Agent White

I do really like Croatoa, but I kind of agree that the self contained story is both a positive and a negative. It doesn't rely on you knowing anything else from any other part of the game so you can go in when you please and you won't be lost.

But, ya, it doesn't really go anywhere, there's a lot of filler missions that don't really do or accomplish anything important and in fact, the fact that the story 'wraps up' in a Taskforce is actually something of a pain because for anyone just going solo, it just stops with a -very- vague hint.

And it does feel just very isolated from the rest of the game. I love the factions but you only get to see them for such a short time, that's kind of the lovely thing about a lot of the other gangs is groups like the Council, the Freakshow, etc, you see through several different areas and contacts so you get a really good idea of who they are. The 5 croatoa baddy groups just don't get a lot of exposure.

How exactly do you guys expect them to make a skin for something that can't yet be customized? Dunno bout you but I'm not seeing alt animations for anything that's a temp/pool/inherent power like Beast Run, Ninjarun, any of the epic pools, etc. Otherwise, you know, we might see stuff in the tailor to customize all that. So the more likely answer is probably "The tech doesn't work like that right now". -Could- it be a skin? Probably, but if that tech were in the game they'd have applied it to a lot more. But it's not, and please don't assume 'it would be simple' unless you're actually a programmer that's worked on the game code so you know exactly how easy/hard such a thing would be. Because otherwise, you don't know and are just assuming.

As it is, quit kvetching. If you don't want to buy it, then don't. If it doesn't fit your concepts, it wasn't meant for you. I don't think paragon was really intending people to buy both based on functionality. People that prefer more techy stuff have the rocket board, people that prefer more magic stuff have the carpet. There's likely a crossover population but it's likely slimmer than either on their own. Someone will buy it, if it isn't you, then don't worry on it. And you know no one is forcing you to get both or either for that matter, the game has plenty of viable free travel powers.

The badge is for how many Alignment choice missions you did.

You're basically stuck until Devs can figure out how to put the morality choices in Ouroboros.

SSA4 was live the first tuesday of December. But yes, the initial 3 didn't come up til the 2nd week each month.

we'll see. Frankly, I think 7 is too long an arc. I'd kind of prefer to be seeing the finale right about now, keeping these things to about 3-5 tops. I'm not really thrilled waiting over half a year to have a story unfold.

I'm thinking since the contacts are all in place that the SSAs will start going live the first tuesday of every month now, so, yeah I think tomorrow we'll see States bite the dust.

Being a new player all of the winter content was pretty fresh and interesting, for a bit.

I will say, compared to the Halloween event, the Winter event seems a little lackluster. Most of it is entertaining for only a short time or a 'just once' experience.

The presents are kinda fun, but I can't help but feel they could be rebalanced a little. With trick or treating it only works in the zones appropriate to your level and if enemies spawn, they also con to your difficulty settings. With the winter horde, they will spawn appropriate to the zone, so a level 50 can just farm around in Atlas. I took a 44 around Peregrine because there were so few players to 'take' presents, but there were several times I had to take off quickly because the things spawned at 47+.

There was also a minor problem with Winter Lords spawning in low level zones and kicking out Frostlings at way way too high a level. This is basically an attack of the Winter Lord, throwing out minions at an even level with whatever hero they're attacking. Problem is, a number of high level folks were spawning things in Atlas or King's Row and no lowbie could take it down without finding another 50 to team with (as several just spawned the WL and took off).

The ski chalet is pretty entertaining, but the ski slopes are just a mild amusement. Father Time's missions are fun, I liked doing them with a few different characters to get the different pieces and powers or just farming out candy canes. Snaptooth is a pretty good mission for solo folks, but the Lady Winter event you really wanted either a team or specific ATs. My ill/rad didn't have a problem. My dominator couldn't get her down past half health. I didn't even attempt it with my squishier toons. Not that that's a problem per se, it's good to have a challenge. I was a lil disappointed they didn't add any other missions though, I had fun with Halloween doing a lot of the different events and the exclusive Tip (we need more of those!). In fact the Father Time missions were probably my favorite events to do for the characters I felt it was worthwhile to run them (Which sadly wasn't -too- many?)

The Winter Lord itself, aside from the above problem, wasn't bad, though like any Giant Monster it was a problem most of the time to pull together a team to take them down if people didn't swarm on it the moment it came around.

Now as for the Trial Lord Winter. I honestly have to say I was pretty nonplussed. I jumped into it the first day with my main toon and for one, it was just kind of frustrating because people were taking it a little -too- seriously and treating it like an incarnate trial, trying to get 'max people for the best run' and talking all this non-sense strategy. After the 40 minute wait when the league leader finally got his act together and we had everything sorted we jumped into it and literally steam rolled it in about 8 minutes. It's such a simple trial, just tank and spank with the occasional pulling off to take down the extra spawned GMs.

Sadly afterward, pretty much any effort I saw to pull together a team just didn't come to fruition. Either no one was that interested or the leader did a repeat of the above, refusing to do anything til they had 30+ people for the event. And frankly it just wasn't all that fun or rewarding. I didn't mind it, but I think compared to the trial they busted out for Halloween, the Haunted House trial wins hands down because it was fun, interesting, even a bit challenging and worth repeating a couple times. Lord Winter was worth doing exactly once for the badge, and the 20 canes were nice, but I didn't have any desire to do it again.

As for rewards. Eh, I loaded up one character with pretty much all the badges and costumes and the Winter's Gift Proc. After that I very selectively picked out here and there between all my alts what I wanted for each, mostly just whether I wanted the Santa gloves/boots for specific ones, everyone else has pretty much sat out or ignored the winter events, completely unlike Halloween.

So, I dunno. It was funnish? But the entertainment value wore pretty thin pretty fast after about a day or two. I liked it, but I thought Halloween was more worthwhile and felt like it had more entertaining things that I'd want to do on a lot of different characters.

Also keep in mind, they've stated a few times that the future slots have names that are subject to change.

Which, to me, says "When we figure out what they do, we might make the names more appropriate".

Yeah i'd rather not see anything explicitly removed but I would like seeing things revamped to have more modern design and more content. Hazard zones are ghost towns, this could really be changed.

Teaming is probably better for you than trying to run solo too. A -lot- of people will love you for your secondary, while your primary will just be a light icing, unfortunately.

Yeah, the ski chalet, the presents, all of that stuff goes away this Tuesday.

The Market items for the holiday, which includes the Winter pack full of stuff -from- the winter event, are available until the end of this month.

Basically, if you want specific winter items for free, do it before Tuesday. Otherwise, you'll have to purchase stuff with paragon points, though doing so will unlock it account wide. And for anyone that misses out on the event they'll still have a window to get the unlockables.

Yeah, that's pretty much the long and short of it. It's not like devs just went 'herp derp, they don't want this'. More a matter of 'ok, how do we give this to them and not break everything?"

I kind of like the tech and kind of don't.

It's kind of neat with my new heroes seeing how nice and safe some of the neighborhoods are now.

But it's kind of annoying with my older heroes to find the place rampant with vandalism and swarming with gangs. I -kind- of don't want to have to go back and do those arcs where formerly they didn't exist and so I was used to just the normal spawns.

I'd just kind of like a balance. I don't want to be able completely wipe out a gang, especially anything worth a badge, just so there's no possibility of removing my chance of getting it. But, yeah, some of it wouldn't be bad, I mean there are -so- many missions, especially like the 'kill X amount of gang" where the desc is something like "The carnies are pick pocketing and mind wiping people, put a stop to it" and.. well, the carnies just kinda pop in and out and hang out whether you do it or not. So it would be kind of cool to have an actual effect when a mission tells us 'thank you, you made a difference" and.. we really didn't.

yeah the only worthwhile Targeted AoE is.. what, positron's blast? bout it

I liked it heavily. It had me laughing, it surprised me, and it made me smile a -lot-. The writing is tight, the acting is amazing all around, the direction is fantastic.

Better than the first? Honestly for me they're both very good movies and it comes down to which aspects I liked better. Some things the first movie did better, some the second did better, imho.

-some- TFs are fun to do. A lot of the 'classic' ones are just agonizingly boring. Oh, we get to do -another- kill all the council? woo. Oh hey a kill the boss one, and another kill all after. yey.