Memphis_Bill

Have to agree, thugs/poison completely changed my attitude towards MMs (from "god, this is boring" thanks to my Bot/FF to "Woohoo!") It's the only one I've "accidentally" soloed an AV on. (As in, wasn't planned, turned the corner and "Oh, there they are - oh, and an AV. Er - what the hell, why not.")

But yeah. Thug/Poison (specifically /poison) is geared more towards fewer, hard targets instead of masses of weak targets.

And I did enjoy having a bunch of little thugs from Gang War beating on Recluse. >.>

Don't worry about the OEM Preinstall kit. I have no idea why they put that on there. It works perfectly fine by just booting off the CD.

(The preinstall kit sets up answer files and the like - which, if you're doing a single system, is rather pointless. Doing a few hundred, it would save time of course.)

Yes, it will.

From Posi's comment (dev corner, ultra mode video card shopping guide) :

After demoing the Ultra-mode at HeroCon, one of the most frequently asked questions we have been receiving is “what are the video cards you recommend to get the most out of Ultra-mode?” With the holiday season coming up, we asked the programmers in charge of implementing the features of Ultra-mode what they would recommend. We would like to forward this information on to you so you can better work on your holiday shopping lists.

If you are looking to spend under US$100, then an NVidia 9800 GT is your best bet. For AMD (ATI/Radeon), we don’t have enough of these cards at this price point to get you good data. This would be the minimum card for enabling all the features, only at reduced quality settings.

If you are looking to spend between $100 and $200, the Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 260 will do you well. We don’t have numbers from the Radeon 57xx series yet to verify if that is better or worse though. This would end up somewhere in the middle of Ultra-mode quality.

Finally if you are going to spend over $200, the GeForce GTX 285 is an excellent choice. We don’t have numbers from the Radeon 58xx series yet. This would be able to run Ultra-mode with the quality maxed out (except we have no data on Anti-aliasing, so caveat emptor when it comes to that specific feature).

Note: This is based on our current internal testing and might change by the time Going Rogue is released. Also, a video card is not the ONLY thing you should take into consideration. Your PC having a decent processor and memory will also enhance your performance. As we continue to test and get more information available we will update you. I hope this helps, and happy holidays!

UPDATE 2-10-2010: Spoke with our engineer today, and he said we were seeing excellent performance from the Radeon 5770 card, which is a mid-range card. We have not tested the 5870, but expect the performance on that card to be one of the fastest for Ultra mode. Also noteworthy is that Ultra Mode does not currently support SLI configured cards. We’re working with NVidia and ATI about this, but you all can speed up the process by contacting NVidia and ATI about updating things on their end to get it to work.

Hmmmm.

- PVP. I've said it elsewhere, they should, basically, give up on balance and drive the point home (with a piledriver if need be) that PVP is based around teams. Our last bit of "balance" pretty much killed off PVP - and if you want to run both PVP and PVE, use dual builds. It was a suggestion before, it's practically mandatory now. (Or you can just, oh, get PLd up to 50 for a PVP-only character.)

- Lack of any optional paths redside. Yeah, they compacted things redside - too much. I want to start in a different zone, someplace that doesn't look like a garbage dump. I'm sick to death of kalinda/burke, etc. Fortunately this will be addressed somewhat with GR... but I'd still like to see it 'natively' redside.

- VEAT arcs. Past 15 or so, they feel like they just rushed them out in a day or two. Not worth running.

- Enemy behaviour. Mentioned this in an "AI" thread, but why does Group B not react when one of Group A runs by, on fire, getting zapped, frozen, etc? You'd think they'd, oh, investigate instead of saying "Ahh, there goes Frank on fire, what a kidder. Oh, look, he's dead. Anyone for more coffee?"

- Nothing being done with DA.

What's the difference between a Peacebringer and a Warshade?

This has been getting asked often enough from new (or soon to be) 50s to merit a quick-reply cut and paste from me. Welcome to the world of Khelds! Enjoy your stay?

Basic reading

These guides will help you a lot:

Iscariot's guide to the triform Warshade by Justaris. Yes, it's warshade specific.

Plasma's ultimate guide to Kheldians for a very thorough overview. Really. It's long-ish, but read it.

And for the backstory, there's my own backstory guide. More "in game lore" than powers.

A quick overview

Khelds in general - Can be built around one (human) form or multiple forms, known as biform or triform. The other forms act like a blaster and a sort of "pocket tank." Human form buffs carry over - if you hit Hasten, you get it for the full length of Hasten. it doesn't cut off when you switch forms. Toggles, however, do at this time.

That said, the two are different in many fundamental ways.

Peacebringer - the old reliable.

Peacebringers are completely "self contained" Khelds. What this means is that all of their buffs and heals are going to act exactly the same, given the same level and slotting, every time. If you're level 40 and hit your self-heal for, say, 200 HP (making up a number) one time, and you hit it again without levelling, you'll get 200 HP again.

Peacebringers are more melee-oriented. They're more "in your face" than a Warshade. The example I used one other time was, if you insult a Peacebringer in a bar, they'll punch you in the mouth. A Warshade will go outside, slit your tires and fill your gas tank with sugar.

Peacebringers get Fly as an inherent travel power, and are locked out of any form of Teleport (other than the Dwarf form teleport, if you take that form.) And all Peacebringer attacks do a -defense debuff to whatever they hit.

Peacebringer Dwarf form gets an AOE knockdown and a click self heal that, again, is completely self contained.

Warshades - the wild, unpredictable ride.

Warshades have higher highs and lower lows in their performance. Where Peacebringers are completely self contained, Warshades rely on living or defeated foes for their buffs. Self heals - especially Stygian Circle - perform better with more defeated enemies around. Self buffs - such as Sunless Mire and Ecliipse - will give greater benefit with more live foes around. (This is part of why they also get some self-stealth, an oppressive Gloom clone, and I'm pretty sure part of the reason behind Teleport.)

Warshades are very control heavy. Every attack does some -slow and -recharge if it hits. They get an option of self stealth in shadow cloak, an Oppressive Gloom (PBAOE stun) clone, Gravity Well as a hold and other immobilizes and stuns.

Warshades also get somewhat longer lasting pets (and, generally, more useful) in Extracted Essence, which adds to your firepower, but requires a freshly defeated enemy to extract. It's also pretty much impossible to get them from ghost-type enemies and machines that explode. You can, with enough recharge, have up to three of them out for a short time, but they will expire. The plus side is that they do stick around once you're defeated. A Warshade in Nova with two "koosh balls" next to them spitting out damage is loads of fun.

Warshade Dwarf form gets another Mire (recently buffed!) and their self heal is a single-target attack which must hit - it's a copy of Siphon Life from Dark Melee.

Warshades, of course, also start with Teleport and are locked out of Fly (except in Nova form.) that said, TP Foe (Starless Step) and Gravity Well (your hold) are an excellent way to take care of pesky Void hunters before they get a shot off at you. You also get Shadow Recall at level 10, which pre-travel-power teammates (and later, those who want to stealth missions) will greatly appreciate.

Which is better?

They're both good, but they shine in different situations. If I'm clearing out a map, a Warshade's going to have lots of groups to play with, siphon from, get essences and the like. If I'm facing a long, one on one fight versus, say, an AV or EB, the Peacebringer's going to have an easier time with it, as the Warshade will only have the one target to buff from and will, over time, lose the essences.

I *generally* suggest a first time Kheld start with a Peacebringer to get a feel for everything. That said, they're both a lot of fun - and yes, I have multiples of them at 50, and don't regret any of them.

No! (there, that takes care of getting objections with no real reason out of the way.)

Yeah, I could go for this. It'd probably end up sorting by tier as well just by default, which itself would be useful.

One thing I don't notice people mentioning.

COV release: October 2005.
Good vs Evil release: Wal-Mart, Sept 2006. Not even a year later. (Which means *each and every person buying that* was getting both games.)
The Merge: One Time Grant, Dec 2007. Permanent: July 2008.

So, for over a year, there were people who potentially paid for the full version of one side of the game who weren't getting all the content the new players (using GvE) were. Including SG bases.

Gee. Wonder why they allowed everyone access.

The only way you're getting GR free is if they make an "All cities" edition that's priced the exact same (no extra cost for the first non-standalone expansion) as the regular version, and it becomes the only version you can get. I don't see that happening. An "All Cities" version that sells at a premium over the regular version would not be the same (but would, IMHO, be more likely to see.)

Aside from the "Dooooom" nonsense in the beginning, you'd want to take a dev team that can do... pretty much whatever they want with their storylines while running a profitable game (which it is,) and get them to (a) pay out those profits to (b) shoehorn in completely unrelated stories and characters, while at the same time (c) losing creative control over the game ("But WeaselMan wouldn't do that, I insist you spend the next three months negotiating with me and sending me money instead of putting out timely updates!")

How about, not just no, but "What are you smoking?" And "You didn't think this through at all, did you?"