Cantatus

[ QUOTE ]
"Hey we have flash on the forums now!"

[/ QUOTE ]

The previous banner was flash too, but I guess that sort of proves your point.

[ QUOTE ]
Just like you guys and gals I find myself getting whacked constantly because I'm too busy reading their text. :P

[/ QUOTE ]

See, that's why I made a tab just for NPC dialog. It lets me go back and read what they said after I beat them senseless.

Of course, it's been fairly embarrassing the few times I found out they were just asking me what time it was.

As one of the ones giving you a hard time with the Carnies article, I have to say: Much better! I really liked how you exposed some of the story you don't get in the game. The newspaper clipping was a really nice touch as well. Great work, I really enjoyed it.

And, Happy Birthday!

Yeah, this is defintiely something that's been on my mind since I started playing with the gladiators. Currently, there's really no reason to use minions and Lts. aside from filling out your extra points or special cases where they have good powers (Storm Shaman.)

I think the solution is to mimic how Masterminds work:

Suggestion 1 - When MMs gain new pets, their previous ones lower in level. I think Gladiators should work sort of in reverse. Rather than the minion and Lt pets losing levels, they'd gain them. For example, if I was level 50, I would summon a level 50 Warhulk, a level 51 Storm Shaman, and a level 52 Cog.

Suggestion 2 - The more of a particular pet you choose, the lower its level. If I have one Calibon, he's level 50. If I had 2, they'd both spawn at level 49. 3 would spawn at 48.

Of course, both suggestions depend on how much damage a boss mob can do to a minion 2 levels higher than it. They really need to make it so all gladiators are useful in the Arena and are balanced depending on their point cost.

I'm just really hoping the next expansion is an actual expansion rather than another expanshalone. Not that I don't like CoV, but I think it'd be great to actually have a huge add-on to both games rather than coming out with another side again. I really like the idea of villains and heroes having to work together to defeat some bigger threat.

Hate to be the one to break the news, but after the success of Nintendogs, the next expansion will be:

City of Fidoes

I think it'd be pretty fun to have an AV or two you can use. Maybe make it so you have to have multiple members on your team to summon one. For example, it could cost 8000 points so you have to have 4 people. Then you could pit AVs against each other or have one AV against another groups forces.

Other mobs I'd like to see:
- Devoured
- Shadows (from Dark Swan's mission)
- Ascendants
- Monkeys (but make it so each dot summons 3-4)
- Several of the Arachnos mobs (especially those guys with the spider limbs)



Realistically, I hope each mob faction in the game gets at least one you can summon.

[ QUOTE ]
The problem is identifying where that distinction lies. Because how heroic/villainous is, say, a scarf? Or a split cape? Or a skull design?

[/ QUOTE ]

Which is why I've repeatedly said it's not about "good" and "evil" costume pieces, but "different."

[ QUOTE ]
Distinction beteween two games that run on the same client software with the same server software on the same physical servers with many zones shared between the two?

[/ QUOTE ]

Plenty of other MMOGs have distinction between the various sides. It's not like that's unfounded.

[ QUOTE ]
The reason, and I'll bet money on it, that they are doing it is that you need to buy CoV to get access to the pieces. And this will get people who normally wouldn't buy CoV to buy it just to add costume options in CoH.

[/ QUOTE ]

That was pretty much my thought, but I didn't want to come out and say it. And I agree, I'd much rather hear that then, "We made a mistake in CoV, so we're making it in CoH!"

[ QUOTE ]
The option being added isn't hurting anyone. If the new costume features don't appeal to you for your heroes, simply don't use them. Your choices are not being limited and your ability to craft the toon that you want is not hindered. So...what's the problem exactly?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's sort of like someone saying, "I want my Scrapper to have AoE Holds and Nova and AM!" and someone saying, "Um... Scrappers and Controllers and Blasters and Defenders need some distinction between each other." to which the person replies, "You're trying to oppress my playstyle! You want me to play only the way you want!"

Obviously powers and costume options are different, but it is comparable. There should be distinction between the two games just as there should be distinction between the various archetypes. Just because someone wants that distinction doesn't mean they're doing it to personally offend you, just like the people who are in favor of this likely aren't doing it just because they're out to get me.

[ QUOTE ]
FYI - for those who don't like the idea because villains should look different than heroes - remember that villains already have hero options. They can create a character identical to one that exists in City of Heroes.

[/ QUOTE ]

To be fair, you guys were the ones originally saying that villains and heroes should look different and making it sound like a feature in CoV. If you guys were going to renege on that so easily or weren't committed to it, you shouldn't have promoted it as a feature. I don't think I'd have such a problem with it if it wasn't something you guys brought up that sounded like a good idea, and wasn't something you've been talking about for months.

Sort of funny that this is the thing that bothers me the most considering all the recent changes to the game...

[ QUOTE ]
It would be nice if the people objecting to costume crossover would come out and admit that they just want to tell other people how to make their character.

[/ QUOTE ]

It would be nice if the people who want costume crossover would come out and admit that they just want everything from CoV in CoH and make both games as similar as possible that there's no distinction between the two and that heroes and villains are identical in every way.

I can play the broad generalization and baseless assumption game too.

(And before anyone quotes that and think I'm serious about that in regards to people in support of the crossover. I'm not.)

[ QUOTE ]
So many CoV complains revolve around "Why by CoV, when it is no different that CoH?" or "I don't feel like a villain". It seems to me the Devs are only making it worse on themselves by carrying over all the content.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree. To me, it feels like they're just taking a feature of CoV away. They've been saying for some time that villains would look different, and some of us were looking forward to that. I'd be willing to bet that "feature" is on the box, but now it no longer applies.

I'm not against some of the options coming over, but everything shouldn't either. Why does it have to be all or nothing? Instead of having 1/3 options in common like they originally intended, why not make it 2/3 or 4/5? Why go from one extreme to the other when a compromise would be a lot easier and satisfy both crowds?

If villains powers are the same as heroes, and villains now look the same as heroes, how different are they really?

I think they should give some of the options from CoV, but they should also focus on creating some new options for CoH. Like I said in another post, aside from the anime options we got a few issues back (and the witches hat and maple leaf), CoH hasn't gotten much new since release. The solution for this shouldn't be taking away CoV's unique costume options. CoV and CoH should be more distinct from each other like they originally intended.

[ QUOTE ]
Real answer: back away from the keyboard, now! Don't type another thing!

[/ QUOTE ]

That's fairly uncalled for. People who don't support this are allowed to voice their opinions as well.

(Well, someone had to dissent.)

[ QUOTE ]

So, what you're saying is that all heroes should LOOK like Heroes, and all villains should LOOK like Villains?

So many cliches, so little time... We'll go with "Don't judge a book by it's cover."

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope, I'm saying, "Heroes and villains should look different."

[ QUOTE ]
Less lag would have helped but it still was dull and irritating.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lag has to be expected when you have three times as many people as any other server on (there were over 6000 people logged in) and nearly everyone of them is in Siren's Call. I doubt lag will be anywhere near as bad as this when people can play on their home servers.

[ QUOTE ]
And, while Jack says now that PvP will always be optional, a little over a year ago he was saying no PvP.

[/ QUOTE ]

They've never said no PvP, or at least, not since well before launch. I remember Cryptic talking about wanting an arena when I was in beta, but it was something they didn't have time to finish implementing. If they did ever say "no PvP," it was far longer ago than a year ago.

[ QUOTE ]
I once again vote against it. Costume diversity for the win.

[/ QUOTE ]

/agree, but I guess I'm just weird. :P

[ QUOTE ]
12am is midnight. We go from 11:59pm to 12:00am. "am" means "ante-meridian", or "before noon". "pm" means "post-meridian", or "after noon".

You can read "pm" as meaning "afternoon, evening, and night", while "am" is "morning" (including the pre-dawn hours).

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, that's not entirely accurate. AM is before noon, PM is after noon. 12:00 is noon. In actuality, it is neither PM nor AM, just like midnight since midnight could either be considered to be 12 hours after noon or 12 hours before. However, since the 59mins following midnight are in AM, midnight is commonly considered AM as well.

It could use more testing, that's for sure. The level bump just happened last week, which means a majority of the 20+ content is going to be tested within two weeks time. I don't think anyone has done any of the TFs or trials yet (maybe the respec one.) But, a lot can happen in two week's time.

[ QUOTE ]
I know about the "never finished" aspect of computer games. The time comes when the suits say "Time's up. Publish now with what we got and we'll patch later".

I just hope that it isn't too "incomplete" on release just to meet a deadline.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I agree with that.

Well, hopefully they do a better job implementing the newspaper tech into CoH than they did in CoV. CoH already has a place with endless, pointless missions that goes nowhere (Shadow Shard.)

Ha, great name!

Well, I haven't worked on my site for quite some time (due to various things I won't get into), but I didn't want this to go by without saying anything. Farewell, Gilgamesh!

Really sorry to see you go, Gilgamesh. You did a hell of a lot to shape Paragon City in to a living world. I've always looked forward to Wednesdays in hopes that a new Paragon Times had been published. You've done an amazing job, and I wish you great success with your future endeavors.