Cambios

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Leech drooled:
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Don't forget, Cambios is the person that was upset NCSoft wasn't keeping City of on the 125% uptime standards of the telecommunications industry. Basically comparing a video game to 911 (or equiv) service.

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1) LOL @ you.

2) Please find and post a citation of this "125%" number.

3) Since NCSoft has taken over, they have proven me right on the issue of maintenance. They cut it from 5 days to 2, and they moved the time earlier. In other words, the two things I always said needed to be done, they've done.

That means on the issue of server maintenance, I won.

You can keep bringing it up, but honestly, that is an issue where "my side" won a glorious victory. NCSoft agreed with us, not you.

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Mordakar wrote:
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Right. Because trying to move people around instead of sitting in one spot and grinding for hours on end for XP, reputation and/or drops counts for nothing. Giving people access to fast modes of travel very early in their career is meaningless, and trying to break out of the holy trinity (Tank, Mage, Healer such is seen in CoV and most Defender primaries other than Empathy) is equally passable as the rest.


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Huh? Tons of games do these things. And CoX still has the same Holy Trinity as any other traditional RPG: Tank, Dps, Support. *THAT* is the holy trinity - not tank, mage, and healer.

CoX has LESS gameplay variety than every other major MMO out there. Not just a little bit less.... TONS less.

"Run missions" is pretty much all you can do in this game. That's it. The entire game is about running missions. And to make it worse, these missions all look the same.

This is a real problem folks. I imagine I want this game to continue to succeed as much as anyone here. I like playing it. I'd like to see the game GROW rather than shrink or just stagnate. But as they continue to stubbornly refuse to design real, meaningful, content variety, the chances of that happening dwindle.

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Like the RWZ Rikti maps through the caves? Those totally unique maps?

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Unfortunately, those are barely more than a reskin. There is nothing FUNCTIONALLY different about them at all. There are no power plants you can destroy to shut down their power grids or force fields. There are no storage pods that hold rikti who will spawn if you don't smash them or turn them off. There are no laser fields that damage you, or damage rikti if you knock them through them. In other words, they are just a reskin.

But I will say, at least RWZ did have that one small cosmetic change - the first one in a long, long time. The vast majority of RWZ uses the same tilsets we have been seeing for years.

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I will be trying to attend, on my alt Medi-Lad, because a slight connection to Manticore is written into his backstory

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So to me, I'll be going because it's part of M-L's story; he WOULD be there, period. And if all goes well, he will be: I'm logged out on him, in his tux, right under Atlas' statue. Hopefully, I'll get to the right NPC soon enough to be part of the first iteration of the day. I'll be doing my darnedest to RP him, without being an obnoxious pest about it, the whole time.


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LOL

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Our subscription money opens the game to us to play. That is all. The extras which we've gotten did not have to be included, every single Issue worth of content COULD have been paid for by expansions and upgrade costs.

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I must politely inform you that you are incorrect.

The box price paid for "opening up the game" for us to play.

The subscription fee is for continued content development and management.

This is how the MMO industry works. Box price is for the base game. Subscriptions are for continued content development.

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Would you say that's what WoW does by charging for expansions and charging a subscription fee?

Blizzard pushes out at least as much free content for WoW as we get here in CoX. Over and above the paid expansions.

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And we've got no reason to think NCSoft isn't going to do the same.


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We don't?

Isn't the atrociously small amount of content we have received over the last few years a pretty good indicator?

We should be getting a new zone, full of arcs, storylines, new tilesets, etc. at least once every 3 months. We get a new zone about once a year.

We should be getting new "systems" at least once every 6 months. So far, we've gotten them twice during the lifespan of the game: PvP and IOs.

I enjoy the game, but the lack of variety in gameplay has always been its biggest flaw. To then try to SELL new content (however minimal it is) as an extra thing is really quite absurd.

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Neuronia wrote:
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I purchased the code without blinking because I'm a completist, much like I dropped influence for all the wings and boots back in the day to add those to my main.


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How's that investment working out for you now that wings and such sell for about 1/10000th their former cost?

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Neuronia wrote:
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I did feel kinda awkward though when a sg leader and myself were throwing confetti and the rest of the team just shuffled uncomfortably...consider this a guilty pleasure for myself then.


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Don't feel awkward. They weren't shuffling. They were desperately trying to resist the urge to point and laugh at the PT Barnum style suckers.

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The volume of free content over the past year has been staggering

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Stop drinking the kool aid.

There has NEVER been free content added to CoX. We are paying $15 a month for constantly updated content.

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I find their to be a difference between paying for new content, and paying a
subscription fee. Take your own advice.

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So if you subscribed to Newsweek, you'd be fine with them also charging you cover price for the magazine, right?

Seriously. I am begging you. Think before you post.

The subscription fee is what you are paying to get new content.

P.S. Love the avatar.

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All new content is going to use similar gameplay to what's come before;


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Honestly, that would be fine with me if we had anything more than "run missions."

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I'm really curious to hear what, exactly, you would consider "new."

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This is a dangerous question, but I'll answer with the following condition: don't jump on specific items and start a whole tanget about how that specific idea is bad, impossible, etc. The larger point is that there should be SOMETHING new for us to do that is not just the same "run missions" content. If not ideas like these, then SOMETHING.
<ul type="square">[*] Completely new tilesets that are not just a reskinned warehouse. The famous "moon base" idea, possibly with different gravity (you jump higher and farther, and fall slower) would be awesome. You could make moon environments actually feel and play different.
[*] Factions. Implement faction tracking so you can improve your faction rating with groups like the Crey, Malta, Freedom Phalanx, etc. You can raise your faction with a group by 1) running missions for them, 2) "defeating" foes of their most hated faction(s), 3) Street sweeping in a zone that is important to them, 4) Other. The benefits of faction would be access to additional costume options, a faction shop with weapon customization options and temp powers, FUCTIONAL items for your base, etc (buyable with influence, not Yet Another Currency Type like merits, salvage, prestige, etc.).
[*] Open up the base system to more people by converting the current smallest plot to a "lair" that everyone can have, and a permissions list where they can "share" it with other characters if they wish. This would let people have a shared lair without having to form a SG for it. The base system is actually pretty good, but not enough people have access to it.
[*] After the above is done, invest a lot of time and effort into improving and enhancing the base/lair system. The core of an awesome feature is here. People love "player housing", and since WoW has dragged their feet on this issue, creating good player housing makes good business sense.
[*] Give people a way to affect the game world. Possibilities:

1) If you street sweep enough in a given zone, make one of the statues change to a stone image of YOUR character. The tech exists for this, as they claimed they wanted to do it long ago. Every zone has a number of statues. The could dynamically change to whoever "arrested" the most mobs in that zone in the last say, 4 hour period. Every hour, the data from 4 hours ago would drop off, making it possible for someone new to come along and change a statue to one of their character.

2) If you defeat enough of a certain mob type in a zone, it would trigger some kind of interesting event. Perhaps an "army" of that mob type appears with a number of EBs and or AVs leading it. Defeating this "army" and its leader would result in any mob of that type that spawns in the zone for the next X hours to stand in the "afraid" position until attacked. Also, the EBs and AVs would have (at least) double the normal inf/xp for their type, and contributing to the defeat of the AVs would have a high chance of a random rare recipe from ANY pool (including tf/trial), or even a higher than normal chance for a purple recipe.

3) I could list more, but the general idea is let people feel like they are making a mark. Even if it is temporary and only lasts a few hours or days.
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Again, I am not saying those specific things "have to" happen. Those are just some possible things. They would be new ways to actually play the game other than just "run some missions."

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Why do you keep playing if you are, as it seems from the venom of your posts in this topic, so disatisfied with the state of the game today?

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Pay me $9.99 and I'll tell you.

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last I checked, last thing I really had to pay for was City of Villains back in I6, so the past 5 issues we've received free content.

krym0arplz

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Wow. You found a way around the $15 a month subscription fee? Care to share?

Think before you post. Sheesh.

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Except Arcanaville, there's an implicit assumption in your analysis, and I think you're begging the question a bit.

It's not a given that all of their productive time inherently belongs to us as regular customers. That may be a natural assumption, but it's not necessarily true. And considering that we don't know exactly how big their staff is, or exactly how many hours they put in, putting a claim on 100% of the workhours wouldn't mean much even if it could be justified.

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And there is an implicit assumption in your post:

That we are actually getting a meaningful amount of content from their "work time."

I'm not seeing it.

When I login to play CoX, it is the same "run missions" gameplay that I had on day 1. Other than the IO/loot system, nothing is fundamentally different. I have NO OTHER CHOICES for things to do other than run missions one way or another.

That's a big problem folks.

I love the core gameplay. I love the engine. I love the interface. But the lack of content variety just makes me incredibly sad. And when the trickle of content we do get is siphoned off to a pay-for-perks add on pack, that's just ridiculous.

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However, please keep in mind that Sean Fish and his wife Jen will actually be at the keyboards running Manticore and Sister Psyche respectively. Matt "Positron" Miller will actually be playing Positron in the event, as will all the rest of the dev team. ing. More details will follow. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

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OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

*** ACTUALLY *** at their keyboards?

What in the heck. Are we supposed to swoon like these are rock stars or something? We know they are going to be firing off macros or slamming in scripted text. It isn't like there will be meaningful RP or anything actually interesting happening.

Watching two strangers get married is about as special as watching paint dry. Foisting this on us like it is "special" is insulting to our intelligence.

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Gotterdamurung wrote:
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Yeah, last year was such a disappointment. I mean, besides the


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You realize almost everything on your list was either recycled content, or you just repeating yourself? Right?



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Valentines day event
the Halloween event
the Winter event,
Hami for villains
Monster Island
flashback
dual blades
willpower
weapon customization
the Menders arcs
the Vanguard arcs
invasions
RWZ


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All recycled content.

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crafting, IO's, loot, markets, ultra-rare inventions, respec recipes


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That's 1 thing. The IO system.

The only thing we "got" was IOs, STF, LGTF, and mothership raids.

IOs are awesome. The STF and LGTF are nice, but they are still the same old basic "run 10 missions" gameplay we've done a million times before. Mothership raids are neat - if there was ever one happening on my server.

So for meaningful new content, all we got was IOs. The rest was either recycled or very minor.

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says you. I've been playing this game for 4 years and I'm still not bored with it. there are still things I have not done and story lines for me to explore


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What tileset have you not seen yet?

What enemy faction have you not seen?

The fact that you missed an arc here or there is not variety. They differ generally by nothing more than a couple paragraphs of written text.

We rarely ever get new zones. The new zones we get are 90% or more recycled. And what about some new __systems__ of gameplay? The last time they tried that was base raids... ooops. I could list examples of new systems and ways to play that would be great, but that isn't the issue. The issue is we have nothing - just the same "run missions" gameplay we have always had.

Playing the game is the SAME now as it was years ago. They have a good foundation, which is why we keep playing. But that is no excuse to just take our faith and loyalty for granted and never give us meaningfully different and new content to enjoy.


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why? what's so repulsive about it? They give us "free expansions" on a regular basis


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What free expansions? The ones we pay $15 a month for? Here's a clue: hardware and bandwidth are cheap as heck these days. The real cost of MMO development is CONTENT. That is what we are paying for, and we aren't getting it.


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again.. why? as I said before we pay $10 for a silly name change, what's the big deal with paying $10 for absolutely awesome exclusive costume options?


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We do? I sure don't. And part of the cost for name changes is to prevent frivolous use. Is part of the cost of thise "pack" to discourage people from buying it? I don't think so.

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If you really so unsatisfied with the game and what it offers, perhaps it's time to move on?

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Whenever someone trots out the "if you don't like it, quit" line they have just accepted defeat. That is a completely useless and worthless thing to say. A major reason for these forums is feedback. Negative feedback should not be responded to with "just quit" from mindless fanboy sheep.

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Arcanaville wrote:
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I'd write a check to Jay and BaB for custom animations and costumes right now, if that's the way it worked. But I have a feeling that the art department didn't burn the midnight oil and get a bonus for these extras: they would have worked just as hard - but on something else everyone would have gotten access to - if they didn't work on these.

I wouldn't mind if these things were, say, veteran rewards that someone could buy to get early, and sufficiently long veterans would get unlocked eventually, so the purchase price was just for the impatient. And I don't mind supporting the dev team in general. And the completist in me is likely to buy the pack anyway, eventually, and the $10 means exactly nothing to me. But I'm still uncomfortable with a ten dollar costume and emote pack on principle.

This does not appear to be a case of "we can't justify the cost of making these items, but maybe we can make them retail items to help defray the cost." This appears to be a case of "hey, since you're making those things anyway, lets see if we can sell them rather than give them away, to gauge the interest of the player population in retail option packs."

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I don't agree with you often Arcanaville, but you are SPOT ON today.

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There is still a full complement of free Issues and content scheduled for this year and beyond for City of Heroes and City of Villains.

This pack is something that we were able to make available outside of our regular release schedule. So, no, you won't have to pay for other new costumes and emotes. We realize that the Wedding Pack won't be for everyone, but hopefully those who are interested in it will find that they like having the option to obtain it.

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Um. Nice try, but no.

City of Heroes/Villains is already incredibly LACKING in content variety. It is bad enough you expect us to run Warehouse Mission #876,896,123 ad infinitum on every character, but now you're selling costume options and emotes as an add on?

Sorry, but you have to decide right now if CoX is a subscription based game, or a "pay-for-perks" game. You don't get to do both. Figure out which business model you prefer, and stick with it. Cherry picking from both is repulsive.

$10 for a couple of VERY specialized costume options and 4 emotes is outrageous.

At least your Good vs. Evil package included:
<ul type="square">[*] New costume options.[*] Jump Pack Power.[*] Pocket D teleport power.[*] Pocket D VIP Gold Club Member Badge.[/list]
At least with Good vs. Evil you got 2 pretty handy powers to go along with the two "style" benefits (costume options and badge, comparable to the Valentine's costume options and emotes).

What an absolutely enormous let down. With so little content released so rarely as is, I can't believe you would actually make stuff like this and then try to get EXTRA money on top of the subscription for it.

Other MMOs get entirely new zones, areas, and "raids" on a regular basis that have completely new environments, tilesets, etc. We get recycled power sets, recycled tile sets (RWZ), and then are supposed to pay $10 extra for a few costume slots and emotes????

Outrageous. Whoever's idea this was should be fired or at least reprimanted.

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The point is that you don't put all your eggs (characters) in one basket (Freedom), that's all.

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Huh? Choose a server to play characters is now supposed to be like day trading in the stock market?

The problem has both an immediate component, and a more serious long-term component:

Double XP Weekend

359 days of the year most of the servers other than Freedom/Virtue are pretty slow. Unless you are part of a great SG or coalition (fortunately, I have such a thing on Triumph) then you're pretty much screwed. Finding *good* teams for TFs, Trials, or just xp/inf is much harder on those other servers. If you happen to like to play villains (*comfort* *pity*) then servers other than Freedom are almost totally dead.

But then along comes double xp weekend, which is supposed to be a really fun and special event. You should be able to run into old friends and old faces you haven't seen for a while, and have a blast playing with them. But if Freedom or Virtue is your home, you're borked. You miss out on the experience.

I don't think the solution here is to just ignore and blow off people who play on those servers, or to attack them for their choice. There are VERY GOOD REASONS to play on those servers.

Long Term Problem

CoX has some real population issues right now that need to be addressed seriously. Whether that means server merges, or free transfers from Freedom/Virtue -&gt; anywhere else, I'm not sure. But something needs to be done.

In that same context, something has to be done about the rotting shell known as the Rogue Isles. A good first step would be merging the markets. My personal belief is they should admit the error, and just open up the whole game to everyone. Yes, some comic book purists will freak, but in the long run, it is all about playing the game together and enjoying content more than anything else. You can play things "pure" in the PvP zones or in the way you set up your SGs.

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Mr_No_Pants wrote:
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Yeah..how dare the Devs grant us movement between servers after we asked so long for it.


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Wow. They gave us movement between servers? I thought we had to pay $10 per character for this?

s/Mr_No_Pants/Mr_No_Brains

Mayhems and Safeguards please!

And how about a TF reward choice of: "Reset Mayhem rewards."

That would be so awesome.

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Positron wrote:

Anything can be made Flashback, but the "completed" star checks for A) Souvenir clue or B) the Badge. If we did missions that were not Story Arcs and not Badged, then they would never show complete.

That said, I have no problem doing this if you guys don't. Just let me know what missions you want on Ouroboros and I will do my best to get them there.

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Before you invest more time into Ouro, could you maybe figure out a way to stop exemplaring people?

You absolutely demolished what COULD HAVE BEEN some great level 50 content with the auto-exemplar stuff.

People should be able to do fun things with their level 50s. By fun I mean more than farming or running their 978th STF.

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Arcanaville wrote:

My problem with the original system was that it wasn't designed to be some grand balance between the SG-haves and havenots. It was designed to be an influence sink, period. And the problem was that it squeezed an inappropriate segment of the player population, in my opinion. Large SGs that could pretty much tolerate any cost, were fine. Solo players that didn't bother with SGs at all were fine. It was the players who were, in effect, "starting up" SGs that were hit the hardest. And those players seemed to be the *most* inappropriate players to penalize: the ones actually *trying* to start something.


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Well said. The bigger problem is the borked nature of bases, the fact that they are limited to SGs, and the general worthlessness of SGs.

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For instance, to get L51, you'd have to complete all of the storylines from all prior contacts, excluding TFs. For 52, you must complete all normal zone TFs. For 53, complete all the oddball TFs like Hollows, Croatoa, Strigga, RWZ, etc. CoV would need more content for this to work for them, as well, but then CoV needs more content compared to CoH anyway.

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Um...... puke?

This sounds like Trials of Atlantis in DAoC, where there is only one way to level up, and that one way is extremely painful, tedious, and not fun.

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What worries me with this change is now I'm going to bascially have to play with debt 100% of the time just to avoid outleveling contacts. What that means is it might actually take me LONGER to level than before, because I'm forced to earn XP at half speed.

It might be nice to actually do all the TFs on one of my characters someday, too.


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It really is a good thing to have more content available than you can actually do on a single character.


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By the way, extra top-end content doesn't necessarily make things more interesting.


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Sure it does. If you don't have a lot of level cap content, then the whole process of levelling up starts to feel very, very pointless. You also lose tons of long term players that way. That's a bad thing.


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I'd love to see a new system of advancement above 50 that doesn't use XP, but rather tracks advancement based on completion of certain tasks. As rewards, give out some special non-slot powers, costumes, badges, invention rewards, SG rewards, etc.

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Anything to make lvl 50 more fun and interesting would be good.