Lighthouse_NA
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Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement
MMORPG.com responds to the recent news of changes to the next free expansions coming to City of Heroes with the re-naming of Issue 13 to "Power and Responsibility" and Issue 14 now being "Architect" with a Question and Answer interview. MMORPG.com writer Jon Wood discusses these changes with Executive Producer Brian Clayton and Lead Designer Matt Miller.
Here's an excerpt:
[ QUOTE ]
MMORPG.com:
Were you concerned that releasing the Mission Architect feature without the ability to create custom baddies would put people off of the system?
Brian Clayton:
No. However, unparalleled character customization is a hallmark of the City of Heroes franchise and after the great response we got from our community, we decided that it was worth the extra time to allow our players this level of character customization within the Mission Architect system. Really, it will only make this feature more compelling.
[/ QUOTE ]
Click here to read the full article -
MMORPG.com responds to the recent news of changes to the next free expansions coming to City of Heroes with the re-naming of Issue 13 to "Power and Responsibility" and Issue 14 now being "Architect" with a Question and Answer interview. MMORPG.com writer Jon Wood discusses these changes with Executive Producer Brian Clayton and Lead Designer Matt Miller.
Here's an excerpt:
[ QUOTE ]
MMORPG.com:
Were you concerned that releasing the Mission Architect feature without the ability to create custom baddies would put people off of the system?
Brian Clayton:
No. However, unparalleled character customization is a hallmark of the City of Heroes franchise and after the great response we got from our community, we decided that it was worth the extra time to allow our players this level of character customization within the Mission Architect system. Really, it will only make this feature more compelling.
[/ QUOTE ]
Click here to read the full article
To discuss this announcement, please join us here. -
Lead Designer Matt "Positron" Miller reveals further details about Issue 13 and Issue 14 in his post Issue 13: So big it can't be contained in a single update!
Click here to read the full post.
To read more about Issue 13, click here.
To read more about Issue 14, click here. -
Vote now! The Poll ends today!
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[ QUOTE ]
Just a minor correction. The name for the first piece of art in the scoop is incorrectly labeled "Lilith"
It should be "Countess Lilith"
[/ QUOTE ]
I found and fixed that for you
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Yarr, maties! Fer a bit 'o fun an ta celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day we challenged tha land lubbers ta make thar best pirate!
You can view the results of our Pirate Contest in the poll to pick the best ones out of the top 15!
Click here to vote!
If you are interested in reading the original thread and seeing what everyone made, click here to read that thread. -
On Tuesday, September 23, 2008 all North American City of Heroes / City of Villains game servers will come down starting at 7 AM Pacific (10 AM Eastern) to patch the game to the new version 17.20080821.9T4.
Estimated downtime for this update is 2 hours.
Once the update is completed you can find details on the Patch Notes web page. Additionally, you can read the contents of this update on the Training Room forums from when the version was in testing. -
Vol. 2, Issue 15
September 19, 2008
The City Scoop a publication for Supers by Supers! Please use this thread to discuss this week's edition.
Read the latest player made publication and then join in on the community discussion!<ul type="square">[*] If you have concerns regarding the content of the Scoop please direct your comments via PM to Lighthouse or Ex Libris.
[*] If you would like to do a feature article, have an event covered, or join "The City Scoop" team please PM Snow_Globe.
[*] If you need some Advice contact Lady_Athyna or would like to Ask The X contact LiquidX
[*] Finally if you have a Classified Ad or Recipe you would like included please contact: LadyK or MistressNoire[/list] -
Vol. 2, Issue 15
September 19, 2008
The City Scoop a publication for Supers by Supers!
Read the latest player made publication and then join in on the community discussion!- [*] If you have concerns regarding the content of the Scoop please direct your comments via PM to Lighthouse or Ex Libris.
[*] If you would like to do a feature article, have an event covered, or join "The City Scoop" team please PM Snow_Globe.
[*] If you need some Advice contact Lady_Athyna or would like to Ask The X contact LiquidX
[*] Finally if you have a Classified Ad or Recipe you would like included please contact: LadyK or MistressNoire[/list]Join The Discussion! -
The City Scoop Staff
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Under The hood
Attack Chains 101
This is another article in a series about game mechanics. Today I'll be talking about attack chains, or how to defeat mobs as quickly as possible with as few attacks as possible.
Most people develop their attack chains as they level up their character. A level 1 Super Strength Tanker gets the Jab power. They can also Brawl and use their origin specific attack power, say Apprentice Charm for a Magic origin char. Their attack chain is "whatever is recharged". But as you level up, new options appear. Punch and Haymaker open up at levels 2 and 4 respectively. Eventually you'll get to the point where you have enough attacks for a full attack chain, meaning you can toss one attack after another as long as your Endurance lasts. It won't last long, unless you've been reading my previous articles and have slotted some END Reduction Enhancements.
Usually there's a better attack chain than "whatever is recharged", but it takes some number crunching to find it. The first step is finding the DPSA of each attack, or Damage Per Second of Activation. City of Data is a great resource for this. Look up the power set you care about, figure out how much damage each attack does, divide each by the Cast Time (Activation Time), and you'll get the DPSA. We don't care about damage slotting yet, as every attack in your main chain will probably be slotted similarly.
Let's look at Energy Melee for Tankers. Barrage does a total of 30.24 damage with a Cast Time of 1.33 seconds, so it has a 22.7 DPSA. Energy Punch is 53.6 DPSA (note the HUGE difference). Energy Transfer is 76.0 DPSA (and it used to be much higher!). Brawl for Tankers is 19.3 DPSA, while Boxing from the Fighting Pool is 31.6. The origin powers like Apprentice Charm have a 8.3 DPSA, so you'll want to stop using them as soon as you can.
Once you have a list of attack powers and DPSA, the next step should be obvious. Arrange your attacks so you use the higher DPSA ones as often as possible. Unfortunately, it's never easy. The high DPSA attacks tend to be higher level ones with longer Recharges. So you have to add in smaller DPSA but faster recharging attacks here and there to give the bigger ones time to recharge. It's like fitting together the pieces of a puzzle, but fortunately you can mold the pieces a bit. To reach higher levels of performance (using higher DPSA attacks more often), you can get more Recharge Reduction through things like Hasten, Quickness, or IO set bonuses that apply to all of your powers. Usually you'll find you can drop some of your underperforming attacks from your build.
One important note is that attack chain optimization lets you put down mobs faster, but you'll probably spend END faster as well. The END cost for an attack is based on its damage. For example, most single target Tanker attacks do about 8.5 damage per point of END. A slow tanker may average 8 seconds per minion while a faster one is 6 seconds, but they both spend around 18 END.
That's the basics on attack chain optimization, but there are a LOT of little things that you can do to tweak your performance a little higher.
Recharge Reduction is usually the MOST important thing you need in order to improve your attack chain. Melee oriented chars often slot 5 Crushing Impact IOs in many of their their melee attacks for the +5% Recharge Reduction set IO bonus. Ranged chars use the more expensive Decimation set for +6.25%. If you're rich, you can slot some ultra-rare purple sets for +10% and Luck of the Gambler: Increase Recharge IOs for 7.5%.
You can slot Invention Origin Enhancement procs like Mako's Bite: Chance for Lethal Damage. That IO has a 20% chance to do 71.8 damage, or an average of 14.4 damage. Try and figure out the DPSA of a proc, and you'll realize that they're more effective when slotted in fast acting powers. So once you have all of the Accuracy, Damage, END, and Recharge you need, try to add procs.
Many attack powers have additional effects that you'll want to take into account. Status attacks like Stuns and Holds are always nice to use whenever they're available. Follow Up for Widows and Claw users increases damage by a bit for 10 seconds, which more than makes up for its slightly low DPSA value. Parry and Divine Avalanche provide Defense to the user.
If you're looking for exact numbers for DPSA and such, you'll have to take into account delays by the game server that Arcannaville recently documented in This Thread. She discovered that the game runs on tics of about 0.132 seconds. All attacks are rounded up to the next tic, and another tic is added between attacks. That means an attack listed as 0.83 seconds (6.29 tics) actually takes 8 tics (1.06 seconds). This affects shorter attacks more than longer attacks.
DPSA is all well and good, but you don't usually stand there fighting the same foe for a long time. Part of your last attack on a foe is wasted. You don't want to use a Shadow Maul when a Shadow Punch will do. Plus it often takes a little time to move from one mob to the next. Be flexible. If you love repeating the Imperious Task Force and find that your first two attacks always leave a minion with a sliver of health, switch the order around a bit. Reserve your "perfect" attack chain for bosses and AVs.
That's it for now. I'll go through some case studies in later articles.
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Base Showcase
The Stroll Super Group
Who is your base designer and who are your supergroup leaders?
Well, the simple answer to that question is: Me! I made The Stroll SG as a joke initially, but after the group of friends that got me interested in City of Heroes moved on to other games, I decided to put more effort into my little SG. My main alt is Screamrr, and that is possibly my most well known toon.
What server is your base on?
The Stroll is based on the Virtue server, and has coalitions with several other SG's. My base gets little use, and when someone comes through it usually scares me something terribly! I am hoping to offer my base as a RP'ing venue to select other groups at some point, but that might have to wait.
When was your supergroup established?
The group was initially created back in November of 2006, but really didn't get much attention from me until early 2007. When issue 9 and Wentworths came to Paragon City, I was able to earn the influence needed to start expanding the base on my own.
How many players are in your supergroup?
Currently, there are 47 heroes in The Stroll, but most of those have just joined in the last few weeks. During most of the groups history, including during the Double Prestige Grants, there were only 17 members. Mine is the only account that plays full time in the group, and while several friends have alts in it, I have never actively recruited members nor have I asked anyone to play in SG mode. This is truly a group of one!
What is the approximate value of your base?
The base is built with 15.9 million prestige. Most of this has come from the generous contributions of Wentworths and the SG registrar!
How much time do you spend working on your base? How much time have you invested so far?
As for how much time this base has taken to complete (to this phase at least), I never really kept track, but the number would be very large. The Grand Library has over 2400 decorative items in it, and took at least a hundred hours at the minimum. I have plans to add some more to the base, but phase 4 will have to wait until issue 13 and the base upgrades it is supposed to have.
What is your favorite base item? Least favorite?
Probably my most favorite item in the base is the Tree of Life. Having my own little store right in the base, and a source of inspirations has been very handy. My least favorite items might be juggling what I wanted to install with what power and control I could generate. This base layout now pushes the system to its current limit.
The least favorite thing about base editing was the lack of a third axis system, so that I had to spend countless hours stacking desks to get things like the interlocking spiral staircases of the Grand Library's three floors. But the favorite thing in base editing is the final result of all that work. If you apply a little (or a lot) of imagination to the process, its quite amazing what you can do! I'm glad that the final product lives up to the plans I had in my head when I started.
What is the highest thing on your wish-list for new base items?
My wish list for new base items would have to start with a better system for the third axis. Magic Desk is great, but time consuming. Other than that, more decorative items that already exist in the game being added to the base editor, like the hot tubs in Faultline (what hard working hero wouldn't want to have a long hot soak after a day of fighting crime!) or a pool/pinball table. There are a lot of objects in missions/zones that we all would want to have. At the far end of the possible items, I suppose a way to put pictures of your own heros inside the base (or screen caps of in-game moments) would be the ultimate, if only there was a way of doing it....
If you could give just one piece of advice to a new base editor, what would it be?
One piece of advice to base builders: Use your imagination! I created a lot of what is in The Stroll base from my head. While some of the mechanics might have been inspired by what I had seen posted in the forums, I have several original ideas in it. The Grand Library is the best example of this bit of engineering, but not the only one (teaser: if you ever come through The Stroll base, try to find any one of the three secret rooms that are hidden in it. No base edits are required to find them! Good luck)
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City Fiction
The Redeemers
The Council van crashed into the side of the highway and ground to a halt. The rusty green van following it screeched to a stop just next to the broken-down machine and the back doors popped open. Four costumed heroes dropped out and approached the other van.
"Alright, guys," the first hero said calmly as he walked to the back door, "Let's make this nice and easy..."
"Dammit," a large, green-skinned man growled to the man in the passenger seat of the van he'd just exited, "Doug, did you have to blast their tires out like that? Look at how they crashed into the guard wall here! I'm pretty sure this comes out of our per diem!"
"We get paid for this?" the Ogre asked as he started to exit the van, "Cool."
"Kind of," the Caliban replied, "We're compensated for our expenses, the food we need to eat, and there are a few perks, but we don't make much more than the average cop... Heck, we probably make less. You never noticed?"
"I only remember some F.C. toadies bringing meals to the meetings."
Garm slapped his forehead and growled something to himself. He had to go through this with the other members of the group every couple of weeks, he'd thought Doug was smart enough to figure out the payroll system for himself. Heck, even Briggs had done that.
They were the Redeemers, and this was just one squad of the whole super group. Their numbers fluctuated every day, but they usually had between seventy-five and a hundred former rogues that claimed membership. Currently, they were a tad on the low side, some members had died, others were found to still have outstanding warrants and had to postpone their "heroic" activity until they'd completed their sentences, and some either quit or reverted back to being criminals. Some, however, were true believers of the cause.
"Why are we doing this again?" a man dressed like a Tsoo Sorcerer, Genji Lucas, asked as he prepared his arcane rites, "It can't be for fame..."
"Because we prefer being out here instead of prison," the Caliban growled, "Jebus guys, we've been at this for five months, I'd think you'd get the idea by now."
"Oh, we get it," the first hero commented, "Genji just misses the old days when he could electrocute information out of people."
"Or threaten to turn them over to the Circle, Greg."
"Hey!" the scrapper shouted as he banged on the back door of the Council van, "You guys still alive in there? What's taking so long?"
Gregory Caid was answered by a burst of gunfire perforating the doors and his body. He shook violently as he fell flat on his back.
"Ah, dammit," Garm muttered as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, "They never do it easy."
"You Trolls think you can stop us?" the Adjutant shouted as he hopped out the back of the ruined doorway, "You have... Oh. These guys."
"Yeah, these guys," the former Troll replied, seemingly unconcerned for his fallen friend, "Now stand down or we'll manhandle you."
"Fire!" the masked man shouted and more Council troops emerged (it was funny how many they could pack into the back of a van), leveled their weapons on the heroes and fired.
Garm and Doug took the brunt of the attack, Genji diving behind them and muttering an enchantment that would raise a small fog to protect his allies and the other hero, a former Outcast named Ashen Roast, took to the sky, dropping suddenly on the van's roof. The troops prepared to fire another volley, but the orange-skinned young man took a deep breath and blew a gout of flame at the terrorist soldiers, breaking their ranks and causing them to start firing in all sorts of directions.
The former Trolls pressed the advantage, tackling two of the soldiers and punching them in their faces to knock them unconscious. Another came out of the van, but Doug caught him in mid-air and chucked him into one of the troops they hadn't tackled.
The Adjutant moved to kick Garm in the cheek, but his knee gave out as Gregory pushed himself up in a crab walk and kicked him in the back of the leg. When the man fell into his lap, the regenerating scrapper wrapped his legs around his foe's waist and his arms around his neck.
"Time to meet the Sand Man," he muttered as the Adjutant struggled to breathe, "Don't worry, you're not going to-"
The Council soldier suddenly roared and turned into a large, bloodthirsty, rampaging wolf. It wasn't the first time the gathered heroes had seen the phenomenon, but it was never fun whenever it happened.
"I'll take Heads," Garm muttered as Ashen automatically threw a coin to his and Doug's feet.
The coin came up "Tails."
"Alright!" the Ogre cheered as he scrambled up and threw his arms back in a quick stretch, which accidentally caused him to backhand the Marksman behind him, "Time to get this-"
The War Wolf punched him in the face, sending the large green man tumbling into the back of the Council van. It then swiped at Ashen and Garm before grabbing the van and trying to topple it over the side of the overpass.
However, something was stopping the large hairy beast. AS it tried to throw the van over the edge, it felt something tugging at the front of the machine in the other direction.
That something was Briggs McBain.
Briggs was another former Troll, like Doug and Garm, but he was much (very much) shorter than his compatriots. He was, in fact, shorter than the infamous Julius. However, what he lacked in height, he more than made up for with muscle mass.
"Somebody bop the dog on the nose!" he roared as he yanked the truck back and pulled the man-animal off balance.
"Done!" Doug shouted as he delivered a hard jab straight to the former Adjutant's snout, his fist wrapped in stone so it delivered much more of an impact.
The War Wolf fell backward, but before it could hit the ground, Garm and Gregory caught it, lifted it, and tossed it over the edge. Looking down, they watched the wolf bounce off the side of one building and continue down to the streets below and the "Land of the Lost."
"Oh boy," Ashen murmured, "He's gonna come back and he's gonna be ticked."
"Finish detaining the rest of these guys," the Caliban sighed, "I'll get ready for their boss. Briggs? Are the keys still in the ignition?"
"What're you doin' with my baby, G?"
"Nothin' it wasn't redesigned for."
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Community
Welcome Back Bash!
by White_Gravel
Guess whose back folks! Yep it's your favorite W.G. in the world White Gravel back from his super top notch mission given to him by Statesman to try and complete a Positron Task Force without taking a bio break. I was finally successful in my task and I'm ready to start up and bring you viewers the latest news on all the cool parties around Paragon City.
Tonight I found my self in the Sapphire room of the arena in Galaxy City on the Virtue server. I was at this nice cozy location for non other then the Hero Down Supergroup Bash! Now some of you may remember there bash earlier in the year, with rock, paper, scissors, crazy costume contests, and huge PvP matches. There was all that and more at this party including door prizes reaching up to 250 thousand influence!
First up on the agenda for the night was getting used to the game and mingling with the locals in a little pre-party dance. This took place in the lower levels of the arena as we listened to none other then DJ Pheonyx on Virtues own radio station "The Cape". Leave it to Hero Dawn to keep the party going with some crazy costume contests with themes of seasons to bring a unique twist to the creative minds of our players. (See right for winners)
After the costume contests they moved on to some intense battle royals! They kept their guests entertained by switching it up a little bit first starting with an all level battle royal, then a smooth and strategizing Gladiator match, and spicing it up with more with a very unique kick ball match.
After the PvP I had the privilege to sit down with one of the 3 hosts of the bash Hopping Hottie.
Q: Hello H.H. Lovely party you have here. How are you?
A: I'm very good W.G. thanks for asking
Q: Ok so now that I have you here what was the purpose for this event?
A: Well to Party of course!
Q: So are there any Special reasons at all for this event?
A: We thought it would be fun to have a big bash and see every ones ideas in the costume contest. Also us being one of the top supergroups helped.
Q: So speaking of Hero Dawn. What rank is it?
A: I'm not entirely sure but I believe we are the top supergroup in Virtue.
Q: I must say your ideas were pretty creative, where did you get your inspiration?
A: Well the kickball idea was given to me by Agent Goat and has been a supergroup game for a long time, and as far as the costume contest themes, we just wanted to see the people's ideas about seasons and not just holidays.
Q: How much money did this bash cost you?
A: Around 100 million was given away
Q: Finally, and last closing statements?
A: I'm glad you all came and got involved and thank Agent Goat and Doom Therapy for the free range on controlling the event.
And with that the event was done. This event was a very good way to start up the season. I want to thank Hero Dawn for personally inviting me to there event and showing me an amazing time. I am glad that my first day back on the job was spent at this creative event. Keep up the good work and keep rocking!
~W.G.
Costume Contest Winners
First Place: 10 million
Second Place: 5 million
Summer Theme Winner
Cockatoo
Fall Theme Winner
Night's Hawk
Winter Theme Winner
Steel Slayer
Spring Theme Winner
Primeva
The Hosts
Game Tips
By Snow_Globe
Altoholic_Monkey made this great guide to the colors the game uses. The graphic names all 160 costume colors, and was originally intended to help the color-blind players.
Other players will still find it useful to describe colors they are using for group outfits to other people, or in their fan fiction.
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Writer's Block
Hidey ho there folks! Well here it is, another edition of Writer's Block for your enjoyment. I hope this is helping people out there or at least people are reading it . Feel free to gimme a PM if you do want to make any suggestions or comments or want to suggest a topic for me to discuss, even an author you would like to have a focus on! Now that I've gotten the fan relations done, let's get down to business, peer editing. Another touchy subject to look at and a double-edged sword, if you will. For those of you saying, "I will," thank you for playing along. This will have some elements of the criticism piece I did a few weeks back and seem familiar, but we'll go a little more in depth here. Having a friend or another writer look at your work is something to be encouraged and very helpful, but I would like to address a few things when going about this process. Make sure that they are a person you can trust fully and who knows your work well enough to know your style so they aren't confused by anything. If it is a fellow writer whom you have never met before, be sure to be polite and professional when asking their opinion. Try to give them your best work to see, what you would consider your final draft. Then it gets down to the nitty-gritty.
First off, you must remember one thing: IT IS YOUR WORK. Don't let anyone take control of your ideas in a way you don't like. With that in mind we'll start off with comments on characters, plot, and other such trimmings to your literary tree. Say a friend of yours says that your character seems a little flat, and they can't connect with them. Go over the areas you feel describe the character and see for yourself if it seems a little disconnected. Perhaps they say your plot jumps too much and doesn't seem to flow. Check out your transitions and be sure to make them smooth. Remember, the reason you are asking your friend or whoever to take a look and tell you what they think is because the criticism will be offered in good spirits, and it will be easier for you to understand. These comments about characters and plot and such are for YOUR benefit so you can become better and produce a better quality of work.
Let's rewind back to the "it's your work" dealio for a second. When these comments are being made about your character, be sure to THINK about them before you ACT on them. If you start making changes that someone else suggests all willy-nilly, it's going to be their work and not yours. That being said, if you are going to take the comments and use them, like suggested above, you've proofed them yourself before using them. See? Proofing the proofs? A looooong process but it will be worth it. What's that? You want an example of "proofing the proofs?" I thought you'd never ask! If your friend suggests you make your female protagonist more feminine, when you have her intentionally butch or awkward, be sure to tell him that is what you intend. They will understand and respect that, which may change a few of their comments as well. "Your transitions are sloppy and sooo disconnected. I have NO idea what's happening and I get so confused!" A good comment if you are trying to make an easily followed story-line, but not if your character is suffering from head trauma and passes out often. See where I'm going with this?
I'm going to talk about something now that can be a rare case or a common case depending on the personality of the person you are dealing with here, fan-fiction of your OWN fan-fiction. I know that's kind of weird but I've had a personal experience with this matter and I feel it needs to be addressed. Sometimes the reader will write their own fiction of your characters so they can connect with them themselves or so they can run ideas or simply because they feel like it. Then they will hand it to you for your own review which is kind of their proof of your work, what they think it should look like. Now, here's the thing. They could be making decisions with your characters you may not like, take the story in weird directions, or just plain change the nature of the work itself. DON'T GET MAD! Seriously, don't. POLITELY, tell them that you appreciate their comments but address YOUR concerns with their work and see what they are actually trying to say to you. If you DO like what they wrote, by all means take their suggestions and mix the pot. I'm not suggesting you STEAL their idea,. I am merely saying that you can use the inspiration that they can give you. Perhaps they did something with the character you never thought of doing and you love it. It's perfectly fine for you to make different circumstances to display that situation or aspect of the character your friend inspired you to show.
Ok let's cop a squat and recap here. Now, we talked about taking the suggestions from your friends and peers smartly and with a level head and plenty of thought about their suggestions. Remember, YOUR WORK! Do what YOU want with it. Whose work is it? If you answered "MINE MINE MINE!" then you would win the prize if I had one. I also said that double fan-fiction thing will be rare or common depending on your circle of friends, so if that does apply to you look at that section again. I feel like I've covered everything I can with this topic, unless I go into more depth with examples so I won't bore you to tears. Remember, feel free to PM me at your convenience with ideas, suggestions, and topics you would like my opinion on, or if you would like to discuss suggestions I have made or the processes that I have presented. This Block is my suggestions and opinions so take what you want and leave what you don't! I ain't gonna know. Happy writing and see you next time!
Son of Random Task
As I sit here in my cell watching the guards walk by, I can't help but think my focus has brokused. And what can I say? I like all of y'all, you've been pretty cool to me and I hate leaving you guys with nothing over the weekend. So here comes another wonderful column of me making absolutely no sense like a bear doing a back flip on a tricycle. And NO, I will not put on a bear suit, get on a trike and do a flip. So please enjoy.
I can't understand why people mug people. It's just so.....up close and personal, y'know? Robbing a bank is like stealing cookies from a jar in someone else's house when they're not there and leaving a mess of crumbs. Mugging a person is like breaking into somebody's house, but then they invite you in and you spend a while talking and eating coffee cake and the next thing you know you're going to their cousin's bachelor party. You get more involved with someone in a mugging than assault, swearing at them, indecent exposure or arson. Maybe I'm just not a people person.
Why the heck do people visit alternate realities? To see what could have been? Just depresses me is all. I can be normal, or a bear, or just a speck of dust lying in the infinite desert known as the universe. I like how I is. I am what I is, bad grammor an' all.
One day I saw an eight-foot-tall woman with rippling muscles do the monkey. I can never get that image out of my mind ever again.
Addendum: You are neither Iron Man nor Spartacus nor The Space Cowboy, Gangster of Love, Public Enemy No. 1 or TnT, Dy-no-mite.
If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning. Or break out again. I appreciate the cake with the blowtorch in it though, but they confiscated it. And then they eated the cake. :'(
I would like to appreciate some of you people out there. This goes out to the robber whose gun jammed during a heist. To the heroes who use fire powers and accidentally burn down buildings in a fight. To the guy working the drive-thru, whose sonic powers wreak unyielding havoc on the ears of customers. To all the ninja henchmen whose blood has been spilled in the pursuit of injustice. To the feisty, inexperienced brawler who tries to kill everything that moves. To the infinite legions of cat-girls! To the super who runs and hides when the Rikti invade. This goes out to you! I appreciate you! Everyone secretly loves you! I LOVE YOU MAN! And so concludes this week's column. Remember, I love you and send me hatemail!
Market Watch
The View on Blue
Congratulations to Galadiman, winner of the 5,000,000 influence drawing!
This contest was more than just an excuse for me to avoid writing a real column last week, it was also an opportunity to do some market research. I wanted to get an idea of how well the people who read this column understand the basics of the market. One reason I didn't choose a larger prize amount was because I wanted to draw responses from the people for whom 5,000,000 influence is a big enough prize to be worth the trouble of typing a PM. So, what kind of answers did I get?
1. Market Fees
The first question dealt with the market fees. The correct answer is that when you list an item for 1,000 inf, you pay a fee of 5%, or 50 inf. If the item sells, that 5% fee is refunded, but a 10% fee is subtracted from the sale amount, so if it sells for 10,000 inf then you pay a 1,000 inf fee. If the item is removed from the market before it sells, then the 5% fee is not refunded. Most people understood the fees pretty well. There were some people who thought that both fees were 5%, or that both were 10%, and not everyone realized that the first fee was refunded when the item sold. Overall, though, everyone was in the right ballpark and most people nailed it.
2. 60 Day Rule
The second question was about the 60 Day Rule. The correct answer is that everything you have in the market is wiped out after 60 days of inactivity. The Wentworth's representative in the middle of every Wentworth's location mentions this, but not in any detail. I've done my own testing, to flesh out the details. There is a separate 60 day counter for each character, not for each account, so logging in one character won't reset the counter for a different character. It makes no difference whether or not you are still paying for the game. Will logging into the game reset the count? It's not clear. I had characters who went for 60 days without setting foot in the market, and they did not lose anything as long as I logged them in from time to time. My best guess is that the blue chat messages from the market ("You have 0 bought and 3 sold items") are enough to count as interacting with the market. To be safe, though, if you don't see a blue message then you should probably open a market window. It seems that the maintenance happens during the maintenance periods when the servers are down, but efforts to narrow it down more than that have been inconclusive. Finally, when the wipe does happen, it takes everything: all stored items, all items listed for sale but not yet sold, the influence from sales that have completed, items which have been purchased, and the influence from outstanding bids. All of it is wiped out. Nothing is returned to your inventory. (I have seen a few people claim to have different experiences, but this is what I found during my tests).
So how did the respondents fair? Almost everyone knew exactly what the 60 Day Rule was. In fact, it's likely that everyone knew, but one joker refused to give a straight answer . Given how many people have lost items to the 60 Day Rule, I was surprised that so many people knew about it. Tell your friends! People are still burned by this all the time, sadly.
3. Who Buys What?
The third question dealt with the way the market matches buyers and sellers. The short answer is that the highest bid gets the lowest priced item. Ties are either resolved randomly, or using some algorithm which no one has figured out yet. People had a solid understanding of this idea. I have seen posts on the forums from people who are very confused about the way items and bids are matched, but apparently none of them were reading my column two weeks ago. Maybe they'd be less confused if they read the Market Watch column more often!
4. Level 50 Earnings
There is no correct answer to this question. How much a level 50 character earns depends on what they are doing. The reason I asked is because the enormous incomes of the level 50 characters drive a lot of prices, not just for purple recipes but for everything in the game. I suspected that people who haven't reached level 50 yet may see the price of a low level knockback protection recipe and be stunned. It's not low level characters who are footing that bill, generally. It's high level characters who are shopping down or twinking alts. I wanted to get a sense of how much people thought a level 50 could earn. Perhaps I should have phrased the question differently. Most of the responses were simply people pointing out that there is no correct answer. Oh, if you're curious, based on my own experience and on notes from other players I trust, it seems that almost any level 50 character is capable of earning 1 million influence per hour, and people who really push the envelope can earn 5 million or more even before selling their drops.
5. Level 35 Accuracy enhancements
This was a trick question. How much it costs to craft any common enhancement depends on whether or not you have memorized the recipe. The reason I asked this question, in this way, is because I so often hear people complain about how expensive common IO's are compared to SO's. They're not. A level 35 accuracy SO costs 41,472 inf. An unmemorized level 35 accuracy IO costs 104,450 (recipe + crafting). The salvage costs will probably add another 20,000 to that. The IO seems way more expensive. If you buy the enhancement from someone who has memorized the recipe, it will only cost them 33,100 plus salvage. All of a sudden, that SO isn't such a bargain, is it? Five levels later, you'll need to replace the SO, and that will set you back another 47,232. The IO is cheaper in the long run. It's not even close. The secret is to memorize the recipe, or buy it from someone who did. About half the respondents noted that the answer depended on whether or not the recipe was memorized. Most of the rest just looked up the answer and said 61,400, which is the unmemorized crafting cost.
All in all, I think that the people who read this column are pretty far ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding how the market works. If you do have any questions, feel free to send me a PM. Maybe I can dedicate a future column to answering reader questions
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The City Scoop
Phil's Philosophical Meanderings
This article will be looking at the "philosophy" that exists in the "City of" world. Philosophy is a sort of generic term when you understand it better, but the easiest way to understand it is to break up the word into it's root words. Philos and Sophia, both of which are Greek in origin. Philos is one of the many Greek words that mean "love", and can be seen as a prefix and suffix in many of the words we use today such as cinepile (movie lover) and Philadelphia (City of Brotherly Love, where Delphi is the Greek word for Brother). Sophia means roughly "wisdom", which makes Philosophy literally "the love of wisdom". And that's what we will be enjoying in these articles, the love of wisdom. Taking apart the "City of" world piece by piece, analyzing it and trying to understand it.
I was racking my brain, wondering what I might be able to come up with as my "first article" for the City Scoop, and then it came to me. Why not look at the REASONS why people play? Thinking about it some more, I realized that there were in fact MANY reasons why people play, and that people generally tend to fall into similar categories based on what their motive in our world is. As with ANY attempt to categorize people, these categories will never fully describe any individual person, as most people fall into multiple categories and a few don't fall into any of them. Well, let's look at what we have, shall we?
What kind of players are there out there? What makes them tick? What do people find "fun" in the game? Here is what I've come up with.
Player Types (part 1 of 2)
* Badgers - These people love the shiny badges! Anything that gives them a badge, they will do. No matter how painful, challenging, or monotonous the task, they will do it. Do they have an obsessive-compulsive disorder? Many do! Many others, however, just see their badge number as a challenge. Like with the Pokémon players, some "City of" players just "Gotta Catch 'Em All!" Fun for them is getting that latest shiny to add to their collection!
* Achievers - These players play the game to fight against tough odds. They want to prove their worth in battle, and even-con minions just won't do. They must fight the highest level enemies, play their missions as the highest difficulty possible, and often times this STILL isn't good enough. Whether it stems from not having the power to change their real lives, or just a wish to pummel the toughest guy in the room with a blazing fist, these people need to show that they're the toughest hombres out there! Fun for them is taking on the toughest odds in the game and surviving!
* PvPers - Whether they have grown tired of playing against a computer opponent, or have come to this game from First Person Shooters or other similarly competitive games, these players feel the need to trounce other people in a live war zone. They exist with a language unique to their own community, and have mastered the art of optimizing their builds to protect themselves from other players' powers and take advantage of other players' weaknesses. Fun for them is destroying you!
* Accumulators - These people are the farmers, who collect "stuff"... influence, salvage, recipes, what-have-you. They love nothing more than to have a huge inventory of the greatest stuff that they can find. They enjoy seeing what they can still get, seeing how to best get it, and then seeing what they can do to get more! Fun for them means finding the fastest and most efficient way possible to get more "stuff"!
* Marketers - They just love to play the money game! Sitting in front of Wentworth's for hours on end, they can take 100 influence and make it into 100 million influence, if you give them enough time. While some play the game to fight enemies, these players work to control a different kind of battlefield - the battlefield of commerce! Not necessarily just in it for the profit, fun for them means manipulating the market in new and interesting ways!
* Weekend Warriors - The silent majority, these players probably have never been to the forums, can't tell you anything about being the most "leet" or being the "richest", nor do they care. They are just here to unwind after a long day of work and have a little entertainment on the side. These men and women love to dress up in digital tights and take their characters to new levels of heroism or villainy, just to escape from the boring "real world" once in a while. Fun for them is playing a 5 minute mission, then going on with life!
If none of these match you, just remember, there's still half of the "player types" to go! To be continued next issue...
Vol. 2, Issue 15
SEPTEMBER 19th, 2008
This Issue:
Upcoming Events:
September 20th
RSVP
Infinity
September 26th
Pinnacle
Protector
Virtue
September 27th
Triumph
Protector
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Prize
There can't be a contest without a prize - so on the "hook" is a Pirate theme'd forum title of your choice for the top 3 pirate character screenshots! This could be anything you'd want for your forum title that fits in a pirate theme; you know stuff like: "ARRR!" or "Keel haul 'em!" or even "Best Forum Pirate!"
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What is the cash value of this prize?
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Zero dollah -
Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement.
City of Heroes Development Team Lead Designer Matt Positron Miller talks with IGN.com about fully merging the two titles and the current status of the game. The article covers a lot of ground, starting with some game lore and then on to reasons why those who dont play CoH or CoV might be interested to check it out. Heres a snippet:
[ QUOTE ]
Heroes players will find that the gameplay of Villains is a little bit more streamlined... we learned a lot when making it. In addition, the archetypes on the latter side can play very differently than their good counterparts.
[/ QUOTE ]
Click here to read the full article. -
City of Heroes Development Team Lead Designer Matt Positron Miller talks with IGN.com about fully merging the two titles and the current status of the game. The article covers a lot of ground, starting with some game lore and then on to reasons why those who dont play CoH or CoV might be interested to check it out. Heres a snippet:
[ QUOTE ]
Heroes players will find that the gameplay of Villains is a little bit more streamlined... we learned a lot when making it. In addition, the archetypes on the latter side can play very differently than their good counterparts.
[/ QUOTE ]
Click here to read the full article.
To discuss this article, please join us here. -
Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement.
Writer Adrian Bott continues Massively.coms mission to highlight aspects of City of Heroes lore and culture with the article The five most annoying griefs in CoX, and how they were quashed. In the piece, Adrian lists some of the most notorious griefing tactics, the history around them and how the City of Heroes Development Team squashed the problems.
Click here to read the full article. -
Writer Adrian Bott continues Massively.coms mission to highlight aspects of City of Heroes lore and culture with the article The five most annoying griefs in CoX, and how they were quashed. In the piece, Adrian lists some of the most notorious griefing tactics, the history around them and how the City of Heroes Development Team squashed the problems.
Click here to read the full article.
To discuss this article, join us here. -
Yarr, maties! Fer a bit 'o fun an ta celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day we want ye ta make yer best pirate!
Contest
Post a link to your best pirate themed character in City of Heroes or City of Villains. Then Niviene will go through the thread and collect the "best ones" and we'll make a forum poll to see what people like.
Prize
There can't be a contest without a prize - so on the "hook" is a Pirate theme'd forum title of your choice for the top 3 pirate character screenshots! This could be anything you'd want for your forum title that fits in a pirate theme; you know stuff like: "ARRR!" or "Keel haul 'em!" or even "Best Forum Pirate!"
To post your entry please join us in the Screenshots and Fan Art section. We'll close the thread on Monday, September 22nd and create the poll for voting and then select winners on Tuesday the 23rd.
Have fun! -
Yarr, maties! Fer a bit 'o fun an ta celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day we want ye ta make your best pirate!
Contest
Post a link to your best pirate themed character in City of Heroes or City of Villains. Then Niviene will go through the thread and collect the "best ones" and we'll make a forum poll to see what people like.
Prize
There can't be a contest without a prize - so on the "hook" is a Pirate theme'd forum title of your choice for the top 3 pirate character screenshots! This could be anything you'd want for your forum title that fits in a pirate theme; you know stuff like: "ARRR!" or "Keel haul 'em!" or even "Best Forum Pirate!"
We'll close this thread on Monday, September 22nd and create the poll for voting and then select winners on Tuesday the 23rd.
Have fun! -
[ QUOTE ]
Just a reminder folks, the contest will end in 36 hours from the time of this post (i.e. Contest ends Midnight Eastern on Sat, Sept 20).
Judging will be on hold until Ashcraft gets back online. The remnants of Ike knocked out power and internet in his area of Ohio and I heard from him today, he still doesn't have net at home.
Hopefully we'll be able to wrap this all up by mid next week!
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Don't miss out! -
MMORPG.com Correspondent Mike Mcnutt recaps news and happenings from across the City of Heroes franchise in his article September Overview. Mike reviews the announcement of Issue 13 and reactions to it along with new player guides for Issue 12 content.
Click here to read the full article on MMORPG.com
To discuss this article, please join us here.
