BBhumeBB

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  1. The use of the word loyalty in the context of a game is giving me a shivering case of cognitive dissonance (or else I am coming down with the flu).
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by tuter_king View Post
    I some times in my sg or other times just random people i here them saying "WOW I HAVE 3MILL! I most be rich." So do you all think it's mean or nice to say "Want me to double that?" and then really do double it? I have had people get mad at me saying they don't need charity but on the other hand a lot are very very happy about it...
    Difficult to know how something like that will be received, isn't it?

    And of course you must be honest with yourself as to what you are actually saying.

    Does "Want me to double that" mean:
    - You are silly to think your accomplishment is actually worth much - let me demonstrate by carelessly doubling the amount you have earned out of my chump change. See how advanced I am as a player compared to you?

    Or...

    - That's well done. If it is agreeable to you, I would like to reward your efforts with additional inf, so you can buy something really nice for yourself.

    For a naughty or nice analysis, it is important to try andanticipate how they hear your offer, but it is essential that you are ruthlessly honest with yourself about which end of the spectrum your offer tends towards.

    Keep in mind that there is no body language, intonation, or anything but bare text to temper a remark in this medium.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Quinch View Post
    I think you misunderstand - they're not copies. They're the same character.
    The problem you get into with this is (I would guess) a radical redesign of the database infrastructure of the CoX platform. That is more fundamental than the code that accesses the character database, though that would be very significant change as well. Realtime interoperability between multiple servers and a single datastore has not, heretofore, been a required function in CoX, and it is a bear trying to retrofit stuff like that into an existing product.
  4. Saw that title in an article about former Gov. Palin's book this morning - I didn't know she even played!
  5. Jerry - dunno what to tell you. Since I16 came out, with supersidekick, I have been invited to PUGs pretty much as soon as I put up an lft on my team tab, or broadcast it. The changes to reputation/difficulty DO seem to be working in that I no longer get asked to fill, not once since release. But filling was not a social occasion.

    I am working a new character on Liberty, which is middlin' busy most of the time. Got him to 20 last night. I solo him a good deal, because I like soloing, and it lets me get the hang of a new combination (radiation/energy blaster). The pick ups have been profitable and pleasant, whether the team is a steam roller or gets wiped three times per mission.

    So my take is that the changes have largely been positive (no AE spammage, no fill invites, more teaming without fidding with SKs and level ranges, just invite and go).
  6. Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title!

    - William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by joshx View Post

    at lest i know am not crazy, and all you vets defending the server pop as anything but not empty as hell, read and weap, i told you so

    Well, after the umpteenth time someone says "I want everyone to go through the inconvenience of a server merge so that they will be available to serve as team mates at my pleasure" it gets a bit old.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Captain_Photon View Post
    I don't have a widescreen display, so every now and then I'll zero in on a street mob and start hitting them just as someone else swoops in from offscreen with the same idea. That kind of thing always brings out my inner Englishman, causing me to apologize for something I don't actually think is my fault.
    My best on those lines was with a fire scrapper, wading into one of the large Crey/Freak spawns in the vacant lot to the left of the Crey's Folly gate. I waded into the middle and there are explosions, and my fire, and Crey agent auras going off, and bad guys are dropping - except I can't target this one really fast moving figure in the glare, coming right at me!

    The dust (and fire and explosions, etc.) settle a bit, and I realize there is another scrapper in the middle of the fight. We'd both closed from different vectors and started laying waste to the bad guys, and both panicked at not being able to target each other. And yes, each started apologizing profusely for poaching the other guy's fight.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TyrantMikey View Post
    My only concern about this system would be that my defeat is not always my fault.

    We've all teamed with overzealous zergonauts responsible for numerous team wipes. Why should I be penalized for their style of play?

    Even if the team leader kicks the zergonaut from the team, or if I quit the team, the reputation has already been applied. I think I'd have a problem with that.
    Thing is, that applies to any death penalty. That's leaving aside death due to mapserves, etc.

    Reputation would be as fair (ie. unfair) as anything else - lie down with dogs you get up with fleas, team with the inept, be tarred with that same brush.

    Mind you, when debt still had teeth, as it were, I would see people quit teams for one death (their own or a wipe), get very antsy at anything but the safest play, or even in more than on case, type 'I can't take more debt!" and disconnect on the spot.

    At the time (and to this day) one of my measures of a good gamer is someone who takes a defeat in stride, preferably with good humor. If they offer a tactical suggestion, they do it with courtesy and grace, not demanding or playing the u-got-me-killd victim card. Sportsmanlike, as Fezzik would put it.
  10. BBhumeBB

    Stories

    The one most people are familiar with was Shadowrun (original game's design team and some supplemental material).

    Unfortunately, my tips are out of date - involving being in the hobby 25 years ago or so, when there were more opportunities.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Quinch View Post
    Not... quite what I meant either, and I think it might be bad form to name names in the forums...
    An humorous reference to the Vanguard NPCs. Alas, once again I have failed to amuse.
  12. If you mean that Vanguard SG, yeah, they've been dirty KSers from the get.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Willowpaw View Post
    (Don't worry. They are names no one would want... Pony-01, Pony-02, Claymore-03, Scoundrel-05, Shareholder-09, etc...)
    Thing is, unless someone DOES want the name - ie. enters it as theirs - your instance of the name would stay in place.
  14. It's a perennial suggestion and one I am always glad to second. Your list of suggested moves is elegant.
  15. BBhumeBB

    Stories

    If I could parlay it into a career move, I have been gaming longer than that and was a writer for half a dozen published titles as well :-)

    As it happens, besides the CoX staff Catwhoorg listed, I know NCSoft in the UK has hired one of the best younger writers (as in younger than me, which doesn't take much) in the adventure gaming hobby that I know (Adrian can write rings around me, anyway), and I know he is an expert in CoX, so they have the resources in house already.

    Big story changes are always an issue when you have over 100,000 players, some of us having seen the game for 5 years, some signed up yesterday. Balancign the vets hunger for new areas of storyline with the expectation of new players that they will be able to tackle classic challenges is inherent in this genre, versus the unified story advancement that a weekly dinner table campaign glories in.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Silver Gale View Post
    XP is based on damage done - if you did 90% of the damage to the mob, you get 90% of the xp, regardless who did the other 10%.
    ANd if you scored sopme damage ... is it 25% of the thing's hit points?... you get a "defeat" credited (as i n Defeat 10 Wossnames) regardless of who delivers the finishing move.

    About the only completely stealable reward is the goody you may get from the victim of a villainous attack after dispatching the last mob in a spawn. Those kudos go to the character that finishes the last opponent.

    Doesn't make unwanted KSing, intrusion on a private fight ("The Marquess of Queensbury rules will be observed at all times. I thank yez." - Barry Fitzgerald, "The Quiet Man") any less irritating, to be sure.
  17. BBhumeBB

    Replace debt

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kelenar View Post
    I don't like the idea of crazed clowns ripping my colon out with meat hooks either, but that doesn't mean it would make a good debt replacement.
    You could, however, probably sell tickets to watch. For INF, of course, not advocating RMT.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Clouded View Post
    They did this at one point I believe but the restrictions were like level 5 and below and hadn't logged in for <insert number here> days.
    That was releasing names - not allowing more than one character with a given name on a given server, which has never been allowed. I myself would hope that never changes - first come, first served on a name on a given server.

    And to note - a paid up account has never been vulnerable to name purging. Only unpaid (ie. inactive in that sense) accounts.
  19. BBhumeBB

    Replace debt

    I much prefer debt. I played Everquest, where death deducted xp, and indeed, you could drop a level (and often did) - usually just after beggaring yourself to buy new spells, which you now could not use.

    I didn't mind debt at its original levels ("indoors" and out), I didn't mind debt before those lovely blue bars made me immune to its, often up to the next ding. I will stick with debt, thanks.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by CodeJunkie View Post
    <qr>

    You could explain it away by saying that character A earned this stuff, but he doesn't really need it so he gave it to character B, an up and coming hero or a long time friend.
    Or one could leave RP justifications to players, to invent or ignore as they prefer. They are costumes for pity's sake. Why my Roman centurion who was flash frozen in a glacier just as he was hit by a meteorite during a solar flare, thus gaining superpowers, has to have some justification that a hero who wasn't even born when he went into the deep freeze gave him the armor he was wearing when he marched with the Eagles...well, you see the issue.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MunkiLord View Post
    But if they made them unlocked account wide wouldn't they also make them harder to get? For like balance reasons or something. I'm all for the idea, just throwing out a potential side effect.
    It is only a potential side effect if the developers choose to make it one - which would seem odd at best, spiteful at worst.

    Why would increased ease of use have to be "balanced" by increased difficulty of access? That really does not play to the usual connotation of "balance" in gaming, which usually refers to offsetting a function with high benefit in gameplay with a counterbalancing penalty or weakness (simple example: the higher the damage the longer the cycle time).

    That concern doesn't seem to apply to something like this (making something which does not affect gameplay more generally useful to those who expend time and effort to get it).

    I notice a lot of the proposals seem to begin in agreement with the premise that costume bits should, somehow, be limited to characters (rather than players, ie account holders) and thus you'd have to buy the improvements, or get a token that only one character can have, etc.

    This accepts the current narrative as some kind of base state - one prize for one character. One can fiddle around to try and keep that basis, or simply change the whole paradigm: do this, and your account gets a goodie (player based actions, like staying subscribed for X months, follow that model, after all).
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Alasdair View Post
    For the record, this 'crazy Brit' is in the same situation you are.

    Not that I'd ever complain. Cryptic have yet to do something that wasn't worth waiting for.

    Glad you like Champions Online ;-)
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by skullman View Post
    Well with this AE nerf im hoping atlas will clear up a bit, think people will continue to spam us with AE farm teams?
    Tossup, I think. AE will still be a fast way to go from mission to mission, even if the really honking big XP farms are curtailed (this leaves aside if some enterprising soul discovers a loophole).

    Lots of people gripe about having to travel to mission doors. Not an issue in AE.
    People gripe about the distance from hospitals, especially in zones without one. Not an issue in AE.

    So even with missions populated with stock enemies (or custom ones that get full value) in less abnormal distributions, AE will attract players who dislike those aspects of play outside. You just exit a complete mission, turn around, and enter the next. Even with

    Will they keep looking for teammates? It seems likely. Missions in AE may be less mindless (no guarantees there - I suspect that darned city map that was the sine qua non for many a "boss farm" will still be popular, since it is just an open field for ploughing through spawns as fast as possible with a zerg).

    We may see fewer messages for filling, but that doesn't mean we won't see them for teaming. I would hope we'll see less of the really mindless spam for really inane missions, to be sure.
  24. So of course the power supply on my PC chose this past weekend to flake out (eyes UPS ticket status grumpily, willing the new unit to arrivve today!!!).

    PS - Oh HUZZAH! UPS arrived half an hour ago with the PSU and I installed it PDQ. The download is patching now AOK!
  25. Just to drop in two cents: I know people really want walk, and if they have that then variations like shamble would make sense.

    I just dread the first time I am in a mission, waiting on someone to get to the front line, and see his marker meandering along the map. Ask him to step it up and get the equivalent of "I'm WALKIN' here!" - for for zombies "Me SHAMBLIN' here!" - because he says ICly he doesn't run.

    Kicking is such a pain in the tush.