ClayPigion

....has everyone forgotten about Croatoa?

We've got spirits and scantily clad witches and log throwing werewolves and giant pumpkins heads that disguise themselves as trees...and vicious vicious lawn gnomes! Jack-in-Irons is definitely a hill giant of some kind.

Not to mention there are plenty of outdoor maps with the Croatoa forest that give a DnD feel.

Or that huge graveyard map ala Dark Astoria...it just begs for an undead themed campaign.

....I smell a new aquatic signature villain...

Any takers? It could be the Nova Praetoria Moat Monster...think the Praetorian version of Lusca!

Holy thread rez Batman!

Hamidon and the Devouring Earth have been declared a protected species, and it is now illegal to hunt them in both Primal Earth and Praetoria.

According to Emperor Cole: "It was all just one big misunderstanding, Hamidon just wanted to give us hugs and cookies."

That and Westin Phipps is now the mayor of Paragon City.

After reading over the case notes, I do agree that in this particular instance the lawsuit seems frivolous and that the guy is most likely just trying to get back at NCSoft for banning him for breaking the rules in the first place.

That being said, there have been other documented cases in recent years where people have died from spending to much time playing video games, or on the flip side of it, caused harm to others directly because of that addiction.

A few years back, a South Korean played Starcraft for 50 hours straight, and it ended up putting him into cardiac arrest which lead to his death. His body couldn't handle the strain.

Nor is his case an isolated one as tragic as it is, over the past few years there have been numerous deaths and hospitalizations as a result from addicted gamers not knowing when to stop.

Video games can and do cause addiction. Should video game designers be held responsible for the actions of the people who play their game? No, I don't think so, they do not choose who uses their products, and while they may target specific audiences no one is forcing anyone to buy their games.

That being said, should game designers and producers take more responsibility in how they produce and market their products to their audiences? Yes I think they should, and in many cases several developers have taken steps to combat addiction from the production end.

Saying that someone who is addicted can stop at any time however is a naive statement (and ironically also one of the signs of said addiction.) People who are addicted don't see the world the same way that regular people do.

They can't just put down what ever their addiction is...the thoughts are "oh just one more level can't hurt" or "just one more hour can't hurt" or "just one more injection can't hurt". It is frighteningly easy for someone to get caught up in that mentality. I'd be willing to wager that most anyone who has posted on these boards has been in that situation and so can relate.

The difference between most people, and people who become addicted is that those with addictive personalities don't know when to stop.

You can't stop something if you don't realize it's wrong in the first place, it doesn't matter how disciplined your mind is or how strong willed you are if you don't think a problem exists.

So in the end the responsibility for combating gaming addiction lays with the addicted person's peers and family. It's up to them to step in and stop it, or if they can't, then find someone who can.

"Here, Plaintiff alleges “[a]s a direct result of using
Lineage II and defendants’ acts and omissions, plaintiff has
suffered extreme and serious emotional distress and depression,
and has been unable to function independently in usual daily
activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing, or communicating with family and friends.”

...sounds like a stereotypical nerd....

Or more to the point, it sounds like the guy never grew up.

Do they have any way to prove he was like that *before* he was playing the game?

It's looked pretty lively to me over the past couple of months at least...no trouble finding teams either blueside or redside.

I think Triumph just tends to be a quieter server...doesn't mean the people aren't there however.

Will do once I get home, thanks for the reply.

I do this every Halloween when the zombie apocalypse starts....it works with Rikti Invasions as well.

Hover just off the edge of a tall building, just close enough for the game to register that you are near some uncovered ground (IE: the rooftop) and both zombies and Rikti will start spawning in midair.

It give me no end of fun to see them pop into existence, hang there for a moment until the AI registers that they are not on solid ground, and see them plummet to the streets below Wile E. Coyote style.

I swear I've seen more then a couple *Piff* clouds appear when they hit....

Most of the carnies I don't mind taking on with my DB/SR scrapper, with Practice Brawler I laugh at their attempts at trying to hold me (as long as I trigger PB in time...), and with Focused Fighting and Evasion, I dodge pretty much all their attacks including the end drain when they die.

I say most however as Master Illusionists are a royal pain, as with them spawning their pet Illusionists and Dark Servants, it can make it a rather hectic fight....I tend to cringe whenever I run into them.

I would still rather fight them then Malta any day of the week.....hate....sappers.....

The tip and alignment missions are incredibly well written. I was honestly surprised at the detail and intricacy of some of the arcs.

Perfect example is the "Your life story. Wait! What?" arc and it's related missions. I was planning on staying pure hero with the character I played them with, but I actually went vigilante on one mission just for the opportunity to take on Silent Blade one on one...and then to have an Arachnos punisher drop in to the middle of the fight and try and capture me for crimes against Arachnos in a previous mission which I had thought was unrelated really tied things together.

Plus Silent Blade's speech about what was right or not afterward was really well done.

I'm really looking forward to the end of the arc.

Gotta say my favorite run so far are the missions with the Knives and Silent Blade...the dialog is fantastic, and I was honestly surprised when Arachnos dropped in to join the party in one of them.

...you know...I was wondering why there were no trains on the subway tracks in the underground....

Apparently they have evolved enough to leave their natural habitats....

I know the feeling...that bloody moat in the middle of Nova Praetoria gets me every time. While I could easily clear it with my Primal Earth version character, my praetorian always hits the wall on the other side, and the wall is just high enough that I can't jump over it out of the water with ninja run and so thus must usually revert to using the jet pack, or swim to the side and go around.

*sigh*

I swear Emperor Cole put it there to laugh every time someone splashes down in it....and come to think of it, it is pretty funny.

Touche Tyrant, Touche.

So I've come across a rather strange bug ever since I installed CoH on my new laptop.

When ever I talk to a contact, or view information about anyone the little box where the character avatar is supposed to go is black, or on occasion contains a static filled graphic.

This also applies to when I want to view my own costumes in the costume change window. It's all black.

NPC, Enemy, or player it doesn't matter...all I have is that black window next to the dialog text.

Now the rest of my game is working fine, I don't have any problems with any other graphics, and it's running smoothly on my laptop.

I first installed the game on my new laptop shortly after the upgrade to the new Ultramode came into effect with I17.

I'm running an ASUS with Windows 7, I don't have any of the other specs with me at the moment, but other then that issue the game seems unaffected.

Has anyone else run into a problem like this? Is it corrupted files?

One mission in Praetoria comes to mind, where I had to retrieve a glowie and as soon as I touched it every single NPC in the mission said something along the lines of "Intruder Alert"...and being that there were 30+ npcs in the mission...that's a lot of speech bubbles covering my screen.

I was lucky I was invisible, otherwise I would have had trouble targeting anything for a few seconds there and would have been at a serious disadvantage in the ensuing fight.

It's funny...I remember on launch day when there were no cars on the streets of Praetoria, it was kind of nice not having to dodge traffic as well as bullets.

Then about midway through my play session the next day a car quite literally appeared out of no where and proceeded to swerve into me, then pull a physics defying U-turn and come at me for another pass before disappearing again.

So while they may look like they are from the 70's, I assure you they have some scary futuristic tech under the hoods....and a taste for capes.

I'm really hoping with the new zoning tech used in GR, and with the recent graphics makeover that it's a prelude to the war walls coming down in both blueside and redside and giving us a much more open world to play with.

They have proven that the system works in Praetoria, it seems to me that they have already taken steps in that direction for the tech to be applied to the rest of the game as well.

It would certainly explain the apparent homicidal tendencies of the drivers...the cars were built a lot heavier back then. A heavy steel frame is much better for taking the impact of running into your neighborhood super, when compared to the light fiberglass and polymer frames of today.

....plus they hurt more when you throw them. Much more conducive when it comes to putting down the bad guy.

Actually both the game and the sequal were recently released on Steam and both run fine on Vista...(I'm playing the original right now actually...)