero stars) was the comment - "Your arc is bad and you should feel bad."

Now, while I can certainly believe someone would not like that arc (although up until that point, all feedback has been positive; or actually constructive) enough to give it a zero star rating; it does come across to me as a grief by someone who somehow believes someone's ego is so 'fragile' they'd be upset over this.

Like any other system in any MMO that allows for direct player input; ANY public player ratings system they impliment will be griefable; and there will be people who enjoy griefing just for the sake of it.

So, never take anything personally, know when to accept good critisim, when to ignore bad criticism; and realize that nothing you create will ever be universally liked by anyone, and you won't always get a 'fair shake'; and their's nothing you can do to change any of that.

(Funny thing was - it was the 25th rating, so it got me a badge, and it's still at 4 stars overall )
It amazes me people bother

Hi:
The arrc of your I played was:
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Arc Name: The Double-Edged Sword
Arc ID: 4384
Morality: Heroic
Length: Long
Level Ranges: Three missions 30-54, two missions 40-54
Difficulty: Medium- Final mission contains 1 AV, but with optional Allies; a few collections, several rescues (Captives and Allies)
Synopsis: At first it seemed like business as usual for Crey Industries. But when a shady experiment spirals out of control, it's up to you to stop the growing threat.


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I'm not an authority on spelling or grammar; but from what I sa and read; no glaring errors jumped out at me.

There was one piece of contact dialogue I found strange:

"I've debriefed Will Lindsey -- the kid you rescued from Crey? He had some interesting information, but it can wait 'til later. Right now, we have a more urgent target."

Because I couldn't figure out why " -- the kid you rescued from Crey?" has a ? at the end of that sentence.

Other than this, nothing bad from the 'technical' end.

Overall, found the plot and pasing fine, with a Overall, a good mix of maps and Villian groups.

My Level 40 Grav/FF Controller (with Pet) sailed along fine (no faceplants); until the mission where he's sent to check on Jenny; the Carnie group at the end was a very difficult fight (3 faceplants); and was the only real downside (for me) that I encountered (didn't affect my final rating as I ALWAYS find Carnie LT's on up difficult, period.

I don't have a lot more feedback because overall it was constructed well, no missing ore 'trick' type objectives; and the collections. hostages, Allies, NPCs, etc. all worked, and added or fed into the plot.

With that said, I'd like to get a review on the following MA arc of mine when you have the chance (Got some good feedback prior to the last patch, but have had to unfortunaely change a map because the original one I had on Mission 2 was removed from the MA; and I had to also tweak the Custom Group I created post patch, and haven't had a lot of feedback on that aspect since):

Title: Is it Live or is it Memory-X?
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Story Arc ID: 70210
Author’s Global Chat Handle: @Armsman
Length: Very Long (5 missions)
Alignment: Heroic
Type: Story-Focused
Groups: 5th Column, Crey, Custom Group
Has: Bosses; AV (Scales to EB based on team size/difficulty setting).

Story Description: The 5th Column is building a device to control the world. Can you save the world from TOTAL DOMINATION?! (Hey it worked to get my Villians and Vigilantes pen and paper RPG group interested back in the day.)

Designer Notes: The Arc can actually be soloed by most Scrapper (Level 50 MA/SR), Tank (Level 41 SS/INV) and MasterMind (Level 39 Robot/Traps) builds. My level 41 Gravity/Force Field Controller made it through mission 3 solo with no issues, but starting getting defeats in mission 4; so if you’re a support class or a blaster, you probably need a team-mate. This arc is actually based on an adventure I ran players through in the “Villians & Vigilantes” pen and paper RPG a number of years back. I was surprised at how much of the original ‘flavor’ I was able to keep in adapting it to fit in the CoX universe. There was only really one element I couldn’t include due to MA limitations.

Thanks.

Read the OP and your character descriptions and I have an arc to offer up:

Arc offered to which character?: Silent Spy
Arc Name: Title:Is it Live or is it Memory-X?
Arc ID: 70210[/b]
Faction:Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name:@Armsman
Level Range: 35-50
Soloable?: (For the character offered to: Yes)
Length: Very Long (5 missions)
Difficulty Level: (For Character offered to: Medium)
Synopsis: The 5th Column is building a device to control the world. Can you save the world from TOTAL DOMINATION?! (Hey it worked to get my Villians and Vigilantes pen and paper RPG group interested back in the day.)
Estimated Time to Play: 75 - 90 minutes

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However, it is entirely possible to identify really poorly done arcs or farm arcs very quickly; one needn't go completely through the mission in every case to know when they've hit something that is just bad.

For myself, normally I just quit such missions without rating, though there have been two or three that I one-starred for inappropriate content issues. Again, those were easily identified very early.

I do sympathize with ratings griefing (I've gotten one or two myself), it just seems that there's not much that can be done in many cases. It's not so much a technology issue, it's a people issue. There's no way a program can gage the intent of the rater.

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By requiring the voter to spend some minimum amount of time in the first mission (say, five minutes) the devs could eliminate most griefing and ticket padding as well.

Yes, it means we would have to wait five minutes to poke someone in the eye and give them a zero rating. But seriously, if we're not willing to give someone even the common courtesy of actually looking at some minimal part the mission, how much can our rating be worth?

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You're kidding, right? All it would mean is any Griefer would need to sit at the mission entrance for 5 minutes and/or kill one or two MOBs, and then give a zero start rating. Also, if you make it too long; people will not stick around to rate anything, and then authors wil also get frustrated as it seems no one rates their arcs.

As othershave said above you no matter what ratings system you employ; if ppeople want to grief it, they WILL find a way to do it. No amount of software checks/balances will ever stop that behaviour.

No matter how well you write something (or think you write something); you WILL ALWAYS GET three types of responses:

1) Someone will LOVE it, and think it's the best thing ever done.

2) Somone will be 'Meh'; and not really have a strong felling regarding the work either way.

3) Someon will LOATHE it and think is's the worst piece of garbage ever created.

There is no literary (or other type) of work released to the public that is 100% accepted in type 1) above...NONE.

When you're dealing with such a diverse audience (which IS what we have in this game); you will never have something that is 100% positively accepted. The best you can hope for is that more people react (and rate) favoribly then those who do not.

But again, as longer as human perception is involved; there will be no way to eliminate those who want to grief; nor can you expect everyone to give you a 'fair shke'. If a mission has a real pet peeve of someone's - they will probably give you a zero star rating an just move on.

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Problem is that you still can't read the Mission Debriefings, which often have a lot of information as well.

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Definitely needs to be fixed. I usually put as much into the debriefings as I do the intro or sendoff.

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I'm in the same boat - depending on the story (for intricate SFMAs); I need all the text space I can get. (But I DO make paragrahs and don't just present a 'Wall of Text')

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Maybe then it would help to install DirectX 9?

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^^^^
I doubt there's a Version of DX9 that's compatible with Windows 7 - DX11 SHOULD be backwards compatible; but again, if you're using a beta; it's good to try and isolate issues before trying what I would call a bad workaround. Betas ARE to find compatability issues; so if it does turn out to be a DX11 issue; I would think BOTH Microsoft and teh CoX Devs would want to know so it can be fixed in the next Windows 7 release candidate.

It may be that the current RC of Windows 7 (which is still in beta) may have an issue with the CoX client. And while CoX uses OpenL for video generation, it still uses DirectX for sound; so again, it could be a DirectX 11 issue (again, remeber everything on the Windows 7 OS is still beta).

You could try and isolate it by disabling you soundcard entirely (although be aware that er-enabling afterwards may require you to completely reinstall and re-tweak you sound drivers); which would take DirectX out of the picture as a probable cause entirely).

But again, this is why it's Windows 7 beta.

Ignore it - it means nothing. Often after new drivers come out, you get that message because it isn't on the CoH driver list. As long as the game runs fine with no errors, you're good.