yclept

On characters that are team-centric, the levels are all blowing past so quickly that I usually end up with a complete random mess of whatever I happen to have managed to scrape up in the moments between teaming, DOs, IOs, SOs whatever. It's pretty ugly and not thought out at all. If I'm more organised than usual, I'll hopefully have *something* equivalent to a full set of SOs that haven't gone grey yet.

On characters that I mostly solo Blueside, at level 8 I'll turn off earning of XP for a bit, and then go and do a long AE arc. This'll usually gives me enough tickets, that I can turn into saleable random common salvage, to purchase level 11 set recipes and non-common ingredients for them at Wentworths, which I'll frankenslot (a 2 aspect set IO at level 11 is about equivalent to a -1 DO in total power but split between the two aspects). As I get more slots between there and the low 20s I'll fill them either with frankenslotted set IOs or common IOs at the highest level I can muster when I get the slot. Actual set bonus only come into play once I can slot level 27 or 28 set IOs. At that point I start building toward my final slotting, on the principle that once a set IO of level 27 or above goes in, I'm not going to want to replace it. I like to try to keep set bonuses around when exemped down rather than go for max power at level 50, so I'll generally attempt to get the lowest level set IOs at or above level 27, consistent with actually having the powers available.

On a similar characters Redside, stuff is harder to get on the Black Market so I'll start with DOs and then a mix of DOs and common IOs, until they can slot level 27 sets and level 30 common, when it'll be a mix of sets and common IOs. Again any set IO I slot at 27 or over will be considered permanent and won't generally be replaced. I'm not a big redside player tho'.

"It was at this point that the Development Team began to worry that Black Shadow's 'Bemused Glance' attack was, perhaps, a little overpowered."

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.

Power Customisation.

I've always been 'meh' about power customisation. I'm bit less 'meh' now it's actually coming, due to the alternate animations, but the colour tinting part still gets a big indifferent shrug from me just like it always has. That probably makes the Devs want to shoot me after all the work they've put in on it.

Yeah, I'm aware I'm waay an outlier here.

So I log on at about 6:00 am this morning, and of the 59 unhidden character on line at least 40 of them are level 50 Science Controllers.

Now I'm afraid to log on *my* level 50 Science Controller to check her mail in case she gets assimilated...

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Now remove all the ones where the publisher* shows a complete lack of imagination and can't even be bothered to make it look like they care and I guess we'd be down to about 10% left.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well that's just Sturgeon's law for you. And we've got an entire unfiltered slushpile right in front of us hitting in a tidal wave.

It going to take time, and yes better search/categorisation/review/word of mouth tools that we currently don't have ('this arc author recommends...'). And yes, possibly there isn't an actual feasible solution.

In the meantime presumably the initial rush will die down a little as everyone hit's their 3 arc limit, and we each invdividually get bored with making things in MA and go and do something else, or don't get bored, but start having to replace our initial sucky arcs with ones at least we ourselves think are better.

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Instead they backslid to using global tells.

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I did think it was an odd choice.

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I assumed that was that was a side-effect of moving to global chat handles as the author id, and that sending an in game email to a global chat handle is something they simply don't currently have a system implemented to do. Hence /tells.

They made a judgement call that having the global handle as the author id, was worth the cost of suckier feedback at least for the moment.

Just a heads up that if the version of Issue 14 we're getting on Live is the same as on test, any edits you make to your characters' descriptions on the ID screen will strip all the linefeeds out, meaning your bio will turn from the nicely formatted paragraphs you had in Issue 13 and earlier into a wall of text if you make any edits. And once those linefeeds are gone, they're gone for good, I know no way of getting them back in at the moment.

It should be known issue since I bugged it, and I know others have reported it too, but for now that's how things work.

Not a significant problem for most people, but I know I would be absolutely gutted if I lost all linebreaks from the bios of some of characters.

(Yes I know this is likely WAI for MA Critters, but hopefully it's not for player characters).

I thought I ought to put something up here, in case anyone is having the same problem I did, namely that with Windows Vista connected over a wireless network, every 60 seconds on the dot I would get a massive lag spike.

This is what worked to solve the problem for me. YMMV.

...

0. What this looks like in game

In game, if you type /netgraph 1 in chat you'll get a graph of ping time to the servers, and you'll see a big blob where the graph spikes up for a few seconds every minute. Invariably you'll get powers refusing to activate during this time, and be rubber banded back to where the server thinks you are once the lag has cleared.

You can type /netgraph 0 to turn off the graph.

1. Confirming you have the same problem I did rather than something else.

If you're seeing something like this, then to make sure you have the same problem rather than a different one, first find the IP address of your wireless router, and then continuously ping it from for a few minutes. You should see a big spike of up to 1500+ms happen every 60 secs. This confirms the problem is at our end, not something at your ISP, between your ISP and the game servers, or with the servers themselves. You can repeat this test to confirm that any fix you try actually worked.

- To find your router's IP address:
<ul type="square">[*]Right click the network connection in the system tray on the right of the task bar.[*]Choose 'Network and Sharing Centre'.[*]Click the 'View Status' link next to where your wireless connection is listed.[*]Click the 'Details' button[*]The number you want is the one listed for 'IPv4 Default' Gateway[/list]- To do a continuous ping
<ul type="square">[*]Close any applications that might try to use the network so we don't skew the results.[*]From what used be the Start Menu in XP, type 'cmd' in the search box[*]Click the 'cmd' icon that appears under the programs section.[*]At the prompt in the window that comes type: ping -t &lt;ip address you got above&gt; and press enter. For instance mine was:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>ping -t 10.0.0.1</pre><hr />[*] You now should see a bunch of ping times scroll down the window. If you don't have anything else wrong they should be all be somewhere between 1ms and 10ms assuming no-one else is using the wireless network at the same time. However every minute or so you'll get a line that reads something like 1500ms. That's the problem.[*]Press Ctrl-C to stop the pings once you've seen enough to show you what's going on.[/list]2. First Fix that worked for me

I downloaded and installed WLAN Optimizer. It tells Vista to stop doing the thing that causes the lag every 60s on your Wireless Network interface.

You can run it manually or you can set it to start up with Windows. This did fix the problem for me, no more lag spikes, however I found it just a bit squirelly when set to run at startup with not everything always being nicely hidden away despite being set to hide it's windows, so I kept looking...

3. Second Fix that worked for me (specific to my hardware)

...and found the following fix.

HOWEVER this one seems specific to my wireless network interface, so probably isn't applicable unless you're using a Ralink RT73 chipset based wireless adaptor like I do. However it's possible there's a similar option in your network hardware's driver so you might still want to have a poke around for something equivalent if you're not happy with WLAN optimizer, or it doesn't work for you. Here's what I did:

<ul type="square">[*]Right clicked the network connection in the system tray on the right of the task bar.[*]Chose 'Network and Sharing Centre'.[*]Clicked the 'View Status' link next to where the wireless connection was listed.[*]Chose 'Properties' and accepted the UAC prompt.[*]Pressed 'Configure'.[*]Went to the 'Advanced' tab.[*]Switched 'SmartScan' from Disabled to Enabled. (it's here would being changing some other setting if you had different hardware but it still an option that solved the problem)[*]Okayed the changes.[/list]4. Obvious fix that should work, but I couldn't personally use.

Switch to a wired connection to your router.

Yes, not always an option, it wasn't for me as something seems to interfere with network cabling at my location on multiple different machines with different operating systems, that's actually why I'm using wireless.

5. Other possible solutions

Google for Vista "Lag Spike" and you should find a number of other possible things to try. Some of them include things like installing XP drivers for your wireless adaptor on Vista before using WLAN Optimizer. There's an alternative WLAN Optimizer type program called Vista Anti-Lag, and there are various shell commands to try. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to a guarenteed always works for everyone solution, and for some people nothing seems to work.

Mostly I'm just going for the ones with the titles that I want for my characters' backstories, (Undead Alice went for Mortician, Mineralogist got Professor, Snowglobe is going for Socialite). I was a bit disappointed that Mortician (or maybe Caregiver)+Law Enforcement didn't end up as Medical Examiner, but...

...The Pocket D, out of combat recovery boost, does help noticebly if you're soloing pre-stamina/SO, whilst the Ouroboros, extra recipe on mission complete, is great for when you've only got an hour to do some of Borea's, Marcus Valerius' or (I guess) Meg Mason's repeatable missions.

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe they're (the Knives of Artemis) not quite as small as you think - just usually practically invisible when acting in PC/RI.

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Well they can't be as small as they're reputed to be since my lvl 50 Earth/Rad has personally defeated more of them than is claimed, in game, as being their total roster

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What really interested me about the financial highlights were the revenue projections. Now unless I'm reading it wrong the revenue for CoX in 2008 was 23,227m Won but the projections for 2009 fall drastically to 15,000m Won. I wonder what their analysts know that we dont.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your reading it wrong, that's Guild Wars, the cyan block on the graph.

CoX 2008 is 24,218 with a projection for 25,000 in 2009. The Purple block on the graph.

Unless *I'm* reading it wrong

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The truth of the matter is that Issue 13 had a sustained positive effect on server populations and subs.

[/ QUOTE ]

As i said i am seeing more new players or returning players in Union these days.

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And I don't think the 'Issue 13 destroyed everything' theory is really born out by the numbers in the NCSoft 3Q and 4Q reports. The big drop from 17000+ to 13000+ maximum simultaneous logins is in the Quarter ending in September. Issue 13 didn't come out until December, it didn't go Open beta until November, even Closed beta was October.

The Quarter ending December has a slight uptick. And anecdotally there seem to be more people about now than in December.

I'm not sure what happened in the ending September quarter, lack of a new issue for ages + WAR maybe?

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Can we say same about i14? I don't think so especially on New Player point of view. People don't get into games to build mods for a game they know nothing about.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, but they do get into games to play the mods that others have made if there's a selection of good ones. Does take a while to get that sort of effect going tho', and it's an open question whether the Mission Architect will give modders enough scope to make good ones.

...

OT: I'm afraid I'm in the Great Depression 2: Electric Boogaloo camp. It's probably due to my reading J.K Galbraith's 'The Great Crash' at a very impressionable age, and my Grandparents stories about rationing during the war, and growing up eight to a bed in the East End of London. Uphill, in the snow, both ways, whilst emigrating from Poland ahead of the Nazis.

[ QUOTE ]
Q4 numbers are out folks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Other than what's already been said, the thing that catches my eye about that (other than the disappearance of the Monthly Access numbers from *all* the games) is that Aion launch for US &amp; Europe is all the way out in 4Q09 according to the timeline, with GW2 2010/2011 Possibly Maybe/TBD/Dunno.

So pretty much all they've going to get this year to finance stuff including the Aion outside-Korea launches (given nobody is getting external finance from anybody, anywhere) is cashflow from the current games including anything they get from the ramp up of subscribers (one hopes) to the Korean Aion.

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone has any ideas (or wishful thoughts) on what I14 changes Synapse hinted at would be? From the sound of it they would be more than another datamine update...

[/ QUOTE ]

No sure what Synapse is thinking, but here's what I'd try if I was only allowed to adjust the Merit system and not drops, or other stuff:

Scale up the merit reward for each arc and SF redside proportionally so that total number of merits (if you did everything non-patron once, and did one patron arc) redside is equal to the total number merits blueside. That should help the immediate 'villains are getting shafted!' angst.

Slash merit costs for the recipes of anything that isn't a proc or proc type recipe by something huge, I'm talking about the 2 aspect and 3 aspect recipes. I'm thinking really big cuts with 50 merits being the absolute upper end for 3 aspect recipes.

Reduce random roll cost to 10 merits.

Split up the pools for random rolls more sensibly including removing the TF/Trial distinction from the random roll pools. Attack, Defense, Buff, Debuff, Mez pools or something.

Make it so that random rolls give recipes at the level you selected rather than the highest level of the recipe at or below your security/combat level.

The fixes I'd really want (make all TF/Trial recipes also drop from enemies at a low drop rate and/or add them as mission complete drops, more SF's for villains, clean up the stupidly long blueside TF's -- Dr.Q, Positron, I'm looking at you! -- to make them shorter and give fewer merts, fix the Eden Trial, make the Shadow Shard co-op tho' ideally with dedicated villain arcs, revamp the sharing of missions so you can share arcs properly with everyone doing it getting an appropriate Merit reward) are outside the scope of the merit system per se and are probably three issues worth of work.

Yep, dead horse, flogged soundly, but here's mine:


1 Single Shot - Ranged, Minor DMG(Lethal), Foe -DEF

The animation should alternate between the pistols when used repeatedly.

2 Both Barrels - Ranged, Moderate DMG(Lethal), Foe -DEF

The damage should be split into two chunks both applied at the same time, to represent the two pistols shots. This is probably the wrong name since it implies shotguns.

3 Empty Clips - Ranged High DoT(Lethal), Foe -ToHit (-DEF?)

Think Sands of Mu/Shadow Maul but at range. Should catch some of the target's buddies as well as the target if they're real close together just like those powers. Yes the DPA monkeys will want to use it on for me suggesting such a thing given the inevitable long animation time. Yes, there's a mastermind power with the same name, no, I have no idea whether what I've described is at all similar, it probably isn't

4 Suppressing Fire - Ranged (Cone), Minor DoT(Lethal), Foe -ToHit, -Recharge, Chance to Fear.

And I do mean minor damage, ideally what I want is *no* damage for most enemies in the cone, but the occasional one getting a decent damage hit as this is essentially supposed to be unaimed shooting to keep their heads down. However I don't think having the damage work that way is possible, so (very) minor damage to everything. Duration and intensity of -ToHit -Recharge and Fear effects should be long and strong enough to give a useful level of damage mitigation as that's the main point of the power rather than any damage. Fear should probably only effect minions (mag 2).

5 Concussive Rounds - (Targeted AoE) High/Minor DMG(Smash,Fire), Foe Knockdown, -DEF

Targeted Foe should get the High Damage, the foes around it should get the minor damage, all should get the knockdown and -DEF. Two shots, so ideally two ticks of knockdown in sync with the animation. But that's probably not possible.

6 Bullet Time - Self +ToHit +Recharge +Speed +Res(RechDebuff)

Aim but with a burst of ludicrously high recharge rather than additional damage. Needs to be ludicrously high because it'll only be operating for the usual Aim/Buildup duration, and I want you to notice it actually did something. Likely a nightmare to balance. May need to be completely unenhancable for recharge itself to avoid having to order Castle a straight jacket. May need to call it something else if the current name makes people expect the time slowdown to actually happen for them rather than just their character

7 Silencer - Sniper, Extreme DMG(Lethal)

You know the sound effect for this one.

8 Hail of Bullets - Ranged (Cone) High or Superior DMG(Lethal)

Same idea as Full Auto, but doubtless balanced with different (likely lower) numbers since it's not a nuke replacement in this set.

9 Gun Kata - Self +DEF +SPD +ToHit +Recovery Res(DeBuff DEF), +Special(End Crash)

Instead of a standard nuke you get Elude with +ToHit, because I think that fits the concept of a dual pistols character better -- instead of kililng everything all in one instant, you kill everything over time using all your other powers whilst being insanely accurate and difficult to hit for the duration due to mysterious plot related reasons.

Crash is justified by the intense concentration required. Not sure whether the +Recovery still makes sense here. Unlike Elude it should maybe work like Strength of Will and not be affected by recharge buffs and enhancements, with it's recharge time should be balanced around that.

Tsoo. They're probably my favourite enemy group, but they're one of the less straightforward ones. Think of them as a melee focused prototype for The Malta Group.

Sorcerers will port in and out healing the rest of the gang whilst debuffing your tohit with their Hurricane something fierce, so take them out first if you can. Then you've got the Green Ink Men wailing on you, not much of a threat individually but get enough of them together and they'll be able to stack their stuns enough to overcome your mez protection and drop your toggles, so be careful with them. Enforcers will drop caltrops, which are annoying if not really much of problem.

Once you get up to Red Ink men and higher they'll start using Kinetics powers on you, and there's one particular Boss Type I've encountered that claims he's only doing siphon speed and siphon power on you, but given the way the power buffs his buddies and not just himself when he uses it I suspect it's actually something a bit more exotic than that.

Like I said, I like 'em, but sometimes you need to think a bit when fighting them

Mineralogist: An apartment overlooking the University in Steel Canyon. Convenient for her day job at the department of Mines and Mineralogy.
Ms Frobisher: Frankfurt, Germany. She's currently in the Rogue Isles for business reasons only, at any given time staying at whichever local hotel is most convenient for 'access' to her next target for 'auditing'.
Exobiologist: Talos Island. Which means she has to commute by ferry to PI to get to her day job at the Portal Coporation.
General Winter: Just outside the gates of Moscow. Where else?
Warped Child: Aeon City.
Undead Alice: Dark Astoria. The Banished Pantheon must PAY!
Another Mime: In an invisible box near the bookie outside the Arena in Port Oakes. That Mikey the Ear and Arbiter Unger haven't thrown him over the nearest cliff and into the sea, is due solely to Angelo Vendetti granting him a certainly amount of protection. Vendetti does this more because he currently finds it useful to annoy Mikey the Ear and Arbiter Unger than because he's interested in Another Mime's paltry 'insurance' payments.
Uncanny Child: She &amp; her parents just moved into one of the shiny new apartments in Faultline.
Snowglobe: As a scion of privilege, quite clearly she's a Founders Falls girl born and bred.
Nasty Kitty: A beat up metal shack in The Circus, Crey's Folly that she won off a Freak Tank in a card game.

Couple of questions...

If my henchmen are in bodyguard mode and I get hit with an attack, when the damage gets spread out to my henchmen does their resistance (if they have some to the damage type of the attack) get applied to the damage they will receive?

Similarly if I myself have some resistance, is the damage shared out to my henchmen based the amount of damage before or after that resistance is applied?

I always forget this one:

- There are a number of missions in the Heroside story arcs from regular contacts that involve investigating Rikti bases, however since those missions were written before the Rikti bases maps were put in, they all use the Blue Cavern map rather than the Riki base map. Be good if they could be updated.

[ QUOTE ]
So...farming tells to level 2s in Outbreak!?

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Nah, the crazy ones are the ones I get on my level 50, inviting me to farm missions telling me I'll get 'loads of XP'.

[Wasn't sure where to put this, please move if General is wrong]

Did she get fixed, or was the bug just always intermittent?

I've gone up that lift a few times in the last week and every time she's actually followed me and come out at the top, rather than getting invisibly stuck in the workings somewhere to evermore complain from off stage that I've left her behind. That's never happened before!

I don't recall anything about her getting fixed in the patch notes.

Since this is a really tight build -- I sure hope we're getting lots of slots to assign to them! -- I don't think these are necessarily my favorite powers in all the game, but I think they're my favoritest that would work together well in a build with only seven powers.

...

Bright Nova (Peacebringer)

Yes, a completely sneaky cheating way to get ranged attacks and a travel power (the squid, she flies!) in one choice :P

Peacebringer Nova rather than Warshade Nova, because I think the light coloured squid looks better than the dark coloured squid, despite the inherent wonderfulness of the colour purple.

Seeds of Confusion (Controller)

It's between this, Terrify (Controller/Dominator), and Fearsome Stare (Defender/Corruptor/Mastermind) for my AoE control as they all recharge real fast and last a long time compared to the AoE Holds (even my beloved EM Pulse and Volcanic Gases just take too long to recharge *weeps piteously*), which I'm going need as I don't like sleeps despite their long duration, and I can't justify taking any +recharge buffing powers, not even AM with all it's other neat stuff too.

Which one to have is a really tough choice.

Terrify does actual direct damage, Fearsome stare has a nice slug of -ToHit, and the graphics and animations for the fear effect are are way cooler than the fairly silly bubbles for confusion. However, confuse is just *so* much fun, especially against the Void and Quantums I'm courting by taking Kheldian powers, so on balance the Seeds it is.

Controller rather than Dominator for the better base duration, and the critical mez chance, as I'm not taking Domination and so won't any get extended effects due to it.

Freezing Rain (defender version)

Def debuff, Res debuff, Recharge Debuff, Slow, Knockdown patch, some damage, and with a recharge short enough that the debuff effects can be made essentially perma against even level foes with 3 recharge SOs. The clear choice for my AoE debuff power slot, since it does so so much. Looks fairly nice too.

Defender version because I'm not sure whether the various versions are different, but if they are then the Defender will get the higher debuff figures.

Dark Servant (defender version)

I can't justify a power slot on a self heal and my other power picks don't give me any -tohit at all, but I'd really really like to have some of both for better survivability as I'm definitely going to be squishy when Eclipse isn't active and I'm all on my lonesome on this desert island. Fluffy has a nice heal and -tohit on absolutely everything he does, making him the obvious pet choice to fill the gap. This is not a problem as I'd probably take him over the other pets a lot of the time anyway, since Fluffy just rules.

Again not sure whether there's any difference between the Defender, Corruptor and Mastermind versions, but if there is the Defender version will have better debuffing, so that one please.

Practiced Brawler (Scrapper/Brute/Stalker)

This gets the pick for mez protection solely because its a clicky. I'd frankly prefer Foresight (Arachnos Widow) because you get some positional defense and Psi resistance as well, despire it's lack of knockback protection, but thats an Auto, and only Clickies carry over into Nova form, and as you may have noticed I'm rather building around Nova form here

I belive all the versions are the same, so it doesn't matter which one.

Eclipse (Warshade)

I considered Hurricane (Defender) or Light Form (Peacebringer) in this slot, but Light Form, just like Elude, takes forever to recharge, has an end crash, rather than just recovery supression, and is incompatible with Bright nova which I'm relying on for all my direct damage attacks. Hurricane is one of the coolest looking powers in the game, and is the equal to pretty much anything as a defensive god mode as long as you can keep your enemies in it's range and you've got it slotted up, but alas it's a toggle. So it has to be Eclipse for the big survivability boosting power with its -- required for Bright Nova -- clicky nature.

Water Spout (Dominator, Captain Mako's PPP)

Last is the obligatory Maximize Chaos/Panic Button/Freak out the Team/Put the hurt on the Elite Boss, Av or Hero since he has -KB, power. I should really take Tornado (Defender/Corruptor/MM) as it's essentially the same but has a much much shorter recharge time. However, Water Spout has the reputation of being just so much better looking its just not funny. So style wins out over substance, and Water Spout it it

...

If I'm allowed ot pick an inherent in addition to the standard powers (I very much doubt it!) I'll have Scrouge (Corruptor) please.

I can't think of any reasonable in-game/lore explanation for this suggestion, but I think it might be work well if just being in a Hazard zone auto-exemped high level characters down to the maximum level of the creatures in the zone (or possibly one or two levels below that for higher level hazard zones like Crey's Folly and Eden).

Yes, you can sort of do this at the moment by taking an Ouroboros arc in the right level range and then going and doing the Hazard zone rather than the arc, but that completely puts the crimp on grouping due to the use of the TF code.

It would give us a bit more variety of enemies to fight on their high level characters when we were sick of radio mission, and perhaps make some of the Hazard zones less like ghost towns.

A more radical way to do something similar, would be instead of auto-exemping, make it so that everyone near or over the level cap for a Hazard zone used the Rikti invastion code when fighting there. That would be better in that everyone would get to use all their powers, and it would make more sense from a lore perspective, but I suspect that a lot more difficult to implement than just auto-exemping.

You could make all Hazard zones use the Rikti code for everyone, whichi is probably a lot easier to do than the second suggestion, but I think that would muck up the few Hazard zones that people actually use that have missions within a level range (The Hollows, Striga, RWZ, Cimerora).

- On the enhancement screen put a number next to each power giving the level it was taken. Even better if this also include a number above each slot for the level *it* was taken. Possibly have button to show/hide that information. This would make preparing for a respec so much easier.

- On the respec screen an indicator of level you're currently adding powers or slots for.

- On the powers list/tray/popup (the thing you drag your powers into the power trays from) you can get details on any power you have taken using their right click menu. I also want to do this on the powers I *haven't* taken too, instead of having to type the name as a hotlink into chat and then clicking it.

- I second Khorak's request for being able to save and load costumes settings in the editor. I too have a bunch of characters who have the same basic costume but with individual variations specific to them. It would save me having the to do the clunky workaround -- doubtless unsupported, meaning it might go away some day -- where you go to the tailor, pay some amount of inf for making no changes to your costume, exit to the login screen, login in to character select and *only then* make the new character. Especially as you lose all the gender, body shape, and colour settings when you do that, even tho' it retains the actual costume pieces.

- A 'reroll' option on the character select screen. It would load the appropriate existing character information for the character you have selected into the character creator, lets you tweak it, and then only at the 'enter paragon/rogue isles' stage delete and recreate the character as the new level one version. It would obviously need a confirmation thingy like 'delete' and appropriate warnings.

- Make the text editing box on the ID screen suck less. Yes it sucks a bit less than it used to, it could still do with less suckage.

- Add a tab on the character info window showing our other characters -- with pictures would be real nice. This would need a option for each of our characters as to whether they show up in the tab (default 'yes'), and whether the info window shows the tab when someone is looking at their info (default to 'no').

- 'Show global chat handle in character info' option. Default should be 'no'.

- Only send the '@XXXXX is now @YYYYY' spam for when someone changes their global chat handle to their global friends, rather than the entire zone/server/nation/whatever.

- You know that thing where the devs make some tweak to the costume editor or a costume piece, and the next time I go to the tailor the costume my character already has on includes for mysterious reasons about 50000 inf worth of changes I haven't actually made, or possibly *don't even exist* since the costume looks just as it always did, but it still costs 50000 inf + tailor fee to do nothing at all? Yeah that thing. I would like it to stop doing that please.

- The hardy perennials of allowing giving of insps to members of the opposing faction in co-op zones, and not dropping people from co-op TFs/SFs if they leave the co-op zone. If you can't stop us from being dropped, then don't let us zone out of the co-op area at all when on a TF/SF and pop up a box saying we need quit the TF/SF if we try to do it.

- Make the Warshade/Peacebringer binds that everyone uses to make shapeshifting halfway bareable a default part of the user interface. Same for the famous teleport bind. Same for the 'apply both ally shields by pressing the same button twice' one.

[ QUOTE ]
Most of the times a GM will respond by sending you a real email, even if you are in fact on-line.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never had that happen for anything that wasn't an abuse/harrasement report, where you get the 'for privacy reasons we don't tell you what we actually did to the perp' email. Or for a /bug, which means it's not a GM issue anyway.

Everytime I've actually been stuck, including I think the mission you're likely talking about (One of Guassian's in the RWZ, yes?), a GM has sent a /tell and we've got the issue resolved if I hadn't managed to work things out in the intervening time. Sure, response is not immediate, and you typically have to wait 10-20 minutes.

But I, or the team member who petitioned, has always had a /tell even for arguably silly things like 'can't find the last glowie on this darn Oranbega map, and we've run around after clearing it for half an hour now' when the glowie actually *is* there but Oranbega has just baffled us.

Okay, so there was one time where we were on a Posi TF were we got a bugged mission just after midnight, the team leader petitioned it, we got fed up waiting for a GM and reckoning they'd all gone home all logged out for 10 minutes to try and reset the mission. Naturally when we all logged back in, it turned out that the team leader had got an email because the GM had turned up when we were all logged out. But that's the only time.