Lothic

I like the generic idea of a "Nemesis System" for any game. But I think you pretty much summed up why it won't happen here anytime soon: Not only did they do this in that "other" game but it was done very poorly there. That's at least two strikes against it right there - why would our Devs want to be seen as ripping off a -bad- feature of another game?

Sure I'll admit that trying to strictly equate the term "headstart" with "beta test" may be pushing the point a bit.

But I'd have to argue that a full TWO WEEKS for a "headstart" (something that in software terms usually only amounts to a few days at most) is also pushing the notion that this particular headstart is not also doubling as a "final beta test" to the breaking point.

Why do people keep assuming that this is not a feature they could sell in the Paragon Market? They already have ways to sell things like aura and cape unlock tokens for characters - why couldn't (or wouldn't) they want to create new "customization unlock" tokens to sell?

Perhaps, but I believe the definitions of Aware™ and Soon™ are actually on a vague spectrum of overall Dev activity. I think things that might start off as being in the Aware™ category slowly shift into a grey Aware™/Soon™ in-between area. That grey area is one that no player will ever see because like Raiders of the Lost Ark it would burn us to death.

You know I've always wanted to learn a foreign language. I just never thought it was going to be Devspeak™.
I now know of at least three Devspeak™ words: Soon™, Stuff™ and now Aware™.

Actually the word Soon™ in Devspeak™ basically means "it'll happen anytime ranging from a millisecond from now until the heat-death of the Universe". The Devs usually use it because they know most people naively assume the Devs are speaking English, not Devspeak™ and will be temporarily pacified by that until a random amount of time passes and people realize that thing X, Y or Z still hasn't happened yet.

Going by your forum reg date you've been playing this game for years now.
The idea that you've been effectively paying all this time for relatively buggy/unfinished product is news to you?
Why do you think you've been getting patches to this game every several weeks or so for the last 7+ years?

Ah but what if they somehow made new power customizations things that we could get by paying for them via the Market?

This is now yet another reason why the original idea of having separate redside and blueside Ourobori (plural?) was probably not a very good idea in the long run. It might have initially been easier to code that way, but it leads to a lot of weird little problems like this.

I would just point out that the launch of I6/CoV didn't just happen in a vacuum one day in October 2005. Because I6/CoV was in ongoing development and launched about 18 months after CoH went live it's very likely the Devs' overall "vision" of SGs as PVP raiding groups was there pretty much from the very beginning of the game.

Now don't get me wrong when I say SGs' only purpose was for PVP. Obviously there was always an element of MMO social "guildiness" to them. All I'm saying is that for at least the first few years of this game (at least before the SG base raiding concept finally died) I think it's pretty clear the Devs concept of SGs were as PVP teams first, social construct second.

For what it's worth I think the focus of SGs should have always been as social hubs first and that SG bases (and even personal hideouts) should have always been the priority before the PvP aspects, but of course as they say hindsight is always 20/20.

Just about the only way they can make origins be more relevant in this game and FAIR to everyone at the same time is to allow for origin respecs as well. I really don't think you could have one without the other.

This. According to the latest Big Bang theories there was an "inflationary" period of the Universe where space expanded from around the size of an atom to about the size of a softball in a period of time that would have required it to be going many times the speed of light at that point. I have no idea if the guys at CERN screwed up their measurements or not in this case, but I suspect as time goes on we will eventually stumble across other "discrepancies" that will call into question what we know about the certainty of the speed of light.

Heck we can't even figure out Quantum Gravity yet. This silly notion that we think we actually understand how everything in the Universe works at this point is pretty funny all things considered.

You do realize that we are technically playing with the HEADSTART of CoH:Freedom right? The Devs have never hid the fact that this is technically still a beta test period. How can you really be -that- mad at the Devs when they've basically openly admitted that CoH:Freedom has not officially "launched" yet?

And just to let you know even when this game is technically "live" it's never 100% "finished". The idea that any game would ever be considered 100% bug free is a fancifully unrealistic notion to begin with.

It's funny but the thing that always bothered me the most about the old Vet award system wasn't the question of whether people could or couldn't "pre-buy" Vet award time but it was the fact that the system wasn't more fair like we have it now from the beginning. Having to "reform" the system or worry about whether it was right or wrong to allow people to buy Vet awards after years of -not- letting people buy them was actual irksome part the problem.

Even though I always had the latest Vet awards I always thought the system was unintentionally geared to screw over newer players. I never liked the fact that no matter what a newer player did they were never going to be able to have as many badges as me, even if they were technically better at playing the game than I was. The Vet award system should have never been associated with badges at all.

So no I'm not really "outraged" that people can now basically buy Vet awards. It's more like I'm kind of saddened by the fact that the system had to be given that capability just to try to make it a more level playing field for everyone. A better system would have been fair to everyone WITHOUT having to force some newer people to pay huge chunks of money just to "catch up".

Being able to buy Vet awards isn't a bad thing in and of itself.
It's just a sign that the original system was fundamentally broken to begin with.

And I'll just point out that you're making the case for why it'll be even LESS likely that we'll get compensated for this downtime.

If we could say for certainty that the only people who were in charge of deciding if we get compensated for this were the US NCsoft / Paragon Studios offices then that'd be one thing. But what you're suggesting is that not only do the US folks have to be willing to authorize it but also that the Korean management has to sign off on it too. That's TWO layers of management not just one, and as we all know the more "management" gets involved with things like this the more likely they DON'T happen.

I accept the fact that other NCsoft run MMOs have provided compensation in the past. All I'm suggesting is that there's no real point in getting your hopes up over this situation especially considering the EXTRA layer of bureaucracy it'd have to go through to get approved.

If it happens, great. But I'm certainly not going to assume anything until it does.

Just because the marketing of this game is tied at the hip between Paragon Studios and NCSoft doesn't mean the folks over in South Korea are going to care if we get compensated for a few hours of downtime here or there.

Besides this latest downtime is just now happening as we speak - who's to say you won't get your precious dollar or extra day of game play after all. Take a breath and relax...

Entitlement whining lol.

Hint: This game is run by Paragon Studios. Sure they are owned by NCSoft, but they WON'T be making the decision as to whether we get compensation for such a "trivial" problem such as this or not. *shrugs*

Good for them. As soon as those other MMO companies start running -this- game then maybe your point will have some actual validity here.

Earlier you asked me whether I could tell if people having down time was a "problem" or not. If you can't tell the difference (from a money point of view to the company) between granting people "freebie points" that some people might not even use versus granting people outright game time associated with "paid" accounts then maybe we really don't have anything further to discuss.

Why do you keep clinging to WoW as an example of what this game should do? It's almost like asking your local mom and pop hardware store to live up to the same policies a huge store like Home Depot can afford.

I've already said I could easily see them giving us some PP as a means to apologize. I just think this idea that the company could or should cough up real money for this is overreaching on your part by leaps and bounds.

Oh I see that it is a "problem". Any downtime for anyone is bad. I simply don't see your "solution" to it as reasonable in any context given the otherwise wonderful uptime record this company has demonstrated in the last 7.5 years.

You don't hang someone for a parking violation. Your "punishment" you would impose on the company doesn't really fit the crime.

I actually have nothing against the company granting us a "we're sorry" 100 PP. I just happen to think the idea of the company refunding us actual money or giving us more playtime is grossly mismatched to the amount of time we're talking about.