Chad Gulzow-Man

I could be wrong, as I didn't listen first-hand, but I think the Ustream chat from a couple weeks ago said that Pain Dom was on the table for potential proliferation in the future.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=3728315

Actually, I re-read that, and it was said the other way around--they may proliferate Empathy to Masterminds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_socket

Short version, a socket is how one computer connects to another to make the internet work. His problem seems to have something to do with a necessary connection not being made, hence the socket error.

After you said your mom-in-law's laptop did the same thing, I think that's a safe bet. You may also want to see if you can borrow her laptop and try it at a Starbucks or somewhere with free Wi-Fi. If it works there, you know it's something to do with your internet specifically. If it doesn't work there, then it's something to do with some other piece of software that's common to both your computers (probably antivirus, anti-malware or firewall software).

Remember that you need to reboot the modem completely in order to switch the device it's connected to... So power off both your computer and the modem, then plug the computer directly into the modem, then boot the modem back up, and once it's going turn the computer back on. (You'll need to power it down again to plug the router back in after testing.)

I do want to add that the trinity of other MMOs--healer, tank, and DPS--doesn't really exist here. I mean, you can play City of Heroes that way if you really want to, but it's not necessary by any means. In fact, if you want to play as a "healer," you'll find that your teammates would rather you use your buff and debuff powers than your heals.

So, if you're getting a team together and there's no tank or no healer, don't be worried... just get ready to start punching/blasting bad guys in the face.

Also: don't worry about dying. After level 10, you get "experience debt," which means you only earn half the XP until you've paid it all off... but you can pay back one death's worth of debt after just one or two groups of baddies. Even if you die a hundred times, debt is capped after like 8 deaths. It won't noticeably prohibit you from levelling up.

Seems to work out pretty well for Charles Xavier.

The Vet period was identified by Positron as being three years in the first post on this very thread. I'm torn, because it seems more than fair to people who bought the game via download or jumped on with Good Vs Evil or the like... but not to people who actually paid $50-60 for one of the game boxes at their respective launches.

I'm not affected either way; I don't intend to cease my subscription, and even my secondary account now has 5 years of Vet status behind it. I do identify and commiserate with those have issue with this decision, but the developers' decision also seems pretty fair to probably 95% or more of those who will become Premium accounts under the launch of CoH Freedom. It's the edge cases like Bloodwynd--those who have put significant investment into the game in the past, but not quite enough to reach that three year mark--that make this somewhat confusing.

But the point is specifically to put everyone on equal ground. You're SUPPOSED to start at zero with the rest of us who didn't grind for days and days to have tons of components available.

Various members of the Resistance use Dual Pistols powers.

There are a few problems with this:

1) CoH doesn't have a development staff large enough to do one paid expansion every year on top of the free issues. And if they quit doing the free content updates altogether in favor of large yearly paid expansions, they'd lose current subscribers--I know they'd lose mine. They also get boosts of traffic when new issues are released, which means income in spurts throughout the year instead of one big pay day at the end of an expansion followed by 11 months of a minimal level of subscribers.

Paragon Studios about 50 people in their development team, and are generally divided working on content for about 2-3 issues at a time. How many people do you suppose Blizzard, who does put out a yearly expansion along with their regular small updates, has at the yoke?

2) The game was designed for a player level cap of 50. It's not going to change, because that would invalidate all the existing IOs and would require additional powers added to existing sets (which would in turn slow production of new powersets)... otherwise builds would become slot-heavy and there would be no strategy behind building a character, as you'd be able to just dump slots in every power. It might sound like a good idea on paper--even the reasons I gave as detractions might sound good--but there are already plenty of people complaining that the game is too easy... give them an extra couple super-level powers and enough slots to 6-slot everything, and see how long they stick around with the complete lack of a challenge we'd be left with.

Instead, the post-50 progression is the Incarnate system, which will eventually have more options than what are offered now (see the large group of extra Lore pets added in i20.5) and will bring us to a "hypothetical level 60." They've even said that they're keeping their options open in case they want to go beyond 10 Incarnate slots in the future.

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Now, again, I don't mean to insult you, but you are holding steadfast to what is proving to be an archaic design process. Times are changing. "Bigger is better" doesn't work in this economy. Developers are finding that it's easier to sell 1000 things for a dime than it is to sell 100 for a dollar, enabling them to make more money on smaller productions.

Which does lead to one of the other points you made: they need to step up their game and put out more content. I agree that they're just digging themselves a shallow grave with the switchover to CoH Freedom if they don't. But you're wrong in thinking that everything they do needs to be large scale--it's exactly the opposite. Along with the big stuff they do now in 2-3 issues a year, they need to put out a ton of new content that is small, eye-catching and cheap. THAT is how Freedom will thrive. They've already announced a start to this: Signature Story Arcs, missions that have your characters working directly alongside the game's signature characters, will be released every month. That means that subscribers get guaranteed new content in the form of two new story arcs every month (one Hero and one Villain arc), and Free/Premium players can get access to it via the Paragon Points Store.

CoH Freedom is not just an excuse to trick people into doing "7 year old content" as you put it, either. Have you not noticed that they're completely revamping the starting zones for CoH (the new tutorial will be Galaxy City's destruction, and you will either leave to Atlas Park as a Hero or Mercy Isle as a Villain) and adding a ton more content to the level 1 through 20 game?

That's what she said!

Words like that are really uncalled for. There's no reason to be happy at someone else's misfortune, perceived or otherwise.