Creole Ned

Yeah, using the Circle instead, that would be exciting.

I expect the 5th Column to return but I also expect a lot of old-time players to be disappointed. The Council simply replaced the 5th Column. All 5th missions became Council missions, all 5th minions became Council minions (a few were added or modified). If you were to bring someone into the game who hadn't played since Issue 2 and hid the names, they'd probably wonder why the 5th Column had turned into COBRA rejects.

Worse, the Council has been expanded in the 5th's absence, with task forces tailored specifically to the group (Hess, Moonfire), an entire zone as base of operations (Striga), story arcs (Kheldians) and more. I suspect if and when the 5th return, it will be in a limited capacity, perhaps restricted to a task force or a contact with a few story arcs. I very much doubt we'll see them fully integrated back into the game.

I also expect their look to be changed, thereby negating one of the primary reasons many want to see them back.

Yes, when it comes to the 5th Column, I have become a bit of a pessimist. Still, I expect they'll return before the Cathedral of Pain.

Oh, yeah, and the City Scoop wasn't bad, either!

Anyone have any questions for Positron? If I get a chance, I'll ask a few from the community and report back. Given the way he's toyed with us over the features for Issue 11 I expect to find him at the NCsoft booth holding a flashlight under his chin and laughing maniacally to himself.

I should be at PAX on Saturday with several friends, also wandering around aimlessly.

Note: I am not a Winter Lord in real life.

* covers Captain Photon's eyes so he can't read this thread *

I actually would have liked no announcements at all, so each invasion event caught us "unaware". Given the way the event unfolds a player not wishing to participate would still have plenty of time to leave the zone before being attacked.

Global channels and the like would pass along info on what zones were being invaded for players actively seeking out the events.

But if an announcement must be made, I'd prefer new tech that didn't put it into chat channels at all but rather put it into an unobtrusive icon that would blink when an invasion started. Click the icon and a pop-up alerts you to all unfolding invasion events. Close the pop-up when done. Simple. And if you ignore the icon altogether it automatically stops blinking after a few moments but changes to a different color (not RED) to note it has "unread" messages.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If someone has a level 1 character with a name that they're camping, they have to keep -paying- for the right to use that name.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ummm...no...they just have to log in for an hour or two and get into a sewer team during the free account reactivation weekend and level their toon to level 7...then they can leave once more and never have to pay...not to ignore the fact that I stated in my previous post, that being that any decent names will probably be taken by players with enough drive to at least play them a couple hours an get them above the level notch for name taking...

[/ QUOTE ]
Did your parents give you a name you don't like?

Or you could, you know, think of something original instead of proposing an increasingly elaborate and unnecessary system so you (and who knows how many others) can grab at all the patently unoriginal names someone else got before you.

The proposed policy is fine, it doesn't need to be opened up further.

If players think up relatively original names they won't need any to be freed up to begin with. Easy peasy!

My feedback from last night, reposted from another thread:

Post-patch I have taken part in two invasions, both in Cap Au Diable on Pinnacle, both on the same character, my level 20ish energy/ninjitsu stalker.

The first invasion the initial drop ships moved across the sky smoothly, dropping their bombs and generally going about their business as expected. I was at the airstrip and decided to tackle an A Bomb that had landed at half-health. When the next stage of the invasion started, the drop ships began stuttering. There were no other players or Rikti around my location. A call on broadcast indicated the main focus of fighting was between the university and black market so I headed over.

The lag was pretty bad. So bad in fact, that I gave up on the big battle and went back to the A Bomb (which was near a mission door for me). By this point I was getting delays with powers firing that were seconds long. I gave up on the bomb and did my mission, which went fine (as expected).

Later in the evening another invasion hit Cap when I happened to be in the zone again. With a teammate and one other player, we tackled an A Bomb. Drop ships continued to pass over us and empty their payloads, occasionally hitting and causing all three of us to be knocked back to spectacular (and hilarious effect). We eventually destroyed the bomb, no worse for the wear.

Again a huge brawl was underway between the black market and university, so I headed over. This time there was lag but it felt more related to the sheer number of players, NPCs and powers -- what one might expect under such conditions. I stayed and was able to fight just fine, helping to take out a pile of Rikti, including several heavies that showed up.

So...same character, same zone, same play session...two vastly different results in terms of the invasion event and lag.

Apart from the first being earlier in the evening (more players in the zone?) and the latter being a few hours later, I can't see any notable difference. The performance, however, was *drastically* different. Invasion 1 rapidly became pretty much unplayable, Invasion 2 was fine.

If Cryptic had to choose between upgrading their servers for an event that runs twice a year vs. not running the event, I'm pretty sure they'd go with the latter.

Issue 10: me likey!

It pretty much covers what I wanted:

- co-op zone for heroes and villains
- *finally* some new content for levels 35-50
- another world event
- another revamped hazard zone filled with New Stuff™

Looking forward to this.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Father's day is only one day. Do you guys wake up your dads at 5 a.m. Sunday and follow him around until he goes to bed that night because it's Father's day? I mean, there's a difference between spending time with dear ol' dad and not leaving the poor bugger alone. :P

The event starts at 9 a.m. Friday morning (PDT) and runs through Sunday evening. There is plenty of time to get mad double XP even without ignoring your dad and convincing him your a heartless videogame-obsessed monster. Really!

I work on Friday. That means that there will be hours -- hours! -- when that double XP will just be wasting away while I earn my pay. Then the time I'll spend eating, sleeping, in the shower, out enjoying the sun...all that time wasted when I could be glued to my PC earning double XP!

Somehow I'll get through. I suspect those celebrating Father's day will manage as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you whole-heartedly. Even if some people do spend all day Sunday with their father, that still leaves half of Friday and all of Saturday.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless, of course, you're the dad like I am with several kids coming in on Friday and staying the weekend.

Now, I'm not about to miss a weekend with the kids to play a video game and I won't get my Depends in a knot about missing another 2XP weekend, but it is the kind of issue you'd hope someone might consider before scheduling an event.

Obviouisly they can't take into account everyone's schedule, but -- and this is just a wild guess -- I suspect a majority of people playing the game are fathers themselves and/or have fathers. So, taking Fathers Day into consideration before scheduling a 2XP weekend doesn't seem like an extraordinary expectation.

[/ QUOTE ]
They did take Father's Day into account -- it's mentioned directly in Positron's announcement (Positron also happens to be a father himself).

Father's day is only one day. Do you guys wake up your dads at 5 a.m. Sunday and follow him around until he goes to bed that night because it's Father's day? I mean, there's a difference between spending time with dear ol' dad and not leaving the poor bugger alone. :P

The event starts at 9 a.m. Friday morning (PDT) and runs through Sunday evening. There is plenty of time to get mad double XP even without ignoring your dad and convincing him you're a heartless videogame-obsessed monster. Really!

I work on Friday. That means that there will be hours -- hours! -- when that double XP will just be wasting away while I earn my pay. Then the time I'll spend eating, sleeping, in the shower, out enjoying the sun...all that time wasted when I could be glued to my PC earning double XP!

Somehow I'll get through. I suspect those celebrating Father's day will manage as well.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Lighthouse has now said the poll results will not be published.

Makes the whole exercise a bit pointless, in my opinion.


[/ QUOTE ]
Wasn't the point for the devs to get a feel for what we'd want? Publishing it on the other hand, would be pointless without agreeing up front to implement the top selections. Well, unless the point would be to subject themselves to endless abuse for chosing something other than what won the poll. I'm glad to get my input in, even if it differs from the majority, even if they don't go with it.


[/ QUOTE ]
I should have clarified. It makes the poll rather pointless to me. I can't speak for others. It will be useful to the devs.

Lighthouse has now said the poll results will not be published.

Makes the whole exercise a bit pointless, in my opinion.

I wouldn't be upset if the devs end up saying "The [name of most voted for] powerset in the poll can't be produced in a feasible timeframe. We're sorry guys, we tried but it's just not going to happen. We remain fully committed to delivering other new powersets to City of Heroes and Villains." But apparently rather than face the *potential* of having to do that, they'd rather hide our own votes from us. :/

I'll go on the record as having voted for:

• Growth
• Shield Defense
• Street Fighting
• Shield Fighting

Yes, three that I picked would face "technical" hurdles. I've had my fill of recycled animations after three years. Something new, please!

I avoided all blade or weaponry choices due to a) the game already having a number of them b) redraw issue (minor concern, really -- I have a katana scrapper) c) avoiding re-using animations.

I picture the shield in its respective sets as being always out, whether it's on the character's back or in his hands, so I don't think redraw would be as noticeable as it would with current weapon sets. My preferred weapon set - bo staff -- didn't make the cut, anyhoo.

I would propose a slight variation of your color scheme to better match the one used to denote level of NPC enemy in the game. The notifications would look like this:

Gray: COMMON SALVAGE FOUND!
Green: UNCOMMON SALVAGE FOUND!
Blue: RARE SALVAGE FOUND!

And so on for recipes.

Making it match the color conning system for enemies is a good thing, as it matches the color to the value for both salvage and enemies (gray is worth less, blue is worth more).

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Maybe they could keep the colors (for the majority who are not colorblind) and change the text to be more precise:

• Common salvage found!
• Uncommon salvage found!
• Rare salvage found!

Substitute "recipe" where appropriate. I'd remove the word "invention" from the notification because it's just too damn long. :P

For base salvage, simply:

• Base salvage found!

Although base salvage can be common, uncommon and such I don't think it would be as important to alert players right at the moment vs. letting them check their inventory after.

It's not red, it's orange. I'm not sure how it would look to someone who is colorblind, though.

And yeah, it should be added to the patch notes under Inventions:

Added color-coding to Invention salvage and recipe drop notifications:

• white = common salvage/recipe
• yellow = uncommon salvage/recipe
• orange = rare salvage/recipe

Actually, what will happen in the future is a 36 month vet reward pet will come running up to your character, patiently wait for you to finish whatever you are doing (fighting, inventing, selling, preening, etc.) then will inform you of the latest "City of" news. After doing so it will throw a smokebomb and disappear, ninja-style.

I've asked Statesman to personally disable all pop-up announcements on your copy of the game to avoid any near-tragedies in the future.

I think that's what they'll be doing, Sam. They'll expunge any hint of a connection to Nazis and probably won't even call them The 5th Column when they return. And they'll try to pass it off as being a "better, more interesting faction than before" (and maybe it will be) and the dead horse that won't really die will live on forever. Clippity clop, clippity clop, hooray! :P

[ QUOTE ]
So, onto the posssibilities:
-A villain group returns = 5th Column Return. Lets say, led by the Reichsman.
-An old friend returns as an enemy = Hero 1 Leads a new Rikti invasion of Paragon and the Rogue Isles
-Enemies become friends = Co-Op Zones dealing with the above. At an extreme, perhaps cross over, but I consider that doubtful


[/ QUOTE ]
By jove, I think you've got it.

Or we will both be wrong.

I don't dislike PvP but have no great love for it, either, regardless of the game. In CoH/CoV I ignore it so you can put me down as 'No'.