Jophiel

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Maiden Justice = Monica Richter, Statesman's wife, who is deceased as of the 1980's

[/ QUOTE ]I suppose "Matron Justice" lacked panache.

I like #1 the best but, if the answer is "It's too much work to add in the missions, contacts, whatever" then I'd be happy enough with #2 or #3.

As inspired by my thread here.

It would be nice to have at least one mutant origin group you face in the mid-levels of the game. Although a few workarounds were suggested in that thread (Shopkeeper badge, turning off xp in AE), it would be so much better to simply allow people with mutant origins to accumulate SOs naturally rather than have to purchase them exclusively through the AE or shops. Although I appreciated the one poster mentioning turning off xp, it seems absurd to have to chose between gaining xp or acquiring SOs when every other origin gets to do both at the same time.

Looking at the list of mob groups in the 30's, I'm seeing about five techs, probably about five magics (counting the various Croatoa factions), a couple of sciences and I believe a couple naturals. Couldn't we switch Council back to mutant or something?

Enhancements are easy enough since they all represent either devices, training techniques, chemical serums or magical artifacts you're using to make yourself stronger. I suppose the hardest one to accept are techniques but I'd just assume you're finding some sort of training manual or whatnot.

I've been in Croatoa but those are all magic based (from what I've seen). Punks.

So the short answer seems to be: Don't make mutant origin characters. I know I can buy SOs from the AE (thanks for the suggestion, though) but it looks like I have pretty much zero chance of bettering my character... "naturally".

It's a bit of a bummer since I'm trying to avoid leveling via the AE on this character to make sure I go through 1-50 the traditional route at least the once and know what the various zones & mob groups have to offer.

Aside from the rare Lost radio mission (and those are starting to populate themselves with Rikti), I can't think of or find one. This is at lvl 31.

I finally had a contact who was billed as "dealing with mutants" (José someone-or-another from Founders Falls) -- and he sends me on missions involving Devouring Earth (science) and Council (technology). Erm... those aren't exactly mutant groups.

I'm slowly converting to IOs and Sets but it sure would be nice if I could collect some SO's to plug in the holes while I'm playing and not have to rely on dropping influence for them all.

I'm never playing a mutant origin character again. Swimming in Tech/Sci/Magic and even Natural enhancements, though.

Tonight on a Council mission, I overheard a Zenith Hoverbot say "Maybe I'll be selected to become a vampyri."

I felt kind of bad for the guy but at least it has dreams.

Always up for anothe ropinion and a bit of free publicity:

Chris Jenkins: Attorney at Law - 204942
Lvls 1-14 Heroside Humor (1 mission arc)

Standing Within the Mists - 209473
Lvl 16-40 Villain Drama (5 mission arc)

Choose either/or/both -- I'm happy with whatever.

In the "From other nations" file, here's The Polish Princess:

Pic 1
Pic 2
Close-up so you can admire her Eagle tiara

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Possibly for civilians. Or military/PPD.

[/ QUOTE ]Civilians purchasing neurotoxins and genetic mutation serums at the corner store? No wonder the crime rate in Paragon City is so high

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Imagine you're actually a superhero and you live in a world where people could help you fight crime by giving you things. You don't walk into a store to BUY gadget DOs. They actually give them to you. For instance, Bill owns the shop and last week you saved his friend from Hellions. He has a business to run and can't give you too much for free. He also has thousands of other heroes coming and going. But you've done him a service, and he's read about you in the newspaper, so you're worth a few free gadgets.

[/ QUOTE ]Although it does raise the question of who does Bill sell his Nanodisintergrators and Advanced Targetting Eyes and Adrenal Gland Boosters to if not heroes.

"I like to always carry some WetWare Engineering Neuralparalyzer on me... for deer hunting."

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I wonder why they never instituted a fee for using the trains? I know I'd be less impressed by Sooperdooper Guy if I saw him hanging onto one of those little handles on the train on his way to fight Larry Larceny than if I saw him flying through the sky over the city.

[/ QUOTE ]'Cause you'd be even LESS impressed if Sooperdooper guy couldn't afford train fare and you saw him jumping the turnstile or hanging on to the outside of the train on his way to fight crime

I doubt I'll buy more and expressed my reasons elsewhere where we have a stimulating conversation

I reserve the right to cave in to my baser desires at some later date.

Assuming you don't want to do farms for your AE experience, take a browse around the Mission Architect Stories & Lore forum for many, many arc reviews and see which ones sound interesting.

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I don't want to Unpublish/Re-Publish and lose all the ratings and plays to date; so the 'mad lib' highlight will stay. I just won't go overboard in any future Arcs I do.

[/ QUOTE ]You can republish changes without unpublishing and losing your ratings/arc #. Just FYI (I didn't know that at first).

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Dead & the Damned is on queue for tonight. I've about exhausted my list so if anyone has other lowbie arcs they'd like played, post 'em here.

[/ QUOTE ]I've been both busy and lazy the last two nights. Hope no one was waiting on the edge of their seat. This is legitimately on queue for tonight.

For whatever it's worth, my understanding on it was that objects are "Oriental", people are "Asian" (or Japanese, Korean, whatever). So "Oriental rug", "Oriental vase" or "Oriental weapons" is okay but "Some Oriental guy asked me where the train station is" is not.

Take it or leave it.

Oh, sure. I was just saying that at least you didn't try twice to escape and then say "What the heck, let's go kill some cops."

As a single point of defense (hey, it ain't my arc...) I'll note that the entry text on the 3rd mission makes it clear that you've "done" the tunnel mission hundreds of times before caving in to the "Get rid of the PPD" demands.

Thankfully, the arc doesn't require you to play through all those attempts.

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For $5 I can buy a 1GB memory stick here in Poland. I'd follow any suggestion thread you make on upping our slot size to 1gig with interest!

[/ QUOTE ]I'm a reasonable man. I'd settle for a half gig

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QR - Re the '$5 for 100kb' viewpoint, I'd say it wasnt merely memory we're buying at all.

Our sub buys us the following (in terms of the MA):

The MA itself, and 3 slots to publish our arcs in.

The extra buys us:

The option to publish more arcs - and incidentally, as part of this process we 'gain' 100kb worth of space per slot to put our arcs in.

[/ QUOTE ]You gain the ability to publish more arcs specifically because they give you 100kb of data. Not in addition to.[ QUOTE ]
There's a piece of plastic in front of me, smallish, circular, probably worth a few cents if that. It's the DVD of Once Upon A Time In The West. Just a piece of plastic, is it? or maybe it's just 4.6gig of memory, nothing more. I've also got Armageddon on DVD, also 4.6gig. They're the same,are they?

[/ QUOTE ]When you buy the DVD, you're largely paying for the data encoded onto the DVD. which is why a DVD of Armageddon costs more than a blank DVD. The 100kb you're buying for $6 is just that -- 100kb of data storage. Technically, it's even more limited than that since you couldn't save a Word file on it or anything but there's no reason to complicate things.[ QUOTE ]
My arc The Echo is not 'just' 100kb. All the arcs out there crafted with care by all of us, they are not just worth the memory they occupy.

[/ QUOTE ]You're not buying an arc. You're buying 100kb of storage upon which you may put an arc.

A blank CD could potentially hold the same music as your favorite $18 album. Would you buy a blank CD for $18? I assume not. Why? Because it's not your favorite album, it's empty potential data storage. So why would you compare a blank 100kb slot on a server to a loaded DVD or CD or book or anything else?[ QUOTE ]
And right here is where you start paying ... in sweat.

[/ QUOTE ]Well, sweat and $6 for 100kb

Edit: I'm going to let it drop with that. Like I've said, those who are happy with the terms, I'm happy for ya. Even an option that *I* don't think is worth it is still an option and obviously some folks are happy with it so it's better that Paragon offers that than to have them offer nothing. I just think that it's overpriced and was giving my opinion why I thought so.

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I work at a hotel. Hey, the room is just gonna sit empty anyway, someone could say, if they don't come in and take it. So why not rent the room to them for just the labor cost of cleaning staff?
and when the guest leaves the hotel, they've got nothing to show for, no physical goods. What a ripoff!

[/ QUOTE ]On the other hand, I bet your hotel charges a room rate about equal to that of the same style room at other hotels. Can you name another place charging six bucks for 100kb of storage space? Data storage is ridiculously cheap. Companies give it away just to make it look like they're offering you some great benefit. Again, the MA and three slots aren't what you're buying here -- you have that with your subscription. All you're getting is a tiny amount of additional data space.

Start charging $600 a night for a Motel 6 quality room and I bet you'll have plenty of people considering it a "ripoff".[ QUOTE ]
Besides, there's another value to putting a price on something. If something costs real money, some people will choose not to get it.

[/ QUOTE ]That I can agree with. Of course, if you set the bar high enough you not only block out people who "don't care" but also those who "don't care enough" to pay that amount. They could charge $15 a slot and they'd block out those who "don't care". They'd block out a lot of potentially interested people as well.

Personally, I'd go $3 a slot. Enough money to make it worth offering and cheap enough to overlook the fact that it's still a well overinflated price for 100kb of space. I wouldn't think less of someone who decided to pay their asking price for the slots but I think it's a valid point to call them overpriced.

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I hate to break this to you but there is no one asking for any AE team looking for extra hard missions or surprise NPCs.

[/ QUOTE ]Who said anything about "extra hard" or "surprise"? At least surprise in difficulty or whatever.

I'm concerned more with, say, wanting the final boss of a five mission arc to be your contact (OMG Shock!). Knowing going into the arc that you'll end it by fighting Contacty McContacton kind of ruins the plot.

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I have a real job, so I have no problem paying $20 for 5 more arc slots.

[/ QUOTE ]I have plenty of money. A lack of money isn't what keeps me from thinking that it's a bum deal for the cost.[ QUOTE ]
I realize a bunch of people are going to complain about the cost, because it's "just storage space" (not considering the cost it took for the devs to actually create Mission Architect)

[/ QUOTE ]It is just storage space. Access to the MA and three slots worth comes "free" with your paid subscription to CoX. The only thing you get for the additional money is 100k of storage. That's what? Around 1/16th of a 3.5" floppy disc?

I said in another thread that it's good that the developers came up with some sort of option and if you think it's worth the money then go for it and God bless. I'm glad you think it's worth it. But other people saying that it's a rip-off for the price seems perfectly justified.[ QUOTE ]
everything is a rip off! But CoH is less of a ripoff than most.

[/ QUOTE ]CoX is a wonderful bargin for the price. The extra storage slots for MA arcs aren't (in my opinion, YMMV).

Yeah, but the monthly fee covers full use of the MA and three data slots. I can't think of a way this is anything besides selling me 100k worth of disk storage for six bucks (or five bucks in "bulk").

That seems like something of a sucker deal to me. Not that I can't afford $6 (or $20) but I have a hard time justifying it for what I get.

But, whatever. They didn't have to do anything so at least those who want to drop the cash on it have the option.