Lothic

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Has there been any estimate on when I16 will be out?

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Plenty. The estimate I agree with is mid/end October.

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That late?

If the closed beta for I16 starts next week I actually suspect there's an outside chance they'll push it live on or around September 1st... Gee, I wonder what else is happening September 1st that our Devs might be trying to have this release coincide with?

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Sept 1st is too soon. That only gives a month of closed AND open beta testing. If they did, and beta goes that well, great. But very unlikely. I would say at least a month of closed beta testing, and a month of open beta. They want to get this right and this is a new game mechanic that I'll bet will be a pain to test and fix. A month of closed beta testing will put this in open for anyone to play at the beginning of September assuming closed beta starts next week. Open beta will be almost as effective as a mark to match the other MMO. I would say sometime in October as a very realistic mark for issue 16 to hit.

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Eh, I suppose time will eventually tell...

I simply don't think the power customization thing is going to be -that- hard to test. Yes it might have taken a long time for our Devs to implement it because there was a lot of "busy work" involved with hundreds of powers. But the actual mechanics involved in plugging -any- definable colors into the game is either going to work or not. There was very likely a large amount of 'cut-n-paste' involved in how this was done.

Regardless of a meaningless debate in which neither of us have any real facts about the software I still suspect that the "goal" of September 1st is going to drive this beta cycle more than usual. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see that real world date taking precedence over bugs that can always be fixed -after- September 1st.

Never underestimate the influence of market considerations when it comes to software releases.

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My guess is, it'll be out before CO hits. You think it's a conicidence that they annouced THIS expansion around this time? I thinks not.

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That was -my- point. I don't think it's a coincidence at all.

Well like I suggested if CO ends up sucking I might end up trying DCUO.
Heck I'll probably try DCUO regardless.

With that one I'm hoping we aren't going to be "tied to the hip" of the established heroes as much as it appears. I actually didn't like CoV all that much because the story of the game basically forced you to be an "Arachnos Redshirt". I like my characters to have their own backgrounds and identities. I don't want to have to feel like I'm Superman's flunkie.

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If CO keeps up the way it is, it'll be a no-brainer for folks to pick CoX.

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Well to be honest I'm hoping CO will be good enough so that I'll have fun playing -both- CoX and CO. Ideally they'll both bring different features to the table and "force" each other to innovate. Real competition would be a healthy thing for this game.

P.S. Small world... I grew up in Altamonte Springs.
It was like a million years ago and I don't live anywhere near there now but still.

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At the rate it's going, not CO... At least, I sure's hell hope not.

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Well at the very least the beta of I16 will be happening pretty much at the same time the open beta for CO will be. Good times lol.

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Has there been any estimate on when I16 will be out?

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Plenty. The estimate I agree with is mid/end October.

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That late?

If the closed beta for I16 starts next week I actually suspect there's an outside chance they'll push it live on or around September 1st... Gee, I wonder what else is happening September 1st that our Devs might be trying to have this release coincide with?

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This was the top of the list, and they've been dedicated to getting the work done for like a year +. The work is top notch.

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Bah. That's just communist propaganda. We all know that the Dev's set down last week, realized that CO was coming out soon, and threw it together during BaB's lunch break in order to steal the thunder from CO. [/tinfoilhat]

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Actually I think the "truth" of this is a bit of both of these merged together:

The Dev's sat down a year or so ago, realized that CO was coming out with power customization some time during the summer of 2009, and threw it together during 'several' random lunch breaks in order to steal the thunder from CO.

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Also Desdemona is so hot with a nice nice booty. she's built the way a woman should be...soft in all the right places

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It always creeps me out when people talk like this about cartoon characters.

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it's not like i said i want to have babies with her (which WAS said in this thread) Is it Really that bad to appriciate beauty where ever you find it? Would it be as bad in your eyes to look at a drawing or painting by picasso, rembrandt, or some guy painting on the street corner and make the same comment or is it that your unable to look past the fact that the topic of discussion is related to a video game? it's not like i or anyone else in this thread said that betty boop or lola bunny was hot

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There's a difference about saying "Thats a beautiful painting" or "That's a painting of a beautiful woman" and "That cartoon character has a sweet booteh, she's so hot! Look at those curves... mmmmmmhmmmm... she's my kind of woman! Sooooo soft" There's a definite line between those two ends of the spectrum, and I just find it creepy when someone feels the need to cross it. On one end it's an appreciation for a beautiful piece of artwork and on the other it's an expression of lust for a cartoon character. There's a definite difference there. She's every bit a cartoon character as betty boop, and yeah, that'd be creepy too.

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Mona Lisa has a real purty mouth. And the knockers on Venus are soo perky.

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It'd be a whole new twist on this discussion if for example in the 16th century the Mona Lisa was considered risque enough to have been considered pornographic at the time.

Yep the "jetpack as costume item" has easily been one of the most frequently suggested costume items for years. I'm sure it's in the top ten at the very least. I have a character I created almost 5 years ago that was supposed to have a jetpack costume item as her "explanation" for Flight who's still waiting for it...

Maybe after they get I16 done a jetpack costume item will be the next miracle our Devs will perform.

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On the other hand setting the last two Inf badges at 500 million and 1 billion would also work.

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This would be about right.

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Well for what it's worth I finally earned Empath about a month or so -before- Posi lowered it to 100 million so I'm already past being momentarily "upset" by that. In fact I have fun imagining Posi waited to make sure I spent the time to get the billion HP version before he changed it just to spite me personally. lol.

Anyway if the Devs ever decided to shift Popular/Leader down to say 500 million/1 billion INF it wouldn't bother me all that much either. I have those badges on my main badger right now so I've already -wasted- the time to get them regardless of future nerfing. I spent that "extra" billion INF buying Purple IOs so it's not like I got nothing for that effort in the long run.

As I said before I think Leader should always be a top epic badge in that it should always be non-trivial to get. I could accept the argument that a billion INF version of it would still be challenging enough for most people.

Thanks for the announcement of this great news. I'm looking forward to trying out the new I16 content whenever I get the chance to play with it.

But as far as the timing of this closed/open beta cycle goes I'm really surprised more people don't seem to have a clue what's prompting it. Clearly with this testing schedule there's going to be a reasonable chance that I16 will be ready to go live on or around September 1st. *nudge nudge wink wink*

As far as marketing strategy goes I think it's the most sensible maneuver for this game to make.

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With the I16 difficulty settings I think the challenge level of those badges are finally going to shift from being "slightly unreasonable" to "appropriate for top level epic badges".

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I think that really depends on the AT of the badge toon in question. In regard to a toon like a Scrapper, I would agree completely. However, some of the less-hardy/less-soloable ATs would have considerably more difficulty in taking on large maps set for 8 at a high level (thus generating higher levels of inf).

(Things like this have consistently made me feel relieved that, purely by dumb luck, my badge toon is a Scrapper...)

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Efficiency in solo farming for INF has always been dependant on the AT/powersets involved.
As I mentioned earlier I farmed in the Storm Palace because the RWZ was too hard for my Controller.

But even if you are a "squishy" when it comes to this kind of thing the difficulty setting changes that I16 is bringing represents new opportunities for -everyone- to be able to farm for INF more efficiently. Teaming under this system will be better than teaming now so if teaming is the only way you can farm INF then that will be better for you as well.

I'm not trying to suggest I16 is going to make getting Leader trivial.
But it will make it less "impossible" for everyone all things considered.
As a top epic badge Leader should always be a challenge regardless of how "easy" it ever becomes.

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Once ish 16's enhanced difficulty settings hit, progress towards the last 2 money badges will be better.

However I am still of the opinion that the values needed to get the last 2 money badges need to be reevaluated.

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I might have agreed with you that the last two INF badges needed to be "reevaluated" before I heard of the news of the upcoming I16 enhanced difficulty settings. But with those new features in place I think the epic INF badges are going to be one step closer towards people having a realistic shot at them.

With the I16 difficulty settings I think the challenge level of those badges are finally going to shift from being "slightly unreasonable" to "appropriate for top level epic badges".

I was just coming at it from the "why did they bother to make it have a 5 minute timer at all?" perspective. If this thing only had a 10 second timer then things might be different. On the other hand 5 minutes is definitely more reasonable than say 30 minutes.

As far as 63 month Vets being "mature" enough not to spam powers to grief, well, let's just say there could be old timers out there who'd easily be bored enough to be tempted if it were easily possible with a Vet power any of them could have regardless of AT/powersets. I doubt there will ever be a Vet power that'll "overlook" that possibility.

Well at least I can see why they bothered to put something like this on a 5 minute timer. It's a cool looking effect but I could just imagine people using it to grief public gatherings like costume contests or whatever.

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Juggle emotes seem to work while flying...only tested ';juggle' though.

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I know it's pretty minor but I'm looking forward to checking this out. The last patch caught the "basic juggle while Hovering" bug but left out the other juggles. It's good to see the rest of the juggles have now been accounted for.

For a long time we only had one "SG color scheme" available on all costume slots of a character and it was relatively annoying. But eventually they changed it so that individual slots could have their own SG color settings.

Likewise I have to hope that power color settings will be selectable per costume slot as well. If not then it'll almost be like a roundabout step backwards.

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I was pretty sure there was an actual marker in the mish you had to run over.

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It's been a while but I seem to remember it like Ironblade described/quoted. It's like the badge was supposed to apply to the entire map as a "location" instead of just one spot. I always thought it was a little weird to force an Explore badge to work like that but it is what it is.

Good question. Maybe Terg will answer that for us.

But as an educated guess I'd say this power affects a zone exactly the same way a player would. In other words the removal of the fog of war in zones has always been permanent so I don't see any reason why this power would work differently for that. The Devs would've had to go out of their way to make it be -less- useful for us and I just don't see that kind of effort wasted on this.

Besides I figure it'd make this silly little power that much more silly if we kept having to reuse it on zones over and over again.

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Has the badge text of any Vet award/power ever been different between heroes and villains?
I just think it'd be a little weird if they actually were different that way.
Let's just say I'd never ask that kind of question about them at any rate. *shrugs*

P.S. Congrats Turgenev. I guess you only got this one a week too early this time.

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The flavor/body text, differs on some example

And thanks!

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Well I obviously never bothered to compare them. That's why I asked the question in the first place.

But honestly if had to have guessed about this I would have assumed there were no factional differences. It's not really all that intuitive that Vet badges which could apply to any -player- regardless of what characters they are playing would have those kinds of differences.

I'm not suggesting it's right or wrong, good or bad.
Just something I would not have really expected to see. *shrugs*
I guess as they say you learn something new everyday.

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You're from Virtue. Don't you roll a new toon every week? Even on my oldbies, I only did the map opening on my main, so this is delightfully handy for my other toons.

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Vitrue is associated more with "RP" than "altitis" isn't it?
Those two things really aren't exactly the same thing.

I'm sure there are in fact people who roll up new toons on Virtue every week but I'm not one of those.
Even on my newer alts I don't care about the kinds of OCD I care about on my mains anyway...

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<QR> So out of curiosity.. does it work on your mission map?

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MB: Works on mish maps. The graphic for it doesn't kick off as well though. You get the device animation, but not the awesome "holodeck" grid superimposition like you do in a zone.

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Strangely enough the emote animation for this power's activation is just about the only part I'm looking forward to.

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Does anyone's account that has NOT gotten this awarded list an award date for this badge? In other words, does your account say "Badge will be awarded on August 1st" for instance?

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Mine doesn't. The Devs seem to have a hard time keeping that information up-to-date and that probably contributes to why some people get these things earlier and/or later than they should.

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Consider it the price you pay for wanting to brag about it here in the forums before anyone else.

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Actually, I thought I wrote it constructively and neutrally, with a small "yay Shard map be gone" at the end.

But yeah, in reality, I was taunting you.

*rubs the badge on your elbow nonchalantly*

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Well to be fair you would have this badge before me even if you had to wait until July 28th like we're ALL supposed to. Due to unrelated account delays over the years my award date has slipped back to being about 2 weeks after the exact anniversary dates so I'm not going to get this award until August 12th regardless. That's still earlier than maybe 99% of the rest of the playerbase so that's not too shabby.

At least this time around I don't really 'need' this power because like I mentioned I'd already satisfied this particular OCD years ago. I suppose it will be useful once the Going Rogue expansion finally happens...

Yeah this power is going to be a bit of a silly irony for me since my main alts already cleared the fog of war from every zone in the game years ago. I dealt with the Chantry zone bug as well and was happy when they finally fixed it about a year or so ago.

As far as you "expecting" my post I will once again state that I have no problem with you specifically having this award right now and/or before me. I'm not "blaming" you for it or accusing you of doing anything sneaky. I'm just once again highlighting the sad fact that no one is SUPPOSED have this award until July 28th because according to the rules the Devs established for this Vet system that is technically the 63th month anniversary of this game. The game is broken in this regard and for whatever reason the Devs either cannot or will not fix it.

The fact that you keep setting it up so that I can keep mentioning this problem award after award is just a happy coincidence I guess. Consider it the price you pay for wanting to brag about it here in the forums before anyone else.