Bindweed

It's not my place to speak for anyone else who's posted here, but I certainly don't perceive these posts as "whining" - there have been legitimate questions and valid opinions regarding unarguably careless implementation.

It's offensive for you to bleat about "children" "whining" when loyal, paying customers are merely pointing out that they'd prefer the vendor to take a little care and pay a little more attention in circumstances like these.

Indeed. I know it's stupid, trying to use a resource that the game provider has established ostensibly to help us but really just to wind us all up until our aneurisms burst... but I still look at it, just to see if anyone's been bothered to pay attention at all.

Oh, surprise. No, they haven't. No red name response. No attempt to fix the EU server status page. I know that Union is down, in spite of what the server status declares, because I saw mention of 'Global Server Maintenance' on the US City of Heroes homepage (which I have to use since the EU one has been borked since the forums merged).

How confident are we that the old EU maintenance schedule is going to be adhered to? I fear that the new US-centric regime cares so much less than before about the EU playerbase that we'll be losing up to 2 hours twice a week in the middle of the day as they carry out 'maintenance' at their convenience, ie the same time as they have done in the US - this time at 7am Eastern, 12PM BST, 1PM CET.

On the bright side, if I can't log in, I can't rubber band three times back into the same mob until I'm faceplanted.

You were right earlier in this thread, FFM - the last time I suffered this kind of random mapserver/rubber banding/frozen power activation/lag was back in early 2005 when we were given extra time as compensation.

I doubt we'll ever, ever see that kind of customer response again, though. We had EU representation back then, remember? These days I'm more and more feeling very much like either a forgotten cousin, or an unwanted brother-in-law, whose invitation to the North American party was issued only under the duress of a barely tolerated obligation.

It's telling, too, that the threads I'm more likely to post in since the failed forums merger are those highlighting problems and cataloging player complaints.

I miss stuff.

No, we haven't! Where is this treasure? I want! I want! I want!

(*stamps feet, holds breath, turns purple, starts throwing shopping out of the trolley*)

For some, but not all powers.

It's true for Invulnerability, for example, that you can select "Minimal FX" which will mean no more garish or black shield auras. It's not true for other, aura, armours. Energy Aura, Electric Armour and Dark Armour can only have their FX "tinted" - which is a shame, because they're really pretty ugly in some cases and completely intrusive in others. I just won't be playing any of those sets until they get the "Minimal" option, too. Excellent news for Inv, though.

Am very pleased with the arrival of a choice of options for the Superstrength and Martial Arts animations. I'm sorry we can't minimise the bright FX on some of the attacks (a natural origin streetfighter doesn't normally shoot off yellow fireworks every time he kicks a mugger in the shins, so I'm hoping that will come around at some point, too), but the introduction of a variety of animation choices is excellent.

I, too, would have been delighted if there had been some zone revamping, or an undersea city filled with a new race of mer-people giving out fishy badges, or whatever else we've poked guesses at over the years, but I think most of that big stuff is hanging on Going Rogue.

I'd like to think that these long awaited but cosmetic changes in i16 are just the first of many more options to customise our characters in the future. I love the little addition of your current security level displayed in the centre of the progress bar, and I'm also very happy with the navigation bar for the character creator - once again, it's optional, which seems to be a very important element in these designs: choice and flexibility.

Not everything has been attended to, so there will be plenty of disappointed people, I know, but there is enough here for me to feel confident of further very welcome improvements and additions to these kind of QoL elements.

Oh, really?

Hand over Canada, NOW! And, while you're at it, fetch me a written constitution and Bill of Rights.

Whaddya mean, "soon"?

And they will be forever if Zortel ever gets the parts to finish that darn Death Ray™!

And now, when I read Lady Athyna's posts, I hear the voice of Rogue from the old X-Men cartoon.

Or Donna Douglas as Ellie-May Clampett

Yeah... um... about that...

There might be a slight delay now, because Acme may have sent some parts to some Wile E. Coyote guy, and apparently there's a global shortage of earthquake pills, so we may have to push delivery back on this project.

No! It wasn't me! It was Supply Division! Not me! Have mercy Zortel! Have merceeeAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Beat me to it. 20 is quite optimistic, in my experience. And that's on the motorway. I'm told that if the traffic is glued to the road outside that big RAC building, then it's glued to the road right across Birmingham.

The only way to get to the centre of Brum is to tunnel underneath it using an army of Molemen, but last time I tried that we emerged in the biscuits aisle of a Sainsburys and had to pay a hefty fine.

Never been to Amsterdam, though. I bet I wouldn't even need the Molemen.

Stop and think for a sec, though. I think I can see what RP may have been getting at. There is a need for regulation and censorship in industries like this. There are ghouls out there who are prepared to make and move anything if there's a buck in it. To give the usual extreme and emotionally loaded, yet nevertheless relevant and valid, example: Child porn is illegal, so video games that go there are banned. You can't enforce that without regulation and censorship.

The only hard part is knowing where, amongst an innumerable variety of circumstances, to draw the lines.