Darkfaith

I'm currently playing GW2. I'm not going to tell people that are dead set on not giving NCSoft another dime what to do. That's their prerogative, and certainly their right to speak with their wallet. I would, however, like to address some of these bad points in your post.

1. I've never played EQ, so I can't comment on their zone design, but I will say that crossing a zone is only a pain the first time, and only if you're not following the flow of the zone from one task area to the next. There are quick-travel waypoints all over the place, in every zone, making it easier to go back to places you've already been. Spawn rates are a little high in some areas, but it's not really "fighting tooth and nail". Soloing is entirely possible. I've solo'd 68 levels so far on my main. As long as you're going with the flow of the area, watch where you're going, and not trying to skip things, you'll be fine.

2. There are "quests" in the traditional sense, but those are limited to your personal story. The majority of your leveling comes from open-world Tasks/Hearts (pretty much auto-quests that you come across in zones, they're static, and your progress on them is personal, can vary in what you're doing and can only be done once), dynamic events (events that are triggered a variety of ways, can be done multiple times, but don't have to be), and area completion (you get a pretty hefty xp bonus for seeing everything there is to see in a given area). You'll also get xp from gathering, crafting, and completing daily achievements. You can grind the events, I suppose, but I haven't had to. In general, there are 2-3 areas for each level range, so I haven't had to do an event more than once unless I wanted to in 130+ hours of gameplay.

3. Traditional groups do usually only occur for dungeons, but the game is built on cooperation and being social. There's plenty of communication in zones for people looking for events, which tend to be a group activity, people asking questions and helping others. The thing that a lot of people miss is that there's no kill stealing, and everyone that hits a given mob gets credit...right down to full xp (including bonuses for various things), and their own loot. People are free to help each other without fear of someone chewing them out for it, and do all the time. See someone getting slaughtered by a mob? Jump in and help them! Dynamic events tend to be great gathering points to help your fellow player. There's also xp for rezing other players, which is yet more encouragement to help the guy next to you. So, while there isn't grouping in the traditional sense (though, you're free to do that anyways!), there is a sense of cooperation throughout the game.

4. Yes, dungeons are hard. But they're no more mandatory than our Task Forces. You like the challenge? Go for it. If not, there's plenty of other things to do, including some neat jumping puzzles.

5. Yes, the jumping puzzles for Vistas can be a pain, if you don't like that sort of thing. The area completion bonus, however, makes it worth it to do, and most areas only have 5 or so of them. Not all of them in a given zone are hard to get to, and there are plenty of guides and videos if you just can't figure it out.

6. The auction house was having problems initially, but those have since been fixed. It's been up and running solidly without a crash for a few days now.

7. Crafting is not for everyone, but I would like to note that their recipe discovery system can be a lot of fun for some, and the xp from crafting makes it worth it to invest some time into.

As for the rest, I don't recall them ever promising that a town would "stay saved", but I didn't follow early development. Personally, given the story of the game, that wouldn't make sense to me...we're in the middle of a war, there's no reason for an enemy to give up after attacking a town once. And no, the zone events aren't revolutionary, but they can be fun. And no auto-follow....really, that's a personal preference for melee. I haven't been bothered by it.

Well, looks like the problem for me was NoScript. Specifically, I had to allow iesnare.com to even be able to log in. However, it still doesn't like the migration page. Everything on that page has been allowed, but it still doesn't like the javascript redirect function. When I turn off NoScript entirely, it works. It's probably something to do with the cross-site scripting options. Unfortunately, I don't have time tonight to try to get it working, though.

Hmmm...you know, now that I look at it, they don't have a purchase history just yet. They talked about adding one, but I suppose that's a later goal >.<

This is incorrect. I purchased the whole barbarian set, and it all unlocked right then and there. No need to claim it through email, I didn't need to relog as some people have reported needing to, I was able to use it all immediately. The pieces are applied directly to your account, like the old boosters were. Him not having those pieces unlock yet has got to be a bug of some sort, which support should be able to fix up for him.

Ultimus, are the items showing up in your purchase history? Have the points for them been deducted from your total? Support might be a little swamped right now, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes them a day or so to get back to you, but you should at least get the automated reply to say your ticket has been received.

My post was badly worded, but this is it exactly. You receive Reward tokens for subbing each month, or when you buy points (1 token per 1200 points), but not for when you spend points. Reward tokens can't be used to buy points, they're separate systems.

The Reward tokens are for purchasing points, not for spending them, so you won't receive any more tokens than you already have, because the points we received were free, not purchased.

It's hard to imagine, yes, but I'm not going to make assumptions about their code. It may be that CoH uses the launcher differently than NCSoft's other games, because the legacy launcher functioned differently. It may be that they've decided that the pre-release patch isn't necessary because the launcher is faster for so many of us. There may be other perfectly valid reasons that CoH doesn't use the Launcher's pre-release patch download functionality. Whether or not the Launcher is faster for the bulk of us, there are still people on limited speeds or bandwidth that would greatly appreciate having at least a few days to download the patch before it goes Live. I'm not one of those that needs the pre-download, but I can sympathize for those who do.

The NCSoft Launcher -is- capable of pre-release downloads, I play another NCSoft game that uses that capability of the Launcher, but I'm not sure that it's compatible with CoH. It would be nice if they started using that ability of the Launcher.

Zwillinger, do you know if there's a cut off on this grant? I resubbed in the early afternoon (around 1pm EDT) so that I can try the beta with a friend, and I know my access to the server might take a day or two to sync, but seeing this I'm kinda hoping I didn't resub too late for the point grant. I get the feeling that I might not be the only one resubbing today for this ^.^ if not, no worries.

As of the next patch (the current patch on Test), you'll be able to use travel-only temp powers in the Trials ^.^

The probably need the time to process the account data, confirm which accounts are eligible, and then create and test the scripts to make the changes to the account database to tag us as having gotten the rewards. I don't mind the wait.

Actually, the CIBC Visa debit card can be used for online purchases. Not necessarily ideal, if you're with another bank, though. The card itself isn't any extra to get, if you do have an account with them, and if you're a student you can get a free, unlimited transaction account. If you have neither, but still want to consider it, they do have accounts with low transaction numbers and smaller fees. I got one, and use it a lot more than I thought I would.

How terrifically closed-minded of you. There are many reasons for wanting to run with people that you know, including SG-events, and simply wanting that comfort factor of running with friends...even if you all fail together. Sometimes, we just want to relax and have fun with people whose company we enjoy.

There are several problems with that...groups build by the queue are almost always the minimum size, or close to it. People looking to do leagues entirely with friends (and there are SGs and coalitions big enough to fill leagues to the max for the event) will pre-form. If they allow the queue to build their league, there's no guarantee that all of said friends will get it, or that the queue won't put a stranger in their place. And leagues that are built by the queue don't always have a clear leader. You'll sometimes get people used to doing things a different way than the person that ends up with the star, and the conflicting orders can and does confuse people, ending up in a very rough run. Some people wish to avoid that by joining groups with leaders they know are experienced.