Crystalline

Yeah...I find that one to be wholly dissatisfying in a completely different way. At least the villain mission I can just write off as nonsensical (Hey, maybe I got gassed by Arachnos and I'm having this craaaazy dream while I'm really in a holding cell! Could happen!). But in the hero one I'm expected to believe that Silent Blade suddenly has a moment of competence so stunningly unexpected that I am rendered powerless to prevent her from killing somebody right in front of me and then walking away.

The other one I have a bit of trouble with is the jailbreak one for Vigilantes. That seems like a bridge too far for me, even for my vigs. But then, there could be other players who love these missions, and more power too them. Just my personal preferences. And I do actually quite enjoy the majority of the tip missions.

I got a giggle out of this because one of my main characters is a sonic/pain corr. Granted, he's not seen too much lately outside of RP, but I'll be missioning him again when DA goes live. I can't really answer the OPs question though, as I don't get out much.

I completely agree!

I'm very excited about those Stalker changes.

I'm also very interested in seeing the new DA content; how much I like it will be the final deciding factor in whether or not I go premium when my sub expires.

EDIT: Heh. Didn't even notice what forum I was in. Don't mind me, Protectorians. Carry on.

Absolutely.

Well, okay, if you're going to start counting people other than me and Moo...

Ah, but see, I would be unlikely to pay for any of the shiny, scanty, cutout options you present, so if we consider a consumer base that consists of just you and I, I think it's a wash for NCSoft, in terms of profit.

Now, it's not that I object to shiny, scanty, cutout options for my girls. It's just that we have so darned many of them already. Adding still more not only becomes repetitive and redundant (see what I did there?) but, in my opinion, it begins to send a message that is quite thoroughly covered already in Noble Savage's thread.

You know what I would spend points on? Possibly even extra actual money (although I make no promises in that regard)?

* "Normal" hairy chests for men. None of my male characters happen to be competitive swimmers, nor do they happen to be werewolves. I'd appreciate something between the extremes of "I shave all over" and "I howl at the moon." My guys would still not be walking around topless, but at least I could use the casual jacket on my main guy without putting a t-shirt under it to protect others from the glare coming off his chest. I believe there are other tops that show a bit of chest as well, just like many men do in real life.

* A 5:00 shadow as a face detail.

* Ditto for a shaved head. I don't mean razor shaved; we do have bald. I mean stubble.

* More hair for guys in general.

* Tattoos! For all the models, not just the guys! And for places other than back of the head, forearms and face (which you can sort of do now, with patterns).

I spend much more time on my male characters' costumes then my females and yet I always end up with the same few basic 'templates' because I find most of their options so dissatisfying. And yes, I do understand that that has to do with my personal tastes, and YMMV, but then, that's how the thread started.

I'm with Adeon on this. I wouldn't get too worried based on this one experience, Myddie. Honoree completely humbled my Illusion/Storm controller. It was so unexpected I actually found it funny. I finally asked a friend to pop in with her tank and once she got his attention off me we dropped him like a hot rock. But that was an experience I had not had on that character, literally, since before he got his phantoms.

And just to get us back on topic, I'll add that I'm very excited to see what the new Dark Astoria content will be like. What they've told us about so far is already more content than I expected for the initial roll-out of the solo/small team path. And I expect the zone itself to be atmospheric and visually compelling, based on the images I've seen, and based on their last new zone, First Ward. I have no expectations yet regarding how the missions will play or how slow the path will actually be; will just have to wait and see it in action.

Totally agree. I adore my stalkers already. I'll be really excited to see how they do after these changes. I know the thread title say "possible" but I hope these changes or some variation of them are available for testing soon.

I think that ship sailed the day AE was released. I know I've completely ignored the official lore since the moment I learned what it was, partly for the reasons the devs state. It would be pretty hard to justify any of my characters, be they heroes or villains, who know anything about Crey or Aeon being willing to put themselves in that position. Granted, I have a few who just don't know all that much, either because they're low level, or for some reason, just haven't done many missions involving either entity, but they're a distinct minority.

Personally, I've found this to be one of the more interesting threads to pop up on the forums in recent days.

Wow, that's insane. That's even better for exemping than slotting mid-level IOs, which is the way I do it now. Part of me thinks it would be fantastic if IOs you can buy on the market behaved that way; another part thinks that IOs are powerful enough already. Still...I guess it doesn't concern me too much for PvE if another player has a better IO set than I do. Unless there's some implication to this I'm missing (quite possible), I suppose if people want to spend their points this way, more power to them. It's hard to imagine it will make the availability of mid-level IOs on the market even worse than it is now (because it's hard to get worse than '0', which what you see in a lot of recipes' For Sale columns now) and there's still merits.