Exclius

I'm going to CO. It's not City of Heroes. So it's not perfect, but it's better than playing a ******* fantasy game. So until a Mass Effect MMO comes along, or the playerbase does what the community of Earth & Beyond did(reverse engineer the entire game with new code or whatever) and restarts City, I'll be on there.

It's not City. But I'm not hating it, this time around. Might have to do with the vast improvements they've made since the last time I played, might have to do with a lot of my friends moving over. Either way, CO it is, for now.

When I resubbed in 2009 I did it to get away from some things. I didn't think I'd stay, but I did. And I haven't regretted it. I'm going to miss this old, clunky game. I'm sad the blaster changes never made it to live. I was loving what I saw on the beta.

I don't intend to play another NCSoft game. Sure, maybe ArenaNet isn't to blame, but I'm not willing to give NCSoft another dime, not after this. This was my game. This was a game I could have fun with without even being logged in, just by sitting in MIDS and making random builds. It angers me to no end that it's being done in like this, at what seems like its development prime.

Paragon Studios, you've been awesome. When I came back, I expected the same boring game that I originally could only stomach in short bursts, but found a game that was getting better by leaps and bounds. And the community was.. tremendous. I sincerely hope that Paragon Studios is able to stick together in some form or another, and make the super hero MMO that I know they COULD make, if they were to start anew. I'd gladly play, even if I had to spend another 150 dollars on boxes to get all of it.

Actually, my feelings can be summed up with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=hlrM7H_WW28

Name: Battle Ready Organization

Currently Recruiting: Actively Recruiting.

RP Level: /sg IC, RP-heavy.

PvP Level: You're free to participate in PvP if you want, but we aren't a PvP group.

Theme/Concept: Our theme is something of a Mystery Men meets Xavier's School for Gifted Children meets The Avengers or JLA. The idea is that BRO takes in the misfit heroes, the ones with truly strange, destructive or otherwise frowned at super-powers, and helps them become a functioning member of the superhero community - most of them started off as misfits, now they want to help other misfits.

Activity: At least 15-16 unique members. Activity level fluctuates.

Requirements for Membership: What we ask for is an elevator pitch of your character's concept, and we'll usually try to do some form of in-character interview before giving you your actual group invite. The officer who interviews your character will also try to answer any questions you have.

Leadership: Kasun, The Radiopath

In-Game Contact(s): @exclius, @It's Raining Fen (The Radiopath), @cenes (Ka'loni), @7im (Gnit), @OhHaiMac (Son of Consolation)

Out-of-Game Contact(s): You can reach me via my forum handle, but I prefer in-game emails and tells.

URL: bro.shivtr.com

Coalition(s): Silver Aegis, Pariah Project, The Arcadium

Other Details:

Battle Ready Organization is recruiting.

Our theme is something of a Mystery Men meets Xavier's School for Gifted Children meets The Avengers or JLA. The idea is that BRO takes in the misfit heroes, the ones with truly strange, destructive or otherwise frowned at super-powers, and helps them become a functioning member of the superhero community - most of them started off as misfits, now they want to help other misfits.

What we ask for is an elevator pitch of your character's concept, and we'll usually try to do some form of in-character interview before giving you your actual group invite. The officer who interviews your character will also try to answer any questions you have.

Our activity fluctuates, and right now a few of our founding members -just- started college, but it always picks up.

We have a website(it's pretty new): http://bro.shivtr.com

And you can reach me at @exclius, or on Kasun and MX Armor.

Other officers are: @It's Raining Fen (The Radiopath), @cenes (Ka'loni), @7im (Gnit), @OhHaiMac (Son of Consolation)

Thank you for your time.

(Also, I apologize if this is in the wrong area.)

*Name: Battle Ready Organization

*Currently Recruiting: We are currently recruiting.

RP Level: /sg IC, and fairly RP focused.

PvP Level: We don't engage in pvp as a group. You're free to do whatever you want with PVP.

*Theme/Concept: Mystery Men meet JLA/Avengers, filled with competent heroes that form an often dysfunctional family.

*Activity: About 15 unique members, activity varying between each of us. Our peak time is usually after 4 PM Washingtonian time(because I'm awful with time zones.)

Requirements for Membership: Have a sense of humor, be okay with doing both serious rp and less-than-serious rp. We also ask that you give us an elevator pitch of your character's concept, and go through an in-character interview.

*Leadership: Kasun, Radiopath.

*In-Game Contact(s): @exclius, @It's Raining Fen, @Cenes, @OhHaiMac

*Out-of-Game Contact(s): I can't guarantee that I'll get it, but you can PM me via the forums, but your best bet is to send an in-game email or pm.

URL: N/A

Coalition(s): Silver Aegis, The Arcadium

Other Details: Base is pretty much fully functional. If there's something we don't already have, it can be added.

I hope it is added to the market. Having access for it for practically a YEAR IN ADVANCE and also(possibly, I haven't done the math and we don't know what the prices would be) getting it for cheaper than the market price with tokens is good enough for me. I don't need to be a unique snowflake and it means more development dollars.

I want the rest of the IDF chest detail.

You know, the part that goes on the BACK of the character? You know, like the NPC's have?

Yeah, I want that.

My main is an Incarnate in character.

However, his Incarnate powers have absolutely nothing to do with his abilities in combat and the fact that he's able to go toe to toe with Incarnate characters with even and, perhaps, better chances of victory(every case is different, etc)

His ability in combat is based entirely around an advanced suit of powered armor, which has been painstakingly refined over the course of his existence as a character. This is what he uses to fight. His Incarnate powers are next to useless in combat. The reason he can stand up to an Incarnate is because his super-brain allowed him to design and refine a piece of technology to the point that it allows for that.

That being said, he's a huge wuss without the suit.

In addendum: If it's something the devs simply can't do due to the game engine, that's understandable.

I agree with this. This would be a good and welcome change. Mind you, I wouldn't use it on my energy blaster; energy blast's powers are, for the most part, one-direction knockbacks. They're good as a positioning tool. On my Peacebringer, however? Hell yes.

The Peacebringer PBAOE equivalent to hand clap is a different story. In many cases, the fact that it sends mobs in RANDOM directions can be detrimental to team play.

If you're worried about people making you turn it off in teams, don't be. You can learn to do this little thing called "making your own team." No one can kick you off of that. And if you actually have a group of friends to play with, chances are they're not going to kick you or ask you to turn your knockback off; they'd probably understand if you said no, too.

This is a good idea. Hand clap would be AMAZING as a knockdown power instead of a knockback, especially on a tanker. Being able to rotate between hand clap and ground stomp would provide a ridiculous amount of mitigation and you wouldn't be losing aggro because you used hand clap. There's a reason almost nobody takes that power, because YOU CAN LOSE AGGRO IF YOU DO. As a knockdown, it would be amazing. As a knockback, it's a crappy power.

I'll say the same thing about the Peacebringer hand clap. Crappy. Sure, it does damage. But it's annoying, because it flings things everywhere. If it flung thing in one direction? It would be great. But it flings things everywhere, and -that- is the problem.

I don't see a reason why this shouldn't be done. If it's optional, then there's no reason to complain about it. It would make bad powers good, or usable in team settings.

The argument that concept should have anything to do with game balance or quality of life options is also really, really silly. But, I guess if we're going to argue that it should have something to do with game balance, we should all go kick Stalkers in the shin and tell them they shouldn't be arguing about Titan Weapons because obviously it doesn't fit their concept.

It's not hard to start or lead a team. I don't even pay attention to AT balance or level, if someone says they'll go, I invite them. If the team looks like it can handle it, I crank up the difficulty(if you have a lot of buffers/debuffers, etc).

The fact that so many people seem to just be.. afraid of leading a team boggles my mind.

"Oh, I can't lead." <-not a valid excuse.

Invite people, set a mission. It doesn't matter what mission, as long as it's on level. It's really not difficult.

The reason they've been down so often lately is that they're getting ready for Freedom. Also, they're upgrading the servers from the sound of it, so, yeah, it's fine.

Also, they're working on an NA schedule, not a European one. Stop whining.

I'd love if Nova was crashless, and on a 30-45 second recharge time like my beam rifle blaster's nuke is probably going to be, once he's 50 and IO'd. That would be fun. Being put out of combat because I used my tier 9 isn't fun, and to be honest, I'm having a hard time thinking of any situation where I wouldn't bring my beam rifle character to missions/TF's instead of my energy blaster, who I probably spent over a billion on IOing. Overcharge is just more fun than Nova.

So yeah, I'm all for crashless nukes.

(I don't think the start of a major shivan invasion is really very level-specific. Truth be told, with the way they play you up in the tutorial, I think any character would work.)

William Carrigan woke feeling a nudging on his shoulder. The television was already going, which seemed a little odd, considering that his wife was more prone to reading a book than sitting and watching tv.

But there she was, nudging his shoulder, trying to get him to wake up. He finally opened his eyes, looking up at the worried frown that creased his wife's normally calm features.

"What is it? Is Gracie okay?" He asked her, his immediate thought being their daughter.

"Gracie's fine, sweety. Look.. it's on the tv," she said, pointing to try to get him to follow her hand.

News coverage of the event was hardly an indicator of how bad things really were. He could see fire, collapsing buildings, people running for their lives; the reporters included. It was bad. It was very, very bad.

"..what the hell happened?" Said Will, turning so he could put his feet on the floor.

"I.. I don't know, sweety." Rose said, briefly pausing. "Are you going to go down there?"

"I.. think I should, yeah. Don't go in to work, today. Traffic's going to be ridiculous," he said, leaning over to kiss her.

With a final glance at Rose, and then at their daughter, Will walked over to the bookshelf on the left side of the room. It slid away from the wall, revealing a stairway into a lower part of the house.

Moments later, Will was in his lab.

His hand slid along the cold metal exterior of his armor. It was new, only finished the night before. Now, given the sudden destruction of Galaxy City, he was glad he'd finished it, glad that he wouldn't have to rely on his previous models, though that wasn't to say that they were bad, simply that this one was better; he could help more people this way.

A mechanical arm lowered from the ceiling, pausing above the armor and moving down the length of it. A pale blue light ran along the surface of the armor before, in an instant, it disappeared from the table it was lying on.

Another moment, and Will was inside of the armor, watching the holographic interface flicker to life, the heads up display adjusting as his AI imported the preferences from his previous suit.

Just a moment later, the surfaces of the armor were shifting, making small clicks and clacks before settling in place.

"Open the hatch. Let's see what this baby can do," he ordered, his tone more serious than eager.

But, this was no ordinary test flight. There were lives on the line, and he wasn't about to go lollygagging in his new suit of armor while people were suffering.

There was a hydraulic hiss, and a massive door slid open. The armor's thrusters kicked on, the primaries first, the auxiliary boosters kicking in a moment later. He tilted forward and the suit shot toward the entryway to his exit ramp. His arms went down, the armor's hands glowing, pushing the armor's torso up from the ground, keeping it from scraping along the pavement, or simply crashing.

Within seconds he was clear of the house. A few seconds more and he was screaming toward the atmosphere, a rapidly escalating number on his heads up display the only indicator he had for how fast he was going.

Of course, he was well beyond what was considered legal in Paragon airspace, but this was an emergency. This, for Will, seemed like one of those times where certain laws could be.. overlooked.

The armor changed directions rapidly, after he reached a certain altitude. It shot down toward the city, twirling in mid-descent, plummeting toward the scene of the disaster, and when he was finally close enough, the armor's surfaces opened up, his legs swung underneath him, and his hands went down, immediately slowing his fall.

Instead of an ear-shattering crash, there was a loud metallic thunk as the armor's feet hit the ground, momentarily causing Will to kneel. The heads up display shifted, targeting reticles appearing in numerous places. Each target displayed a small amount of information, showing him everything but environmental hazards, trapped or otherwise disabled civilians, and possible hostiles.

It was going to be a very long day.

I'm in one of the supergroups coalitioned to the mall. Every new addition is always amazing, especially if I go a little while without rping or looking in there.

Oh, derp. Yeah, I thought you were talking about the set bonus. Anyway, I don't really have any endurance problems. The only time my endurance seems to budge is against the psychic mobs during trials, with whatever endurance drain they use.

Yeah, it's for regular content. I really can't stand doing fire farms, way too boring. Also, I don't really have any endurance problems at all, and the couple times I've actually run low on endurance due to drains, consume and conserve power have been enough to nullify it. As for not taking fiery embrace, I know that it's a good power, but I'd never remember to use it, given the way that I play this character.

Plus, according to MIDS, Scirocco's two-piece bonus is regen, not recovery, so it wouldn't do anything for endurance.

I use temperature protection as a convenient place to stick steadfast protection.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

I decided I'd throw this up and see what people thought about it. It's the build I use for my Fire/SS tanker, if that wasn't obvious enough. I built him for survivability, and it's worked out pretty well so far.

I'm mixed on a few of these issues. For instance, I usually don't take level into account(to a point). If you're someone I know, or know of, and I know you have an alt of that character that's higher level, a temporary character made to drive a story, and so on, I don't bother looking at the character level. Beyond that, I usually look to see if the toon is at least level 14-20ish. Granted, this isn't hard to obtain, but it shows that they didn't just make the character.

That being said, I have a few characters who I've had up to level 35-40 and deleted, to reroll them as different powersets, because I hated the powers they had. I don't suddenly start playing them as weaker than they were before, because of an out of character decision. But, then again, I don't go around picking fights with people.

As for characters having powers that aren't represented in game, I don't mind, really. I mean, I've seen a couple that bothered me, but that was because they didn't make any sense for the characters in question to have. It's no different than having one character with 8 different archetypes which don't fit them, really. It's when it doesn't fit that it bothers me, but otherwise, have at it. Just don't tack random powers on for the sake of having them, or roll alts of a character with power selections that make no sense for them to have, and I'm cool with it.

Of course, I'm not going to go on a tirade about it, or harass someone about it, I just tend to grumble to myself and facepalm, while I slowly die inside.

As for psychics, again, mixed. If you randomly pm me and try to start controlling my character, I'm not going to play along. I've had this happen to me before. My character was hanging out with his sister when lo and behold, a psychic starts pming me telling me that my character suddenly feels like attacking and killing his sister. He did not. And, so, I played it off as my character knowing that someone was implanting thoughts in his head, because, well. It's the D. It's common knowledge that psychics hang out there, why wouldn't he be able to recognize that?

So, he shook it off. But, like I said, I'm mixed about it. If it's someone I know, or involving a storyline I'm taking part in, then I'll most likely play along with it. If it's some random person in the D telling me my character suddenly wants to attack his loved ones, he's going to know what's going on. He wont know who did it, no, but he's damn sure going to shake it off and recognize the symptoms for what they are. I'm not okay with someone controlling my characters for me.

But, in regards to things like mind reading, most of my characters are pretty much open books, save for a few. One of them thinks in binary, which doesn't stop psychics from reading his mind, it's just usually indecipherable to them, and an annoyance. The characters who can seal their minds off usually have something I find funny as a mental block. Like, the word 'Derp' coming at the intruder as psychic feedback, or something.

A friend of mine is trying to get the game to work for the first time in over a year. She's having trouble with it, both with logging in and opening the settings dialog.

Right now it's freezing every time she tries to open the settings dialog to change her settings. It also freezes on the loading screen. She's using an ATI Radeon 5800 HD.

My fire/ss doesn't have a problem tanking her in vengeance mode.

No more animation lock. If you're in range to do an attack, you can do it, but you can still move around. Also, some method of canceling attacks.

I would also homogenize some of the sets. They could set up a sword set that had a function similar to swap ammo. You click it, you go from katana to broadsword to dual blades. Give the swap a cool down to keep people from swapping in the middle of attacks and abusing it, give the individual attacks different functions based on what weapons they're using. Katana is fast, small hits, broadsword is slow, heavy hitting, dual blades uses the combo system it does now.

Enhancements would no longer go into powers, but would be applied to various aspects of the character. Essentially, enhancements would become permanent equipment. That being said, I would do away with training/dual origin/single origin altogether. Have all enhancements function the way that IO's do. They don't expire, but higher level enhancements have more of an effect.

I would also have IO enhancements drop(even set pieces), as well as the recipes for them. The enhancements themselves would be much rarer. Of course, you would be able to buy basic enhancements from vendors, and mission arcs could give enhancements or enhancement recipes as rewards. And, not a randomized reward, either. You pick from a list appropriate to the difficulty of the mission arc.

And so on and so fourth. Hands, animated hair, more travel powers, that stuff too.

Is using the Helper/Help Me! system for vanity a reportable offense?

At the same time. Is someone being rude to you for asking them to turn off their Help Me! flag to avoid further confusion, calling you names and so on a reportable offense?

I apologize if this is the wrong forum for this question.

Just before the servers went down. I'm sorry we didn't manage to finish Rommy. If we'd had about 3-4 more minutes, it would have been fine.

To Palmall, Storm Summoner and a few others, it was fun running with you guys.