Major Deej

After doing a dozen of so Lambda runs, I can empathize with this.

The issue of the molecular acid and placate grenades and to who has what, how they're to use them (if they're supposed to use them, pending on league and leader's badge desires) is a huge communications failure, not particularly on the leader's part, but in the mechanics of the trial itself. The situation allows for griefing, hoarding, unknowledgable players getting blamed for their actions/inactions, and a huge amount of dissent and anger from the veteran trial runners vs those that don't have a clue what's happening from one moment to the next.

As such, aside from some of the suggestions above, I'd think it'd be better if the molecular acid items were not a requirement to use in the mechanics of the trial. Allow it to be 'available' to speed things along, but don't have them as a mandate to get a mechanics-based portion of the trial accomplished, that way, the league doesn't suffer due to miscommunications, hording, griefing, et al.

There's no reason the temp powers should be a mandated use item; change the trial's mechanics so that Marauder/portals, etc CAN be brought down using our own powers, and not mechanically locked behind these temp powers. Use them as an OPTION to make things a tad easier/qucker, not a MANDATE to complete the trial.

This is just another suggestion; YMMV.

I can see it all now in Atlas Park (GG, take note, we need you to make these images):

new character: Wahooo! Gonna get trained to level 3! Yea! Sewers runs, here I come! Hey, Ms. Liberty, here I am! Get me mah Level 3, please!

Ms. Liberty: Oh, I'm really sorry, new character. Due to the recent diminished XP, we have recently invoked changes through the new "XP Level Acceptance by eXpiration" policy, otherwise known as X-LAX, in effect throughout all of Paragon City. You'll have to wait until someone retires or dies, then we can let you level once you're number is called.

new character: Wait? Wha? Retires? Dies?? 'Number'?!? What are you talking about?

Ms Liberty: Oh, here. Take this. this is your number and place in line behind all the other Level 2s wanting to get to Level 3.

new character: ..but...but...this is unfair! I work hard for the XP! I have to wait for someone to die or retire to get trained now?

Ms. Liberty: I'm afraid so. Your number is 456. *Looks at data pad* Oh, look at that! Someone finally took out Memphis Bill's Level 5 sidekick of 6 years. Excuse me a second...

*Ms. Liberty yells* Now Serving number 123! 123! Come forward to train to Level 3!

Number 123: Yea! Thought I'd have to wait another three weeks after I dropped out of line for that last Zombie Apocalypse. Cool! Only had to wait 12 days instead!

new character: *drops to kness and begins to cry*

well....this is educational.

Safest state based on Natural disasters, hmmm?

Let's see my record for 2010 in Rhode Island:

March - Flooded basement due to two weeks of heavy rains; could not pump it down for two weeks due to high water table level. Results: destroyed basement, mold, loss of over $5000 in furniture, equipment and memorabilia. Entire basement had to be gutted of all wall paneling, wood workbenches, tables etc. No federal aid approved other than 'we shall allow you to request a Federal Aid loan'; Free money for immediate needs as in other natural disasters in other states over the last few years? "Sorry, we don't do that anymore since Katrina".

April - Lost power for 2 days due to several consecutive high wind storms, resulting also in downed trees and branches, blocking off our road 3 times in a week, dropping a 50 year old pine tree across our yard, narrowly missing our house, and flooding out my basement once again.

October - tropical storm level winds and rain for 3 days downed even more trees, power lines, etc. No power for over 30 hours one time, 20 hours the other. Branch dropped across top of SUV. Had to go in for Insurance repairs.

December - 2 Nor'easter storms, one resulting in severe flooding, once again flooding my basement, only to freeze overnight leaving sheets of 3 inches ice across 24 inches of snow. Driving during this time - fergetaboutit. Lost work days: 5. Loss of power 3 times this month including Christmas Day.

To add bonuses to this, in February 2011, we had so much snow and ice, our carport collapsed, got minor flooding once again, and had our 60-yard length driveway caked in ice the entire month, making driving on it near impossible (scratches and dents provided by Mother Nature to any and all who dared to go down our driveway (mail suspended to our area for 2 weeks as a result)), oh and lost power twice again.

We've spent 2 weeks now STILL removing debris from the fall/winter of 2010 from our 1 1/2 acre yard...only to be snowed upon last night and today as part of Mother Nature's April Fool's Day joke on us in the region. So much for the new flowers and plants that tried sprouting.

But I guess they're right...no hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis or tornadoes...just everything else. SO glad I'm living in one of the safest states. /sarcasm

note: yes, I have since put in a permanent sump pump in the basement. Up until this last year, we'd never flooded in our basement. Ever. As per the gological surveys for our area in Rhode Island, we're in what's called 'Zone C' in regards to flooding which means, 'you'll rarely if ever get floooded' (insurance speak: no, we will not cover you for flood insurance in this zone).

Great, safe state that Rhode Island....I was safer in Hawaii.

Additional note: I know there are others who've gone through worse; I'm just stating this listed 'safest state' is not the state you may think they say it is.

Simple answer:

CoH allowed me to recreate superhero and villain characters I dreamed up and drew as a kid, and thus brought them to functional life in this game.

No other game I know at that time allowed or provided that.

That's one dream I can cross off and say came true.

For that day, I'd coordinate with NCSoft and by the end of the day, create or contract a 1-800 (and European equivocal) support number for players to use to call when they have problems with their accounts, instead of the current non-toll free system they have.

If I had time left in the day, we'd take the dev's spreadsheet of Jay's costume request thread, and get the top 10 at least started. Intertial energy in this might get the ball rolling.

Oh, and free server transfers for the everyone for the day!

There's a few missions/arcs that sum up some impressive in-game writing. Here are a few of them that I consider outstanding:

Had a great time with the Tanker Tuesday Maticore TF run last night! Great team; excellent plow-n-go fun!

Thoroughly enjoy the pre-TT 'appetizer' of 3 Paladin GMs at the TT wall. Great way to start things up!

Looking forward to the next TT on Guardian!

1) Base Builder Overhaul: Fix the bases and base building and editor tool. We need to make the bases important and useful again! More functionality (unique 'Danger Room'/AE/Arena type interfaces), SG-specific AE capabilities through the mission computer, huge amounts of new items to add to the bases! At the VERY least for aesthetics, add Praetorian style walls, floors, equipment, etc. A new Z-Axis stacking tool is in dire need of implementation as well.

2) Ultra Mode old zones/New Villain Zone: You have opened Pandora's Box, devs! Now that we see the new shiny that is Praetoria zones, we must haz nowz all older zones upgraded! Also, give us a new zone to explore villain side; one that gives new enemies, new maps, new 'viallainous' challengers (NO Co-Op!). LONG overdue and ties directly with the gap existing in the Strike Force flow as well.

3) Costume Creator/Costumes: Straighten out the costume creator as per what Noble Savage has hinted at; complete update for selection screens and categories, Allowance of things like glasses and horns to be utilized at the same time, etc. Along this vein, more costumes NOT related to Booster Packs or Praetoria (see Jay's Costume request thread with thousands of unasnswered requests...).

To answer some of the folks in regards to how others should play/enjoy the game, some folks enjoy the game for different reasons. Some enjoy the story and content; some don't. In the last few repsonses, I'm seeing posts stating that "a majority" don't care about the story. Let's not get carried away with the hyperbole, please.

There are a few schools of thought/manners of play here, and City of Heroes, particularly Going Rogue, hits on quite a few of the different ways folks like to play the game.

Some folks are rewards centric. They want the drops, the XP, the merits, etc. They don't care about the story - just the end reward or 'prize' for whatever level of satisfaction (end game, end of an arc, getting to Cimerora, CoP, etc) that motivates them.

Some folks are story centric. They like to know why and whatfore are they doing what they're doing. As such, with purpose, they too will roll through content, but with a different focus than, say, the reward centric crowd.

Some folks are completionist. They want all the badges, all the rewards, all the arcs done, the maximum IO'd character builds, etc. They have a focused goal that may not entertain undesireable rewards or stories.

Some folks are here for the escape. Real life can suck, and as such, regardless of what the game offers, they are happy to click away and play so long as real life stays out of it all. They are enjoying themselves as long as the game doesn't become work.

Some folks are hunters. They are looking for ways to break or stress the game's system; trick out and play a maxed out PvP build, max out their ingame funds via the market, how much XP can I get in one hour's time of hard core playing on Task Force x, etc.

Some folks are more social. They enjoy interrelating with others, socializing under the Atlas Statue, talking about movies, current events, etc., more than playing, grinding, maxing builds, following storylines, etc.

These few listed manners of play are a sampling of the folks in this community. Some might even have a mix of different ways to play simply to add a new depth to their efforts.

The point of all of this is: CoH provides one of the widest breadths of 'schools of play' in an MMO. Granted, some are not to the quality they want (PvP, Base building, for examples), but nonetheless they exist.

Some may be bored with the focus on Praetoria, and understandably so. This is, if I'm right, one of the longest running character-event stories consistantly and serially developed in this game, other than the amorphous "Coming Storm".

Should the devs and producers stop the Praetorian Train on the tracks for a bit to focus on other content and player desires? In my opinion, yes. Is this what the devs planned? I'd say no. Seems to me they planned to roll the Praetoria event out past even Issue 22 without a break for any other content, other than little perks here and there.

My recommendation is the devs, programmers and producers need to take a break from Praetoria within the next issue's development; change up the content a bit and fix some of the many things that are broke or need attention. Not everyone is into reward-centric or completionist manners of play, which most of the end game content has focused on. Going Rogue expansion, when it came out covered a fair share of manners of play, but I have to agree that a majority of their focus of late has tunnel-visioned even tighter towards exlusively pushing out end game content and level 50 related material.

Costume Creator updates? New costume sets? New/Revamped Ultramode zones? New villains/heroes? New storylines other than having a hook to Praetoria? PvP fix? Base building update/overhaul? Attention to AE to make it better? MM AT customization? Power customization part II? Many more things that need to melt into what forthcoming Issues are pointing towards now (i.e., Praetoria, Praetoria, Praetoria) and should be viewed with equal consideration, otherwise other particular schools of play that haven't seen any attention will feel left out.

Bored with Praetoria? Sure. /agree. If you agree, that Praetoria content needs to be sidetracked a bit, let the devs know by keeping this thread on track.

Thanks Fulmens!

Your generocity is greatly appreciated! Two SGs now have the infrastructure they need to start placing teleporters in them!

Greatly appreciated!

I gotta admit...I'm damn impressed by NCSoft.

Not only did they make a multi-million dollar (equivocal) donation, but they also out-donated Sony and other rich/predominant gaming businesses.

Major kudos, NCSoft! If I doubted your practices before, those doubts are waylaid now.

It's times like this that I am very proud to be part of one of the best MMOs ever!

Personally, I love the map shown here!

As much as I know many have asked for space stations and alien cities (and I too would also appreciate seeing those), I must admit, this a unique step and a direction I didn't expect, but am thoroughly going to enjoy, especially when it's made available in AE.

With work being what it is of late, I haven't had much of a chance to dive into any of the beta testing; this is also coupled with the fact that I'm looking forward (as mention by another poster earlier) to not being burned out on the new stuff by Issue 20 launch day so I can enjoy it that much more after launch.

The Intrepid Informer issues are providing great insight into how and what the teams are doing to provide this incredible new material, and I for one, am glad that everyone who's reading these forums gets the opportunity to see the levels of effort it takes to get to this point; there is no 'slap in a wall here and there and toss an overlay across it' easy process here.

Being a retired Navy man, it does my heart good to see our side of the world get seen and represented in-game.

Major kudos, team!

Here's a few 'o me Irish-themed heroes from my Emerald Society SG on Champion:

(L to R, top to bottom) Irish Fighter, Dubh Linn, Emerald Guard and my Praetorian, Irish Storm

Another tidbit of info, recently the Incarnate system has many folk's LEvel 50s empowering themselves. As such, quite a significant amount of players are Incarnating their 50s a lot more than creating new characters or running low level characters.

Don't be discouraged by low amounts of players seen in the zones; aside from heavy instancing, the level 50s incarnating, and the breadth of players across 11 servers conducting the relatively-new Weekly Strike Tasks (WSTs), use the global chat channels to find teams/TFs and others to run with.

If you need a home (SG/VG base) to start off with, hero or villain side, by all means, contact me at @Major Deej, or check out the SGs and VGs on each of the servers I help run via the website link below.

Excited about the server merge with our brothers and sisters over in Europe! Long time in the waiting, and I am definitely interested in teaming and enjoying TFs/SFs, etc with all of them. *breaks out old German and French text books to brush up on my language skills*

The video....meh. In my opinion, The visualizations could have been a lot better; instead of segmented imagery of what is in Issue 20, it wouldn't hurt if the video's flow walked through the features with more purpose than a random spewing.

Once again, this is why Dark Respite should be doing these. She has better flow, uses text to identify key issue aspects, and draws you in. Using the same music as what's been used in Going Rogue release is ok, but, come on, if you want to make this an anniversary-level issue, 'wow' us with the video; don't meander through a few spotted images with no flow. Seems like the same formula seen in too many of these videos of late. Wouldn't hurt to add a little more pizzazz to it.

Video length was too short at well.

No problems loading the launcher and running it on my end. Everything went seamlessly.

With that said, I am sad to hear that some players are experiencing issues with getting the new launcher to work right and thus screwing up your game time. I truly understand that level of frustration.

From what I have read thusfar, there are some issues that need to be taken note of and dealt with by NCSoft in regards to some of the problems we have seen here. While also playing devil's advocate, I am utterly dismayed at some of the vitriol and ignorant statements spewed upon these forums by players as well. As such here are some solutions that should be reviewed on ALL of our parts:

For NCSoft:

• NCSoft should already have a 1-800 number available for technical issues (such as this NCSoft Laucher problem) in the US and the equivalent in Europe; currently it doesn't. This 1-800 number should also be a 24-hour access line with the ability to cross-utilize tech help between the US and European sites should call volume dramatically increase. This is a CRITICAL issue that NCSoft needs to resolve immediately. Customers should not be online with support for long periods of time (did someone mention 45 minutes?) and being charged long-distance for said call while waiting in a queue. That is unacceptable in today's tech support world.
• NCSoft should have provided an earlier email to all CoH customers regarding the Launcher change stating what was about to occur weeks if not days in advance, vice from the Paragon Studio's Community Relations Team's forum info, which a high majority of CoH players do NOT check routinely or at all. The email should have included:
  • Dates/times of potential Launcher change
  • Systems that are supported and NOT supported (not having Mac supported for this at this time was not a good call either)
  • Details on what interfaces it uses (.NET, IE, etc)
  • Step-by-step procedure and links for the customer to use to conduct the change based on OS/platform
  • A detailed path a customer can follow if there is a technical issue with getting the launcher to work, to include:
    • Alternate procedures and links on HOW to do the change
    • Details on filing a support ticket
    • Details on calling in your issues (SHOULD already be a 1-800 number for that, but, here we are...)
    • A warning about potential time delays in fixing these technical issues due to work hours and time zones.
• Should have tested this Launcher out across more operating systems and platforms before dumping this on customers. Suggestion: review and fix the QA system for situations like this.
• Should have made mention if the game needed to be patched with the "old" CoH Launcher first, and THEN download and activate the new Launcher; some folks I've chatted with vapor-locked on this issue alone.

For Customers/Players:

• Even though NCSoft may not have implemented this Launcher well, some folks posting on the forums regarding this need to STOP with the mindless drivel about the 'new' EULA clicking on the load screen. What is the big deal? You've been doing this same action since the day you started playing the game! Be a part of the solution; not the problem. Provide a better solution in suport tickets or via the forums. The mindless complaining about clicking on the new EULA "I accept" button on the load screen vs the CoH Loaders's EULA window that we've had since game's launch is insipid, folks. STOP. It's the same thing you've done EVERY time you've logged into the game, just now on a load screen vs the EULA window. The level of trite in complaining about this is sickening and embarrasing. Don't like this new EULA 'I agree' locational change? See the next bulleted item below.
• Calmly express your problem and maturely deal with the problem. Catch more flies with honey vs vinegar...? Listen to what others are saying that have solutions. There are long time vets and professionals (as well as red names) that are providing solutions here in the forums. There are forum feedback threads. It is not the end of the world and as much as we expect our equivelant $15/month to go towards a better product, these guys are not omnipotent, and they are far from abandoning you and the player base. Problems and bugs will arise. They always do. If you act like a ill-tempered 2-year old everytime this game throws you a curve ball, you are destined for failure in whatever you do in real life. Break the cycle. If you are upset, send NCSoft/CoH Community Reps a non-emote filled, detailed list of your issues and what you think they need to do to resolve this. True, you can vote with your wallet, but if you have a diminished level of attachment to this game that upsets you enough to quit, then maybe you should, otherwise help the game that has provided you with months/years of the fun and excitement you've enjoyed by being mature enough to deal with the problems presented, just as our community reps and programmers are trying very hard to do.
• Patience. In our current world of 'gimmee nau!!!' you need to have patience if you want it done right. The programmers, devs, community relations team, and I'm sure, NCSoft's folks, are addressing the issues the best way they can at the moment. Can it be better? Yes. At the moment, it's not. See bullet #2 above to aid in resolving this.

Again, for those that are still having technical issues, I truly wish I was tech-savvy enough to provide further help other than some of the solutions and comments I've seen posted by a few others that are more tech savvy than I. This is a situation that requires a bit less disturbing emotionalism and lot more action on our parts. Let's aid in resolving this to make the game better by trying to be a part of the solution, not adding fuel to the fire.

To NCSoft: take what was mentioned above and resolve. I don't think you want a repeat of this anytime soon.

The one I was surprised to get was "Chrononaut".

Within a week after the Issue (can't remember the issue number off the top of my head) that brought us Ourboros (sp?) went live, and I found my first Chrononaut badge, I thought, "damn that'd be a cool character name...", and as such, did a name search and ta-da - "Chrononaut" was available!

After fidgiting with the idea for this character, I figured it would be interesting to have the same looking/same powerset character on each server as a dimensional/time (server) hopper; out of the 11 servers, I was able to garner 6 straight-up "Chrononaut" names.

Five of the servers already had the name taken, and although I still search to this day to do a name trade etc to try to get that coveted "Chrononaut" character name on each and every server, I instead used naming conventions like "Chrononaut." or "Chrononauts" for the interim for those five.

Again, I was very surprised to get that name.

Interestingly enough, I am impressed with this article.

As others have said, this doesn't bash nor overly praise CoH/Paragon Studios, but alights to its strengths and weaknesses in relation to the other superhero MMOs.

Key and critical to this, in my opinion, is the article's ending statement, identifying the lack of PvP and Base Building updates/overhaul and/or fixes. I am 100% in agreeance with this, and as this article keenly pointed out, some attention should be brought to these two aspects of the game.

Personally, I strongly urge the devs and designers to rethink waiting off on changes to PvP and Base Building much longer. I know the Incarnate System is a kinetic train barelling down the tracks, but, remember, the passengers might want to 'step off the train' to see the sights (other game content) that up to now have been blurring by the window of this highspeed Incarnate train.

With this fair review from ZAM!, I would imagine the devs and producers might want to schedule a meeting and maybe rethink about putting in whatever is the new awesomesauce 'system x' and instead fix PvP and Base Building (and for that matter, a bit more attention to Mission Archietect).

Food for thought.

Otherwise, great job Paragon Studios! It seems you have been promoted to 'gorilla' status in the superhero MMO genre!