Dollhouse

Don't worry, I got this. Gonna show those Virtue angstweasels how we do things in T-Town...

Triumph: the stealth RP server. Not because we're trying to be all mysterious or anything. It's because we can't find our damn pants...

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<QR>

What's really ad about the whole PvP change its, it was directed to the Non-PvPer. They did this in hopes to get more PvErs involved into PvP and failed big time.

But yet, the PvPers are the ones left to deal with the changes, as it didn't effect the PvErs at all.

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Agreed. I am (or was, more accurately) an RP'er who liked to go in for some PvP now and then (yes, we exist!). I was terrible at first, but enjoyed it enough to move from occasional zone PvP to mostly Arena stuff, and to realize the value of a dedicated buffer. I worked hard at making my Kin/Psi Defender, an RP character built to be a "team leader/force multiplier" type, a valuable member of an arena team. I don't think I can say I ever got good at it, but I did get to the point where Festival was getting picked in the first round of Arena League drafts on her home server, sometimes by genuinely good PvP'ers from Old School and similar SGs. Most importantly, I enjoyed it.

No longer. The new PvP is essentially mindless button mashing. It lessens the effectiveness of characters like Festival to the point where they're a liability to a team, not an asset. MMO PvP is never going to be as acutely skill-focused as FPS PvP (where you have to, you know...aim...), but the i13 changes removed a big chunk of what skill requirements there were.

Fail. So very, very fail. It's been months since I've PvP'd...and I don't see that changing any time soon.

I have a baby plant/storm of my own, but she's enough of a lowbie that I can't really give any specific advice. At least not advice you'd probably want to listen to!

But as for Controllers in general being good solo'ers, oh, my yes! My single most effective solo toon (as in "can solo a good many AVs" effective) is an Illusion/Kinetics Controller. She matured fairly quickly, and once she had Siphon Speed, Deceive, Phantom Army, Phantasm, and Fulcrum Shift, she became essentially unstoppable. I was genuinely wishing for a difficulty setting beyond Invincible, as she waltzes through missions with absurd ease. The advent of Mission Architect arcs has changed that, and I couldn't be happier.

You're gonna love your solo 'troller!

Around then, around now, still have a passel of "ailuroforms." Snow Paws, Mirka, Technokitty, Triage Tabby, Shadowpounce, Medicat v3.14, Miss Mewtrino, Jennyanydots, Scuflepaws, NekoRazor, Cat Gibraltar...

I should get some screenies...

Outstanding issue! I like the renewed emphasis on fiction, the insanely great base spotlight, and Arbiter Fabulous is, as ever, fabulous.

Name: Festival
Global Contact: @Dollhouse
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Magic
Super Rank and Super Group: Ring Mistress of the Carnival of Light (founder and leader)

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Morale-boosting quote of the week: "You're pretty good. We usually die a lot."

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Priceless!

One of my all-time favorites: I'd just received a /tell asking if I would be interested in teaming, and that they were struggling with a Hallows Troll Cave mission. This was at least three years ago, when Dark/Dark Defenders were not well understood and not considered desirable by the majority of the player base. Because of that, I felt it right to inform him I was a D3. His response was to flip me an invite. I smiled and accepted.

The first thing I hear in Team chat after joining? "Okay, this will be cake now. I got us a Dark Defender." Still makes me smile after all that time!

Oh, and yeah...we beat 'em like a rented mule!

(QR) - Oh, so very, very THIS!

I agree with most of the modifications of the original idea, and with a bit of work, this could be a very real, very fun addition to the game.

A lot of people will welcome and use this feature, so I certainly don't object to it. I just as certainly will seldom (if ever) use it. I'm an RP'er. In fact, I never play without being to at least some degree "in-character." Sure, OOC chat happens, but when a team's chat starts being dominated by OOC stuff, I view that as time to move on (in a PUG), or time to gently admonish SG-mates and friends (who are also RP'ers, obviously). It's all about immersion for me.

I've found voice chat to be one of the worst immersion killers in MMO gaming. Unless the people using it are gifted vice actors, do their best to stay in character, and have voices at least reasonably suited to the characters they're playing, it rips you right out of immersion in minutes. Tried it in LotRO, an incredibly immersive game, and it just didn't work.

I'm not sure I even can run it with my current setup. I installed Skype (for non-game-related purposes), and have had a heck of a time getting my system to recognize the mic. I'm running a USB Audio interface (Lexicon) for music recording/creation purposes, and I suspect ASIO driver conflicts and possibly other weirdness. Maybe I should forget about the headset and just use a boom stand to position one of my "real" mics!

To each their own, and I realize a lot of (in fact, the majority of) players don't RP much or at all. For them (and perhaps even for me under certain rare circumstances, like Hami raids), it's a good thing. But for the most part, I'll pass.

Oh, so very much new stuff!

I have a character with a "disgraced, cashiered Night Widow" background story. I may have to re-roll her (she's only about lvl 18) as a Villain Epic Night Widow. Yay!!

The Roman costume pieces look fantastic, and that's a genuinely innovative idea for a new zone.

Psi/EM Blaster...the new FotM?

I love the sound of the improvements to The Hollows. They're really trying to address the PITA elements of the zone while still keeping it challenging. Can't wait to see it.

And more...

/squee!

I reiterate: Friday. Friday?!?

What were you thinking?

Had this been not on a work day, I'd have been delighted to drive down (from Southern Oregon) for it. But as it stands, I'd arrive late and burned out from a too-fast drive at the dog-end of the work week.

Meh.

/e disappointed

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I'm so happy it's our very own NCsoft & not someone we haven't heard of...or even someone we have!

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Yep. Three words to send a shiver down your spine:

Sony. Online. Entertainment.

See? It could have been bad. Real bad.

This is a positive development, indicating a considerable degree of commitment on the part of NCSoft to the future of the game. Th elast few issues ahve been terrific.

I'm not seeing a downside here...

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Ick. Not a big fan of sabre-style blades. Hey, thats just me...

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Not a fan of a two-curved-blades style against other sword styles, but since CoX isn't a swordfighting simulation game, I'm okay with it. Working up a character theme...

Virtue gets the credit, and much of it's well-deserved. Unfortunately, it can also be laggy and glitchy.

Pinnacle has a large RP community as well, with the Pinnacle RP Congress holding regular events.

Protector has a number of excellent themed RP SGs to choose from, of which you're probably already aware.

My "home" server, Triumph, is kind of a "stealth RP server." You don't hear a lot about it, but there are actually a lot of RPers on "the friendly server."

You can't go wrong, really...

The dull crump of detonating Rikti munitions reverbrates through the Gutter. Rivulets of crumbling masonry, shaken loose by the distant blasts, course from the broken walls as Arachnoid mutants eye the darkened sky ominously. The shriek of distant alarms carries from Spider City, broken intermittently by salvoes from wall-mounted missile launchers and answering fire from dropship plasma cannon. Smoke rises.

A hooded figure emerges from a ramshackle lean-to among the old debris. Slightly built, the figure's narrow shoulders are slumped yet somehow tense, somehow containing a coiled, impatient energy. It moves slowly, hesitently, picking its way through the rubble to a higher point, seemingly to observe.

Yet when it raises its face to the skies, it is evident that it cannot be observing anything: eyeless sockets, crudely stitched shut, seep blood. From the ruined mouth, similarly stitched, shuddering, pain-wracked breaths wheeze softly. Fresh blood mingles with the crusted remnants of previous flows, the legacy of a hundred wounds that never heal, yet never kill. Frozen in a single moment of impossible agony, pain fills the figure's world, defines it. What cannot possibly be alive lives.

For a long moment, the figure turns its hideous, mangled face towards the line of dropships. Then it raises its trembling hand in in an unmistakable gestre of denial, of rejection. A single word hisses from the ruined mouth.

"No."

Without moving a muscle, the figure's bearing somehow changes. Within its pain-wracked mind lies a core of iron, a burning will beneath the insanity. The Zen master Lotus In Shadow slips effortlessly into Shikantaza state. The trembling hands become rock steady. The mangled, tortured body becomes at once rooted deeply to the earth and weightlessly agile. Her straight-bladed katana glides from its scabbard.

"No."

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Virtue by and large has the most visable RP community. (Though watch out for 'mature' RPers)

Pinnacle and Protector have a well sized one as well.

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Pretty good RP community on Triumph, as well...

I enjoyed it, although like many others I feel that 2xXP is like ice cream: best as a treat, not a part of one's regular diet!

I didn't do much different from my regular, RP-focused playstyle, really. I'm not at all focused on rapid level advancement (I deliberately slow down late-40's leveling when I can...), so I only maximized XP gain on a couple of characters I wanted to have catch up to higher-level regular teammates.

While I have characters on every server (something like 120 alts at last count...), I mostly play on low population ones, so I had no problem logging on.

35-50 co-op zone?

Oh...I need a tissue.

I've found RP on all servers (and with over 120 alts on two accounts, believe me, I've seen 'em all!).

Virtue, Pinnacle, and Triumph seem to have the most. I've not noticed a whole lot more on any one of those three, although the former two have a bigger rep for RP that Triumph, at least in terms of RP'ing on missions and street patrolling.

RP supergroups abound. I'd suggest checking out the Supergroup thread, too.

Dual Blades...maybe. It really depends on the blades. If it's a realistic two-blade combination,* then I'll have a brand new primary toon in short order! If it's a pair of WoW-esque absurdly oversized fantasy swords...meh. Make it a brace of rapiers...rapier and main gauche...katana and wakizashi...two realistic, wieldy broadswords (not the monstrosity in the curent BS set)...two nice big fighting knives...oh, yes!


*Yeah, I know..."realistic" in a superhero game. Silly of me, but sometimes the ol' suspension of disbelief thing gets wonky for me, and I have to at least nod briefly in the direction of physics.

(Q)

Yes...with a few reservations. I find I much prefer the Arenas (when the bugs don't ruin it). At least on Triumph, the people doing Arena events are mostly pretty hardcore PvP'ers, and these are actually the least likely to engage in juvenile smack-talk (although there's plenty of good-natured ribbing) and other expressions of rumphattery.

Zone PvP? Meh.

Wonderful! An entertaining read and priceless RP background for the small KoA-based VG started on Virt!

For a handful of my zillion alts:

VNV Nation "Perpetual" - for Festival (and really the entire Carnival of Light)

Hocico "Forgotten Tears" - for Mourning Veil, a fire/dark corruptor

The Frozen Autumn "Polar Plateau" - for Grave Doll, an ice/cold corruptor

Apoptygma Berzerk "Shine On" - Calliope Kate, a Carnie Broadsword scrapper (and supermodel!)

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Honestly, I've been unimpressed with Virtue as a true "RP" server. I tried it and moved on. I now have chars in a 6 all RP VG coalition on Protector (one being my own) and have seen more real deep character driven/character motivation story-making "role-playing" there than anywhere. There's my 2 cents, don't spend them all in one place.

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I've toons in several themed RP SGs on Protector, in RP-heavy groups on Pinnacle, and evey one of my 24 toons on Triumph ("the stealth RP server) is heavily RP-focused, most in RP-oriented SG/VGs. Lots of non-Virtue options out there...

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I would love to try this SF someday but nobody ever wants doms on board.

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Be glad to run it on a team with your Domi. Of course, I play an "unwanted" Stalker...but I have all 3 nukes + Shivans, so I can prolly get an invite!