Garielle

I think part of the issue with new Mastermind primaries is partially due to the amount of work involved, as the OP suggested, but is also a matter of return on investment.

If they create a new ranged set (like Beam Rifles), that set can be used as primaries for several ATs, as well as Secondaries for others. If they create new melee set (like Street Justice), the same thing applies.

For Mastermind primaries though, that is not the case. The only current AT who will ever be able to use that set is the Mastermind AT. This means, not only are they doing more work to design the set, but they are going to get less use out of it.

Still, since their inception, Masterminds have not really been neglected. They may not have quite the diversity of some other ATs, but they have indeed seen new primaries come their way, despite the low RoI.

I think it is feasible that perhaps, at some point, some of the pets or pet types introduced as Lore Pets may see weaker versions created as Mastermind Primary sets, which would, indeed, be a cool idea. It would reduce the amount of work involved, and would provide good symmetry when the Mastermind became Incarnate.

Just got power back. Lost it for two days. Enough to certainly be disruptive, but at least it wasn't eight days like last time. I did miss the new Doctor Who, and of course, since there was no power, no catching on the DVR either, still I was actually pleasantly surprised when it came on just a little while ago. Now to go take that hot shower I am longing for.

With Irene coming in, I decided to drop by the bookstore and pick up another book, just in case I find myself without power for an extended period of time. I decided to go with some classic sci-fi, William Gibson's Neuromancer.

I am just under 40 miles from the epicenter of this week's quake in Virginia. I, of course, felt the initial quake and felt a couple of the aftershocks. It's perhaps a little unsettling, but not particularly terrifying. Of course, the quake itself was only 5.8 and the largest aftershock, so far, was a 4.5, so while they are significant for this area of the country, they are my no means major quakes in relation to other global, or even National, quakes.

Hurricanes.. I have been through a few, so they don't really scare me anymore either. The last one that followed the predicted path of Irene, though, left me without power for 8 days. No internet or television for EIGHT DAYS!?!?! Now THAT scares the bajeebies outta me! Especially with the launch of Freedom possibly being right around the corner.

Oh, and my idea...and yes...I am aware it has been suggested over and over and over again at least a million times. Guess this will make a million and one...

Provide some way to send SG invites through in-game mail or some other method of inviting people who are not online, particularly your own alts.

Barring that, the ability to at least promote/demote people who are not online would be a step in the right direction.

Okay, I was waiting to see if this topic had any level of interest from anyone else before I bothered to post my own ideas. Some pretty great ideas expressed in the thread already, IMHO, so the time has come for me to add one of my own. It may well get me verbally abused, but so be it.

One of the most creative and bold features ever introduced into a game was the Mission Architect system. I know that some people hate the way it is used, but the idea was a good one. The system was conceived as a way to allow the community to design their own stories for other community members to play. A really great idea, especially for the more creative among us, but the implementation of it made it a haven for farmers and powerleveller and really took away from the story telling aspect of it.

So the question then is how to implement something like this and not have it be a farming/powerlevelling machine. Well, what makes it so appealing for these purposes? It's easy. You never leave the building. You speak to the contact, you click the portal right behind the contact. You run the mission, exit. Walk 10 yards to a terminal, reset it, rinse, and repeat. What could be easier?

So, to eliminate that, you take away the AE building. Yeah, I know. Sorry Doc Aeon, but it's gotta go. Instead you have a place or interface for people to create the stories and use actual contacts and doors in the zones. Arcs could be written to be intrazone (all missions within the same zone as the contact) or to cross multiple zones, just like actual arcs. The number of zones could have an impact on the reward issued for completing the arc.

For those authors who wanted to create their own contacts, this would be possible to. Have some of the existing blank template contacts (just one or two) in each zone. The technology is already there to make them invisible to anyone who is not running an arc that uses that contact location, so it would not detract from the game.

As an added bonus, the "Devs Choice" arcs could them be seamlessly integrated directly into the game, indistinguishable from a normal story arc. Since these arcs already give "normal" rewards instead of tickets, there would be no way the player would even know the difference.

Sure, someone could still make a single mission arc, within a single zone, designed for farming, but with the rewards relying partially on the number of zones used by the arc, they would be gimping their rewards from the start. As a backup, they could always add the dreaded diminishing returns for repeating the same arc within 20 hours.

Just a thought.

A few things to help you make your decision.

1. For the Most Part, Just the Atlas Park Missions Are Changing.
   
   This means, that past about level 10, for the most part you will be repeating the same missions you are already familiar with. Since your friends are coming in new, that won't make a difference to them, but it may make a difference to you.
   
   
2. If You Start In Praetoria, You Can Not Create Or Join a Supergroup Until Get To Primal Earth
   
   Praetorians don't have access to Supergroups. Likely, it is because Cole doesn't want to create a means for people to band together and rise up against him. He already has the resistance to deal with in that regard, and wants to prevent new groups from popping up to oppose his righteous and benevolent rule.
   
   
3. More Fresh Content In Praetoria
   
   Again, this is not so much an issue with your friends, but may be an issue with you. If you would like a fresh experience, you may want to go the Praetorian route since you haven't experienced it yet. At the same time, this may dampen your ability to answer some questions like, "Where do I go to sell this stuff?" or "Where's the nearest trainer?" that your friends may have. Of course, that's what the map is for, so you can look like a genius to your friends.

Many of us have been around the CoX community since launch, or almost since launch. We know that there are many things that the game has done right, and some that... could have been done better. We have also seen some ideas that were difficult or impossible to implement efficiently because of limitations of the game engine itself.

Pretend for a moment you are sitting around a table with Second Measure, Positron, War Witch, Noble Savage, and a collection of other developers and producers of the game, brainstorming about ideas for CoH2. You have the unique opportunity to provide your input into how the game is designed. Current limitations to the game are not an issue because this would be all new code, rewritten from the ground up.

What ideas would you bring to the table?

A few ground rules...

• Your Ideas Should Be Constructive, not Destructive. Don't just say "Take out Such And Such. It Suxxorz!" Instead say how you would do it differently.
• If Responding To Someone Else's Idea, Resist The Urge to Tear It Down, and Instead Try to Improve Upon It.
• The Whole Point Here is To Have Fun, So Try To Keep The Personal Jabs to A Minimum
• This Post Is Not Meant To Imply Or Discuss Whether Or Not There Will Ever Be A CoH2. We All Have Our Opinions On That Possibility, Some Based on Eveidence, Some On Instinct, All Are Pure Speculation, So Leave It At That.

Yep. Just need to train to level 50. If you are Resistance at the time you will get a message from a new contact. If you are a Loyalist, you will be contacted by Provost Marchand.

You will then be given a mission instructing you to go through the portal to Primal Earth.

Some of the posts here (particularly the calendar) remind me of one of the numerous reasons I am glad I am on FIOS now instead of my old ISP. I was in the midst of updating some stuff on a remote webserver. Yes, I DID own (or at least lease) the remote server. I wasn't trying to hack someone silly. Anyway, that's not the point...back to what I was saying...

Anyway, I am updating this web server content. Trying to get it done so I can get to bed and wake up for work in the morning and tell the boss it's all taken care of. BAM! No internet. So I call my ISP to report an outage. After sitting on the phone for 20 minutes or so waiting, I finally get to talk to someone. The conversation went something like this....

Moron: Thank you for calling Crappy Cable, how can I assist you this evening?
Me: Yes, I would like to report an outage.
Moron: Hold on one moment. Can you give your last name, phone number, location, blood type, social security number, mother's maiden name, name of your first pet, the name of the school you first attended, and a promise of the soul of your first born child?
Me: Done!
Moron: Oh, I see that there is scheduled maintenance in your area.
Me: Scheduled? Well, how come you don't notify your customers of these "scheduled" maintenance times? You know.. the people like me.. the ones who PAY you?
Moron: Oh, well sometimes we schedule them like 15 minutes before we shut everything down, so we don't have time.
Me: 15 minutes!?!?!?
Moron: Well, sometimes it's more like 5.
Me: FIVE MINUTES!?!?!?!
Moron: No, seconds.
Me: (( Click ))

I kid you not.

This is NOT a bust on NC Soft or Paragon Studios at all. I know tonight's maintenance was an emergency thing and not scheduled. This morning's was scheduled, and they did actually announce it yesterday.

There IS actually a purpose I can see to the hospital timer. Let's say you're having a particularly bad run. People are dropping, hitting the hospital, and running back out. The timer ensures that if the situation is REALLY bad, you at least aren't charging out one at a time, and getting picked off and sent back. Admittedly, this is something that, yes, players should be able to figure out and coordinate on their own, but hey... you know as well as I do, not everyone on a team is all that bright.

Okay, I may need to run and hide after saying this, because I know it's a cult classic. However, it is not a cult classic because it's a "great" movie. It's actually a really really really bad movie. What makes it so classic is the audience, not the movie....

Rocky Horror Picture Show


Tim Curry + Susan Sarandon + Meatloaf + Barry Bostwick + Charles Gray

How this movie made more than a handful of DVD sales is, honestly, beyond me. Like I said, the only "fun" is not in sitting down and watching this movie, it is watching it with a bunch of people who are just as crazy as you are. I mean, sure, you can always throw a RHPS party, but who really wants to clean up after THAT?

Just moments ago, I felt another quake here in Virginia. Just checked the USGS Website and the preliminary reading is a 4.5.

It should also be noted that the only time you really need to "pay" to use Teamspeak or Ventrillo is, like Mumble, if you require server hosting. If you have the bandwidth and processing power to run a small server yourself, you can do that for free.

As far as finding a free server, you probably won't have much luck. There's no upside to a company giving you free badwidth and processor time on their servers unless it is some sort of Value Added server to some other hosting arrangement. In this case, they aren't really giving you the service for free, they are simply including in the cost of your hosting, whether you actually use it or not.