Memphis_Bill

It is a balance issue, unfortunately - that and, really, I've had characters I just didn't need more slots on. Ones I've ended up throwing them away "somewhere."
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And, being an old ‘comic geek’, the epic superheroes HAVE these incredibly powerful powers. Superman can’t be capped at 6 slots on his Super-Strength, for example.

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The difference between that and this is that all comics are written for the story. Superman may be able to drop-kick a planet one issue with no problems, and then be vulnerable to plaid the next... because the story needs it.

Similarly, in a PnP RPG, the GM can adjust things on the fly. Getting cocky? Here, have a Lich or something to knock you down a few pegs. Oops, he's got a custom spell that reduces your awesome sword to dust! Now what?

In an MMO... that doesn't exist. They've got to plan around *expected* levels of difficulty, realistic expecations for how many powers and how they may be slotted - high and low - by certain points. We don't face Carnies or Malta at level 5 because we'd get thrashed. We don't face Skulls at 50 because they're knocked over by a gentle breeze by comparison.

This isn't even taking into account what could possibly be done with sets and set bonuses... it could get ugly.

Add me to "no problems with DA." And "Lots of problems with mcafee."

Absolutely do a malware scan - online, preferrably - and virus scan. I'm not subscribed to DA, so I see their ads - and they're always banners, usually DA related, and certainly not popups.

If you're going to take a link outside of DA, there's a warning page in between - you click the link, get a page that says "This goes somewhere else," and gives you a choice to either cancel or go on.

You've certainly got *something* going on on your system - and do note that Mcafee is well known, and often coded around by virus authors.

Alt-tab.

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my idea on origins would be something of each origin allowing earlier access to existing powers/costume parts/weapon styles that are already available to all. for instance a natural origin toon could access say super jump with out having to take kick or combat jumping. and a tech origin could take health without swift or hurdle.

all those powers are already accessible to all and having earlier access to them by origin would not harm the game.

My examples could be tweaked of course but i could see having fun deciding what to take by what i need for concept or making my builds more flexible in certain areas.

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The question then becomes, though, why would those origins have earlier access to those powers?

Using your examples (yes, I know you aid they could be tweaked,) *why* would Natural Origin get an advantage of taking Superjump that early without the prerequisite? Why doesn't it make just as much sense for, say, Tech (using an exoskeleton as a reason,) Science (Super Soldier Serum #89743,) Magic or Mutation to?

That's generally what this discussion comes down to, 90% of the time. Well, that and (again) it's 5 years in where we've had origin mean nothing but what enhancements you could use, having it shift to having an impact like that now... I just can't see as being *good.*

The sort of thing I'd see, frankly:
- Making the origin CONTACTS mean something.

Of course, that means doing a bit more definition on them redside, but have them give extra arcs for your origin. Also, we have unlockables... have your origin unlock the proper contact.

- Enemy groups

Why wouldn't, say, the Council go after your natural whatever, Crey go after Science, the Freakshow start going after tech, CoT against Magic... not quite sure who against Mutant. Just so you have an occasional ambush leading to a mission or some such.

It depends on the powersets and what you can bring to her. The last few times I've fought her, she hasn't come close to me. (Dom, MM, and Corr, I do believe they were.) Sometimes, though, yeah, she's a real pain. Bring purples.

If you're having fun, sure.

Especially with dual builds - you can have a "pure" build (as you call it,) and one to mess around with other stuff with. Comes in handy with some controllers/defenders/corruptors.

SteelSeries, formerly Ideazon. Yeah.

I can only give info about three of them - the G15, another generic Logitech, and a generic HP keyboard. Actually, I might suggest asking down in the MM forums if anyone there uses that same keyboard and sees the same thing - if anyone uses keypad macros heavily, that'd be the place to find them.

Ahh, ok, that makes more (well, less given how it's being handled) sense. I know my MM was working properly using numpad binds in win7. I'd modify your topic slightly and specify zboard - and perhaps check their forums as well to see if anyone's having similar issues in win7.

Have to address a few things here:

quote]I would have to say the actual number is significantly less then 127k. I am one person and I would count for 4 people since I have 4 accounts and many of my friends have 2-3 accounts...

I have been very unhappy with current events in the game also. The willy nilly threats of banning,

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Have there been other threats of it? There has been precisely one, for the most extreme abusers of exploits. That's the only "banning," with this whole thing, that's been mentioned. And those who got hit with it via being level pacted, from what I've been reading, have had their characters restored and/or had the ban removed. Painting it as anything else does them and you a disservice.

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calling everyone who used MA cheaters,

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The dev team has never called "everyone," or even "most" who used the MA "cheaters." They've mentioned the most prolific abusers of exploits.

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the blattent disregard for customer service... I have yet to get some customer service rep to respond when ever I have had a bug happen in game.

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Have you used /bug or /petition? You will not get any sort of reply from a /bug. A /petition, however, will get a GM - sometimes - generally on prime times and weekends with a long wait, other times within minutes - or an email from customer service. (Actually, either way will get an email from customer service. Make sure your email is listed correctly in your account.)

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Had to either quit, restart, the mission or TF all the time... the couple times I have got someone on it was way to late.

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Too vague to comment on. If you're having this many problems running the game, you may need to do a reinstall however. Or ask up in tech issues.

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They don't fix problems to make the game smoother. If I wanted to play in a buggy, non reliable play enviroment I would be on the test server.

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Incorrect, as they most certainly do fix issues with the game. Some take longer than others. That's just the way things go - something that looks like a "simple fix" might affect something else in a completely unexpected way.

Plus, unlike a single player game or, say, a word processor, an MMO is under continual development and must keep having new areas, powers, etc. added. There's no point at which they can say "OK, it's done, now all we need to do is push it out and deal with any bugs that come up."

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They have till my subscription runs out to change my mind about not renewing.

I am becoming more and more discontent with this game. If it wasn't for the people play with I would probably already of changed games.

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Honestly, it doesn't sound like you *want* to change your mind. At least not short term. But if you're going to do so over what you percieve to be developer statements and actions, be sure you're *actually* going by their statements - read them for yourself, critically not emotionally - and not by what's been put through the grapevine, or what someone said they said.

... silly question -

Did you transfer your binds over to your windows 7 install?

I ask because I play my MMs with a specific set of binds that keeps reloading depending on minion type, and without the files to load, it won't know what to do.

Also, you say it's just sending numbers - is it sending them into chat? It'd have to be entering "enter" or some such for that.

Either way, I'd say your binds sound messed up. Do you have numpad binds set up for a character that isn't a mastermind? (Say, someone with them set to macros with a saying and an attack, something that wouldn't be continually reloaded but would be stored on the server?)

If not, pick a (non MM) character you don't use the numpad with, pick a few keys and bind them with just some local nonsense ("This is key 1,") go into your supergroup base and test it out, see if they work - then restart COH and see if they still work.

Just trying to give you a few things to determine if it's actually the ZBoard or if it's the binds. I can't see why a ZBoard would treat the numpad any differently... but then again, I don't have a ZBoard (G15 here, first gen)

Heh. I sometimes wish I'd had one at my last job. Early, early Saturday and Sunday morning shift? I could watch movies, sleep, screw around online... because I had nothing else to do.

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Had they introduced dual builds prior to I13's release, they would have seem more people playing for that reason alone. However, I personally dislike the PvP suppression. Losing mobility takes away to much of the tactical abilities one should be allowed to play with. As such, I simply don't play.

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re: suppression

Limited to attacks, I don't even notice it. To me, it's about like it is in PVE, a brief hiccup. When it's kicking in with inspirations and the like, though (unless I'm remembering that wrong,) ... yeah, it's a bit much.

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You're suppressed when you're the target of the attack, when you're casting heals, buffs, etc. The "tactical" limitations he's probably referring to is that you can't make a pure support character as easily who just bounces around endlessly, unsuppressed, throwing out heals and buffs. Once that support character heals/buffs/becomes the target of an attack, all their movement screeches to a halt.

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Yeah, that's pretty much why I stated "limited to attacks." I *get* why they added it to so much else...

Re: becomes the target - Am I remembering it wrong that you actually have to be the target of a *successful* attack, as opposed to just having an attack launched at you (hit or not?) I want to say it was the second way at one point in beta, and got swapped to the first.

This came up from a comment in another thread.

Now that we have a "superleader," supegroups now have one, dedicated person who's supposed to be the "top dog," who CS interacts with, etc.

Customer service isn't the only group that needs to do so, though. I recently (well, within the past few months) went through trying to find out who the leaders of two "inactive" coalitions were with an SG whose leadership I inherited long ago.

It was more of a case of "You know, I don't think I've ever seen those two NOT red in the past few years." However, since I wasn't the person who set up the coalitions, I had no idea who was in them. Checking with the registrar had no contact information (and they had very little prestige.)

I tried, and waited for a while to see if I could find anyone - and couldn't. I have no problem keeping a "red" coalition (where I can't enter the base - I have two friends' SGs - one where it's just a family group that plays over summer and inter vacations, one who's not on the specific server much) who have nothing in the base, or no base at all, so they use my teleporters and such. I was trying to find out if these other two were in the same boat, since I'd hate to cut someone off from that if they're not doing any harm to me.

In any case, I couldn't find them, and ended up breaking the coalition.

So, suggestion:

Via email and/or global tell, give us a "generic address" that goes directly to the superleader.

For instance, say we have a SG called IncredibleDudes. I need to get in touch with them, but we haven't talked much and I haven't seen much on coalition.

Option one:
Email @SG (or some other "global" designator) IncredibleDudes, and send them the message. The message gets shunted to whoever has the superleader position at that time.

Option two:
/SGT Incredibledudes - this sends a /tell, global-style, to the SG leader. They'll get it even if they're offline.

If it needs to be restricted to just superleader-to-superleader messages, I'm fine with that given the spamming situation. But being able to get ahold of an SG leader, even if you're not sure who it is, would be useful.

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Are there any guidelines for maintaining coalition links with seemingly dead SGs? I mean, my SG has coalitions with with other SGs that have the 'can't enter, upkeep due' sign on the base entry window.

Can members of the closed SG still use our teleporters and stuff? Or should I assume the other SG no longer has any active players or they would pay the rent if they were playing?

How long should I wait before breaking the coalition to allow room for other coalitions?

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Can members of the closed SG still use teleporters: Yes, if your permissions allow it. The status of their base has no impact on if they can use yours or not.

How long to wait: Purely a judgement call on your part. I worked for a while to try to find out who was running two SGs coalitioned with an SG whose leadership I inherited years ago - since, for all I knew, it was a small family-type SG that didn't even have a base or some such (which will also show "cannot enter," IIRC.) If I can't find/can't get ahold of them - the coalition gets broken.

I do wish, especially with the "superleader" now, that the SG registrar would show contact information for that person - or even just give a generic "SG Global" to go to whoever has the lead, so if DeadCoalition is showing as red/unpaid, you could just email, say, SG@DeadCoalition and see if you get a reply from their leader at all.

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Had they introduced dual builds prior to I13's release, they would have seem more people playing for that reason alone. However, I personally dislike the PvP suppression. Losing mobility takes away to much of the tactical abilities one should be allowed to play with. As such, I simply don't play.

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re: suppression

Limited to attacks, I don't even notice it. To me, it's about like it is in PVE, a brief hiccup. When it's kicking in with inspirations and the like, though (unless I'm remembering that wrong,) ... yeah, it's a bit much.

1. Midnighter club - yes. The universities (I assume you're looking for them for crafting) - look on your maps, several of them have "Abandoned labs" with crafting tables set up. You can't access the midnighter club from them of course.

2. Mostly because of the ITF reward, sure.

3. I *think* their issue with this one is clipping, but yeah, I hear that one a lot (and can't argue.)

Edit: Link to abandoned labs.

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Oh wait, Moldy, you're on pinnacle, zones are dead there because Nites runs everyone out

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Above and beyond that, there's just no payoff in bouncing around in a PvP zone until some people show up. There are too many hours in a day, and too many zones and too many other things to do, to make it worth it sitting around and waiting.


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Oh, I don't know, you *can* meet some decent folks. Just spent a while in Siren's on Pinn with a decidedly non-PVP specced character screwing around with a stalker who hadn't been in game since I6 and having fun. Brute running back and forth to missions, bit of time messing with a corruptor, too.

But generally... yeah, if you don't see anyone within 5 min or so, check back later. At least Siren's tells you there's a target. (And Nites? I don't think I've seen any in any zones in ... hmm, years, at least that bother identifying themselves. I see EvilDad's characters more.)

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and you complaining about the complaint posts makes you a troll. the whole point is that the dev's are trying to sweep all of this under the rug without admitting to anything or giving appologies for anything they have done that is wrong. and the attitude that posi took on the whole thing could have been avoided if they would have listened during closed and open beta instead of just being money hungry.

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Um, they did listen. Did they catch everything? No. And with the rush of players (I have *never* before seen both Test servers greyed out) during open, anything that WAS sent via open was likely buried in a flood of other things - testing the PVP IOs and such, for instance.

Closed? Yes, we saw a somewhat rapid "Hey, exploit." "Report exploit." *patch* We're talking about maps being pulled (purple crystals from the end of - Ice mistral, I think - that were giving *tons* of tickets with just one AOE setting them off, as well as mobs that had no offensive capability but were still giving XP.)

"Money hungry?"

They listened, and acted quickly until the floodgates were opened. And continued to try to keep up. Having some things slip through *happens.*

Why should they publicize "Oops, a few people" - and I'm sorry, but yes, it DOES only seem like a few people, magnified by "I heard from a friend of a friend of a cousin of someone in an SG on another server" - "who didn't intnetionally exploit got caught in the net?" It's a customer service issue, they can contact CS and have it dealt with.

Since when have the rednames or devs discussed *any* moderating action with anybody but the person involved?

To me, honestly, an "All on" or "all off" would be worse, though. Too extreme, and damaging to those of us who do use it - we're talking extreme along the lines of "Too many people ran the red light on the corner, so we're impounding all cars in the state." It would, IMHO, be more damaging than the RMT emails themselves.

Even a triple option - with just the "Only from GFriends" - damages it too much. How many of your supergroup(s) are on your GFriend list? (Perhaps all of yours, I don't know - but for me, who plays on all servers and is in several SGs, certainly not mine. )

I'm thinking the last part of the bit I put in - completely disabling emails from trial accounts, as they're at level 10 now - would do more good, and give time for the finer email filtering to be put in.

I am, as always, strongly in favor of client-side filtering. Something like:
Accept email from:
o Friends
o Global Friends
0 Supergroup
o Teammates
0 Coalition
0 Any

with "Any," honestly, being the default - I use the system and help people I run across in PVP zones, for instance. Want none, uncheck "None."

Why not keyword filtering (blacklisting?) Well, say I'm spamming from www.infspammer.com. I can tell you right now, just from *regular* email experience, that the second you block the entire name, it's going to get changed. www. infspammer. com is not the same. Block infspammer? 1nfspammer. i n f s pa a m m e r. in fs pa mm er. And if you finally manage to blow all that time and money setting up and testing the blocks for all the permutations of that - I spend five bucks and get buymyinf.com, and you get to start all over again. A blacklist is just more work for less gain. After all, years after the huge push from overseas, I still get the occasional creative spelling of "viagra" showing up in my own (whitelisted) junk mail filter.

That said, I'm also strongly leaning towards totally disabling email on trial accounts by this point. Yes, it's another trial limitation... but the RMTers are getting around it by PL'ing up characters already. As much as I *dislike* the idea, I can't help but think that it'd be needed at this point.

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Well that isn't looking good. Explains why they might have started advertising.

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Er, new studio, more investment, new features with MA, upcoming expansion, upcoming competition... I'd say there's more than one bit of "why they might have started advertising."

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Hmmm so Tabula Rasa was around 70,000 subs (at first view) when it went under.

Say we were around 125,000 subs around the end of 2008.
Let's be generous and say we lost 1,000 accounts from PvP and lose another 3,000 to the recent events. That would put us around 110,000 or at worst 100,000 subs.

Still not enough to shut down any servers, I'd think.

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... And I kept hearing smaller numbers for TR.

Don't forget they'd made massive investment into it that just plain wasn't getting any sort of return - the drop it kept showing wouldn't have helped it make any of that back.

COH, on the other hand, has five years of history. Initial investment - paid off, quite likely. Even current investment has a healthy base behind it.

FWIW, I highly doubt we lost 3000 to "the recent events." I'd be surprised if the number were in the hundreds.

All of them. >.>

Few threads on this already. It apparently looks like it wasn't enticing enough to the advertisers, or the firm just didn't get the big names for it.

And as for other NC games, or going rogue... that would just be weird. Especially the second. Yeah, it talks to the player, but...

Ever see "The truman show?" Where essentially everyone but Jim Carey's character knows it's a TV show? Now imagine his character looking up and seeing... an advertisement for the next season of The Truman Show.



That said, supposedly they'd have spots for player made advertisements or such - which I also haven't seen.

I have a few kins. (One level to 50 on one of them.) I rarely have people going "SB PLZ."

That said, I far prefer not having it as an AOE or PBAOE, no matter where you put it. Since as a single target buff (that doesn't take all that long to apply, even to a full team,) I can make sure to apply it where needed, skip the people who don't want it, and don't have to worry about someone who wanted/needed it not getting it - such as someone just coming out from an Awaken, or who has just nuked or crashed from a Tier9.

I like the flexibility of it as a ST buff, and would far prefer not having my "pseudo-travel power" (Siphon speed) end up affecting folks who would rather not have it as I pass by on the street.