Doctor_Gemini
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:I'd say that the PvP and AE camps would happily show you that the devs track record is not so unblemished as you're inferring.Originally Posted by Furio
Or, tell the avalanche to continue heading down the slope, and claim responsibility when it does just that.
Seriously. Look at the track record of the dev team, and tell me you honestly don't think there's damn good odds that this concern is already being addressed internally. -
Quote:No, it was not your point. You originally made the following statement of "fact":Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
They are no more emblematic than these forums. And that's my point.
When asked for proof of this statement you cited your observations of chatter on the global channels as if it were the views of the broader playerbase.Quote:I would just like to point out that soloers are a sizable and very vocal portion of the forums, but a rather small percentage of the overall community and the market that MMOs appeal to.
So, does that mean you're admitting that the above quote was not, in face, a statement of fact but merely an opinion? -
Quote:What I find extremely hilarious in reading TonyV's posts on this subject is that, him being a poster who has so often over the years posted diatribes against farming in the game is now a zealot for farming, as long as it has the dev-stamp of approval, and is labeled a "trial".Originally Posted by TonyV
Good one!
It's a bit sad to me that there are people so dug in here that they're probably asking that for real. -
Quote:So the forums are not a micrcosm of the views of the broader playerbase but the global chat channels are??!!!Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
I don't need a citation when I can observe for myself. Currently, the most vocal people on this forum are those that are soloers or players disgruntled with the incarnate trial emphasis. They tend to come to these forums for their socializing, and play the game predominately alone and in an instance. You would probably fit this archetype, Bill Z.
The people that enjoy iTrials and teaming are out there playing the game, using global channels, and forming Super Groups and Leagues. They only come to these forums for information and occasional participation. I have rarely if ever heard players call for solo content in the busiest global chat channels in the game, but it is a daily event on these forums with a string of recycled names leading the charge.
If the forums were emblematic of the broader player base, at least with regards to desired solo content, I should hear more than a ping while playing the game.
Riiighhhttt.....How many individuals are chatting on these channels at one time? Not logged on, chatting, expressing their opinion. Thousands? Hundreds? A handful of vocal people? -
Quote:I not only endorse this point, but say they should expand on it. They should lock access to IOs behind making 2 billion on a character through marketing only. Don't like to play the market? No problem, you don't NEED IOs to play the game.Originally Posted by AquaJAWS
What developer is forcing you to run incarnate trials? Did they remove every other costume piece, aura, that everyone has gotten by on for the previous 7 years before them? Are any of them necessary to play the game?
Lock color customization behind the AE. Get a character from 1-50 by playing nothing but story-based AE arcs (no farms, no exploits) and you unlock it. Don't like playing AE stories? No problem, you don't NEED to color your powers to play the game.
and let's not forget to lock other unnecessary item in the game behind some piece of niche content as well. Something should require playing all the story arcs in Oro to get. Another getting most of the badges or all the accolades, and so on. After all, there is a massive amount of things in this game that you don't NEED to play the game.
NOW does it get through to you and those echoing you that locking non-incarnate rewards behind incarnate content is something that angers people, not entices them. -
Quote:None of that disparity enables a single character to take out an entire mob with one strike. Nor keeps lesser characters from being able to feel like they're contributing to the mission. I've seen a single incarnate, on the other hand, able to one shot entire mobs, not to mention turn content that a group without one found incredibly hard into a walkthrough.Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
It's not fair for my LVL 50 to have more powers via flashbacking than an actual LVL 11 character when I run Posi for the WST on their team. I never use them because they might feel insulted, flaunting my LVL 50-ness all over the place. I also make sure to take out all of the enhancement sets I've slotted for my character because it's not fair that I can get more enhancement value out of them per slot than the lower-level players might.
While I personally have no problem with it, I think its a very justifiable problem for others.
I've no issue with incarnate costume pieces being gated behind incarnate content. However, when things that should be open to everyone anyway, like capes at level 1, get put behind it, I'm livid. It does not induce me to want to run incarnate content, it makes me concerned about the direction the game is being taken in. -
If its named Bob or Steve we'll all have to call it Bruce.
I vote for Sparta. That way, if you let your VIP subscription lapse you have to sit through a "This is Spaaaaartaaaaa!" animation of all your VIP characters getting kicked into the F2P pit.
Seriously, though, I think it should be Freem. -
I think all you can do is wait and see. Honestly, though, I see your A, B, and C concerns happen in the game often enough now (not to mention your VIP A and B).
Some people have had good experiences in F2P games (myself among them), others not so much. So bottom line is no one knows (although whichever group turns out to be right will claim they knew all along and be insufferable). -
Having played and enjoyed your arc a couple days ago, I couldn't come up with any suggestions to liven it up, but since no one else has made any either I'll give you a few thoughts.
I'd say it mainly needs polishing. A level range (since right now it bounces between missions that can be played at level 15 - 40 and missions that are only level 40), some color in the mission dialogs, and a few tweaks (for instance, the 3rd mission your goals are stated as "4 bodies, Artifact", which leave the player kind of scratching his head).
I liked the general idea of the story but it seemed like more needed to be said. I can't really put my finger on anything specific, but I felt like I was following the story along as much because I was filling in the blanks as from what I was being told. Given that you can fit alot more dialog in now than when you wrote it, expanding on what you tell the player is the main suggestion I have.
One last thing, and this may just be my own preference, but running around on giant outdoor maps (whether in AE or in Dev missions) I find more tedious than fun. I'd replace the second use of that map with something more like the mausoleum map (I'd even enjoy a cave more than running that map twice).
Of course, I have simple tastes. Any mission that feels like it could be dropped into the CoH world and be nearly indistinguishable from dev content works for me. -
Quote:Better be careful. When Mommy and Daddy see you're being a bad boy on the internet again you're gonna get a spanking.Originally Posted by Crysys
What's the difference between intentionally downvoting one Arc and not another? ***hattery is ***hattery. The only thing that differs is the elitist opinions of a bunch of snobs who think that one type of mission is somehow more valid than another based PURELY on the description given. We have a two page thread condoning neg-banging a mission that hasn't even been played.
Play the mission. If you don't like it, neg it. If you do, pos it.
For me, I'm just enjoying watching new story arcs start off with less than 5 stars. -
Quote:don't forgetOriginally Posted by cursedsorcerer
I will need the following emotes:
/em wipe, depicting the character taking out a rag and cleaning a wall surface with it
/em mop, depicting the character taking out a mop and cleaning the ground with it.
/em poop, depicting the character's reaction to a honkin' big meteor about a second and a half from crashing into his nose. -
I hope everything will go well from this point on for your son. I'll be sending positive energy his way.
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Quote:Actually, his original concept back in the early 70's (well before becoming a star in X-Men) was just that. Luckily, (as far as I know) no one was stupid enough to actually put it into a story and they made him a human mutant instead.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Slightly less, yea. This was when they went into full retcon mode, gave him the bone claws...supposedly now he's not a human at all but a mutant wolf or badger or something.
Makes me glad I stopped reading before even this bit occurred.
Also glad I stopped reading long before the writing became this lame. -
I think it is absolutely ethical, but absolutely pointless. Ethically it is no different than any member of a community taking (legally allowed) action against other members who violate the community's rules.
I personally look at it as 5 minutes of my time wasted by a farm builder if I start a farm arc just to rate it. Most farm arcs can be identified by title and description, and there are too few story arc enthusiasts to have any real effect on farm ratings. Now, if a farm arc writer creates a description that fools me into starting his arc thinking it actually has a story, then he deserves his 1-star, otherwise, I have better things to do with my time.
The fact is, if the devs want to keep story arcs from dying out completely they're going to have to acknowledge that AE is primarily used for farming and set up a searchable "Story Arc" tag you can add to your arc. (and, of course, stop using a sledge hammer to fix exploits and copyright issues) -
Nothing. But at least nothing was removed so I don't dislike it either.
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Quote:It has nothing to do with powerset proliferation. That could have been done without a story and I doubt anyone would have had a problem. However, if the devs were determined to create lore to "explain" it, then we have every right to expect a good story behind it.Originally Posted by Razia
And that is the excact reason, why it is so hard to write a story that actual makes sense for an MMO. People demanded powerset proliferation, we got that and now we complain about the story behind it? Great
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Quote:Thanks for the play and the feedback.Originally Posted by Supicous Glenn
Review for Welcome to the Magi
Overall, I think this arc is good. It could fit easily within the main game since it matches the gameplay, story and general feel of most CoH story arcs. My review might be a bit a lacking since I played the arc over a week ago and it really does not make any big mistakes.
Text- Great use of text and dialogue. Hearing the enemies talk about eating people and then not running into them for a few minutes creeped me out. This is a great way to make those lame and confusing cave maps actually fun. The text throughout the arc is a bit too wordy at times but I do realize you did this to advance the plot so it is fine.
Enemies- Good variety of enemies and good use of animations. Brightbone was difficult to kill. You might want to tone him down a bit. Brightbone also felt a bit out of place. I understand he was being mind controlled and that is all good but I was hoping for some big twist or reveal. I remember when playing CoH that the Circle were souls of wizards that had taken over the soulless husks of sacrificed victims and that the lost were being genetically transformed into the Ritki who were once human. This kind of reveal excites me. Having him just being mentally dominated by magic seemed boring to me.
Objectives- The last mission seemed a bit too big.
I rated this map 5 star. It was varied enough to keep me interested. I did not particularly care for Brightbone's character in both the story and in fighting him but there was a dozen little moments where you made all the non-custom enemies say good dialogue and play interesting animations. This sold the arc.
Brightbone is nothing more than a Bone Daddy, not a custom boss, I just changed his outfit to pastels. He's not mentally controlled, he's there for the even more boring reason of hitting what he thought was a weak gang of Hellions. I can understand your dislike, though, he's actually just a jokey, throw-away enemy with no real connection to the plot.
I'll be doing some tweaks when my hand heals thanks to Coulomb2's feedback and I'm strongly considering completely redesigning that mission as well. (which would be the second time I've done that. If I didn't need it to get someone who starts the arc at 1st or 2nd level to 5th for the last mission I'd settle for a 4 mission arc). -
Now I won't be playing on the Justice team on 4/24 since I'll likely still only have one working hand, and the off-hand at that, to play with by then. Hopefully late next month you'll be doing another run on one of my servers.
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Coulomb thanks for playing my arc and the feedback. Since typing with only one hand working at the moment is a pain, I'm not up to more than a couple sentences but didn't want you to think I'd ignored you.
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I'll show up to play (baring some real-life obstacle) on 4/24 for Justice. I'm not wanting to play enough these days to be an ambassador on any of the other servers I've characters on though.
Quote:Other ideas I'd like to bounce off the group: Should we dump the server author theme and just pick mishes from our Best Of lists to show off quality arcs?
I think if the idea is to advertise outside the MA forums for participants then showing off the best arcs would be the way to go (even though what qualifies as "best" is very subjective). Save the server author theme for a later event.
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Quote:Not a big deal, and I've not been playing much the last month myself so I might not even have noticed if you had.Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
Well, think of it this way - this week's mission has brought a lot more attention than any of the regular weeks, which could mean more plays than if I had posted your arc before doing this week's theme. But still, sorry about that, I should have double checked the most recent posts.
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Quote:The one in my sig. #271637 - Welcome to M.A.G.I.Originally Posted by Tubbius
I'm sorry, Gemini. I thought we'd gone through the whole list. Which arc were you looking to get played, again?
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Quote:Actually, one arc is still in the pool, mine has never been chosen....*sniff, sniff*. It's OK though, I'll just go stand over here in the corner...*sniff*....don't worry about me...there's some nice worms here...*sniff*Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
And again, if you have a new arc to throw into the pool (which is currently empty) feel free. Otherwise, I'll post up a weekly mission for you every week, either a specific arc, or something more vague like this week. Hope you guys still want to participate!
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I prefer to play lore-based arcs, so I'd rather my own were in that category. I expect, though, that lore will change. It is inevitable when you have a world being used by different writers. For that matter, even in books, when a series is written by the same writer, things get changed over time and inconsistencies appear.
The lack of plays never bothered me, either, given that it became obvious in the first week that the only way to get plays was to be able to heavily advertise your own arcs, and that's not something I can do. Its more lack of play by the devs, resulting in no more Dev Choice arcs that does bother me.
The ratings system is mainly what unmotivates me. That began early when it became apparent how easy it is to grief an arc into oblivion. My arc was originally published in AE's heyday (though it was accidently unpublished and has since not gained anywhere near the number of plays it once had) and the sequel was plotted soon after. Every time I try to work on it, though, I can't even manage to finish an entire mission before I start feeling like I'm wasting my time. So, in well over a year, I've managed only the first draft of 2 missions out of the 5 it will have, if I ever finish it. -
To me, doing TFs is the equivalent of doing radio missions (which I've stopped doing entirely now that jet packs can be bought, and with Ninja Run I don't often need them anyway). Almost everyone, it seems, wants to speed through TFs for the rewards. I'm not allowed time to find out what's going on, and I'm not going to slow down a team I've joined because what makes the game enjoyable for me is different for them, so a TF is just a series of mostly unconnected "go beat up this group" missions. I've done most of the TFs in the game at this point and I could not tell you what a single one of them was about.
For me, if I'm playing solely to gain rewards, there is no point to the game. Whether I gain the ingredients solo or on TFs, becoming an incarnate is no different than farming. If I wanted to grind for gear, there are many other MMOs I'd enjoy playing. I wouldn't even care about it here if it were being treated as every other niche, and not the focus, and only real substance, of every new issue.