Hellguard

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Sounds cool.
Does this include changing the power's color? Sorry if you already anwer this qustion

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That would require a LOT more work than what'd go into just a normal issue. A whole new game engine. This is something that's been discussed hundreds of times before already.

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Nope.

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I see nothing in there about power customization.

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You didn't see anything in there about Power Customization? What about this part:

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You guys have a very serious misunderstanding of what a new engine would do for the game. Most of the limitiations that we work with in this game are related to systems, which are only related to the game engine in that they go through it to get to your monitor/speakers. A lack of power customization has very little to do with the actual engine and a great deal to do with how the power/animation/fx system was originally designed to work with each other. The engine itself is more than capable of making fire particles any color of the rainbow, but it's the system that ties particle FX, player model animations, and power attributes all together that's inflexible...mainly because whoever originally designed the system just didn't forsee a need to ever make that relationship dynamic.

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He's clearly discussing Power Customization there.

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However, I absolutely recall devs saying in the past when the topic comes up that the engine is why it can't be done without a MAJOR amount of work cobbling in some work-around. Basically that a new engine accommodating it would be faster and easier than a hacked work-around.

Edit: Now, to be clear, I'm sure that a new engine wouldn't be the -only- thing needed. But it'd be a big step along the way.

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See the above quote. It's not the "engine" itself that's the problem. But like I said earlier, the confusion probably lies in the fact that what most players really have no clue what the term "game engine" means (at least in the context of this game).

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I bet the power included with the Cyborg bonus pack is the transform to Freak Boss permanent temp power. Not complaining, just it would make perfect sense.

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I'll take that bet. How much ya giving me...er, I mean, wagering?

It's a brand new power.

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<== just bought the pack, even though he has NO cyborg type characters ;P

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It's out already???

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No, he was joking. Should be out in a month they said.

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did i miss something? I thought it would be coming out with i13?

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From Posi's letter, "Outlining the Architect" :

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Finally, I want to tell you about two "Booster Packs" that will be available in a month or so.

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Recently (i12) the ability to have branching dialog was added to the game.
Will we be able to use this feature for player-generated missions?


Will it be possible to flag a created mission as Private, and only give selected people access to it (through something like passwords, invites, access lists or Magic)?


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Let's give Lighthouse a break for a bit. I'll get this one:

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Sorry, You'll just have to wait.

More details on all the many features in Issue 13 will be coming between now and open beta.

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Sounds cool.
Does this include changing the power's color? Sorry if you already anwer this qustion

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That would require a LOT more work than what'd go into just a normal issue. A whole new game engine. This is something that's been discussed hundreds of times before already.

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Nope.

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Right. If you read that post, it's clear that a new game engine wouldn't lead to power customization. Power customization would require a retooling of the ENTIRE GAME, which encompasses "the engine, the hardocoded systems, the soft coded scripts, and the overall design decisions that those things were originally built around."

IOW, if we ever do get power customization, it'll take a lot MORE than "just" retooling the game engine.

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Actually from what I understood, it wouldn't involve the engine very much, if at all, but instead would be a massive, fundamental reworking of how the powers system itself works.

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Yeah, technically the engine itself probably wouldn't have a whole lot to do with it; I was just pointing out that the people who think it's JUST the engine that would need redone are thinking too small. The things they'd have to do to get power customization working would be a lot harder and, well, bigger, than an engine retooling.

EDIT: Actually, though, now that I think about it, the misunderstanding probably stems from the fact that most players don't really know what the "game engine" really is.

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Sounds cool.
Does this include changing the power's color? Sorry if you already anwer this qustion

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That would require a LOT more work than what'd go into just a normal issue. A whole new game engine. This is something that's been discussed hundreds of times before already.

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Nope.

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Right. If you read that post, it's clear that a new game engine wouldn't lead to power customization. Power customization would require a retooling of the ENTIRE GAME, which encompasses "the engine, the hardocoded systems, the soft coded scripts, and the overall design decisions that those things were originally built around."

IOW, if we ever do get power customization, it'll take a lot MORE than "just" retooling the game engine.

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So if the PTB are in fact going to have two more issues this year as promised, the second one needs to come out soon, and the third one still may not make it out before Thanksgiving.


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There's not going to be another two issues this year. There's simply not enough time. The only way they were able to start the three issue cycle so late in the year last year is because most of the work on Inventions was done well in advance of pushing Issue 9 to Test and they were no doubt working on Issue 10 while polishing up Issue 9.

There's just under five months left in this year. Around a month of that will be taken up by two holiday events. That only leaves four months for closed beta testing, open beta testing, and the push to Live, with potentially a few weeks or so tweaking and fixing bugs after the go live date. There's plenty of time this year for them to do all that once, but twice? Doubtful.

I wouldn't call it impossible for them to be able to pull it off, but it's very close to impossible. Besides, BaB already posted here that they're not currently meeting their goal of "an issue every 4 months" (his definition of the "3 issues a year" goal).

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If it helps keep this game profitable without having to raise rates to do so, then good deal!

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If it added 'real' value to the game, I'd say good. But this doesn't add anything really that wasn't there that five to ten minutes for one guy to add in a database to make Respec Recipes drop more often.

I'm feeling scammed.

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The idea is that the extra money they'll get from purchasable respecs will go towards more/faster content, the way that sales of the Wedding Pack allowed them to get VEATs in issue 12. Would you rather we waited until issue 13 for VEATs?

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Question/concern...Not sure if this has been brought up.

When a respec is purchased, does it go straight to the character, or are you given a respec recipe?

If it is a recipe, could people sell it on the market? This sounds like it could lead to a RMT type deal. Buy a respec, sell it at the market, get in-game money.

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Since you have to go to a respec trainer to cash it in, it can't be a recipe. Recipes craft freespecs, which can be used with /respec. Also, the language of the purchasable respec on the store makes no mention of recipes.

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Someone starts charging ($10, no less), if you have any wits about you at all you are going to think the supply is going to be decreased in order for people to want to buy it in the first place. (At $10, no less.)


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If you have any wits about you at all, you'd realize what a horrible business decision it would be to suddenly take away things that have existed for years in the game just because they decided to offer a monetary way to obtain them. The loss of respect and subscriber dollars over something that greedy would be huge.

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Just a quick follow up:

We have no plans of getting rid of freespecs. Each Issue that brings with it major power changes (which is pretty much every single one, eh?) will bring a freespec with it.

We have no plans of getting rid of the respec trials.

We have no plans of getting rid of the dropped Respec Recipes.

We have no plans of getting rid of the Veteran Respecs that your account earns.

This is simply another way to get a Respec onto your character.

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Good to know. This info probably should have been included in the original announcement though. I'd suggest Lighthouse edit it to add this in.

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It would probably be a good idea to go ahead and edit it in there, yes, but anyone who seriously thought this announcement meant they'd be dropping the other ways to get respecs (especially Vet Rewards, trials, and recipes) was just being silly.

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Do you choose which character it's applied to at the time of purchase? Or do you purchase it, then log into a character and give it to that character?

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The respec goes to whichever character you have selected when you click on the Store icon. It tells you that it's for the "currently selected character."

I can't imagine that I'll ever have the need for this personally, but hey, more options is always nice. And if it brings in some additional cash flow to help with development, so much the better.

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The last Visa Gift card I bought, for my neice's Sweet 16 gift, the register girl from Rite Aid didnt know how to activate it properly. But she knew how to take my money for it. I even asked her, "Is this thing activated properly?" Luckily I kept the receipt.
I wouldn't mind them If I knew I could get them reliably and they'd work. My experience so far is less than stellar.

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There might have been a glitch in the Rite Aid register system when you bought that VISA gift card. That's much more likely than the idea that someone might not know how to "activate the card properly" when all it takes is swiping the card through the register the same way you'd swipe a customer's credit card for payment.

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Well, you could use these cards for time on your account. However, they are $20. In essence you get the game + the jetpack for $5 and 30 days of game time for $15 (if you want to look at it that way).

But yeah, if what you want is game time, then pick up a NCsoft game time card that works for any of our games.

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Since you're here, LH... in the other thread it was stated that you can only use ONE of these cards on an existing account. Is this still true? Or would you be able to add a new card to your account every month to renew the jet pack and get the 30 days from it?

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Yes, you can add one of these cards to your account every month for the 30 day jet pack and 30 days of game time. You would not want to stack codes (ie: use 3 codes for 3 months of game time and 3 months of jet pack time); as the game will only see one code at a time.

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Cool. I was asking because in that other thread Zombie_Man listed some info on these cards which Lighthouse had said was "pretty much correct," and part of that info was that you could only apply one of these cards to your account once. I'm guessing that should have said "once a month" then.

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Well, you could use these cards for time on your account. However, they are $20. In essence you get the game + the jetpack for $5 and 30 days of game time for $15 (if you want to look at it that way).

But yeah, if what you want is game time, then pick up a NCsoft game time card that works for any of our games.

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Since you're here, LH... in the other thread it was stated that you can only use ONE of these cards on an existing account. Is this still true? Or would you be able to add a new card to your account every month to renew the jet pack and get the 30 days from it?

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Cool and all, but LH, is there a plan to sell CoX cards for just 15.00 a month? Will the Tabula Cards work on a CoH account too?

Some people (like me) would prefer to pay with game cards, but the extra 5.00 a month for the jet doesn't justify the expense to me.

Especially on the Villain side, as there are repeatable missions to get a Temp flight pack in game already.

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You want the regular time cards.

THESE ARE NOT TIME CARDS.

They give a full copy of the game, plus a 30day realtime temp power to the account using a rocket pack that was in the korean version of the game.

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Yep, and as such, there's very little reason (imho, absolutely no reason, but others might disagree) for current subscribers to get one of these cards. Yes, you can apply one to your account (once) and get a month of play (for $5 more than you would normally pay) and a 30-day jetpack, but that's pretty pointless. In the thread that I (and Obsidius) linked to, it was stated that you can only use one of these cards on your account, so there's no infinitely renewable jet pack, even if you were willing to pay the extra $5 a month.

These cards are aimed at new subscribers, not existing ones.

EDIT: According to Niv's post, it looks like you CAN apply more than one of these cards to your account, so you could essentially pay the $5 extra every month for a permanent jetpack. Still don't think it'd be worth it, but it might be to some people.

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Ive read that the in-game jet pack lasts on 30 days.

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Linkage please....

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Here ya go...

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Ahem... while it may not "speak volumes" why are there less subscibers now than a year ago?

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The animated breasts in AoC probably cost us 35% of the under-21 market in the blink of an eye.

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There's animated breasts in AoC?

<.<
>.>

Hmmmmm.

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Guess we now know why we can't talk about other MMOs anymore...

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It is also important to mention that the reference on Massively.com to an idea that Issue 13 will be the last free issue for City of Heroes is completely false. We have no plans whatsoever to stop supporting the game with free Issues.


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Actually, they don't say issue 13 will be the last issue. They just say it'll be the last issue THIS YEAR, which, with only 5 months left in the year, isn't all that unlikely unless things progress really, really smoothly with i13 and i14...

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Would this effect the current unlocking system for the Kheldian/Arachnos archetypes any?

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I can't imagine why it would.

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Issue 10 (7/24/07) + Issue 11 (11/28/07) + Issue 12 (5/20/08) = 1 issue, I guess you're right...

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check your math 2007 does not equal 2008, so it was two issues in 2007 one issue in 2008.

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The poster I was responding to didn't say "We've only had 1 issue in 2008." He said we'd only had 1 issue in "a year's time." Thus, he was clearly wrong and my statement is clearly correct.

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can i have my money back that i paid for cov then?? cause this is kinda a slap in the face for those of us that bought cov.

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No it's not.

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how about getting these supposed 3 issues a year out for once. we've had 1 in a years time and its getting quite boring.

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Issue 10 (7/24/07) + Issue 11 (11/28/07) + Issue 12 (5/20/08) = 1 issue, I guess you're right...

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Im sorry to say this but I would rather not get another power that misses 75% of the time just give me better accuracy on the ones I already have. I love the powers but the miss so bloody often you can’t rely on them.

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They only miss 25% of the time against even-cons, and, as covered earlier in this thread, there are various ways to boost the accuracy of Vet attacks. And in the levels where Vet attacks are most useful, the i12 "Beginner's Luck" accuracy boost makes them quite accurate for a good while.

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Normally I am not a naysayer but where as I truly love the temp powers I must have some really awful luck because the last couple weeks I have been paying closer attention to some of my powers and the temp powers hit 1 out of every 5 attacks. Thats just an average mind. On my main who is fully outfitted with bonus sets that is not 25%. I am in no way saying you are wrong but this is what I have come up with over the last few weeks. I totally agree with the fact that they are a life saver in the beginning levels though. I cant imagine starting a new character without them now.

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So this is after running Herostats (or manually logging every hit roll from your combat tab)? Or is this just a "feeling?" Running Herostats during even a single long play session (which isn't a very big sample size, but should be sufficient) should get you enough data to prove or disprove your "feeling." I guarantee you if you do that, the number will be much closer to 75% than it is to 25% (and that's assuming you don't have any tohit buffs going on helping the Vet attacks, in which case the number would be higher).

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Im sorry to say this but I would rather not get another power that misses 75% of the time just give me better accuracy on the ones I already have. I love the powers but the miss so bloody often you can’t rely on them.

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They only miss 25% of the time against even-cons, and, as covered earlier in this thread, there are various ways to boost the accuracy of Vet attacks. And in the levels where Vet attacks are most useful, the i12 "Beginner's Luck" accuracy boost makes them quite accurate for a good while.

I guess I'm the opposite of most people in this thread. I say "Meh" to the helmets but I'm pretty happy with the extra Vet attack at 54 months. Of course, I'm thinking mainly in terms of having an extra attack at the lower level.

I'll also be making my first-ever Natural character to make use of the double-bonus damage from the Staff and the Blackwand, unless they change that part of it.