LordAethar

I would be very reluctant to support the release of more paid expansions. While I do like GR, it was unfinished and essentially made the next 2+ "free" expansions mostly pointless unless you have GR.

The Booster packs, however I despise. When looked-at as a whole, the boosters are very expensive purchases with very little functionality. If this was a F2P system, I'd not have a problem with them & their prices, but City of Heroes is Pay-to-Play, and thus I consider the Boosters to be double-dipping.

It's good to hear that you managed to get the problem resolved. I also sympathize with the legal issues you've had with your computer.

I run my own little computer business, fixing and repairing computers. I'm a stickler when it comes to legalities, and I absolutely refuse to install any hacked or illegal software. However, I know MANY other self-proclaimed computer experts do, and I've had to help many people over the years deal with a computer that no-longer works because it turns-out that it never had a legal copy of Windows in the first place.

Just last month, I had a customer that knew for a fact that she paid extra for MS Office when she bought her computer a couple years prior, but the version installed on her computer was an illegal copy (5 seconds of Googling confirmed that very quickly).

Then not long after that, another customer wanted me to help her install Office 14 on her computer - a copy she bought on EBay recently. Guess what? It was counterfeit. Admittedly a good counterfeit, but even before looking at it in-detail, I could tell something wasn't right.

Looking at the posts in this thread over the last few days, it seems that there is a greater discontentment with the Boosters than there was years ago when they first started producing them.

Back when the first Wedding pack came out, I had a lot of mixed feelings with what I saw. We did get one new free dress shirt out of it that was (if memory serves) leaked unintentionally. The little bit I voiced my concerns were mostly dismissed, saying this was just a special occasion.

Then the Magic pack was announced and came out. This prooved that the Wedding pack wasn't just a fluke, but the beginning of a trend. Again I raised my voice with concern, and while some people listened this time, still most people dismissed me as paranoid ramblings.

At this time, with the burden of starting my own RL business, I had to make a choice on what online games I would continue playing. Even though I enjoyed CoH, and was looking forward to i14, the growing trend with micro-transactions in a subscription-based game was the deciding factor for me to cancel my CoH account.

I returned only recently, and I've been both impressed and disappointed with much of what I'm seeing. Power customization, albeit incomplete, is a nice addition, and adjustments to Auras is nice. However, I was surprised with how few costume pieces had been added over the last two years.... and then I looked at the booster packs again.

Yes, I've have strong feelings about this. Especially since the devs promised to never do such a thing. I don't remember now if I read it on the forums, in an interview, or even the one time I spoke to the Devs directly at GenCon one year, but I distinctly remember them saying that they would never make us pay for more costume options, or have purchase-only powers.

Now it seems that a good chunk of the new content we must now pay extra for - a far cry from the advertised, "Free" Issues. New costume pieces? Gotta pay for those now. New emotes? Gotta pay for those now too. New content? Gotta have the paid expansion for that. New powers? Gotta buy some of them, others, gotta have the paid expansion for that. Not including GR, to buy all of the booster packs can easily run about $100. That's a lot of money just a few costume pieces. When will it end?

Maybe I'm just being a cheapskate? I admit, I've had to be a bit of a penny-pincher these last few years. But I've also seen other MMO's similar in size and scope to CoH that release free expansions once or twice and year and do NOT require any extra purchases whatsoever. EVE Online comes to mind.

As I said before, I'd not have as much of a problem with this if there were in-game means to acquiring these items. Easiest way to accomplish this could be to charge a number of Inf/Reward Merits/Alignment Merits/etc. Even if the cost is an exorbitant amount that could take weeks or months of play for a single piece, at least the *option* would be there.

I just returned to the game a couple weeks ago after a two-year Hiatus, and I'm going-through the slow process of respeccing my toons out of the old Fitness PP.

I've also noticed how some powers have changed, and what set IO's can (and can't) be installed in them anylonger. Usually it's the former, and new options are available that weren't before, but I've had one instance where the latter was true. Trap/Trip Mines required a complete overhaul, but the final result is actually better than the original build.

The trickiest part of these respecs is that with effectively 3 new powers, I have to redo my slot layout. I used to 3-slot Health and Stamina without a thought, but now that's not guaranteed. My Dark Defender only has 1 slot in Health (which is still enough for Numina's Recovery IO), and my Mastermind has only 1 slot in Stamina (she's a very end-light toon).

Do they still give out a free respec when a new issue hits, or just when there's significant power changes? For that matter, what power changes are we seeing in i20? Beyond the Incarnate stuffs and the couple new Task Forces, there doesn't seem to be much new in i20.

I doubt we'll see all that much new. It seems they've been focusing almost exclusively on content they can sell above-and-beyond the subscription fee, because they know there are people rich-enough (or foolish-enough) to buy the packs.

If this were a F2P game, or if there were other in-game means to acquire said items, I'd not have a problem with this.

I took the last two years off from City of Heroes, and as a returning player there are certain aspects of the Costume Creator that both thrill me, and greatly disappoint me.

I love that they finally introduced Power Customization. It still needs some work, but I do like what I see so far.

The big disappointment though is that there's very little new content in the CC. Having been gone for 2 years, 6 issues, and a full-fledged expansion, there's really only a small handful of new costume pieces in the CC.

In fact, it seems to me that there's more new pieces available via the now-numerous "Booster Packs". That still bugs me to no end; micro-transactions in a subscription-based game. If there were ways that could also unlock those pieces in-game, I wouldn't have a problem (much like how Team Fortress 2 handles its economy), but there's several pieces I'd love to have that I likely will never get, as I can barely justify paying a monthly subscription for the game, let alone spending $40 or so dollars for a handful of costume options.

Anyhow, that's my two cents worth.

I do remember having to take some liberties with the outfit due to costume part unavailability, but there's pieces on my costume that aren't on theirs at all, like bone shoulder pieces, and a baroque tight top.

I'll have to post a picture of my defender sometime when I get the chance to illustrate the differences.

Back sometime during Issue 6 or 7, I made a Cabal-themed outfit for one of my characters (complete with the Cabal Hat from the KHTF). Aside from some minor coloration tweaks, the outfit was as close to a Cabal outfit as you could get.

Well, after taking a couple years off, I recently reactivated my account, and while poking around in Croatoa I noticed that the Cabal NPC's all look different than I remember. Their outfits look subtly different, simpler than before.

I'm wondering... did the Cabal get a slight makeover somewhere over the last few years, or did I take more liberties designing my Defender's outfit than I recall?

I can confirm that this too fixed my problem. As soon as I turned-off EVGA Precision, I too was able to tweak certain settings again.

This is the first time I've had issues with the eVGA tools. I've poked-around the EVGA tools to try and turn the on-screen component off, but I can't seem to deactivate it even though everything appears to be set properly. I'll look into it more later-on sometime - for now I'm just happy the problem is resolved.