ClawsandEffect

Yep.

As far as I know, he is the only person who actually owned the trademarked character who managed to keep it.

It was kind of an ironic story actually. Someone familiar with the character saw him in game and petitioned him in an attempt to protect his character, not realizing that the person he was petitioning was in fact the author himself.

The petitioner meant well, but it caused a huge headache.

Edit: As far as the thread title goes: They were probably told that by someone who was under the impression that all MMOs are owned by Blizzard.

You can assume their intention is to encourage a lot of people to play for free. But in order to do that, you ALSO have to assume their intention is to lose their jobs, since no revenue = no payroll.

Since they probably don't want to lose their jobs, they probably don't intend for everyone to play for free. This is evident by the fact that we don't get 100% of the game for free. If we got absolutely everything for free, I can't imagine too many people would keep giving them money.

It is also evident by the fact that they've come out and point blank SAID their goal is to have as many people subscribed as possible, and offering a free-play model is a better way to achieve that than an extremely limited free trial.

You seem to have missed the part where the only thing I said that sucks is that the cool little dealy I gave him to stop him from getting knocked on his butt all the time is going to stop working.

Yes, he'll be playing for free. That part doesn't suck.

Actually, now that I think about it, the fact that his IO will stop working sucks for ME. I spent 75 merits on something that is going to be completely pointless soon. And I'd kind of feel like a jerk if I asked for it back.

I'm a 69 month vet (actually more like 70 or 71, but 69 is the last badge I have).

If I'm understanding the Paragon Rewards page correctly, I get 28 reward tokens for my vet status. Then I add one for having a retail code (I have at least 3 retail codes applied), then I add one for each full year I've been subscribed for a total of 33 (or 34 if Freedom launches after my 72 month badge hits)

34 tokens will be the next tier of rewards for me. So, assuming I'm understanding it correctly, I am getting one more tier than I would technically be entitled to if you only took my vet status into account.

I'm getting SO shafted.

Fixed that for you.

NCSoft is NOT shy about shutting down games when they stop being profitable.

Remember Auto Assault? Tabula Rasa? Lineage? All games that stopped making money. All games that no longer exist.

If you give people too much of the game for free, there is zero incentive to ever give them any money at all. If enough people have no incentive to give them money the game will drop below the threshold of "too expensive and not profitable enough to keep alive." And NCSoft WILL pull the plug when the game starts costing them money instead of earning it. Make no mistake about that.

Speed Boosted buffed Thugs Bruisers were the worst offenders (on the occasions someone would actually SB them).

They'd use nothing but Hand Clap. Over and over and over. It was so bad that many Thugs MM players refused to give their Bruiser the second buff so he wouldn't HAVE Hand Clap to spam like that.

This.

Saying brutes are unequivocally, indisputably better in any and all situations is misinformation. There are plenty of situations in which a scrapper would be the better choice. In any situation that has overwhelming AoE from the rest of the team, the scrapper would be better, simply because nothing is going to live long enough to allow the brute to build any fury at all. And there are others.

Both ATs are better in different situations. Actually, as far as balance between ATs is concerned, brutes and scrappers are VERY well balanced against each other. Neither is so much better than the other in a given area that the choice is simple. Any time I go to create a melee character, I weigh the advantages and disadvantage of each set as used by each AT.

If brutes being better were a "fact", I would have nothing BUT brutes. Since my brute/scrapper ratio is about 50/50 it's not so clearly a "fact" that brutes are better.

Yes, but it isn't very important. Defense debuffs are one of the more useless secondary effects for PC power sets. Once you have a decent build together you won't have much trouble hitting things, so -def just becomes a means for you to slot an Achille's Heel proc.

Nothing this specific.

You need:

- Enough damage to kill it.
- Enough survivability to live long enough to kill it

That doesn't mean you HAVE to play a DM/Shield if you don't want to. I have a Broadsword/Dark Armor that is an accomplished AV soloer.

Sword/Anything can take out AVs that stay in melee range. Shield, SR, Invuln, and Willpower can all get enough survivability with any primary to pull it off.

The resistance sets (Electric, Fire, Dark) can do it, but it takes more defensive slotting (or Parry/DA if you're a sword set)

It's a safe bet that a scrapper of just about any combination you can imagine has soloed an AV at some point.

There are some extremely knowledgeable players in the scrapper section. Come up with a character you WANT to play, and I'm sure people here can help you build an AV soloer out of it.

Ummm, no.

It is extremely likely that self-policing any trademark violations that crop up in the future was one of the terms of the lawsuit being dropped. Marvel can revive that lawsuit, or start a new one anytime they like. Why? Because every single case of trademark infringement in the game is grounds for a new lawsuit if they are so inclined to do it. It was probably an agreement reached by both companies that Marvel will leave NCSoft alone provided NCSoft handle the situation themselves by self-policing any trademark infringements that occur. Furthermore, it is entirely possible that any NEW trademark infringements would be considered a breach of an agreement that was reached to settle the lawsuit, which would have been drawn up legally and signed. If Marvel can prove that trademark infringement is still occurring AFTER the agreement was reached to settle the suit, they will be in a MUCH stronger legal position.

Guess how the game is self-policed? That's right, since the GMs CANNOT be everywhere at once, they have to rely on players to bring infringing characters to their attention, at which point the GMs will decide if the character in question is indeed in violation. The players cannot get someone generic'd just because we want to report them, the GMs have to decide if it is warranted first.

I don't have an issue with someone reporting a trademark violation. I've reported a few myself if they were particularly blatant. I DO have a problem with it when the person doing the reporting rubs it in the violator's face after doing so.

Given identical opponents with 200 HP, here's how it breaks down. All calculations are done using the scrapper damage modifier.

Boxing deals 47.55 damage and animates in 1.07 seconds. It takes the Boxing guy 5 hits to defeat the 200 HP opponent. The Boxing guy spends 15.35 seconds between animation and recharge time.

Flurry deals 71.57 damage and animates in 3.07 seconds. It takes the Flurry guy 3 hits to defeat the 200 HP opponent. He spends 15.21 seconds between animation and recharge.

That's a 0.14 second difference between the two powers to defeat an identical opponent. I'm not a math expert, but 0.14 seconds is NOT "almost twice as fast". The only way it would be almost twice as fast is if the opponent in question had less than 47.55 HP.

An opponent with 60 HP would take 2 attacks from the Boxing guy to 1 from the Flurry guy. In that case Flurry wins, because Flurry would take 3.07 seconds to defeat his opponent, while Boxing would take 4.64.

Take it up to 1,000 HP, and let's see what happens.

22 hits from the Boxing guy, taking 76.04 seconds to defeat the opponent.

14 hits from the Flurry guy, taking 84.89 seconds to defeat the opponent.

A 12 second difference, so the Boxing guy pulls ahead some there. But it's still nowhere near "almost twice as fast"

Really?

Lets look at how slow Flurry is compared to Boxing, if it's really just a concept issue that you're having.

Boxing is around a 1 second animation. You are throwing a single punch.

Flurry is around a 3 second animation. But you are throwing EIGHT punches in that time.

Seems pretty fast to me, from a concept standpoint. Your speed allows you to throw 8 punches in the time it takes normal people to throw 3 (or less).

A scrapper will start a fight dealing more damage than a brute, because a brute has to build fury while a scrapper's first strike will be at full power. A scrapper can also stop fighting for a few minutes and jump right back in dealing full damage with it's first strike again. Brutes are a lot more yo-yo like with their damage output. If they slow down for more than a few seconds their fury drops and they have to build it back up again.

Scrappers also get more benefit from most damage bonuses, due to their higher damage modifier. Lightning Rod and Shield Charge will deal more damage when a scrapper uses them because they have a set damage cap and use the ATs damage modifer. That means a brute's higher damage cap is useless and the scrapper gets the advantage because they have a 1.125 modifier to the brute's .75 modifier.

Brute has a higher damage cap, and will deal somewhat more damage than a capped scrapper while at that cap. BUT....that damage cap is so high it is virtually impossible to reach without outside assistance. You can eat 20 large red inspirations and be at the cap for a minute, but you can't do that consistently.

In actual gameplay a scrapper will usually deal more damage than a brute. There are exceptions, but most of the time the scrapper will put out more damage, and more consistently.

I suspect that's because Z has taken it upon himself to try and do something about it.

Before he was hired we didn't hear much about PvP other than "Yes, we're aware it still exists."

Sounds like a good reason to be nice to him. Not that I need a reason, he's a pretty cool guy.

I wouldn't go that far. That'd be pretty petty.

But it would be hilarious if he happened to be playing a trademark violating character himself and got generic'd a few minutes later.

"Not so funny now, is it?"

Why? They are both pool powers.

Should Head Splitter be better than Golden Dragonfly just because they're in different sets? Same thing.

How?

I can say "Fix my car", but if I don't mention what is wrong with it, it doesn't really give anyone any idea where they should start.

I'm all for the fixing of PvP, but what exactly did you have in mind for them to do in order to fix it?