Judgement_Dave

But if they didn't come through with that wouldn't they leave themselves open to some form of redress as many EU server players could happily claim that they only kept an active account for the qualifying time period because of the advertised 2nd wave GR closed beta test.

Just as a reminder, the official announcement stated:
You'll notice that it is closed beta access that's announced, not just beta.


Note that:

• I can't find any mention of this in announcements.
• The announcement was made on the website news sections and, iirc, was made whilst the boards were down for c. 3 days for the merge. (I note that on the first thread I made when the boards returned, which was about the loyalty offer, here)
• IIRC the announcement was first made on the US website, and then an equivalent announcement was made on the EU site after a day or so. As far as I could tell at the time, the only difference was in EU-localisation (costs in pounds sterling/Euros and I think that the times may have been changed to GMT). I believe that the beta access was stated exactly the same for the EU as for the US.
• Final note: I may be imagining all this.

Yikes - it causes stigmata?!?!

I'd hate the game to have the stigma that stigmata would bring. Although I could go with it if it meant we got an early 90s Ministry soundtrack for a zone...

Sorry to bring that up - but given that there's non-native speakers reading I'd hate them to start misusing stigmata thinking it's the same as stigma.

And there we have it - is a Bubble Hearther:

• A practitioner of cowardly escapes in PvP;
• someone who griefs roleplayers;
• someone who farms exploits in the MA;

or is it

• the usual sort of obscure rubbish that people make up for a definition, that always includes a few mock-specific details about Cornish or Greek Pottery?

You decide.

The other definitions are all rubbish - as any person of great learning knows a Bubble Hearther, pronounced as one word 'Bubb-lee-hey-Art-ah', is simply a middle English Cornish pot or vase of Greek Design which has been decorated with an image of the Incan god Tony.

In many old fantasy based MMOs the players would relax and roleplay in the inns, all sat around the hearth of the roaring fire.

As a pre-order gift one of the games gave players a bubble-blowing action (alongside ones for confetti throwing, partyhat wearing and balloon holding).

This was back when MMOs were very young, and no-one realised that griefing would be so common - the devs still hoped that players would always work together for a better common experience. Naive - but then the devs were mainly computer nerds and old-school pen & paper roleplayers...

So failing to account for griefing, the devs made the bubble-blowing action into a power rather than an emote...

Before long the griefers had realised that if they stood on the hearth and blew enough bubbles on the inn's fire they could extinguish the fire and thouroughly annoy the roleplayers.

So a Bubble Hearther is another term for someone who griefs roleplayers.

Nearly the same as last year - except, when the sky turns red, it's Australians that invade.

Pretty darn poor indicators - you get a better indication in 2 minutes of play than from looking at vet's rewards.

The only thing that vet's badges are good for is providing a possible explanation or amusement if someone proves themselves to be clueless with no idea of team play.

In that case having no badges may point to a new account and it's worth asking and showing a little more patience/help (whatever the level - they may have been MA PLing, but let bygones be bygones).

And even the Kheldian with no vets means nothing - 3 years ago I got my first kheldian about 2 days shy of my 3 months in-game without grinding. After rounds of xp-smoothing I'd expect many players to get access to EATs (without grinding) before their first vet badge unless altitis sets in bigtime.

I fear that weapon-wielding criminals may lack a proper appreciation of sarcastic attacks upon their grammar. It may actually be better to just hand over the money.

Pop that one option in a list of it's own if you need a mugger-response list.

If you think that 'conclusive' means what I think it likely that you think it may mean then: no - I don't think it's quite as conclusive as you think it is.

Although I think that it's possible I may be thinking that you're thinking of a weaker definition of 'conclusive' than I'd been thinking it likely you'd been thinking, in which case yes - I think it is as conclusive as you think it is.

I think that's right.

Nowhere does it state that the downtime is for I16, so maybe, just maybe, it's 5 hours downtime to fix a strange bug affecting forum rep...

Quite why the game servers affect forum rep I don't know - but that's part of what's making this such a strange bug.

Just be thankful that the devs sort it out and can get back to getting I16 ready for an October launch.

You're in the UK - servers should be back at 17:00 UK local time - so if you work 'normal' business hours today's no good for you to play...

Hope you get well soon, but not too soon - aim to only get well after tomorrow so you get at least one sick day of play!



EDIT: I say 'should be back' as, iirc, I14 launch downtime overran by about 4 or 5 hrs...

Why would they put that disclaimer in when it isn't true?

Dual builds mean that pretty much any defender can have a soloing build that'll solo fine on just SOs. You just have to make sure that the solo build takes absolutely nothing that requires/only benefits team mates.

Heck - even with my noobness (or should that be noobosity?) my once pure empath (emp/rad) now has a SO-only second build that lets them happily solo the Cimeroran fortress spawns.

Yes - I have to be a lot more careful about it than on some of my other characters, but I reckon that if I can solo them on an empath defender with just SOs then practically anyone can solo if they build for it.


EDIT: OK - I fibbed. I've just checked and the empath solo build is SO-only except for 2 HOs. Still not exactly IO'd up though.

Oh - and for the record: It won't be anywhere near an efficient build as I never planned it, but threw it together in 5 min after wondering if I could make a solo build using (for the first time) the fighting pool, leadership pool, epic defence (temp invulnerability) and picking only the 3 auras from empathy...

Since we should be looking at getting our last member to 50 in the next session I'd suggest that we delay until tomorrow then, so we're all present.

Grouchy - you 2 in agreement?

That's the only reason why I've said before that it would have been better if they'd done the replacement-US-dxp weekend before I16 went live. But it's no biggy - and no problem with them getting a replacement if the dxp problems were as bad as has been reported on the forums.

Though I do know that some of the reports I read didn't seem any worse than the connectivity issues I was seeing with teams on the EU servers - so I did wonder if part of it was just the usual dxp server-load but, iirc, they found some (hardware?) issues on some US servers that were responsible and have since been rectified.

Pretty much how I see it - I never really understood some teams liking Freaks because they 'give double xp' - they gave effectively higher xp than normal, but not double when the extra effort of a second beatdown was considered.

And there's been many times I've seen teams come unstuck when they forgot about rezzers and effectively got a small boss ambush just as the spawn they're fighting Dull Pain themselves...

The higher xp modifiers should have been reduced back to 1.0, but I'm not sure about dropping to 0.8.

As been said, it's pretty minor though - I'll still love the look of freaks (Tetsuo with a mohawk - how can you go wrong?) and either hate them or feel neutral to them combat-wise depending on character strengths/weaknesses. Exactly as they've always been.

I think that you're referring to the Universal Enhancement Slots that were included in the survey (aka the what-we-are-working-on list) that went out a year or so ago.

Being called 'Universal' has always made me think that they may work in a similar manner to IO set bonuses - e.g. get 1 and slot it for +acc and you get +x% bonus to all powers that require a to hit roll, slot for +dmg and all damaging powers get a +y% increase.

And just like set bonuses, I could see this type of enhancement system providing small improvements percentage-wise but ones that are impervious to ED limitations.

Certainly hoping that they go that route rather than additional slots - otherwise you probably won't get any way to enhance those powers that you already have 6-slotted.

Nice idea but:

* The UK is currently on British Summer Time (BST) which is GMT+1. So I think you probably mean that it 's at 9:30 PM GMT/10:30 PM BST (UK local).

* You say that the ID will be broadcast using the broadcast channel... that's zone specific but you don't state which zone. I'd guess that you probably mean one of Atlas Park, Cap Au Diable or Rikti War Zone depending on whether it's just heroes, just villains or open to both.

It does count as access - but it's exactly the same sort of acces sthat anyone who can get a US CoX trial can get - whether they're an existing subscriber to a form of CoX or not.

Now if I report Mod08 to Mod08 for cross-posting he'll hate me won't he..?

Incorrect.

The closed beta access for all accounts in good standing and subscribed between the dates you state is the second wave of beta testers. 60+ month vets are the first wave.

It would seem likely that the 2nd wave of testers will start from soon after the 15th November, but it's also very possible that the first wave could already have been testing for up to a month or more.

I've always thought that something like the following may be possible.
* mid to late Oct for wave 1 (60 month vets)
* mid Nov for wave 2 (subscribed for the c.3month block to mid Nov)
* late Nove/Early Dec for wave 3 (pre-orders)
* mid Dec for launch/live

Giving the product great timing to ride Xmas sales...

I've always suspected that this may be the planned timings - but plans always change.

The I15 Open Beta forum closure obviously points to I16 OB soon.

But the NCSoft Store outage may be completely unrelated.

IIRC it's been stated in the past by a community redname (dodgy memory thinks it may have been Avatea) that the NCStore is common for all NC games and needs to be taken down to alter the inventory. So, if I'm remembering and reading it right, an outage to the NCStore and related systems could be nothing to do with changes to available CoX products/services.