Ice_Wall

First off, would you even be asking that question if they had two different names?

I mean, no one would ever say "Gee, what's the point in having Lady Jane and Maria Jenkins be two separate characters?"

Secondly, it serves the purpose of telling their respective stories. Each Romulus has his own part in the lore and merging them doesn't really fit with the stories the devs are trying to tell. It serves the purpose of having two completely different characters instead of one. It gives twice as many possibilities since now the characters can be written how ever the devs want instead of having to always consider, ohh gee, well Romulus USED to be this way, how would we explain why he is so different now etc.

I tried PVP before I13. I tried PVP after I13.

In my experiences its NOT as bad as I feared\heard.. It was much, much worse.

But it works for some people, and everyone should try it once or twice if only to form their opinion from their own experience.

I'll personally never do it again. (Well maybe to get badges, but I'm not really even certain on that.)

Well first off, congratulationse to David. I had the pleasure of watching him do a couple of those sketches at the last hero con, my girlfriend and I were very impressed at how quickly he drew those amazing pictures. He's obviously a man of great talent and a very nice guy too, so good job David and congratulations!

Secondly, I'm glad that Ken Morse is still around. I've met him at both hero cons now, and he's been incredibly nice in answering questions in the panels and in the halls, which has been rather enlightening. Another incredibly nice guy. Hopefully I'll get to pick his brain again this year for herocon.

Good job guys and keep up the good work! (Okay it's incredibly self serving to say that in some ways, but I mean it in the non self-serving way too.)

I think this is a great idea.

Honestly, why not? All vanguard merits get you are costume pieces, extra salvage slots and some temp powers. You can't trade them and they become worthless after you've gotten everything you want. So what's the harm in upping the drop rate?

Honestly I think 30% is great, or high, make it 50%. I mean, all it does is make it faster for people to get the vanguard stuff, unless people are going to argue those temp powers are completely imbalanced and people getting them more easily would ruin it.


That or make V-merits tradeable. My main blaster has all the vanguard kit she wants and is sitting on a pile of like 800 of those things. I'd love to give them away to people who want the costume bits but can't or don't want to do raids.

Or some one enslaved the BP and did something to them, then they escaped or were let loose.

No lie.

I recently saw that they made the Vanguard Broadsword and Katanas available to Dual Blades users. Something I've been wanting since the Vanguard weapons came out. So I got on my Dual blades scrapper and noticed she had 10 vanguard merits, not enough to buy either of the options.

I joined a mother-ship raid the next night and after a single raid, I had 450 merits. I got both the katana, the broadsword, the vanguard sigil and I think the shoulder pads.

Honestly if you want vanguard gear, mother-ship raids are the way to go, 3 or 4 of those things should get you the whole set.


Ohh and I love the vanguard stuff. I think it's fantastic, well done and I love that I can make my characters look exactly like many of the vanguard characters. (Though the thigh plates would be nice.)

Mostly I love the vanguard weapons. The glowy swords, sheilds, ax etc are all cool as hell. My AR blaster uses the Vanguard "Redding" rifle on 4 of her 5 costumes, and I hope they do something in a similar vain for the pistols.

So yes, vanguard love FTW.

I agree too. It's an MMO and when you join a team, you're playing with other people. Yes everyone is entitled to run what ever character they want to play, I won't argue that. However when people start playing weird combinations that they know are weird. "Hey I'm a blaster with no range attacks and only a few melee attacks and 4 travels powers and a couple self buffs." They should keep in mind, when they are on a team their "different" build is now affecting 1-7 other people's game.

Honestly, I have no problem with it, but when I join an ITF and I see a couple blasters, I more or less expect them to have ranged damage. If I see a mastermind, I expect him to have some pets. If they don't, fine but they should say something to the team knows what to expect.

"Hey guys, just to let you know, I'm a petless mastermind, I'll bubble the hell out of you but don't expect DPS from me."

At least I would know what I'm getting into then instead of.

Team Leader" "Hey Mastermind, we're half way through the second mission and I can't recall ever seeing your pets."

Mastermind: "Pets?"

I think it's rather rude. TFs can be difficult enough without people using deliberately gimped builds because it's "interesting". Just say when you join the team that you're build is "different" and explain all it's short comings so people know what they are getting before the team wipes 9 times cuz it turns out the empathy defender only took clear mind from his primary.

The market goes both ways. Yes some things are ridiculously expensive on the market but any can sell anything to the market, including new players. Honestly, all of the characters I've rolled since I9 introduced the markets, I've ended up with at least a couple pieces of rare salvage by level 10 or 15 that can sell for 1mil+ on the market and make my characters very rich for being in the 10-15 range. Now this may not happen to everyone , but my point is that it's not impossible or all that hard or unlikely for people to make money on the market. You're trying to say that it's prohibitive to new players, but if new players sell things like everyone else, they can get into it quite a bit.

Then why not just make purples into oranges and call it done? The idea behind purples was to make very uncommon recipes and sets balanced for the high end game to give to the hard core gamers to give them something to work for. It's been stated several times that Rares were never intended for casual gamers. Plus, finding rares can get those newer players you seem so worried about, a lot of money on the market, so what does making it have to go to a vendor accomplish? Sure they'd get a lot of money but they can do that now, and selling it to a vendor would just pull the rares out of circulation.

The game isn't balanced around solo-ing or casual gamers. The game is friendly to them but that doesn't mean it should be built around them. It is an MMO, not a single player game. Solo-ers shouldn't be punished but I don't see the point in making everything solo friendly, that doesn't encourage teaming which is kind of the point of an MMO. Also solo players can run arcs to get merits, it's solo friendly just fine. It just takes a little longer to get the merits than task forces. (In theory.)

Their are also money sinks. The market takes a large chunk of every transaction that goes through. It costs money to craft things and buy recipes for IOs. Crafting level 50 damage IOs takes nearly half a million per enhancement, and a quarter million or so if you have it memorized. Buying things with merits puts the merits to the vendor which is a merit sink. Also people can still buy SOs and DOs til their hearts content from vendors, another money sink.

Yes their is more money coming in than going out, but having the auction house actually keeps a lot of that money flowing, rather than sitting in one person's character, or account.

The devs have to keep a risk vs reward ration in mind to keep the game interesting to players. This means exploits that imbalance the Risk Vs Reward make the game too easy and in theory, less interesting to the player base at large. Farming doesn't skew the Risk vs Reward, unless it involves and exploit, (AE for example.) Farming, TF Speed running, the auction house. These are all things that occur while enjoying the game as intended. Their's no "right" way to play the game. Some of us enjoy speed runs and find them challenging, others enjoy farming. And Mobs do drop the same amounts based on the level of the player Minion, LT, Boss, EB, AV Status as well as how difficult they are. The Family are not generally as difficult as the CoT, so they drop less. Again, Risk Vs Reward.


I might agree the game could use more money sinks, but this isn't the solution. Money sinks are a simple problem to fix, add some more places where people can buy stuff from NPCs to get money out of the game.

You're ideas here suggest completely revamping the entire economy, eliminating player to player trades, the auction house and merits in addition to watering down purple recipes.

The reason things cost a lot is because people are willing to pay a lot for them and do what they need to do to earn the money to do so. Rare's aren't supposed to be easy to attain, the game isn't balanced entirely around soloing or casual gaming. If it were, it'd make things more imbalanced toward those who team and play hard core since if things were so much easier to attain, they'd be at a huge advantage.

First off, people agreeing with you in game, doesn't make your argument more or less valid. As for the marketeers rolling 200-300 millions inf into their bankroll daily, good for them, they are playing the game as intended. The markets were there for people to use not just to attain things, but to make inf if they chose to, it's how markets work. If devs didn't want people making money on it, they'd put a low limit on how high transfers would go.

Also, [i]Anyone[/i can make money on the markets. It's not hard. Play for long enough and you're bound to find things other people want and are willing to pay a lot for them. You don't have to manipulate markets heavily to get rare salvage, purple recipes, earn enough merits for high end orange recipes etc. I've made billions on the market without doing anything special aside from, "ohh this is shiny, I bet I can sell this." If people really don't want to use the markets, they just can't stand how expensive the things are, then don't.

Nothing is on the markets that you can't get another way. You orange and purple sets from merit vendors, you can get regular IOs from invention tables. You can get SOs and DOs from vendors still and no one says everyone has to or needs to have access to orange and purple sets if they don't want to put in the time to find them or buy them with merits.

The system isn't broken just because some things sell for exorbitant prices. It's actually working as all economies do, supply and demand and it's working as intended.

And this is why Aracanville is Arcanaville

Fantastic idea. Especially in regards to Inspirations or large inspirations.

You die a bunch, you get pain points built up and obviously you need help. The game gives you inspirations which you can use to help yourself out, but that aren't so valuable anyone wants to game them. Selling them on the Auction house, even the big ones won't net you enough to make it worth going into debt for them.

Perhaps it could be bound to the same sort of thing we have when we level up and get all the large inspirations put on us at once.

You've achieved 50 thousand pain points, you obviously need help. Press F12 for a free round of inspirations to get you over the hump.

You wouldn't be able to trade them, it wouldn't be worth going into massive debt for 1 minute of inspiration buffs... I like this idea. This could work.

Portal comes just about as close to any game I have seen with being the "perfect gaming experience." Even harsh critics loved portal, (No punctuation review for example.) And pretty much every gamer I've talked to who has played it, loved it. The largest complaint I've seen about portal is that it isn't long enough. People complain that they want moar, which is a complaint and a compliment at the same time.

Sure I've met a few who say they don't care for it, I'm convinced they were lieing so they could be "different" and "original".

As for the idea of the system. I think it's an interesting idea, but highly flawed.

1.) If it's automatic, it'd be too easy to abuse the system. Take a long time on TFs on purpose, die a lot on purpose and get extra stuff then finish or quit the TF anyway and get extra rewards.

2.) If it's not automatic, it's not going to be worth the money to have how ever many people sifting through thousands of logs to see if people had too much "pain" and if they were faking it.

3.) The concept is flawed in context to an MMO. In a casino, people stop playing because they lose a ton of money and they don't want to continue going. Some nice gifts may make them change their minds, but an MMO isn't like that. The only thing people lose is time and most of them don't get so frustrated they cancel their subscription. Also in a casino, no one is going to lose 10 grand intentionally so they can get a free night at a 200 dollar room. In an MMO, people would probably do a lot of things badly knowing they'd get rewarded for it.

4.) You're essentially rewarding people for playing badly, which messes up the whole Risk Vs Reward the game is balanced around to a large degree.


However I hate to be completely negative and I wouldn't mind some sort of status screen at the log in page telling me how much time I have left to earn the next day job badge I'm in range for. Or how much Patrol XP is built up or coming my way in the next few hours. Or how many charges on my day job powers etc I have building. That would be a cool thing to be able to peruse Patrol XP Day job badge\power status from log in without having to log in to each different toon.

I am probably not the first but I haven't read the whole forum.

/em thumbs up.

Proceed with that Castle, by all means.

All of them, Electric control and the other sets that are waiting in the wings. You don't have to have it by GR, but some time soon is fine.

Holding it back from what?

And what is this great and all-mighty goal that CoH should be aiming for instead of catering to the fans?

It's a game, the game works when people subscribe, and giving the subscribers what they want, keeps them paying to play more. CoH may not be the "perfect" game, but it is fun and the Devs do keep giving us things we want, and I don't know what these flaws are you allude to, but I have a hard time seeing any flaws in this game, that could be fixed on a 6 year old engine.

Or possibly shot... Just for horror of making the reputation of Lawyers even worse.

It's fair to say, Castle, BaBs, War Witch, Positron, even some of the other red names get a fair amount of heat. That's always going to happen. It is the job of these people to change and grow the game. Any time something changes, there are always people upset that it's changing at all, always people upset it's not changing the right way and always people upset it's not changing more. So any redname is going to get at least some heat over the years.

But no developer or red name, has gotten nearly the amount of heat Jack Emert has, ever. Not when he was making the game, not since he has left the game. Jack got so much more heat than any of the current Devs, there are only 3 possible solutions.

1.) A giant chunk of the forum going "City of" player base has left the game and left a lot of nicer, quieter forum going players to stay and treat the Devs nicely on the forums. And this Exodus just happened to coincide with NCsoft purchasing the game and Jack leaving.

2.) A giant chunk of the forum going "City of" player base all took anger management courses at once and And this mass movement to therapy just happened to coincide with NCsoft purchasing the game and Jack leaving.

3.) Jack deserved\provoked a lot more anger and bile than any of the other developers have.


You can decide which option fits you.

Honestly, I was playing the game when Jack was still around, I came in right before Villains released, but I wasn't nearly as active on the forums. That said, I did read a bit of Dev's corner because I figured that was a good way to get a handle on some of the stuff going on in the game.

Jack always struck me as rude or rather uncaring in general. I can't say ever "hated" him but I never had any direct interaction with him on the forums or otherwise and I've never been one to hate or anger easily.

That being said, I understand why he gets the bile he does, and I can't say I think much of him as a game designer. Video games are products, they are sold to people to make money. The entire point of games is to make them appealing to the masses so people want to buy them. Making a video game you like, then telling other people they should like it to, or just not play it, would be akin to a Baskin Robins exec creating spinach and tuna flavored ice cream, which he loves, and making it the only option at ever Baskin Robins. Then when people complain saying "Tough luck, this is fantastic ice cream , eat it and be quiet"

It's not the way to run a business or make money, and it more or less seemed like Jack's take on things.

Honestly I felt this game got better the moment NCSoft bought it out, gave use a prestige grant, gave people who had either Villains or Heroes, access to both, and promised us a better tomorrow. This game was good, it has become fantastic IMO.

I honestly believe this game succeeded in spite of Jack and Cryptic, not because of them.

I have to agree here, but not just because Demon Summoning is the least wide spread of the new additions.

Honestly, I've wanted Dual Pistols for a long time, for this game. Glad to see them finally coming out.

I've wanted new, environments, visuals, costume pieces, villain groups, hero groups, missions, content and lore, for a long time. I've wanted to explore more of the whole concept of Praetoria for a long time.

I never thought about demon summoning until the devs mentioned it was coming out. And honestly, it looks like it's going to be a kick *** set. But it just doesn't grab me. Never been a huge demon fan. Desdemona is teh Hawtness to be sure. But I don't much care about the demons that much. I will play the set when it comes out, fire whip will be cool, but I'm much more excited to run around in Praetoria, interact with a lot of new types of characters, villains, heroes, etc ad all the new costumey goodness, with new stories and what ever else comes our way.