Snow Globe

That is because your current beta install, unless you were actually IN the closed beta is missing a variety of files. Like, say, badge art.

Actually I picked that precise term for a reason. A simple display item exposing a countdown is something that I can assign a first DAY programming student in any programming or scripting language.

The only reason not to have included the display that I can think of is "lazy", especially since they do have an ambush timer in BAF and the reinforcement timer in Lambda.

That still does NOT negate the fact that the beam should have its own and dedicated timer, separate from the general countdown. Not having it is laziness on the developer's part, as witnessed with the BAF ambush timers.

Most of the time I can't even see the disintegration effects through the sea of player powers. The same could be said about the Obliteration beam area. The Obliteration beam should be a solid circle, not faint gasses. The disintegration beam should change the color of the player's name in the team/league window. There should be a target_custom parameter that targets a player being disintegrated.

See, I've found almost every report saying it is 45 seconds, not 30. Besides which, checking the clock is different than spelling it out that the obliteration beam is about to fire. Additionally, Anti-Matter's health bar should have notches on it where he freezes time.

There should be a way to instantly target someone being disintegrated.

Edit:
The point being there are plenty of gimmicks that work against the players. There should be some that work FOR the players as well.

We did that... Except that generally the first time freeze happened in 40 seconds and the Obliteration beam hit at the exact moment of the time freeze before anyone could say "stop".

Yes, there are far too many gimmicky things going on to reasonably expect players not to die (repeatedly) during the final phase.

Perhaps that vital piece of information should be revealed to the players. Just like the players really couldn't know when reinforcements are coming, the same could be said for the Obliteration and Disintegration beams.

Perhaps the developers should add something like this to the info window:

Obliteration beam recharging in 45 seconds
Disintegration beam recharging in 35 seconds

Patch Notes/2007-08-02

I got 5-10 at a time over the course of a year.

Well, nominally, the Pillboxes, Signature AVs/Heroes, PVP kills badges, the PVP missions, the explore badges, Gunner (Shivans), and Warburg Rockets all have elements of PVP in them. The PVP missions are the hardest not to get them in the intended way (except on dead servers). Lack of PVP on some servers means that some of the badges are open to get.

However there does come points where both sides aren't attacking each other, but instead helping the other side. I've seen it happen with Pillboxes, Shivans, Nukes, Heavies, and the Signature AVs/Heroes. That goes against the spirit of the badges, if not the letter of the rules for the badges. Heck I've even seen pvp kill farms.

That isn't quite accurate either. I'll agree that logging out isn't the way it was intended to be achieve. However I can say the same for getting yourself or the heavy killed on purpose as well (outside of trying to actually PVP or take out the pillboxes).

The beta and test servers shouldn't be connected to the billing system, so any purchases can be made without impacting your credit card.

The reason the group is in debt to that scale is due to characters leaving the group. Each character up to the 15th grants a 20,000 prestige bonus (300,000 total with 15 members). Each character you lose/boot that the group goes below 15 characters, loses 20,000 prestige. I suspect you dropped (or booted) 4 characters from the group.

Note that all Praetorian characters joining a supergroup grants a one time (that is the first group joined) bonus of 100,000 prestige. This bonus does not get removed if the character leaves the group.

Yeah, I'm guessing it is going to be an open beta for subscribers only, sort of like what happened with Issue 20.

Badge-Hunter/Vidiotmaps to the rescue:

Recluse's Victory map.

Well, it isn't exactly passive. Unless you can log out, log in, click on the heavy terminal, and repeat. Any methods to do that would involve some pretty hefty out of game macros and would be cheating.

What, no picture of Caleb?

Slightly modified. Gets it to 35-40 seconds per heavy.

You heard it folks, Paragon Studios has been experiencing a wardrobe malfunction!

How about this? They need to add the following smuggler ship locations to IP and PI (in red, white is the existing ship in IP):

Based on other encounters with her in game, she is an aggroing pet, never mind her summons.

In reality, that is the bottom line.

The Certificate/Voucher is being used for the market. They've already said account wide and character purchases, which directly equates to the existing system. The Tier 9 consumables available for purchase (everything except the Signature Summons) are exactly the same as the ones on the market. I don't see why they would be claimed any differently. If they were claimed differently that would represent a colossal waste of effort.

How about this: I fully expect that buying the Paragon Points (not the 400-550 free points) themselves will generate a receipt, but using the Paragon Points will only generate certificates & vouchers.

To be fair I bought most of those on sale, I was a runner up in a contest (loading screen contest) and got the magic and mutant packs as my prize, and was lucky with the coralax costume code. My second account (which is inactive most of the time, and will go premium) has a Retail GvE (bought at $10), and GR:Complete ($9 from Steam). I think I paid full price on the origins, steampunk, booster 1:technology, and booster 3:Super Science. I was gifted the buddy code (equal to the base CoH game in 2005), the CoH DVD code, and the CoV Collector's DVD. On my main account I bought the AE/Mac edition and the GR:Complete Retail Box (had to wait 2 weeks because of EBGames). That is over 6 years. I've also managed to get the 12+2 subscription twice, and when my subscription renews in December, I'll get it again thanks to last year's promotion.

I save money where I can, but this is pretty much the only MMO I play. I haven't bought many games in the last 3-4 years.

As far as being "casual" there are many different types of "casual", and by a lot of the definitions, I'm not. Now excuse me while I go through my CoH logs to find out how many more incarnate trials I've run. I'm up to 275 so far (on the live servers, not counting the beta/pre-beta trials), but I'm missing a month, thus needing to go through my logs.

Do you get any confirmation mails when you buy anything from Astral Cristy or Empyrean Michael? No. Given the certificate/voucher system is being used for the market, it isn't hard to put 1 and 1 together.

The Incarnate "market" is likely the initial test bed for the tech behind the Pargon Market, just like the Cimeroreans were the test bed for shields.

Because there is zero mention of any receipt mechanism. I'm sure there will be receipts for buying Paragon Points, but I'm now positive that I'll not get a receipt for my points purchases because of the answer I've received from Paragon Studios. That means that I'm going to be unwilling to use the market in any form until it is fixed. I say this because there is no accountability on Paragon Studios part to ensure a smooth transaction history. What if I need to dispute a purchase?

I can't access my history so the best way to make sure I'm being charged correctly is to not spend Paragon Points at all. If I don't use the market as a long time subscriber (78 months this week) because of this, the system will fail to meet the developer's expectations that subscribers will feel safe to use the market.

As to why it is their responsibility and not mine to keep a purchase history is because they are the sellers. As a seller, they need to be able to show a receipt that I did, in fact buy something. This is especially true for micro-transactions and on-line purchases. My responsibility, as a buyer, is to save my receipts until such time as I no longer need to dispute a charge. Both the seller and the buyer bear some responsibility for keeping track of purchases. Without a history, Paragon Studios can't meet their responsibility. Additionally, as has been pointed out several times, a transaction history is a fundamental part of any e-commerce site. If they can't get that right, how the heck am I supposed to trust that the billing is correct?

As to this:
I'm 100% sure of.

Even going beyond "who is responsible for tracking my purchases?" there is an accountability issue if a player has to deal with Customer Support over a purchase. Are you willing to put up with increased delays for support because of this issue? I know I'm not.

I have all the packs except for the animal pack and the party pack. In addition one perk is the GR Pre-Order enhancements and another is the Coralax Costume code.