Ice_Wall

So I originally bought CoH right before CoV launched, about 21 days before actually.

CoH had been a game I had seen and was intrigued by but never tried as I was busy with other games. When CoV was coming out I was even more intrigued and Loved the idea of making my own Super Villains. So I got CoH since the price had come down and figured it would be the trial run before I paid full price for Villains.

The irony is I have enjoyed CoH far more than CoV. I don't think CoV is a bad game, I just don't think it lives up to it's name, like many others I have seen at least on the boards here, it doesn't feel Villainous enough to me.

So I came on this idea while soloing my new brute. One of the main differences I see between Villains and Heroes, is that typically Heroes show restraint, they don't want to hurt people more than they have to. They arrest bad guys instead of killing them whenever possible etc.

Villains on the other hand love power, they love to use their power and inflict as much damage on their enemies as they can (typically.) So what if we could take advantage of the new rules which treat powers differently in PVP and PVE zones, and give villains a huge PVE Buff.

The idea is that Villains could show their lack of restraint by taking on much larger groups, giving them the feeling of being very powerful, more Villainous when instead of taking on 3 person groups, they could easily take on 6 or 8 person groups.

I suppose this idea should be discussed more in theory as it would be a big thing to do. the Devs would have to adjust either all of the power sets or all of the bad guy stats on Villain side. Spawn rules would have to be changed villain side and XP changed so that XP remained relatively the same per group of bad guys. (E.g. the previous 3 man mob would generate the same XP as a new 8 man Mob.)

If it were to be done, I think it would make Villains feel more sinister to play. Less "restraint" as it were. Of course PVP zones would treat villains much the same as they are now. AVs and such would need to be scaled since they should still be a battle, but I think it would be neat to take on much more bad guys than people can currently.

Any thoughts? Be gentle...

I like the idea, but the way you have suggested it, thematically doesn't make a lot of sense.

If Character A reaches level 50, everyone should trust that character, but why then would Character B, a lowly level 1 get trusted automatically?

I think it could be a character thing certainly, all future stuff that character does, in Ooroborus or otherwise should just get an auto call feature.

Account wide is a good idea too, but I think it would have to be implemented slightly differently to give it the right thematic approach. Or make it something like a vet reward or something along those lines where it is more for the player than the character.

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Technically it would be constructive in informing the OP of a way to get information on this subject themselves instead of rehashing all the same old stuff. Sort of a 'I don't have the time/inclination/etc to hunt it down, but it's there and here are the tools to find it yourself' type deal. With the knowledge that there's already a large thread or 8, it should be easier to find.

With that being said... /unsigned.

I'm assuming the other threads have better points than I'm about to make, but for me personally... while it would make a lot of things easier for the players, I can also see how it would make things easier for the... you know, RMTers. I support restricting ingame e-mail more than it is now, not giving it more features.

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Why should actual players have to sacrifice user friendliness and convenience because of a small undesired population? And by the way, the RMTers can transfer their influence and what not just fine so far, all this reasoning does is let the small amount of RMTers ruin it for the rest of us...

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Because experience has shown us that most players are more than willing to put up with a minor inconvienence if it gets rid of a major inconvienence.

The Trial account restrictions are proof of that. Before we had them RMTer's were running amok abusing the system. The restrictions went into effect and overnight the chat channels fell silent, and the RMT sites could no longer use trial accounts to shuttle funds between accounts.

The doomcriers ranted and raved at the draconian measures. The game was going to die from this. The restrictions were going to let the RMTers ruin it for the rest of us.

Guess what. The games still here. Everyone is still enjoying it. No one wants to return to the bad days prior to the trial account restrictions. The inconvienent restrictions didn't ruin it for the rest of us.

Giving us the tools we need to restrict or block emails entirely will benefit the majority of the customers and only frustrate the RMT sites and the losers that use their services.

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First off, I remember back before the trial account restrictions, and the RMTers didn't bug me that much even then. Secondly, I would much prefer an e-mail transfer system over keeping those guys in check. The RMTers are going to be in the game no matter what we do, report them as spam when they email you and move on..

But the bigger point is, how many conveniences and luxaries are we going to sacrifice for the sake of making things harder on the RMTers? These guys aren't going away, we are kidding ourselves if we think they are. They are a part of this game and MMOs in general, I say make the game the players want and stop worrying about a small population of undesirables.

If nothing else the OPs idea has merit in the case of testing. When new powersets are released, if the Devs could put in the testing forums a list of the powers of the power sets, and their "vision" or "intended use" of the powers were, then the people testing would have something to go by.

A few times in open betas I have reported bugs that were things that were "working as intended" or didn't report bugs because I thought they were working as intended. If there had been some sort of list for the desired goal for these powers, I would have been a more effective tester.

I might agree with the OP if I had ever once seen anyone besides my Bot MM use this power. And even then I have only seen it used like 3 times over 3.5 years playing this game.

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Technically it would be constructive in informing the OP of a way to get information on this subject themselves instead of rehashing all the same old stuff. Sort of a 'I don't have the time/inclination/etc to hunt it down, but it's there and here are the tools to find it yourself' type deal. With the knowledge that there's already a large thread or 8, it should be easier to find.

With that being said... /unsigned.

I'm assuming the other threads have better points than I'm about to make, but for me personally... while it would make a lot of things easier for the players, I can also see how it would make things easier for the... you know, RMTers. I support restricting ingame e-mail more than it is now, not giving it more features.

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Why should actual players have to sacrifice user friendliness and convenience because of a small undesired population? And by the way, the RMTers can transfer their influence and what not just fine so far, all this reasoning does is let the small amount of RMTers ruin it for the rest of us...

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If you really have no objection to defacing the flag of your country that way, what kind of message are you really sending about how you feel about your country?


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But it's not my country.. Its a flag, a symbol. Frankly what do I care if the symbol is destroyed so long as the country is fine? We are industrious people ,we can come up with another symbol if need be.

Heroes wearing capes shows their loyalty or affinity for their country, if something happens to it, they can patch it or get a new one...

Plus, unless I missed something, this is a virtual cape we are talking about right? I mean, no one is asking for the PlayNC store to sell actual capes with flag designs on them that people could buy and wear around town or in their chair playing city of heroes with, right?

Damn, just passed 500 myself. My hats off to you my friend. Any tips?

I understand we can't edit existing villain groups powers. But can we at least alter their appearance, or colors?

IE: I want a black and red PPD Hardsuit. And I'd like a big pink warwolf for my GF.

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Happymerrykwansafestivuschannukkahsolsticechristma sconsumeristboxing Day!

Gadget Don, I do believe you are on to something with your statement. You would need to cancel your current method of billing in order to engage in PayPal. Then you would need to reinstate said billing again for it to resume normal behavior.

That should sum up the last two posts since my billing clarity post.

Regards,

Ex

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You included festivus! You rock!

Wish i would have known this was coming when I bought a new computer two months ago, I was considering a mac.

The fact that there was no Mac version of this game was a factor in my decision. (Ultimately im not sure it would have changed it, but it would have been nice to know.)

On the other hand, Welcome Mac users! Find me on virtue we can run some TFs together!

All Hail Synapse!

Hey, welcome to the boards, thanx for any work you have done so far, I am always excited to see a new red name, hope we can harass you soon!

Lighthouse,

I am sorry to see you will be leaving. It was obvious you cared a lot about this community, this game and the players involved, it showed in your posts and in your work and at Hero Con where you were gracious and very respectful and nice to all of us players who sat in on the panels flinging questions at the devs.

My girlfriend I met you briefly at Hero Con after dinner and griped for a moment about being censored on the forums and I rather enjoyed our short conversation. Though I don't know you aside from that one short meeting, you struck me, (as you always have on the forums) as a really great guy, and the community digest tracker is just not going to quite the same anymore.

I hope they retire your Red Name and give you a big monument somewhere in the game. I sincerely wish you the best in life and in your new opportunities, and thank you again for bringing your light to this community for the last 2+ years!

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How on earth will that work for the people that took the powers you are taking out and like them?

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Simple.

You log in to find your Stalker Snipe now builds a small cottage.

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Is it an Evil small cottage?

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A lot of these things are ready to go and we're tightening down the bolts on the last few things before we can send this to the training room for players to see. It would be irresponsible of us to not get this in the fans of players.

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So I13 is designed to run off of my fan? I wish somebody would have said that before I ordered my new comp, I'd have ordered bigger fans instead of bigger processors and graphics cards...

Seriously, this issue sounds cool, I am glad for the details to finally come out, it took a while but boy do we have some information now! Once again impressed by how much the developers of this game seem to listen to the community and respond to many of the things people are asking for.

Go Devs and bring on the power! Though not so much with the responsibility.

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:O Castle is sneaky! He's not a pirate at all, HE'S A NINJA!



He seems to be a bit of both, and as my girlfriend is fond of saying, that would make him a Pinga

GET HIM!!!

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Seems a bit odd that 3+ weeks after the announcement marketing can't come up with *anything* to show off about Issue 13. No screenshots, no details on any of the already-announced content, nothing at all.

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Lighthouse commented on this the other day in one of the forums. (It was within this week I believe, check the Community digest forum.) He said they hadn't made any further announcements because of some "changes" and that more info would be forth coming soon.(TM)

That doesn't tell us a whole lot, but makes me think that they hit some snafus, decided to add some things or wanted to change the way they were doing anything and ended up with delays and then didn't want to say anything further in case things didn't go as planned etc.

That is all pure speculation on my part, but I am betting we get more I13 news before long.

/em jealous at all the people who get to go to PAX

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That's unfortunate. Proliferation would have been one of my favorite things about this issue, if it happened. Shields are meh.

And what about Pistol blasters? Not gonna happen I guess.

Overall the issue sounds alright, not one of the best though.

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I was hoping for proliferation this issue too. I am really keeping my fingers crossed that they "Proliferate" dual pistols from MMs to blasters and corruptors. I think that would be a very fun set.

Castle has mentioned before, pistols is on his radar, maybe in I14? Who knows, I am not complaining though, I13 seems like it is going to be chock full of stuff, mission creator, new stuff to do in Cimerora, shield sets, Pain Domination, day jobs, merits. All sounds great to me, as does the Cyborg pack, I have been wanting more cyborg-y costume options. So all in all, I am looking forward to this issue, and I really want to know what they are doing with bases...

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<ul type="square">[*] Eight additional power trays added which can be accessed by clicking the “+” sign on the upper-right of the Power Tray Interface or via commands (/show tray1, /show tray2, show tray3, etc).[*] These trays have no jelly to click on, but can be dragged about by clicking on non-occupied slots or dead space.[*] These trays are deformable.[*] Added command /clear_tray which will remove all non-macros from all power trays.[/list]
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Okay, I am really happy about the additional trays, especially for my MM who has more macros than I know what to do with, but is there any way you could add these trays to the keybinding menu so that I might be able to make hot keys for all of them in an easier manner?

As it Is I run all my characters entirely off of hotkeying my powers, except my MM, I have run out of keys to do this with since I have 5 trays and counting. If we could have some sort of drop down menu for each tray in the keybinding menu of the options menu, it would allow us to more effectively utilize the extra trays.

I'm not sure if this has been said, and I can't read all the other pages of this list right now, but I would really like more Low level contacts. Heroes got 12 starting contacts across two zones. If we can't have two zones, can we have at least a wider variety of contacts so every time I roll a new villain I'm not doing just the same low level missions again and again?

Also, no more snakes. I get it, I kill snakes as a low level villain. If I kill one more low level snake I may vomit. So if they do give us more low level contacts, please give us something without snakes.

I think the problem is content of zones. Zones that go unused, Boom-town, Dark-Astoria, Shadow Shard etc, are zones that have no content. Many of the hero "hazard" zones have no contacts, no events, no Tasks forces. Nothing to do there except the occasional mission. People go in, do the mission and leave because there is nothing else to do except hunt mindlessly, and that can be done anywhere.

Take for example the "Rikti crash site" They converted that Zone, made it co-op, gave it it's own task force, several of it's own story arcs, it's own raid even. Now it's really popular and it's because there is always activities to do there. I know If I go to the RWZ I will find a mission, or a Task force or a team or a raid.

The problem with CoH isn't that it's too big, it's that there are too many zones that really have nothing to attract people to them. I would love to do more with a zone like Dark Astoria, but really after I hunt Pantheon for a while and run a couple missions, what am I going to do? Give the zone some arcs and a point to it like the Hallows or Croatoa, and people would go check it out.

This needs to be done with Villains. They got 8 zones. Heroes have upwards of 20. The Villains could use more zones, but they could also use more content. There are currently 3 starting contacts and 1 zone for low level villains. (Kalinda, Burke and the VEAT contact.) Heroes have 2 starting zones and 12 starting contacts. 1 contact for each origin in Atlas AND 1 for each origin in Galaxy, plus PBs and WSs get their own contacts.

I love Villain archetypes, but rolling a new low level villain is painful because I am running the same exact missions again and again. Give villains new zones, but pack them with things to do. raids, task forces, contacts, story arcs, new enemies, new art. Make the zones look unique so I feel like Im in a new zone not just the same old. Do those things and I garuntee people will go to those zones and I bet you would see a rise in the number of people who play red side.

Edited for clarity and typos.

Forgive me if this has been asked, since there are like 12 pages of posts already.

When we got the 2 free slots to start, is that 2 slots per server? or two slots for us to place on a server of choice?

Same thing for the vet reward slots and the purchased slots. If I purchase 5 slots , will that be 5 slots each or just 5 slots that I can assign to what ever server I want?

Also, is there going to be any way to move slots from one server to another? I mean, since I never play on pinnacle, and those slots go unused ,could I transfer all those to Virtue?

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Overshadowed by Villain-player 'outrage' about Rockjaw's comments was a very important piece of info that came out of the Omega Sektor event. As previously stated by Jack Emmert and commented on recently by War Witch, 2006 saw the CoH/V team cut by 75% / from a team of about 60 to a team of about 15. It provides some insight into why David 'Zeb' Cook left, why Emmert stepped off the project and why content releases slowed in 2006.

More interesting was the fact that War Witch was the only person who did zone creation during that time. It seems increasingly likely that Castle was the only person working on power systems, BAB was leading probably only one or two people in looking after animations (he'd need someone else to hold the camera while he swung his sword around - bow wow chicka chicka bow wow! ;-), SexyJay probably had costume design all to himself or as part of a small art team (two or three people).

We're aware of Ghost Widow as a programmer and there are probably a few more, but not a huge number (so perhaps 5). Positron would have needed to be a man of many skills (deck of many things?) to help guide things forward and to pick up the slack where it appeared.

(I'm sure I'm forgetting some people, but I think pohsyb came back to CoH/V when it was bought by NCsoft, so he wasn't on that list.)

So: 15 people. Enough to keep the game going but certainly not sizeable to enough to release huge content releases for free every 4 months. The fact that they recovered to release 3 very good issues in 2007 is testament to the work ethic of the team.

Having seen a number of "WY ISN"T THIS BUGZ FIXXED???" threads appear recently, here's your answer: 15 people.

My thanks to those 15, both known and unknown to the forum community. It was appreciated.

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So issue 9, 10 and 11 done on the backs of 15 people?

Man, I have been a fan of this game, basically since I booted it up. And I have been a fan of the devs, pretty much since I first came on the forums and saw how often they posted and interacted with the 'fans'.

I gotta say, now I am even more impressed. Wonder what could happen if they got back up to 60 people.. I bet they would come up with some damn good content!

-Side note. If we gave 30 people to the animation department for a short term loan, could those 30 people crank through re-doing SFX fast enough to make power customization? Just a thought, pie in the sky sort of thing..

-Side -Side note. Then again, if we got the dev count back up to 60, that just means there would be that many more devs to hate villains...

(I'm totally kidding, I don't buy that devs hate villains for a second, just thought this might be funny to some of the tin foil hat types..)

-Back to main note.

Umm, you guys rock, and I can't wait to see what comes out now that you got more hands!

Ohh and War Witch, major props to you on RWZ reworking and Ouroborus zone, I mean if you really(*) did those single handedly, then wow, hats off to you big time!

(*) I am not doubting WWs ability to do those zones by herself, I simply qualified that because I don't have all the facts and am just going off of what I heard from others, and have done no fact checking myself on what has been posted here.

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Oh, wow.

You got me.

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Same. I was already on my way to flame-fest the Devs!

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Oh my dear lord I want this, yes it is a april fool's joke but as god as my witness if you are older and have ever enjoyed the simplistic beauty of watching Adam West and Cesar Romero duke it out, then this is a better feature than a power custimazation. And to you nay says I say Biff, Bam, pew, Pow

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Oh good god, no. I well remember Adam West's Batman . . . PLEASE leave that one in the past!

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I saw Batman and Robin the movie on FX last night. The one With Uma Therman as Poison Ivy. That reminded me a lot of the Adam West Batman. Colorful, Campy, a complete betrayal of the serious natur of the Batman character.. Now that I think of it, that movie would have been IMPROVED with a few well placed "Freem"s "Zatz"s or "Ka-Bam"s.. So can we get VSFX on all Joel Shumacker movies?