Jophiel

I originally wrote more but had to close out so this'll be short & sweet:

When there's a bunch of bad guys in a warehouse, the vigilante response should be to chain the doors shut, light the place on fire and shoot in the head anyone who manages to get out. It shouldn't be to go to the bad guy's house, draw mustaches on his magazines, unscrew the top to his salt shaker and use his bathroom without flushing. Likewise, when you're done you shouldn't hear that some real heroes stopped the bad guys and saved the world while you were off dorking around because the bad guys should be in the leaking wet garbage bags where you left them.

There's some missions which get it right and the choice is between "Do it the nice legal and acceptable way" and "Kill them all with fire & poison gas". Too many have you pick between "Do the intelligent thing" and "Act like a complete idiot".

That said, I love the concept of the system and am glad to have it. Just wish going gray didn't require so many choices that are more intellectually questionable rather than morally questionable.

I took my blueside DP/Traps corruptor to fight him last night and walked all over the guy. He was down before he could fire off his first power siphon. I'm not saying this to brag (he smeared some of my characters to the point where I had no chance of doing it solo even popping inspirations) but I was honestly wondering last night if he got nerfed or I just got really lucky.

I like the "It appears to us..."

Makes me picture a couple NCSoft support guys staring at the monitor.

"Hey.. who is this 'Jophiel' guy and why is he here on our accounts screen...?"
"I dunno. I guess maybe he has some sort of account?"
"It would appear so... but I'm not sure. We better ask him for his account information and check."

I just received an e-mail nominally from "NCSoft support" saying I should go to NCSofta-----nts.com (obvious name redacted just to be safe) and enter my NCSoft account information for a chance to win a free Guild Wars 2 beta key.

It was a really poorly done e-mail. No graphics or anything, just large bold text.

World Wide Red. I wish this arc was tightened up a bit. I suppose I enjoyed it the first time around but I have no desire to ever slog through it again. Even with the payoff at the end, it felt like it took forever.

25-30 characters

Only ones to ever use the second build were a couple who used it as a level 10 respec without wasting an actual respec.

Looks great, both of them!

I recently made a Ninja/Pain MM but I'm not really sure if it's the way I want to go. For thematic reasons, I can see me playing the following primary/secondaries:

Primary: Ninja, Mercs, Zombies
Secondaries: Pain, Poison, Dark, Trick Arrow (with Ninjas)

To be honest, Zombies are my third choice pick and I'd really think it was between ninjas and mercs but stuff I've read is that ninjas as squishy and spazzy and... umm... I guess what I read about mercs is usually "lolmercs".

So, back to my existing character, I guess I'm worried that I'll wind up playing heal-bot to a bunch of hyperactive freaks which doesn't sound too enticing. Out of what I have listed, what would you suggest? I'm new to the MM thing aside from another newbie Bots/FF MM I have waiting for me although I have some pet class experience from other MMORPGs.

Just to restate: I'm not hung up on the global name thing. Just using a "last date paid" marker for the account would work just as well if the global thing isn't workable.

I have a brute who is a sort of golem-like creation. She's treating the world as her playground with her immature mind and doing what she wants to do. Eventually, she'll learn to focus her energies more constructively and learn to do good instead of just smash-and-grabs as the mood strikes her.

Excellent. So free up all the names not attached to globals I know they haven't because I just checked on a couple names I knew from past experience to be taken and not have a global name attached. They're still listed as taken and still have no globals attached to them. Again, I might just be a special snowflake to have found some of the pool of names over level six (and thus unpurged) that supposedly just weren't worth it but I suspect that the number isn't insignificant.

The "They aren't good anyway" argument doesn't make much sense. The only reason to preserve these names is for the off chance someone returns after five plus years and then ragequits when their name is gone. If the names are all terrible then no one will claim them anyway. If the names are great then they'll see usage again with today's active players. As I said, it seems like the best compromise. Personally, I'd add in trial accounts over 2-3 years old as well whether attached to a global or not. If you played once for a week back in 2008, you're not likely to be returning.

Well, I'll let it go with that unless someone has a direct question for me. This is well enough traveled ground that I doubt it'll be an issue

I've tried to find globals for five names in my time (to see if the owner was interested in parting with them). Out of those five, three were unattached to a global. Not that my sample size really indicates that 60% of "used" names are from accounts closed before 2005 but likewise I doubt the number of names unattached to globals is insignificant.

Anyway, it's just my opinion on what would be the best compromise between freeing up names and "protecting" the names of potential resubscribers.