Lord Mayhem

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- Malta and Knives of Artemis could spawn from black helicopters that land near wherever loads of players gather, or otherwise parachute in,

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Secrets within secrets. Black helicopters and balaclavas. Shadowy agencies with limitless slush funds, and black-hearted agents with licenses to kill. Hushed conversations on internet chat-rooms that mysteriously vanish. Men in black with blank identities, and deadly women with a dozen passports. A high-tech paramilitary force divided into clandestine cells and dispersed around the globe – this is the Malta Group.

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Loving this idea Valkryst but what about my own personal favourite - Nemesis? They could spawn from the underground moles that appear in some of the missions and a badge awarded for taking out the mole. If thats possible from a game point of view. I would have thought that drilling moles coming up from the ground would be harder to do than drop ships but it does keep in with the whole Nemesis theme.

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I knew I'd forgotten someone - but yeah, mole machines appearing and spawning troops would be good.

I'd like to see regular dynamic invasions by most of the main factions - this week 5th Column, next week Rikti, the week after The Circle of Thorns, the week after that Freakshow, etc etc. Each invasion could have it's own badges, and instead of despawning the outdoor mobs in a zone how about having other factions fight against the invaders too, to protect their turf?

Each invasion force could have their own quirks, e.g.
- Rikti have their dropship/bombers and teleport in,
- 5th Column could march into the zone in parade formation from normal zone entrances, with tank columns (each tank would be an EB) spawning out of highway tunnels,
- Sky Raiders could drop from the skies and have air patrols by their skiffs,
- CoT could spawn from cave doorways constantly and start rituals to summon huge demon GMs
- Banished Pantheon could crawl out of the ground like the zombie invasions for Halloween and start summoning avatars of their gods (GMs)
- Devouring Earth could come out of caves and the ground,
- Praetorian minions could spawn from portals that appear in the streets and if players get near the portal a Praetorian AV could spawn from it,
- Rularuu could descend from rifts torn open in the air and drop down onto players,
- Shivans could emerge around meteorites that fall from the sky (like Rikti bombs) and crack open on impact,
- Malta and Knives of Artemis could spawn from black helicopters that land near wherever loads of players gather, or otherwise parachute in,
- Freakshow could exit building doorways and sewer entrances and just riot in the streets,

You could even have Longbow assaulting Rogue Isles zones (from their red/white helicopters) in the same week as Arachnos troops attack Paragon zones (from their Arachnos helis).

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Didn't Sony try something like this?
some premium subscription which gave players on that better support than the rest... I'm pretty sure that flopped hard.

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What you're referring to was the "Legends" service on EverQuest, which was a total joke. There was one Legends server, Stormhammer, that you had to pay $40 a month to play on - back then normal server subs for EQ cost around $13 a month and Station Access (which let you play all SOE's MMOs on a single sub) was around $20, iirc (and I don't think the Legends sub included Access, but I may be wrong).

On Stormhammer you would supposedly never have to wait for GMs to answer a petition (it would be immediate), there would be live dynamic events run every week by GMs, I think for a while you got patches and holiday events a few days earlier than the normal live servers, I think loot/cash drop rates were higher, and there was one zone exclusive to Legends (but apparently it was a bit rubbish).

Eventually most of those things fizzled out and Legends basically became $40 a month for average GM service. Funnily enough right after Legends launched the GM service on the live servers got noticeably worse and there were rumours that SOE had pulled about half the GMs off the 20+ live servers to work purely on Stormhammer - I think it was 1 GM assigned to every 4 live servers when I quit in 2003 and usually an hour after petitioning you'd get contacted by a Guide, i.e. an unpaid player volunteer who had no power to do anything but escalate your petition to a proper GM if it sounded like you had a problem they could help with, then a GM might contact you a few days later by email. My main character got stuck on a zoneline once at a raid and it took SOE two weeks after the petition to fix it.

But as I heard it Stormhammer was never a busy server and I think SOE shut it down a couple of years ago. So yeah, it flopped hard, and it deserved to - two-tier subscription plans are just wrong.

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I think sending out batches of trial discs to retailers would help...

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Getting them inside magazines would probably help more - and not just PC gaming mags either, but try and get some of the more mainstream mags to carry a disc. Heck, maybe NC could offer Empire or Total Film some demo discs for the next time they do a big superhero article - "you've seen superheroes on the big screen, now BE one!"

It can't be that difficult to get magazines to include something extra, considering all the spammy junk leaflets that fall out of pretty much any mag you buy nowadays.

Advertising the CoH/V trial more on the net would help too.

Guaranteed one issue every quarter, each containing one new zone (with TF + 4 contact arcs at least), one zone revamp (whether complete like Faultline, or just spawns/missions like Hollows), one new powerset, at least a couple of new full costumes, and of course a commitment to new QoL features and ongoing development as we get now.

That's what it would take for at least a £3 a month hike - a £1 a month hike I wouldn't mind as long as they manage to deliver 3 issues in the next 12 months. Though admittedly if NC did put the price up now by £1-3 without any guarantees of extra content for our money I wouldn't be happy about it, but I probably wouldn't quit either. Tbh this is still a very cheap form of entertainment.

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Is it possible to get the Roman Cheekguard 2 option without using the helm head tab? It's a really cool faceplate, but I'd rather not have the half helms. Seeing as most of them suck and I don't want a Roman helm.

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No, sadly it's not possible. The Roman Cheekguards are only available as options for the Roman Helms.

I really like morality systems if they’re done well like in KotoR as they add replay value, give weight/importance to your decisions and questing, and help to tell the story of your character. You can take a decidedly different progression through the game with different characters and the storyline/content adjusts accordingly. Plus it’s YOUR choice how to complete a mission, rather than just following a pre-determined morality/path through a linear story.

But I really hate morality systems if they're done poorly and purely amount to faction grinding (like in many other MMOs like EQ, DAoC, EQ2, WoW, etc) towards whatever flavour of rewards you're trying to get. I’ve wasted so much time in other MMOs grinding mobs continuously for faction, because it was needed for a certain quest/reward, and it never fails to amaze me how developers think it’s realistic that, say, the Dwarves will forget/forgive that you’ve slain hundreds of their kinfolk just because you killed so many more of their enemy the Giants, or vice versa.

Good morality systems give you a chance to further differentiate your character from others. From a CoH/V perspective I wish that badges purely showed the story of your character and their progression through the game, rather than being more of a Pokemon-style "gotta catch 'em all" sub-game. At the moment only the CoV patron ones really do that, because you can only ever get 1 of the 4 patron badges (and yeah I’m sure some badgehunters really hate that) - they show a definitive irreversible choice you made between 4 paths of content (and when patron pool respecs arrive thankfully we’ll be able to make that choice purely based on the content/patrons and not from a gameplay/power perspective).

You know, I'd even like to see badge missions have multiple outcomes with a different badge awarded for each - the outcomes could be tied to morals as previously suggested (good, evil & neutral) - there could perhaps be a much less desirable badge title "awarded" for failing the mission, or no badge at all (I quite like Pither’s arc CoV-side - you only get the Efficiency Expert badge if you don’t fail any of his timed missions - and you can’t ever repeat/flashback it).

Really I think it might be too early to say definitively whether you hate/like/fear the idea of a morality system in CoH/V until we know more about how the Devs would plan to implement it.

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What i would like to see is some kind of missions where the mobs inside are both good and evil.Uppon entering the mission the previous missions you have done to + or - reputation with said faction.These factions could have also allies where some reputation is gained there too due to "word of mouth"

Uppon entering these mission depending what you choose to fight or where you moral compass lies you end up in mission taking sides.Trying to remain neutral would lead to both factions in mission attacking you for being suspicious.
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Ok i know i took it too far but would love this kind of chaos and challenge and i think i just had a mini orgasm at the thought of such PvE

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Sounds good to me, if unlikely, but don’t you like to farm? Wouldn’t you just try to stay neutral on every mission so you had more mobs to farm for inf/drops?

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To me the most interesting part is suggesting that new alts would start as neutral and become heroes or villains through their actions, though probably in my case by the time I got to 50 I'd still be a damn neutral fence sitter.

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Well I'd imagine a Merc would stick right down the middle, depending on who paid the most. Then again, one might say that'd shift his morality meter anyway.

(And who's morals would it be based on anyway?)

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Valkryst suggested something like this a couple of weeks ago.

Original thread.

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Wonder how long ago the survey went out? And if it's been recently, does that prove that the devs do in fact read the boards?

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Lets hope so.

I like the sound of everything in that "survey", but then most of it was either suggested by the Devs themselves ages ago (Emmert re "City of Spies", or the last official survey for the space-station/moon zones) or by the playerbase continuously for the last 4 years (power customisation, "going rogue" & morality systems, new newbie content).

Even the universal slots don't worry me that much - ok, I don't PvP much, but would you guys still hate the universal slots if they had their own unique sets of IOs that would go into them, that could be randomly dropped throughout normal gameplay (not necessarily rare, either)? Would you still hate the universal slots if you could replace the need for Stamina by putting End Recovery IOs into those universal slots, allowing you to take extra powers instead of the fitness pool?

We knew NorCal needed to do something special with DCUO and CO on the horizon - if NCNC can deliver over half of the stuff on that list then I don't think they have anything to worry about. They'll just need a marketing push to drag in some new players (though DCUO and CO could also become a good way to drag new players into CoH/V too, if they grew bored of those games and wanted a superhero MMO that was deeper).

As for a paid expansion, I have no problem with that providing it had tons of content and features in it, way beyond what we'd expect in 2-3 issues (i.e. a year's worth) usually. Best of all, a paid expansion would put this game back on store shelves which could be marketed as a relaunch of the game if the expansion included the base CoH/V games in it.

My annoyances with CoH/V would be:

1) Belligerent egotistical players trying to dominate certain chat channels, groups and playstyles

2) Mandatory content - this complaint breaks down into 2 sub-complaints:
i) being forced to go see PvP contacts, David Wincott, Seer Marino, Security Chiefs, etc. when you hit their level range
ii) being allotted a story arc (i.e. the book icon) upon a referral before even speaking to the new contact, which forces you to either a) do their content now while it's worth xp (leaving you less time to do content of your own choosing in that level range), b) clear their content later once it is worth no xp, c) not do their content and have them forever cluttering up your active contact list. Either get rid of arc limits and allow us to force contacts inactive at our own choice, OR just make sure contacts that ONLY offer an arc get given an intro mission that isn't part of the arc so being referred to the contact doesn't automatically register you for the arc.

3) Some of the truly dull content hero-side, as others have mentioned:
i) contacts with no charisma/personality/depth (like villain-side ones have) because their missions have to be written in such a generic way that they can be offered by half a dozen different contacts across a couple of zones
ii) too much travel between zones at low levels
iii) too many cookie-cutter hunt missions (they should rip all of the hunt missions off contacts and stick them on the security chief in each zone as repeatable content, for those who want outdoor missions) - especially hunts for mobs that are hard to find (i.e. CoT in King's Row that mainly spawn on rooftops at night, Carnies in PI that have to compete with Malta/Nem/Rikti for spawnpoints and are being heavily hunted by players anyway)
iv) story arc writing not up to the recent standards of CoV and the new /revamped zones (the original CoH content needs a re-write)
v) TFs & story arcs with far too much mission repetition

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its already been said that any more epic AT will be both sides

VEATs were made just to balance it out

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Yeah I'm aware of that - I was just commenting on the OP's idea itself. It's not like many of the suggestions on this forum are really that realistic, but people like chucking ideas around.

Besides if a HEAT was done that was almost a cut/paste of Arachnos Soldiers at 1-24 but with a few new powers in each branch to make them more Longbow-like, then villains could finally get Nictus as a VEAT for parity

As others have said Longbow Wardens pretty much use existing powersets (there are over a dozen different types iirc) and Longbow Officers/Nullifiers and a lot of the normal soldiers just use AR/ attacks with a few extras on top - that would probably be ok for L1-24 if you were then going to branch into something more interesting (like Arachnos Soldiers do) but otherwise not so much.

Have you considered using Longbow Ballista for one of the branches (i.e. an /EM tanker that basically has some Energy Blast and Force Field powers on top)? The other branch could have Longbow Spec-Ops style powers (including Hide) that gradually turns into a Longbow agent - i.e. the same branch of Longbow led by Indigo & Crimson that also comprises Agent G (Faultline contact), Agent X, and possibly Ace McKnight too (the latter two being CoV enemies for villain players).

I think a Longbow Chaser would be a bad idea if you're permanently locked into the "chaser form", because then emotes don't work and it probably poses other in-game problems too. Maybe Chaser could be put in as an optional form as part of the Agent set, with a few attacks, and dealt with gameplay-wise like Kheldian shapeshifts.

I don't RP so this sounds fairly minor to me, but I'm not shocked it happens if it annoys you so much: Griefers only need one justification to grief - that they know what they're doing will annoy the heck out of the other person in real life. Unfortunately you've just confirmed to these pushy non-RPers how much they're getting to you - you better hope they don't read the forum or things are likely to get worse. In fact this would be hard to report as harassment, takes no prep-time, could be done with a L1 character on a trial account, carries no in-game risk for the griefer, and thus it's almost the perfect grief.

Just ignore them, or log to a different character and do something else, until the griefer(s) get bored and go away.

Just be aware that some griefers have very high boredom thresholds. In other MMOs I’ve seen or heard of griefs that took weeks/months to come to fruition. In EQ and WoW I several times witnessed players killing quest-giving NPCs non-stop all evening purely to stop PvEers being able to do the quest (usually newbies too). And I’ve witnessed griefs that were so widespread, frequent and infamous that the Devs actually made major game changes to stop that specific grief. I’ve even seen a whole guild of griefers corpse-camping a guy for an entire week non-stop just so that his corpse would decay with all of his hard-earned equipment on it (that was on Sullon Zek in EverQuest too, just like the previous example).

By comparison this is pretty minor. Best you can do is try not to let it bother you.

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How about, instead of a badge maybe...

Do a league table for the mobs.

So top Skulls, Crey, Praetorian arrester for the week, etc. And maybe give a badge for being top of the list?

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City Terminals already show the most kills by day per faction. No badge for it, but it tracks everyone on the server supposedly. They're mainly CoH-side but I think villains can access one in Siren's Call and certain Paragon instances.

/signed

I like this idea, it's not overly ambitious, and hopefully it would be easy enough (and quick) to implement.

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It's little more than a brute force "Haha! Your sisters dead!" taunt when boiled down.

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Actually it's a "Haha! Your wife's dead!" taunt.

Maiden Justice was Monica Cole nee Richter - Stefan Richters (aka Lord Recluse) sister who married Marcus Cole (aka Statesman).

All covered in the Web of Arachnos.

I think I got the name's right...

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Yeah, that's how I always understood it - Recluse is taunting him that Monica is dead because Statesman, being immortal, will outlive all of his loved ones - whereas Recluse no longer places any value on such sentiment.

As for the Megan/Jessica mix-up, there's still no definitive explanation for the mix-up between novels, comics, in-game and official websites - although the dev Manticore did state explicitly on the US forums that her name is Megan. But, as ParagonWiki says:

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Ms. Liberty's real name has been in question recently. In the GameSpy preview that contains Ms. Liberty's background that was published a month and a half before the game's release, her first name is given as "Jessica," and the original Miss Liberty is identified as her grandmother, not her mother. An official correction has been made on the official CoH forums by Manticore, one of the game designers who is responsible for maintaining game story continuity.[1] However, in the City of Heroes novel, Freedom Phalanx, she is once again named Jessica Cole, and the continuity has yet to be addressed. In addition, the UK CoH website also has her name listed as Jessica Duncan.

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That's about as definitive as you're going to get at the moment. Personally I'd go with Megan simply because in-game sources support that.

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1. Stamina (surprised more people didnt put this)

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Well to me it's often a necessity, but that doesn't make it a favourite - I don't get much fun out of the power itself

It's possible to play too much CoH/V?

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I've played MMOs for a long time and i've seen servers coming down with no warning at all in other games. Or known exploitable bugs which ruined the game and despite knowledge kepts servers up, then next day patch to fix it and roll back a days worth of playtime.

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^ This. I've experienced exactly the same, Neko.

Honestly be glad you got any warning at all, Alphane - a lot of MMO operators don't bother at all.

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You should see Star Wars Galaxies and its twitch based headmovement action. *shudders*

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I trialed it pre-CU pre-NGE and didn't really get into it - not touched it since, especially as some of my friends regard SOE as the spawn of Satan and that game in particular as the anti-christ.

But yeah blinking eyes I could go for.

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Still not quite sure how stopping a broadcast helps Lord Recluse present himself as not being a dictator

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Who's going to know what Recluse is up to if they can't broadcast about it?

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Well, it'd make people pretty suspicious

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No, because they don't get to know about it. By allowing Vimes' WSPDR to report most things Recluse gives the impression that the Rogue Isles has freedom of the press, but as soon as Vimes gets her hands on anything too sensitive and damaging to his regime he stamps on her, rather hard. Not directly, hence why his Arachnos cronies like Marshall Brass use deniable operatives like player-villains to do the stamping, but Vimes knows where the message is coming from, even if she can't prove it.

Nobody knows that information is missing in the same way as you don't know (not until well after the fact anyway) if any real world news service has been gagged.

And she's not about to go against Recluse in a big way because she knows that she'd just have an unfortunate accident one day before she could report too much that incriminated him - and we player villains would probably be the ones organising her unfortunate accident

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More life like characters...

Like: Eyes blinking, mouths moving while talking, special emotes preformed while talking Ect.

To make the game look more alive... currently it looks like all heroes faces are just a plastic doll...

City of Plastic Figures...

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It depends - EQ2 had character heads and eyes following you as you walked past them - it was rather unnerving, because you couldn't control who your character was actually looking at. And despite the more advanced graphics engine in EQ2 (compared to peer-released MMOs like CoH and WoW) the character skin and hair still looked like plastic.

I've seen some AoC videos and tbh it looks rather eerie there as well.

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Mind you, I'd love to see that giant Council Mech set loose on Striga.

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Or a Council Mech vs Kronos Titan destroying downtown Founders...

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But then we would have to have a giant Nemesis steampunk bot joing in the battle...

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That would be awesome - we must get that added - a giant robot rumble zone

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Where's GhostRaptor? We must demand answers

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Why don't you demand answers? Then let us know how that works out for you, if you still have posting privileges by then

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And did that work?

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She found it rather hard to broadcast the news with no power to run the cameras, so yeah. Kidnapping her family has certainly worked for getting her to shut up as well.