Memphis_Bill

Yeah. That's also a biggie. About the only way I can stand starting someone on Freedom, when friends talk me into it.

Yeah, but by the time you get to Ouro... it's just not the same as starting there, having to sprint around and dodge Vahz, or - as mentioned - trying to get those badges with no travel powers. (Which, admittedly, you almost need to remember to shut OFF these days, with all the packs, temps, etc.)

It's like growing up somewhere, leaving and coming back twenty years later. A lot of that magic is just... gone. That place you hung out with friends is turned into a strip mall, the bike trail is paved over and turned into a road... just not the same.

I'm not a badger. But this is one of my favourite badge locations. And even now, I'll turn off travel powers, even combat jumping, and try to get the badge the "hard" way. There aren't many that make you work for them, and there are a few in interesting locations (Ace is like this, and I still like Destined for ValHalla, even though it's nowhere near as difficult.)

But for someone at level 4 or so, this was fun to try to get.

(And how many newer folks have ever really perfected jumping up the side of a building via window ledges?)

2. Blue Steel and Bird Watcher


So Blue got moved to King's Row - but he has a badge here. And this (and Bird Watcher, on the small ledge on the building in back) were also in the "Fun to try to get" list of badges. Anything remotely feline went for Bird Watcher. Again - no travel powers. Go ahead and try 'em out. (Easier with hurdle inherent, I know. *sigh*)

3. Under the bridge


I'm not sure why, but I like this spot. There's nothing significant about it, no memorable event in Paragon history - but it's one of those spots I could imagine the cops having to keep checking out. Not for gang activity, but to chase out kids on a date looking for that "quiet, out of the way" spot. At least before the Vahzilok moved in. It's the sort of place with a feel that makes a city "someone's home," not just a setting to beat up stuff for XP.

4. Freedom Corps. HQ.


I'm not sure just what it is with this. There was, of course, the BABs sendoff memorial when he left, but even before that I liked this. Just the monolithic, solid architecture - not interesting in itself, perhaps, but in the way it comes together with the ramps/steps, the park in front and Galaxy Girl in the back looking over the whole thing. (I find ancient monumental/monolithic architecture interesting, and this kind of calls to it.) Plus, of course, as a Warshade you get to visit Shadowstar in back - which kind of ties to the same thing, given her ties (or at least her Warshade's ties) that go all the way back to ancient Egypt. I still think more could have been done with this to add a touch more visual interest.

It still "works" better than the Atlas statue and City Hall for me.

Plus it's a great place to fight Rikti.

Well, let's look at Empathy (as a defender, since a controller can take the team buff powers for their pets.)

Solo, you can still use Healing Aura (T1) as well as the two RAs (for recovery and regen.) 1/3 of the set. That's about the same as for Thermal (though it goes with the T8 and T9, which give debuffs as opposed to buffs, as well as the T1 heal aura.)

FF? Force field's actually got a bit more utility solo -
- Personal Force Field (obviously.)
- Force Bolt
- Dispersion bubble
- Detention Field
- Force Bubble
- Repulsion field
- Repulsion Bomb

The only powers you can completely ignore solo (again, as a defender, a controller or MM would take them) are the two ally-targeted bubbles. (This ignores if you *want* Detention Field or Repulsion field, for instance - they're still usable, possibly moreso, solo.)

Most sets are somewhere in between these - 3 seems to be the minimum for "any occasion" powers, IE, usable solo or teamed. And they all have *something* affecting you (a heal, a buff, shields, etc.) Just so you have a point for comparison.

/these.

While there are powersets that are "more powerful/useful in teams," they ALL have some solo utility. (I know, I dual-build a lot of them.)

Thermal - the tier 1, 8 and 9 powers are all either self usable or enemy debuffs.
FF - For a "team" set, there's a lot of solo utility.
Sonic - Same, team heavy, yes, but a fair bit of buffing and debuffing that helps you out even solo.

... and so forth, up to sets like Rad or Dark which are pretty close to "Always take every power, solo or teamed."

So, something like Galvanize, I'd turn from (essentially) Clear Mind to something more like Dispersion Bubble - Mez protection, +EndDrain resist (and possibly some +recovery,) enemy -recov/drain, PBAOE toggle. Or having Feedback return END/Recov to your team while chaining and debuffing enemies. That sort of thing. The T1 in pretty much every set is usable solo, regardless, as well.

Bit of tweaking needed, but otherwise, why not?

Because at one point they WERE physically separated (at three points, east, west, and I believe sweden?) as well as separated in the billing system between EU and NA.

And you'll notice we don't have "EU" and "US" servers any more. Just one big happy server list.

Post? How about "They tried it in alpha and scrapped the entire idea?" I think that counts for more than a post.

And look at what that leads to. Penalties for making characters that are too easy. Nerfs for exploiting cannon fodder. And overpowered NPCs.

And it took that much time, and has no *mechanical* impact on the game. My blast isn't more powerful because I color it pink with green highlights, or choose an alternate pose. I don't get more defense by having blue shielding auras.

Going with freeform power customization, honestly, would basically have to be "Start with a brand new game."

Well, if you keep playing the trials, you'll be able to build up a second Interface and Judgement just for those situations. (And I tend to take the ones that fit the character, rather than whatever "teh ubar" is at the moment. So I have a fire/fire/fire/pyronic/reactive blaster.... which is a bit of overkill.)

/this. Hit Create Character, you should see... should have an image of it... yeah, here:



While you can take a hero to Pocket D and join friends in Praetoria (there's a portal down there,) you won't get missions of your own (aside from zone events.) Have to start as a praetorian.

You can pretty well read all of his posts the way your first response put it.

Um, it is actually going to be fixed. They *have* the fix. It just didn't make it into the last patch cycle.

What they're waiting on, I don't know. I've got quite a few characters affected by this.

They didn't change it. I've had stealth IOs in (vet) sprints for quite some time.

You're thinking of WINE, which - well, roughly - translates API calls to things Linux can deal with.

It can't, however, deal with the NCSoft launcher at this point. (Even the old launcher had a bit of voodoo that had to be done.)

Not guaranteed on consoles either, if you want to be honest about it. And also not guaranteed NOT to break (especially in this day of Internet-connected, pushed-update consoles) afterward.

My personal success rate with PC gaming is in the exceptionally high 90s - we're talking 99-and-many 9s before we change percent. Games that didn't work right away? Right now, they tend to be VERY old games (Mechwarrior II - even the Win95 version, Subwar 2050... um... that's actually all I can think of that don't work for me right now,) or it's a driver revision that can be rolled back.

(Which is a choice I wouldn't really have on a console. "Update or be locked out, and new games may not run either" is where you are there.)

Yes, it was worse in the days of DOS, and if you play with alternative OSes, it's more work with no real guarantee of success. But a Windows PC... yeah, it's pretty good, usually.

You're not going to sell them on this, Sai. I mean, honestly - do you have numbers on how much of the playerbase is on Linux full time? Or even "most of the time?"

As it is, the arguments you're goign to get are:
1. The game (and launcher) are not, and has never been, supported on Linux of any flavor by NCSoft, Cryptic or Paragon Studios.

I don't think we've even seen a redname say "We'll look at it." The attitude has been one of "Not worth the extra investment/time/etc." And you can't really fault them - I can't think of very many major game releases that have been done on Linux, and of those, fewer still done directly by the company or even close to simultaneously. (Neverwinter Nights stands out for me here - I think the Mac version was a year late, the Linux version went third party and came out even later.) Yes, there have been Indie games that have. Those games rarely really garner attention. (Which is a shame, some are good.)

All "support" has come from the Linux (/wine/cedega) side.

2. None of NCSoft's game family (living or dead) has ever been supported on Linux.

Look at their stable. Tabula Rasa they had high hopes for. Windows only (at least I don't believe they had a Mac client.) With that, I'd imagine they'd put some effort toward a Linux client, if they were going to. Aion - which has pretty decent Asian numbers, last I looked - should be bringing in enough money to fund a Linux port, if there was interest. There isn't. Lineage - nada. Guild Wars - nope. Auto Assault died early, but no Linux rumblings.

Linux is, essentially, terra incognito for NCSoft. They have no development resources to direct to any of the development houses (to be clear, they have the money to do so, to hire people and do what's needed to develop - but they have never chosen to, this is what I mean by "no resources,") no support experience (highly important) or the like. And the launcher drives this home, really - if *anything* would show Linux support, even indirectly, it would be the launcher, to have it in place for future releases if not current.

3. Linux is just not seen overall as a market worth pursuing at this time.

There's still - how many different ways of installing programs? How many different variations, just in window managers?

And how many people run *a* - not total variants, just *a* - version of Linux on the PC? Not on a server, but at home as their everyday machine? As their main machine, which would (in theory) be their gaming machine? I'm not talking Android (which itself shows fragmentation in UIs, for instance, having heard complaints about trying to switch from one android phone to another and finding it completely alien,) I'm not talking servers. I'm talking "I go home, turn on my PC and see Ubuntu/Mint/Fedora/Yellowdog boot up."

About the only market like that you can point at is the Mac market, and that's FreeBSD based (of sorts,) and not entirely open. They, of course (having been third in sales this past quarter, for instance, not counting iDevices,) are a large enough market TO develop for.

IF that market were there, I'd expect to see... *some* nod to it by some of the major game publishers. But - I go to Blizzard.com, go to support, search on "Linux" or "Ubuntu" (separate searches,) and get "There are no results found." If there were any support, a FAQ, a pointer, it would be there - and there's certainly not a native Linux WoW, Starcraft II, etc. client. I don't hear word of TOR coming out on Linux. Bioshock I/II. Assassin's Creed I/II. Steam itself you listed before, and I provided info directly from Valve that there is *no* Linux Steam client coming (which they put out to counter that rumor.) EVE Online - which *had* Linux support (and which at least you can still find info on) dropped it. (And it still wasn't, from what I can see, a native client - it relied on WINE.)

There's just no interest in Linux by the major developers. They may even develop ON Linux, but there's not one nibble, not a glance in the direction of a Linux native client.

Linux, as a gaming system, is a non-entity to the major game development houses as a whole. And the places that did ports... the last one I knew of was Loki, and they died nearly a decade ago (their "we're dead" post was in 2002.)

Even if they wanted to - with the economic climate now, I don't see them investing into what would very much be a risky venture in an unknown market.

As I said elsewhere - I don't see anything happening for at least five years.

Do I want it to happen? Sure. I'd love to see more support - I don't run Linux full time, not even 1/4 of the time, honestly. But I think it would be great to see (and, with some steam picking up, get more people away from Windows.) I'm all FOR getting native clients on Linux for major games, even if they just focus on one distribution (which would probably be Ubuntu/Mint, as I think red hat/fedora is more focused on the corporate space.)

But I can't agree it's a lousy choice, or that they're "choosing to ignore... the people they call VIPs" (paraphrasing you.) Here's the thing - no matter that we may not agree on much, when it comes to someone having questions about Linux, *you* are the person I point them to to ask on these boards. Just like Arcanaville for the mathy stuff, FatherXmas for hardware, etc. However, that also means you're in it pretty deeply - and I think it's skewed your perceptions of just how *large* a PC gaming market Linux has, or how much attention game development houses should pay to it (profitably.) If they make 500 people (which would be, assuming 70,000 subs - one of the lowest numbers I've seen suggested - still be a rather generous percent) have to decide between dropping COH or finally dual-booting into Windows to play it, I'd honestly be surprised. If we had 2,000 people even dual-booting with any regularity between Windows and COH - even if they've always run COH on Windows, which would make this not affect them anyway - or had it on another system that does more than gather dust, I'd be surprised.

I'd love for there to be a Diablo day for me with Linux. (Diablo being what finally got me to break down and buy a copy of Win95... triple booting it with DOS/Win3.1 and OS/2.) That'd be, IMHO, a great day for gaming *and* Linux.

I don't think I'll see it within a decade, though.

Complain - I won't say you shouldn't. But this will have to be worked around on the Linux side. I wouldn't expect anything from NCSoft on this.