Evangel

if you're looking for a bit of evil in your heroism, have alook at Infernal Justice. We've just kicked off the second wave of alts (level 15 average).

regular nights: tuesdays (oldies) and wednesdays (2nd legion) with unofficial fridays for non-SG events.

a fairly ... old (i'll refrain from the word mature as that may be misleading )... playerbase. Quite laid back and often the banter is as much, if not more fun than the missions themselves

we have a base with stuff in it. a forum ( http://infernal.faelkeep.com/PHPBB3 ) no website yet (I'm very lazy) but its on its way.

concept: we play demons bound by infernal
requirements: magic based character preferably with a demonic feel. there's a thread on the boards with the agreed powersets allowed.

/signed

as long as they also include the emote /em adjustself to go with it....

anyone from Ireland remember the AIB ad with the "whatever you want to be.. be with AIB"?

had a montage of people saying what they wanted to be or be doing and one of the sequences that always got a laugh out of me was:

girl: I want to be
teenage girl: clubbing
another little girl at the zoo: baby seals!
middle age man: with a nine iron



I still grin when I see an AIB ad even if its nothing like it anymore

oh, and on topic: welcome back SS... hmmm, reichsman and the 5th make a return and Scarlet Shocker turns up......

"ladies and gentlemen we are gathered here.."

"emmm, can you hurry it up a bit, I'm AFK on a DXP statesman TF run"

"ehhhh, well this is highly unusual. Ms-soon-to-be-mrs-carnifax would you like to recite you vows"

insert tear jerking deeply profound vows here

"sniffle. and now you Carnifax"

"/em kneel. ahem. designate: girlfriend-potential-lifemate. task: marriage query:will you.... oh sorry, wrong bind, did that one already...statement:consignment acceptance subject: ms-soon-to-be-mrs-carnifax state:spouse sub-state:wedded substate: lawful."

"mr carnifax, i ah, is that appropriate?"

"/em KissIt"

Just on the subject of farming PuGs. I joined an MA group, nothign else to do so , why not. Into the mission we go. All freakshow lieutenants. hundreds of them. I exited and went back to wentworths to work out my enhancements and I get a tell asking why I left. I replied that its a farm mission and I'm not interested in farming.

the response was incredible: "its not a farming team. to be a farming team you ahve to have a certain set of ATs and we dont have that so its not farming"

I'm sorry, but a mission with no text, no story, generic ocntact and a map full of lieutenant freakshow + 50 glowies , zero purpose is, to me at least, a farming mission. and any team that plays that type of mission while being made up of 2 x 35 , 1 x 20, 1x 15, 2 x 8 level characters (and the 35s didnt have a clue how to play hteir alts, two tanks that kept running away with almost zero def/res!) is, in my mind a farming/powerlevelling team.

but the team leader swore blind that it wasnt farming... if I were a new player I'd have been very very confused.

Dark Matter Sphere:
The universe is made up of all types of energy, kinetic, psychic, cosmic, magical, elemental etc but for each there is an opposite. so what happens when teh energy of the universe meets its opposite?

in some cases, new suns are formed, in others, dark matter is created.

this sphere is a lead ball approximately 4 inches in diameter. it is hinged to open at the centre. once open, the tiny pin head sized piece of dark matter suspended in a cosmic energy field is exposed to the world around it (consisting of universal energy). The effect of this opening is a narrow cone of true negation, cancelling out all energy in its path. After a brief flash the sphere slams shut and is sealed until the reaction between darkmatter and energy has reduced to acceptable levels.

game info:
power: click
AoE: cone ( narrow, same as headsplitter) can hit multiple targets
range: emmmm
effect: cancels all active powers, drains 50% of current endurance, slows target recharge by 50% for 1 minutes.

number of uses: 5
recharge time: 2 hours.

map editor that works along the lines of the base map editor.

start with a grid. place rooms. fill rooms with stuff. link rooms with corridors. place spawn points (limited by radius etc). place interactive items (traps etc) , place access points: entrance, up lift/ramp , down lift/ramp/hole in floor

allow the base to use more than one tileset (within an acceptable overhead) for the transition maps.

we have the tech and magic rooms/stuff, make up a few for cave, forest (all forest "rooms" are clearings), ruins , offices, sewer etc (whats already there, just chop them up!).

I know its not as straightforward as that but it would be nice it would also serve as the base loving we've all been looking for. (make the tilesets unlockable, yet another ticket drain from the economy).

oh and /SIGNED!

how about a rolling invasion ?

zombies invade Galaxy city, there's no-one online so no-one responds to it.

after 20 minutes or so, the invasion front moves on to Kings Row.

galaxy city now has an additional mob wandering the streets, zombies! that attack anything they comes across (mob or player).

once X number of zombies have been defeated the invasion falters leaving the heroes to hunt down the ones left behind in undefended zones (which will dwindle over time anyway seeing as the mobs will have some success against them).

my Sg tried that as well, at least 10 of us handed in salvage... no invasion

Melvin will be getting a new look! even nerdier than before.

Perhaps have a triggered invasion ?

Statesman task force triggers an invasion by longbow into rogue isles as a reprisal (if its completed with all challenges set, then there is a Hero character with the invasion force).

LR strike Force: arachnos invasion of a random Paragon zone. similarly, depending on the level of difficulty achieved, there is a chance of one or more of the named AVs being present.

Invasion is triggered randomly between 5 minutes and 2 hours after the TF is completed with a warning given the same as for the Rikti invasions.

exactly, as posted in another thread, how do you cater for all sides of the argument?

allow same sex unions and you please some while annoying others

allow polygamy and you do the same

allow inter-species ? same

not to mention, can a person actually be married to a robot toon? whole new meaning to mail order bride/groom

personally I think it opens too many cans of worms and while there is nothing wrong with the idea, the way to cater for the most players would be to leave marriage out of the equation.

had some other ideas while daydreaming during lunch

Dask Astoria:
the MistWraith :
An invisible GM that manipulates the mist into tentacles. Moves quite slowly maybe its a form of giant slug with acidic attacks?(detectable by a disturbance in the mist).


Boomtown: Konnekt'd :

has babbage but how about a mutated psychic clockwork that was thought destroyed. instead it is a mechanical orb that , through telekenetics creates a body for itself out of rubble and goes on a rampage, every now and then, it manages to break through the gates in the war wall and has a spree in Steel canyon attacking everything that moves (tsoo, ppd, hellions etc).

Oroboros:
not exactly a GM for oro but one that spawns in oro and then moves to any one of th ezones (red or blue) that has an exit from there. the GM is actually a flock of reptillian birds (or ghostly flying worm things) that swarm through (about 20 to 30 of them) into a neighbouring real world region and start attacking (with flying creatures a preference). attacks would be bite and claw attacks with a poison secondary that include stun/hold/immob effects. the mobs are quite fast but not very maneauverable leading to some fun aerial combat situations (flying toon decoys leading them into an ambush? flying squads having dogfights around tall buildings and under bridges? SJ Tanks jumping, smashing and trying to taunt an enemy down to hittable range)

Croatoa: Fomorian beserkers. Deformed humanoid ogre-like giants driven insane by the binding energy in Croatoa. They are controlled by Balor who lives in the crystal spire, a magical cage that blinks randomly through the northern part of the map. Balor is a huge black armoured (invuln) fomor giant with one single huge red eye (laser eye blast) and a massive sword (BS set). Defeating Blaor forces the fomor to retreat until their master can recuperate enough to punch through the binding spells into the real world once more.

Brickstown: Megamech!
a megamech is unleashed from Crey's folly. goes on a stomping spree to the zig. did the crey send it or has someone in the zig got a contact that sent this to break him out?

I can see how some people could be offended but I personally found it amusing (and before I get jumped, no, I have not been divorced but yes there has been divorce in my family)and actually quite harmless. (no worse than the "for example take my wife, please, take my wife" jokes). but +1 kudos Grouchy for respecting someone else's sensitivities and removing.

as far as the marriage idea goes... would this allow for same sex marriage? if so, how will you reconcile this with players that vehemently oppose such unions for religious or personal reasons? What about inter-species marriage? (warshade + human, cyborg + demon etc)...What about players that agree with polygamy? or toons whose background states that they come from a polygamous society,can they have 50 wives/husbands? (a trojan warrior for example seeing as Priam had multiple wives, an african tribal warrior where polygamy is still practised in many modern day tribal societies, an Amazonian warrior woman with multiple husbands?)

If marriage (or civil union) is introduced, should divorce also not be introduced ? ok, not necessarily in the humorous (or not) way proposed by grouchy but surely there should be some ramification for ending a union, otherwise toons would just stay joined as long as the benefits continue with no downside.. everyone would get married because to not do so would just be silly (XP?? for Freeeee??)

I'd do a lot of what has already been said but I think, to make a theme of it, I'd create an expansion called "The World bites back"

1. contacts: arcs branch conditional on whether you completed a mission successfully or not. Fail to stop the bank robbery, well now you have to go and track down the thieves and steal back the super secret plans before you can move on to tackling the base of the person that sent them.

2. Random events that may or may not have an actual purpose. These would happen all around the game world. this would encourage player interaction and lore as players compare notes on what they've seen and try to make sense of it (I posted on this before ages ago so might be gone with forum tidies etc.).

eg: two balls of red light zip through Atlas Park during the night.
- a mysterious ball of amber light randomly hits a toon and encases him/her for a few seconds then releases the toon and zips off into the sky
- a strange corpse is found looking like some sort of lizard man but not fully formed.
- Portal Corp powers down completely for ten minutes as a wall of translucent white light sweeps across Peregrine Island

-- all together these give a clue to something coming but individually or spread out they are a mystery and will get players talking (especially if they are timed so that they happen when players are online and are spaced apart so they are not obviously connected and also, they dont repeat too often).

3. interactive terrain : fighting Lusca? watch out for small boats that get slapped by her tentacles. Use terrain around you. if its not nailed down pick it up and lob it! if you have super strength, tear it up and lob it! Have bad guys do it too! Makes a giant robot in a car park a lot more dangerous than it was!

4. Interactive elements: the fun bit...
20 thugs up against you? Troller hits 'em with Ice, blaster uses a fire attack which, although it cancels the Ice hold, it creates steam obscuring vision and stopping ranged attacks through it (increased miss chance), the defender then steps up and electrifies the steam cloud causing minimal damage but having the secondary stun effect spread to all within the cloud. Storm troller then blows away the steam and the scrapper rolls in.

Make hero/villain powers interact with one another. have them cancel each other out or supplement one another. Have them leave artifacts that can be used or will have an effect on the battle. Force players to use tactics and be rewarded with unforeseen effects, or discover a better way to do things.

Expand this into environmental variables: Ice caves, lava pits, mud flats, swamps, lakes, etc. and then portal corp can open up on some very interesting missions

5. More zone events / GM attacks

6. consequences: as posted before: have consequences that are a direct result of the players choice. stop crime in an area, the area gets better, ignore it and it will get worse and worse until it spawns a new Arch Villain that has to be stopped. Have named lieutenants rise and have their career evolve.

basically not a huge amount of new material for players to actually go and DO but a lot of new stuff for players to experience and to have happen to them.

oh, and busses... and traffic (proper traffic) that has peak times...

emmmm..... did BaB just try to use the blink tag in that post??? Anyone else remember when altavista and geocities *were* the internet? anyone remember the single page sites filled to capacity with multi-coloured blinking text before people realised that the aim of the internet was to provide information and not to burn the retinas out of anyone unlucky enough to drop by....

BAD BaB! BAD! /smacks BaB on the nose with a rolled up newspaper

/signed mainly because I hae always agreed with the idea of Gms for nearly all sections of the city. Something to encourgage teamwork and add flavour to each segment...

for Atlas:

I reckon, if the sewer trial isnt completed successfully for X number of days, Hydra's tentacles start popping up around atlas (anywhere there is water or a drain) and attack random passers-by.

If the trial is completed the tentacles stop and the counter is reset.

For Galaxy:
Vahzilok put together a frenkenstein's monster. a type of flesh golem, not much bigger than a person (well, 8ft, huge frame, mismatched dead flesh) that goes on a rampage through Galaxy, attacking anything and everything it comes near.

Kings Row already has paladin

Steel canyon: how about a tsoo oriental dragon ? something outcast related? it has the burning buildings so how about a gate being opened to the Fiery Pits and a Fire Demon emerging and going on a stompathon (along with a load of suitably levelled (like rikti invasion code) demons/imps . This would be triggered every X number of times the fire alarm goes past un-contended. or every X number of buildings that burn down

IP: has Lusca

Perez: has the blob in the park

Hollows: giant stone golem that goes on a walkaround. big cheese of the minions of igneous (I posted about this before)

Skyway: has Babbage (but only on TF completion) . set babbage to trigger every now and then without trigger.

DA: somethign flying (although it already has ADAM but he doesnt really do much).

basically, make the current GMs actually do something rather than stand around waiting to be pulped. we're heroes not thugs! make us save stuff...

or, on unslotting an enhancement it has a random effect:


01-02: enhancement breaks on removal (enhancement destroyed), another random enhancement in the same power is damaged (-5 to enhancement level)
03-05 : enhancement destroyed. gone, kaput
06-11 : enhancement damaged on removal loses 5 levels (eg: a lvl 20 enhancement becomes a level 15) if this reduces it to less than 1, the enhancement is destroyed.
12-89: enhancement loses 1 level
90-95: enhancement does not lose a level
96-100: enhancement gains 1 level (effect of having been slotted by a hero that gained power during its use or the effect of it being combined with other enhancements).

injects an element of risk and excitement into unslotting

prologue: I apologise in advance if this is seen as a somewhat negative post. its not meant to be.

OK, every time we hear about an upcoming issue/expansion the Co€ community drops the speculation into overdrive. every time we come up with "hell yeah" and "this is going to be sooooo cool" followed by wild fligths of fancy about what it could possibly include and how its going to be the greatest thing since sliced onions...

And then we have release day... and a lot of people seem to be very let down... so, I'd like to conduct a little experiment:

given what you know and suspect about the upcoming releases , rate it out of 100.

once a release has been made, I'll ask people to rate it again.

no particular reason for this. I'm just curious to see how much effect speculation and anticipation have on the overall mood of the community:

for me:

I15 : havent played on test but I'm liking what I hear about the MA change. My pre-release rating would be about 55/100 (not much content but improvements to existing items, new TFs)

GR: really liking the look and sound of this. no idea how its going to tie in with what we have already but definitely excited: 85/100

I16: power customisation! Not sure if we'll also get to select sound effects for our powers or just how customisable it will be, or if there will be anythign else included. Would be a shame if there is no more content update to bring the story closer to the coming storm: 65/100

as I said, no real point to this, just curiosity.

no to all four. (albeit reluctantly!)

I've seen these things all the way through my gaming "life"..

from Jet set willy infinite lives , chuckie egg infinite lives, zargons revenge (orik 8k) level skip through ultima online item duplication (at a "crease" in the map where you crossed from one server to another) up to quake 3 & doom 3 and even left for dead.

yes i tried the cheats early on but hten got no sense of achievement for finishing the game. none. even if I beat something afterwards when the cheat wasnt active (noclip on quake anyone?) I still knew that I only got there because I cheated. I play games to enjoy them. If I cheat then the enjoyment and sense of accomplishment goes away.

would I report it?
unfortunately ... yes. so dont go telling me any of your secret "methods"

I dont think I'd report someone for doing it (unless it was in a major way) but I would report how it was done so the hole could be closed.

@avatea: i have joust emulated on my PC. i still go back and play it every now and then. Great game! Fond memories of myself and my brother pooling our pocket money to play it in the local arcade and my big bro "protecting" me from the not so nice element that used to gravitate there....

happened to me during final fight of ITF... not good. she's quite hard to hit! doesnt do much damage but enough to tip the balance if you ignore her.

wouldnt mind but a tema mate summoned his Amy a few minutes later and the same thign happened. Thats 4 Amy's I've killed in the last few weeks

ps. I remember my first alt to get fly at level 14... couldnt help smile when I read your Wheeeeeeeee! pretty sure I said something very similar myself

I completely agree with you and I agree that being new to the game now is as much fun as it was when I started (especially with all the new content added over the years).

my point about feeling inferior is more an illustration of how I dotn believe account/server/side wide storage would help matters. sort of alogn the lines of:

newb: "cool power, how'd you do that?"
vet: "its blackstaff"
newb: "cool. how do I get that?"
vet: "if you play for X months you get bonus stuff"
newb: "ok. looking forward to it. hey, how;d you one shot that minion? my burst takes two or three shots to finish one of those"
vet: "enhancements"
newb: "like the training ones?"
vet:"no IOs"
newb: "where can I get those?"
vet: "in wentworths, here i'll take you there"
newb: "cool. I have 40,000 inf. how much does the +damage one for my level cost? 1 million! "
vet: "here, i like you. have 1 million inf"
newb: "yay! i bought it, now to turn it into an enhancement. lets see, 4 ingredients, 100 inf, 1001 inf, 1000000 inf, 5000000 inf."
vet: "yep, some things are rare so they cost more than others"
newb: "but but but... its for my level, how come I can't afford it? I'm nowhere near! You're the same level as me, how do you afford it?"
vet: "I've been playing longer, I have higher level characters with millions of inf and lots of loot. I get what I need from them"
newb: "this is my only alt. can I borrow 8 million ?"
vet: "ha! I like you but not that much! i've only known you for 20 minutes!"

exaggerated, but hopefully illustrates the point. Now, hopefully newb wont be put off and will continue to play and will enjoy it as his powers progress, even if he will never be able to afford IOs etc. But, after he gets to 50 and starts raking in the big rewards he can create a toon that he really wants to do well and start supplying that. who knows, he'll probably even start handing out 5 million inf gifts to all level 2s he meets... asuming the market prices havent gone up in the meantime.

one thing you mentioned was "finding a luck charm that sells for 10s of thousands" and "finding a recipe that sells fo rmillions" : I'm playing a new alt who is now level 14 and I have yet to find a luck charm (or anything more rare than a clockwork winder) or a rare recipe worth millions, only rare I found was a ghost widow recipe that sells for 1500.. with no current bidders. Total inf from playing on a full 8 man team through hollows mission: approx 50k. I can afford to create and slot some IOs but not many, I can afford some DOs but not many. I dont mind because I'm enjoying the game all over again with full teams provided by my SG.

so my question would be, what about the new players that dont find recipies or salvage worth loads? They dont have higher alts with lots of inf to pass along or salvage to supply or recipies to push to one side. Drops are random so access to the IO system is becoming a random affair *unless* you can supply the alt from a higher source of income (higher alts).

I think fixing the market levels and the ridiculous prices would do a lot more for new players enjoyment of the game and low to mid level progression than allowing siphoning of resources. Shared resources would just mask the problem until it got even more out of hand and would imho, make it even harder to fix without upsetting a lot more people.

a personal base would allow an alt to stockpile without the need for SG storage (some people dont want to join SGs, some are put off by some SGs dislike of newbies - its a very small minority granted but its there, some people join SGs that are dead - my current lvl 44 mastermind redside has pretty much soloed apart form a few strike forces with global friends despite being a SG member form level 10 right up to 30, never anyone online and Sg storage was locked to higher ranked members - turns out the Sg was approx 10 people and their alts , everyone else was pretty much just a cashcow for the SG to build storage for their alts).

hmmm, I think we're sort of at two ends of the same oopinion on this

redside/blueside storage: being able to transfer between the two is what I would see as a criteria for true account wide storage (as well as cross server storage).

Personally I dont think there should be shared storage unless you are part of a supergroup. thats one of the benefits of SGs. make that available to everyone and you'll have less incentive to actually be social in the game, which would result in more chance of a city of solo experience... of course, it would mean that Sgs set up to actually be SGs and not just storage facilities would be the only ones left and so would be more active overall , which is not a bad thing but is it good enough to outweigh the negative impact?

Personal storage for characters in their personal area: yes

as for the curve being levelled and the game not being changed: it depends on what you mean by change. Yes, sharing already exists but its at a manageable level. make it the norm and the quantity shared + the frequency will make anyone not sharing (the completely new player who knows no-one) play at a distinct disadvantage. I dont care that the game is five years old , like yourself I started way back when - actually stateside and then transferred after playing the euro beta - I dotn see why any new player should feel punished for only discovering the game now. i also feel that for the game to grow we *need* new players and should do everything we can to help them decide to stay beyond the 30 day trial. I dont think making them feel inferior to every other equal level alt it the optimum way to do that.

as for the 3 mill inf: you earned that as you played. it wasnt just withdrawn from a central pool of several hundred million. Also, I think if you look at the market and see the number of level 10-20 IOs (teleport +stealth for example off the top of my head) that cost over 5million just for the recipe and the salvage required comes to another 2+ million you'll see that the 3 million inf, while a great achievement, is not really all that useful. Increasing the inf available to spend at lower levels will just serve to bump these prices even higher. But, yes I do see your point about the IO system being drop based. you find a deific weapon at level 10 and you have instant 1+ million inf if you sell it. Unfortunately this means that the IO system has become a random lottery - and will become even more of one - unless the structure of selling/buying is changed. but thats a different argument

Adding personal storage will help all players. adding shared account/server wide/side wide storage will jsut give established players another boost on top of the veteran rewards that new players dotn have access to. who cares about sharing character resources when you dont actually have resources to share? which player gains more utility from shared storage : the single alt newbie with a level 2 alt or the 4 year vet with 4 lvl 50s each with over 200million inf and nothing to spend it on starting off a new alt ?

ps. I'm not saying how things will be. I'm also not saying how it should be and that anyone who doesnt agree is wrong. I'm just saying how I think I would like it to be and I am open to having my mind changed on the subject. While I agree with some of your points, I dont find your argument strong enough to change my opinion.

in summary (for those that dont like wall of text posts) that opinion is:
Personal space = good
anchored access door = good
ability to put in a teleporter with a charged use= good
personal storage in personal space = good
anythign beyond that = the negative possibilities outweigh the positive and I dont think it should be impelemented.

[ QUOTE ]

You have the absolute right to play your alts as you like. Mine however are part of the same team. Well three on my main account are (and have been since I plotted out their back story 3 years or more ago). They should be able to store useful stuff for each other. I'm lucky/stupid (delete as appropriate) to have several accounts and a large SG base so I have in effect already achieved 'personal' storage.

[/ QUOTE ]

so you got around the limitations by having multiple accounts, with multiple subscriptions. You still cant share items between red and blue side which is exactly what would happen if they had account wide storage. You have a base for your SG so you can share among your current alts on the same server and on the same side. Account wide storage would let players share between servers and across the red/blue divide. This i think would be against the feel of the game (I am , for the sake of argument ignoring the act of transferring manually between alts in a co-op zone as that is not storage and is open to everyone as stands if they have friends/SG). You want all your alts to be part of the same team/sg, then the system allows for that and gives you the reward of base SG storage. I just think that account wide transfer would partially defeat the benefits of SGs and friends in the game and make it more than ever a city of Solo experience. But, as you say, to each his own.

[ QUOTE ]
Having limited personal storage would actually even the curve for newbies. Having a way to store stuff at the moment pretty much is down to how long you've been playing and how many fifties you've got (or how many accounts you have). To get a useful base is certainly cheaper than it was but to get one with just the earnings of lesser played alts is not very easy still (or no-one would need this suggestion). If everyone had access to a personal space they could customise those that don't have the option of the current method of personal space would be able to store stuff much the way I store stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]

I fail to see how this would even the curve. Player new to the game starts a level 1 alt with 0 inf, the 2 lvl 1 damage enhancements from tutorial and the two inspirations (assuming he didnt use them). The player completes the tutorial and steps out into Atlas Park trains up to level 2 and goes looking for a group. Lets assume he finds one without too much bother and its not a MA or farming group.

With his , now 3, powers our hero is ready to take on evil. thing is, the other blaster in the group is a veteran player and has two or three additional powers (2 ranged, 1 melee) , base teleporter for the SG base he's a member of, a pet that gives bonuses and a teleport power that summons the team mates) the other memeber of the group has a few level 50s already and has access to everything they have in storage. all the best enahncements (for that level) and the ability to spend millions on anything in WWs he wants.

newbie player is going to be at a disadvantage all the way up to 50 as he wont have the resources to draw on that the rest do (veteran rewards aside). This, to me, is not a great intro to the game.

if anything, it will just serve to encourage farming and power levelling. start an alt, PL to 50, farm as much as possible to feed the new alt. Not because you want to do it but because its the only way to be on a level playing field with the rest. and if you dont like farming? or you dont have a high level alt to fund you? Tough, the IO system is at best only available to you in fractions because you cant afford the stupidly high prices for anything worthwhile , including the salvage to make any of the recipies you picked up.