LightSide

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The CoT (old school Oranbega) have gone bad and the descendants of Mu have flipped over to being the good guys?

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Not necessarily. Some of the descendants of Mu are heroes, but by no means all of them. As Azuria says:

'To this day, these pantheons and their followers—the Banished Pantheon, the Oranbegan’s Circle of Thorns, and the descendants of Hequat’s Mu—are in a deadly struggle for earthly preeminence and they will use any and all resources, even other villain groups, to achieve this end. We at MAGI are dedicated to defeating them all.'

Dedicated to defeating THEM ALL. So, the Mu line has baddies involved as well as heroes. I'm convinced that the Hequat/Hecate link means that the Muvian villains are the Coven. They would be the 'pureblood' Muvians, the ones in whom the blood of Mu is strongest.

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I think you’re right and that pureblood Muvians will end up being bad while Azuria remains lily white.

BUT here’s how I would spin it to make it a little more interesting…..

In addition to the part you mentioned, Azuria clearly identifies herself as a descendant of Mu and says “And though the Oranbegans and their Circle of Thorns have vowed to hunt us down…we will prevail. We are humanity’s last, best hope against these dark gods.”

So she says she’s protecting us from Oranbegans and by extension the dark gods she refers to would be Ermeeth & his pantheon (who didn’t sound all that dark to me).

So she is protecting us…. out of the goodness of her heart or how about in the name of Hequat, the god of her ancestors? Maybe keeping us safe means stopping us from being able to learn magic? I don’t remember her renouncing Hequat or the eugenic policies that made her what she is. And Azuria says descendants of Mu number in the millions (how does she know that… she in contact with them? is there a network, an organization of the descendants of Mu?). And they effectively control MAGI.

So perhaps the descendants of Mu are not quite as benevolent as they appear. You thought the CoT was bad… wait till you try to learn a bit of magic and Azuria shows up to put the hurt on you. Perhaps she’s keeping you safe the same way that the Malta organization wants to keep you safe – by controlling everything you are allowed to do. They’ll sincerely tell you they know what’s best for you. How long did the Council lie dormant within the 5th column before rising up and overthrowing them? There’s already precedent for dormant moles....

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edit: I can't believe that I posted in the forums from home (vs immediate log on to the game) instead of while at work. Yeesh... Gil, I hope you're happy with what you've caused!

Well I’m a bit confused by the article…

First:
o Lughebu wants to feed on humanity’s pain, fear, and suffering. Ok: Lughebu bad.
o Teilekku leads the benevolent pantheons and stops him. Ok: Teilekku good.
Even I can grasp that nice clear black & white relationship


But then:
o Ermeeth wants to teach secrets to humans and make them “magically empowered beings” who are not dependant on the gods. Ok: Ermeeth… good? (sounds a bit like Prometheus to me)
o Teilekku doesn’t like that (no more worshipers for the gods, got to keep those human cattle in their place) so her understudy Hequat beats up on Ermeeth. Ermeeth flees & founds Oranbega. Hequat founds Mu. Some basic mutual destruction and memory fades occur. Ok: Teilekku & Hequat... not so good?

It doesn’t sound like Teilekku and Hequat are still in the “good” category. Actually during the Envoy of Shadows arc Akarist specifically described the people of Mu as into eugenic breeding and blindly followed their God – to the extent that they attacked a peaceful nation without warning. That does not sound very different from the description in this article... embellished maybe, but not fundamentally different. No matter the perspective (article or Akarist), Mu is beating on Oranbega. And per the article, the reason is to keep the humans toeing the line and dutifully worshiping their appropriate pantheon of gods. So... old Oranbega: good? Old Mu: Bad?

Now fast forward an epoch or two. The CoT (old school Oranbega) have gone bad and the descendants of Mu have flipped over to being the good guys? I could see getting a bit bitter after existing as a ghost in a buried city for a few thousand years but how did the racially bred people of Mu, the empire founded to keep magic empowerment from Humans, turn good?

Is this an example of fickle gods (Teilekku ) being a bit good & a bit bad for humanity at the same time? And even if the ghosts of Oranbega are now evil shades, it sounds like they once were the ones with the moral high ground??

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Bachelor Chow:

Macaroni and Cheese
Hamburger Helper with no Hamburger (Helper...)
SPAM
CupONoodles
Ramen
Ceral
Chicken or Beef Broth

There are more. Ramen is like the greatest thing man ever invented. Next time you make it boil the noodles then strain it. Next take butter, garlic seasoning and some milk and stir it together. Enjoy.

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Good things can be done with a can of cream of chicken soup. Mix with some chopped sausage, warm in pan you used for ramen, then poured over said ramen...that's quickie dinner.

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Ack! That's actually cooking! This was about Bachelor Chow!!1!one1 I remember the old days more like this:

Hot Pockets
Double Dave's Pizza
more Hot Pockets
hit grocery store for beer
even more take out Pizza
McDonalds
hit grocery store for beer (they sell other stuff there?)
Whataburger
... eventually take the empty pizza boxes out of the fridge and start list over

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I just came across an even easier way to do the keydown/keyup bind (thanks go to Innovator). Instead of "+down$$-down$$<other stuff>", you can simply use "+ $$<other stuff>".

Possibly less confusing, but more importantly, 10 less characters tacked onto your bind.

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Sorry if this was mentioned already (I try to keep up with this thread, but have difficulties due to its size) but why is the character count important if you are creating binds offline in text files?

Is there a limit on the amount of characters allowed to be bound to each individual key? TIA

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Grouping with Melee: Immob = good, Scatter = bad.
Grouping with Ranged: Immob = bad, Scatter = good.

Blasters will fight running-mobs more happily than shooting-mobs.

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Single target blasters, maybe. AoE blasters no.

With my Fire/Dev I never liked mobs to scatter. Immobilzied they are at the most only going to get off one shot before I kill them anyway (and if I didn't do the immob then I don't have their aggro at the start). Running / Terrified mobs take much longer to track down and kill. And now with my Ill/Rad if I use ST in Oranbenga (sp?) it takes forever (slight overstatement) to track down all the runners and kill them.

Guess you can tell I'm in the "liked ST right after I3, don't like it now" camp. <shrug> If it gets improved (again) great, if not - well I couldn't fit Mutation and ST in my current build anyway so I'll just respec and get on with life.

I just wish that AT would be locked down one way or another so I know if I should respec or not. The switching back and forth between something I find useful and something I have no use for is what gets to me.

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I could host it, too, but I still think it would be a better idea to put it directly on the server. Like at http://boards.cityofheroes.com/images/icons/states.gif

Heck, even Cuppa has her icon elsewhere. I know it's not exactly the most crucial thing to do, but it also only takes moments to do.

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Consider Statesman to be the hero of Democracy… hosting his image on Photobucket just like the rest of the (un)common masses.

I think it’s great - keep it there!

I’d recently been trying to remember the bind to use the various heal inspirations with just one key and I’d also been wondering what the key names were for binding the numpads… and here both are in one post.

Thank you very much!

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After reading this, I sense the meaning of the word "fix" is similar to what we did to our cat.

I'll have to agree that if they dial down the damage, they better dial down the agro. The only defense we really have is to take down the opponent(s).

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It's Friday afternoon so I'm going to remain oblivious to the obvious & stay in happy-land.

Since States said it was an "issue" and not a "problem", here's the view from my alternate reality:

1) Due to the complex interplay of powers, enhancements and other factors, with the fix to SG it has now been noted that */Dev blasters pull too much aggro. Issue could be addressed by adding a -ACC penalty on all mobs hit by an AoE attack. It's only logical: when you're in the process of getting burned, shot, electrocuted, etc... it's kinda hard to fight back.

2) AoE's cones are not wide enough. I know that you know that it can be tricky to get everybody inside a Frost Breath or a Fire Breath cone. I'm sure you AR/* and other blasters types have the same issue. Issue could be addressed by making all cones a 90 degree (or larger) arc from the point of origin. And since you're in mucking with the code, might as well up the cone length too.

3) Damage: MORE. Let's face it... in this day and age a good Alpha strike is even more important then it ever was before. On this issue there's some flexibility: issue could be either be addressed by just a flat % increase to all Blaster damage (note: bigger *is* better here) or issue could be addressed by reducing animation/ activation times on all Blaster powers.

4) Blast radius: BIGGER. No real hypothsis on the "why" for this one, but perhaps the Devs might just want to share some love with the Blaster community. And why not? All the other AT's and players do.

Ok, perhaps that's not exactly the same set of AoE issues as the Dev's are currently looking at - but for the record I can categorically state that I will not whine if any of the above is implemented. I promise.

<sigh> I don't really want a "win now" button (really) and I know that this is a MMORPG wherein things change and tweaks are made all the time... but I'm in the process of learning to like issue #2 (and I really am starting to). Could we please have some time to adapt to those changes before other ...things... happen?

TIA & have a great weekend. Hope things are smoothing out and Devs/ Support/ etc ppl get to take this weekend off!

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So my thoughts are that something's happening sometime soon, today tomorrow or Friday is my guess. Maybe Saturday. And it's going to be something from currently live stuff. (Don't think they can access issue 2 stuff without a patch and see point 3 above)

Yeah I have too much spare time at work today what can I say..

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It would be nice if the big event was a prequel to issue #2 and the event itself actually caused some changes to the existing game world or caused changes to the current zone maps...

…something like a massive earthquake (caused by excessive 5th column tunneling during base creation ) causing the zone maps which will be connected to the Hollows to have damaged buildings and a mini-Boomtown effect near where the entrance to the Hollows will be.

Accompanied, of course, by a massive outpouring of new villains, invasion, etc…

Doesn’t sound too aetheric related but would be nice.

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OH NOES ITS THE GM_HAMIDON!!!!
EVERYBODY RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! HES GONNA PK US ALL

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ROFLMAO

PKing GM's for teh win !!1!!!!!11!!

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Decisions, decisions... go as the reporter, or go get in on the action? ... hmmm...

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Action time.... drop the pen and grab the sword!

(btw, nice article. glad you could stop epIII. oh yeah, &amp; that Rikti thingy )

Thanks a lot for posting your guide. I didn't know about transparency or scaling... the time you took to write all this up is greatly appreciated.