Citizen_Razor

There are ways to get around Trapdoor's clones. Bring him to the lava pit. Pull him out to the corridor, where he'll be out of the range of his clones.

My tanker, who has a low DPS, managed to take Trapdoor down just fine.

Mind you, I've never used this exploit, but from what I understand of Arcanaville's point ...

You're Lv1, and you set the mission to +4x8. The monkeys are Lv5. You kill a few of them, and the XP roll in so fast that all of a sudden you're Lv10. Now the monkeys are 5 levels below you and con grey to you. Hence, no more XP for that mission.

Yes you did. But if the box is unopened, you can return it and get your $40 back.

Another option is to keep the receipt, then buy the game again for $10 on Monday and return that unopened box on Tuesday with the $40 receipt.

Question ... if I am already on the 12-months plan, which expires around July 2011, and I cancel it then sign up for the "12 months, get 2 free" plan during that time, will I still get the deal? Or does my subscription need to be renewed during the time the deal is being allowed?

ED / GDN right from the beginning instead of added in years after game release.

PvP not added until CoV was released, and more variety of PvP instead of the current mess we have now.

Origins being more meaningful instead of just being a flavor.

Many more different leveling paths, geared towards your origin. (For example, say you're a Magic hero. When you leave the tutorial, you would be offered a choice to join the Midnight Circle, join Longbow, or remain a "free agent." A Tech villain? Choose between joining Nemesis, Arachnos, or free agent. And so forth.)

Branching paths in story arcs (save the damsel or go after the villain?) right from the beginning (which would've had the bonus of later making it easier to co-opt side-switching in the regular missions instead of creating a set of special "tip" missions.)

Fewer zones in CoH. (Get rid of the underused zones such as Boomtown, Dark Astoria, Terra Volta, and Crey's Folly, or incorporate them into the origin-specific storylines.)

More zones in CoV.

More parity between CoH and CoV. (Especially regarding Task/Strike Forces and story arcs.)

A completely different system for finding and rating AE missions. The current system is a complete and utter joke.

An arch-nemesis system.

I've been having the same issues. This started maybe a couple of weeks back. Every time I exit the game, it locks up. This is preventing me from getting the i19 predownload, since the game is not shutting down normally.

I've installed the latest version of nVidia drivers and attempted to clean up my computer files. Nothing's helping. Not sure what else I can do.

Just a FYI, but VirtueUnited is full. I tried to join it today and was unable to do so.

Looks like they're all gone.

Just to echo many people here ...

I've gotten all of the booster packs, including the Mac pack, the Collector's Edition DVD packs, and the wedding pack.

This one ... however ... I will be completely skipping.

$7.99 for only eight emotes is just too much. I'd spend maybe $3.99 for that, and even then it's an iffy proposition. Now, if they had included a costume or two, I would've gladly paid $7.99 for that.

Just my 2 cents.

I just tried to set up a Swiss Draw tournament last week and was unable to do so. So yes, it's bugged.

I am now a member of the "Have all the dayjob badges" club. My main villain badger got it last night, and my hero badger got it this morning.

I tried /maxinactivefps 60 and that seems to have worked. *shrug*

First of all, my apologizes for taking so long to get back to this. I played this story arc a while back, but first the forums were down, then I moved to a new place and it took a while for my new place to finally get internet set up. I'm still not quite done settling into the place, but at least the majority of the work is done. So without further ado, here's the review.

Halloween Night #227436
By @BinkDeBook

Description: On a dark and stormy Halloween night, you decided to knock on the door of that scary house down the street. How were you to know that a real witch lives there, and wouldn’t be happy with you bothering her. Oh well, maybe some good candy will come out of this.

Number of Missions: 1

Level Range: 1-34

Character I’m using: Wolfpack Blunt, Lv12 Spines / Willpower Stalker

Challenge Level: 1

This is only one mission, and it’s a humor-focused mission. Sounds fun. I decide to bust out one of my many lowbies for this story arc. The contact is named Witch of the Night. I check her bio. It informs me that this is the witch down the street. “In” should not be capitalized, since this is the continuation of a sentence. She spends her days torturing small woodland creatures and might turn me into one if I get on her bad side. Eh. I’m guessing she’ll go down quickly to my Assassin’s Impaler.

I talk to her, and she informs me that her porch light wasn’t on. There’s a joke about a witch and her intelligence somewhere there, but since I don’t know how powerful this witch is, I’ll refrain for now. She informs me that she’ll send me somewhere where the tricks will hurt, but the treats can help. Well, now why would she do that? She hopes my silly costume is hiding something powerful, as I’ll need it. I politely inform her that my “silly costume” is a Facemaker original.

The witch informs me that in order to escape her realm, I’ll have to find all of the treats. Or I could simply hit “Quit Strike Force.” That sounds much easier, and would show that witch who’s the boss. I decide to play her game anyway. She wishes me luck telling the tricks from the treats, and informs me that the tricks are deadly. I’m guessing ambushes are chained to those treats.

The witch also warns me to watch out for her sisters. “Watch out” should be two separate words, not one single word. She also informs me that there’s someone who is even scarier than her. The Easter Bunny? A baby in a cradle? Oh I know! It’s Michael Jackson! He’s definitely scary to an “Lv12” boy.

Anyway, I enter the mission. There are 9 trick or treat locations. It’s on the Dark Astoria graveyard map. And poor me, with no travel power other than the temp jet pack. The mobs are “Creatures of the Night” aka various Tautha de Denann and Spectral Pirates mobs. I also see a patrol of “Raven Witches” with various elemental powers.

I find a glowie. It’s titled “Trick_or Treat Location.” I suspect it’s a trick, but I go ahead and test my theory. My hypothesis is wrong. It’s a chocolate bar.

I find glowie #2. This is “Trick_or_Treat Location.” Is this the trick? Let’s go ahead and test it. It’s a yummy candy! So apparently all of the glowies are labeled differently, so merely checking the glowie’s name will not provide me with any hints. Drats!

I look around, and a glowie gives me a pencil? Another one gives me broccoli. Both of those had slightly different names, but no ambushes. I start randomly clicking on glowies. Apparently if you find all of a “trick” group then you spawn an ambush. I didn’t realize this and finished two “trick” groups and get witch-slapped by two ambushes. I manage to take out a few of the witches before paying a visit to the hospital. I return and repay the favor.

In any case, I’ve now learned to look for “Trick_or Treat Location,” “Trick_or_Treat Location,” and “Trick or_Treat Location” and ignore everything else.

Apparently finding all of a set of “treats” spawn some Hesling spawns. I thought they hunted vampires, not witches. Also, one of the glowies spawned a boss named “Dentist.” OK, I was wrong. There’s nothing more terrifying than a dentist. Except maybe Michael Jackson as a dentist. After I take him out in a single hit, there’s only one glowie left to find. And now begins my all-time favorite game of CoH – “Find the Last Glowie!” This map is simply too large for that kind of game. After looking around for the last glowie for something like 20 minutes and burning up a ton of temp jet fuel, I give up and quit the mission. At least I managed to ding Lv13 in this mission.

Final Summary: Honestly, I didn’t really see the humor in this story arc. The only thing that got a chuckle out of me was the Dentist boss. While the idea of a “trick and treat” mission using “good” glowies to trigger allies and “bad” glowies to trigger ambushes is an interesting idea, there were simply too many glowies on the outdoors map. A humor-focused story arc is something that should be relatively easy to complete and shouldn’t be tedious. The custom critters were all slightly different colored varieties of women in the “witch” outfit with the chest slider set to max. I entered this mission thinking it’d be a quick and short mission, and ended up spending nearly an hour. I think “The History of Statesman” took that long to complete, and it was 4 missions.

My rating: 2 stars

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People can say whatever they want about being "nice" or whatever. While I agree that getting a 5-star rating and the 25 tickets bonus is nice, ultimately I'd be far more pleased with a 4-star review from a harsh critic such as Venture than a 5-star review from a "softie."

You're cynical, yet failed to notice that this period just happens to start right before Champions Online is scheduled to be released?

This is nothing more than a "Please don't leave us for CO" stunt. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I signed up for the "Buy 12 months, get 2 free" promotion back during the holidays, so I'm set until May 2010. I'll be getting those badges and "Tier 2" access to Going Rogue closed beta for sure.

I see this was brought over from the EU forums. Funny how the NA moderators promised they'd do something like this a while back, then never got around to it. Eh, I'll make some nominations anyway, as futile as it may be.

The History of Statesman #219484 By @jjac
The Consequences of War – Part 1 #227331 By @Dalghryn
Teen Phalanx Forever! #67335 By @PW
Becky's Revenge #60197 By @New Age Ronin

Ah, it's good to see the forums back. Even if it looks all different and weird-ish. I was starting to go through forum withdrawals.

Anyway, during the hitaus, I played through, and reviewed, one story arc. Alas, it's currently stored on my PC, which is in my new apartment. Which is currently internet-less. I'm typing this on my laptop at my old apartment, which will continue to get internet until it's cut off tomorrow. When I'm fully settled in, I'll post the review and start going through my queue.

Yes, I'm moving during Double XP weekend and I'm missing all of the fun. I know.

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Yep, bug. Allies who die on timed missions cause it to fail. In an admittedly quick and unscientific test it didn't happen with an ally who was not a required objective though, so that might be a possible workaround.

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I don't think you can chain off an non-required objective. That would mess up the flow of that particular mission.

Here's one for a quickie review:

"Cat War!" #2788, 1 mission long.

A quick mission for a quick review!

[ QUOTE ]
Others have said the Future Skulls felt tacked on, and then they were only in the last mission.

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I think that's the real problem with this story arc. The Future Skulls did feel tacked on, and the last mission was a bit anti-climatic and unsatisfying. Up to that point, the arc was a solid 4-stars.

I don't know how to "fix" that, other than to drop the Future Skulls from the story arc entirely and find another conclusion for "Simple Times." Find a CoH lore group that would have a reason for setting up the Hellions *and* has access to the Minions of Igneous. Somebody like ... the Circle of Thorns. Don't have the amulet be a fake / distraction, rather have the CoT manipulate all of those groups so that they'll end up with the amulet itself. Maybe they're using the amulet to summon Senestrus (that'd also tie it into the Hellions)?

Yeah, I know that'll completely change the ending of your story. It's only a suggestion. Ultimately it's your story.