Doctor Roswell
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Posts
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Quote:Though I'm pretty sure the question is about costume pieces not costume slots, in the interest of completeness, I'm going to add that:Originally Posted by myskatz
I hope you mean the costume pieces and not the costume slots. Costume slots are unlocked through the tailor at levels 20, 30, 40 and 50. You usually go to the Tailor in the back of the store. Level 20 is in Steel, 30 in IP, not sure where the level 40 and 50 ones are (haven't gotten a character to those levels yet, sorry)- WingedAvenger is correct, there's no costume slot at level 50.
- The level 40 costume slot is available from the Icon in Founders' Falls.
- You go to the tailor in each location with an actual name (as opposed to "Icon Employee"): Serge in Steel Canyon, Lauren in Independence Port, and Carson in Founders' Falls.
- It's slightly different for villains, as there's only the one Facemaker location (in Cap au Diable), but there are three "slot contacts" inside, who open up at the same levels as the tailors heroside: the Facemaker herself, Gorgeous Glenda, and Lovely Linda.
- The "fifth" costume slot can be obtained at any time, by getting one's hands on four pieces of event salvage (Statesman Mask, Lord Recluse Mask, Back Alley Brawler Gloves, Hamidon Costume). These salvage pieces can be purchased at Wentworth's or the Black Market if you've got the spare inf (you're probably looking at somewhere between a million and 2.5 million total, depending on the market), or you can wait for the annual Halloween event and find them yourself by trick-or-treating. Bring one of each to either Annah by the train station in Croatoa or Granny Beldam's shack in Nerva Archipelago and the extra slot will be unlocked no matter what level you are.
- WingedAvenger is also 100% spot-on about ParagonWiki. Nearly every question asked in this section of the forums is answered with a link to that site.
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The developers never made any server any specific kind of server. That's what "un-official" means.
A while back (beta?) a number of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (or GLBT for short) players got together and decided they'd all go play on the same server in the hopes of creating a "safer" and less prejudiced environment for themselves than they might have if they splintered off to different servers. That server, for whatever reason, ended up being Victory. Victory, by the way, is also the "unofficial European server" (of the North American ones, anyway, from back before the EU servers opened up), for the same reason: a bunch of European players got together and said, "wouldn't it be nice if we all stuck together after beta was over?" And they did. The same process resulted in Virtue being the "unofficial role-playing server," Justice being the "unofficial Australian/New Zealander server," and a number of other unofficial designations, none of which mean that people who don't fall into those categories aren't welcome, just that they're generally a little "extra friendly" for the people who do. None of them are forced, and none of them are enforced by the development team or anyone else at NCSoft. They're just the communities of the respective servers. The group of players that happen to play there.
It doesn't mean that anyone there has a right to force any kind of thinking on your friend, though, any more than your friend has a right to force any kind of thinking on any other player. If it's a few specific individuals, he may be able to /petition them for harassment. If he's uncomfortable knowing there are so many gays around him, though, maybe he would be better off going somewhere else, where it's easier for him to pretend they aren't there (even though they are).
You can find out all about each and every server's sordid reputation here. -
Don't read too much into things. If I want to say something, I'll say it. In this case, what I said was that, having been deployed myself, I'm fine with the idea of purging names on long-inactive accounts of people who, by various means including deployment, are forced to leave the game for an extended period.
You'll note the use of the singular, first-person pronoun "I," indicating that the statement refers only to me, and not to anyone else. I am fine with it. At no point did I say that anyone who disagrees with me was wrong or was not entitled to an opinion differing from mine. I said that I, me, myself, was fine with it. In fact, I (just me, and nobody else, unless they chime in for themselves) actively support the idea. -
Who said that? We're discussing things. That's what forums like this are for. Someone brings up a subject, people discuss it. Sometimes, they disagree, and they discuss further, with each attempting to back up their point of view. That's all I'm doing here. I thought that what everyone was doing here: presenting their point of view, their thoughts on the subject at hand, their ideas. Maybe some of the things some people posted have brought others around to their way of thinking, maybe not. But there's a difference between discussing things and... actually, I'm not sure what you think I think is going on here, but it's just a presentation of a viewpoint.
People think different things. People who think those different things are discussing the reasons they think those things, and responding to the comments, thoughts and criticisms of others. There's nothing malicious going on here. People just happen to disagree on something. -
Quote:No slippery slope, just backing up the point that you can't realistically differentiate between "forced absences" and lapses for other reasons. Your distinction, not mine. All I was trying to illustrate was that the rules have to be the same for everybody, and NCSoft can't and shouldn't be concerned with why a person's account is going unpaid, beyond possibly asking whether it was an in-game issue and what kind, so they might improve the game in the future.Originally Posted by Tyger42
See, now you're going into "slippery slope" territory, which is inherently flawed in itself. "Where do you draw the line?" is a flimsy argument, usually leading to a list of increasingly absurd hypotheticals. Oh, wait, you did just that right there....
And here we've reached the point where the friendly debate is about two steps away from name-calling. It's already entered semi-personal attack territory (anyone who doesn't agree with you is "childish"?); let's try to keep things civil, okay?Quote:Originally Posted by Tyger42
The simple fact is that you and some others have an overblown sense of the amount of entitlement $15/month buys you. You also seem to think that just because you're willing to have character names taken from you, others should be as well. That's just plain childish.
As I said before, people are more attached to names they already have than names they could have had. No one has ever quit over not getting a name they wanted. People have quit over losing names they already had. Because of this, the argument for letting them keep their names of established characters ( No solid line there. Say level 20 and up... ) on the chance they could come back far outweighs the argument for taking them away.
However, again, your continued $15/month doesn't entitle you to this.
Anyway, all I can speak for is myself, but personally, I've got thirty-five slots filled on my main server, and a half-dozen on another. All with names I'm very happy with. Every single one. Maybe three of those have names that weren't my first choice. If anything, I've got too many good names, because I have to make some tough decisions every couple of weeks when I discover a great name available and have to choose between deleting one of my less-played great names and letting the new one remain unclaimed (or claimed by someone else). So no, this isn't because I personally want to steal anyone's names out from under them while they're away. Even if the vast -- and I do mean vast; I'm guessing 95%-plus here -- majority of them will never be back for them. There are maybe four or five names total that I'd really like to have, but none of them are deal-breakers for me. So believe me, this isn't personal.
See, this is the part of this issue that I actually support much more strongly than the "inactive accounts" part -- I just end up defending that part more vehemently because the opposition tends to be stronger.Quote:Originally Posted by SunGryphon
I bet purging trial accounts every quarter or so would free up a lot of names as well.
But purging the names taken by trial accounts that were never activated after a reasonable grace period (say, 90 days) should be a given. Never mind the rest of this, people who never paid cent one for this game shouldn't be keeping any paying customer from anything. -
Quote:Nobody's stretching anything; you can't divide them like that. An absence is an absence is an absence. Unless NCSoft wants to delineate a specific policy regarding, say, military deployments (which they could do if they saw fit to), they have to treat every absence the same way. It's not their problem why a person can't play.Originally Posted by Tyger42
My argument is for cases of "forced" absence, which is why I was responding to a statement about that. Don't stretch my argument to cover inactive accounts in general.
Besides, where does the line go? Military deployments? Civilian Department of Defense contractors who are sent to war zones? Prolonged illnesses? Loss of income? Identity theft? Mom said no? What exactly constitutes a "forced" absence? Unless everyone is treated the same, NCSoft would need a team of people to evaluate what was and wasn't a "forced" absence, case-by-case. Which is probably not worth the time, manpower or money it would take to implement, to say nothing of the problems it would cause when someone disagreed with the evaluator's ruling. You think someone quitting over a name getting genericed is bad, wait until people are told their story of why they can't play wasn't sad or verifiable enough or for whatever reason didn't qualify as "forced."
Yes and no. See, if I don't win $100 in a raffle, I can still get $100. Not something an awful lot like $100, not an amount in foreign currency that adds up to $100, not something worth $100, not a gift certificate for $100, but an actual $100 that's exactly the same as the $100 I didn't win. Missing out on a name is more like losing an auction. I wanted that thing and I can't have it because someone else got it instead. So your point stands, even if the analogy doesn't.Quote:Originally Posted by Tyger42
People are attached to their names they have. Far more attached than they are to the names they don't have but want. It's like having $100 stolen from you vs failing to win $100 in a raffle.
Yes, purely hypothetical. But in the interest of accuracy, I thought the statement after the last name purge was more along the lines of, "no plans for further name purges," rather than a straight-up "never again." I don't have a quote on that or anything, though, just a vague recollection from way back when. So it could theoretically happen again someday, it just wasn't something that had been discussed past a certain point.Quote:Originally Posted by Kryhavoc
All of this is hypothetical. Last word from dev's is no more name purges -
Well, I admit the second was better than the first, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that pointing out that there are a lot of situations in which stopping a month-to-month payment on something means losing your claim to it "completely awful." Unless you'd care to elaborate.
And I'm not sure how a company favoring paying customers over non-paying potential customers is "unethical" or how anyone is being "screwed over." It's simple: you pay the fee to keep the account active. That goes for CoH, phones, cable TV, whatever. The provider doesn't care whether you're using it or not (nor should they); they care whether you're paying for it. As long as you keep paying, the account stays active and you gain the benefits, whatever they may be. If you decide not to pay, you lose those benefits, and the provider is under zero obligation to you (beyond a reasonable grace period), because you're no longer a customer. You're a former customer. Sure, they'd love for you to start paying them again, but until you do, their only actual responsibility is to the people who currently pay them for services, not the people who may someday maybe consider looking into paying them again if they decide they really want to. Maybe.
And no, I'm not trying to say that NCSoft somehow has a "responsibility" to do a name purge. Just that they (or any company) wouldn't be doing anything wrong if they put their existing base of paying customers before some theoretical base of returnees who may or may not ever be seen or heard from again, and will be arriving in comparatively tiny numbers if they ever reactivate their accounts at all. -
Quote:When I deployed, I was expected to keep paying rent for a house I couldn't access. If I hadn't, they would have let someone else -- someone who did pay -- have it.Originally Posted by Tyger42
Seriously? You think someone should have to continue paying for a game that they cannot access just to keep their names?
Actually, a better analogy? When I deployed, I was expected to keep paying for a telephone service I couldn't use, or risk having to get a new phone number when I got back. -
Not that your point isn't a valid one, Kith, but those other MMOs are primarily fantasy or sci-fi games. The superhero genre is a little different. Superhero characters are defined by their names, not completely, but much more than your average sword-and-sorcery character. Would Lord of the Rings really be any different if Gandalf were named Aragorn, and Aragorn were named Gandalf? Not really. Sure, it might seem jarring to someone who's always known them by the names they've got now, but if they'd always been that way, would the story be any different? Would the characters be changed in any meaningful way at all?
On the other hand, look at, say, Batman. Sure, there are dozens of other names he could go by, but most of those would change something fundamental about the character, even if it's something as simple as his costume. His name is one of several iconic elements that blend together to make the character what he is, much moreso than a character in a non-superhero genre. It's part of the package; It's one of the factors that make the character, the character.
Like it or not, names are a much, much hotter commodity in a superhero MMO than they are in an MMO based on another genre. Most fantasy names are, let's face it, just a random set of syllables jammed together because they sound interesting or authentic to the person picking out the name. Not so here. Here, names are things that actually matter.
Honestly, I'm not sure which side of this issue I'm helping by pointing this out -- probably both, to a point -- but it needs to be said. Blowing it off as "just a name" isn't really a fair thing to do, whether you're saying that someone who has it already shouldn't be upset at losing it or that someone who wants it and can't have it shouldn't be upset that they're being prevented from getting it by someone who's been gone forever and can't realistically be expected to come back. That's why it's an issue here, even if it's not for other MMOs. -
...and then they left.
We did not. -
Quote:That's the way I see it. If someone's names are really that important to them, maybe they should be using them.Originally Posted by DragonEye
It all comes down to this for me:
We am paying.
They are not. -
I've got characters on just about every server, but the only ones I play regularly (okay, the only ones I play at all) are on Virtue.
For about my first six months or so in the game, I'd bounce around from server to server depending on which one had the name I was looking for available. I ended up on Victory for a while, since that's where some real-life friends were playing. But then they moved on to other MMOs, and I went back to moving around. Since then, I've hooked up with a group of people I play with pretty regularly and stuck to just the one server, which ended up being Virtue. -
Quote:I've done exactly that. About two years ago, I was deployed to the Persian Gulf, but I kept my account active the whole time. When I got back, not only were all of my characters waiting for me (after a lengthy patch download), they all had shiny new Nemesis staffs!Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Then what you do is set up an automatic payment using your debit/credit card. That way your account stays active the entire time you are on deployment/assignment and when you return you'll have accrued all those nifty vet rewards.
So, speaking as someone who's repeatedly had to leave the game for months and months and months at a time, I say if someone isn't using the name, then they aren't using the name. Let someone have it who will.
If nothing else, names used on trial accounts that are never activated should open back up after, say, three months. Those of us that pay hard-earned money for this game shouldn't have to suffer because someone else tried it out and decided not to. -
Go to any tailor with "surgeon" in their name. There's one at each Icon, and one at Facemaker. Also, Tina in Pocket D. I think the Vanguard one will do it too...
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Aside from Raumornie's lesson in basic grammar everyone should have a pretty firm grasp of by the end of second grade?
Not that I can see. -
Good luck and congratulations, Nayda!
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Quote:But you couldn't use them. You couldn't even see what they looked like. You could read descriptions.Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
For five years, when they've added new powersets, you could see them in the character creator as soon as they went to test, open or closed.
But you couldn't use them. You couldn't even see what they looked like. You could read descriptions.Quote:Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
For three-plus years, we've been able to see proliferated powersets as soon as they went to test, open or closed.
I'm sure you see the pattern developing already. As many others have already pointed out, in this case the character generator is the issue (mostly). Why should you be able to use the defining feature of this issue? You couldn't in all those other issues, unless you were part of the beta. Why should you be able to see all the cool new stuff in action? You couldn't in all those other issues, unless you were part of the beta. You can read descriptions, just like you did with all those other issues, unless you were part of the beta.
It just so happens there's a "brief look" right here. Has been for a couple of weeks now.Quote:Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
... offending who knows how many thousands of customers who were expecting to enjoy at least a brief look at the new features list ...
I'm disappointed too, believe me. I was looking forward to logging onto Test and spending a good long while playing with the new character generator. But the fact is, I'm not a beta tester, so there's no good reason, besides my own desire for it, for me to be allowed to to do that. And now there's something enforcing that. Guess I'll wait like everyone else who isn't a beta tester.
*cough*Quote:Originally Posted by Obsidian_Farmer
BAB knew full well that beta was starting today when he gave the general direction beta should go in that post. Don't try to say that he posted that in ignorance and didn't know the game plan for beta. -
Quote:Apparently.Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
Pets zone now?
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This really is a good idea, either the color change or the icon. Worst case it changes nothing, best case it makes team support less of a pain and generally more effective. I don't see a downside.
At first I thought I liked the color change better, but the more I think about it, the more I like the icon. It's less invasive for players who can't do anything about a mezzed teammate anyway, and it doesn't cause priority issues with the color changes based on HP total. Of course, some setting in the options menu that let players choose one or the other (or both, or neither) would be even better, but any version of this would be great. -
Pick whichever mission seems like the most fun to you. If you're doing a contact's story arc, and you pick a non-arc mission, they'll offer the arc mission up again after you finish your hunt (or whatever). You can't accidentally "miss" the end of an arc because you picked the "wrong" mission -- there is no wrong mission.
Personally, I'm not a fan of street hunts and generally avoid them, but that's me. It could be different for you. Whatever floats your boat and all that.
The one thing I'd look out for is picking those hunts (or "go see this other contact" or "bring this item to some other contact" missions, commonly referred to as FedEx missions) while you're leading a team, because generally, that's going to mean at least a few members (and possibly the entire team except the mission holder) is going to have very little, if anything, to do. This can be a good time for people to level or shop, but it can also mean standing around bored, and that will kill a team faster than any enemy group. -
Quote:It actually hopes that "someone" will do the same for you. As in, "thanks for donating these clothes to this homeless shelter. If you're ever in need of assistance, I hope you find someone as charitable as you've been today." It's a general well-wishing, not a call for anyone specific to reciprocate.Originally Posted by enrious2
LOL
The system thanks you for giving negative rep and hopes that the user given positve rep will do the same for you.
Tell me the system doesn't condone it. -
They're back up, and that's great and all, but let's try this one more time just in case, for the cheap seats:
The server status page is bugged. It has been for a while. There's a reason the date shows June.
This gets mentioned multiple times on these boards every Monday and Friday, and any other time routine maintenance or publishes occur, in all the threads just like this one about why the servers are down. Multiple times. Every single time. And it's still bugged when emergency maintenance goes down, just like tonight. It's a guide, not an actual indicator. And lately, it's not even a very good guide.
In addition:
There was a note posted on the updater in big bold yellow letters about emergency maintenance related to server instability issues caused by today's patch.
You literally (and when I use the word "literally," I use it literally) couldn't have started the game without having the note show up on your screen. -
My goals:
Blast from the Past 25 to 30 FAILED! Never even logged him in.
Daddy Long-Legs 25 to 30 SURPASSED! Got him to 35, plus managed to pick up his aura.
Ensign 44 to 50 FAILED! Only made it to 47.
What can I say? Stuff came up. Not the least of which was a late birthday gift arriving in the mail in the form of Ghostbusters for my Xbox 360. -
Quote:By "they" I hope you mean vBulletin and Jelsoft Enterprises, the people who actually provide these forums, and one of the largest and most widely-used services on the web for bulletin boards and the like. A service, by the way, that likely has a pretty standard cookie setup they use for any and every forum they provide.Originally Posted by youganite
regardless of what you have and have not removed, it should just work.
if this just keeps on doing this, then it's nothing more then a forum bug.
blaming it on the browser is only a sign of weakness, they are the ones who made the forum so they should make it compatible just like the old forum.
It seems that maybe the folks who made the Cooliris plugin for Firefox need to have another look at their code, because if it's messing up cookie settings on this site, there's a good chance it's doing the same on others.
By the way, I disabled Cooliris, and everything seems fine now. I'm not ready to give the patient a clean bill of health just yet, but I'm comfortable releasing him from the hospital and having him call my office if the symptoms return. Thanks, everyone! -
Quote:I never had any toolbar installed, but just to be sure, I uninstalled AVG completely. I'm currently without virus protection of any kind. Until I finish this post, anyway, then it's off to reinstall AVG.Originally Posted by Texas_Justice
Do you have AVG installed? By any chance do you have the Toolbar for it installed?
It looks like a solution may be to uninstall AVG, reboot, reinstall AVG without the Toolbar and see if this helps your problems.
Apparently, even if it is disabled it will cause problems.
Does this help anyone else?
Still nothing.
Nearly all the time, a program released for both Mac and PC will work pretty much the same on both platforms; maybe the titles of the menus and the placement of certain items in those menus will be different to keep with the traditional conventions of the different systems, but maybe not. Clearing the cookies from a Mac-based Firefox install should pretty much be the same as doing so on a PC-based install: Tools>Options>Privacy, though it may be under Edit>Preferences>Privacy (as that's more typical of a Mac menu setup) or somesuch. Either way, it's not too difficult.Quote:Originally Posted by Texas_Justice
Have you cleared your cookies? (However you do that on a Mac).