COTCaveHater

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[ QUOTE ][*]Since a villian no longer has their patron if they turn good does that mean they can now access the appropriate Hero Epic powers? Will fallen from grace heros be able to pick up a patron on the other side of the fence and get access to villian PPPs?

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A long time ago, back when Jack was still involved, his take was that you would lose your PPP and have to pick an EPP, or vice versa. No idea if that's still the view since a lot has changed since then, but it seems rather likely just on the basis of theme.

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Maybe you switch to the Praetorian versions ie. same powerset, but different Patron. It'd be tacky, but simpler as you wouldn't need to respec as part of switching.

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And you cannot buy vet rewards. You get them by having an active account, which is not the same thing.

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I'm living proof!

I re-upped for a year last time and got squat for my troubles, except 12 months of paid subscription.

Oh sure, my vet rewards trickle down in a pathetic stream, but if I were buying them I'd have got 'em all at once in a big fun pile.

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Of course you didn't, vet rewards are intended to encourage you to maintain your subscription and keep playing. Trickling them out gives you a reason to log in every three months. I'm not saying that I've kept my subscription going solely because of vet rewards, but I would have to say they have contributed to me renewing for longer periods, and have been a disincentive to take a break from the game (subscription wise).

P.S. Paying for a year at a time also gets you a discount.

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In keeping with the paid expansion... Villain->Rogue, $10 please, Rogue->Hero... well you get the idea.

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hehe yeah I'm guessing tokens. Maybe you start with one at toon creation, but can buy additional for $10.
Like I said before, anything that keeps the game profitable is okay with me.

I'm annoyed because I hardly ever play anymore. I'm in Australia and by the time I get the kids in bed, I'm just in time for maintenance. Which seems to be every flippin night at the moment since I14

I meant, even if it is done poorly, if what they are doing is allowing characters to switch sides, then it won't divide the playerbase.

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The Rogue expansion, paid or not, will have to be done well or it may subdivide the game population.

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Probably the opposite. I imagine it will allow you to log on to your favourite toon and join your friends no matter what faction they are playing. If you've paid for the expansion :-)

I'm guessing the Praetorian Universe will only be accessible for people who have paid for the expansion.

As for cross-over, I would expect that it would allow you to change the alignment of your toon From Villain->Rogue->Hero. Perhaps there will be a "Realignment" mission and tokens like respec. I am pretty sure the devs aren't mad enough to turn all zones into PvP zones, so for your villain to move blueside it will need to turn to Rogue or Hero. Again, this would only be available for people who have paid.

If this is correct, then I suspect a market merge will be inevitable. If they don't merge, they would at least be introducing a mechanism for transporting items and inf from Redside to Blueside. Maybe there could be a niche there *shrug*

(IMO the game is five years old and the devs are quite right to milk the playerbase for money every so often, to keep the game viable. Being able to play Hero Dominators/Brutes etc is something that a lot of existing players would cough up money for)

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With the new expansion, "Going Rouge", I believe a market merger is inevitable now.

Discuss.

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"Going Rouge" conjures up an entirely different image in my mind...

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Wait, they're not the Rouge Isles?

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For the first time, Hero characters can become Villains and vice versa, enabling Heroes to cross over to the Rogue Isles™ and Villains to experience Paragon City™

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I took this to mean that your toon can go from the "real" Rogue Isles to the "real" Paragon City and back.

I suppose they could mean that you will play the opposite faction in the mirror version, which would mean no need for a market merge.

For those that haven't seen the email:
Paragon Studios™ is proud to officially announce the next City of Heroes® expansion, City of Heroes Going Rogue™! This will be the first major expansion for the City of Heroes franchise since the launch of City of Villains® in 2005.

Praetoria, a utopian mirror to our own world, hides a dark secret. Exploring this mysterious alternate earth, the heroes and villains of this world feel an uneasiness of doubt creep over them. Loyalties are questioned. Choices are made. Lines are drawn. As they search for the truth behind Emperor Cole and his Praetorian guard, brutal foes and fierce allies emerge, turning this once blissful paradise into a battle ground.

City of Heroes Going Rogue officially opens the "mirror universe" of Praetoria and an all-new alignment system that explores the shades of gray that lie between Heroes and Villains. For the first time, Hero characters can become Villains and vice versa, enabling Heroes to cross over to the Rogue Isles™ and Villains to experience Paragon City™.

For more information, read the official press release and check out our new Going Rogue website to view the announcement trailer and register for the latest news and updates for City of Heroes Going Rogue.

With the new expansion, "Going Rouge", I believe a market merger is inevitable now.

Discuss.

What ever happened to in-game ads? Has anyone ever seen them? How much do they cost?

Are there replacement variables so I can have the player's name appear in the mission text, or in NPC text. Something like 'Curses! $heroname has appeared!' which translates to 'Curses! Dr Invincible has appeared!' when Dr Invincible plays my mish?

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But everybody poops!

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Not everybody. Some poor sods need a machine to poop

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CST is 6 hours behind of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)

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Beaten to it. Since I would assume that the downtimes are going to continue to be expressed in cst, I'd just recommend everyone make their mental notes about how much time to add/subtract now.

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Adding/subtracting means I need to know daylight savings at either end. UTC is simply better than local times for this reason. I found this link though: (click here) which I have now bookmarked as "CoH Server Time" :-)

Devs, please please please give server downtimes in UTC as well as US times. I'm in Australia and don't know what timezone CST is.

The server status page date-time is in UTC but the server downtime notices are in CST. Hard to reconcile.

You guys rawk!

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My first discovery was the Steadfast -KB, which sells at level 30 for 30M inf, about 400k/merit at 75 merits. However, I felt really bad taking advantage of this, because lower level ones sell for considerably less... and have less utility due to exemplaring rules. I only sold one before my conscience got the better of me.

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How can a lower level one be less useful than a higher level one? According to the description on the Wiki:

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This enhancement functions as a set bonus and is always on, even if in a toggle that is turned off or even if the power is greyed out because of exemplaring. However, the bonus of this Special IO is turned off if one exemplars more then three levels below the level of the Special IO itself.

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That means that lower is better. A level 10 SF -KB would give you the 4 points of protection exemped down as low as 7. A level 30 would only give you protection exemped down to 27.

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I've noticed this sort of thing can happen if there is a large difference in supply for the Proc at different levels. A lower level, more useful Proc can sell for less than a higher level version because the lower level one is sold so infrequently that only patient bidders ever buy it.

If the higher level Proc has a greater supply, players have the option for "Buy it nao". Some procs (e.g. low level Freebird:+Stealth) only drop on the market every couple of months. Impatient bidders go away and make do with the higher level Proc.

The corollary is that if you are willing to sacrifice market slots for months at a time, you can make many tens of millions of profit on these items for very little investment. I have a toon on Freedom (not my home server) that flips low level Freebird:+Stealth, which I only check every month or so.

Our favorite excerpt from Lord Recluse's stirring 2008 election speech:

"These are not free Isles or democratic Isles - these are the Rogue Isles. These are not safe Isles or weak Isles or just Isles or tolerant Isles - these are the Rogue Isles. And you will all bow before me."

Congratulations to Lord Recluse for winning another national election with 99.97% of the vote!

Wrong-vote audit deliberations will be televised at 7pm tonight, with execution coverage at 9pm. Readers are reminded that viewing the execution coverage is MANDATORY for all citizens over the age of twelve.

I see your point, but I imagine it is a good thing for the game that there are long TFs that are difficult to organise. It makes them more valuable as "Epic content".

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As for the solutions, It pretty much gives more than one Pool C recipe for completing a TF. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to give more than once recipe for completing a TF.

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I think the whole point is to do just that. Right now all TFs / SFs have the same reward, but the time required varies tremendously. A six hour Shadow Shard TF gives the same reward as a thirty minute Katie run. Adding tokens based on average time to complete would mean that six hour Shadow Shard monster you just finished would give you several recipes... just like the multiple shorter TFs you could have run in the same time period would.

As for soloing TFs, I'm sure it's possible for a few builds on both hero and villain side, but I doubt it's common. After all, most builds can't solo an AV or Hero and the ones that can are still going to take way longer to do so than just running a Katie / whatever the quick villain SF is. Soloing a TF is for bragging rights... it's no where near as fast as a team for getting Pool C drops.

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It's silly to try and balance the rewards for TFs depending on how 'difficult' it is.

Players who are farming TFs for drops won't really care what TF it is - they will work out which TF they can run the fastest and do that one over and over. 'Tokens' might affect their choice of TF but it won't affect their enjoyment.

For everyone else the TF itself is the reward. The drop at the end should is nowhere near as important as the content of the TF.

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The lack of supply villainside could quickly and easily be remedied by sellers raising their prices on hard-to-get items.


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If the problem is actually hoarding because noone wants to wait 2 weeks to buy something when they need it, why would getting more money that it would still take 2 weeks to spend increase the desire to sell an item rather than hoard it?

Currency is valuable because it replaces the barter method of exchange of goods. But it's only valuable because you can generally trade it for the goods/services you want. If you can't actually find the item you want for sale then having 1 billion inf instead of 500 million doesn't really change this.

Plus on my low level characters I tend to see prices barely above vendor level, often with 0 bids. If I hadn't read these boards, I might have just decided that the red market was a complete waste of time and saved/vendor whatever drops I got.

Plus - someone putting up a LotG for 125 million doesn't make me any more able to get one to drop and actually increase the supply. In fact, it tells me I'd better save any I get because the price will be outrageous so I'm better just keeping them around in case I need one later.

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Sorry, rather than 'supply' I should say raising prices would increase the STOCK.

The problem people are complaining about is that there are certain items which are simply unavailable. That is, as soon as one is listed, it sells more or less immediately. Increasing prices would mean these items would stay in stock.

I believe the reasons high end items sell out are:
1) Bidding ties up your inf meaning you can't leave a bid like "I'll pay 50 million for a Miracle:+Recovery between levels 40 and 45". So buyers tend to bid&cancel - which naturally means they bid creep more and reduce prices
2) Transaction slots are limited, so people are less willing to list at exhorbitant prices in case they never sell.

Main issue is #1. If #1 wasn't a factor, the last 5 prices would keep climbing until stockpiling occurred.

For other items, flippers ameliorate reason #1, but because of #2, flippers are less likely to flip high end items.

So the result is effectively a lottery where high end loot sells instantly for bargain prices and there is no stock.

My preferred solution is this: If supply drops or demand for an item goes up, the price should rise. If an item becomes oversupplied then the price should go down.

The lack of supply villainside could quickly and easily be remedied by sellers raising their prices on hard-to-get items.

So if you are about to put an item on the BM and it is the only one that's going to be for sale DOUBLE THE HIGHEST LAST 5 PRICE.

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not everyone feels ANY way.

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I do.

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You would

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doo doo

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If you leave your recipe window open, you can continue to craft in it after the table explodes. Given that, I wouldn't mind if the table hung around longer to reduce window clutter.

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Shhhhhh... they might 'fix' it.