Grazel

Wow I need to stop getting distracted by RL. I get pulled away from the game for a couple months and Cuppa Leaves, again and Lighthouse and Ex are gone. I'm sorry folks, you can all use sands of mu on me at the next Hero'Con for causing these disasters.

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Lord of Thieves
Global Contact: @Grazel
Level of Classification: 50 Stalker Energy/Energy
Origin: Technology
Super Rank & Super Group: Headmaster of The Statavus Home for Wayward Boys

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gratz! David always draws stuff great! He's a concept artist for CoH now? sweet!

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Yes, and by the way it was announced I think it might have been a job offer accepted at the con. He had a blue badge like most of us and during the banquet they announced him being a concept artist now and handed him a red badge.

Also I was one of the winners this year (my avatar is an icon of the pic) and here is what he drew for me. I know Ex has asked that all winners send in their pics so she can get them up and hosted by NCSoft in their galleries. This is my character Non-Straight Agenda (a corruptor of course) on Virtue.

Well the booster auras aren't the same as the other auras: they only can go in one spot and they only activate in combat mode.

Also you are paying 10$ for them (plus the emotes, one long recharge power, and some costume pieces).

The SE capes were a small fraction of the cost of the DVD Edition so I can see why people never complained about them since we were already complaining about levelling to 20 just to get ANY capes. That's why they gave us the vet wings and shoulder capes, so we could use them pre-20. Also the wing costume pieces allow 'early' access to wings.

While it'd be nice for the SE capes to be available from level 1 I don't think there's ENOUGH people with them that are upset to have the devs spend time coding in a way to unlock them earlier. Jay has explained (to me in person at least) some of the flaws and headaches in the current costume creator and how adding or change costume options is not a simple matter that people would think it is. It's part of the reason many costume pieces aren't in every subsection we'd think they should be in. I suspect the same mentality that went into the costume creator is the same that's made it feasibly implausible to have powerset color customization.

Things like this are why we end up with new versions of games, you can only modify an existing game engine so far.

So while the SE capes would be nice I don't think we'll see it happen due to 'return on profit' from them compared to possible future sales of the cyborg booster.

heh well I managed to lure one of my friends back into CoH (I think he's finally getting bored of WoW) and got him to sign up for the M&G at PAX as well. He's already working at PAX (WotC/DDI booth).

Signed up

Yeah I work until 6pm on Friday, luckily down at Pioneer Square

Also PAX does go old school: WotC will be there pimping 4e D&D both books and DDI tools.

Honestly the Red Robin isn't too far, it's only 1 mile from the Convention Center. There's a Cheesecake Factory nearby but they say they can only handle up to 25 people for a group and from the sounds that's about half of what we'll likely see. Part of the trick with places near the Convention Center is their price and how they handle large groups (over 10 or so). Not to mention this is gonna be on a Friday night.

Yeah BaBs, even us transplants are nice (okay so that's 80% of Seattle but still :P)

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CoH - Retail x2
CoH - Collectors x2
CoV x2
Pocket D TP/Jump Jet Pack x2
Wedding Pack x2

I don't feel I wasted my money and have no animosity at all about expanding the full game to everyone.

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I paid for the same (CoV Collectors Edition as well) and was curious.

Will those of us who purchased City of Villains and the additional content actually receive some sort of "game" compensation for what have essentially become redundant purchases?

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You have already received the compensation - you already have access to it, and have for some time.

And why would you get compensation for addition content bought? They are not giving access to that away for free.

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Two examples that spring to mind of having paid for exclusive content and having it opened up to general populace are:

Pre-Order Sprints

City of Villains Pre-Order Helmets

and of course paying for the City of Villains expansion to begin with.

Granted, none of these are game-breaking and I won't be canceling my 4 year old account as I love the game.

I'm just wary of CoX releasing expansion packs/promotional material that you purchase and then later making them free - as has been the recent case with EQ2.

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This isn't really recent. The past 2 expansions from EQ2 plus the upcoming one include the previous expansions. The reason EQ2 does this is so much stuff depends on those previous expansions at this point and the only things you got from them really was a level cap raise and some new zones. They realized that by raising the cap again and again they really needed to just unlock the previous expansions for people buying the latest one. The same thing has been done with EQ and FFXI (buying a bundle of 3-4 expansions plus base game later cheaper than buying each expansion as it comes out).

Sorry but its the nature of marketing. I don't see any company worried that the price of their game drops to 10$ a year or two after release when the people who buy it at release pay 50-60$ for it. The price of things will change and what is offered changes. The company is by no way obligated nor should they be to 'compensate' since as pointed out what you get by buying it early is all that extra time to play and especially if you get in on the betas, or play on the test server or are active in the forums that means you also have a chance to shape the development of the game for those who are just getting it. As for the pre-order helmets, new players won't be getting those anytime soon since they're post 4-year vet rewards so likely the only people getting them while it still matters are people who pre-ordered CoV and (like me) only got 1 of the helmets since we didn't buy multiple copies.

Sounds good for the most part, though I'm not familiar with their menu and pricing. It may be out of price range for some considering what others have said and forcing a limited menu seems a bit restrictive (the minimum gratuity makes sense as long as they mean the real minimum of 10-15% and not what some do and do a 25%). Unfortuately I don't know downtown Seattle very well so don't really have any options to offer.

I'll help out in whatever way I can, I work down at Pioneer Square and live in Bellevue so my main methods will be electronic/phone heh.

Hmm well if we're doing 21+ there's a few places in the general area of where PAX is being held. I'll have to look at their event calendars to see what they have going on that weekend.

Heh wut is kind of the theme on this. I probably should pester Ex to see if she's heard any updates on the status of this. Last I'd heard it was 'up to others in charge of budget' but she passed on the info I'd gathered for her to them. I suspect right now she's focusing on the more important October event details.

Well I mean like we had in January down in the Bay Area. We had a 4 hour event for just CoH plus a whole weekend of unofficial events. Another like that is coming up in October down there as well. What Ex had talked about was something more informal and possibly along the lines of a Pocket D dance outside the PAX location.

PAX is a game expo event in Seattle. NCSoft usually has people there and Ex was talking about possibly having a CoH off-site event. Not something of the level of a meet & greet like we had in January but still something. I've not heard from her for a while so not sure if budget got approved for it or not, plus they've been busy working on the event in October that will be of the meet & greet level.

I'll be there, and willing to help organize a CoX meet & greet event in the area as well.

There have been requests for something like this, and it ranged from having the billboards change out every so often to having real ads. I think they might have had a better reaction if they'd been able to put the ads there right from the start since then they wouldn't have to deal with teh bad blood about in-game advertising caused by such mess ups as Anarchy Online and Dungeon Runners. DR was originally just going to have an ad for non-paying customers during hte load screens, then it got out of hand and was poorly monitored and implemented.

NC^2 seems to have planned things out much better. It sounds like they've been working on this for some time, and possibly even as far back as I1. The fact that they emphasize the problems they had finding an ad agency that would work with them to allow them control over the content and making it an opt-out option for the players shows they don't want to shove advertising down our throats. Other than the bad spin that H:L got because of its association with EA, it handled the in-game ads fairly well. They weren't obtrusive, they weren't on load screens, they fit the game theme, and there was no spyware installed. From my research there wasn't any in Battlefield 2142 either, what there was was in-game viewing data that got sent back to the company that did BF and H:L's ads for EA that was used to determine billing to the companies that had ads and to determine which ads were getting the most views. Since this was a seperate connection (and in BF's apparently a seperate proccess as well) it got flagged and seen as suspicious by users as being spyware.

NC^2 has already stated that there is no second proccess and that all ads are controlled by them which means it comes from their servers. If any data is sent off to Double Fusion it'll be datamined from zone loads counting how many times adID X was requested. If you opt-out the client shouldn't be requesting the adIDs since it's not going to display them. What isn't likely to be gathered for data is if you actually see the ad on your screen, just that if you don't opt-out that you loaded a zone and which adIDs were requested at the time.

These are not web-based images so there's no tracking cookies or web beacons. The ads will not be interactive so there's no 'click throughs' like Dungeon Runners. Ad space pricing model will be much more like it would be on a raido station: the advetiser pays for ad space with the assumption there will be viewers, and the datamining done will be to give feedback to NC^2 and Double Fusion about where and when peak ad locations are and how to price for those spaces/times. They could also treat it like a newspaper classified ad where you pay for space used with pricing based around ciruclation. In the case of CoX that would mean how frequently their ad gets cycled into the zones (If they do it right there wouldn't be more than one copy of the ad per zone so you can mix the old ads, other content, and company ads in one zone) with the 'circulation' being number of active accounts that haven't opted out. Just because this game is on the internet doesn't mean the ads are going to be handled like ad banners on web sites.

THe 'starting' comment keeps getting taken out of context. They're talking about the fact that they are starting with static images on billboards (what they have now). If things go well I suspect they will look into adding animated billboards but likely those will be less common and come only as part of patches since they'd be larger files so would be a noticable performance hit if downloaded during zone loads.

They could also put ads in other locations: some NPC models might get logo emblazoned clothing rather than the dull and mon-colored stuff they have now. NPC chatter might mention product names in a random manner like it mentions player achievements currently. Mission maps may get new objects that are actual products, whether a vending machine selling Pepsi, a Dell laptop (like Tabula Rasa has everywhere), or a Xerox label on the existing copiers in the offices. Obviously some of those will require adjusting and possibly special pricing models for the advetisers.

They also aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot by saying "We will only EVER do this" when dealing with the press. They know if they say that and something changes (especially if things go well and they try to expand the ads in some way like I mentioned above) they'll get flamed quite heavily for it.

Unless CoX becomes free to play we'll never see a 'pay to opt out', reduced fees for opting-in, or ads during load screens. ALso by making sure the company they works with supports the opt out option (something most ad agencies wouldn't do as they mention) and that the arrangement (as in legal contract) says they keep creative control and approval for the ads they won't need to cave to advertiser pressure to change things in the game.

If the advetisers are smart we won't just get generic ads that you'd see in magaizines and movies, we'll get ads that are customized for the game world. Ads could and should mention signature characters, groups, and zones. I'd love to see a 'Hanes for Heroes' spandex ad saying that its only available at Icon, for example. Energy drinks would be easily marketed to superheroes. As for redside many things would still apply for marketing though wiht a Recluse slant, plus there are lots of ordinary citizens there as well not just heroes and villains (espcecially when you get out of the slums of Mercy and Grandville).

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someone want to explain the point of telling what issue 12 is about and not releasing it or giving a release date? quick talking about it and get it done! sheesh!

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They've hinted at it: a couple weeks out to closed beta, a couple more weeks to open beta, a couple more to live. Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong at any of those steps. Also by giving general information now they have time to make some internal tweaks based on feedback before it even makes it to closed beta.

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Speaking of Eastgate Bay and the Seaview project, am I the only one who's bothered by the fact that you can't see the Atlantic Ocean from the far east side of the Hollows?

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If you look at th map the Hollows doesn't quite reach the coastline but it is close. The Red River opens into the bay where Striga and Peregrine are shortly after it goes past the Hollows War Wall. Chances are the lab was built somewhat inland from the coast so it'd be inside the war wall.

Sirens Call is another zone that coralax would fit since it is right on the bay and partially outside the war wall on the coastline side.

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And Pax, truth be told, just because someone is on a forum with someone and is a friend of theirs, it doesn't make them a "meat puppet" when they decide to come here to defend that friend. It makes them a good friend.

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The definition of "meat puppet" as an internet colloquialism (at least, in my experience) is "Bob is in an argument online; Bob goes to his friends Mary, Joe, Bill, Susan, and Mike to ask for help ... even though none of them are part of the cummunity where said argument is happening; those five friends join said community and leap into said argument."

You call it "being a good friend", I call it "being a meat puppet": their presence has been requested solely to bolster the perceived popularity of Bob's position in an argument, and that is what a Meat Puppet is.

...

Aha, found a reference for you: Wikipedia's article on internet sock puppetry.

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I do love the itarwebz, I really do. Meat puppet has been so corrupted. It's a cyberpunk term that applies to the 'not jacked in' crowd, especially fighting types (in the Cybrpunk 2020 system the solo class primarily): mercanaries, soldiers, bounty hunters, etc. A meat puppet is also the 'person' behind the cyberpresense, hence meat puppet since most netrunners considered their body secondary to their cyberspace avatar, it was a 'puppet' made of meat. So honestly we're all meat puppets, t least the typists behind the posts.

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So is there anywhere else to encounter Igneous since my last post was pretty much burried by the next 4/5 pages right after I refreshed the page when I submitted my post? >.>

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She did mention the Igneous still being in Grendel's Gulch, and not always buried and clustered so they'll be easier to spot. Also the Caverns area hasn't been changed at all and it is a mix of Igneous, Trolls, and CoT.

As for the 'meat' that everyone wants with the rest of I12:

There's a couple reasons not to do it right now, mostly among them the possibility of change.

From WW's post it sounds like the Hollows is pretty much done and signed off and isn't likely to change at all before closed beta, and unless some major flaw is found probably won't change before I12 goes live.

Powersets are much trickier and more likely to change even before closed beta, just look at the concerns over psi blasters. They don't want to put out a full feature article like WWs on something that is likely still in a very liquid state. They've given us a few powersets already and those are likely the ones that they're confident will make it to live pretty much intact other than some balance tweaking. Other powersets may still be getting worked on and 'subject to change without notice' so they don't want to talk about them yet just to have to change it and create a whole new flood of 'but you told us we'd get X' threads.

I suspect as things hit closed beta status we'll see more 'meat and potatoes' feature information. Level design, mission design, and costumes are less likely to change during the devclpment cycle than powersets, EATs, and other game mechanics items which have more potential for serious flaws to crop up in internal QA. I'm surprised we got as much information about what's in I12 as early as we did. In the past most issue feature lists didn't come out until a week or two before closed beta started and usually were more sketchy than what they've given us.

I suspect much of I12 is stuff that's been in slow development for a while that all just managed to finally get the 'finishing touches' in time for the 'filler' issue that I12 is supposed to be. By the time beta hits on this there may be even more things ready. There might even be stuff for bases that get included that just weren't at a state at the time of the initial feature annoucnement where it was certain they'd be ready in time.

I'd love to know what new powersets are coming even though right now I'm not making any alts as I have too many that never get played as is right now and I'm focusing on getting a villain to 50. But I'd rather wait and get an accurate list of powersets (and the powers within them to fit the new AT they're on) than a vague list that ends up with gaps and major changes between what they tell us and what goes live.

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Woot! This is gonna rock... One question- How the heck did Coralax get into the Red River, and why? I hope we get background-missions.

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Well the Red River goes from the bay just outside of Talos Island (a bit NW of the NW corner of the zone) and into the Hollows. This is near to PI and from what I understand the Rogue Isles are N/NW of PI with Mercy Island being the closest to Paragon City (hence why escapees from the Zig are dropped off there). The lower level coralax from the Rogue Isles could easily have swum down to the delta for the Red River and followed the river up into the Hollows area. The rest of the coastline along that area isn't in a zone or is part of Talos Island and the more powerful DE along the coastline would wipe out the coralax that came over. Maybe in time we'll see higher level coralax take over some of the coastline of PI, Striga, or Talos.