Counter_Agent

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All current subscribers will receive 2 free character slots

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Could we have clarification on the word 'current'. I have friends seriously considering a return for I12. What date (roughly) do they actually need to have an active registration in order to get these two free slots? I would be very interested in the info as a potential recruiting (re-recruiting) tool.

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You should have a pretty good idea of when Issue 12 (and optional character slots) will go live by how the beta progresses. We are in closed beta and have more weeks of that to go, then weeks of open beta, then launch. That's as clear of a picture I can give at this juncture.

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That translate to the very very end of May if you're lucky or the early part of June.

Honestly I think the two free slots are actually overkill on the fairness meter..but I'll take them! All the easier to get 36 slots with

You dev's will never hear the end of the whiners that really want that feature...!!!

LOL the Joke is on you!

Really great stuff here, thanks a lot. Any chance we'll get a "save your costumes" option sometime in the future?

I have the following names for trade. Looking for cool stuff on Virtue or Justice. (I have several names I want, see my Post in the Virtue name thread) Just PM me with any offers you have.

Paladin
Cloaker
Herokiller
Liberator Ace
Lasheress
Diamond Jack

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You know, this thread has quickly reminded me why I stopped posting on the boards entirely outside of the Culture section. I used to see this forum as one of the few really fun places to chat about a game. I think it's been about 3 years since it's been nothing more than a few vocal whiners complaining about every single everything in the entire game and frankly, I think I'll be happier to just curl back up in my hole and go back to sleep.

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Kind of Ironic that you are whining about whiners eh?

omg...no electric tank. I'm pretty much deflated! I've been waiting on electric tanks since day one of CoH to make one of my favorite characters up. I thought for sure we'd get them over Dark. Name one mainstream comic tank with dark powers? Where are our Captain Marvels and Thors ? Man I'm just really disapointed by that. Hard to get excited about the others now.

Well I hope someone that really wanted Dark Armor is happy at least .

WTF?!?! TOMMORROW?!?!

That truly is sadistic!

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*Waits for bachelor party pack*

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This made me smile hehe..

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I just feel it is sad that we are being asked to pay for new costumes and emotes for an event. Especially when a couple of the costumes are just re-textured old ones.

And for a 45 month Veteran Reward, we only get a Respec.

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QFT Not enough time to give us a suitable vet reward is bad enough. BUT THEN THEY SAY THEY HAD EXTRA TIME for this?!?! Sad.

I wouldn't be mad about the option to buy the pack in general. But the failure to deliver on Vet Rewards is just a slap in the face now that you can see what they were doing with that time.

I've checked in on Animal Attack Files for years. From watching that I'd say Pit Bulls account for about 50% of all dog attacks and are much more likely to end in serious injury.

YEP. I just did a quick search for some statistics. It is HIGH.

http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html

pit bulls, Rottweilers, Presa Canarios and their mixes are responsible for 74% of attacks that were included in the study, 68% of the attacks upon children, 82% of the attacks upon adults, 65% of the deaths, and 68% of the maimings. In more than two-thirds of the cases included in the study, the life-threatening or fatal attack was apparently the first known dangerous behavior by the animal in question.

If almost any other dog has a bad moment, someone may get bitten, but will not be maimed for life or killed, and the actuarial risk is accordingly reasonable. If a pit bull terrier or a Rottweiler has a bad moment, often someone is maimed or killed--and that has now created off-the-chart actuarial risk, for which the dogs as well as their victims are paying the price.

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All of this end drain and -recovery is nice until you hit the latest FOTM brute (EM/ElecA) - as they will 2- or 3-shot you and keep all of their blue.

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Well this build is resistant to energy attacks and all melee tend to miss you alot. So I dont' find this to really be the case. Of course they get me sometimes.

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That's not even mentioning how you will handle kiters... the pesky ranged-damage dealers that constantly hop around. Snowstorm helps a lot, especially 1v1, but in teams, it's pretty easy for my blaster to turn off snowstorm (kill the stormy). Heck, my blaster has snowstorm and I love using it, but death=no storm.


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I typically fight in Siren's Call or Recluses Victory but when I do step out into Warburg and actually fight blasters it tends to only be Ice and Electric that give me the problems..because of all of the holds. I can usually beat the others.


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However, not a bad concept build.
I can see how this would be very decent against the newer pvp players or the part-time ones. The dedicated pvp'ers would have a tough time with it.


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In the few tournaments that I've entered, I have placed mid tier so this statement seems fairly accurate. But I don't pvp constantly so I could be better. IMHO It just depends on who I get matched up against. This build is GREAT against regen's for instance.

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IMHO a better pvp build would be a fire/storm controller, plus once you get imps, you will mow through PVE.

Still, for concept, I give this a solid A+ and storm is very fun to play (I have an earth/storm, who sucks at damage, but is a controlling god!).


[/ QUOTE ]Thanks for the great comments!

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Zapp rules.

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On a blaster maybe

But seriously, great power if you can fit it in. Just not really for this build as you do a lot of jumping into the fire.

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Any updates of this guide with IO taken into account?

Had problem trying to create a build with IO enhancment.

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I will get an IO build up here shortly, but I may wait till a little after I11 since it is just around the corner. I can tell you that I focus on recharge and ranged defense since hurricane handles anything that gets close to me.

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Very good guide! I think I shall make a Storm/Elec eventually. It sounds fun.

By the way.

You should work Tesla Cage into your build. Did you know it's a 100% chance for -recovery, just like Short Circuit? It drains a decent amount, and anyone who -doesn't- resist the hold won't resist the extra -recovery. You could probably dump Tough and take Steamy Mist, just because anyone in PvP knows s/l sets are highly resisted and won't take them. Funny how that cycle works

Other than that, again, it sounds like a very interesting build. Well written!

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Thanks for the comments. I did not realize this about Tesla Cage. This will of course make it a very important power. City of Data confirms that it is a 100% 8 sec -recovery power.

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I would be estatic if CoX came out with a similar expansion and gladly pay the $40 I'll be paying for RoK next week.


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QFT

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But if I ever once - ONCE - smell "raid"; I quit. End of discussion.


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This is exactly what I'd like to see more of. We just need more stuff to do. The real prob imho with raids in other games has been the loot tables and not everyone getting something. CoX doesn't have that prob. Everyone that participates in a raid gets the payoff. So I say bring more raids please.

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Why? What % of the population is doing Hami raids? What about the LRSF and STF? I'm betting the % is even smaller than even I expect.

Why waste time on events that the majority don't find fun?

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How about making them fun?

Improving the Raid experience is only one of many things they could add to the game to increase it's overall appeal. I see no reason to torch the "Raids" idea to the ground because they aren't as popular as fairy wings, renewable temp powers or yet another alt.

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Well what killed hami is the fact that the time investment is no where near worth the reward. It shouldnt take 5 hours to get something that we can easily get something of similar effect thru farming a short TF. If the reward was choosable then it would be a start in making it worth it.

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Emm what server are you trying to kill Hami on? The new hami is very quick and efficient, clocks in at not much more then an hour. Maybe the guys on Justice are just that good??

From the stratics interview
"NCsoft NorCal will be focusing exclusively on the City of Heroes franchise and will be doubling, if not tripling, the size of the development team in the coming months. "

On a side note. Notice what game is missing from this 2008 marvel video game release schedule?

http://www.mania.com/56552.html

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But if I ever once - ONCE - smell "raid"; I quit. End of discussion.


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This is exactly what I'd like to see more of. We just need more stuff to do. The real prob imho with raids in other games has been the loot tables and not everyone getting something. CoX doesn't have that prob. Everyone that participates in a raid gets the payoff. So I say bring more raids please.

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Why? What % of the population is doing Hami raids? What about the LRSF and STF? I'm betting the % is even smaller than even I expect.

Why waste time on events that the majority don't find fun?

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The majority don't find fun? I think you're on the wrong side of that total imho. Raids are great places to get to know your community and have fun.

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But if I ever once - ONCE - smell "raid"; I quit. End of discussion.


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This is exactly what I'd like to see more of. We just need more stuff to do. The real prob imho with raids in other games has been the loot tables and not everyone getting something. CoX doesn't have that prob. Everyone that participates in a raid gets the payoff. So I say bring more raids please.

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I would suggest a sliding scale of some sort. Something akin to:
Lv 1-6 – inactive account 3 months
Lv 7-14 inactive account 6 months
Lv 15-30 inactive account 9 month
Lv 30-40 inactive account 12 months
Lv 40-50 inactive account 15 months



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Yep, this would be just about perfect. They could even get a bit more complex with it then that really.
What if they took months paid into consideration when you went to get a name? Lets say you are a 39 month vet and the name you want is on an account that has been inactive for 15 months and had only paid for 3 months before then? Sounds fair to me that you should get the name. While someone else that had paid for 24 months and been inactive for 15 might would require that you wait longer to get the name . Just thinking on this on the fly it would make sense to maybe have a threshold ratio and once a person was past the threshold his names became vulnerable. So that way someone that played a long time and a lot of people knew back in the day would be in less jeopardy of losing their names should they decide to come back one day, while somone that just played for some random month or two isn't keeping names away from the active player base.

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You say potato, I say rutabega. This has about as much to do with the topic as what my boxers look like.

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>>> Pointing out that the devs are making faulty decisions based on half-[censored] goals is very much on topic. Lets see, they just put in a system that allows them to make money for your transferring and renaming your characters. In order to facilitate the money making, they also reopen the naming policy. They don't want to appear to be money grubbers and part of them wants to do the right thing so they put the name wipe feature back in but because of their conflicting goals they effectively neuter it. So just like the loot system, what is the point? Is this a loot based game or is it not? Do you want to free up unused names or do you not? Very relative to the topic.



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I'm gonna take a stab at addressing the rant anyway.
They made the game largely lootless at the start because they felt that it wasn't essential to the core of the game. They focused on what they could do well, and got it working right. Then they spend their time adding and refining a system that learned from most of the mistakes of other systems, and avoided them. There aren't different economic systems being added, just more fully realizing the system that's been here all along. Changing influence from something superfluous into an actual medium of exchange. It's an added layer of complexity in a game a lot of people complained lacked depth. It's nice but not esential.

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>>> Good Points, but then why put it in at all? My point is that if you're going to do something do it. Don't send your troops to battle and then tell them to not shoot the enemy. CoH tries very hard to not make loot essential but it is just not something that is possible. If you put any rare item in a game people are going to want to get it and they are going to grind to get it and it doesn't matter how you try to disguise it..it all ends up being the same thing, a grind to get it. I'm perfectly fine with that. I can own up to that, see it and understand that to get the things I want in a game I have to work for it. But in the CoH world they go out of their way to do just enough to say its not "essential". The same thing goes for this name policy change, they say lets see where the largest number of guys are that won't be effected by name change. Very thoughtful but pointless, when the point is to free up UNUSED NAMES. Should the special interests not be more focused on how long the account has been inactive and balanced with some sort of reasonable level obtained that can't be done in a sewer group in 1 hour?


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Merits have nothing to do with economy, because there is no exchange. They're a personal yardstick of accomplishment. They're specific to the new content so that people participate in the new content, and don't just bring in their rewards from before. Mor than all that, they're a tool for personal choice. I can do any of the related activities, and get Merit. I can do my favorites. And then I have the CHOICE of what I want to be rewarded with. No earning Badge X to unlock costume part Y this time, I can do what I like and get what I want, and I'm not forced to grind for a lot of extraneous time hoping for the exact random drop I want, which is a problem with the regular Invention system.

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>>> This is a good point and I hadn't thought of it before, but now that I think about it it just illustrates my point all the better. If the merit system is so good and there is a problem with the Invention system that they put in 8 weeks ago, why not simply change all costume drops to a Merit system? I'll tell you why, The devs are just sitting on the fence of capitalism and socialism and can't pick a side.

Thats just my humble opinion and it is very much on topic.

Now that I think a little more about both sides of the argument I could see it being like level 15. I know i've deleted countless sub 15s in my three years here and it actually starts taking some effort to gain a level around then. But level six, regardless of data is just useless. That would mean some guy, three years ago that has a name I want to use got to level 7 in about 5 hours and now I'm hopelessly screwed.

IMHO the CoH staff just sits on the fence to much and won't pick a side. They are doing it with loot right now. They are trying to be a lootless/grindless game then turn around and go for loot and grind and just put a different spin on it. I mean just look at all the different economic items they have put in the game lately. I mean MERITS what is that? Why couldn't they just use the stupid invention drop system they put in eight weeks before??? /BOGGLE

The level six limit makes this all but useless. If an account is inactive it is inactive. If you're going to set a limit, at least put it to something that can't be reached in an hour....

I'll just throw level 30+ out here.