Heavensrun

;_____; (hugs Posi)

It kinda angers me that this went live. It's completely broken, and there is no net positive to the experience of having the broken thing in game. People who do what it takes to complete it don't get to experience what the devs intended, and people who don't do what it takes to complete it get to feel like they're sinking cash monies into a broken game with no quality control. If the server can't handle the mission, then hey, fine. the server can't handle the mission. So take it out, or tone it down to a point that the server can survive. There were obviously noble intentions, and it would've been awesome to destroy all of arachnos at once, but if the game can't handle it, it can't handle it.

Take it out or modify it so it -works-. Period. If that means we only get to kill 20 guys at once instead of a hundred, or that they're spread out over a larger zone or something, then so be it.

Honestly, speedsters don't really fit in melee the way melee works in this game. Melee characters in this game stand next to their opponents and punch them. A melee set wouldn't work for a real speedster feel because running up to somebody, and then standing still while you punch them, doesn't feel very speedstery.

I'd suggest super speed as more of a blaster/control type of set, with "blasts" that are effectively targeted teleports, or at least animate as teleports. I don't know how plausible that is, but I'm thinking something similar to the vorpal judgement, expanded to a full set. If it could have your actual character model appear for the single-target strikes or something, that'd be ideal. Controls would involve things like creating whirlwinds, or stuns/confuses built around the idea that you're moving so fast, your opponents are dazed and lost trying to keep up.

Actually, stylistically, dominators might be a really natural fit for a set like that, with it's ranged/melee mix. Melee attacks would be like suped up flurry or the original storm kick animation, ranged attacks would be similar to vorpal judgement or shield charge style teleport attacks.


I'd also like to add my voice to the list of people asking for a wind powerset.

I'm pretty sure Growth/shrink is implausible within the game mechanics. Growth would be limited to the point of uselessness by the indoor maps, and Shrink would be predominantly useless in a stat combat game. I don't see it bringing anything interesting to the table, gameplay wise.

I suppose at best I could see it as a weird sort of defense set that would allow you to switch between defense based protection (shrink) and resistance/absorb protection (growth) But to have both, it would have to be less than outstanding at either to avoid making other sets obsolete, and the question of hit boxes becomes a serious problem, especially in indoor maps. (if you make yourself too small, then getting stuck in cracks could become a problem, and getting bigger would keep you from getting through doors. Unless your hit box doesn't change size, in which case you're clipping like nurtz.

I'll bring my MA/Regen scrapper, Swift. @Heavensrun.

I'm up for this whenever you get your computer problems resolved. Swift, @Heavensrun

Ahem. Though, offering actual questions:

I am wondering what the limits are on what is going to be in the pool for this thing. Enhancements? Inspirations? Costume pieces? Is there going to be that one in a hundred thousand or whatever chance that we might get something -big- out of this, like an enhancement tray or costume set or something like that? And if it's the desired goal to have it pull out something different for each person, is there a possibility we could miss out if it happens to pull out something we already have? Or are the only things on the table going to be rewards you can have more than one of? (like no costume piece unlocks, because once you have one of those, you can't get another of the same one, but enhancements might be on the table since you can always own an extra LOTG or something and pass it off to an alt? Just some of the things I'm wondering about.

I am going to go ahead and throw out a word of caution to everyone here: My experience is that when you start throwing around free stuff, people fall into a pattern of entitlement, and tend to get whinier than when they're paying for things and have a more "investment" sort of perspective. People do, in fact, look gift horses in the mouth. In fact, they're more likely to look gift horses in the mouth than horses they paid cash money for. I've never understood it, but in my experience, it's there nonetheless.

So....Freebie Friday....Starts on Thursday...And the graphic says "Log in today!", which was posted on Wednesday...


You guys are kinda bad at this, you know?

Anyway, I might as well throw my 2 cents in here.

Suggesting that the devs would kill anyone off "out of spite" is kind of simplistic and ridiculous. This is a company we're talking about, run by people who have bills to pay and dreams for the future. They have obligations to investors, and decisions are made by getting groups of the head poo-bahs together to have discussions to work out a plan of action to decide on a modus operandi to blah blah blah. Decisions do not get made for simple, selfish reasons, and they certainly aren't made out of animosity for the player base that ultimately pays the dev's salaries.

But for the sake of argument, let's suppose, for a moment, that the devs -did- decide to kill off the characters they chose because they were Jack Emmert's characters.

Spite is not the only possible factor in that.

There is something legitimate to be said about taking the reigns of a world like this and making it your own, turning things to focus on characters -you've- created, that you understand, and that you, ultimately, control the destinies of. And there are also good reasons to clear the "old guard" out of the story if you want to do that.

Killing a character off is not always an act of disdain, either. These AREN'T REAL PEOPLE, and acts committed against them don't necessarily carry the same emotional motives that acts against real people would carry. Many, -many- writers like to kill off their -favorite- characters, because their goal is to invoke an emotional response, or to convey to the reader that bad things can happen to good people. It's entirely possible that Psyche and Statesman were killed off because the person writing the story thought they were cool, and iconic, and that their deaths would have an impact. And this thread, in point of fact, seems to suggest that they succeeded. To assume that they were killed off out of spite first assumes that killing a character off is a spiteful act.

It also means assuming that Jack would care if his characters got killed off. Jack -is- gone from this game. He -did- basically abandon it to chase what he seemed to think were more lucrative opportunities, and he cannibalized this game in the time he was here in order to chase those opportunities. I do think there's legitimate reasons to resent him, and I can even see how those could spin out into reasons to want to excise his influence from the game. But the thing is, they're not -doing- that. Hell, they're not even digging them out from the game to the extent that they replaced the column with the council, (an act which had plenty of conspiracy theories of its own at the time). And even if they were, there's no reason to just -assume- that he would care, or that they would think he would care.

As for the deaths themselves, Statesman's death sequence made me care more about the character than several years worth of in game content ever did. It certainly painted him as more sympathetic than the comics did. Psyche's death actually gave a noble, selfless end to a character who had had more than her share of selfish, bickery little moments in the various media that have given us glimpses into her personality. And, on top of that, it was shocking. I honestly suspect the biggest reason so many people were upset about Psyche dying was because it caught them flatfooted. "Who will Die?!?" "Statesman." "Oh, okay." "And Sister Psyche" "I-wait, what? How did? When did?"

Some people do -not- like those kinds of surprises. Some of us do. (In fact, some of us were really annoyed at the spoilery promotional material that basically broadcasted the deaths of the other past and present Phalanxers in the arc. I got a much bigger emotional charge out of the deaths of Malaise and Psyche specifically because I didn't really expect them)

As a random aside, has anybody noticed that Manticore has a tendency to shoot his friends and loved ones dead through the chest with an arrow? I mean, okay, Statesman got better, but still. This is a worrisome trend, Justin. ;p


Anyway, Did they "need" to kill the characters off, as some people have suggested? Well, a good writer doesn't -need- to do any one thing, he just tries to take the story somewhere that will entrance the readers. Did they succeed at that? I'm sure it depends who you ask. I have my issues with the arcs, but it -did- deliver some surprises and some shocking twists to me, and so I can't complain about that. But just because they didn't -need- to kill them off doesn't mean they didn't have good reasons, and what constitutes a "good reason" is largely subjective. But I think it's silly to suggest that a company with a vested interest in trying to entertain their player base enough to continue gathering money from them would do something as silly as throw their intellectual property to the wolves just to spite someone who isn't even around the office anymore.

I can attest, at the least, that Lucrezia is very effective at turning Swift into an unkillable battle goddess.

Who is then 20% cooler.