Bright

I was anti-social this weekend, and spent most of it duoing with FCM ... though I did attend a couple of the ship raids with Karasu and Suzume, since there was some concern about having enough 50s around to anchor all six teams.

Well, we actually accomplished all of our goals, which is a nice thing...

FCM and I got Nook and Cranny, our detective duo, from 40 to 47. We also got his new Dark controller from 18 to 32, so he could play around with his Umbral pup. Semnai, my Psi blaster, finally made it out of Praetoria and to level 27... though she still has a ways to go to catch up to Anteros.

Three of my crew also hit 50. Mameshiba was already a bar from 48, so it wasn't a long trip for my little green "chibi Bane". It was a bit more of a journey for The Nemissary and his Unquiet Bride. They started the weekend at 45.

I'll second (or third-) the Shivan recommendation. That's how my solo Stalker handled her... I let the gummy monster play tank and debuff the crap out of her.

I've just been calling it Pup.

I honestly don't think we should have to... but if that's the only way we're ever going to get it? (And I tend to agree that at this point it probably is-) Then, yeah. I would.

How MUCH I would pay would depend entirely on how they did it... I wouldn't give them more than 100 or so if they sold it "per pool". I'd probably give them a lot more if they made it across-the-board.

Those rock, Tarty. They're all adorable.

All I'm going to say is please, please, PLEASE keep in mind... whatever you do... that not every character out there is a soft-capped UberToon who can solo AVs.

It's fine to add *options* for the twinked-out power players who think +4/x8 is Easy Mode, but remember that they aren't the whole of the game, and if you start building missions to cater to their level of play you're going to end up building things that the rest of us simply won't be able to do. Particularly those of us who spend most of our time solo or with duo/trio-sized small teams.

While there's nothing wrong with adding interesting mechanics or making missions that are harder than the average Council cakewalk, I'd hate to see you turn everything new into... to use an analogy from my "other MMO"... soloing the Tursen Garrison with a Sorcerer. (ie: Something that damned near can't be done in normal play, because every single enemy in the place is so ridiculously over-powered compared to even a plus-level player character that it'll eat your face faster than you can say "Was I seriously just killed by a -4 MINION?!")

I don't mind that "hard stuff" exists. I even enjoy it on my own more min/maxed toons... But I am very, very wary of that level of challenge becoming any kind of standard. What's fun on my over-engineered, purpled-out, full Incarnate Stalker might well be absolute hell on my blaster-build bi-form Peacebringer, and I don't want to have to shelve Sola or be forced to play with seven other people just to see new content on her simply because you decided to build for monsters like Kestrel.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I intend to keep on doing exactly what I have been... Soloing or playing with friends, chatting with the people who seem interesting and doing my absolute level best to ignore the Big Heads with their big SGs and their even bigger egos.

Maybe if enough of us refuse to play into their little status games or give them an audience to show off to they'll get bored and go away.

800 points? o_O
They... really seem to think a lot of the little guy, don't they?

While it's good that he's untargetable, I still don't see how he's worth anything close to $10. I'm really curious how they came up with that number.

And, no. As fond as I am of pets, I'm not buying this fellow. I'll wait for the lion, thanks. (And hope they don't try to charge $10 for him, too. <_<)

Agreed re: the common posting point.

It's gotten to be a bit of an ordeal trying to keep up with who's doing what and when, and frankly I don't have the spare tab space for yet-another-Liberty-chat-channel devoted to nothing but MSRs. I'm far from the only one of the Usual Suspects with that particular problem. o_0

That aside, while I won't ever lead a raid or a trial (Honestly, I really am too slow and too poor a typist to do it-) I've always tried to show up as often as I could, and to do whatever was needed to help out. Even when they aren't "finished" 50's, I try to bring characters that are at least useful in some capacity... And for a long time, that seemed to be enough.

Lately, though, there seems to have been a lot of resentment building up over having sub-50 characters on raids, no matter what they are. Sort-of a not-so-subtle sub-text of "Oh, look. A mooching waste of space." that for me, personally, has really soured the experience. Yeah, Karasu and Nemissary were both 35 the first time I brought them on a raid... Suzume and Silver weren't much higher, either, back-in-the-day... but damned if any of them were the useless leeches it seems to be assumed lower-level characters are now.

I really don't like this "bring a 50 or you're A Problem"-business. No matter who ends up herding the cats, my one real hope is that that particular development in our little raiding community dies a quick death. Some people need to bring their 50's, yes. But trying to force them or shame people into doing it isn't going to work. It's just going to make them go find something else to do.

Playing another MMO.

While I wouldn't touch Freedom with a ten-foot virtual pole (My PBs are on Liberty and Exalted, while my 'Shade is on Union-), I do wish you luck.

Rock on, my squiddy brother.

The dual blade powerset and the addition of wings... Neither Kestrel nor Palrah would have been possible without those two things.

I would really, really like to get both the Unquiet Bride (Zombie MM) and her Nemissary (Dark defender) to 50 over the weekend. That's my only real goal. They're 43 and 44 currently, so I think it's do-able.

Unless Staff goes live tomorrow.

If that happens, it'll probably turn into an entire weekend with the "ninja stick-men", as FCM and I rampage around with a Live version of the brute/stalker staff duo we built on Beta.

You have an off night on the tennis court and grumble about a stealth nerf to Accuracy.

As much as I would love for them to finally finish power customization (Awful Hasten effect, I'm looking at you. <_<), I've liked some of the things on the vanity side, too. The flying carpet and panther stealth are good fits for a couple of my crew, and I'm glad they're available. while I don't personally have any use for a frisbee, I'm sure there are people out there who love having it for Surfer Dude and his trusty side-kick The Beach Bum.

To each their own, I say. And if one pays for the other... at least we all eventually end up getting what we want.

I was grinning pretty big over the DA arcs, too...

My red-side main, Grey Kestrel, has always been played and written as being very devoted to Scirocco. She considers him a friend, and she and her partner Cardinal have remained in the Rogue Isles pretty much entirely because they refuse to abandon him in hostile territory. In spite of the business with Daos and the ritual, the thing with Recluse and his helmet, and becoming a full-on Incarnate along the way, Kes still grins and calls the guy "boss". (If you asked her, she'd deny working for Arachnos itself anymore, though. She does what she does for Scir personally, not for Recluse and the rest.)

All that said, those DA arcs are the first time the game's actually allowed Kestrel to do the kinds of things in-game that I think of her as doing in-character. She had her friend's back when he needed her to. And she got to tear around a few missions with him as an ally instead of a target, which was a huge amount of fun. (In particular, I got a real kick out of seeing what happened when Kestrel and Cardinal, and Scir and Mistral all slammed into a big group of goons together. It was messy. And gloriously so. )

So, yeah. Like I said over in the beta feedback thread on the arcs, I owe somebody in the dev crew thanks for those missions on Kestrel's behalf. They made that stabby rogue's day. And mine.

I had originally intended to leave the Unquiet Bride's "other half" as a behind-the-scenes NPC... just your average, run of the mill Death Mage... But I ended up wanting to play with another defender around that time, and Dark seemed as good a choice as any. So, the Nemissary ended up a player character.

Anteros' Praetorian human girlfriend, Semnai, is similar. She started out as an NPC (A psychic who was co-opted into the Seer program, which prompted Teri to join the Resistance and go looking for her) before she became a regular part of my crew. (She's a Psi blaster "former" Seer possessed by her own Apparition these days. With a bit of a grudge against Mother. )

Grey Kestrel's Mu adept partner, Red Cardinal, is another one who worked out that way. He only existed in "NPC pet form" until I decided I wanted an Electrical dom. He's still mostly around in pet form, since I ended up not being as fond of the set as I'd hoped.

Other side-line NPCs don't ever get the PC treatment. Palrah, Ty and Ash have adoptive human parents, since they were very young when they came to Primal Earth... They're a pair of Portal Corp dimensional researchers.

Mister Bibbles and Mister Mistoffolees, my two rival cat-boys, are both NPC spell-caster's familiars. Bibbles belongs to a Cabal witch named Beatrice and Meff belongs to a Legacy Chain sorcerer named Hong.

Surruna has a Preatorian scientist friend who works for Vanguard. She was indended to be sort-of a mirror-universe version of Naylor.

Steam Monk's owner and sifu is an elderly priest and retired kung fu master named Enlai. The robot was originally built by engineer and would-be power-armored hero Tao Tiger as a helper and bodyguard for the old fellow. He's her grandfather. Both Tao and Enlai are NPCs.