Judgement_Dave

I'm not even hovering over that link... if it's Pi to it's current best approximation then it's almost like a mathematical rickroll.

You're quite correct - it can't be done by any one person. I heard it takes about 3.1412 people to tackle pie.

I tried to solo pies but, due to poor keyboard skills, slipped into solipsism... now I think I imagined the whole affair and that I may even have imagined the pie.

Whilst annoying, at least you have another 11 (?) servers that you can expand to... Some players only have a practical limit of 1 or none servers past their 'server of choice' due to geographic and linguistic considerations.

Having said that, partly tongue in cheek, I wish they did up the per-server limit - I'd have moved all my characters to Union during the free transfer period if only the limit was higher. As it was, I didn't bother moving any as moving all looked problematic.

Did you use the dinner and bunch of flowers debuff?

I was actually more worried about the effects of the supervolcano - not checked but I'm imagining it being heavy on the 'nuclear winter'-style atmospheric particulates.


Or something along those lines... posting from a bar so you can't really expect high standards of spelling, grammar or lucidity!

Would Praetorian Hamidon, Chuck Norris or Blue Steel count if they tried?

Past the TFs/Trials aren't their still a couple of normal missions/arcs that require simultaneous glowies?

Pretty much my first ever experience of teaming in any MMO was being asked by a level 30+ to help them do a simultaneous glowy mission - think it was a shop unlock, but I can't remember if they removed the simultaneous aaspect of th emission since then (about March 2006).

Thinking of long term plans... does the EU become more important if the San Andreas fault throws a wobbler?

Maybe that's why they're not merging server lists - when the supervolcano under Yellowstone goes bang and the West Coast sinks into the Pacific we'll actually become the main customer base.


From memory... I *think* it's under Yellowstone isn't it?

I couldn't resist... well - I could. But it wasn't worth the effort of will.

He's going to be miffed when I return to turn in the completed mission.

Darn - I thought it'd replace a lot when I noticed the threads saying how big the patch on test is - then completely forgot when I wrote my post.

So I'm feeling a little sheepish but we still don't know just how much GR is going to add. I'd imagine it'd be a fair amount and that that will be new assets rather than replacements for existing data... and fairly recent factory-created installation media is still nice to have even if the size doesn't change substantially.





Hmmm.. I might have just about gotten away with that oversight....

Whilst all this factors in, it also would have been a darn good idea to get a new factory-created copy of installation media since I17 looks like it'll add a gig or so and I'd imagine that GR itself may add a fair chunk of graphics assets...

Sure you can burn your own backup but (possibly irrationally) I trust the longevity of factory-produced discs over recordable DVD.

Even if they chose not to distribute through bricks & mortar in the EU, couldn't they even have got a box distribued through play or amazon?

The bigger problem may actually be if Cryptic get a widespread hit to reputation (as opposed to a vocal minority of ragers).

There are still so many people who seem to think that Cryptic still has something to do with CoX development (beyond the engine) that a big hit to their rep could wrongly tar CoX in the eyes of the misinformed masses.

Maybe GG isn't a natural blonde, for as it is written in the King James translation of the Book of Revlonations:

Let him that hath understanding count the number of the bleached: for it is the number of a girl; and her number is Five Five Five.

Should have known bad things were coming ever since the rikti horsemen appeared.

Errrr... isn't the entire problem that the language is on the server side?

If the language was client-side then you could go to any server and play it in the language designated at your client. Clientside would also open up the possibility of support or hacks for languages not currently supported.


It's sort of like:

• Client-side implementation: the server says that an NPC said string_xxxxx and your client knows that english.string_xxxxx="Hello" and german.string_xxxxx="Guten Tag" and french.string_xxxxx="bonjour".

So two players could both receive a message saying that an NPC says string_xxxxx, but if player A has their client set to german they see "Guten Tag" whilst player B has their client set to English and sees "hello"

• Server-side implementation: the server says that an NPC said "Hello" if it is an english server. If the server is german then it says that the NPC said "Guten Tag". Players have no control over the language displayed.

Admittedly some strings will be clientside, but I think the problem is that much is server-side and changing it to a client-side implementation is potentially a big job.

It's effectively a similar problem to the one they had with hardcoded colours stopping power customisation for years. And I'm pretty darn sure that, like power colours, the devs would have done it differently with hindsight.

Hardcoding values is very, very rarely, if ever, a good idea unless it's unavoidable (for performance or storage).
The thought had crossed my mind as well - I nearly suggested so yesterday, but thought keeping mute was better hedging.

Whereas this aspect I have posted on before - though I think I also wondered whether Pennsylvania still has any sizeable German-speaking population...

The only good thing about having multiple-languages available by server is that you can occasionally jump on another server and try brushing up a little of your language skills that have lain forgotten since school! I know I've popped on the German and French servers and just about managed - and learnt a few new words...

I'm guessing that the only thing stopping a server list merge is technological issues.

From the apparent structure of NCs CoX operation I'm guessing it'd be easier (and that generally means cheaper) to just run a single NA-focussed list/operation. And if it is easier/cheaper then I guess it's only problems in performing an actual merge that would delay it.

Though I'm slightly surprised that the server-transfer took place before a list-merge.

Unless...

Maybe the server-transfer was to see if any NA servers end up practically empty... and so providing a potential new home for EU players if they chose to effectively merge the EU servers with selected NA servers.

Would be a way to get us all on one list using the existing hardware/infrastructure and hopefully causing fewer name clashes.
(Any list-merge would inevitably cause global clashes but if a server could be virtually cleared before a merge then local name clashes would be less likely).

Worst part is that the man walked off to get flea powder... and it's not actually the dog that does the EU marketing.

Being in the UK, I'm not too worried. I still believe NMA that we're the 51st State of America and surely all those years of brown-nosing various presidents must have earnt us a boxed set of an MMO.

Personally I'm quite pleased by I17 - I wasn't expecting anything much 'til GR.
I thought it's being split into 2 TFs - which considering that the Posi TF was originally envisioned as 3 seperate TFs is probably truer to the original vision than the TF we currently have.

(iirc, they couldn't get 3 TFs from a single contact working so merged them into one)

Changing it is a darn good idea - it's not a good introduction to TFs for new players (and I've seen many experienced players swear 'never again' at Posi)... Though, tbh I'd love the current one to exist alongside a rework - for old times sake if nothing else.

If this is an attempt to get more players playing current and future EATs then I support it entirely - it's only by making sure that a feature will/can be used by a significant proportion of the playerbase that dev ideas get the go-ahead for development.

One reason the VEATs took so long was probably as (at last figures I saw, from a hazy memory) it was only 10-15% of players who had a Kheld. If so few players played EATs it wasn't really worthwhile developing more...

But if a lvl20 unlock for EATs leads to more EAT characters then developing new EATs with similar unlocks (and possibly new existing-EAT content) becomes a more easily justifiable development option.

No - or at least certainly no more than any other game or CoX historically. And where do I look for the hard figures showing me that most veterans are leaving the game?

I know - I've seen a few lasses like that. But they don't like the term 'bird'...

No - GG would have to move to a new campaign.

The suspense and anticipation is palpable.

If only Michael Fish had said that I'd be expecting an imminent invasion of unprecedented violence...

Michael who? ah - outside the UK? Google him and 1987...
IIRC Early talk about GR mentioned it bringing in post-50 advancement. I can't remember offhand if the long-discussed idea of universal slots was mentioned by name.

Whilst maybe not giving any idea what sort of missions/raids/funky-features will provide the gameplay for post-50 progression I'd say it's reasonable to assume that there will be some form of improved endgame brought in alongside post-50 character improvement.

Actually at the time they stated that any future EATs would not be unlocked by getting a character to 50.

Somewhat pedantically, that could either be read as 'you will not need to have a charcter at 50 to unlock them' or as 'you will need to have a character at 50 plus other requirements as well'.

It seems fairly apparent that the former interpretation was the one intended - but the ambiguity in the statements made does remain.

i.e. if ever the devs introduced an EAT that required a 50 plus some other requirement then they would not have gone against previous statements, just against what appears to be the majority's interpretation of those statements.

Less pedantically:
One of the downsides to EAT development was always that the requirement for a 50 meant that comparatively few players had them - so any further development on them could be seen as wasted (benefitting maybe only 10-15% of the playerbase when other development may be of benefit to much higher numbers).

Lowering the entry requirement for EATs should mean that they are accessible to many more people, and so it becomes easier to argue for spending development time on both new EATs and possibly on new content specific to the existing EATs... (Heck - is that storm still coming? How're the Khelds feeling about that?)

Heck that's a really flawed way to get info - the CO and STO boards are generally far worse than the CoX boards regarding miscomprehension, whining and trolling.

It's the post-apocalyptic kind





And something's up when I respond to your post with more smilies than you used!

Oh please be server list merge...

Although cynically I think it's more likely that Europe will face annihilation as they rename the 'EU server list' to be known as the 'non-US server list'.

EDIT: Or maybe NC is closing down any sales/marketing function that remains in the EU offices.

That's effectively free expansions, not free to play.

Well CoH got some votes off me, and would have got more if it wasn't for it being a combined Sci-Fi/Superhero vote and so having to compete with Fallen Earth.