EarthWyrm

I suspect "human beings." Motorcycle-riding rabbits may or may not be exempt.

Even if most people use their converters in the "optimal" way, the first few hours will still see some pretty huge drops in popular low-level IOs. Not everybody will be dissatisfied with earning 30 million per converter on average, but a lot of those margins should shrink pretty rapidly.

I think there's also an extent to which some group of folks is just flipping Strands for fun, though.

If watching a small number of posters repeatedly use the dev team as a punching bag, accusing them (sometimes in so many words) of being immoral and strongly implying that they don't care about the players, doesn't explain why we might get strong reactions eventually, then I don't know what to tell you.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back. Every person has a tipping point, and GF reached his. I don't blame him. For all that people like to say, "We're customers, and we deserve to be treated with nothing but respect!" a lot of folks on the internet still forget that the person on the other end of their pixelated bile is an honest-to-goodness human being who probably cares very much about what they are doing, and is just as prone to being hurt as you and me. I'd rather see an honest, human, reaction than I would more marketing-speak -- or worse, nothing at all.

Selling it as a package - a la the Gear Kit - would seem like it would make a certain amount of sense. Not selling a badge, per se, but selling a pack that replicates an old pack that happens to contain a badge. If it needed to be time-limited it might make sense to go up on the market for the anniversary month each year.

Given how long ago these were released and labeled as "exclusive," I think it shows more goodwill to make them broadly available to current customers than to retain the exclusivity on the items indefinitely. And I say this as someone who bought and applied these to more than one account.

The text was at best ambiguous. The first thing that gets said isn't about Psyche, it's about the PC, and how Wade is annoyed that you're still around. I immediately assumed (correctly, as it turns out) that whoever this random assassin was, they were here for me and not SP. A bizarre disembodied voice from somewhere deep in the halls of Oranbega also didn't speak "male" or "female" to me, so I was trying to figure out why Manticore immediately assigned it a gender, and spent a good thirty seconds pivoting around him to make sure there wasn't anything that would mark him as the real assassin. Turns out I was right about that, too, only in a way more emo way than I'd figured.

What gets said is basically (paraphrasing) that the individual is there to make sure Psyche meets her fate. Not that the assassin is there to kill Psyche. That wasn't said, and it wasn't what I assumed. So, no. Wandering off after a random trash-talking minion when I have the "target" herself in my sights makes no sense. You can't protect what you can't see, and given his behavior thus far in the story, I have no reason to trust Manticore to get the job done.

And while we're at it, are we to assume that Psyche broadcasted her death, at least to our character? Because the player sees what's in the cut-scene, but the character doesn't, necessarily. And if my character DOESN'T see what happens, coming back and seeing the emotionally unstable Manticore on his knees and Psyche with an arrow through her DOES NOT elicit a comforting pat on the shoulder. I promise.

Deep breath. Okay.

Things I liked:

Penny. She's fun.
Penny's power sets. They're interesting.
The re-skinned office map. Always like to see more of those.
The splash screen. Totally awesome, made me wish it had been released on Valentine's Day.

If the SSAs were a book, this would have been the chapter where I threw it across the room and went to Amazon to write a one-star review. As I was playing it, particularly the last mission, I kept thinking, "There's no way anyone could be dumb enough to do this." But I had no choice. If I wanted to get to the end of the story, I had to be dumb. So I bounced around that ritual room, looking for any other option, anything that could give me a clue about what I needed to do. There's an assassin? Let them come. I was sent in here to escort and protect an important hero. An assassin who sits around and does nothing isn't a very good assassin, after all.

But my hero, my so-called "protagonist" that Darrin Wade is supposedly afraid of, left his post and wandered back through a freaking Oranbega map to fight an assassin who's apparently as flummoxed by Oranbega portals as my dog is by glass doors.

Penny didn't even come with. She hung around by the ritual altar, making me think, "Okay, maybe that's the safeguard." Turns out, not so much, and she may have even been glitched for me. Whatever.

The problem is, my "hero" left his charge and went off to do something that wasn't needed, and as a result wasn't present to help actually do something about the real threat.

That's not just dumb. That's unforgiveably dumb. Based on what I'm seeing in this arc, I'm not a threat to Wade. I'm somebody who, when the final battle comes, Wade will distract with Youtube videos of kittens, then feed a poisoned cupcake to. I have, to this point, done basically everything he wanted me to do, when he wanted me to do it.

I leveled this character from 1-50 in the Rogue Isles, then spent several years thereafter still running around the Isles waiting for a chance to be redeemed. After finally making the transition to Paragon City and "hero" status as soon as it was possible to do so, I feel pretty strongly that in this arc I have done more to advance the cause of villainy than I did the entire time the character was under Recluse's thumb.

I was able to forgive a lot of the storytelling conceits in the earlier portions of the arc. The entire last mission, though, was ridiculous and insulting. And I don't think it would have taken a lot to salvage it, is the sad thing. What's needed is an intelligent motivation to do what was done. So, for example:

Rather than having to escort Psyche through not one but TWO entire Oranbega maps, you learn that she's tried to go it alone, for fear of what the ritual might do to everyone around her, and that she's currently lost inside Oranbega. You (and Penny, sure) have to go in and find her, fight off some sort of impressive NPC and its minions, and help her the last little way to the ritual chamber. Once you're there, another attack on her enters the caverns, and you can't stay with her because if the attackers make their way into the ritual chamber, everything could be compromised. As much as you hate to do so, and knowing that it's risky, you go back to hold the line, leaving Penny and some number of other guardians you called in to help behind. I mean, the entire FP got to Synapse's aid in 60 seconds at the end of the first villain SSA, so it can't be THAT hard.

Or something to that effect. There are WAYS it could have worked, or at least, worked better.

It's possible that we'll get some dialogue in SSA7 to the effect of, "We're sorry we had to deceive you, [charactername], but we suspected what Wade was up to and had to have me shooting Shalice appear to be the only option, and you're just too competent in general for that to happen if you're around." I kinda doubt it, though, and being made to look dumb by Manti isn't markedly better than being made to look dumb by Wade. At least there, though, it's not me being a puppet of the villain.

I don't agree with the writing philosophy that says, "If you wow them in the third act, all is forgiven." Because sometimes, the things that come before the third act are bad enough that the reader/viewer isn't there to be wowed. I'll stick around and play the finale for the reward, but psychologically and emotionally, I've checked out. Which, to me, is a shame.

I hate writing this kind of review. But the more I've reflected on the hero arc, the angrier I've gotten at just how dumb my incarnate-level character has to be, for it to work. If I'm doing the right thing, and bad things happen that I couldn't foresee, okay. But given that Wade's monologue in the last episode had to do with Psyche being next, why in the world would I not see this coming?

This is a great example of more intellectual dishonesty in the way you're presenting your arguments. You split out the VIP/Destined One badge, the Cape of the Four Winds, and the Prestige Power Slide as three separate items that were not released, even though they were all part of the same offering. You do the same thing with the Arachnos chest symbol and cape (one offering) and the account-wide VDay items (one offering).

Then you make the GVE one item when in fact it included the Jump Pack, the Pocket D teleporter, the Pocket D gold club VIP badge, and two full costume sets, all of which were originally GVE exclusive if memory serves. If you get to break out everything in the individual offerings that hasn't been made available again to support your count, failing to do so for all of the other things you list seems a lot like selective counting.

And that's independent of things like the con-specific costume codes, some of which remain exclusive, but which we have every reason to believe should all make their way to the market (at least for a limited time) eventually.

I don't believe that it's meaningful to include in the discussion, because even if it's only 2 weeks out of a year I can earn those on anyone I want, but I'm willing to agree to disagree on this.

Because, frankly, I don't believe that you have any intention of looking at the overall balance of information and giving anyone the benefit of a doubt on this.

I tried, with you, to do that. I'm done now.

Why don't you also list out the items that started out exclusives and later became available? You and I both know it's way longer than what you just provided.

If you really want to stick your head in the sand by listing out seven items (two of which can be earned by anybody in-game on a per-character basis, which to me keeps them from being "exclusive" in any meaningful sense) that do nothing to disprove my general statement about the track record, that's of course your right. I find that method of argument just as sleazy and intellectually dishonest as you're accusing the devs of being with your "morally bankrupt" statements, but you're clearly arguing from emotion at this point and expecting you to adopt any kind of reasonable position was probably just wishful thinking on my part.

I guess we'll see. I'd rather been assuming that if you only want the costume pieces and "hold your nose" to get them by buying the packs, you're paying the equivalent of an early-adopter penalty, and that the exclusives will eventually become non-exclusive. But they have no reason to tell us that up front, because then no one will buy the packs just for the costume bits.

The company has more of a track record for taking exclusives and making them non-exclusive, when it comes to in-game items, than they do with keeping items impossible to get after a restrictive release. If that actually *has* changed, then that's not something I'll be particularly sanguine about - but I'm willing to wait and see.

I'm sorry, did I miss something? I know Zwill said it wouldn't happen "in the immediate future," but that's not quite the same as "never." Was there something in a Ustream I don't have the time to listen to?

Please note that this progression only works in a logical sense if there is nothing else in the super packs besides the costumes (since your premise is that there is a "degradation of costume packs" at the end of which we're gambling for the costumes, yes?). That's not the case. There's more in the packs than costumes, and you know it.

That would require you, or the people who claim this is somehow illegal, to present them. Not in the selective format where you pretend that people don't get anything other than costume pieces out of the super packs, either. Not just inflammatory opinions and hyperbole.

You can start with actual case law to support allegations of illegal behavior based on how this has been implemented. You, or Astra, or Darth Krankypants, or whoever. I don't care. (Don't expect legal discussions to last past the morning, though. That topic was explicitly shut down during beta discussions because NCSoft actually does employ some of those "lawyer" people, who reviewed the implementation of this new feature and who actually know about how laws work.)

I got more for my money out of these packs than I've gotten out of any costume pack in recent memory. I paid more, but I got a costume, a bunch of ATOs, and a lot of useful expendables. I'm happy with that.

But if you'd like to go back to the facts and show everyone how the amount of content released for our subscription dollars has decreased since the launch of CoH:Freedom, you're welcome to do so.

No hand-waving "it's as simple as that," though. You want to tell people to face facts? Present facts.

Indeed. I'm also shocked that someone created a sock-puppet account just to prove themselves right.

I don't know that it can properly be called "buyer's remorse" when someone who hates this kind of product knowingly buys this kind of product and then complains that they hate it. That's more like "self-flagellation".

Just to be clear, there are no rename or respec tokens in the superpacks. They really are a great deal for those who enjoy a variety of different types of permanent and consumable items, though. For people who hate consumables or whose builds are perfect and don't need ATOs, they won't be worth spending money on.

And that's fine. Not everything in the market will appeal to everyone.

When you purple-up an ATO with a catalyst, the name of the bonus is "Ultimate" whatever. Because it's the same named bonus, it's rule-of-fived. I know because my brute had 4 purple sets slotted, and when I purpled my shiny new brute set, my list of set bonuses now shows 5 x Ultimate Recharge Bonus.

Which isn't that big of a deal, because if you DON'T purple it up, you have things like an 8.75% recharge bonus that you can't get anywhere else, for a lot of sets.

I put it in a fast-activating attack. I pegged my fury bar to the top (yes, 100%...) multiple times running a Council Empire map. It seems (and I'll be happy to be corrected by my pigg-friendly associates) like it just checks on activation of the power it's slotted in, and has a relatively high chance to go off per activation.

It is per activation in AoE powers as well, I'm fairly confident; when it was per target on beta, it allowed pegging fury at 100% inside of two spawns when slotted in something like footstomp.

I'll let somebody else deal with the damage aura and pet questions, though I really doubt it on both counts. Probably worth dropping one in on Beta to see.

Morally bankrupt? Wow. You're entitled to your opinion, but boy-howdy do I think you're wrong.

The costume pieces are weighted heavily enough that it really doesn't take many packs to get the full set, and most of the other stuff that's obtainable in the packs is useful/useable. The black wolf... well, I think that level of hyper-rarity is a mistake, but it doesn't deter me from enjoying the packs because I don't really care about vanity pets.

This is a long way from "moral bankruptcy" in my book, for a variety of reasons that were re-hashed over and over prior to the release of the packs. Sorry you don't like 'em. Feel free to continue voting with your wallet.

To be fair, when one's source material is this level of artistically-impaired hackery, there's a certain inevitability to where things will end up.

I suppose that we could be truer to the spirit of "Xanth" and try to seek out the "punnish" subtext that must exist within the story being told.

The thread seems to be punnishing enough, though, without going there.

I don't get why the business model involves limited-time offerings for things like this, either. Holiday/seasonal stuff, okay. I get it. This? Not so much.

But trotting out this particular quote, which anyone who has ever worked with a customer can tell you is patently untrue, does not help make the case. You might as well have gone straight to "slap in the face" while you were at it.

If you want to convince marketing of something, don't put words in their mouths. Make a business case for unrestricted purchase that will counter their apparent belief that making things limited will force people into a "panic purchase" mentality and will allay their (I'm assuming) suspicions that if you don't make the items time-limited, people will put off purchasing and eventually will forget about buying the item - since if they've gone three months without it, they must not need it at all.

That's the kind of thinking that has to be countered, and it doesn't get countered with "the customer is always right."

I'm pretty sure that his armor wouldn't leave out something that important.

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What? I totally left the "whip" line alone!

I agree with some of what you said, and as an introvert, certainly empathize.

However, you also broadened the scope of the term "introvert" fairly substantially, and confounded it with so many other personality factors that you are no longer describing a single empirically-meaningful personality dimension, and are instead describing a constellation of personality traits.

In terms of a couple of specifics, the idea that extroverts don't set long term goals or don't enjoy scenery is not, I suspect, supportable by research data. The whole "need for stimulation/get bored easily" thing is less about being extroverted and more about sensation-seeking; last I checked, there is a moderate (medium effect size, per Cohen's standards) correlation between the two variables (extraversion and sensation-seeking), but they're hardly the same thing.

I appreciate that you feel that your personality and preferred play style are not being supported by the solo-path incarnate system. What you're describing goes way beyond the introversion/extraversion distinction, though, and your presentation of "introvert" and "extravert" does individuals who fall legitimately into either category something of a disservice by perpetuating stereotypes not grounded in fact.

I've been watching damage purple prices go a little nuts. There are lowball bids I meant to cancel before convertageddon made them "average" bids that have already filled as people dump their storage bins on the market. I've enjoyed re-listing those for a profit, of course.

There are some places where the speculation makes sense to me; I don't see a down-side to unloading my Glad Armor uniques at 2bn right now, when I know how easy it's going to be to replace them with the pile of Glad Armor end/rech I picked up as soon as converters were announced for 5-10 million each. And I don't know where that particular IO (at 50) will stabilize, but I'm guessing it won't be spitting distance of 2bn.