Cybercel

This is great - I actually asked around a while back if there was anything like this and considered making an application myself when I found out there wasn't one, but really haven't had the time.

As soon as the market's back up I'll be using this heavily - I just got a toon to 50 who's getting a new build - so I'll let you know if I run into any problems.

A guy I work with used to play CoV, I think back when it first came out. I know a couple of current players, but they're people I knew out of game first.

I would suggest it's more to do with what European exports actually become popular in the US, than to do with how all European singers sound.

Pop singers here frequently talk about "cracking the US" - most of the home-grown stuff that's popular here in the UK, no one's even heard of in the US. On the other hand, US stuff tends to be popular both sides of the Atlantic. So artists Americanise or genericise themselves (in both accent and content) in an attempt to crack the US market - and that's what you end up hearing. No real insult intended to the artists in question, it makes sense that if you want to sell on a global market, you don't want to sing about cultural references that probably won't make sense to people outside of your area, and you don't want to do it in an accent that people either won't understand or think sounds funny.

Some of it is probably also to do with (over)production techniques used in popular music. And some is probably just down to personal style and choice.

There's plenty of stuff over here, generally the less poppy hip-hop end of things, where you can hear UK accents. The more rock-sounding phase we went through recently over here in popular music not only resulted in generalised UK accents, but even regional ones, being heard in pop music.

Likewise, why does most popular US music not really feature southern or western US accents? Why do country singers always try to sound like they're from the mid-western US, even if they're from a different country?

I have to say, this is never something that's bothered me greatly - this is possibly because I barely touch blue-side and only really know the villain market, and I get along just fine with it as-is.

However, if we want the two sides to reach parity, surely opening the market is the only way to do it? Sure, things will become unsettled and prices will jump around all over the place for a bit, but things would doubtless calm down, as they always do after something shakes the market around.

Also, the trading issue would just be beyond ridiculous - it's irritating enough as-is not being able to give insps to people you're running the ITF with.

I don't see how it'd be that difficult to explain away in-game, either; in real life, stolen and otherwise illegitimate goods end up being bought and sold by non-criminals all the time, and legitimate goods certainly make their way onto the black market. Especially given the blue-side market is an auction house - maybe they're just not that good at verifying their sources, maybe the unseen middle men are good at making themselves look legit when they meet with the Wentworth's buyers.

This kind of thing is a large part of why I barely play hero-side these days. CoV doesn't really suffer from this issue. There are a couple of points where you're asked to go talk to people, but it's pretty much just the PvP zone reps and Seer Marino, and none involve a huge amount of travel. The devs even thoughtfully placed Seer Marino next to a helicopter from Cap to Mercy.

I'd love to see some of these clunky mechanics and pieces of outdated design cleared up on hero side - the game would be so much more polished for new players, and I might go back to the many abadoned heroes I have. It does especially seem a shame when we know the tech is there for auto-introducing contacts, seeing as it's used extensively villain side, and in a few places hero side.

I suspect some of it won't be fixable, though - it'd be weird for the zones to all get resized now, for instance, even though the devs seem to have realised bigger isn't better when it means you just have to spend more time travelling and less time having fun. And I bet if the overly long and boring arcs were reduced, there would be plenty of complaints from those used to them, or who honestly like them, or who like the higher merit rewards at the end of them. I can't imagine there would be many complaints about not needing to run over to contacts though, so it seems a good one to fix.

I've regretted my Emp/Energy (my first 50) for some time - she was made when I was very new and I just didn't realise how useless I'd find her secondary. When Sonic came out, especially, I really wished she were Emp/Sonic; while she's always been extremely primary- and pool-heavy anyway, the control powers in Sonic really appealed to me for a toon intended to protect her team first and foremost.

If you IO the Tank, do you think you'll honestly go back to blue side more, or enjoy playing the character? I think that has to be part of the decision.

Like you, I started blue side, but for me the switch mostly happened as soon as CoV came out - and now I spend almost all my time as a villain, generally only playing on blue side if there's a powerset combination I want to try out.

I tried IOing a couple of my heroes since it so often gives toons a new lease of life. It didn't work that well though, I just feel more at home red side now - I prefer the newer story arcs, the contacts who are actually individuals, the zone design - and I struggle to really enjoy Paragon City. So despite having an awesome build now on my Ill/Rad Controller, she barely gets brought out.

Now, for me, this is no great loss - I spend enough time playing that I have IO'd characters both side and I've lost nothing. At least I have a decent Hero for when people in my coalition want to do TFs. But if I didn't have too much time in game and could only IO one character, I'd certainly want to IO one I knew I was going to play lots.

If you're not sure, maybe try leaving the Brutes for a bit, and go back and play the Tank to see well you still get along with her as a character, and with Paragon City as a setting.

Aphotica doesn't have any eyes and got slightly offended at the suggestion of a monacle, so this will have to do:

Does that make me half-ebil?

I actually have quite a bit more stocked between alts, but I've never earned enough quickly enough to have a billion inf all at once. Normally I go off on a spending spree for a build well before this point. Not sure I'll make it to the 2 billion point just yet as there's a purple set I've been waiting to buy...

While I'm here, I'd just like to note that this forum provided me interesting reading material while I was stuck on the old EU forums. It's definitely part of how I picked up on market PvP - I only dabbled before starting to read this forum. We didn't have anything like this over there, and it's one of the main reasons I'm glad the forums were merged.

Much like Nethergoat, I sold of quite a lot of stuff that just hadn't been moving before but I just didn't have time to do much marketeering - I was too busy levelling! In fact, had double XP not happened, I'd have hit my first billion on Thursday or Friday, and possibly a second (on another toon) not long after. I even had stock waiting!

I think my only stroke of ebil was a respec recipe I'd picked up a few days before DXP which I figured would probably go for more during. It did, by quite a lot.

On the Black Market, while stocks are certainly low, the level 21 recipe is selling from 111,178 (flipper? it comes up twice), to 5,000,000. Two have sold in the last two days, so it's not like they're impossible to get ahold of. Crafted ones only seem really expensive at high levels.

I think there's a line where I do find glowy clicking impolite. Not all the time - say you're running paper missions, mobs are killed... doesn't matter to me who clicks the glowy.

However, if someone stops helping the rest of the team mid fight to click a glowy, it really irritates me. We're going to finish the fight either way, so what's the point? Also, in Mayhem Missions, mission owner should be given the chance to take the glowy which gives a temp power if they want it, and take the firebombs for the badge - I tend to speak up to make sure others allow this to happen, as I think sometimes people just go on to auto and don't realise what they're doing.

The one thing that I think is really, really off on the glowy topic is people ghosting missions without consulting the team lead/mission owner. Especially on mission arcs, some of which I really enjoy playing through. I've had to tell people to stop it and came back to the rest of the team before. The decision to ghost should be one that comes from the team leader or the team as a whole, and I think running off like that is really impolite. One time I clearly remember it happening we were absolutely blasting through a mission, going really well, and I think it was a Stalker who just took off. Promptly told them that she'd better come back and help the team, as we were going to be killing all the mobs regardless.

Ont he power tab, pop open the combat attributes, open up the Base section, right click on regeneration rate, and choose to monitor it.

I have this monitored on my /WP Brute, was running missions on him yesterday and my regen rate seemed to be jumping up normally. Keep an eye on it and check what's happening as you fight.

Maybe it's just the Shivans though? I remember them generally being pretty unpleasant, especially as they hammer you with -def. They're Energy damage too, which WP isn't strong against.

I've been running a lot arcs this weekend and have run into this problem a lot. First two times were Crimson Revenant's arc - 5 person team, difficulty set to +2 and I think x6 or x8. Both AVs were +4 to mission owner, even though his level had changed between times. He was 34 and BABs was 38, for instance.

Next ran into it with the beat Recluse in the future mission - mission owner 50 and set to +2 difficulty again, and Recluse was level 54, which is pretty unpleasant, for the record. The fight took ages after we got up from the initial wipe.

Then today, on an entirely different character, set to +2/x3, I got a level 42 Jonny Sonata AV while level 38. VERY nasty, especially as I was in a duo - we both had to log second accounts to take him out, and again, it took a long time.

Really needs fixing, there must be teams running into this who just can't finish the mission. I've already bugged it in game, and would suggest everyone do the same.