DarthMord

They need to just make one Ouro zone usable by both Red & Blue sides. The portal there should give you destinations based on your current alignment.

Status update!!!

I stopped by both banks that I would have had business with around the time frame our accounts were set up. Both were able to dredge up my records from back then and none of our accounts had all the criteria the rep mentioned. I thanked the two bank reps I worked with for their time and went home.

I started digging through some boxes. Let's just say I'm glad I'm a packrat.

I found almost every single CoH/V item we have in the house. Still missing one CoV collector's edition but I am fairly certain I know where it is.

I then started comparing all the license keys I found against the two CoH accounts I have. The keys that didn't match either got set aside.

I update the ticket with the helpful rep from Support with those keys. Also had to correct my original report of the exact day we did the renewals.

A short while later (perhaps 20 minutes or so), I got the notice that my wife's account was unlocked and a notice to go in and reset her passwords. I just reset them to something as strong as the system will allow (which isn't terribly strong IMO, their password limits are too short).

So in short, once I got a helpful rep who was a lot more clear about what specifically he needed, things got done.

My wife already called while on break at school. I let her know the good news. All is happy in the house again

Now to go check her characters and see if anything is wrong there.

Well, got a really nice NCSoft rep as part of the issue escalatation. He went into greater detail as to what he would need. He also explained why the keys I provided didn't suffice. He did go into detail as to what specific keys he could use to validate ownership. He also indicated alternative means for ID verification.

So now I'm pursuing the banks we were with at the time we started our CoH/V accounts. Already called one and they confirmed they can give me the information I need if I stop in and show ID. I'll hit up the other bank on the way home too.

If that turns up a dud, then I'll go digging for certain game boxes (sure am glad I got collector's editions). I'm fairly certain I know where those are.

All in all, this rep is helping me rather than hindering. I like this rep.

As for that security issue... when did that happen? I don't recall hearing about it and I keep up on updates on that side of the house. That said, I did notice the account questions and such in my master account when I changed my password.

What strikes me as odd is that as of Oct 2010, I was able to log my wife's master account in. I had to. I was the one who renewed both of our accounts. Nothing was amiss at that time. Maybe I can get the rep that is assisting me to explain what they saw once I have the account back under our control.

Already sent a PM to Avatea.

I know that only two people have her account passwords, her & me. Her comp has already been checked for malware, trojans, etc. All clean. Same goes for mine.

I'm completely baffled as to why they blocked her account. They claimed it was for our safety but we received no notice. None of her account info shows as having been logged in anywhere here or in Guild Wars inappropriately (we always create a guild/group for ourselves and invite each others characters).

We also know that her email address is still linked to the NCSOFT account as when I tried to reset her password, the notices of attempts to do so came to her address as expected.

I'm going to try calling them this afternoon when their support lines open to see if they can tell me anything further. Part of me is raging something fierce on the inside because we're being punished for something we didn't do and now have to dance like some circus animal to beg for her account back.

My wife tried logging in to play some CoH with me this last weekend. She couldn't log in. She got a message indicating her account was suspended.

This was odd to say the least as we had just renewed our accounts at the beginning of October. Now she hadn't logged in at all for a few months because she is in school. All of her characters reflect that little detail in our supergroup panel.

So I tried logging in as her on the account maintenance page. This time, the error message is that her NCSOFT master account is banned.

We tried contacting Support but they are all but worthless. We've danced their little dance and given them every bit of information we could give them from their list only to get told "It doesn't look like you provided everything we asked for".

No, really? You really want me to cough up some code from an email from over 6 years ago?!?! And you want the credit card used to start the account from that same time frame when it's commonplace for consumers to change financials?

We gave them name, address, games under the account, acccount features unlocked, license keys that we could find that we redeemed on both of our accounts, even the information from when we renewed the accounts in October. They are still saying they cannot confirm we are the rightful users/owners on her account. I even gave them the IP addresses we use and that renewed from.

So as it stands, Billing happily took our money but Support is not letting my wife use her CoH/V account. To throw insult on top of injury, this also kills her Guild Wars account (all 3 chapters, TEotN expansion, plus several acccount perks.

Yet throughout this whole ordeal, my account (w/ CoH/V & GW) is fine.

Anyone got any suggestions as to what else we can do to get my wife's account back from NCSOFT? We are still looking to see if we can find more of the account codes we used. Even if we were to find them all, I don't believe Support will unlock her account.

I had the same problem with both my account and my wife's account. The characters in question are still at the same level and exp values.

All Support did was gaff me off on searching the knowledge base myself and basically imply I'm stupid for not knowing this unpublished limitation. One would think it would be in the feature documentation. But what do I know as programmer / admin / technical writer?

If it's not in the official docs, it doesn't exist as far as the customer is concerned.

The level pact functionality needs to be updated to let people make pacts at any time their levels are the same. Then any difference between them is reconciled (with the lower level getting all the exp until they are equal in exp values) and then sharing as is normal within the pact.

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Clarification: If I'm having a conversation with a Dev, Community Manager, or Moderator and they give information that I feel would be useful to the community: IE a technical issue workaround, news of new content, etc. --wouldn't it be appropriate to post that? Or do you want us to ask first? Thanks.

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Just as a standing rule, PMs from me can generally be quoted and put up on the forums. The cases where this is not true, I always include a comment to that effect in the PM, be it "Sub-rosa", "between you and I", "Please, don't publicize this." or some variation thereof. That has been my policy since I became a "red name" and so far, no one has violated it, to my knowledge. I'd be quite cross if someone did, however!

EDIT: To be on the safe side, it is ALWAYS proper to ask for permission before disseminating private correspondence.

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In another forum I frequent, it's policy that both parties must agree to have PMs between them publicized. So unless you specifically (and publicly) said I could repeat what you said in a PM to me, I couldn't repeat it.

That's the rule I follow here. As such, none of the Dev PMs I've received have been repeated. None of those said I could repeat it.

PM does mean Private Message and Private means just that. That's why I follow this.

WOOT!!!!

Hmm... thank goodness I got a lifetime sub to LOTRO... means I can keep paying to play here without breaking my gaming budget.

It's looking like my decision to hedge my bets gamewise is paying off.

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“Any Red name wanna come out and let us know if Elec/Elec tank is going to be added?” – Lady_Dee


Castle said, “No, never!” and Positron said, “Yes, do it!” In the end, the decision of which sets to give everyone bounced back and forth multiple times. The next question is, “Why did Castle say no?!” At the time, he wanted each AT to keep certain sets so they were only found on that AT – Ninjitsu for Stalkers, Elec/Elec for Brutes, Ice/Ice for Tankers, etc. Ultimately, that concept was set aside later in the process, but some aspects of it remained in the initial pass of Proliferation.

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Does this mean, 100%, ice armor/ice melee will go to brutes, scrappers,a nd stalkers? broadsword, katana, regen, SR and ninjitsu will go to tankers?

Is there ANY taboos? (I ask more about balance issues).

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The plan, so far as I know, is for all appropriate sets to be ported in one form or another. So, eventually, Melee types should have access to all the melee sets (caveat: I'm pushing for Stalkers NOT to get the Shield set, since the powers as planned don't work too well, thematically or practically), Buff/Debuff ATs should have access to the powers in all the Buff/Debuff sets (even if they look and sound slightly different in some cases!) etc.

What does this plan mean, really? Buy stock in Tylenol...I'll singlehandedly be increasing their profitability! Well, maybe not singlehandedly...I'm sure the new guys will be pulling their hair out, too!

Caveat #2: Plans are subject to change, schedules have not been drawn up yet, so this *could* not happen. This post is *not* a promise.

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Post = nice-to-have

Got it.

Thanks for the update Castle.

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Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement:


Sean Fish, the designer behind the "Manticore" persona in City of Heroes, describes his involvement with the game's lore and creative process.

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Greetings from the shadows to all you CoH & CoV fans! Sean Fish here…aka Manticore. I have been part of the City of Heroes family for a long time, wrangling story and design since about a year before launch...

Now that the City of Heroes universe is fully in the NCsoft fold I get the chance to be more involved in the dev process again, which I am obviously thrilled about.

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Click here to read the full article.

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Hot diggity **** !!!

Glad to see Manticore is back.

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Guys, i don't think the question is "Do you know the current defense values?" like some people seem to be answering. It's more "If you designed the game, what chances to hit would you design in these situations?"

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Correct.

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In a max offense vs max defense situation, I'd expect to hit my target about 50% of the time.

At the same time, in a minimum offense vs minimum defense situation, I'd expect to hit around 75% as the game is currently set up for.

But part of me really wants a setup where equal amounts of Offense and Defense cancel each other out and leave you at base ToHit values. Unfortunately, that's not something we have now.

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Yeah, I specifically went for an example that most people wouldn't think of as PvP. "Pedantic" is, I suppose, deserved.

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Pedantic is not the word I'd have used, but it certainly isn't inappropriate.

Comparing auction houses to PvP suggests one of two things. Either some of the nifty invention salvage items and recipes will only be available in one or all of the PvP zones. Or our dev team has been buried in spreadsheets too long and is a little overwhelmed at the moment.

I would personally rather Team CoX's scholastic and excessively subtle reasoning skills were keenly focused on ways to keep the majority of us entertained. I don't think the majority of this player base cares two shakes for the meaningless PvP in CoX, Castle.

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PvP at its heart is merely competition between two players. Nothing more, nothing less.

What many folks are saying is PvP is actually PvP Combat.

If you and I are in a race to level 50, it's a Player versus Player interaction. Not combat, interaction.

Castle was quite correct in his example. The funny thing is, we participate in PvP in real life every day. We try to achieve the best possible results in our jobs, tests, classes, school, etc. We play games. Heck, Monopoly is PvP. You are engaging in real estate combat trying to bankrupt your opponents.

Chess is PvP. It's combat between two people represented by pieces on a board... which sums up nearly every board game out there.

PvP is a much broader subject than people here are defining it as.

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Not to mention in a more dramatic way regarding RV. That backdrop changes as a result of PvP and is something PvEers can only dream about.

I've been working on a system that involves takeing back the city zones from the villains. (Inspired by GTA: San Andreas) My problem is I can't figure out how to do it that owuld be balanced in the PvE game. If it was a simple quesiton of a PvP change it would be absurdly easy and fun.

Content is just so much easier in a PvP enviroemtn because all you have to o is give the players the tools they need. In the PvE game you have to balance it among a thousand different factors and write up AI, missions breifings, etc.

I enjoy both aspects of the game but I think in the long term the OP is right. PvP is just so much more open ended and has a great deal of potential that the PvE game can never have.

I look at the PvP zones and thing they are kinda neat. They have a story around them but that isnt really what PvP is about. PvP is something the players make. I think content like that should be left to the PvE game while the PvP game should just be given the tools to make their world. RV is a great PvP zone. Bloody bay is not.

There will always be a portion of this community that will hate PvP. I dont really see why we need to pander to what they think. Scre em. They wont be happy until PvP is gone. I would prefer a more constructive debate on how to make PvP better.

I tend to look at EVE Online as a good PvP game. VERY open ended. The PvE game is extremely tedious but once you get into the heart of the player community you find something very cool. I really want something like that for CoX. It's not quite there yet and I think alot of the reason is the PvP game is overly restricted.

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You could have that same sort of backdrop in PvE too...

Take the Skulls and the Hellions for example... If people over a given time frame take out more Skulls than Hellions via street sweeps, missions, etc then the Hellions would start taking over the town until they were forced back down. Heck, it might even be set such that it would cause zone events to happen (arson, fire bombing, etc).

Just saying, you can have dynamic PvE if you are willing to massage the system a little.

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The only problem with that snippet is that he must have been walking from one end of a zone to the other end. I've timed it before. I can run from a certain Bridge between talk folks and halflings to the main Tall Folk town and do so in under 10 minutes. That's one of the longest paths in the unnamed MMO and he's grossly exaggerating how slow it is.

Then again, he also didn't mention that you have fast travel (basically travel that is faster than using the Pocket D teleporter) available between major cities and a somewhat slower mount travel from town to town.

I also suppose he failed to mention that other forms of teleportation ARE available, just not at the level restricted section the unnamed MMO is at right now until it goes Live.


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Hmm, the fast travel costs 10 silver and at low levels that is to much. probably not an issue at higher levels but at lower ones it is very much an issue.

And I certainly got tired of the trudging back across the zone. It went something like this, go out and wend my way 3 - 8 minutes away from town hunt for awhile then either go back to see the quest giver to turn in the quest back to town or try and get one or two more done in the area. Then 3 - 8 minutes back to town. If I need to just sell and restock I might be in luck and a general sub town center might be nearby but if I need to level off across the zone I go. I swear I spent more time trudging back to the one side of any zone that it got tiresome.

I do want to like the game more than I do. I think the thing that kills it for me isn't the travel times. They are long but not as bad as a certain other game starting with V. What does it in for me is the elite mobs you have to fight to finish a number of quests, or special sub quests. Rather than being instanced having to que up in a line is not fun and frankly ruins my sense of immersion every time.

It is like if you needed to go fight a specific EB to finish a mission and had to get in line to do so.

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Actually, they changed Fast Travel. It's 1 silver from major town to major town. The inter town travel prices are atrocious though. They are still set at the old economy levels. Going from the starting town for one race to the next town 800 yards away is 10 Silver... yet I can make the trip from one major city to another for 1 silver each way.

I've heard that travel prices are going to get adjusted for the new economy once they iron out the loot stinginess from the last change.

Most of those Elites are on a fairly fast timer (2-5 minutes) if they are general surface spawn. The ones I run into regularly are in instances which is no big deal. Likewise, forming a team (can get up to 6 people on a team) also allows folks to breeze through a lot faster in those situations where you have to defeat an open spawn Elite.

I suspect though that many people are basing their impressions on the current level 1 to 15 restriction rather than on what goes on BEYOND level 15. I got up into the mid 30s during the closed beta and the game at level 20+ is wildly different and a heck of a lot more fun than it is in the level 15 and below. There's also a ton more story there in comparison too.

It's basically set up such that you get a taste of things to come and want more. Then when you choose to get more, you find it in spades and the cycle repeats.