Father Xmas

Well Walter still must still have crossed over to cause the crisis over on the other side. Peter died as a boy but it's likely that Walter brought him back but he drowned when they fell through the ice and wasn't saved by the "friendly" Observer.

Walter and Bell's program that experimented on children was to create soldiers on this side for the upcoming war with the other side. That still happen.

Bell carved out some of Walter's brain to prevent him from going too far.

Olivia and Walter still crossed over and Fauxlivia still came back for a while.

No, it was just to go back and include Forbin's quote so people would have some vague idea of context.

Buy 1200 points, not 2400 for a token.

For $12.50 each which is at least cheaper than $15 for each "pet" AT.

Well you could buy them piecemeal but I would try to buy the pieces that either aren't still dropping in price month to month or are periodically replaced by newer better models frequently. Also I would be all over sales, something I don't consider when I put together my list. Drives, cases, CPU coolers and the OS don't fluctuate in price much once they've been out for a few months. Memory prices are currently on the way down but may shoot up again so you need to watch them. CPU prices tend to go down when AMD and Intel introduce new faster models, same is true with AMD and nVidia when it comes to video cards.

As to those parts lists, I will be the first to admit to favorites when it comes to manufacturers (eVGA) and I do turn my nose up to some probably unfairly (Zortac). You should look at the broad strokes when it comes to my parts lists. For instance what's important for the motherboard in my high price build is that it's a Z68 based ATX motherboard that supports either SLi or CrossfireX; that has USB 3.0 ports out the back; and comes bundle with the Lucid Virtu software and not necessarily that particular motherboard, especially if sales and rebates are involved.

The downside of course would be having the parts lying around the house waiting for the last one for assembly as well as RMA problems if it turns out that a part you bought two months ago turn out to be DOA when you finally assemble it.

I have a friend for instance who build his new system early this summer but bought his case and PSU for it over two years ago because of a sale and rebate. Now he and his wife did buy a new house between those two points of time so those unexpected expenses that crop up with a new home contributed to the delay.

Which still isn't EATs, they appear to be VIP only and Masterminds and Controllers unlock at Tier 5, whatever number of tokens that is.

Vet rewards were analogous to customer loyalty perks that some businesses provide to encourage continuing patronage. The business themselves wouldn't mind providing the same perks to someone new if they threw a lot of money at the business but that devalues the perk which may upset their repeat customers. In the long term scheme of things it's better to have a regular income stream than relying on one time windfalls.

If you get down to the nuts and bolts, players aren't buying Vet rewards directly. A Paragon Reward token is a perk of you get buying Paragon Points. I know, it's semantics but it's the truth.

Also the amount of money you need to spend to get to the same reward is considerably less than before Freedom. Before Freedom if you wanted samurai armor for example the wealthy newbie have needed to pay for 17 months of service or $204-255 which is the kind of conspicuous consumption that your average working Joe can get annoyed by.

Now you only need 6 Tokens (all of Tier 3 plus 1). Everyone starts with one, gets another for having bought a box edition, so they need to buy 4800 Paragon Points or worse case $60 (Freemies have to pay $65). Now we are in the realm of the price of a new console game instead of the price of a new console. That may have something to do with the lack of outrage.

The GR box release gated access to starting characters in Preatoria, side switching and powersets. Only later did it gate Incarnate play.

The MA box release gated nothing as everyone had access to MA without needing to buy anything, so it's not the same

A more straightforward argument could be made about Masterminds, Controllers and EATs since they came with the basic game, whichever one you bought.

The biggest problem with the comparison chart is the use of the term "limited" and not expanding upon it to indicate that it's based on length of previous subscription. A list of what features are locked depending on subscription time and what could also be rented Vs bought would have helped to avoid a lot of misunderstanding.

Unlike a fantasy MMO which could introduce new combination classes such as Fighter/Mage, Warrior/Cleric, Assassin/Bard (sings Emo songs that cause critters to kill themselves and each other) we are stuck with what we got unless the devs make more EATs. So push came to shove and the blocked off EATs and ATs with pets from Freemies and those who've played less than 2 1/2 years for pet ATs and from what I can tell, no EATs at all (unless bought, $12.50 for each EAT and $15 for each pet AT).

I wouldn't be surprised by more "gotchas" as more players step down to premium only to find X is no longer available.

I rather keep my "Forum Cartel" tag than "VIP" with the gold forum name.

As in 42.4% x 1.25 = 53.0%

Now 10.6% doesn't seem to be a lot, it would be equivalent to a Level 77 to 78ish IO, seeing how IOs increase at a rate of 3.8% for every 10 levels.

Now if you currently have 98% postED, that means you currently have 120% preED.

Switching to two +5EB Lvl 50 IOs would only get you 106% preED so you would lose 2.1% postED (95.9%).

But if the OP is upgrading from Intel integrated, it'll still be a step up in performance.

Incarnate wasn't part of GR although you need GR to access it, but it wasn't part of GR/Issue 18 proper. Incarnate slots appeared with Issue 19. Don't worry, it's a popular misconception.

Yes, Incarnate slots are gated with VIP/subscription. Sorry you can't play the "end game" without being an active subscriber.

IOs are usable depending on which reward tiers you have unlocked or you can rent access for $2/160 points a month. It's not terribly clear in the comparison chart since it said "limited" but you can't really describe the Paragon Reward tier restrictions in one word.

No, you just had to be next to a SG portal.

What Hulu Plus gets you is the entire library and in some cases without the 8 to 30 day waiting period for this week's shows. Nobody ever said that it wouldn't be commercial free.

Except in this case it's only something that customer support can fix. There isn't anything another player can do to fix this.

As for the OP, the slot may actually be unlocked but since masterminds aren't (not high enough reward tier) you can't play him. Now you could delete him to free the slot but I'm pretty sure that's something you wouldn't want.

Obvious QoL fix is to prevent Preemies from unlocking a slot that's occupied by an AT type that's locked, even though I thought we could play existing characters of a locked AT, just not roll a new one. It's one of those fuzzy things that I don't remember a red name saying one way or another.

All of this downtime is the result of Freedom. The first few extended downtime was due to installing the new servers. Emergency downtime due to unforeseen instabilities with the new equipment.

They start the head start and more unforeseen problems crop up. More emergency downtime.

Then these last few because for some reason they needed to move the servers to somewhere else. More emergency downtime to handle instabilities.

Add that to the frequent patches we had leading up to and after the Freedom head start I can understand why people are annoyed but all of this is so the game can grow.

Anywho don't most of you have jobs/school during the scheduled downtime anyways (at least for those in North America)? I can understand if you are in Europe that it's cutting into your evening play or Oceania's late night play but that's because the servers are in Texas, USA. Not a lot they can do about that.

Auth key is no longer used by the game. It doesn't get created by new installs.

Batman - Okay episode but does start off what will be a reoccurring arc against Equinox.

Young Justice - Excellent episode that shows where super criminals go who aren't insane. Plus the Riddler escapes, somehow. Good thing Connor and Megan aren't siblings in school considering how things are going to go. Nice Xanatos Gambit.

Generator Rex - Okay. Now he has the Shield powerset. Breach is still one of the creepiest bad girls ever on TV.

Ben 10 - Okay.

Of course not. Just like none of the regular voices in Clone Wars are from any of the movie actors.

I like how the series continues to evolve, which is easier when the universe keeps changing.

It's just like Walter to reanimate pigeons. Without Peter I think we are going to see a bit more mad science out of Walter than normal.

Also like the new Lincoln Lee, allowing him to be so different than the other side version.

Only bought the Beam Weapon powerset and the Barbarian costume set because they are both new and don't overlap with any previous Boosters or Packs.

Easier to remember for now.

Yes, they know. It was like that in the Beta. They are looking to fix that sooner than later. Let me see if I can find the post about this.

Edit: Found it.