Greyhawke

I'll chime in again to note that while I will never use this as it is, if they had an option to purchase the ability to change my primary and/or secondary powerset, it would be quite tempting in a couple of cases, especially if there were no in-game possibility of doing so.

As to the purchasing of influence/infamy direct from NCSoft, I know it was mentioned tongue in cheek but it did make me wonder if I would buy. My first reaction is of course not, but then I thought it might depend on how much. If they did offer 1 billion, would I buy to trick out a character with IOs from the market? Of course if they did this market prices would inflate through the roof... but then I would also think they would undercut the RMT spammers so bad that they would essentially be out of business and quit filling my email with junk... Anyway, just some thoughts.

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How would the timing of an inspiration help?

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The inspiration would allow it to be used when you needed it, rather than crafting it and potentially wasting it. It would also give you a finite amount to be able to carry, and force a choice of what resources to give up in order to put it in the tray. Being an inspiration instead of a temp power would also allow you to craft and sell and/or store them, which would in turn bring more value to base salvage. Its a trade off, certainly, but I for one would be way more likely to put them to use in this format.

The duration I am not sure about. I would personally still craft and use 'Empowerment Inspirations" for even a five minute duration, but others might not appreciate such a drastic change from their current duration.

I'll try to check my work computer for this tomorrow, to see if I have any of that data remaining. Didn't someone also have it compiled in a spreadsheet somewhere with other data? Maybe on a googledoc?

Finally, a pay option I can resist

I do hope there is some money to be made here, as that can only help, so kudos to those willing to put some green behind this. However, just wanted to note that even though I take most every opportunity to give CoH my money, this one is not at all tempting

Still, I will agree that having the option is nice, and opens the way to other things being able to take advantage of micro transactions.

What would be interesting to me is to change them to inspirations with the same effects, though perhaps in this case reduce them back to a 15 minute duration, or honestly maybe even 10 or 5, since you could activate them when you wish. This would also let you to store them, in the inspiration bins, and trade them to your comrades as needed, heck even sell them on the market. This might also warrant increasing the components needed to make them, or perhaps not with the decreased duration.

I would like to see numbers on how often these are currently used. I would also like to see a breakdown of how often they are used in PvE and in PvP, though that might be difficult to discern through datamining. I think making them into inspirations would definitely increase their use in PvE dramatically.

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We'd love to have some great options to put in front of the dev team (from Community) for use in optional in-game advertisements. If anyone else out there reading has some ideas or images they would like to share, we'd love to hear and see them!

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Is the team also looking at doing public service ads? Such as anti-drug use, etc.?

What worries me, given the current issues with slots disappearing when the store server is down, is that at a later time I will delete a character made on one of these two slots, and instead of freeing up the slot for use, it will just disappear for good.

I am hoping this is just a misunderstanding, and the free slots will always be there if you logged in between issue 12 and the time they pull the offer. If not, I expect things will be chaotic.

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Seems hover/flight needs re-re-tweaking. Flew into the train and upon exiting the train in a new zone Cerebrawl is vibrating like he's having siezures.

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Flight or Hover on?

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Had this issue on my crab spider many times on the ferry, using flight as she doesn't have hover

Awesome news FBK ! Gratz !!

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And it's the end of the month...what contest are they talking about? Did I miss an Announcement?

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We haven't announced it yet.

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Hmmm....

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MMOABC: Are you guys planning to do any City of Heroes contest events in the next coming weeks or months?
We have a really cool contest (with huge prizes) kicking off at the end of this month but unfortunately I can’t tell you about it yet…so stay tuned! We also have lots of player run contests and events over the coming months.

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So tomorrow you will?

I think some objects need to be flagged 'walkable' the same as some objects are flagged to allow items to be stacked on them. If the object is flagged as walkable, then pathing can go over them, as long as the height between them and any adjoining wlakable areas is four feet or less, something like that.

I think pathing currently ignores floor height completely. It just sees a floor, and knows it can move through whether that floor is at 0', 4', or 8'.

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If the system could draw a line from the porter to the door *over* that walkway, isntead of thinking it had to go around, then that solves your problem

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Aye, it would, and I think such pathing logic would fix 99% of the issues with pathing as it relates to inerfering with decorative placments. In almost all cases, base builders are not trying to block something on purpose, especially when it comes to items you interact with. We just have a different perspective of when something is blocked than the editor does.

Eh, what the heck. A couple of quick pics

View 1

Here is the red zone porter room. I really prefer the beacons under the porters, its so much easier from an end user perspective. Unfortunately we all know that requries double height floors to make them fit. So I went with a floating stair, adding a bookshelf walkway to make it all look nice. Unfortunately, due to pathing issues I cannot make the walkway connect A to B. So I had to use stairs down and stairs back up. Not nearly as asthetically pleasing, but functional. It is kind of funny, in a way, that the pathing settings are actually keeping me from making a certain spot MORE accessible

So, its irritating, and a little frustrating, not to be able to realize the potential here. But is it 'important'? *shrug* I guess that's a matter of perspective. Speaking of, here's another view from the porter side

View 2

Notice where the red box is versus the blue box. Although I can place the shelf in the blue box, I cannot complete the path all the way across because eventually the path to the other porter is seen as blocked.

It would be nice to be able to connect to point C as well.

I've also tried similar things, with a blue-ish floor representing water and trying to make a bridge through. I am sure the more creative types can post better examples, but hopefully this is at least a little bit helpful.

Just to be clear, all clickable objects must have a traceable route back to the entry portal, right?

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There is no distinction. There is only one type of pathing. The fact that items are called "Raidable" is obscuring the issues.

I guess if you wanted to nitpick 2 types of pathing, you could separate out doorway-to-doorway and doorway-to-object.

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This is probably one of the more confusing things when you get the red box, determining just exactly what it is you are blocking. I think I have more issues from a design standpoint from the door to door pathing than the door to object pathing. I think this is in part because the editor seems to need a much broader path than an actual avatar, and it is not at all flexible when tracing a path through a doorway. There are only a couple of valid paths through a doorway, despite the fact that its wide enough for many more.

Its also not as intuitive as you might like it to be. If I place a desk in the way, it doesn't block access, but it does block pathing. Players can leap over three desks, but the path route must be on the ground. Take a doorway where the floor is at max height, then drop the floor inside the room one level. Try to line desks up in the doorway. From a player standpoint, this should work, as you can walk on the desks. I understand why the pathing system cannot work through this, but I hate being limited by it.

Unfortunately not able to do actual pictures at the moment. I'll try to find something representative later tonight or tomorrow morning. However, for me at least, its not disastrous or anthing, just irritating when you are trying to have it look just so, and you know you could have the look you want and still not truly be blocking, if the editor could only see it too.

I would like to see more trophies. Specifically, I would like to see trophy salvage drops from various mobs that could be exchanged/crafted into trophies that could be displayed in your base or apartment ( ). Generic trophies like 'tsoo dagger' or 'carnival mask' could drop from normal mobs randomly, and named mobs could drop very specific items "Baphomet Claw" or "Babbage Spindle"

Also, add trophy salvage drops to every story arc with souveniers. Make the trophy match the souvenier. Would also be nice if players could get these retroactively. Trophy salvage inventory should be much larger than invention salvage, if limited at all.

A question for the panel. Is it even necessary to have non-raid pathing limitations?

If you assume their will not be any base raids, and you assume there will not be any AI controlled mobs in our bases, aren't players resourceful enough to determine their own pathing limits? If I build a base, then block the doors of a room so no one can use it, won't I notice this fairly soon, or get that 3am call from my SG mate who would like to use the teleport to the RWZ but can't because I put my latest dinosaur trophy in the way. Even now I check out my base for function after I place items, because often what looks ok in the editor from an isometric view looks different when you are walking around normally.

Now, taking that a step further into raids. What if they allowed you to place an object anywhere, but alerted you when you were placing it in a raid-path. You could still place it with a confirmation of the warning, however if you did so the object would be flagged as blocking. All objects flagged for blocking would become destructible in a raid situation, with only 1 health. If you wanted to accept that consequence, go for it.

Combine that with the suggestion above to visibly show the raid pathing and I think we could meet all needs.

This whole pathing thing is... a bit ambiguous. What I would LOVE to see in the editor is a toggle to show the lines that are being used to determine pathing. Maybe color the lines different for raid pathing and normal pathing to really add some clarity. But even with them both the same color, we could get some real use out of seeing the pathing logic. This may even be something that could be done between issues.

What if you removed all XP gain from SG missions and doubled all prestige gain. I'd like to see something like that whether they used the invasion/GM code for mobs on the missions or not. Certainly would eliminate issues with using the mission to power level at least.

As for the missions themselves, I would like something more involved than the newspaper missions, but those would do for a starting point. I would really like the SG leader involved in assigning missions to the mission computer and/or specific team leaders, with several missions piecing together clues that would lead to larger missions, depending on which missions were completed. For example, the SG leader has a pool of 12 missions to choose from, 5 of which may be assigned to the mission computer. Depending on which missions are chosen, and the results of those missions (it should be possible to fail them, or only partially succeed) different choices can occur for the next series of missions, perhaps opening a tier 2 set of missions that have six choices, three of which can be assigned, and then once those are complete it leads you down to the tier 3 mission, the big finish.

Admittedly, that gets a bit involved, but with the new conditional dialogue and the upcoming player generated missions, maybe we can get there.

I would like to see customizable art for the walls and such.

Not actually a major undertaking, or at least perhaps not as much of one as you might think. What we need is a blank template, or a very generic template, similar to the one used for comic covers (a vet reward base item). This could put 9 or 12 or 15 (however many they want to array) items in one resource, that users could modify and place in their pigg folders for custom looks to these items. Actually, you can already do this with the comic covers (quite easily, using splasher), but you lose the use of the comic covers. Adding a blank template for players to base their creations on, along with some quick notes on where to put the files, would be wonderful. Add another version with landscape orientation as well. If you really want to go wild, add half a dozen blanks for each orientation and players could really add some flair.

Players could then download the modified packs from others so that they could see the customized art as the designer intended. Other applications could also be derived, such as SG leaders using custom designs for bulletin board notes or various rewards like "Hero of the moth" etc. and asking SG members to download the updated customizations on a regular basis.

And with minimal tweaking, you could likely make these an addition to the new mission creation system as well

Umm. Not sure I understand, Canthro. Are you saying you want to upgrade from one plot size to another?

You can do this without having all of the accumulated prestige for the next tier plot size. You only have to have the difference of prestige from the plot size you have to the plot size you are going to.

For example (sorry, cant get in the editor at the moment for real numbers), you are in plot B, which cost 1.3 million prestige. You want to go to plot C, which costs 3 million prestige. You only need 1.7 million prestige on hand, as the editor will credit you the 1.3 million as part of the upgrade.

Sorry if that's not quite what you mean, and yes there is still a need for storage when moving things about, especially for created items. That feature has long been a request from players.

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one of the things I can talk about is a feature that we are planning. Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story arcs for your characters and others to participate in. You’ll be able to pick the map, villain group, and objectives, as well as write the dialog and any clues needed for the missions. When you are satisfied with it, you can upload it and have other players across all servers play it and rate it. Fame will come to the players whose stories rate the best overall.

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Coolest. Feature. Ever.

So... umm... When?

I run an 8x12 plot solo. 20,000 per month upkeep is very doable. I usually average 100k per month and that is playing semi-casually, with only about a third of my characters in that SG, the rest spread between villains and larger SGs with others. Of course, I never leave SG mode, as I make plenty enough influence to sustain myself through drops.

Awesome work LJ. Of course I always love your stuff, but still , this is great!

The stages image was especially cool, seeing the process all together like that intrigues me.

I would hope character transfers would not be restricted to only accounts within the same master account. As a family, we have five accounts, and none of them share the same master account. Two of them are currently inactive, and it is those two I would like to bring characters from onto my main account. I also have a couple of characters on my son's account that I would prefer were on my main account.

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All current subscribers will receive 2 free character slots

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Could we have clarification on the word 'current'. I have friends seriously considering a return for I12. What date (roughly) do they actually need to have an active registration in order to get these two free slots? I would be very interested in the info as a potential recruiting (re-recruiting) tool.

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You should have a pretty good idea of when Issue 12 (and optional character slots) will go live by how the beta progresses. We are in closed beta and have more weeks of that to go, then weeks of open beta, then launch. That's as clear of a picture I can give at this juncture.

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Ok, just to be sure...

If you have an active subscription the day that I12 goes live, you get the two free slots.

Right?

If I12 goes live on June 6th, they can re-subscribe on June 5th, and they get the slots. If they re-subscribe on June 7th, they don't. (Go live date is purely theoretical, of course).