Goliath Bird Eater
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:There are options to automatically exit the launcher once you launch a game and to disable it opening at startup. Both options work just fine.Originally Posted by Casual_Player
I honestly don't care how much faster the new loader works. What I care about is how much memory it eats and if it tries to stay resident on the system after it's done. Basically, how much damage to my system am I being expected to endure in the name of NCSoft's marketing department?
/edit- the timing of posts makes it look like I'm being snarky to Spacenut, but I'm not. I'm being snarky to what I've heard about the new loader.
It's nowhere NEAR as painful an experience as some of you think it's going to be. -
Quote:Cool. I can always watch giant monsters duking it out.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Mark my words: in Issue 21 the Praetorian Hamidon is going to invade Primal Earth and take on our Hamidon.
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Quote:Just look around the forums; seems that lately, people wanna b**** about anything and everything. Particularly things that don't really warrant being b****ed about.Originally Posted by TonyV
What's the big deal? I downloaded the launcher today and ran it, and it worked fine. It costs you one extra click on the login screen, but it saves you a click on the loader utility. Plus, if I recall correctly, the loader better handles downloading and installing updates. And if you have other NCsoft games, you launch them all from the same utility. It seems to me that these are all good things, not bad. (Well, except the number of clicks, which comes out in the wash.)
One feature I'd like to see them add is a context menu on the system tray icon that would let you launch a game directly from the icon. Right now, it just has Open and Exit. It should also have City of Heroes, City of Heroes Test, and any other NCsoft games you have installed, so that you don't even have to hit the launcher icon to play. -
Quote:Do you really think that after all the work went into Praetoria - and a lot of work did go into it - that it was just going to be a "side issue" or a "neat alternative"? By the time your first Praetorian character finishes their initial time there, you should know that it's just the start of something bigger. It's funny how when Praetoria was first introduced, people were clamoring for the story to continue. Now that the story picks up again, people are clamoring for it to stop.Originally Posted by Calibre
*shrug*
This Praetorian stuff seemed really fun when it was first announced: choosing sides, the forum games with our logos and all. At that point, the Praetorian storyline seemed like a 'side issue'---I felt it was a neat alternative to the Primal setting--not 'required', by any means. But that's changing, isn't it? Now, it's the way things are, they way they are going to be. And, once again, all our own stories, powers, themes and the like are swept away IF we choose to advance these things further, beyond the core game.
This game has a meta-story. It always has. Alongside all the little storyarcs we play through, there runs a larger narrative. In the comic book tradition, that narrative changes and evolves over time, but it's still there. And right now, the meta-story is about Emperor Marcus Cole somehow being chosen as the champion of the Well of the Furies and starting a campaign of multidimensional conquest, beginning with our dimension and our planet. And the threat presented by him and his army is so great that even Arachnos and the time-travelling Menders have both decided to intervene (albeit each for their own reason).
This isn't "sweeping away" anything as you suggest, unless you specifically mean canonical story elements that you personally choose to ignore because it doesn't fit within "your" paradigm. In which case ... I hate to break it to you, but outside of the Mission Architect, the writers at Paragon Studios have final say. This is their world, and we're all just playing in it. -
Quote:Hey, I never said I was fond of it either; just that a point can be made that the choice of Praetorian NPCs wasn't arbitrary or simply a case of wanting to cram the new shinies into as many places as possible.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Honestly, the more I think about it, the less I like the entire premise.
My main concern is that once we take down Cole in-story, what are the odds that the Lore slot will change to reflect that? If I'm able to tap into a greater amount of the Well's power than previously, and the Well's champion has been defeated (presumably by me), then one would think that I'd be able to shape the Well's power into something other than Praetorian NPCs. Unfortunately, I don't see the available NPC choices ever changing as that would really suck for players who've put a lot of time and effort into crafting their way up the Lore tree. And something tells me there won't be a second slot later on that gives pets.
Still, I'd rather go with the current choice that CAN be backed up by the story and keep development on schedule than pull the slot while the devs divert extra resources and try in vain to satisfy players who've presented no alternatives other than "No Praetorians" and "Fully customizable". -
Quote:Only if your game is a sandbox. If your game has a story, then progression of that story and integration of player actions into that story are of paramount importance. Sometimes, this means that players cannot always do or get what they want.Originally Posted by TheJazMan
There is NO NEED for the story to trump player choice.
And no, the customer isn't always right, either.
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Quote:There actually IS a reason why the Incarnate pets are Praetorians. But it's more implied than outright stated, which very well could be counted as an error in judgment on the part of the story folks at PS:Originally Posted by Genesis Man
For me, it's entirely because they're Praetorian NPCs. Granted, we don't know how the pets are going to be worked into the Incarnate lore... but as it stands, ONLY Praetorian pets makes NO sense. It's also very strange that when it's been explicitly stated over and over that costumes/auras/powersets are designed to cover as wide a range of concepts as possible, the DEVs would then choose to lock ALL Incarnate players into one very narrow concept. Yes, the entire Incarnate system is narrow-ish (all stemming from the Well), but can at least be applied to any given character.
What exactly will my ancient sorcerer, enhanced Lich or death god call on for a pet... that makes any sense at all to lolRP? Sure, no NPC concept is going to cover everything, but the "broad themes" designs used for costumes and powers really should be coming into play in the Incarnate system as well.
Praetorians. Are. Narrow.
The Well of the Furies has chosen Emperor Marcus Cole as its champion. Everything related to him and Praetoria has been granted additional power by the Well. The Well is focused on helping Cole to succeed in his plans of multiversal domination. Now, those characters who have begun their path as Incarnates also tap into part of the Well, albeit a much smaller part. Between the Well favoring Emperor Cole and the fact that our Incarnate characters are also entwined with Cole and Praetoria (what with having to hold off an invasion while engaging in counter-attacks), it does kinda make sense that if we were to try and focus the Well's power into beings, that those beings would likely take the form of the Praetorian enemies we've been fighting and whom are under the command of Emperor Cole.
Like I said, I don't think this is explicitly stated anywhere. But it's by no means a stretch, and would explain why an Eldritch mage can't summon forth a dragon, a ninja can't summon forth a bunch of tengu, or why VEATs can't summon forth Arachnos troops.
This is just one of those unfortunate cases where story trumps player choice. -
Quote:Sure, if you want to delay the Lore slot for God-knows however long it'll take to implement that. If those features weren't difficult to properly implement, don't you think Masterminds would've already had them?Originally Posted by Heartbreaker
Yes. I'd rather see something that gives us at the very least different skin options to choose from on these pets, if not full-fledged customization.
You can't just cut and paste part of one system (for example: the character creator or custom critter interface found in the MA) into another system (say, Mastermind pets) and expect everything to jibe. Hell, the devs tried to get MM pet customization going back when they were putting power customization together and couldn't get it to work right.
Sadly, I think the Lore pets issue really isn't about them being Praetorian NPCs as much as it is players expecting - DEMANDING, in some cases - far too much without realizing the work that must be put into things, or the limitations that the developers might face when attempting to do certain things. As I pointed out earlier, even if the devs were to change the Lore pets into something else, what would they change them into? Would it even be possible for them to come up with a group alternatives that satisfied a large portion of the playerbase without having to make substantial changes to the Incarnate UI, and maybe the entire Incarnate system as a whole? And if not, would it be worth it in terms of time and developer resources to put other things on hold for however long it would take to make these changes to one Incarnate slot? -
No, because it would be futile to try and change the pets.
Don't want Praetorian pets? Well, what should they be then? You'll get a ton of different answers for this one; how are the devs to determine which 4 enemy groups make the cut? People will still complain if their desired NPC group isn't in there.
What's that? Expand the Lore slot so that there are more than 4 choices? Sure! How many do you want? 8? 12? 24? Nevermind the fact that the Incarnate interface may not be capable of handling any more than 4 path choices per slot. Also, if it Is possible to expand upon the number of path choices in the Lore slot, why not expand upon the path choices for ALL slots? Judgement only has fire, ice, energy, and negative energy attacks; where are the psionic, smashing, lethal, and toxic choices? I'm sure it wouldn't take up MUCH development time and resources ...
Also, from what I understand based on the European Lambda preview, slots are gradually unlocked by earning "Incarnate XP" during trials, and that there are multiple types of this XP. Well, what if BAF grants a certain type of Incarnate XP, and Lambda grants a different type? What if delaying the Lore slot means that players CAN'T earn one of the specific types of Incarnate XP? Is that fair to those who have no real problems with the Lore slot?
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Delaying one slot in order to make changes which are vague and undefined beyond "No Praetorians!" is NOT, in my opinion, worth pulling the art, powers, animation, and programming teams from whatever else they're working on (baring in mind that our development team usually works well ahead of what we see on our end), because all those teams would need to be involved on some level. I'm not the biggest fan of all the Lore pets being Praetorian NPCs either. But it's not intolerable, and I'm certainly not going to suggest that the devs break their schedule in order to accommodate nebulous player demands based solely upon aesthetic issues. -
Quote:I disagree.Originally Posted by je_saist
The bottom line is that Lifetime subscriptions are a BAD FINANCIAL IDEA for any MMO game. If you see any game, and I do mean ANY GAME offering a life-time subscription.
A lifetime subscription offer can be a good source of additional income at the start of an MMO's lifespan. The catch is that there must also be sufficient regular subscriptions to maintain operating costs and pay for further development once the initial boost of cash provided by the lifetime subscriptions runs out, as most lifetime subscription prices only average out to a year or so of regular monthly subscription fees. That is where the problems usually start.
As for CoH offering a lifetime subscription? At this point in the game's lifespan, I'd be very wary of such an offer. A 7-year-old game that suddenly gives its players the chance to pay for roughly a year's subscription and then never pay again smells like a game that isn't going to last far beyond that year. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Puppycrusader
Tri-lams.
The nerds had their revenge. Now it's time for the cools to pay back.
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Been here since CoH open beta.
Never had Hasten on any of my characters. Never once been told that I wasn't pulling my weight because I didn't have Hasten.
Your mileage may vary, but in my experience, Hasten is NOT a must-have power. Does such a thing even exist in this game? -
To offer a counterpoint, I'd like to state that I got my second Notice of the Well on a PuG Barracuda where we had no MMs or Defenders, and had no effective way of neutralizing the ambushes other than just fighting through every last one of them at the entrance to the final room so as to not also have to deal with Reichsman.
Reichsman himself was a very long,very arduous battle. It took an Envenomed Dagger, a Vanguard Heavy, and 3 Snowbeasts to keep his regen and recharge low enough that we wouldn't lose all the headway we'd made before each time he used his Unbreakable power. But we did do it. And 3 out of the 7 on the team had never run the BSF before. So, while it can be exceedingly difficult for some teams and indeed impossible for some teams, it's NOT absolutely impossible if you don't have all the temp powers at your disposal. -
If you're playing on a free trial, there should be an option to upgrade to a full version on the character select screen. If you choose to upgrade, it'll take you to the NCStore website where you can digitally purchase one of several versions of the game (Going Rogue is the most recent and complete version). Once purchased, you should be given the option of applying the serial code for the game to your PlayNC master account; having never upgraded from a trial version myself, I'm assuming that you had to make one as part of the trial process. Once the code is applied, you should be able to play the game as normal. Just be sure that you're purchasing the proper game client for the servers you want to play on, either North American or European.
If you've already purchased the full game and are playing, you should have a 30-day free period. Still, you need to long into your plaync master account and set up a subscription option to continue playing after that period is up. Major credit cards and Paypal are direct payment options, and you can also purchase NCSoft 30-day time cards and apply the serial codes found on them. Assuming that they're available in your area. -
Quote:Strike Pack is like a weird abbreviation of "Strike Package":Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
Yeah...
I just mentally change the 'P' to a 'B'.
I mean, I get the meaning behind it but honestly I like the sound of
Strike Back more and it's less confusing.
Quote:Originally Posted by WikipediaA strike package is a group of aircraft with different capabilities that are launched together to perform a single attack mission. The US Navy refers to the same concept as an alpha strike.THEY didn't give it to us. They gave us the "Weekly Strike Target" (WST), likely to avoid using that particular abbreviation. WE are the ones who began using "WTF" to describe it.Quote:Gotta wonder what they were thinking when they gave us the WTF acronym as well... -
Quote:Yes.Originally Posted by NickRauseo
Do I have to pay to play after I've purchased the game?
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When talking about Praetoria and morality, why doesn't everyone just do the smart thing and ignore everything GG has to say? She has a very naive, black-and-white view of what constitutes "good" and "evil". For her, there are no shades of gray. Well, not when it comes to "evil" at least. Plot to blow up a hospital, killing untold number of innocent civilians in order to somehow make the safe and happy populace turn against the tyrannical leader? YAY! YOU'RE STILL A HERO! BOOM, BABY BOOM! Hunt down the terrorist organization which threatens the safety of the people and threatens the stability of mankind's best bet for survival in a post-apocalyptic world where there are quite literally monsters at the gate? BOO! YOU'RE STILL A VILLAIN EVEN IF YOUR CONCERN IS MORE FOR THE INNOCENT PEOPLE WITHIN PRAETORIA'S SONIC FENCES THAN IT IS SERVING THE EMPEROR!
Seriously, people. Just act as if she doesn't exist in these sort of threads. If you don't it just drags these threads down into the muck. -
Also, if you actually look at the numbers on the chart, CoH has almost always been somewhere between 5500 and 7000 of what I assume to be millions of Won. There was a HUGE spike for CoV, but it's otherwise been fairly stable. The gradual downslide throughout 2009 and 2010 matches up fairly well with the global economy going in the tank and the US dollar losing strength.
Sales of the Going Rogue expansion provided a healthy boost for the 3rd quarter of 2010, but the drop back down in the 4th quarter suggests that GR didn't really attract substantial numbers of new players. While disappointing, it really wasn't unexpected as any MMO this old NOT named World of Warcraft usually rely on retention of existing playerbase as opposed to influx of new players. Thankfully, CoH has always had a fairly low churn rate.
It's still a little too early to be calling DOOM on CoH. We really need to see what kind of pattern the 2011 numbers start falling into. -
Quote:Our devs have a history of starting out at the extreme and dialing it back to more reasonable levels based upon feedback and datamining.Originally Posted by Starjammer
True. However, the numbers we've got now are the numbers they chose to start with, so they must see some merit in them. Giving feedback on some imaginary and as-yet hypothetical set of future numbers would be meaningless, as you yourself have pointed out many a time.
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The 10-second defeat window for Nightstar and Siege should be fairly manageable, as Necro said. It's really all a matter of knowing when to attack which AV and when to hold back. If it's set up so the two can be brought next to each other, sufficient AoE damage would also help in keeping their HP levels close enough so one can be dropped very quickly after the other.
But then, I don't see people completing this trial on their first attempt. Based on the literature we've seen, I've got a feeling that these trials are gonna be TOUGH.
Quote:Very nice. Yeah, within 10 seconds of each other shouldn't be too hard after a few runs.Originally Posted by PositronSince the UI shows both Siege and Nightstar's health bars (and you can click either health bar to immediately target them), coordinating the "10 seconds" shouldn't be a monumental task. Difficult? Possibly, but by no means impossible. -
I like the cut of yer' jib.
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Welcome aboard, Zwillinger!
I know most will recognize you from the "Bridget Jones' Diary" films, but I remember seeing you in a little film called "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation", and I thought you did an admirable job in what was an otherwise bland rehash of a series that really should've ended after it sent itself up in the first sequel. I wish I could say I'm familiar with more of your work, but you tend to do that thing with your face where it looks like you've just eaten a dozen lemons and ...
... What?
... "Zwillinger". Not "Zellweger".
Huh.
Well, don't I look like a fool.
Welcome aboard, Zwillinger! Always great to see a new face added to the team. Especially if they were players before they were employees!
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Quote:Not a complaint that Tankers aren't powerful enough, but it's a complaint about Tankers nonetheless.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
That's all well and good, but first I'd like the devs to look into why those powers go unclicked.
For example, my Unstoppable gathers dust not because there haven't been situations that may call for a Tier 9, but because I think it's a poor power, is designed in such a way that makes people not want to use it and is a joke compared to One with the Shield and Strength of Will. It's a 3 minute delayed suicide button on a long recharge that doesn't help cover the holes in the set it belongs to and frankly is more trouble than its worth.
Another example: I don't use Hand Clap because it's completely counter-intuitive to damage dealing, surviving or tanking. It serves no useful purpose and creating an artificial need for such a power would only anger and annoy me, rather than make me want to use it.
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*Takes a drink* -
Quote:So we're gonna have an honest-to-goodness raid UI now? Neat!Originally Posted by Second Measure
In addition to the Turnstile, we have also added something we are calling “Leagues.” A League is a team of teams—up to six teams in a League, for a total of forty-eight players, and everyone in the Incarnate Trial is automatically added to the League for the duration of the Trial. There is a new UI to help track all these people, and you can do things like choose certain people to focus on--to watch them in a separate pane--so you can keep track of the health of the Tanks and Brutes, for example. We’re pretty excited about this, and in the coming months we will reveal some more details on how you can use Leagues for things like Hamidon fights as well.
Ooooooooooooh!Quote:Originally Posted by Second Measure
And we are about to give you a preview of one of the Incarnate Trials: you’ll be able to experience the Behavioral Adjustment Facility, the Turnstile, and Leagues. Keep your eyes peeled for a Very Special Announcement.
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Quote:BAH!Originally Posted by Hazmatter
It's plain to see -- that video was little more than pro-Picard propaganda. Of the two, Kirk, is clearly superior.
That said, they both pale in comparison to one Captain Benjamin Lafayette Sisko.
