Judgement_Dave

After having hardware issues I recently got one of these - works like an absolute dream.

Only problem is in the few weeks since I got it I'm working too much with little time to play and enjoy...

When the devs brought in level pacts they did say something to the effect of "we're trying it with the current restrictions of both characters under level 5 but if it goes well we'll look to open it up" - they mentioned considering letting characters higher than level 5 pacting and pacts between more than just two characters.

I can't recall if there was direct dev attribution, but there was forum discussion about it probably being fine if the two characters pacting were of similar level (such as within 5 levels) as it would avoid the worst misuses of offline powerleveling.

I've not seen any dev comment on it in years - so maybe the idea of opening it up was dropped.

A large part of the levelling pact was to allow people to play together with ease and to continue to play together even when one party couldn't make every session.

Given the changes to the SK system, so that virtually everyone is SK'd/exemped to a single player it's maybe not as important to revamp the pact system - though I can't see any good reasons why pacts should be a fair enough system to exist for some characters who took advantage of them when they were low level but too exploitable to be formed by any higher levels.
Not if there was always a restriction on the level difference between characters entering a pact - e.g. wth a limit of 5 levels your 50 could only pact with a 45+. We managed for years under the old SK system with a setup that was worse than that if a bridge was used.
How does it break your immersion?
If you're part of the pact you can break it.
If you're not part of the pact then how does it affect your immersion in any way shape or form?

Besides you can do that now - as long as youy started before level 5. And that's where some sort of inconsistency enters: Why is it ok for one person to form a pact at level 5 and then play 40+ levels never seeing their pact buddy, but it's not ok for a lvl30 and a lvl29 to form a new pact when they usually team together?

That's the key - it's a game that's suitable for children. It's not meant to become a debate about what constitutes an official country.

Heck - the official lists vary as the list of official countries/states/nations varies according to whether they're officially recognised by whichever body drew up the list. This often means that some countries are left off some lists for many years especially if the country/body making the list disagrees of the new country's political or religious leaning...

And as for the view that the USA is a collection of 50 countries - that's pretty much how I generally see it. It has a big advantage over Europe in using a common tongue and a common currency but the clue's in the name: it's a union of separate states.

Although not quite 50 states... not all 50 are states. There's a few commonwealths iirc - can't recall how many, but think Massachusetts (sp?) is one.

And that's the problem - the people I've met on several trips to Germany and Austria all wanted to get in some English practice so I never got to practice my rusty German.

Of course their English was far better than my German. It's quite humbling hearing a German apologise for their poor English language skills before delivering a lengthy talk about economics/politics/quantum mechanics/etc that most reasonably well educated Brits probably couldn't follow...

Pretty darn sure I applied my 3months CoX to one of my EU accounts - given that I've never had anything but a trial account on the US servers.

Leadership has always been a pretty-much-must-have for my defenders. And is a big, big part of why 8-defender teams can blast with the best of them...

Only real downside used to be that being team-multiplier effects they weren't as useful solo - which used to really hurt some defenders who already had team-oriented builds from their primaries. Yay for dual builds and new vigilance.

It was in this time period (not long after Good vs Evil launched) that a magazine (PC Gamer iirc) had an issue with a complete boxset of CoH or CoV on the cover.

Pretty sure both games were used, though I only saw copies with CoV on the cover in the shops.

It looked like a good way to get rid of surplus stock of the old boxes, being more than just a trial.

Still not much overall - but worth adding to the marketing tally.

Just realised that I made a mistake and put 'One of Us' - I meant 'People Like Us'.

And some good suggestions - Big_Lunk_NA suggested some brilliant shows, but possibly a little too adult-oriented with a sick/black sense of humour for many... Brass Eye caused a media $*&%storm in the UK after a paedophillia 'special'.

Oh - and I'm a little surprised that no-one, self included, has yet mentioned The Mighty Boosh...

You might think that but I couldn't possibly comment.



Yup - I'd say that between the House of Cards trilogy (serious drama) and Yes Minister/Prime Minister (comedy) you've been brought fully up to speed on UK Politics. Though reading Machievelli probably still helps...

Aren't you missing a 'Nine' from that?

IIRC it was Not the Nine O'Clock News - shown on BBC2 at 9pm when BBC1 usually showed the news. And if the old memory is working I think it was Rowan Atkinson, Pamela Stephenson, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones.

So if you like that then Alas Smith and Jones may be worth watching. Amongst some great sketches it had a fantastic recurring item of Mel & Griff in head to head dialogue.

If you can't find the TV series there was an audio release of some head to head conversations...

Of course Rowan went on to Blackadder.

All I can currently recall Pamela going on to do was the excellent TV series of the book of the radio series of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy... which has to be seen/heard/read in at least one form.

Anyone know if hedgehog flavour crisps are still available anywhere?

The FAQ and dev comments (that I'm aware of) have previously directly rejected the idea of a paid boost/catch-up system.

And quite rightly so. I pointed out in my first post in this thread that a paid catch-up (the OPs first suggestion) was not an idea I'd support.

But I've not seen any comment from them about effectively starting a second stream of rewards from a more recent startpoint (as I interpret the OP's second suggestion).

I've never seen that idea suggested before and it does, IMO, have some merit to it.

Possibly not enough to make it worth doing by the devs, but that doesn't stop it having some.

If that specific form of amendment to the vets system has been suggested before then please link me to it.

If it hasn't been suggested before (or discounted by the devs) then it should be open for civil discussion/debate, regardless of whether or not the first suggestion has been rejected and flogged to death.

i.e. Please forget about the buying vets rewards bit and tell me if the idea of a parallel stream of subscription-time-based rewards taking now(ish) as a start point has been suggested before?

And if not: does it have any merit?

Think of it this way:

Last year the devs did the loyalty program for a badge and guaranteed entry to a tier of GR beta (assuming goodstanding).

What if they'd also tied a costume piece to the badge...
What if they then did another loyalty scheme starting after the last one ended for accounts subbed for 3 months... with a badge...
What if they repeated it again... and maybe gave a badge and a minor QoL temp power...

Now what if, having done this, the devs weren't coming up with stellar new vets rewards - just giving costume tokens, respec, annual slot, badges with the odd permatemp power or pet (given out once a year)...

For players who started on or before the loyalty program started, that would be practically indistinguishable from the OPs second suggestion.

(Okay - the OPs time scale is more like the vets reward in that it would be months subbed after the start date rather than having to maintain a sub between dd/mm/yyyy and DD/MM/YYYY to get reward X)

Yikes! IT Crowd listed but no Father Ted or Big Train...

On British comedy:

I'd certainly second Lady Arete's suggestions of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister (whilst mentioning that it really does tell you more about how British Politics works than most politics courses do and was actually a favourite of Mrs Thatcher).

And also Damz's suggestion of Porridge. Though I'd definitely add The Two Ronnies (if you like wordplay then Ronnie Barker and Yes Minister's SIr Humphrey Appleby should keep you happy for many, many hours ).

It could be well worth checking out 'The Frost Report' (though, to my slight shame, I'm not as familiar with them as I should be).

If you like things a little surreal, then try The Young Ones and Alexi Sayle's Stuff (which struck me as very Pythonesque at times). And if The Young Ones grabs you then Bottom is probably a must...

I'd highly recommend Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look.

Oh I forgot this til I wrote the next part - maybe try One Foot in the Grave.

Incidentally Bottom (think it was series 2) and One Foot in the Grave contain two of my favourite episodes of sitcom where the entire 30minute show is in one confined scene (in bottom it's two people stuck in a Ferris Wheel gondola and in OFitG it'speople stuck in a car).

It can be very hard to write something constrained this way but both do it magnificently well.

On British Drama:

Going back a bit but...

Tried Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and The Prisoner? (I'd go for the original late 60s versions)

If you've seen and liked the original Dr Who then maybe try out Blakes Seven and Space 1999 for a British 70s scifi fix. Ok - they may have dated a bit worse than earlier suggestions, but hell - I like them.

More recently, I'd suggest giving Spooks a try (though that's spy-type spooks rather than ghosties and ghoulies). Also Jonathan Creek - a crime-solving creator of magic tricks (by the same writer as One Foot in the Grave).


Hope this helps - enjoy the shows.


BTW - Plenty more where they came from when you're done... hmmm - mockumentaries: Try Operation Good Guys, This is David Lander and One of Us...

Never been sure if I'd welcome an increase in the number of alts per server, as it possibly means that the population is lower than it used to be and so there's more space per account for characters...

Of course it could mean they've increased the storage available or now store characters more efficiently... But I'm from Europe - we do doom and whine pretty darn well.

Ah I can understand - I'm currently qualified on the latter and working on the former myself!

TBH someone crying and leaving doesn't do anyone any good whatsoever - well, other than whatever sadistic shadenfreude some people may feel.

It certainly doesn't do the game any good, unless the leavers are the sort of people who grief others and cause them (the griefed) to leave.



I rarely understand ideas being shot down in just the /unsigned manner this has been (by many). If an idea is bad point out why. If it is bad overall but has some merit then does it hurt to say so, or explore variations? I'm pretty sure that the OP didn't post just to see if they could annoy other posters...

WHilst you'd love it and (doubtless) many others would too, what would be the point in doing such an offer at a time when new side-switching content may have enticed players to actually buy more slots?

i.e. why do a discount at a time when the service could be in demand (without a discount) anyway?

Buy a boxfull and keep most in a known location - then the lost item will appear on your minimap...



...what?! You DIDN'T buy the minimap attachment??!!!??!!

Yup "that other game" (no - not chess!) hasn't got it quite right* imo, but it's a good way to have a clue-based alternative to contacts for missions.


* I'd like to see some clues as per "that other game" but also some multi-part clues requiring part of the set to get you the mission/arc.

i.e. Similar to how whoever wrote the (excellent) MA arc Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! (arc #3662) had a mission where you got clues to the place of the crime, the identity of the villain, the nature of the crime and the time (the who/what/where/when) before you went to battle the crime.

Maybe you wouldn't need all of them, but maybe you'd need 2/3 out of 4/5 clues before the next mission was open.





hey - gimme points for trying a bit of MA publicity in context....

I thought the ironic list was just a little too obvious if anything.... It made me chuckle anyway.

Indeed which is why I said:
Though I'd keep the badges attached to the original and possibly the odd annual reward - i.e. I'd still add badges for things like 90month vet.

Though I realised I left it as annual - I had been thinking annual and possibly even 'significant number to people in general' - like 75 months, 100 months etc

So in 6 years time, the 12 year vet (at 144 months) would also have their 75, 100, 125, 84, 96, 108, 120, 132 and 144 month rewards - and could be looking forward to their 150 month...

But it would release devs from trying to think up 4 rewards a year that are sorta worthwhile, sorta-not-overpowered, sorta-meh. Just give annual (or annual + significant numbers) reward that is a little more special... and keep the bulk of minor QoL temps and costume pieces available to a wider audience (so they get used/appreciated by more).

Buying your way into vets rewards is probably a bad idea, and IMO wouldn't act as any incentive.

Why play for another 3 months to get that cool whatsamacallit when I can get it now for a minimal fee?

And it's nice to give a thank you to longtime players - until you then tell everyone that they can have it for a pittance now.

i.e. This cheapens both the thank you effect and the incentive effect.

And even if some say that they're just 'thank yous' they are also incentives for some players - just as supermarket points that add up to an effective 0.5% discount are both.

I'm not entirely certain that I'm reading this correctly, but I think that you're saying to have two sets of rewards rewards running alongside each other... the original one that counts time from c.6 years ago and a new one that just counts time from whenever it's implemented. The original list would still work, but not have any new rewards added to it.

So if it was implemented today and I got my 60month original reward today, then in 3 months time I'd get the 63month reward from the original list and I'd also get the 3month reward from the new list.

Someone else starting today would get the 3month reward from each list in 3 months time.

Is that the correct interpretation?

If that is what you mean, then it's not actually that bad an idea. Though I'd keep the badges attached to the original and possibly the odd annual reward - i.e. I'd still add badges for things like 90month vet.

It could even make sense from a dev-time allocation standpoint: As time goes on the number of people who've been here fully subbed from day 1 will be going down (as people leave or 'rest' their sub).

So the number of people getting the new benefits/rewards when they are available (or soon after) is decreasing, meaning that devtime put into them is effectively becoming less efficiently used.

But if a second stream of rewards were started from now then virtually every current player would benefit from any devtime spent on the 3 month reward when it went 'live' in 3 months time.




I won't address the third suggestion separately.

Do you turn down the INF that blueside contacts give you for completing tasks for them? No?

Give it to charity then? Oh... No?

So you're effectively okay with being paid for being heroic, but too heroic to pay someone to give you leads to allow you to fight more crime?

If using INF to open a heroic contact, why not consider the INF paid as the contact saying that they'll talk to you if you donate to their favourite charity?

I hear there's some good charitable work going on re-educating Freakshow - they always need money for new books and teaching aids...

If you're more the anti-hero maybe you did just resort to bribing contacts for info on villain groups...