Catiene

Hey Everybody! Long time no see.

After 6 months away from City of Heroes I thought I'd come back and terrorize you all once again! My apologies if you've all wondered where I've been all this time but lets just say life has changed a hell of a lot these past 6 months. The past is past however and its time to look forward to the future

Once City of Heroes is updated (in another hour or so according to my download screen >.<) I'll be ready to play once again so shall see you all there xx

I'd love to play with some of my US friends on CoH but I much prefer to stay on the EU servers, even if there's only 2 english ones to choose from.

Besides, I have far too many people I consider as friends and wouldn't abandon them for anything

[ QUOTE ]
But generally speaking though... i would have assumed (as would most other people) that being logged in to the account whilst changing "features" of said account is a bad thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Been there done that lol. I tried doing that with the wedding stuff some time ago and didn't realise I needed to actually log off before it could update. While mine sorted itself out without a hitch it is something I had to learn from experience.

Sometimes actually reading the 'small print' does help lol

[ QUOTE ]
I'm aware of this. I do not accept however that everyone, new players, should suffer because of a minoritys exploits.

Most stupid of all these restrictions is the inability not to reply tell. After all, what the heck?
You think= an exploiter is gonna stand there waiting for a pm and then say "oh while youre on wanna be powerleveled?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately yes potential new players are punished because of the minority because there is currently no other way of stopping the scams from affecting paying players. As I said before, these rogues use bots to control and level the characters and the bots are also programmed to send out automatic tells. There have been numerous occassions where I told the advertiser to f*** off because I get frustrated by the amount of tells and often when I do that I find that the character no longer exists. Its not just a problem on CoX but it also affects many other RPGs like WoW, and Guild Wars and for paying customers there is nothing more annoying than having to deal with these idiots when all you want is to play and enjoy the game. Before these restrictions were put into place I was close to leaving because I was wasting alot of time emptying my mailbox in CoX because of the spam. Since the restrictions, as overkill as they may seem, I've not had to clear out my inbox or get flooded with advert tells.

[ QUOTE ]
And second is the inability to join an Sg. Again, what gives?

[/ QUOTE ]

I suspect that again this is due to the rogue minority stealing from SG vaults, though the main purpose of a trial account anyway is to get a feel for the gameplay without actually paying for the game and its unlucky that your son didn't get any teams during the trial. People these days use tells to ask for team mainly because the majority of people are playing on alts and want to do so in solo rather than teams. There are many places where trials are as restrictive, if not worse than the conditions on CoX.

[ QUOTE ]
It's rubbish. I run one of the most active SGs on Defiant and have done for years. I have never had anyone come in in that manner.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then you're lucky as I've heard it happen several times in the four years I've been on CoX. Many of the well established SGs nowadays though are very picky on who to invite and often have to team with one of the members of that SG before they'll get an invite.

Like I said, the purpose of trial accounts are mainly for people to get a feel of the gameplay. If you get a team while still on a trial account it makes it all the more better but trial accounts are meant to give you just the basics of the game and show you the basics of the different character professions. PlayNC in the past allowed pretty much free access to everything but that was exploited by the rogue minority so now its restricted to lvl 14, no tells and no sg invites which is perhaps fundimental for people who want teams.


Tell ya what though. When I get my computer back from the repair shop (possibly tomorrow or Friday. PSU sparked at me on Sunday ) I'll keep an eye out for your son and team up with him when I can

I can understand why people on trials find it so restrictive and yes maybe it is a little too restrictive but there are reasons for trials being as restrictive as they are.

In the past, trial rules were alot more relaxed but in the past year or so before the restrictions were put into place, people had been exploiting that and using 'bots' to send advertising mail and even using the tell system to advertise to people that if they pay a certain amount of real money to a particular site they'd trade millions of influence in return and also these trial accounts were powerlevelled to get the influence, which is not only dangerous to the safety of your PlayNC account, its against the EULA rules and regulations. People also paid these rogues to powerlevel their characters to 50 by using bots to control them, providing the 'botmaster' with the account name and password so they can access it. Occassionally these rogues would change the password of the account so you could no longer access your own account and when you do finally manage to get in they'd take away pretty much everything you had in your account and if they were even nastier, that of your SG also. The leaders of the SG can find out who took all the dosh, trace it back to you and boot you off, not caring if you were 'hacked' or not.

I don't know the ins and outs of PlayNC but my theory is that trial accounts could be incredibly difficult to trace to any one person because with the securiguard features of some ISP's like BT Yahoo you can actually create 'false addresses' which are connected to the customer's main account and these addresses can be deleted. Anyone with programming knowledge (although I'm technologically sound, I'm not a programmer, I could never get my head around it even in college) can take advantage of that. IPs can be traced back to a specific area or computer but in a business sense, that is a dangerous move without legal permission. Not only that, IP's can be masked so the IP shown to PlayNC might not be the correct IP for the account.


So PlayNC's solution to solving the advertising problem, powerlevelled trial accounts and trading in 'illegal influence' was to tighten controls on what trial accounts can and cannot do. It seems draconian but many decent players were leaving because they couldn't put up with the advertising smeg and PlayNC gets its revenue from paying players, not those on Trial Accounts. Thanks to these restrictions these illegal traders cannot do business on CoX because they cannot reach the maps that provide them with the influence they need to trade with others. If you want someone to blame for the changes, blame the ones who exploited the relaxed rules of the past.

GR would NCSoft be able to implement a system similar to what Sega use that allows people with Maestro cards to purchase 30/60 days using the billing system? The area I currently live in means I'd have to travel 40 miles to the nearest GAME company to buy game cards as the Gamestation 5 miles away no longer supplies them. Paypal for me is also not an option because I don't trust Paypal with any of my transactions.

While indeed Amazon and Play.com do sell time cards being able to purchase them directly saves more time than waiting for the cards to arrive in the post and means we can activate accounts quicker than having to wait for time cards to be delivered.

GR, in hindsight, shouldn't NCSoft really have dealt with finding a solution to this long before now? Why wasn't contingency plans put into place before this situation happened?

[ QUOTE ]
Seems odd that people are complaining at NCSoft who have zero control over this, sure they could have said something earlier but ultimate responsibility rests with the people running Maestro and your banks. Perhaps complaining to them might be a slightly better option than complaining at people who can't do anything to really help.

Personally if my bank did this to me I'd find a different bank. If they want to make money off me they'd better provide me with a service that is useful.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its more the fact that nobody was made aware of the changes beforehand that most of us are peeved at NCSoft now. Yes they have zero control over what Maestro do, but its still bad customer service to not inform players that this change is taking place and that's what I've been getting at personally.

I did try and find an email address to contact Maestro but unfortunately they're not that helpful either. They don't display any contact address other than letter mail which will never get read.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ok so I'm safe until October because I pay 3 monthly subs but what about those that want to come back and don't have any means to other than using Maestro? What are they to do in the meantime?

[/ QUOTE ]

As noted in my previous reply (bold added):

For those who currently have Maestro on recurring billing, we will be giving advance notice before removing your card from file. We also hope to have alternate payment means available at around the same time (before if possible, ASAP after if not).


[/ QUOTE ]

No offense intended GR but that wasn't the question I was asking. Also I can actually read so you don't need to bold things out for me. I'll rephrase my question for you.

There are people like Death Badger that have already been affected by the change and accounts cancelled because PlayNC no longer accept Maestro. Are those that are already affected going to be compensated for that or are they going to be left in the lurch until you find your payment solution?

I only heard of this via the Femmes site so this came as a surprise to me. Luckily at the moment, my last payment went through a couple of weeks ago so I don't need to panic until October 5th but one of my friends that wanted to come back can no longer do so.

Ok so I'm safe until October because I pay 3 monthly subs but what about those that want to come back and don't have any means to other than using Maestro? What are they to do in the meantime?

Paypal is far too confusing to use in the first place, I know that because I've tried and failed to understand it in the past and is far too inconvenient for its own good. I don't intend to ever get a credit card of any form and to change to another debit card means having to change accounts which charge through the roof if you change them and for someone on low income like I am, it isn't worth all that hassle when the money I have can be used for other things.

Something as important as this, regardless of whose fault it is, should've been announced well in advance so people that are on Maestro are made aware of this issue. Instead they kept their traps shut until someone uncovered it. Well done PlayNC...well done!

That's really unfair. I can only pay for things like this using a maestro card and I'll be damned if I ever use paypal or get a credit card. Thanks a bunch for not telling us this well before you implement it!

Here's an idea to consider though if you're doing it that way:

On Sega games such as Phantasy Star Universe though you can't auto-renew using maestro you can purchase 60 days game time using maestro. Maybe PlayNC would consider doing that with their games also if they're going to screw around those with Maestro cards?

Global: @Catiene
Server: Union/Defiant

CoH Characters Union:
Starlight Phoenix
Phoenix Aniela
Little Voice
Raven Moonlight

CoH Defiant Characters:

Catiene Winters
Moonlight Angel
Elemental Storm
Electric Faith

Type of RP: Casual RP, Will RP on occassions in teams.
Can be contacted: In game mail
Times on: Various times of the day, depending on mood, time or other things
Timezone: BST/GMT

[ QUOTE ]
I find Kheldians great in a team but completely helpless solo in some situations. Mine died 5 times trying to solo a mission today before I gave up. Was CoT but a void stalker made it impossible.

[/ QUOTE ]

My PB's pretty good at team and soloing, even with CoT. Voids can be a pain in the [censored] but as long as you're quick on your feet, have a load of Respites and get the void before it gets you then you'll survive the battles.

(Also it helps at lvl 35 when you get your self rez )

It happens occassionally. I've had it happen on my character list too...annoying sometimes while othertimes its benificial

Sounds like fun!

I won't be back on COH till tomorrow (At my mom's and she doesn't have a graphics card on her laptop!&gt;.&lt but send a tell to @Moonlight Angel when I get back tomorrow afternoon and I'll join in the fray

I think the reason why ppl think WS's are 'more controllerish' is because WS's slow ppl down with each attack while the PB reduces defense giving them more 'raw firepower' with each attack. Also PBs are more 'self contained' meaning you don't need too much assistance from the empath to keep yourself alive or ressurect where as the WS tend to need more help from the empath if there aren't enough enemies lying dead so they can heal themselves or enemies around them so they can resurrect. This makes the PB better at soloing than the WS, which plays better in groups.

I suggest that you do one of each IMO. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and the only true way of finding them out is to play them yourself.

I'm loving my PB and WS. ATM I'm working on my PB more than my WS and occassionally work with my other ATs.

I think the reason behind why people don't play PB and WS for long is because they're difficult to play. If you get caught by a Quantum, void or Shadow Cyst Crystal chances are you're gonna die very quickly unless you get them first. If you haven't played a difficult character to 50 (e.g. Ice/Ice tank or a blaster) then chances are that most won't like playing as a PB or WS because of the difficulties with them.

Its a shame really alot of ppl don't like them but if given the chance to get past lvl 20 at least then ppl will see how great these ATs really are.

Sorry for not being around like I said I would I've been in my bed with the flu bug &gt;.&lt;

Congratz on defeating the Hamidon though. Hopefully I'll be around for next time's one...if I don't get ill again.

I'll be there with Catiene Winters

Man you guys have been busy. Gratz mate

Catiene Winters Ancillary is Energy mastery

A good idea also is to make macros for your Kheldian, especially if you plan to go three form. Keeps everything in order for when you switch forms.

A good guide for the macros can be found here.

Warshades are definately harder to level up than the Peacebringer, mostly due to the fact that they have 3 self heals (Restore Essence, Reform essence and White Dwarf Sublimination) and a self rez which doesn't need enemies around to activate.

Warshades need enemies around them to use their heals and there's no guarantee of success when you use them, even with accuracy enhanced. Its the same with their self rez as it needs mobs around to steal the life essence from the enemy.

Personally I like both though I have to admit I play with my PB more than my WS. Maybe when I get my PB to 50 I'll concentrate more on my WS lol.

Catiene is still alive and well . Managed to get her to 50 just before I5 came to play.