Friggin_Taser

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What's great is that people have been saying we're ddddoooommmeeedd since launch, and yet surprisingly, here we are.

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Defying the naysaying of your subscribers is nothing to boast about. It's reversing the attitude that impresses.

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Look at this thread. People are complaining because the servers AREN'T red/laggy/full.

You can't reverse everyone's naysaying attitude. Especially on an internet forum.

This conspiracy theory goes all the way to MMORPGchart.com!

Who knows... perhaps even the White House is in on this.

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And not only that, but WoW and Guild Wars -still- sell for $49.99.


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Oh no, Tony Hawk Underground 2 and Halo 2 are both selling for 19.99, too.

The Playstation 2 and X-Box are DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED.

Villain Gladiator unlocked: Ember Legacy of Flame

Kill 100 Legacy minions, most likely Pledged of Steel and Light.

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Well, I should've mentioned that it's a bug. It'll be fixed eventually.

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I PMed Positron about this. He said that heroes above level 38 will have to wait for Recluse's Victory to get PvP zone missions themselves but they can RSK down with a lower level hero/villain to get all the badges except the patrol one. You can actually get Forward Observer by killing people, but I think it takes 400 rep points.

Personally, I think the majority of new CoH accounts in the past 6 months have been from free trials. I know I have two people I've given free trials to that have stayed since as far back as Valentine's Day. And I also know that when I went to pick up my CoV, the Best Buy at the mall was giving out CoH Bootleg discs that I picked up.

But there is no difference between someone who uses a free trial, likes the game, and sticks with it for me as compared to someone who buys the game. My friend who used my Valentine's Day trial has been one of the most determined casual players I've ever seen.

But there is still a major difference between Statesman saying that the retail price of CoH is 30 bucks and Wal-Mart selling it for 19.96, because the price that Wal-Mart is selling it at isn't retail.

Just pointing out that Statesman isn't overlooking Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart's prices just follow a different set of rules than a store like EB Games or Software Etc where the game is still 30 bucks new. Actually, I'm surprised Best Buy still sells their copies for 30 bucks, too, since they usually go the Wal-Mart root of lowering prices.

Eventually all games get marked down to 19.99 or lower by stores so they can make new shelf room for newer games. Which is why we'll probably see a CoH+CoV bundle sometime next year to give them both new release shelf time, like the CoH Special Edition did for CoH.

(Just to point out: that doesn't mean the "retail" price for the game has changed)

And that 1684 players tally doesn't even count all the corruptors that had to go on hide because of the endless stream of "R U H33L3R?" tells.

I didn't even get out of Mercy without at least 10 of them.

Wal-Mart's prices aren't "retail" prices. That's actually Wal-Mart's biggest selling point and the reason it's so controversal with small stores and other chains that don't have the means to sell things so cheap. But Wal-Mart has been smart to set prices so low that people actually end up buying more from them in the longrun.

Any other store, Best Buy, EB Games, Software Etc., CompUSA sells it for 29.99. I know because I was out looking for the DVD edition and only found the standard edition for 30 bucks.

Think of it this way: Best Buy has been known to sell CDs for 9.99 a lot as a draw to get customers into their store. While there, they hope the customer buys enough to offset the discounted prices. But that does not mean that the CD's retail price is now 9.99 because Best Buy sells it at that price. The Manufacturer's price will still be the same 16.99-19.99 CDs are priced at today.

Wal-Mart does this a lot with their video games, too, because to a lot of people Wal-Mart is their video game store. Look at their newspaper ads this week. They are selling Tony Hawk's Underground 2 for 19.99. That's not it's retail price, that's Wal-Mart's discounted price.

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I don't know why the OP and perhaps a few others are trying to manufacture a problem here when there really isn't one, as far as I personally can tell.


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Because they are trying to get people to believe there are less players now thanks to nerfs. Even if they have to excuse the fact that the servers have been updated countless times to do it.

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Look at the charts closely, I don't think the CoH numbers have been updated since spring or early summer of 2005. Those numbers are not up to date. The overall game population has been on a steady decline since Issue 5 went live.


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Actual evidence to back this up? Perhaps some numbers and not just "But people hate nerfs!" or "It feels like less people to me!"

9 Story Arcs in, at level 15, and I only have seen one bugged mission where the enemies disappear as soon as I target them.

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To bad when you use the search window to look at the number of players on the server though, the number seems to have gone stayed about the same; or gone down a bit after the CoV release.
Usually, one sees an big influx of players when an expansion hits. Not so for CoV it seems.
before CoV; Guardian hovered between 1400+ to 1000+ from 8:00 - 10:00 PM. Right after the Enhancement Diversifiction release; that number DROPPED to 900 - 600 for the same time frame. Now, right after CoV; it's back up to the first levels, but I'll be curious what the player levels are at after the first 30 days are up.
But, overall, I guess congratulations are in order because it looks like you just swapped on set of players for another, and at least for now maintained whatever you current subscriber rate is.
Funny thing tough: I always thought the point of a new Expansion was to INCREASE your subscriber base numbers dramatically. Guess not in Cryptic and NCSoft's case, eh?

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Wow, it's fun to leave out facts when you are trying to be an [censored], huh?

Well, what about the fact that, even if you had issue 6 predownloaded, you still had to download a new patch that took at least 3 hours to download and longer to patch? Surely the fact that some people had problems loading into CoH thanks to that patch and corrupted Pigg files don't count in your little battlecry of stupid here.

So Guardian hovered between your VERY scientific numbers "before CoV" hit. When before? Was it a weekend? Did you compare one Thursday night with another? And you say it went up when CoV hit? A few days later when people who were having trouble downloading the rest of issue 6 finally got through?

You don't say.

So, on the gladiator list linked here from CoH Guru, it has Cobras.

Is there a way to kill Cobras in CoH? Is this just an error?

True enough. But Myst throwing a hissy fit about short circuit at 50 is what led to my post. And the fact that this is about Elec^3 blasters means we're talking level 41+.

Even with ED, a level 50 Elec^3 blaster still has 3 holds, two end drains (1 with end recovering), the ability to gain back any end you drain from enemies with your powers, a mass stun, an energy/smash/lethal shield, and even a mobile pet.

Short Circuit + Power Sink = entirely drained mobs + endurance for yourself still.

I never understood why people freaked out about Short Circuit. Even 6 slotted with 50++ and 1 52+ end drain SOs, I couldn't totally drain anything above even con. I would have to resort to Powersink to drain the bit of endurance I missed. Now... I still have to do it.

I've kept the exact same build I had with issue 5, where I dropped hasten and took the Elec Epic Pool. I've been fighting in Bloody Bay, Siren's Call, and Warburg. I have stood toe-to-toe with AR/Dev and Ice/Energy blasters. If I did respec this build, it'll be only to replace some dam/range Hami-Os with level 53 recharge SOs I get from respec trials, since I lose the luxary of having enough attacks for a hastenless attack chain when I RSK.

ED didn't make E^3 blasters weak. It just seperated the real elec blasters from the lazy ones that relied on only one power.

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Contaminated Thugs!


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Believe me, I asked Positron for this one. But I think he picked up on my hidden agenda of finally being able to get Isolator through the arena and veto'd it.

Sadly, my PM'ed request for Frostling and Crone Gladiators from the Halloween and Winter events was denied by Positron. He said that giving gladiator badges on top of rare badges would just make those who didn't get the chance to earn them angrier and, if they let you earn them through the arena, those kill badges wouldn't be so unique.

But that doesn't mean we can't suggest more common enemies to be made into Gladiator Badges, such as...

Bull Natterlings
Overseers
Pumicites
Red Cap Fiends
A Boss-Level Prisoner
Arachnos Night Widow
Shivan minion

With City of Villains Beta ending last night and the two day pre-order headstart this weekend, I decided the best thing to do would be to post a general outline of the Strike Forces of City of Villains so people don't outlevel content before they know about it.

What's a Strike Force?
A Strike Force is simply the villains' version of a Task Force. Thanks to City of Heroes advances, City of Villains Strike Forces debut with auto-RSKing already built in.

Virgil Tarikoss
Location: Mt. Diable in Cap Au Diable.
Level Range: 15-20
Auto-RSK Level: 20
Villain Groups: Longbow, Legacy Chain, Circle of Thorns, and Bat'Zul
AVs: Infernal (Elite Boss), Bat'Zul (Archvillain)

Silver Mantis
Location: This SF can only be unlocked via the mission computer in bases
Level Range: 20-25
Auto-RSK Level: 25
Villain Groups: Tsoo, Lost, Council, Freaks, Crey, Sky Raiders
AVs: Col. Duray of the Sky Raiders
Special Note: SF is made up of only special maps you only usually see 1 time in CoH, such as the Vamp Chamber or the Tsoo Tatoo Parlor or even the newly fixed Paragon Protector Lab

Strike Force Leader Renault
Location: Sharkhead Isle
Level Range: 25-30
Auto-RSK Level: 30
Villain Groups: Longbow, Arachnos, Coralax

Sparcetriel (First Respec Trial)
Location: Southeastern Nerva Archipelago
Level Range: 25-30
Auto-RSK Level: 30
Villain Groups: CoT, Wyven, Legacy Chain, and Longbow
AVs: Thorn Tree

Trasprecial (2nd Respec Trial)
Location: Northern Nerva Archipelago
Level Range: 30-40
Auto-RSK Level: 40
Villain Groups: DE, Circle of Thorns
AVs: Thorn Tree

Ice Minstral
Location: Golden Giza in St. Martial
Level Ranges: 35-40

Check the CoV boards, I think one of the customer service rednames mentioned how to do it in the dev tracker.

Wow.

They didn't even mention this one prior to pre-download.

You most likely will not find THE Paladin, since people know now that you have to defeat the clockworks constructing him and keeping him from being built to get the badge.

Any update on when we can see this change on test and possibly on live?

We heard on 9/27 from Posi that he does not recommend hunting for Sally at all until the patch goes live. There has been no test server update or redname word on the subject since then.

I've found Sally once since then while doing regular missions through Croatoa. I'd like to earn the accolade totally without camping Croatoa for obscene amounts of time soon.

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All but Psi...interesting. Quick question...how come PSI wasn't included?

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Because then powersets that have a psi-weakness like invul would stack up on psi-defense powerpools.