Deacon_NA
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Posts
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Quote:I've never posted this before, but your message deserves a heartyOriginally Posted by SteelRat
You can try and fight all you like, but if the bloke you're fighting is 2 feet taller than you and holding his hand on your forehead and laughing at you flailing your arms about, you're not going to achieve very much.
A lot of the problem is that many of us through being rallied by the various efforts to save the game really believed that we had a chance of success. There is an emotional interest in all this for everyone. After all that, NCSoft have STILL come back with "Nope, sorry chaps, we're still closing it". People may get annoyed with the constant "We can still do it" imperative because they are no longer willing to put themselves through that emotional rollercoaster.
If you compare the cold hard reality of "CoH was NCSofts lowest performer with a continually declining playerbase / financial return" with "I had a bad time and CoH saved my life" in that context, most reasonable people will hold their hands up and say "Yup.. fair enough.. I enjoyed the game while I played it, it sucks that it's shutting down, but that's how it has to be".
Whilst I won't necessarily say that anyone who still thinks there is a shred of hope that something can be salvaged is delusional; after all everyone is entitled to their opinions, that kind of behaviour is indicative of someone who, despite seeing all the evidence that they're presented with, is sticking their fingers in their ears, shutting their eyes and shouting "LALALALALALA" at the top of their voices.
If you want to keep fighting and keep trying, honestly more power to you, but don't be surprised or get upset when someone tries to tell you that it might actually be over. The thing is, we're not superheroes. We're just a bunch of nerds that play a superhero game.
I'm with you, I don't care to pee on anyone's corn flakes who happens to believe "we are superheroes". Choosing to "save the city" is harmless enough and hey, maybe I actually do lack the imagination to envision an endgame that results in a saved city.
I don't agree with the metaphor you used though, of a big bully holding you at arms lenth. In that case you can use leverage to your advantage. In our case, the playerbase has no leverage whatsoever. That's what the "I'm not done fighting" crowd doesn't seem to get, they're simply not holding anything of value to negotiate with.
But again, whatever. Go nuts true believers and enjoy fighting the good fight that you believe you're actually fighting. -
Does your town offer comic book shows/conventions? You could get a table there.
Honestly my best advice is to separate the wheat from the chaff and take that 1% of comics that someone would actually buy and eBay those and get the remainder appraised and donate to a children's hospital for a tax write-off. Oh and for making the children happy too, I suppose. -
I knew I should have broken that down some rather than just laying it out there as 150k/year.
That's intended to be an "all-in" number. Dental, 401k, AD&D, Life, Health and whatever else is part of their benefits package. Add to that real estate, desktop hardware, software, energy bill, pens and whatever else is part of their operating expenses.
Now, I'm not going to try to come up with a summation of those various expenses that come up to $150k/year. Rather I'm just going to point back to my prior employer. I won't name them but you've heard of them and they had a very simplistic method of determining FTE expense for purposes of budgeting - a number very close to 150k (but not exactly). So this isn't a number I came up with, some finance dweebs did. There's a lot we don't know about Paragon's expenses, I'm simply offering a simple way to estimate expenses that I know is used within the industry. -
Quote:My "back of the napkin" accounting is just like Brillig's. 2.5M USD per quarter income, for $10M per year, 80 heads at $x annually. What is "x" is what we can't answer. I'm going to arbitrarily call it $150k/year, because that's a number I'm familiar with for an area that's slightly less expensive than the bay area for a similar talent pool. 80 * 150k = $12M. That's a loss. I see some folks showing frustration at the line "the game was profitable" when there is just no indication that is true. I've stopped fighting that fight, to be honest. It's sort of like arguing religion at this point. Folks seem to believe what they want to believe, regardless of the proof presented.Originally Posted by Brillig
Your source has no clue what she is talking about. The $10m annual revenue figure is from quarterly statements filed with the SEC. They are about as authoritative as it gets unless you are able to personally audit NCSoft's books.
That's $800k/month revenue, not profit. Clearly, she heard one thing and remembered another.
An 80-person tech company in Silicon Valley is not cheap to run. I don't know what their salary structure is like, but an educated guess (I have been working in tech companies in SV about that size for the past 15 years) would be that running Paragon was costing between $6-$8m annually.
And that's just the cost for dev. There's also support costs and server costs. Way back in the infancy of MMO's, Raph Koster said that costs for dev, support and infrastructure were roughly equal. Now things have changed a lot since then, servers and bandwidth are a lot cheaper. Support has stayed about the same.
It's certainly well within the possibilities that overall, the business of Paragon Studios and CoH was losing money.
How is it possible for some people to say that the game was doing well? It's actually very easy to do if you just pick the right numbers. For one thing, not everyone at Paragon was working on CoH. If you assume (number picked at random) half the people were, then you could say that CoH was making $10m in revenue at a cost of $3-4m. That looks very nice from that perspective.
On the other hand, you could say that Paragon was pulling in $10m in revenue against costs of $10-12m ($6-8m Paragon studios, $2.5m support, $1.5m infrastructure).
Unfortunately, it's likely that NCSoft was looking at the total costs, and it didn't look that great. When you add in the fact that Paragon was apparently on their third 'seekrit project,' and NCSoft still wasn't enthused about it...
tl;dr - My read on the situation is that this closure has at least as much to do with NCSoft pulling out of the 'seekrit project 3.0' as it does about CoH. I think from NCSoft's point of view, CoH was a side-business that helped defray the costs of operating Paragon as a development studio for new games, and when they decided to stop that development, it made no sense to continue the side-business. -
So I should be able to keep playing City of Villains then. That is, until a Bermuda based MMO comes out.
Where are the Rogue Isles anyway? For some reason I'm thinking off the east coast of the US, similar to where Bermuda is, but north some. Is there something in the canon about where they are? -
What do you think of MasterMinds?
I think the answer to the question "what offers a smooth ride to 50 on SO?" would be the answer to your question. The first thing I thought of was a MM. As for what primary/secondary, I'd say choose from among Demons, Bots, Thugs and pair with Dark, Time, Traps.
A similar experience to your scrapper would be a stalker, but it's different enough to not feel like the same thing.
A /Dark Corruptor also matures very early and is very powerful on SOs. Fire, Water and Ice would all go well with it. -
I have a Fire/Sonic that I have a love/hate history with. The hate part was due to exhorbitant endurance issues. Perhaps the worst of any toon I've ever had.
I made a build for mine that never went live and never will, sadly enough. I'll add it to the end of this post, for reference only. I have no idea how it would perform in practice, especially for endurance. If Cardiac T3 is enough to solve the endurance issue, I'd probably make some further changes, most specifically for Hibernate, which I chose not as an HP panic button, but rather an endurance panic button.
My only real comment as to what I'd suggest to do differently is to 4 slot Cloud Senses into Liquefy. Yes it would recharge slower (145 (new) vs 135 (old)) but the global recharge would be helpful.
I think you have a lot of slots in CJ. Personally I'd move 2 of them out to whatever. Something to help endurance some.
Bottom line, I think what you have is good to go.
Solely for reference, here's what I devised but never implemented:
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.96
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Soul Sonic Force: Level 50 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Fire Control
Secondary Power Set: Sonic Resonance
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Ice Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Char -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(3), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(3), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(5), HO:Nucle(31), HO:Perox(31)
Level 1: Sonic Siphon -- Acc-I(A)
Level 2: Fire Cages -- WotController-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear(A), WotController-Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/Rchg(7), WotController-EndRdx/Rchg(11), WotController-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx(11), WotController-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx/Rchg(31), WotController-Rchg/Dam%(37)
Level 4: Sonic Barrier -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(5), RctvArm-ResDam(42), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(46)
Level 6: Sonic Haven -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(7), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(42), RctvArm-ResDam(46)
Level 8: Hot Feet -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(9), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), Sciroc-Dam%(17), ImpSwft-Dam%(37)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 12: Flashfire -- Stpfy-Acc/Rchg(A), Stpfy-EndRdx/Stun(13), Stpfy-Acc/EndRdx(13), Stpfy-Stun/Rng(15), Stpfy-Acc/Stun/Rchg(15)
Level 14: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Disruption Field -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(17)
Level 18: Cinders -- Lock-Acc/Hold(A), Lock-Acc/Rchg(19), Lock-Rchg/Hold(19), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(36), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(36), Lock-%Hold(43)
Level 20: Sonic Dispersion -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), S'fstPrt-ResKB(21), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(21), RctvArm-ResDam(34), RctvArm-EndRdx(43), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(46)
Level 22: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(23), RctvArm-EndRdx(23), RctvArm-ResDam(36)
Level 24: Weave -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(25), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(25), LkGmblr-Rchg+(29)
Level 26: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(27), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(27), LkGmblr-Rchg+(29)
Level 28: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 30: Super Jump -- Winter-ResSlow(A)
Level 32: Fire Imps -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg(33), ExRmnt-Dmg/EndRdx(33), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(34), ExRmnt-+Res(Pets)(34)
Level 35: Clarity -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 38: Liquefy -- SipInsght-Acc/ToHitDeb(A), SipInsght-Acc/Rchg(39), SipInsght-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(40), SipInsght-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(40), SipInsght-%ToHit(40)
Level 41: Hibernate -- P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(43)
Level 44: Frozen Armor -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(45), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45), LkGmblr-Rchg+(45)
Level 47: Ice Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(48), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(48), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(50), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 49: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 4: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 4: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(37)
Level 4: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 4: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(39), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(39), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(42)
Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve
Level 0: Task Force Commander
Level 0: The Atlas Medallion
Level 0: Portal Jockey
Level 50: Cardiac Boost
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The Scirocco story was incredible. I always enjoyed his patron arc the most, he had the most depth of probably any of the named NPCs, IMO. I really would have enjoyed playing that arc.
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For anyone wondering how long 2xp would last. Your answer can be found in the Admin message about the server maintenance:
Quote:So that means it ends at 7 AM Eastern on Sept 17.[Admin] Attention! In 30 minutes, City of Heroes and City of Villains will go down for end of double XP event server maintenance.
I was hoping it would be perma-2xp too. Looks like I won't get the last 3 powersets to 50 that I need to be in the "a 50 of each powerset" club. -
I just so happened to put out my bids for Stalker's Guile this morning before I noticed this.
If still available, I'd like
Quote:Global = @HedgeFundLot 39: Full set Stalker's Guile -
So, the links JayboH provided aren't sufficient eh? What is it you need exactly? A hand written letter from davinci@ncsoft.com (CEO) that says "Dear Shadowe, I has a sad..."?
What does it matter whether the notice comes from NCSoft or Paragon, or a link on a news site quoting NCSoft's statement? I personally don't think their intentions are vague.
The IGN article includes this statement NCSoft provided IGN:
Quote:Pretty darn clear.We will begin the City of Heroes sun setting process immediately with the goal to officially stop our service offerings for the franchise on November 30, 2012. -
Jay is right. It has been communicated to us, uniquivocally, that the game is shutting down.
Silence on NCSoft's part is not a sign that they're considering any sort of change to their thinking. Silence implies the status quo. Not to be Mr. Negativity, but I also expect the status quo to be silence as well. I doubt CXOs in Korea are going to be terribly moved by the fact that a few thousand gamers signed an online petition and all went to the same zone at the same time. -
Blue caves were but a minor annoyance compared to that GIANT room in the arachnos maps. It had to be the biggest room in game (outdoor instances aren't rooms). Even worse, having to escort an aggressive NPC. Inevitably they'd fall something like 10 stories and you'd have to go down and find them, hope they survived the archnos/longbow they fell into. Grrr, I really won't miss that room.
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I spent quite a bit of time yesterday compiling this data, among some other, about my favorite characters.
First of all it is hard to say when the npc gives the right number or not. I tried it with one character that was purely PLd via an ae exploit, then I did like 3 task forces then abandoned it. NPC "M" told me I had 3772 hours when the answer is no more than 30.
Anyway, I did spend a bunch of time yesterday surveying some of my favorite 50s (54 of them, not all) from the 2 VIP accounts I maintain. Absent the notable exception above, the results "smelled" reasonable. What I found was frankly horrifying, over 20,000 hours played. That's twenty THOUSAND hours. And I'm not one of those "been here since beta" people either; I'm working on my 7th year.
So in some odd way, I'm viewing this shutdown as a blessing. I shall not be moving on to another MMO, I'm retiring from the genre to play the types of games I played before, something like Madden where you can play for 1/2 hour and be done.
Here are the characters I've play at least 500 hours, in order. I think I have about 2-3 others with 500+ hours, on a premium account I used to maintain, but I frankly don't even want to know how much more than 20,000 hours, all told, I've put in.
Code:I had a lot of fun, both solo and teaming with these characters. They'll be missed, but... time to move on.Name AT Pri Sec M (hours) N (logins) Hedgefund Tank Inv SS 1563 2317 Kat Killah Scrapper Katana DA 1486 1341 Ettu? Brute Elec Elec 1176 1183 Macallan Scrapper DM SD 1034 923 Doomba MM Bots Traps 1010 658 Gaius Julius MM Thugs FF 893 913 Deelish Scrapper MA SR 760 1174 Arbiter Keshik Crab 721 1177 Senor En Fuego Corr Fire Kin 652 591 AntimatterH8r Defender Sonic Sonic 585 857 Lotus Petal Scrapper DB WP 572 929 Scrappers Delight Cont Fire Kin 555 853 Malta Falcon Blaster Elec Elec 550 926 Sir Kelvin Newton Defender Kin Sonic 534 1147 Null Space Cont Ill Rad 513 796
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Aion players better be nervous. Aion seems to be in the spotlight as an underperformer. I doubt NC will tolerate too many quarters not meeting expectations.
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I just listened to the Q2 earnings report conference call, as linked in the OP. Yes, the whole thing. These calls are painful enough, but to have to listen to everything in Korean and then again in English... torture.
Our little game was mentioned one time and only factually as they went over slide 5. There was more discussion about the baseball team NC owns in a Korean league. There was even a question about liquidating some of the properties (like Arenanet) but nothing about CoH/V or Paragon. There seemed to be a general apprehension about the future of online games and PC games as well, but I may be reading too much into that.
None of the questions from any of the investment firms were about CoH/V, but a lot of time was spent talking about headcount. NCSoft made a clear point that headcount would NOT increase. No doubt this is a key management focus. Headcount always is, especially in light of reporting a loss. It seems to me that, with managing headcount being a priority the low hanging fruit was Paragon.
I believe that even being slightly profitable wouldn't have helped Paragon. Headcount just needed to go down. -
Maybe the gold farmers haven't gotten the news yet and you can sell them your inf.
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Since this is the end... I'll be dumping everything for 1 inf.
EVERYTHING.
So look for some bargains you marketeering gurus. -
Hey why the heck not?
Also flood the market with 1 inf purples like you see on beta. -
Time to move on the from the denial phase. I can skip anger and go straight to bargaining... How about a fruit basket to keep things going?
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Quote:Once I read thisOriginally Posted by Mad Grim
Now I realize, I've been troll'd. No one could possibly be this ignorant without doing it on purpose. Carry on.
That's when I decided to bow out. Whether a troll or lacking a fundamental understanding of how bodyguard works, a reasonable discussion of the Mastermind AT is not going to be found there.Quote:the personal attacks are at all times waste of slots... and also you will have drawn attention to you and get hit. which is rather very bad idea. -
Thunderstrike provides a range def bonus, not aoe.
For armor, Death Shroud is damage, not resists. So you'll really have 3 * .63 = 1.88% melee and range from 4-slotting 3 Reactive Armors. I'd look elsewhere, like Aegis (4.59% aoe) at 5 slots. If you can hold out, a new resist set on Beta (Unbreakable Guard) grants 3.13% melee at 4 slots. Who knows what this would actually be live though.
In practice, it's not hard to double stack Guarded Spin.
Also to consider, 6 slot Numi gives 3.75% range, good for health.
Also also to consider, the humble Multi Strike set gives 1.88% melee and aoe. BotZs grant ranged and aoe. You might consider using that over Steadfast.
I have a Kat/DA that I built using a thought process quite similar to yours. I slotted Divine Avalanche out for ED capped def (54% enh) so with 1 application I got melee to 45% and numbers like yours for aoe/range.
Anyway, my main advice: find a way to get your hands on Mids... I'm sure you're a Mac or something but it really helps when you're at the brainstorming stage. -
To say that Beasts are defense based is not entirely accurate.
Looking at my attributes right now, I see
Dire Wolf with 29.88% s/l/c resists, 12.45% r/m/aoe def
Lions with 29.76% s/l/c resists, 12.45% r/m/aoe def
Wolves with 18.53 s/l/c resists, 11.12% r/m/aoe def
Periodically each Lioness will give a buff of 6% def that has about a 30 second duration and something like 45 second downtime. Fortify Pack of course will grant more defense as well.
With Sonic, the resists become about 70% for s/l/c, then get another 10% from Sovereign Right and that's pretty darn sturdy.
So, just to be clear, I'm not saying "Beasts don't have defense" I'm just saying it's not sufficient to say they are just "defense based" though.
Also, Demons isn't the only primary with worthy attacks, Beast Mastery does too, the secondary effects are pretty nice and provide -fly (almost necessary against certain mobs for these meleeing pets), -def, slow. I definitely advise 2 of the attacks for Beasts, including the aoe. The downside with Sonic is that, while it may not be "active" it is quite endurance intensive. I'm going to guess (I don't have hands-on experience with this combo, though I do with both powersets) spamming attacks and keeping the 2 main toggles going is a challenge. -
These days, I tend to transfer my Infinity (primary server) toons to Virtue when it's time to fast-track incarnate powers, at least to the point where I'm t3 lore and destiny, then transfer back. Most of the runs are for pure speed (which is why I transfer there) rather than badges though, if that's the primary consideration.
I play on Justice a lot too and leave those toons where they are for trials. Virtue is my 3rd server and obviously I just leave those characters where they are. -
I would suggest reading this:
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Invent...hancement_Sets
Also, you seem to have Mids, just play around with it to see what happens when you use different IOs.