Kitsune Knight
-
Posts
3823 -
Joined
-
My 3 favorites? I might come up with different set if I think for a long time, but...
Okibi Kitsune - Fire/Kin Controller.
It's one of my older heroes (that wasn't deleted), and one of my oldest 50s. I soloed through the Faultline content when it was new, and kicked ***. It was a fun character, even before it got the powers that the combo is legendary for. It was also my first Incarnate.
I spent more time on this character with my SG than any other. We'd do all sorts of things (back before inventions, primarily). The most fun was when we had an all /Rad super team (plus me as a /kin
) and we went through the Preatorian AV arc... we slaughtered them so quickly that multiple times I didn't even realize there was an AV in the group! We'd always be joking around, and breaking things in fun and creative ways. Definitely a blast.
Kitsune Operative - Assault Rifle / Devices Blaster (with teleport!)
By far my favorite Blaster, ever made. The combo was actually really bad at the time, since neither had a +damage power and other things (mostly they were both weak sets), but it had its tricks. I could say a lot about the character, but, I'll focus on one thing. The Katie Hannon Task Force. It was my favorite task force in the game, and I'd run it like crazy (I, honestly, didn't even care about the reward... it was just a nice bonus!). I'd often be with at least one friend on a /kin, so I'd generally have a Speed Boost on me... so for the 10 Times the Victor mission, my whole plan was, basically, to lay an absurdly large amount of trip mines where the ambushes would come from. Every time a new wave would come, every trip mine would explode, the cabal would all be blast into the air, and when they were about 5 feet into the air, everyone's game would freeze for about 3 seconds before resuming again, due to the massive knockback that was created, leaving basically just the AV. I'd then alternate between laying mines for the next wave, and using Ignite on her, doing absurd levels of damage (most tanks couldn't keep her aggro!). The real fun was the large variety of tricks the combo had.
And coming in i24, which, thanks to the closing of NCSoft will never reach live... the sets were going to get a nice buff that would have made it actually fairly competitive. The main thing the set severely lacked was a good ST damage attack (ignite largely only worked on AVs, since everything else freaks out when it's engulfed in flames!). Maybe if there's a resurgence I'll get to see it on live...
Kitsune Shifter - Tri-Form Peacebringer
This is my latest project that stood out (I've created one alt since then, and was about to create a second, but I came to the boards first and saw the news on Friday...
). It was my last character to hit 50. It was my first (and only, so far) character to solo through First Ward and then Night Ward. I did most of the Task Forces on my way up (just about got Task Force Commander!), including the new ones like Sutter (which I keep wanting to call Stutter!). I went through so much new content first the first time, and it was like when I went through Faultine the first time... it made me think about how absurdly enjoyable it was, and how awesome our Devs are.
Many other characters have had really awesome experiences, such as Kitsune Slayer (Energy/Nin Stalker) which was included in a video made by a popular gaming website about CoH's power customization feature (since I was among the first people to post videos about it, and I used that character in it, they took part of my video).
As for the 'what they meant to you', I'm not sure I could really answer that directly and fit my post within the size limit for these boards. In many cases, it was the stories I enjoyed most, along with getting to play with fun people. The characters were often vehicles for that- although that's not a good explanation either. -
Quote:I've not noticed those (edit: actually, that does sound familiar now that I think about it... but I've not seen that in quite a while)... but I have noticed how so many have totally different names for the recipe vs the crafted version (both for entire sets, as well as the specific one)... Maybe should'a bugged those, but always figured that by the time it was on live, they're not gonna worry about them anymore.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Yep. Also, some inventions still have %s8347593747459 gibberish that is due to broken format strings (i.e.: %s). -
Quote:And for a long time, there were Pstrings all over the game instead of the actual names/stringsOriginally Posted by Arcanaville
That's damning, because its the easiest thing to figure out. Why lie about something like that, I often wondered. I remember the Shadow Shard being particularly bad for that (along with the sideways faces!).
-
aww... I saw this just after it ended. Going back to watch it now. Definitely liking Zwill's character, awesome costume and name (I think that's his name, hard to read).
I told you all I'd start watching them regularly starting this week!
-
Quote:Fixing their books is an accounting thing. They were in the red $6 million, so killing CoH can help make that look right. Don't be confused and interpret that as me saying "they're going to make money", because it won't, they're still going to lose money- slightly more in fact. But at the same time, it'll cause their expenses to go down, appeasing any angry stockholders that are upset about NCSoft losing a large amount of money (plus, apparently they'd taken out a $100 million loan, so they also have to keep the bank pleased).Originally Posted by that_darn_lurker
First you claim killing COH will help clean up their books RIGHT NOW. Then you bring up this which is a perfectly valid point, but it doesn't follow from your first statement. They don't have a product line, right now, to replace COH using COHs money.
The other statement about a new product line wasn't intended to be directly connected or following, it was intended to be a response in part to the 'killing a profitable line can't make money' thing. The theory that seems the most likely to me is that this is to make their books look nicer as that's something they're in the need of.
As for the topic of botting- it's impossible to prevent it from happen in the first place... but it's much more plausible to detect it and be able to stop them from being done. And hacking? Yeah, if you in any way followed a link you got in an email to 'their site', that was definitely phishing. Also, if you're registered on any other forums/sites (especially related to the game) with the same login combination, there's a huge chance that's how they got it. I remember back when I played Aion, one of the major third party forums got 'hacked'... which means that the hacker probably ended up with a huge number of valid logins for the game.
While I've not exactly been impressed by NCSoft's security track record (the master account bug was absolutely horrible and should have never happened), it's not really been an issue of continual fail from anything I've seen. It's still far easier to trick most users into giving you their username/password combos (hell, if I was a hacker, I'd set up my own forum and advertise the hell out of it for the game... free access to all those logins!). -
Oh, and don't forget that Nexon tried to buy EA. Yeah, Nexon take over EA. If anything, they'd want to keep CoH around as America is a market they're not already dominate in.
Sorry, but it doesn't make any sense at all. -
Quote:The problem isn't they were about to go bankrupt.Originally Posted by that_darn_lurker
Nope. They made about $13 mill in Q1, so they're still profitable for the year. There's no need to make up for anything, even if you subscribe to the theory that killing off a profitable product line somehow makes money.
Also, you can make money from killing off a profitable product line if it's replaced by one with a higher return on investment (or has better long term sustainability). You (whether 'you' is an individual or a corporation) always have a limited amount of money to allocate to things, so you're always make a choice not just of what to put it towards, but what not to put it towards.
But none of that is expedited by killing CoH. Besides, Nexon already has a presence in America, including America-only games, so you can't really claim their allergic to western-only demographics.Quote:Originally Posted by that_darn_lurker
No, not really. NC Soft is motivated to sell because the execs and shareholders will personally make a lot of money from the deal. Nexon wants to grow their business by acquiring the games in NC Soft's portfolio. -
Wait, so you're saying the base system was actually supposed to be their accounting software???
-
I can't help but feel for Anti-Matter during his segment... I hope I get a chance to finish up DA and then going through the i24 content.
-
Quote:We already have one thread that's largely about that now (along with other bugs)Originally Posted by Hero14
Well, now's the time. Can anyone tell us of the old Exploits? What were your favorites (as a player or dev)?
-
Quote:It depends first on who wants to come back. The market isn't exactly wonderful right now, so it's not really the best of time to be shopping around for a new job if you don't have to... but some might already have people trying to hire them back up before CoH is saved.Originally Posted by Nericus
This news is.....encouraging. Here's hoping.
Also on a slightly "devil's advocate" note: let's say the game is saved somehow (Im hoping that is saved, don't get me wrong), but would that mean the return of all the Paragon Studio staff? Some may not want to return for assorted reasons.
If another entity buys CoH, they may or may not even offer the Paragon people positions, depending on how they want to go (I'd imagine they'd try to get at least a few, just so they don't have to try to figure out everything on their own!). -
Quote:Which also means that they were willing to sell Auto Assault. I don't believe we have numbers, so we don't know if Netdevil (IIRC, that was the studio) was trying to buy it for crap, or NCSoft was having a Dr. Evil moment (not the time the UN laughed at time, the other time).Originally Posted by DMystic
the Studio that made Auto Assault wanted to buy the rights/ip back but couldn't meet NCSoft's price. So it's not that they didn't want to it's that they couldn't afford to.
As for Exteel and Dungeon Runners I've no idea. -
Quote:Personally, I kinda like the idea of both scenarios. And now, I can't help but picture him reciting the lines Keyes says in the teaser video that was posted recently where he's talking to Hami...Originally Posted by Golden Girl
It's still a long shot - but the word "discussion" implies that NCSoft are at least prepared to listen - unless all it means is that Positron is using a sledgehammer to break down an NCSfot exec's door to arrange a "meeting".
(great, now I gotta watch that again!) -
Quote:Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
With breath as fresh as a summer ham.
-
Quote:How come the only time I was able to find the ignore button was the time I got too annoyed with all the hints GG always leaked? And not earlier when that guy posted about how he was 13 years old and how he just learned to use curse words...Originally Posted by Mad Grim
That last 0.01% is fairly easy to put on ignore
(and then I'd just read all her posts anyways, but have to click to view them first... yeah, eventually just gave up on that)
Edit:Yeah, this guy just won the thread!Quote:Originally Posted by Nylonus
*hoorb*
I make happy air sounds at you!
And as to the whole indie studio idea? I'd totally get behind that! Although... I'd imagine that'd raise interesting implications for the 'reveal everything' event that Positron talked about... -
I tried TR during the period it was free and... I think there'd have been a good chance I'd have subscribed (I mean other than the fact that they were closing it down). I hadn't known too much about it before (I think the grand sum of advertising done for TR was a topless photo of the character on the box in some gaming mag... at least that seemed to be the only thing anyone ever spoke of).
I enjoyed the third person combat system and non-fantasy setting. The character creator was primitive compared to CoH (although the graphics were nicer- all 5 of them), but that's something that could be corrected with time, and still the norm now for most games (APB is the only other one I've touched that didn't suck). Why did it 'fail'? I don't know. Maybe it was just before it's time... launched back when 'MMO' still meant 'elves in woods' and anything else was just some crappy half ***** RPG with an online mode that didn't work. Personally, when I played through ME2 years later (as in, this summer), I just now realized that it strongly reminded me of my short time in TR.
Circling back around to the topic... TR might be a different situation, in that NCSoft was wanting it dead, at least by the end (maybe even before). Losing the lawsuit (and the appeal) probably ensured that they'd not even consider selling the IP to someone that was offering them way more than it was worth.
NCSoft might still come after a CoH emulated server, certainly none of us can say for sure. If we have to resort to that, we should definitely be prepared for that inevitability. Hopefully, we won't ever have to go anywhere near that situation, and NCSoft sells the IP+code+accounts DB to a worthy company that tries to bring back the old team. Unlikely, but, occasionally unlikely happens. -
Quote:I think 9 million accounts is most likely, since they can't really know for sure if it's distinct people or just one person playing multiple accounts. It, likely, also includes trials (which means I'd be counted 3+ times, 4+ if it was post-Freedom numbers).Originally Posted by Mad Grim
I think its 9 million people who have ever made accounts. They don't necessarily have to still play or even spend money. And some could be alts.
And, yeah, none of my friends cared enough to not get GW2, even ones that had liked CoH. -
Quote:You made a wrong assumption: You assumed that getting us to play Guild Wars 2 had anything to do with it. It doesn't. While I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you went out and bought it (as many forumer already had), they're not really gone to notice if you didn't (the amount of CoH players is quite tiny, even compared to the crapfest that is Aion).Originally Posted by Next_Spirit
Either way this is literally bogus. Making us move to their new shiny games.
CoH is profitable, but it was still tying up a fair amount of resources, and it wasn't a huge return of investment. Without knowing their exact reasoning I can't tell if it was just some sort of stupid political maneuver ('lets focus more on asia! translated into 'if it's not popular in asian, lets ditch it'), or if it was a the company (which included Paragon and CoH) could have been royally screwed if some action wasn't taken. -
Quote:I'm not seeing anything about this in the press. Most things I can find are related to them trying to slow down sales while they ramp up their server capacity to handle the massive demand (apparently they hit 400,000 concurrent users on before the actual launch.Originally Posted by Next_Spirit
GW2 is also not doing as hot as they planned. I feel like they will lose money and definitely fan base over this whole ordeal. Lots of issues going on that i've read.
Of the people I know that are playing it, they're absolutely loving it, with no complaints at all.
As for not getting a reply... I'd figure a long holiday weekend just ending (I'm not sure if they had reduced staff for it... it'd seem fairly crazy in this situation), plus a major game having just launched, they're likely extremely swamped (every new game launches with many bugs or oddities, not to mention PEBKAC issues). -
You're lacking a motivation.
The financial reason (they were $6 million in the red last quarter, and killing CoH can help them make that up on their books, while long term GW2 will solve their money troubles) is far more logical. NCSoft could have killed CoH at virtually any time without impacting their bottom line much at all (it's tied with GW 1 as their smallest source). -
Quote:The only thing the Devs have gone on record for on the topic of their secret project is it was not part of an existing IP. It was an entirely new thing, unrelated to CoH/Aion/GW/etc. If there was a CoH2 in development, either Paragon was working on a third MMO (and kept that doubly sekret), or some other entity was working on it, not Paragon). I'm rather doubtful.Originally Posted by Combat
Fair bet that CoH2 was the project in development.
Also, do you have a link to where BaBs posted it? It'll be good to be able to post directly to that the next time someone brings it up. -
Do not confuse 'trying' with 'false hope'. Our chances of success are very unlikely- everyone should have already realized that before we even started, but at this point the fate of the game is not yet set in stone.
Give up and leave if you want to, but many of us here won't quit so easily. -
Quote:And, as demonstrated in the video, apparently with their setup, they can do extremely fast iterative development (no need to recompile the whole client and/or server for an update! Some code bases can take hours to compile, even on relatively fast machines!), they can just modify the file and try it again. Also, in the past, the Devs have said their cutscene system was a nightmare to work with (which was why we weren't getting it).Originally Posted by Codewalker
It allows mission designers to make complex scripted events without having to have support from Programming.
It allows power designers to make complex server-side mechanics without having to have support from Programming.
Basically it lets the large number of people in various departments do creative things with the engine without having to go through the small, overworked department, where even small changes to the engine code mean lots of testing due to how risky it is.
And lets them devote their time to other things, like fixing the UI... oh who am I kidding.
LUA is a very popular scripting language for embedding in various engines (including game engines... I think WoW helped make it extremely popular, not sure how popular it was before WoW started using it). Being a high level language, it's relatively easy to pick up, and can be made quite safe for those that aren't intimately familiar with things like memory management. -
Instead of, or in addition to?
-
Quote:EmperorSteele was referring to this:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Yes, Aeon got me with the last one also, the shmuck. But still, LUA scripting. The devs wouldn't have been able to keep me out of that if they deployed Hercules Titans at their front doors.
(the right image is probably still cached for you)