Chad Gulzow-Man

Common, yes. Expected, maybe. Intended, not really.

The new store in i21/CoH Freedom should go pretty far towards keeping subscribers interested, though. Between the stipend of currency included in the subscription (400 Paragon Points, or 550 for long-term vets) and their intent to either release new content in the store or hold a sale on existing items at least every week, there will be lots of new shinies to keep people going in the (soon to be shortened) dry spells between issues.

Actually, you can send yourself global emails with inf attached.

As for the rest of your questions... the original, intended goal of the developers (or at least that of Jack "Statesman" Emmert) was that high-level players would hand out influence to low-level players freely, as there wasn't really anything to do with it once one hit the level cap and had fully slotted the character, thus the relatively high prices on enhancements as you progress through the levels. It turned out that people were hoarding it instead.

(The reason that City of Villains seemed so much poorer than the Heroes was simply that the capes had a full year and a half to accumulate their wealth before villains even showed up.)

So really, giving inf to lowbies so they can afford their enhancements is an intended aspect of the game... but it's not as necessary today as it was in the past.

Now that you get invention recipes and salvage as drops, you can sell those through the auction house or even to a regular vendor, and will have little trouble affording your DOs and SOs when they first become available. You can also use Architect Tickets to directly purchase DOs/SOs, but there is no Mission Architect building in Praetoria, so this won't be an option for you until you leave for Primal Earth.



Edit: Wow, so many replies in between my starting this post and actually finishing it. Durn support calls at work.

It all depends on your definition, I guess... If you're going by "chaos theory" or "entropy" random, then no, the drops are not random.

If you're going by "dice roll" random, then yes, it is random. And given that our drop system is an extension of classic tabletop RPGs' loot tables, this is how we must look at it.

A six-sided die can never roll anything below a 1 or above a 6; you know you've got a 1/6 chance at getting any specific roll each time you roll it. If you're only rewarded for getting the number 6, it's entirely possible that the die will hit the numbers 1-5 for nine thousand rolls straight. Rolling a number once doesn't stop you from rolling it again, so each individual roll will continue to have a 1/6 chance of landing on the number 6.

Drops in the game work the same way; if you have a 1/100 chance of getting a tip mission dropped from a minion, and the tip will only drop if you roll a 100, then defeating 100 minions still won't guarantee you get said drop, because every individual roll still had an individual 1/100 chance that wasn't affected by any other roll. (Note: this was just an example; I don't know the actual drop rate of tips on minions, nor the number the roll must hit to award such a drop.)

I think they were in the Comic Con build... I know I'd seen them mentioned somewhere, at least.

So far all developer commentary has said that anything that isn't specifically consumeable should be account-wide, so I think we can probably assume that any paid-for costume slots will go to all characters on the account.

I'd say that's a pretty safe way to ensure you've got people who are actively invested in both the game and its community in your focus group.

We know for a fact that Arcanaville was there. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find that other well-known forumites like Zombie Man or SnowGlobe were there, though neither of them has claimed attendance to my knowledge. I wouldn't even bat an eye if they'd invited Golden Girl... despite the way she gets on peoples' nerves sometimes, she's obviously very passionate about the game.

I honestly can't think of a better metric to pull together such a focus group.

(Unless of course there's a metric that had somehow included me. )

And given that there's no way to guarantee said drop... how is it NOT random? Having different drop rates doesn't suddenly mean that it's not still subjected to the random number generator.

Whether you've got a 1/1000 chance or a 1/5 chance, the drop still boils down to a random roll.

We've known that for YEARS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juFZh92MUOY

This is definitely true. And they also drop more frequently from bosses than lieutenants.

Find a zone with level 20+ bosses in the groups, beat them down, and you should be good to go within a few minutes.

Otherwise, random is random. The random number generator hates me most days, too.

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Don't go spreading rumors like that. It's certainly not a bad place to tip hunt, as there are lots of bosses mixed in the spawns, but there is no "best" place to hunt... the drop rate is exactly the same in TV as in any other 20+ zone.

I believe it is one of a few costume items that are NOT available at character creation, but it definitely becomes available once you've logged into the game for the first time.

I may be wrong about that--I was messing around with a character concept last night and didn't see the option on a new character, but I wasn't specifically looking for Wisps to begin with.

She's especially begging for the use of a custom weapon skin. That classic broadsword she's swinging is just goofy. And why does she not have a custom spear powerset, anyway--I thought that spear was what empowered her?

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Wiff hew speaw and magic hewmeeeet! >_>

This is my assumption as well; it'll likely be added to the Paragon Market when CoH Freedom launches for like 20 or 40 points ($0.25 or $0.50).

Barring any serious show-stopping bugs, that's what it looks like they're aiming for, yes.

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The mid-issue update, Incarnates Ascend, launched less than two months ago...

No, Wisps are unlocked per-account, not per-character. If you've got them now, you'll always have them on new characters as well.

(Try launching from the classic loader and making a new character with Wisps for proof--it's not tied to the new launcher.)

*slow clap building into riotous applause*

If it's that big a deal, you can always buy get another reward token for every 1200 Paragon Points you buy.

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Nooooope. You'll only get your Reward Tokens up front; your Paragon Points will be doled out 400 at a time every month on the anniversary of your pay date. (Or 550 per month if you're a VIP at Tier 9 rewards!)

The only one I saw was a forced "used the Paragon Market" badge, which can be gotten outside of the tutorial in the Paragon Market (free--the badge costs 0 points) as well.

Nomme, the worst case scenario will see you get your tokens every month on the anniversary of your bill date, up until your first payment date after CoH Freedom launches... from which point on you will receive all forthcoming tokens on the days you pay.

I highly suspect that you will probably get all the tokens up to your next pay date once Freedom launches, but their verbiage has been a bit confusing on this matter.

As Z's post last night shows, your regular stipend of Paragon Points will continue to be awarded once per month on the anniversary of your bill date.

Actually, I think he IS Lead Developer again, with War Witch being the "Strike Team Leader," according to the Prezi online presentation they uploaded for us earlier this week.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...33#post3765633

(Well, he's "Lead Designer," anyway, which means he's at the top of the chain for concept creation.)

You are mistaken about the VIP part; they do require spending tokens to unlock, and there are 3 separate parts to the reward. They're the three slots at the very top of the tr--wait, they don't like calling it a tree... the very top of the "reward shrub."

You are correct about the Tier 9 consumeable rewards, though... the five slots just below the top three are repeatable as many times as you have extra tokens.

However, keep in mind that the T9 VIP rewards will cycle out over time, so it's probably not a good idea to spend ALL your tokens on the repeatable consumeable rewards...

Drop the secondary slashes.

/macro WW "auctionhouse"
/macro V "vault"