Ad Astra

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Be that as it may, in this analogy, CoH IS a novel. It's a story that has a beginning, middle, and end -- an arc defined by a characters level. It is not a reference book. There are methods for players to replay moments from their past, essentially referring back to early pages in our analogy (Ourboros), but these are still stories.

My proposal merely suggests that they have an end.

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But why do we need to have an END?

Your view of the game is that it's a novel with a beginning, middle and end. My view of the game is that it's a collection of stories, with more being added all the time. My characters can have all the stories I want them to have and are not limited to stopping at some arbitrary point in their careers.

It's more like the City is a comic book series. There are some stories in some of the books with a beginning, middle & end. Then the next book comes out and the story continues. As do the adventures of my level 50 character and her 60+ siblings.

OP, Aett and the others have already laid out reasons why your very beginning presuppositions are wrong, as well as your ancillary presupposition that there is "nothing" to do at level 50 (as evidenced by your own behavior of deleting any character that gets to level 50). And now you've added

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since the majority of the game content is best played as part of a team.

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So many ways you are misreading what others have found fun and that *your* way to play is the only way.

And BTW, this is a terrible idea.

P.S. I'm not sure whether I'm "old guard" or not. My reg date is a while back, but my post count isn't "cartel" level. I hope it's OK if I also express my disagreement with the OP, since it seems to be breaking his idea of how the forums operate.

And you may or you may not have a point.

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hmmm, math whiz...

math nerd + gaming nerd = hot ?

not your typical equation for hotness.

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After reading through and participating in this thread, it appears that your assessment is very wrong and that equation is *very* typical here.

You got a problem with that? Think very carefully before you answer, grasshopper.

I can't recall exactly, but it was something like 2 years or more. I'm alao altoholic.

Now if you want to ask about my second 50 - that one will be five years, give or take, since I have 2 characters who were in my first batch of alts now in their 40s and lkely to be my second 50, probably before the end of 2009, unless I get distracted again.

My highest villain, rolled on pre-start weekend, is only 41.

If you are enjoying the characters, 50 is just another number you eventually reach. Don't sweat it.

A bit of advice - don't scrap the level 21. One of the level 40ish characters I mentioned above almost was scrapped because she ended up being a WinterLord baby (in the mid20s when I had no idea how to play her). I kept her around though until I got more used to the game - and she has all the anniversary badges and is now tons of fun. The same thing might happen with your poor level 21.

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My target demographic for women seems to be in the 30-50 age range. They come up to me in the food store and tell me I need to eat more.

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I tend to attract younger women for some reason. My wife is 19.

When I was in my teens, I attracted older women. I guess I looked older or something..

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They usually just want me to eat more. I've got a metabolism most people would die for; eat what I like, and still weigh in at 140 lbs at 6'4". Downside is the fact it's nearly impossible for me to put on muscle or weight of any kind.

And jumping in late to the hair discussion, I'm in that awkward stage where I'm growing my hair long again (damn law enforcement haircuts), and it's too long to be tidy with just combing, and too short for a ponytail of any dignity. Any suggestions?

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First of all - I hate you and your darn freakish metabolism!

To answer the question (I am assuming you are male) - as they say on all those TLC makeover shows - use "products" (styling gels & such).

We femailes have it a bit easier as hair grows out - there are lots of cute little clippy things and headbands and such to help, although there is definitely an awkward stage in growing out your hair. That's why I haven't cut mine shorter than a couple inches below my shoulders for 10 years or so.

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Honestly, if you think you will be gone that long (over 45 days), your best bet is to place someone you trust (and will be more active than you are) in a Leader position.

When you come back, if leadership has changed, the person you appointed would be able to give it back to you. Of course, he/she could also choose not to do so - that can be a risk.

The other alternative is to kick everyone that is not your alt out of the group. It will be waiting for you upon your return (most likely with rent owing). But that's not really a good way to treat your friends if you value keeping their friendship.

The theater is definitely something to see. I created a character on Freedom just to tour that entire base - total win!

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So, could someone tell me what is the best item to use as a floor? What can you use that you cannot see through from the bottom??

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I use a layer of desks most times. The inderside of the gray w/drawers makes a nice patterned ceiling underneath. The regular wood with drawers gives a nice smooth surface (ok, there is a grid pattern but it's faint) on bth the ceiling of the room underneath and the upper floor.

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Where do you find or how do you get the statues (in particular of the man with his arms out) and the railings that look like bars that I have seen in some of the photos?

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The floating statue of a man with arms spread out is the "Mystic Advisor" which is a Control Auxiliary (Arcane). Invent it on a Forge (tier 1 IIRC).

The railing with bars is a line of floor lamps mushed together.

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The Vill base I am builder for is pretty extensive and would take a lot to redesign so I am learning some new stuff in our hero base which is pretty bare bones as far as decorations go.
I play on Triumph and would greatly appreciate if some one had the time to look at what I have so far or had some hints to pass along.

Thanks...Papa Slade

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My Villain base os on Triumph - combination of decorative & functional on a relatively small budget - it's a 3 person group of alts and the others haven't been playing as much, although we did get the Prestige Grant of 2007, so it's a couple million prestige base. It has one multi-level room using desks as a floor as I described above.

Glad to give tours and advice - PM me here and we can set something up.

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Wish I could share and impress. There's a reason I keep pictures off me OFF the Internet. Then again, I have a picture of myself on my desktop.

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I keep pictures of me off the Internet, too. It's not too difficult, since cameras start crying when pointed at me, and few people are so cold-hearted as to force them to actually take a picture. Except those yearbook photographers back in high school. Man, those guys were cold.

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Am I the rare gamer that likes the way he looks? I've got a messed up nose, I'm at *least* 20 pounds overweight, I've got a full head of hair but it's been likened to a grey afro, a troll-doll and/or a monchichi, and I STILL think I'm sexy.

I ain't skeered.

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I don't mind the way I look either. I'm not..."Fat" per se, but a bit overweight. And I have a goatee, which gives me a sexy fayse . It's not like I get actively pursued by girls, but every once in a while at the store I'll get looked at.

Unfortunately it's usually some old gramma.

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Hey, Spazz, sweetie - she's just older, she's not dead.

And now after that pyramid, I gotta add:

Pix or it didn't happen!

(I think we had a pic from Cherokee upthread, you others are slacking)

That's OK - it could have been anthrax

She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie....

Thanks for trying, Fulmens.

The expense is mainly one of Prestige, even with reduced pricing, although the Inf* cost of Invention Salvage for teleporters is a one-time large expense, relatively speaking.

But much bigger problems are a very wonky Base Editing tool and the general lack of any attention or development from the Devs. I believe the last time we got *anything* new was either the Oro Pillar or the Inventions Worktable, and we have had one of our tools removed (base salvage). Very discouraging.

We had hopes for Sunstorm as a Dev of our own, but he's disappeared.

Energy/electric - even more KB than energy/energy. They can't hit you when they are flat on their backs.

OR

Fire/ice - fire for the massive damage, ice as some control so they can't reach you to hit you.

Sonic is another good soloing primary with the -res.

May I vote more than once? I come from a fine old tradition of ballot-box stuffing.

Voter fraud FTW!

Yay! I'm in, but can't decide between these:

Brighid Frost - 34 fire/ice blaster
Agoniste - 32 fire/rad controller
Nerys - 30 rad/rad defender

Team 1 please!

I will look at team make-up and decide that way, once the team is more fixed. I like all 3 of them about equally, so that doesn't help. I'm such an altoholic.

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Lemme try and summarize what I've learned and see if there's anything I can teach:

1) Existing bases already have more prestige than they need.
2) People with new bases are likely to be infl-poor as well.
3) If you're making infl by playing the game, you're better off making prestige by playing the game.
4) People value 100 million inf far more than 200K prestige.
5) (do I understand this one right?) The inf costs of crafting for a new base are signficant. What is "significant?" a million? Ten million? Fifty?

... So a small percentage of the population, coming in with new bases, would be the only people who would want to convert. And they'd want to make [say] 100 million for themselves before they were willing to make 100 million for the base.

You can do that in the market. KeepDistance made a billion (1000 million) in a month, starting from zero. I can make 50 million in a weekend, easily, if I start with 50 million in cash. It probably takes me a couple hours to get the first five million but after that it just multiplies.

EXAMPLE: I made 13 million on an Impervium Armor, level 40, Res/Rech just now. Bid filled overnight. Spent about 9.5 million, it sold for 25, minus 10% Wents fees = 22.5. You can check my work- I buy for numbers ending in 908.

What would be useful for people to know? How to get from 20 million to 200? How to get from 0 to 20 million? Or do I have no real audience here?

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I'm going to answer your bolded conclusion/question, because the other 4 summarized pretty well IMO.

For a beginning base builder, the most significant cost is the cost of building teleporters - and for blueside, the cost of building increased Energy/Control if you want a 'porter to every possible zone (because you need 11 'porters heroside, only 4 villainside).

This spot is where the bottleneck exists cost-wise. Each teleporter costs 15K prestige - and each can take 2 beacons at 10K prestige each - so the total cost of that "fully functional" teleporter is 35K. Times 4 means that just the items cost the SG 140K. Times 11, the SG prestige cost is 385K.

You also need to place rooms to hold those teleporters. Skipping over the smallest (and nigh useless transport room), those prestige costs start at 100K ranging up to almost 400K.

Villainside, you can put all possible 'porters into a Secure Teleport Bay 1 at a cost of 253K (63250/porter) or 2 Teleport Chamber 1's at a cost of 200K (5oK/porter).

Heroside, to place all possible teleporters, you will need more than 1 bay no matter what. If you place a Secure Portal Room (398,750 Prestige, 8 'porters, 49.843/'porter) and a Teleport Chamber 3 (162,500 Prestige, 3 'porters, 54,167/'porter), it's the "simplest" configuration epening on your base layout.

Influence costs, typically born by the Base Builder are higher now than before I13 because they now use invention salvage (common salvage, which increased in price during I14 so far)

To run all those teleporters, you need the second level of Control, at a cost of 500K prestige, invented with invention salvage, and unlocked with a badge. You also need enough Energy, although the lowest Tier Energy item can handle it if you don't have lots of other stuff. You can't use the Combo Energy/Control item, so you need separate rooms for each of them at 100K & up each (and note that Arcan Control items have ifferent footprints than Tech one and might ictate the need for a more expensive room).

and so on....

I guess what I am saying is that the conversion ratio is so high that unless the player has really high amounts of Inf that aren't being use to IO a character, it's not that useful fo any builder.

I to a little bit of "casual" marketeering, but I don't have more than about 60 million on any single character (got an excellent drop villainside) with a more likely average of 4-5 million. All of which will be spent on improving the character long before I woul even think of converting it to Prestige.

I was trying to get to your "useful" number, but I guess I didn't do very well at that. I think my answer is that there might not be one. I laid out some Prestige costs using just setting up Teleporters. Workshop/storage, which is the other big use for a base probably works out similarly.

An as a casual reader of The Market forum who tries to put some of your philosophies into practice, I have to say that although intellectually I *know* raising hundreds of millions if not billions of inf* can be done - but I would not be likely to put the effort into it because it isn't something I like as much as other activities.

My brain is hurting right now, so maybe someone else can do the math. At the current conversion ratio, how much Inf* does it take to get 300K Prestige? I picked that arbitrary number because we have a few guides how to set up bases for that amount sonce that's what you get for the first 15 members of a SG. I'm thinking way too much to make it worthwile to even try.

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I would kinda like to see this character, but the OP's attempt to place an image doesn't work and the later link leads to a site that my security software won't let me see.

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Try this one .

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Thanks.

So is the complaint that the character got genericed due to looking too much like a Marvel Comics intellectual property? Because a simple Google search on that IP plus the character's background on VirtueVerse seems to justify the genericking.

Or is it becauae it took 5 years for the GMs to be notified and act on the IP violation?

The discussion over whether intellectual propert violations should be genericked and whether players should report it is old and tired at this point. We've been told they will do it and we're pretty sure that the source of genericking decisions is caution over another trademark violation suit and that it generally won't happen until the character is brought to the attention of a GM in some way (player report, though I suspect a player/character being a jerk and getting a complaint will make a GM look and notice for himslef/herself it's an IP violation). It's gonna happen and coming here and complaining about it or staging a "protest" isn't going to changfe that.

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How long do these usually last?

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Which?

The maintenance window or the whining that the Devs kept their regular schedule, even though some people have the day as a holiday?

Maintenance window is 2 hours so it should be back any time now if not already.

Whining - hours and days and years - at least it seems that way.

Many posters here are being US-centric again. This isn't the first time nor will it be the last time they do maintenance on a US holiday.

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I would kinda like to see this character, but the OP's attempt to place an image doesn't work and the later link leads to a site that my security software won't let me see.

Stacks - desks, bookshelves, arcane blocks, floor safes.

Lots and lots of stacks.

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I'd suspect that it also has a lot to do with the fact that, since XP smoothing and such, all you really have to do is sneeze forcefully at somebody and you've gotten enough XP to be out of range of the first Faultline contact.

But a tram certainly couldn't hurt, and it'd help contribute to the feeling that the zone is really starting to recover.

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I suspect you are correct. I know my recent experience has been to get that "Go meet Jim Tremblor" mission in the upper teens due to levelling faster.

A tram stop would be good sign that the zone is recovering.

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All the notice said was daily maintenance. Daily being the operative word, I thought they came down daily... but I don't play at this hour that much. When I do though they always seem to be coming down at the same time so I assumed it was indeed daily.

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It used to be that they could come down any weekday during this time period, but more recently, they try really hard to limit it to Monday & Friday. After a new issue drops, it is more likely that they will also patch on Tuesday.

You should count on blocking out Monday & Friday 9 a.m - 11 a.m. (Eastern)/6 a.m. - 8 a.m. (Pacific) for their regularly scheduled server maintenance. It happens pretty much every week, regular as clockwork.

This is actually the third scheduled server downtime this week, as they were also down on Wednesday - as they announced in the Announcements section of the forums and on their website (although this one seems to be a bit last minute, since the announcement didn't go out until Tuesday evening),

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post13510671

To get an idea about the items/rooms needed, check Bonker's guide to small bases (not sure if pricing is updated, if not, ignore the listed costs).

To me, it looks like you need the Entry Room (free), Oversight Room (50K) and a 2X2 Workshop (100K).

In the Oversight Room, Place a Combo Unit (25K, produces 75 energy, 125 Control) for Control/Energy. The 2X2 Workshop will hold the rest of the stuff (Invention Table, Vault & 8 other storage items).

The Oversight Room will also take 1 storage item & you can place your Inventions Table in there with the Vault if you want as the storage item.

None of the storage items except the Vault take any energy or control, so you can get by with the most basic setup.

All the costs in this post are taken from the Wiki - you can go there for more details -

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Base