Dead Calm

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I'd have thought you would use 1 publishing group that publish the same magazines in multiple languages to avoid that being the case.

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Buying the space isn't generally the bit that causes issues. It's the translation, checking the translation, altering the German artwork because something is three times as long in German as it is in French, getting the legal disclaimers on each different national ad written by lawyers from each country, getting the legal disclaimers on each different national ad checked by different lawyers from each country, getting the German artwork changed again because the creative has decided that the new version ruins his vision, checking the translation for a final time and changing the stuff that got missed the first time, meaning the whole process has to be started again, dealing with flak because you only had a Flemmish ad in Belgum, not a French one as well, several magazines being sent the ad in the wrong language, and then after everything has been published, some git on the internet spotting that some perfectly innocent text on the English one means something very, very rude in Slovenian.

Ouch. Serious, serious ouch.

Massive sympathy to those who have lost their jobs. Those of you who I’ve met have been absolutely stand up guys who've been tremendous fun to share a pint with. Bridger’s reaction to England getting knocked out of the world cup in that scary, scary pub in south west London is a memory I still treasure, as is the somewhat drunken conversation with Rockjaw in a pub in Brighton that for reasons I can’t quite remember ended up with a mass migration to the pub quiz machine where War Witch proved to be very good at the film questions.

Best of luck for the future. Don't let the drokkers grind you down.

Can't really help you with the electric side as I've never played it past about level 7, but I'll second Dante's Dark advice, particularly the three recharges in Tar Patch.

Once you've got Fearsome Stare and Darkest Night fully slotted up you still won't kill stuff very fast, but by jove, you'll be very safe while you do it.

Interesting but ultimately unimportant side fact: Back in I4 Dark/Elec reached a semi FotM status in the US, with the so called 'sith' build.

Not only is that the most verbose post-count attack I've ever seen, but it also manages to use the work 'lurker' in a way that is comepletely different to the entire rest of the internet.

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i13 sucks its not gonna be that great and it is tbh a major flop by what weve been given thus far

oohhhh shields tbh big whoop
oooooohhhhh mish creator granted a good idea but its been done before, but i am fairly looking forward to this
oooohhh jobs well this was announced after CO announced it was ding ssmt similar (basically this is again nothing new)

where are the "NEW" ideas and where are we heading hopefully not into another semi interesting issue like i11 and i12 were. The newest big thing to hit CoX was i9 and the inventions and i10 and the invasions imho

thats nearly a year ago yes weve had stuff added but nothing thats makes me stand up and wanna scream out in joy or even says oooohhh this looks/sounds awesome



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So in your book a mission creator in an MMO is something that has been done before (which it probably has, but not by any of the big boys as far as I know), whereas inventions, which are essentially crafting of the kind available in MMOs since about the begining of MMOs, were new and exciting?

Are you sure you're not reading this book backwards?

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Batman vs Cleric John Preston was a pretty epic fight, after all. And John Preston vs the League of Shadows.

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But not nearly as epic as Batman vs Cleric John Prescott would be.

Happy Birthday!

I played Auto Assault to the end. At times the server (by that point there was one for the whole world) had a population that numbered in well into the ones.

Even before the shutdown was announced it was perfectly possible to be on with under ten people in your faction at peak euro time, and peak US time wasn't much better.

Did you mark the petition as a STUCK?

That generally gets them to pop along in game fastish in my experience.

Also, when I send one I tend to either work out a way of resolving the issue myself/find the hitherto unfound last mob/hit the computer hard enough to sort it out myself about 0.37 of a second after clicking on send.

Here's a selection of mine:

Dead Calm (Dark/Dark Defender) - Ave Satani , also known as the theme from The Omen.
Dedicated Follower (SS/Inv Brute) - Dedicated Follower of Fashion by the Kinks, obviously.
Irripressible (Kat/Regen Scrapper), Phat Planet by Leftfield.
Laughing Death (EM/Fire Brute), Thunder and Blazes aka the clown music.
Gold Standard (Peacebringer), Gold by Spandau Ballet.
Nukella (Rad/Kin Corruptor), Atomic by Blondie.
Jones the Spider (Crab Spider), Men of Harlech He's Welsh, you see.
Youngster (Mind/Psi Dom), Teenage Kicks by the Undertones.
Street Value (Thugs/Poison MM), Ebeneezer Goode by the Shamen.

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DC rocked my world with this post in creative section and i know its linked in his sig but due to not spamming the forums enough not many people get the chance to read this jewel.

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It's the downside of getting a proper job that means I actually have to do stuff rather than just faffing about on the forums all day.

My all time favourite post was probably one of Syn's from around the I5/I6 nerfs. His reworking of No More Heroes was a thing of true beauty, especially the "Whatever happened to all the fire tankers? They watched their burn roam" bit.

I'm going to go wildly against the prevailing viewpoint here and say that the debt system now is far better.

Why? It all boils down to one thing. Debt as a system punishes the new, inexperienced player, while leaving the long term, experienced player untouched.

Just because most of the people on this board (predominantly people who’ve been here for a good while, and hence rather good at the game) can avoid most debt, it does not mean that Johnny Newbie will be able to.

Under the old debt system, Johnny Newbie could build up massive, massive amounts of debt, and then get stuck in it. This slowed his levelling considerably, and frankly made the whole thing a bit of a chore. And, because games, by their very nature should not be chores, a fair chunk of those Johnny Newbies said bugger this for a game of soldiers, and upped and left.

Under the new system, even an inexperienced player like Johnny Newbie would find it very hard to actually permanently be in debt. Even after a few deaths in a row, the end of the debt tunnel will still be in sight. So Johnny Newbie has an incentive to keep playing because, after all, it is only debt, and he can see that debt goes away quickly anyway. Johnny Newbie doesn't leave and eventually becomes Johnny Veteran. Then, due to the inherently ironic and cyclical nature of the universe, the new Johnny Veteran will complain that debt is too low to have any meaning.

Johnny Newbie is the customer that is important to the growth of this game. He’s the one who will justify NCSoft’s increased investment, and convince them to continue it. The more Johnny Newbies who stay on to become Johnny Veterans, the more they’ll invest. The more they invest, the more shiny things for me.

tl;dr version:

Less debt = new players more likely to hang around
More players hanging around = more money for NCSoft
More money for NCSoft = More incentive to keep investing in the game
More investing in game = more shiny things for me

As I mentioned last night, I'm a possible. In theory I'm around and online tonight, however the trains from Waterloo have gone kaput at the moment. Because of this I may instigate emergency proceedures and go to the pub after work instead of going home, so I don't get all killy.

Whether PVP (or any other aspect of the game) is a science or not depends on how we define science.

I shall now do this, using only 100% pure fact.

First we find the cleverest person we can. Everyone knows that the cleverest person who has ever existed is the darts commentator Sid Waddell, so we shall use him.

Next, we shall see what Sid has to say on the matter of what is and what is not science. To do this we shall look at the popular 1980’s Children's BBC programme, Jossy’s Giants, which was penned by Mr Waddell.

Now, the most important part of any broadcast is the theme tune. From the dulcet tones of Barwick Green introducing the Archers omnibus on a Sunday morning, to the anarchic sounds created by Johnny Hawksworth to alert children everywhere that an episode of Roobarb was beginning, this is a truth universally acknowledged.

Having established this, let us take a look at the words of the theme of Jossy’s Giants.

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Swapping their homework for footwork, Kicking the ball till its dark,

We're called Jossy's Giants, Football's just a branch of science, Head the ball, now Jossy's scored . . . Jossy's Giants!

Dependable, reliant, put your faith in Jossy's Giants. Get stuck in, we're gonna win . . . Jossy's Giants!

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There we go. Football, a game, is just a branch of science. Sid Waddell says so. From this we can extrapolate that the game CoX, and all parts thereof, including PvP, are actually science.

FACT.

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How to Sex a Dinosaur


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I think Dead Calm would be better off answering this

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It involves flowers and chocolates, and that's all I'm prepared to say.

Original Hero:
Brand Manager, who's long since gone to the great server in the sky

Most Notable Alias(es):
Dead Calm, Gold Standard, Irrepressible, Omega Noir, Cumulonimbus on CoH
Dedicated Follower, Nukella, Laughing Death, Street Value, Stompy the Dinosaur and Death Vicar on CoV

Supergroup(s):
The Usual Suspects, The House of Counted Shadows

Account Created:
10 April 2005

Veteran Rewards Time:
30 Months as of yesterday

What Are You Doing Now?:
Alting mostly

What would make you return to CoH?:
Despite occasional still-subbed breaks, the only time my sub actually lapsed was for about three hours a month ago when I forgot to put in the details of my new card, so it's not really an issue.

Gratz London!

Grats Rhi (again)!

Well done you!

Wotcha Matey!

A major, major congratulations to Reanne, for dinging not one, not two, but three alts tonight.

It's like altoholism, but also with actual leveling involved.

Toodle pip matey - look after yourself.

Hopefully see you in a few months.

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No, intangible targets are not affected by anything. It should, however, work on foes surrounging the anchor even if the anchor is intangible.

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You are of course right. I was distracted by... work or kittens or a d-list celebrity or something.

It has numerous downsides:

a) It is an intangibility power. These tend not to be popular on all but the most coheasive teams and people can spend time and endurance attacking something they cannot affect. This adds to the HORRIFIC SCREW-UP SCENARIO outlined below.

b) It is an AoE intangibility power, thus meaning that you can't even use it to pick out particular annoying mobs such as sappers, as you'll get most of the rest of the spawn as well. This also adds to the HORRIFIC SCREW-UP SCENARIO outlined below.

c) It doesn't last very long, and (I may be wrong about this) intangibility enhancements only increase the magnitude of the power, not the duration.

d) If you are in a tight spot and need stuff to stop shooting at you, 90% of the time Fearsome Stare would be a far better way of achieving this aim.

e) When using it there is always the potential for a HORRIFIC SCREW-UP SCENARIO to occour. This is because Darkest Night is an anchor debuff. Should you get into a tight situation and fire off Black Hole, the AoE nature of the Black Hole means that your anchor may well be caught by the power. If this happens, they go intangiable, and cease to be able to affect anything. Unfotuantly this also means that your Darkest Night has also ceased to affect anything, as the game judges it to be an effect eminating from the now-intangiable anchor. Therefore anything that Black Hole missed is now shooting at you with a whole lot less debuffage on it than it was before. Whoops.

What they say is true. Skip black hole, take the rest.