Gangrel_EU
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Well, at the moment its $15 = £9.70, and although the trend is for it to go *up*, for it to reach its *current* price it would have to go up to its highest point in 2 years (24th/27th January 2009 according to historical data from XE.com).Originally Posted by Mazey
It's because exchange rates changed between when EU subscriptions were introduced and PP were introduced.
It used to be that £9 was about $15, now £9 is less than $14. So people paying in pounds get a better deal on subscriptions, but a worse deal on points.
So unfortunately that argument doesnt hold water...
*edit* to clarify, if the cost was set in the past... then it should have been cheaper than what EU players are currently playing... the currency conversion (for UK players at least) has only gotten worse in the past few months. -
Yep, the question is the title of the thread.
In the Unofficial Superpacks thread (which i do admit to derailling, and for that i am sorry, heat of the moment and all that stuff), i brought up something that some people *didnt* agree with.
That is that the *fastest* route for EU account holders to get Reward tokens is also the most expensive... and not just by $0.01 like US account holders.
Points Bonus Total $US €EU £UK Tokens
400 ____ 400 $5.00 €4,80 £3.40 0*
1200 120 1320 $15.00 €14,40 £10.20 1*
4000 600 4600 $50.00 €48,00 £34.00 3*
8000 1600 9600 $100.00 €96,00 £68.00 8
Subscription fee costs:
US player : $14.99
UK player : £8.99
EU player : €12.99
A player can buy their way up the Paragon Rewards tree by buying Paragon Points. You get one for every 1200 points you purchase.
Using the most expensive conversion ratio of bulk 400 point purchases and single month subscription the numbers are as follows.
For an US player its $15.00/$14.99
For an UK player its £10.20/£8.99
For an EU player its €14.99/€12.99
These are the most *expensive* routes, and even then, the US players pay just $0.01 (that is 1 cent) more to buy their way up the tree.
A player from the UK pays 13.45% more to buy their way up the tree.
An EU account holder from the EU pays 15.39% more to buy their way up the tree...
A US account holder pays 0.00067% more to buy their way up the tree.
What can be used to account for this?
It cannot be VAT/sales tax increases, as the sub fee hasnt increased from the launch of the game (we have had 2 VAT changes in the UK in the past few years).
So *whose* smart idea was it to rip off the EU account holders like this?
Hell, once you start getting up to buying enough points to get 11 reward tokens, you end up having paid for 12 months subscription fee.
And because the Tokens are not being awarded up front for multimonth subscriptions, the EU account holders are getting ripped off, by having to pay *more* in terms of equivelent fees than the US account holders.
*edit* table didnt appear correctly! -
Quote:If you have dropbox, you can actually store the database in that, and keep the "unlock" key on your local PC...Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord
I used to use KeePass. However, between having and using my desktop computer, a notebook computer, an Android smartphone, and now an iPad 2, I began to see the light in using a remote password manager, lol. It makes things so much easier. I realize it's not as secure, but like I said in a prior post, the way Last Pass responded to the attack in May impressed me and made me choose them.
Each is useless without the other, and due to the synching of dropbox it at least keeps the passwords updated between the two.
Did use Lastpass, but stopped using it when it stopped working with Opera (i have since swapped browsers, and am now using Keepass for *all* my password storage (even games) ) -
Quote:Go and complain to MMORPG.com then...Originally Posted by CactusBrawler
They've done physical prize give aways to Europe and the rest of the world too.
It's probably the cost of the flight they want to keep down, I mean an internal flight across the USA costs a lot less than say flying the winner from Prague, the middle east or China.
Would be nice of them to offer a similar competition to the rest of their subscriber base though. Perhaps without the silly haircut part though.
Having been more heavily involved with the community side of games than most people here, i can point something out:
95% of the time, if you see a gaming/mmo website running a competition, it is the website owners/community people who came up with the competition and *not* the company... this is why you rarely see multiple competitions for the same game at the same time on different websites? If you do, then more often than not, one will be a "big" prize winner, whilst others will be smaller... not to mention as well that it makes sense not to dilute it too much amongst several sites (competitions are a good way of driving traffic to your own site)
So unless you honestly want NCSoft/Paragon Studios to stop sponsoring competitions there isn't much that they can do.
Well there is, but i think you will find that the NCsoft Europe "EU" competitions will actually miss out several EU player bases... i take it that you will stand up for *THOSE* players as well.
Of course, if you *really* want to do something, get in touch with EU gaming websites and ask the community people there if there is anything that they can do to help out... if they want to run a competition then they will do it, but if they dont, then its no skin off their nose...
Hell, set up a fan site, get it popular and start talking to the Community peoples... chances are you will end up with something that you can offer to the EU players (note: Yes, you can do this, and it can work as well...)
To be honest, this actually sounded like a "WAH WAH WAH RANT" -
Quote:Yes, but what were the prizes though? Some of the MMORPG.com competitions that i have seen, where graphics cards were the prizes, were only available to those in the US.Originally Posted by CactusBrawler
The only problem with that is, MMORPG.com has run open to everyone competitions before, heck they've even run open to everyone competitions that gave away NCSoft stuff.
Were they physical prizes, did they involve travelling?
This is where the problem kicks in...
Some prizes can be exempt, others have hidden catches (ie hardware/computer setups can be caught out by customs, as they exceed the allowance for importing)
Sometimes it is better to be safe than sorry
((Side note: Digital prizes are *generally* easier to giveaway than physical items though, because there is no physical item, it will be harder to put a value to)) -
For those who are complaining about it, they can do a *specific* EU competition...
Of course it would still screw over the oceanic players... because they have their *own* competition rulings...
And for those who say "But big international companies do it...", i think you will find that there are still a few countries that are excluded, and if you do win, its actually the "local branch" of the company that actually awards the prize if anything, and not the "head office" branch, even then more than likely, they will run several competitions for it, and have each region hosting their own...
Just doing a quick search for an EU gaming website i have found this:
Eurogamer for example with their VIP trip to Wales Rally competition, it is only open to players from UK, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Benelux, Italy, Spain and Czech Republic
Gamespot: Their competitions are only valid for certain countries... Gamespot UK for UK players, Australia for Australian players...
Of course, the whole MMORPG.com idea was probably *their own* idea, and NCsoft/Paragon Studios just went "yeah, we will go for it"... -
Quote:It *sounds* like your graphics card is overheating, either through the collection of dust or the fan not running properly. You can use a tool such as MSI Afterburner (or Riva Tuner which it is based on) to double check the temperatures of the graphics card to make sure that it is the GPU that is overheating and not the CPU...Originally Posted by Wolf_Reign
Well everything is set to max. Which I have not has an issue with before.
Yes, I do believe it is a over heating thing as it randomly it just shuts off. Now warning, just plow, turned off.
I usually run 1024x768 I would like it to be smaller but I cant seem to get it to go any smaller as thats as high as it goes.
Should I turn down ultra quality then? Kinda sad that I would have to do something like that
and come to think of it, my video card is really hot right now. my computer has s just been sitting on with no major programs running but firefox. definitely not good. its a good video card as well. My case s open and my computer is laying on its side. Should I turn it right side uo? I just think that would make it over heat more. -
Quote:Not true, there are items up that are cheaper... granted they did start off on the wrong foot with the only things being available all costing more than 1 PLEX, but there are cheaper items now available on the market for them....Originally Posted by TargetOne
A certain space MMO (which shall remain nameless) would have people use the in-game store to buy their avatars a monocle for the equivalent of $70 in real-world money, or a shirt or boots for around $18. They don't have anything cheaper. Not exactly "candy items".
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Quote:Considering what some things i have seen people call "faults" on the phone and actually have nothing wrong with it... it doesn't surprise me that they are trying to do the "easy" trouble shooting at home/over the phone.Originally Posted by GreenLantern68
Gaia,
I made no upgrades to this machine since purchase.
No Beep Codes on bootup. The machine does not boot up.
Everything else you suggested is exactly what the rep in India was trying to get me to do the other day. While I've had it confirmed that opening the computer will not violate my extended warranty, it galls me that they want me to perform hours worth of troubleshooting for them. Isn't that what I paid the warranty price for?
I know the whole troubleshooting process is a major PITA. I don't want to do it. They are refusing to take further action until I do, so they're forcing me into something I don't want to do so that I can take advantage of something I paid extra for.
How's that right again?
Of course, this is where you have to define "easy to fix"... just making sure that leads (even internally) are fully plugged in i would classify as that, but if it was more serious than that, then I wouldn't recommend someone who has little technical knowledge of doing anything else.
*shrugs* the downside of sending a computer off is that you can normally be without it for several days/weeks before it gets sent back to you.
((Note: I haven't bought a desktop PC ever... although i was bought one 11 years ago, which i upgraded by myself, and then had issues... managed to get that sorted out though with a "warranty" claim though no issues))
*edit* and depending on the "extended warranty" it can end up costing you more than the cost of a similar specced replacement PC at the end of it.... -
Quote:I grabbed it on the Union server as soon as i got the powersetOriginally Posted by Samuel_Tow
How about "Saint Justice?"
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Quote:Which is strange because i have had no issues buying points today (infact i had to buy points if i wanted to play with Street Justice today... so i bought 1200 points)Originally Posted by Dawk_Boy
I tried ingame Paragon Market, I've tried NCSOFT account. I've used my CC, I've used PayPal. Still won't work, I called my bank and they reassured me that everything is fine with my card and my balance. Whatever the problem is, it's NCsoft. Nothing my Bank or I can do about it, my friends also have this same problem!
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You can buy points via the NCsoft master account page... infact i would recommend doing it that way, and *then* buying the stuff that you want in game.
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Quote:Yep, and a 260 is better than a 540....Originally Posted by Diggis
Ahh, OK that helps. Generally newer generation cards would be better too I guess? So the 430 would be better than the 230 still.
This is where the price difference can also help quite a bit.
If you ever get stuck though, you can always ask here before hand.
Websites such as tomshardware.com can help as well with their charts/reviews... -
You *could* try clearing your browser cache/cookies, as that seems to fix most problems with websites
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Quote:And unless he is going to drop some *serious* money, he wont notice the few dropped frames that he could potentially be getting... if any at allOriginally Posted by Hyperstrike
Actually this is incorrect. PCI-E 2.0 devices are backwards compatible with PCI-E 1.0 and 1.1 devices.
You could use a PCI-E 1.0 card in a PCI-E 2.0 motherboard. You can use a PCI-E 2.0 card in a PCI-E 1.0 compliant motherboard. It simply won't get maximum throughput available for the card.
So he could pretty much grab any current card he wants and it'll work just fine. He just has to make some allowances for the mis-match not providing full bandwidth. -
Quote:I have 4GB of RAM, although on a 64bit OS... tbh i have never actually crashed out due to running out of RAM...Originally Posted by Flashfox
I have the same problem on my Windows 7 Pro x86 machine w/4 GB & a NVIDIA 460 video card w/1GM DDR5. I even created a separate profile which I boot into hoping that I can play longer.
Here is what I noticed: As I play, the amount of free RAM goes up and down. However, the curve is downward and when it reaches around the ~425 MB mark, I know that I can expect it to crash... and it does. It's worse in Praetoria and in the new zones. It really seems like a memory leak and as I am capped at 4 GB (~3.2 GB) with the x86 version of Win 7 Pro, the only way out will be for me to format and load the 64 bit version then add another 4GB of RAM.
It is as if the devs don't really seem to care as "RAM is cheap". It might be the case but us 32-bitters hit the wall with 4GB of physical RAM. CoX wasn't like this before (sigh). It's definitely not processing power (see signature) -
the black wand and Nemesis staff veteran powers have their damage increased by being of the relevent origins (details are listed in the power). I cannot remember them off the top of my head which origins affect which power...
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Quote:*shrugs* at least this is something that EU players can join the US players in on...Originally Posted by Justice Blues
And thank you so much for locking part of your player base out of this, for no reason whatsoever.
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Quote:This is where you are starting to cross culture expectations, different comics, as well as different "universes" where the expectations contained within only run true *whilst inside* that realm...Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That's kind of what I mean when I say big guys - the REALLY big ones. In comic books, they're the Hulks and the Juggernauts and the Doomsdays, and they are almost universally defined by their size and bulk. Now take a more anime concept - let's say Dragon Ball Z's Nappa. He's a man mountain, pretty much twice the size of everyone else, if not more, and yet because he's so powerful, he's also damn near the fastest and most agile of them all. And for him... It kind of makes sense, because DBZ's fictional universe is pretty heavily based around the notion that strength and speed are BOTH qualities that a strong warrior needs and you can't have one without the other. If you're JUST strong, you an never land a hit. If you're JUST fast, you can never deal any damage. That's why the biggest and strongest of the bad guys also end up being the fastest, as well.
The more I think about this, the more I feel there's a concept there that I need to explore. I'm just not sure of a good way to do that in-game, since the only truly "fast" defence set is Super Reflexes, and that intentionally shuns damage resistance. I guess what works for DBZ characters is they're big and fast, but they're also big AND STRONG, so they don't feel like they're missing a quality, so much as that they have an additional one. I don't think there's any good way to depict this in City of Heroes, though, since I don't think we have a set that's a decent enough combination of both defence AND resistance against the same elements. Energy and Will come close, but Willpower alternates defence and resistance between damage types and Energy is element-centric.
Still, food for though. I will need to do something about this.
Who would win a fight between someone from DBZ and The Phoenix Force?
Lets wind it up another notch, DBZ and the *big* mech from Gurren Lagann (hint, the mech is just on the stupidly large size.... possibly using Galaxies as throwing stars *might* be getting stupid)
Of course, you can say that i am being silly here, but this is where expectations kick in... you cannot really say "but X works here, so it must work in Y series", when both series are totally unconnected.
Sometimes you just need to use a bit of handwavium and let it slide.
*edit*
There are comic characters out there that *theoretically* could be "large and stealthy"... Apocalypse for one, as he has the ability to manipulate stuff at the molecular level (this can cover shape changing as well as changing his density)... So he could be "really really large, and yet really really light"... so he could weigh the same as a small child if he so wanted.
He does have other abilities that are more useful in this situation, but he could fall back on stuff like that if he wanted to.
The fact that it hasnt been shown doesnt mean that he cannot do it (Jubilee for example could potentially explode matter at the subatomic level.... but she didnt, either through lack of training to control it properly or being unwilling to knowingly take a human life as a side effect) -
Quote:Depends *entirely* upon how you define "excessive" bulk... hell, some wrestlers (old and new) that were quite possibly overweight, still have the agility to do cartwheels in the ring (Bam Bam Bigelow), jump clear over the top rope (The Undertaker being a good example of this), perform standing backflips/standing jump somersaults (ex-wrestler Paul Burchill could do this)...Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
There is also the perception that excess bulk would only get in the way of agile movement, which may or may not be true, I don't know. Whereas a small build won't get in the way of a feat of extreme strength unless comic books start respecting the laws of physics.
None of them i would call "small" but most of them still made the "typical" wrestler look small
How could i forget Vader (360lbs+ of mass) doing a moonsault of the top turnbuckle... not to mention as well that "The Big Show" Paul Wight, whilst he was in WCW, was rumoured to actually perform a moonsault whilst training... at 7ft tall, and over 415lbs at the time... shame no one would actually be on the receiving end of it (he was more muscle instead -
Quote:Dont worry, they recently upped the basic requirements as well to include SSE2 instructions... people still complained about that one (especially seeing as SSE2 came out in 2001) and not being able to play the game anymore (note: my 1st "real" PC i got in 2001, and it was 1.2GHz and didnt support SSE, but my replacement one just a few years later did (Athlon 64)..Originally Posted by Justice Blues
Until they changed the software to require Shader 3 support, I was on a 6 month subscription for that game. Every 6 months, I could count on an early morning wake up call from my credit card, asking me to confirm it was a legitimate purchase.
Side note: Shader Model 3 as a requirement is actually increasing the requirement to a 7 year (and counting) standard... infact, it was "high end" at the time of Eve Online release. I can see why people *didnt* want to spend money upgrading their hardware... strangely enough though, if you can Ultra Mode CoX, your gfx card is good enough for Shader Model 3..
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Quote:I guess that although they might well be tough enough to not be *damaged* by a punch, it could still *hurt* enough to distract them.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
To some extent, this might be wish-fulfilment bias. In order for me to accept that someone's primary power is being fast, I have to first accept that his primary strength ISN'T being strong, because if you're strong and tough enough to not die, then isn't that always better? Or is that just my inner macho man telling me it's more impressive to take a punch and shrug it off than it is to dodge it? Because, thinking about it from an emotional standpoint, a punch that doesn't affect me means I'm so badass you can't hurt me. A punch that I HAVE to dodge is a punch which WOULD have hurt me.
Look at Wolverine who is "tough enough" to shrug off most injuries that would incapacitate a normal person, who can take a stupidly large amount of damage/injuries/disease that would kill a normal human being (and most super powered people as well), and yet still dodges *most* attacks... because getting hit *HURTS*.
He even comments that popping out his claws hurt each and every single time, but he has been able to cope with the pain (through constant repetition) so that it feels (at least in that area of his body) similar to getting your ear pierced.
I can relate on the ear piercing front, the first time hurt a lot, but as you get more and more piercings, the pain actually *feels* reduced each time, so i didn't even flinch on my most recent piercings, it just didn't bother me anymore.
*edit*
I would most likely to put it down to "expectations of the specific genre"....Quote:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I don't know, truthfully speaking. Anime giant mecha have been doing flips and moving super-fast since time began and those don't feel awkward or out of place. And indeed, even in Dragon Ball Z, pure speed is often even more important than pure strength, and regardless of how big a guy is, if he's the strongest, he's also the fastest. And yet that still feel perfectly reasonable there, but not when I think about City of Heroes.
Why? -
Quote:Depends on the card issuer/bank and who you are buying from...Originally Posted by Ironblade
Well, I guess they're willing to jump through a few extra hoops when we're talking about $1500 of computer hardware vs the chump change for an online game.
I have spent over £300 on computer stuff twice in 2 weeks, and the transactions went through with *no* issues.
I then tried to subscribe to an MMO (based in Iceland) a few months later. It was declined.
Strange i thought, i know i have the money.
I waited for the phone call from the bank (sometimes they do this to check that the transaction was made by you), but none was forthcoming.
In the end I called the bank, and questioned as to why it was declined... it turned out because it was an Icelandic company and it was the 1st transaction i had tried to make with them, it would get declined until I confirmed it. Even if the MMO company had called me, it would still get denied *UNTIL* the bank confirmed the transaction.
Funniest thing is though... in between buying the computer parts (UK based company) and this issue, I had actually signed up to an MMO that was charged in USD... but no phone call to check on it.
*shrugs* sometimes the bank calls me several months later just to check that stuff I had bought was actually bought by me... i guess this is because I sometimes my card has minimal transactions on it (maybe £30 a month or so) and then has £400-£500 in one go... -
Quote:I would say that it is more because they want to differentiate themselves from the "American" style, which can be pretty much over the top for the succesful movies.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I'd say different markets are more tolerant towards undeserving deaths. European audiences, from what I've seen in my fellow countrymen, at least, seem much more enthralled with damn unpleasant brutality if it reflects the unfairness of real life than they are with the kind of escapist entertainment I personally crave. For this reason, I'll almost ALWAYS pick the "American" style of ending a story, just because Americans know how to end a story with a strong, satisfying bang, as opposed to the glum, melodramatic peter that makes me completely unable to watch any movie made in my own country.
But I find the more "realistic" US or UK/EU action movies are also very enjoyable, even though they end on a "high", and are more "down to earth"... Dog Soldiers (ends with a bang... literally), 28 Hours/28 Days Later end on a "what if" note...
Hell, even Sunshine... although it ended "successfully", still had a massive down note on it as well...
I guess that this is what happens if you let UK directors in on the action (Resident Evil and P W Anderson films are excluded from this, although they themselves are more "American" orientated films, than typical of UK films).
Edit: I also find it actually very repulsive that a film should have two different endings... especially if one ending is *purely* for the largest market.... i can understand it if the "proper" ending was for the mass market, and then due to other circumstances it was changed for "smaller" regions (normally based on what they allowed to be shown). But the Descent changing its ending is strange as it was more due to "try to make more money" instead of "staying true to its goal" -
An action film (with a female in the lead role) that i enjoyed, was Doomsday
Could also be described as a "British" Mad Max...