Memphis_Bill

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Be more specific then. Not THIS Friday, but to say never on Friday when you have no control whatsoever is pretty presumptuous, if not just arrogant. Very unlikely, yes. But not possible. They can release it whenever they want, without your or my say so.

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Ok.

"He stuck his finger in a fire once and found out it really hurt. He'll never do that again!"

Being presumptuous and arrogant, or figuring somebody *learned a lesson?*

Eh...

There are only a couple of zones (PI, Nerva) I can think of where it's long enough to be particularly tedious... and even then, there's stuff to do along the way. (Stop at a tailor, fight a GM, pick up a respec TF.)

I'm not really *against* it, I just don't see it as all that useful, personally.

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To be frank, I'd consider /bugging Gang war and the Warshade pets because they DO persist after the death of the creator.

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Warshade pets *already* have a limitation - you must be able to get to a defeated enemy with enough time left before the body vanishes in order to spawn one. If the body starts vanishing before the animation finishes, it fails... but still takes up END, and still has to recharge. The pet itself is also of limited duration.

Sounds like plenty of limitations to me.

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Posted it in the big "Show off your costume" thread but I have a hero based off of the notion that Ponce de Leon located the Fountain of Youth and became a DB/Regen scrapper.

Pity there's no way to even come close to faking a conquistador helm. Believe me, I tried.

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Whoa, great use of the armor chest pieces as a Conquistador. Great idea. I might just have to steal it now.

As for the helmet, that's a shame that the Roman or Valkyrie pieces won't work.

Oh and you should totally enter this in Nazghul's costume contest.



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/agrees with all the above. And with the pirate

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pohsyb is one of the programmers, but I think he is the only one currently with a redname

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Pretty sure both Dark Watcher and Ghost Widow as well. Didn't GW go back and redocument the entire Taunt code for Castle? That must have been a pain in the [censored]. I've always wondered if she did it because she believed him that the documentation was wrong or she just wanted him to shut up about how Taunt wasn't working the way he expected it to.

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IIRC they were going through it for something else and found out it wasn't working the way the documentation said it was, which came as a surprise to them both.

Hadn't noticed! >.< Work distracts me from keeping up.

One Bavarian mounted rifleman, close as I could get, c. 1850-1900.

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Tin crown for the win! plus it comes with a FAH-byulous! hair cut

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Proper emphasis added.

And while we're on the subject, check out your various retailers.

Discount pricing on upgrades 'til July 11. (Preorders, of course.) Home Premium (which is actually worthwhile) for $49, Pro for $99. (I don't think they're doing this for Ultimate.)

Note XP and 2k users would have to do a clean install, while Vista users can install over the prior version.

Well, the only crown in game is the little tin-crown thing... don't recall if it's from a costume pack or not. I don't believe so. There's also pharonic headware, but I don't think that's what you're looking for.

Female heads also have a circlet available, not sure if that's there male-side or not. Not as noticable, of course.

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That would be a bad idea. People are whining about the lack of content in Issue 15...what do you think would happen if they made Issue 16 have only bug fixes and no content?

There would be QQing on scales never witnessed...ok, maybe not AE Farm QQing or ED QQing, but alot of QQing fo sho.

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Honestly, I've heard literally DOZENS of people say that they want something like this. The global channel JFA (which is a FULL channel, btw) has had this discussed multiple times.



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And those same people would complain about having nothing "new"coming out in the time they'd take to "fix all the bugs" - something that, frankly, would be impossible. Hell, some bug fixes end up introducing *new* bugs (or reintroducing old ones.) Would you be happy if the chat bug somehow redid the old Tram bug, where you'd be sitting at a station for several minutes waiting for it to be active? Or maybe if it destabilized the Global server? Of course, then they fix that, which leads to 5% of chat dialog from NPCs (which might not sound like much... but think about all the dialog in game) turning into P-strings. (Ice Thorn Caster: "P02934023409328")

At what point do they get to stop "fixing bugs" and put in new content - knowing, of course, that those same code changes will invairably contain *other* bugs, or may interact with other code in an unexpected way, or open up an exploit that didn't exist before and that wasn't caught because nobody in testing was of a mind to be a jerk?

How many bugs are "good enough?" After all, bugs range from the major (old example: Mastermind pets do no damage to players in PVE) to the irritating but not gamebreaking (the chat bug) to the minor (typos in dialog.)

How many "bugs" are *not theirs* to deal with? (For instance, you say - or someone said - they crash constantly. I haven't experienced a crash in COH in *months* on my main system. On a secondary system, I have - but know I need to improve cooling, as it's a heat related crash.) How many are interactions with specific sound, video, chipset, processor, printer, fancy-keyboard, color calibration, or other-esotaric-device drivers? Do they have to test with every single revision of every single driver of every single piece of hardware out there? Of course, then they need to do the same with software. How many hotfixes are there for Windows XP alone?

How many people do you think would still be subscribed after that long stretch of no new content? Thus what they do now... *both.*

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I'd say "The people standing around on level 3s looking to be PLd" is what's now missing from PI, as they've moved to Atlas. As far as the people actually doing missions?

While Crimson's has you running around a bit, Marian Jenkins, Unai Kenan (sp) and Tina Mcintyre all have you going, at most, from one portal building to another 90% of the time. Just looking around, you're not going to see them.

Plus, if they ARE doing Crimson's arc... as you mention, a lot of travel, so looking around PI, you're not going to see them. So that's really not a great way to measure what's going on.

The last thing the you (the OP) forget to take into account is that there are now two OTHER zones for higher level characters to go into - the RWZ and Cimerora, spreading out that population even more. (And don't forget some running the STF, and depending on when your server has them, potentially mothership and/or hamidon raids.)

Basically, you're proposing this from a flawed observation and flawed premise.

Edit:

You also disregard that you're looking at older arcs when you're looking at Crimson. The RWZ arcs, for instance, stay almost entirely within that zone, as does much of villainside.

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That doesn't stop Statesman from being in Independence Port and Prateoria at the same time...

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Not *exactly* the same thing - after all, we have the Patrons inside their own missions as well. What's being said is that a single contact can't *apparently* give both missions and all the trainer "duties" at the same time.

I don't necessarily buy it - after all, I've had contacts become part of mission chains ("Talk to so-and-so") where the temporary need (mission item) had greater priority than the general need (contact) - click once, you get their misison speech, dismiss it and you get the "I have a misison for you" and store items. I don't know if it'd work the other way around.

Thematically, though... having the "impartial" arbiters being the ones training you makes more sense with all the rest of the infighting and such in the Isles.

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Give Scrappers a damn fire ancillary pool already.

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For real...How about any love for the Scrappers ancillary pools.

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They tried to. Then the scrapper yelled something about "expees" and chased the people trying to install the new power pools around trying to hit, puncture, and otherwise injure them.

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Red side it's Arbiter...Really who cares.

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I hadn't realized until now that I totally agree with this. It's almost anti-climactic to train villain side.

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It's actually the same arbiter, following you around to keep an eye on you and send reports back. He just TELLS you he's got a different name.

Here's something to try for fun and "the heck of it."

Pick a historic or period look, and try to recreate it in COH.

Why?

Partially because it's an interest of mine, partially just from running across a specific look (and partially because of our incoming European folks, I admit, with Napoleonic and earlier era, colorful uniforms.) And just because it may be interesting.

I'd initially ended up, at one point, doing this to a character I don't play much after getting the wedding pack. It looked "colonial" to me. *shrug*

And of course, then I had to try to make a contemporary "redcoat" - much harder, to me, especially with the lack of facings - and pirate hats do not belong on English soldiers. The socks, though - if only that were available male-side to make it look more right. This was the closest I could come.

May need to add to Jay's costume request thread.

That said, I'm curious to see what other people can make.

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THe new message board bettter have a bobing Positron or im not going!

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Bobitron!

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I could see this getting annoying with the "luck streaks" some folks hve.
Die-rez in the middle of a crowd-die-rez-die-rez-die.

Personally, my biggest objection is that I'd rather have control over when I rez (or can be rezzed.) I may want someone to TP me back instead - which, if I'm dead, is fine. If my "rez proc" fires off, I may be dragging back unwanted aggro. Not to mention:

(a) the number of sets that can GET a rez (every Blaster, for starters, if they take Fire mastery, FA, DA, Regen,)
(b) the powers this could mess with (Vengeance and Fallout.)

I just generally am not sold on the idea, even as a chance to proc.

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ill bet a good percentage of the people with long term vet rewards are not even the original account owners... how does that make you feel now :0

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Fork over the cash.

I've been in here solidly since ... well, look at the reg date, add a week. The people I've seen in the forums have been the same people, generally. In game? Same thing - old names I'm well aware of on all the servers (and usually on mulitple servers.) The "old hands" in the game, honestly, are usually a step or two away from each other as far as who knows who, not to mention tend to keep an ear on global and SG channels... and I, for one, have yet to hear of a "You know @oldtimeplayer? Their account was on ebay/sold to someone/etc, so don't get confused if they act weird. It's not really them any more."

-4 does wonders on its own.
-8 covers you for most of the game.

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It's a mystery to me how people can play this game, with its flashing lights and bright colours everywhere, and be fine, but as soon as one little bubble/speedboost/ice armor shows up, it's migraine city and oh noes. Considering how hectic and chaotic the graphics are in a typical team battle, it's a wonder those folks don't die on the spot when someone fulcrum shifts.

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... so I guess all those people who used to get migraines from Sonic Res were faking it and the Devs changed the set because they decided one night that orange was an awesome color?

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Not necessarily but I have to think that they followed the "FCC Complaint Conversion Factor" where 1 person = 1 billion people.
I know it's a legitimate medical problem but unless I saw a compiled video of all the people writhing in pain/suffering a seizure (great YouTube video), I can't believe it wasn't a little overblown.

Although admittedly, I don't doubt it could have been totally accurate in its nature. I'm just skeptical when a field of gamers suddenly has motion/color sickness that couldn't be attributed to "Me, too!" and other factors (certain framerates, low ambient light, etc.).

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It's accurate.

It gave me headaches. I don't get migraines or seizures, but the sonic buffs (old version) meant I was done for the day. Others certainly had problems, as well - some of whom did have migraines, and the buffs were enough for a trigger.

I don't know what you'd want as a "video of writhing in pain." Headaches don't show up on video very well. But it made me miserable physically, made me irritated that I couldn't spend time with people I'd grown to enjoy spending time with, and made THEM miserable that the buff put me in that situation.

It was not overblown in the least. And yes, some of us actually went through and tried different monitors, different systems, making sure we weren't dealing with fluorescents, trying bright lights, trying dark rooms, anything we could think of. It was the graphics. Which, I realize, DOES sound odd with everything else flashing and such - but part of the problem, we believe, was that they WERE subtle, a continuing flicker that was causing the problem. (After all, people did get eyestrain from flickering CRTs, might be similar. *shrug* )

Edit:

And if some lingering hostility and touchiness seems extant when it comes to "it comes off like you're calling us all liars,") well, given how nasty the name calling got to those who DID have this reaction (and how the same people started with "No, orange gives me a headache!" when they finally got changed,) well... old wounds. What irritated me MOST, though, was that their asshattery nearly made us miss one person who DID have a problem with the new sonic dispersion bubble - seeing a neurologist and talking to his GF, it turned out he had an *exceptionally* rare sort of trigger. The only things that fired it off were the graphics (pre-tone-down) of the new Sonic disperson, and the opening of the movie SAW. (he didn't remember the last because, well... he'd had a seizure. His girlfriend told him about it and, when he'd started having problems with the new sonic dispersion while on test, talked him into going to the neurologist.)

I've got to admit, this is *cheap* compared to what I thought as far as "If they ever let you change body type" - I'd assumed it'd be, say, $5-$10 per *character,* once.

As a booster pack item, available from purchase to final server shutdown? Nice.

Yep. $20 put aside to get this on both accounts. >.< Hey, NC, how about a prepaid, got-it-on-release option? Ease the burden on the store!

For what purpose?

I mean, I have groups that have old members that haven't been in the *game* for a year and a half to two years, if not longer - they're mostly alt-groups, so nobody gets kicked. Why would they be rewarded, again? SGs were introduced way back when, before there were bases. There could be tons of inactive players getting years of "rewards." What would be the point?

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Why don't you guys also add the EU game servers to ours and collapse a few of OUR dead servers. You have many to choose from, that's for sure.

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Read the many, many, many threads about this exact topic. I think UberGuy even has a stock response for this suggestion.

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Actually, that would be me, with this:

Why server consolidation is not a good idea.

Welcome to the forum. You have posted one of the oft repeated suggestions, "Consolidate the servers."

Disclaimer

Yes. This is a cut and paste reply that I keep handy, as well as a quick bit of instruction on how to search. Neither are meant to cause fights or to be insulting. The search instructions are in, not just because forum rules say flat out to search, but to help you and anyone else reading this use the search tool effectively.

The body of the cut and paste reply is the way it is because we've seen these arguments numerous times before. They're a summary of the salient points that come up each time. They are not here to insult you, make you feel stupid or otherwise "bring you down a peg." Instead, they are meant as instruction and information. Please read through the points and the explanation behind them to see the issues that are commonly brought up in response. They may not always match your suggestion 100% - in fact, you may have explained around one or two of them - but they're there for consideration and refinement of your idea.

Yes, I do look forward to the time, with some of these suggestions, that someone not only addresses all the points, but does so exceptionally well. It'll probably be added to the end of the cut/paste reply, with credit. For now, though, read and consider the points. They really are just there to help you, and move discussion along to help ideas evolve.

If you're going to see this and say an "evil forum vet is just shooting down your idea," or "You think you're the last word because of your post count," you're wrong. Heck, if you say the second, you've just worried more about my post count than I have in the last four plus years. Tongue-in-cheek comments in here are meant as hummor, not put downs.


TL,DR section.
First, my stock answer, one which I stand by and repeat with all due fervor. HELL NO.

Searching effectively

1. Click on "Search" up at the top of the forum.
2. On the left, under "Forum(s) to search," select "Suggestions and ideas."
3. On the right, Keyword Search Terms. This is probably where your problem was if you did search. Try the following, exactly as typed:

+server -pvp -"re: "

This will search for anything with "Server" in the title, including Servers, Combine Servers, Consolidate Servers, and The Server At Mcdonalds Is Rude. it will eliminate "PVP," so you won't see PVP server requests, and the -re: portion of it removes replies, so you'll see the root of every thread that comes up, letting you see just how many threads there are on this. (The last helps for other subjects, as well.)

4. Click the "In subject" radio button. This is a search, not a cute blonde in a bikini. Here, you want to ignore the body.

5. Leave Username Search blank.

6. Date range, Newer Than, change the 1 to a 3, and the time to Months.

7. Result format doesn't matter. Click on "Submit."

As I try this now, (12/3/08,) we have:
Consolidate Server
Server Stats RSS Feed
$server modifier ofr chat
Fix the forum server
Earlyissue server
Merging low population server
Combine slow server
Server status
Global chat on the Character and Server Screens
Rated M server
Add Ponies, Nerf Vills, merge Servers, PistolMelee
Server Visiting
Display Central Time on Server Status Page

Ignoring the smartalec reply, that's three full discussions about this topic.

You should have read one of them if (inevitably) something similar comes up in your search.

Now, on to the topic at hand....

Why server consolidation is not a good idea.

1. Just because YOU like living in New York City doesn't mean I can't like Kansas.

Yay, you love having huge lag spikes as you get near the black market/wentworths and a busy broadcast. Congrats. Enjoy Freedom. Some of us - many of which you will get replies from with this subject - like *low population* servers. If we *wanted* to be on Freedom, we'd *be* on Freedom.

I have characters on Freedom. I rarely play them (and actually moved a character OFF of Freedom to finish leveling it to 50) because *I DON'T LIKE FREEDOM.* I dislike the banality of broadcast, the high percentage of *horrid* teams I've come across there, the lag around any gathering point- and I've got a decent connection and system. For much the same reason, I typically startin Galaxy City instead of Atlas Park - I don't *want* to log in to a costume contest with several 50s spamming powers and nonsense arguments in broadcast.

Some of us *like* nice, quiet servers.

2, Kansas, part 2.

In addition, servers have their own personalities. No, I don't mean that literally, there's no AI to worry about if you start hearing "Daisy, Daisy" over your speakers or headset. Freedom's a crowded mess. Virtue is the RP server. Pinnacle is the "Drunk" server. Others have specific communities, such as those from Australia/NZ, Europe, etc.

3. "I only saw one other person. World of Conancraft has eleventy billion!"

So what?

We don't run around camping spawn points in this game. People are in missions. People are spread across many zones. Search on a map or do a /whoall and you'll miss those in missions, as well as those who are, for whatever reason, on /hide. Your "search" there didn't give you a full picture, not in the least.

I understand the "feel" of things being "not very populated," but take a good look around when you're in game. Typically, you don't really have a lot of visibility. Standing in steel canyon, there could be multiple, full 8 person groups surrounding you, and it's likely you'd never see them. We have buildings, walls, architecture, trees and more limiting our visibility. Yes, it can make you feel more alone... but that's rarely the case. Add to that that the population is spread between many, MANY zones, most quite large, and among two sides... well...

4. "I put up my LFT flag and nothing happened!"

Learn to search. Don't just wait. Form a team yourself.

5. "I AM SPARTACUS!" No, not any more.

Remember logging in and seeing all those slots? Everyone has those - some buy more than the base 12, you get an extra one each year, you could have a total of 36 on any server. Everyone does. Every one has a character with a unique name. Maybe not a *good* name, but a unique one. Every one has a character with a unique name. Maybe not a *good* name, but a unique one.

Now merge servers. Suddenly, CoolBlasterDude from server 1 is getting merged with CoolBlasterDude from Server 2. Who gets to keep their name? Nobody has been able to answer this with any degree of satisfaction. Add a number? But I am NOT CoolBlasterGuy1. And what if the name's too long? Does the older character keep it? What if they're not as active?

People are *VERY* attached to their names. They are, quite obviously, part of their character.

6. "This Is SPARTA!" Sorry, Sparta exists already. You are GenericSG 8734 287 9798.

What else has a name? Supergroups. And I can *guarandamntee* that the same name is in use on multiple servers. Sometimes it's 'branches' of the same SG, sometimes it's coincidence. But with *everything* involved in an SG - from its identity and reputation on the server, to everything stored in the database about what it owns, what its base is like and such, this would be a disaster in the making. And no, auto merging them when the servers merge, even if they have room to, is not an option.

This, of course, assumes that they *CAN* move supergroups as a unit. More than likely, it'd just be a mass character move, with bases, prestige, anything stored in bases and all SG affiliations just gone forever.

7. "I am... where'd Spartacus go?"

Remember all those slots? Well, you start with 1/3 of the available ones. You can buy up to 36 total (24 on top of the ones you get initially.) Now, what do you suppose would happen if you merged two servers, and someone has, say, 20 characters on each? Not unusual. In fact, before those extra slots, I had *filled up* several servers. Do those characters just disappear? Do they move? Free move to another server sounds great, right... well, except you now kick them from their supergroup, remove them from their friends lists and more. This makes for angry and unhappy customers. Or rather, ex customers.

8. I will play where I damn well want to. And you can too.

And that should be blunt enough. If I want a crowded server, I'll go to Freedom. If I want an RP server, I'll go to Virtue. I do NOT want to be shoved onto another server I *don't* like. If I wanted to go there, *I'd be there.*

If the server you're on isn't "busy" enough for you, you have two options that won't bother anyone else.
(A) If it's low enough, reroll. You have a ton of character slots for a reason.
(B) If you don't want to reroll, server transfers are available, and relatively cheap. They also finish fast - you should be up and running and being spammed to join someone's SG on the new server in a few minutes, in most instances. So YOU can go to the server of YOUR choice without screwing ME over.

9. "It'll free up server hardware for Freedom!" No, no it won't.

Freedom, because of the load it tends to have, already has more resources dedicated to it than other servers. And ALL of the servers have been upgraded multiple times. The servers are not allocated exactly the same. The servers that handle less of a load have less dedicated to them. So this argument doesn't fly.

10. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Last but not least (at least until better points come along to be added,) server consolidation is widely viewed in the industry as an MMO going on life support. No, we don't have WoWs numbers (and you should actually pay attention to when and how they got those.) They're an abberation in the MMO industry. COH has had and does have a very successful, sustainable population even at its lowest points, so there's no economic need to combine anything. The flip side of that, of course, has been suggested above - you crowd people together, break up their SGs and friends lists, cause characters to go missing and poeple definitely *will* quit, both out of annoyance and a sense of "The game is almost dead!"

In conclusion....

As stated before, when it comes to server consolidation... HELL NO.

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Almost forgot the ridiculously oversized weapons.

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... one of the reasons I was glad to get weapon customization for Broadsword... I was going for a *non*-oversized weapon to swing around. >.>

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Honestly, I'd love to see more/better 'schoolgirl' and uniform options then what we have now (Jay, sweetie. The old things don't do your newer 'civvie' stuff justice through existance!), and maybe some more asymmetrical and different armoring options.


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Re: Older vs New

Asked about this, and getting some of the older stuff updated - apparently there's heavy demand for new stuff, he wouldn't mind going back (as I recall) to update the older stuff, there's just no time right now (or at least when i asked.)

Wouldn't mind seeing actual... oh, texture, depth, etc. put in to the older stuff.