Lothic

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What exploit could it possibly prevent?

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Ask the Devs.
They were apparently worried enough about -something- to sock us with an arbitrary 30 second timeout.

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Lets walk through someone trying to exploit this command.

You get your team by the mission entrance. You buff them. You wait 30 seconds and the game reloads the zone. You get invited to the team. The team gets halfway through the second or third spawn and needs rebuffing. At this point you would have to recamp wait for timeout and reload, get a new team invite, enter the mission and rebuff then camp/load/reinvite/load mission again.

This could be streamlined for TFs since you wouldn't need to reinvite on the swap back to your play alt, but everyone would have to leave the mission to get buffed since your exploit buffer can't enter the team mission or be invited after the TF forms.

Did I miss anything?

[/ QUOTE ] Doesn't sound like you missed anything. If somebody wants to really use a pain in the [censored] "exploit" like that, then I say let them. That actually seems like it would slow down your team more than help them.

Any other "exploits" people are worried about?

To the OP: /signed, it would make my in game life a little bit easier.

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I remember "/signing" suggestions like this YEARS ago too.
Still hasn't happened has it?

Why do I always have to end my arguments by pointing out things like this to people who routinely suggest the same things over and over and over again regardless if the suggestion is any good or not?

[/ QUOTE ] Seems to me your entire argument against it is because of exploits. But yet nobody has come up with a decent example of an exploit. So I don't understand how your argument makes any sense.

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My argument "against" it is that the Devs of this game have gone out of their way to impose not only a 30 second timer but a cumbersome login procedure to switch characters (presumably as an anti-exploit measure). I don't like it any more than anyone else but that's what we have.

It makes no reasonable sense that after adding all those impediments to "quick turnaround" characters switches that they would suddenly allow a shortcut /camp command. If they were going to bother to override their own system they might as well remove the 30 second timer first. *shrugs*

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Lets walk through someone trying to exploit this command.

You get your team by the mission entrance. You buff them. You wait 30 seconds and the game reloads the zone. You get invited to the team. The team gets halfway through the second or third spawn and needs rebuffing. At this point you would have to recamp wait for timeout and reload, get a new team invite, enter the mission and rebuff then camp/load/reinvite/load mission again.

This could be streamlined for TFs since you wouldn't need to reinvite on the swap back to your play alt, but everyone would have to leave the mission to get buffed since your exploit buffer can't enter the team mission or be invited after the TF forms.

Did I miss anything?

[/ QUOTE ] Doesn't sound like you missed anything. If somebody wants to really use a pain in the [censored] "exploit" like that, then I say let them. That actually seems like it would slow down your team more than help them.

Any other "exploits" people are worried about?

To the OP: /signed, it would make my in game life a little bit easier.

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I remember "/signing" suggestions like this YEARS ago too.
Still hasn't happened has it?

Why do I always have to end my arguments by pointing out things like this to people who routinely suggest the same things over and over and over again regardless if the suggestion is any good or not?

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And since the OP said it would keep the 30 second timer no exploit is available.

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He only mentioned that after he realized that his original NO TIMEOUT EQ2 idea wasn't going to get any traction here.

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Actually EQ2 also has a logout countdown of 20 seconds even when doing /camp so it can't be used as a get out of jail free card there either. I added it to the second post as I noticed I had forgotten to mention that detail.

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Exactly. Good luck with this...

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Lets walk through someone trying to exploit this command.

You get your team by the mission entrance. You buff them. You wait 30 seconds and the game reloads the zone. You get invited to the team. The team gets halfway through the second or third spawn and needs rebuffing. At this point you would have to recamp wait for timeout and reload, get a new team invite, enter the mission and rebuff then camp/load/reinvite/load mission again.

This could be streamlined for TFs since you wouldn't need to reinvite on the swap back to your play alt, but everyone would have to leave the mission to get buffed since your exploit buffer can't enter the team mission or be invited after the TF forms.

Did I miss anything?

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Yes.
You missed the fact that the OP -really- wanted something like the EQ2 /camp command.
I wish him luck in that desire.

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I didn't know the OP had talked to you about his idea between the two posts.

Since the only posts between his are two people asking for clearification on the idea I would really like to know where are getting this idea from.

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I'm sorry you aren't familiar with the EQ2 /camp command.
Not really my problem.

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For example you might be able to buff teammates real quick with one alt then swap over to a second character quickly enough to get a "multi-character" benefit that way.

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The raging paranoia about exploits on this board never ceases to amaze me.

And how much memory, pray tell, do you think a machine would have that would allow it to do this instantaneous zone-reload? 'cuz my four gigs sure ain't doin' it.

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The 30 second timeout the Devs introduced years ago to minimize exploits does not really constitute "raging paranoia" on my part. *shrugs*

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In the 16 minutes between the posts the idea hadn't had time to gain or loose traction.

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*sigh*

The Devs would never allow a command here that would more or less let us instaneously switch between characters. That WAS his point when he said he wanted something "similar" to what he enjoyed in EQ2.

It doesn't matter how long this silly thread has been around or not.

I suspect the OP only mentioned having a 30 second timer applied to his idea in his SECOND post once he thought better of what he was actually trying to suggest for CoX.

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And since the OP said it would keep the 30 second timer no exploit is available.

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He only mentioned that after he realized that his original NO TIMEOUT EQ2 idea wasn't going to get any traction here.

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Since it takes 30 seconds to swap characters (plus load time) camp swapping for buffs will be pointless.

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Thus the reason why they even imposed the 30 second timeout in the first place.
It's an anti-exploit measure.

Any feature (such as this /camp idea) that would allow anyone to shave ANY amount of time off the process of switching characters would only increase the chances that someone would be able to effectively exploit that somehow.

While this /camp feature might have been handy in EQ2 (or any other game that allows it) I think there's probably another reason why it won't happen here beyond the whole "login security" deal.

As Jagged humorously implied with his Matrix reference the way you're proposing it sounds very much like you might be able to strategically place several characters all in the same location and switch between them quickly enough to be able to get some kind of poor man's bot effect. For example you might be able to buff teammates real quick with one alt then swap over to a second character quickly enough to get a "multi-character" benefit that way.

I agree that it can be annoying to have to log out each time we want to switch characters. I've probably wasted hours over the years waiting for those 30 second timeouts myself. But despite the whole security concern I suspect there's an anti-exploit concern at work here as well. Part of the "built-in delay" that re-logging imposes on us prevents any kind of exploit like that from working very well.

Sure it would've been nice if a feature like that was there all along. But thanks to Memphis_Bill's memory we know the TweakCOH program exists and is easily obtainable so I wouldn't really want our Devs to waste any effort on something like that now.

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Didn't we get a Dev response on this subject before?

Wasn't the problem less to do with offending people and more that they didn't want to go to the hassel of putting every single countries flag in the game?

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Probably. I'm pretty sure, like most suggestions, this flag idea has been suggested before.
They could literally do up hundreds of textures and still not be at a "logical" conclusion to the effort.

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One of my friends actually made a French Patriot Superheroine named La Marseillaise. REally wonderful costume, awesome styling, and a -powerful- grav/kin who went without speed boost. =-3

-Rachel-

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I think your example here is the ultimate compromise solution we have for this.

Until the Devs add more flag cape textures to this game (assuming they ever do) it's actually easy enough to use the color scheme of any country/state you want and come up with your own concept to support anything like this you can think of, within reason of course.

There's really nothing wrong with suggesting flag-based cape textures.
I just wouldn't really get your hopes up for various reasons. *shrugs*

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there is a program i think. i've seen it mentioned a couple times i just don't remember the name of it....

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I want to say "TweakCOH."

Yep - here:

http://www.net-marks.com/software/tweakcoh

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Yep that's the Registry tinkering "script" I was thinking of.

The latest version looks to be a couple of years old.
The only question is if it's still compatible with current options available in the game.

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there is a program i think. i've seen it mentioned a couple times i just don't remember the name of it....

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Well you could always tinker with the Registry settings manually. It's not that hard.
But I wouldn't be surprised if someone's written up a little script to do that too.

It's probably technically possible for the Devs to provide a feature like this. The real kicker is whether or not the Devs would consider something like that useful enough to enough people to spend the effort to provide it.

I guess my point is that I think I've needed to change my screen resolution like maybe twice in five years of play. How many other people besides you are really changing it all that often? *shrugs*

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No flags. Trust me on this. Not only are there a lot of them to put in, there will be a lot of wear and tear on our moderators that won't ever stop. People who see others wearing flags of countries they don't like are going to be even more tempted to break ToS rules. Think what would have happened to heroes wearing Afghanistani flags soon after 9/11.

I really, strongly advise against doing this. If you do this anyway, make it so only the player wearing the flag can see it while everyone else sees flat grey.

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I tend to be a self admitted zealot when it comes to the idea that we should have as many costume options/items as humanly possible in this game. From a pure RP point of view I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with the idea of flag-based capes.

But unfortunately we don't live in a perfect, reasonable world when it comes to people and how they react to things. I regretfully have to agree with you on the idea that this game would probably be better off if the Devs did NOT expand it to allow more real world flag based textures.

Yes this game is technically set in an alternate Earth setting (Earth + superpowers). But sadly I can foresee so many possible negative consequences of having "flags" in this game that I believe they would far outweigh any positive RP potential they may provide.

Beyond the negative connotations flags might introduce I honestly think the Devs could better "waste" their time and effort coming up with other new costume items that'd be more universally usable and appreciated anyway.

A long time ago I had an alt who saved that mission so we could have a cool place to meet in-game.

Apart from the MA I think you can get to it fairly easy via Ouroboros as well. Unfortunately I forget which arc it's in specifically, but I'm pretty sure I recall it was the very first mission of that arc so once a person knows which arc to start you can pretty much have it anytime you want.

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So you also can't source that MM pet rumor?

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What does it matter?
People have been arguing that point for years as well.

If you care enough about it you can go search those threads and read about all the people who've claimed Redname support for that point until the cows come home.

Regardless of your desire for whips/chains they are not in the game.
Could they happen eventually? Sure, anything's possible.
But to assume you can rationalize them enough to convince the Devs is your deal, not mine.

Bottomline the Devs have NOT added things in the game for far fewer reasons than this thing has against it. *shrugs*

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The dev's have clearly taken steps to prevent nudity. Then they give us underwear. I've asked and have never been given a source for this "female pets are missing because of pimps" rumor. I'm more inclined to believe we lack female pets because at the time the sets were made we lacked a pool of female NPCs that could be used that had already been animated for combat powers and player emotes.

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The real point here is not what WE consider suggestive.
It's what the Devs consider suggestive.
As I've said their application of the definition of that word is all up to their whims.

This as all a moot discussion anyway - people have been suggesting whips/chains for MANY YEARS now and they still haven't happened. WHATEVER the reason for that is it's very likely they are not going to happen any time soon regardless.

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It doesn't belong in any column on any list. Cloning never was and never has been a concern with this game.

Also suggestiveness isn't much of an issue with this game or they wouldn't be selling us a costume pack full of lingerie.

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*sigh*

I said the cloning issue might be enough to push the whole idea of whips/chains into the "don't do" column. Not that the cloning concern itself was in any 'column' of its own. Please keep up.

Also a few years ago Marvel sued this game over IP concerns. Part of the settlement of that lawsuit was that our GMs had to make sure to be extra vigilant about cloners. To say that making sure we don't give Marvel (or any other company) another excuse to sue this game is not a "concern" of this game is incredibly naive on your part.

Finally this game long ago nerfed female nipples and "nude" skin tones on costume items for fear of upsetting people over "suggestive" content. It is generally accepted that the reason we do not have female pets for MMs is that the Devs don't want us to do anything "naughty" with them. I don't agree with those decisions but clearly those things show us the Devs are mindful of anything THEY perceive as "suggestive". If they have decided that whips/chains are "suggestive" that strike against them might actually be the ONLY one keeping them from happening above and beyond any other concern. The Devs -are- arbitrarily funny like that.

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The technical issues are the only problem with enough weight to not get blown of the scales when someone walks over to see how it levels out. If clones where an issue worth any amount of time then we wouldn't have launched with claws that pop out of the back of our hands and go "Shink".

The fact you list three people who use whips means that there is a place in the genre for them and that they should be considered for a set if the technical issues were not present. Hopefully below blaster pistols and new MM primaries but on the list all the same.

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Well I didn't even re-mention the "suggestive" aspect of this thing as well.
That would be the third strike against this for what it's worth.

Anyway the primary point is that things like claws (and even capes in retrospect) were relatively "easy" things for our Devs to implement. Now with whips/chains we are talking about something very hard to implement.

So let's look at this from the Devs' point of view: We want them to spend a lot of time and effort on something that would be relatively marginally used to begin with. Much less ubiquitous than capes for instance. ON TOP OF THAT hurdle this something would likely be "suggestive" AND lead to incredibly obvious cloning? Nope, not going to happen.

I'm not saying the cloning potential is the primary problem here. But when Devs are considering pros and cons for prioritizing their efforts it's often the little extra problems that push things from the "will do" column to the "won't do" column. The potential for cloning could easily be that determining factor here.

Don't get me wrong like I said I'd like to see them too.
But I'm certainly not going to hold my breath for them because there are MANY strikes against it.

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Clones aren't even a minor problem. Clones are nothing. Not worth a moments consideration. The time it takes to type a mention that an item might help with a knock off is more time then should be spent thinking about it.

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Tell that to our GMs who spend much of their time 'generic'ing' clones to avoid lawsuits against this game.
I suspect the idea of our Devs "considering" the clone question is a bit more important than you realize.

When talking about whips/chains there's the double whammy of all the technical problems AND the fact that it would lead to very obvious clones that are two strikes against this idea. One or the other alone might not be enough to stop this suggestion, but both together almost certainly does.

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Clones are never a reason to not do anything.

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Yes but they would be yet another minor problem for the Devs added to all the others this idea would pose.
There are plenty of ideas out there that -don't- involve the obvious potential for clones as well. *shrugs*