Hellguard

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by houtex View Post
    Pardon my ignorance, but what's 'WAI'? I'm guessing something about Way ... Intended or such... but I didn't find it in Google either... help a brother out?
    Working As Intended
  2. Hellguard

    free giveaway.

    -----------Edited to remove insulting post that doesn't add anything useful---------------------
  3. Hellguard

    COH Mythbusters

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MunkiLord View Post
    So TonyV, what if you have already commercialized your character before ever playing City Of Heroes? Does that mean I have to stop doing that at that point?
    Of course not. If you created the character before you made a version of it in CoH, then it's still yours, and THAT's what the line in the EULA ("To the extent that NC Interactive cannot claim exclusive rights in Member Content by operation of law") really means... that, if "by operation of law" they can't have exclusive rights (because you already hold the copyright to a character, which happens when the character is initially created) then you're granting them nonexclusive rights and can't sue THEM. You cannot transfer copyright of a character by clicking "Next" or "I Agree" as Arcanaville so eloquently pointed out. (Incidentally, that's exactly why there's not an actual NDA for CoH's closed betas, despite everyone saying there is. First of all, there's nothing in the EULA that even mentions closed beta confidentiality and secondly, an NDA is a contract that must be SIGNED -- the way that CoV's closed beta NDA was digitially signed, not by clicking "Next" on a EULA that doesn't even mention closed beta confidentiality.)

    Of course, you wouldn't be able to use any CoH-originating elements to enhance your already existing character in whatever other form he or she appeared, and the whole thing may be murky when it comes to characters that were initially created in the game itself, but for existing characters that you choose to represent inside the game... No, NCSoft does NOT own them; they just get nonexclusive rights to use their CoH representation in any way they see fit. That section of the EULA protects NCSoft from us as much as it protects us from them (maybe more so).

    It's the only way it would make sense, especially given the Guest Author MA series, where established writers are being invited to bring THEIR characters into the game. Unless you think NCSoft is going to write up a special EULA to have only those authors see when they launch the game to do their work.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hellguard View Post
    Yep. Although, since they've been nerfing accuracy every single issue since the beginning, you'd think we'd have some sort of negative accuracy by now....
    LOL. Got negative rep for the above post, saying I was being "kinda whiny." Guess I shoulda added a smiley or something to show that I was joking?
  5. I bought a copy of CO on launch day, despite having a pretty poor experience during the short time I was in Closed Beta. I justified it because of my writing jobs (see sig), but I wasn't very happy when I tried it out the first couple of days after launch. The only computer in my house capable of running it *should* have run it a lot better than it did, and the performance issues were just too much for it to be enjoyable for me.

    However, they've made tremendous strides towards performance since launch day, and I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I tried again and found it to be quite playable for me, even with higher settings. However, I still can't stand the interface; it just looks like they've tried to copy too much of a campy comic book look for the whole thing (not even talking about the character models, although that's somewhat true for those too). The interface, the mission text boxes, everything... just looks very amateurish to me and it's too jarring for me to really get into the game.

    Bottom line is, I feel like the very few things that CO does better than CoH just aren't enough to justify playing it *instead* of CoH, and probably not even alongside it. It's one of those things where I'll probably re-up every few months to see its progress (primarily in the name of "research") but I can't see myself subscribing long term.

    I subscribe to CoH a year at a time, and I don't see that changing when it's time to re-up in March, so it's not like CoH is losing any of my money.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Eva Destruction View Post
    All past changes to critters have been applied to existing arcs, so I don't see any reason why the xp reductions for critters on Standard or groups without all three ranks wouldn't.
    Well, I only said that (in reference to critter xp) because that's what the patch note said. I'm sure existing GROUP xp was definitely changed due to the new rules, but haven't actually been in AE to see for myself since the issue went live.

    Quote:
    As for critters that are worth 0 xp, since it was previously impossible to remove Standard powers from critters, there is no way a critter created before i16 should be worth 0 xp. I say SHOULD, because as with everything else, "not working as intended" is a distinct possibility.
    Very true, very true.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Starflier View Post
    Accuracy nerf. They forgot it on release day.
    Yep. Although, since they've been nerfing accuracy every single issue since the beginning, you'd think we'd have some sort of negative accuracy by now....
  8. Hellguard

    New patch today?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MunkiLord View Post
    We were having that problem yesterday on Freedom.
    Yeah, but obviously the patch today didn't fix it, if it was even intended to. If it was to fix something like that, there'd be no reason to say "there won't be any patch notes."

    That kind of statement probably either means there was something "on the back end" that doesn't really affect players or they were nuking an exploit.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Toony View Post
    I'm trying to figure out why my mobs are worth 0 xp. They HAVE powers. Not a ton but they have some. Theres 2 minions, 2 lts, 2 bosses in the group. I'm not reading anywhere why they should be giving 0 xp.
    Did you take away any powers that are part of the "Standard" powersets? If so, the mobs will be worth 0 xp. This shouldn't have affected already existing arcs, but I have a feeling that editing those arcs will result in them falling under the new xp rules.

    From the patch notes:

    Quote:
    • Players can now select any powers for custom mobs to have. However, if the minimal amounts of powers required for them to be considered standard difficulty are removed on either power set, the mob will be worth 0 experience.
    1. As an example, a standard minion with Broadsword has Slash and Throwing Knives. If either of those two powers are removed, that minion will be worth 0 experience, even if a secondary power set has all powers selected.
    2. This will not cause any custom mobs currently on live to be worth zero experience.
  10. Hellguard

    New patch today?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by CaffeineAddict View Post
    Maybe they are fixing the issue going on over at Virtue.
    Linky:http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ighlight=patch

    In short, players villain side are clicking on a mission door, then they are stuck in the loading screen for eternity, and never get to enter the mission.
    I doubt today's patch was to fix the problems in that thread you linked to, considering it mentions that the problems started AFTER today's patch.
  11. Hellguard

    COH Mythbusters

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    The US is *not* one of the countries that allows for rights to be transfered in the manner described, which is why NCSoft does not have exclusive rights to my characters.

    In the US, copyright is presumed to attach "at birth" meaning the moment I create the work. NCSoft cannot then demand either ownership or exclusive rights to my work because copyright transfer must be done specifically and in writing, and exclusive transfer of rights is considered to be a copyright transfer under the law. Section 204(a) in particular governs this, and it states that copyright transfer must be signed and in writing. Furthermore, courts have consistently ruled that 204(a) should be interpreted to mean that the transfer must be explicit - it must essentially name the works in question. The EULA doesn't come close to meeting the burden of 204(a) which is why NCSoft specifically asks for a non-exclusive license. Doing so prevents them from attempting to claim something Federal Copyright law forbids, which would make the contract invalid.

    The only major exception to this is the work-for-hire exception. But no player of an MMO is likely to be seen by any US court as operating as a work for hire employee. Any attempt to assert that would border on ludicrous.


    It is black-letter law that the assertion that NCSoft "owns" your characters is a myth. The only kernel of truth in this is that while I own the creative work I generated, I don't own, nor do I have a license to use, any of NCSoft's intellectual property. So while I can take my characters and use them elsewhere, I cannot use the specific artwork from the character creator, I cannot use the specific descriptions of the powers in the game, nor can I use any of the backstory elements that NCSoft owns the copyright on, such as the Rikti. I can only use *my* parts of the characters. In some cases, characters may be so encumbered by IP that the player doesn't own that it is impractical to use them elsewhere. But they do own them nevertheless.

    And just to be 100% clear: if I made them up, I own the names of my characters for the purposes of them being a component of an artistic work I created. Whatever the EULA says, it would be against Federal law for NCSoft to attempt to assert they own them. Once again, they can only demand a non-exclusive license to use them themselves, which is why the EULA has that escape hatch in the first place.


    Trivia: there are some rights that as the creator of a work I *can't* surrender, no matter what. That's because copyright law recognizes the creator as a separate entity from the copyright holder. Even if I were to sign my rights away for a creation, there are laws that provide me with some rights to reassert or reacquire my copyright rights in certain circumstances, no matter what I've signed. These rights are granted to me when I create the work, and they stay attached to me until I die.
    I was thinking about posting something similar to the above, but as usual Arcanaville says everything much better than the rest of us could ever hope to.

    If it worked the way that TonyV is describing, it would be very dangerous for anyone to participate in the Guest Author MA series that was recently announced, since the whole point of that is for established creators to bring their creations into City of Heroes...
  12. Hellguard

    New patch today?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Vanden View Post
    Just downloaded and applied a new patch, but I'm not seeing any mention of patch notes on the main website or the forums. Any idea what this patch did?
    There aren't any patch notes, according to the announcement from yesterday. They had server maintenance at around 3pm EST today (changed from the original 5pm EST announced time), which is an odd time for maintenance.

    I'm assuming there was an exploit they were in a hurry to fix or something of equal importance, or they would have waited until the regular maintenance tomorrow morning.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sailboat View Post
    Thanks.

    I never pay attention to Beta or Test patch notes, since I cannot get onto the Test Server usefully (for a couple of years now the Test server runs at freeze-frame speed no matter what Issue and no matter what I do) and everything changes so much it would just create confusing memories of rules changes that never went live.

    So I wait for the Live patch notes. They weren't up yesterday, as far as I could find; maybe they'll get some out today.

    Live patch notes, posted yesterday afternoon.


    Which, for some odd reason, only makes a passing reference to supersidekicking and exemplaring changes without going into any sort of detail. The link I posted earlier (the initial Open Beta patch notes) has more information about that stuff than the live patch notes...

    The "Welcome to Issue 16" post actually has more detail on Supersidekicking and the new exemplaring than the patch notes, but still omits the note on the "keeping your powers five levels higher than your exemplared level" thing.

    So, see? It's not just beta patch notes that can be misleading/incomplete/confusing.
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by macskull View Post
    In addition to keeping powers five levels above your exemplar level
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sailboat View Post
    Five? Did this change form three?
    If it changed, it changed sometime in Closed Beta. It's been five since Open Beta started, according to the first Open Beta patch notes...
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by FourSpeed View Post
    Hmmm...

    I saw Niviene's "Welcome to I-16" post.

    That said, I was pretty surprised when I took my L35 Villain into Bloody Bay,
    waxed some NPC mobs and got ... XP for them???

    Yep, I knew that powers up to L30 (BB is a L25 pvp zone) now work in there,
    but getting XP for PvE kills in the zone came as a surprise...

    Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, mind you, but this seems like a bug,
    given that the toon in question is 10 levels above the zone exemplar level.

    What part of the patch/picture am I missing here???
    I guess you're missing the part in the "Welcome to Issue 16" post that you linked to that says:

    Quote:
    • Exemplars will now earn XP and a level capped person will get XP converted into influence like exemplars used to.


    It doesn't matter HOW you're exemplared. By default exemplars get XP now. This can be changed back to the "old" way in the options.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by capnkangaroo View Post
    Not much time to use that old respec

    They did this last time.. I really wish they'd announce these respec's a little earlier.

    If i16 goes live today that is
    No point in saying "if." The Live updater has applied the Issue 16 predownload and downloaded and applied another patch, and now its version number matches that of the Test updater.
  17. Note that in Issue 12, something that players call "Beginner's Luck" was added to improve accuracy in the lower levels, meaning that up until level 19 or so, to hit chance is much better than it used to be.

    With no enhancements whatsoever, there is a 75% base to hit against even-con mobs, barring any accuracy buffs (like "Beginner's Luck") or debuffs. Don't rely on your observation to test this if you don't trust it; get HeroStats and run it over a decent amount of time and you'll see that it's true.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by OmniSurge View Post
    five hours for " routine" server maintence..? I'd like to think so.. but like someone else said earlier... u never can be to sure.
    Version numbers on the Live updater and Test updater match after patching this morning.

    Yes, we can be sure... issue 16 is today.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by whitecat View Post
    Well I am betting on it coming out today with the maint.... but one can never be to sure I guess =D

    *crosses fingures and hopes real hard*
    Patcher is applying a patch right now, without downloading anything. This is obviously the pre-download patch that everyone should have had for a week or two now, so yeah... Issue 16 today.
  20. Hellguard

    I16 Real Soon?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
    If it is, then there should be an announcement tonight about extended server downtime to apply the patch update.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Psylenz View Post
    They have surprised us before, not sure if on the level of unannounced server maintenance for a new Issue Launch. As you can see, my hope springs eternal.
    Hmmm....
  21. I think I read somewhere that the only way to cure swine flu is to release a major new game update. Issue 16 should be just the thing!

    What? It can't hurt to try...


    (Get well soon, Posi and others )
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zombie Man View Post
    For just a few more days, and then the level restriction will be gone when Issue 16 goes Live.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Newbunkle View Post
    Do you think so? :P
    Positron said on Twitter Issue 16 should go live by the end of the month. That's only 17 more days, even if it's the very last day of the month.

    And considering the lack of game-breaking bugs on the Test Server and the fact that they've given a warning to use any Freespecs you have in anticipation of the one they'll give with Issue 16, I don't see why it couldn't go live this week.

    So, potentially this week or, at the latest, within 17 days. Yeah, I think "just a few more days" is an accurate statement.
  23. Hellguard

    Can't promote

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hazey View Post
    I't might be a bit obvious but members have to be online to be promoted.
    Heh, yep. It's so obvious I missed that possibility completely.