Memphis_Bill

I13 edit!

Temperature Protection has been given resistance to slows and -recharge.

Take temperature protection for that, slot a KB IO in it.

[ QUOTE ]
I am in support of Juggy Day.

It has multiple connotations.

[/ QUOTE ]

*nodnodnod*

>.>

What? I fully support everyone raising their mugs to Juggs in celebration.

Hmmmmmmm.

How about one of the alternate Memphis Bills? Spine/Dark scrapper.

Doesn't really have a bio, surprisingly, as he was me trying to recreate a character from a PnP game - which I couldn't do 'til we had Dark Armor tanks. (DA/SS.) The bare minimum he has has him getting dumped off a pier into water tainted by industrial chemicals, washing up down the river in some brambles, and now being generally unapproachable, either due to the spines or the toxic cloud always around him.

The OP is a gundam fan, I'd assume.
And Char - "newtype" (sort of psychic-ish) in that series....

Can't say it had ever come to mind seeing him before. Now it will. Thanks a lot. :P

And I had a base I didn't expect.

Nothing fantastic, no voice, no demoediting, just goofing around.

Go arena options!

Wonder what they are... Hey, posi, can we get the arena interface cleaned up a little? And maybe kiosks added in the PVP zones themselves? Maybe as base items too?

... I mean, while he's posting, y'know.

I added some stuff in another thread... I'm sure that list will show up here soon.

Had to add, though.

Walkway lights (think a theater, with lighting showing you to seats.)
"Plain" walls. Not factory, corrugated, brick, etc. but just completely featureless. Just painted walls.
Exit signs.
Generic room signs (Transportation, Energy, Control, Workshop, Welcome to Medbay!)
Lettering as mentioned above. (Indicating things with vents is a bit tedious.)
Wall mount TVs
Arcade machines
Entertainment centers
Ceiling mounted projectors (with wall mount and stand mount screens.)
BIG "movie" screens, complete with (colorable) curtains.
Hot tub.
Pool.
Park bench and picnic table.
Skylight.
Basketball hoop, with and without backboard, in regular and "mini" sizes (c'mon, you've seen those cubicle basketball hoops.)
Stairs with railings.
Fencing. Chain link, wrought iron, chicken wire, barbed wire, white picket.
Weapon racks. We get them as glowies, after all. (yes, I know about the vet rewards. I'm looking for "functional" looking vs "Decorative/Trophy" looking.)
Fake "defenses." Somewhat like the raid items, but doing nothing.
Tapestries.
Sculptures. (Modern and classical.)
Rows of desks, like the "waiting area' chairs without the tables, for training/presentation areas. Stuff like that that can be placed en masse.
Grass.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Do they actually believe that people are going to sign up just so they can spend months dinking around with the costume creator?

[/ QUOTE ]

I know many, MANY people who still are "dinking around" with the costume creator after several years, and who were mainly attracted to the game because of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

*raises hand*

... and I'm actually glad to get more free costume tokens on some characters... some really burn through them. >.> Especially when new pieces come in that fit an idea better.

As far as the video... they're getting better. It still felt a little strained at points (ok, very strained or stilted at points,) but I do like the whole 'I know, but I have to wait 'til she logs in!" bit. Points for the idea though.

Well, for the bits I've had done, I usually get shots like these done. I use photoshop, you can cut-and-paste away using nothing more than screenshots and MS Paint though. (Or if you want something more powerful and free, The GIMP fits the bill. Little learning curve there though.)

Artist wise, while I'm a big fan of Alex and Brandon, I've *got* to point out someone who's a favourite of mine (and very affordable.) semaj007 over on DA. All digital. If you go through the commissions, "who wanna dance" and "vonDrakkar" are mine.

Gallery of my various commissions. Most of these are digital. The only ones I have physical *pieces* of are from Graver and Sorah Suhng (and Wassy, soonish.) There are several artists in there, usually referenced in the title.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Got new info today from the Joystiq interview of Positron.

"Oh, you will also be able to choose what Contact hands out your story arc, or create your own Contact in the same manner as you would create a character or a boss."

Since all missions in the Architect are instanced, my guess would be that your "contact" will have you call them as opposed to actually encountering them in a zone. However that's just supposition on my part right now.

[/ QUOTE ]

All RIGHT! Positron is gonna be handing out a new story arc!

Now if I could just get a clarification on whether the "three published" limit means three story arcs (ie, up to 15 missions if each arc has 5), or if it's three MISSIONS (in which case, if my story arc really has 5 missions, I can't publish a full arc).

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[/ QUOTE ]

You can have up to five missions in an arc.

You can publish up to three arcs.

And 49. If it didnt' take too long...

... but neither one of them look like rocks!



Very nice.

[ QUOTE ]
Memphis, I'm gonna need your e-mail too now :P

And this is why...

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm glad you updated the thread. I completely and totally missed this getting posted originally! >.<

I like it.

Hmm, villains...

Charade de la Mort

She loved entertaining. Even among the rest of her internationally renowned troupe, which she'd joined in her early teens, Eileen Gravois seemed to have a sway over the audience, brought about by her obvious love of what she was doing - whether it was death-defying stunts, interacting with the animals or being a clown, the smile on her face never needed to be painted on.

She loved what she did, she loved the crowds, and she loved life. And they loved her back. Life was simple. Hard work at times, but it was good.

The overthrow came so quickly nobody had time to warn the group, meant to entertain the Prime Minster and others on the country's independence celebration. She was forced to watch as the extremists took her group, calling them spies, agents of "evil," harlots and worse, and executed them one by one. By the time they got to her, she'd broken, never having to have faced such anger and fear and having done nothing to earn it. As the guards started to come for her, malice in their eyes, her fear and anger reached outwards, ripping at them, tearing them apart. Her confusion became the confusion of others, who started attacking each other. And their leader - their leader trembled, rendered catatonic as she poured her loss into him, denying him the final release she'd given his followers.

The love of life she'd had was gone, along with her innocence. The love of the crowd, of entertaining others, had died. Now they'd dance for her amusement...

(Mind/ dom.)

As far as Bayani, her need to put him down is simple, if somewhat irrational. It's not so much that he's thwarted plans of hers before - the two have never directly fought face to face. His skills and talents, however, strike a chord down in the part of her that remembers her friends, the patience, grace and showmanship that used to captivate audiences. That's a part she wants dead and buried - and the easiest way to do that is to make Bayani the same way.

From a quck video.

There's usually an extra chat window along the bottom, depending on character, and the map's typically smaller in the corner, though. (1680x1050)

[ QUOTE ]

So the idiocy of using the Merit system to force gamers to do more long TF's is obvious. Defending this merit system as is, is buffoonery at best and you can all insult me and flame me all you want.



[/ QUOTE ]

Force = to make someone do something against their will. (Ignoring such other definitions such as the physics definition of mass times acceleration.)

If you were being told "You must run X TF before you get another level" or "You must run X TF before you can get any more contacts," you would be "forced" (as much as you can be in a video game.)

If you want to look at it that way, fine. Just tell me what's preventing you from doing something else for those merits? The same ones awarded for *other* TFs, story arcs and whatnot? Where is the forcing? When this goes live, I'll be earning merits even if I don't touch Doc Q's TF (for instance,) just at a slower rate.

Instead, you are being given a greater reward, with the metrics given (and, yes, adjusted by the devs as they see fit, whether you or I agree with the levels or not,) as a reward for running the longer task forces.

Do I *agree* with it? In a way, yes. On the other hand, I *don't* like the low levels given for some that other players have managed to bork for me by "speeding" them, and have suggested alternate reward schemes (merits for X bad guys defeated) which would reward those that don't speed through them.

As far as insulting? Don't take your opinion (flawed though it seems from a quick read) so highly. I agree with the addition of the system in general. I have nits to pick with several items (such as the replacement of the end roll option and, as mentioned, having my reward lowered for the actions of others,) but in general I look forward to it.

[ QUOTE ]

This Merit system isn't like a bad nerf or taking away a power. where you can just ditch one alt or respec. This is a sweeping epic game change for the worse.


[/ QUOTE ]

... is, quite frankly, overly dramatic and *wrong.* It's not a "sweeping, epic change." it doesn't force (your own word) you to play any differently. I'll be playing the exact same way in I13 as I am now in I12, with the addition of an alt or two. And I11, and I10. The only change that may come about is how I approach PVP zones - something that has nothing to do with merits. And just like Vanguard merits, one day I'll remember to check that tab and go "Oh, I have enough for such-and-such. Cool." Then I'll go in, redeem them, and head on to the next story arc, or TF, or sit-in-base-and-chat-with-friends, or zone event or whatever I was doing.

[ QUOTE ]

-Apply the Giant Monster Scaling Code to Hazard/Trial zone mobs.

Doing just this would bring in the recipe hunters, the salvage hounds, and anyone looking for money in general. Currently there is only ONE place in the entire game I can think of where people actually hunt OUTSIDE for drops. The Cimerora wall. Adding the scaling code to these zones would decongest the wall, as well as maybe get people to stop farming outdoor missions. You might have to do a bit of coding to get drops to scale to the level of the player, but otherwise just this little change could potentially draw in more people.


[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, while there's not a *lot* going on in boomtown, I do see some hunting going on there. And DA? Yeah. LOTS of hunting... by lots of fire characters. Zombies melt so nicely.

DA has a metric tonne of backstory that needs going into. Story arcs and a trial, absolutely.

Perez needs the forest cut down. Give out chainsaws.

Boomtown... I rather like as is. But it's also got some story stuff to go into (Reichsman.)

The tunnels... the troll tunnels? Meh. They're tunnels. With trolls. That try to blow things up. I don't know how to actually make them interesting.

Creys... is a wasteland. *shrug* One of the reasons for going there (going to the RCS) no longer exists. Don't think there's a LOT of backstory there, but there seem to be a bunch of missions in there.

I'm less a fan of GM code than of arcs. I like that you "move past" a zone. *shrug* But that's me.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Most of the negative feedback over flight poses is that they don't stick, and that you can't set the Hover poses (and, again, have them stick.)


[/ QUOTE ]

You gotta go back to the original comments on them, when they were random or cycled through the options sequentially. Even today, some of you guys have strong feelings about certain flight poses (or all of the current options) not fitting the image of their character that they have in their noggin. I would expect walks to elicit much the same type of response. Compounding that is aside from making a different walk for the male, female, and huge body types the possiblity of doing multiple styles of walking for each is so un-feasible it's essentially impossible.

[/ QUOTE ]

/em walk
/em sashay
/em creep

... I can see female models *especially* getting irritated. "She walks like a ******!" "If my/my wife/gf's hips swung like that, she'd break her back." "More swinging, she should be sexier!" "I don't think that kind of walk is biologically possible." "I don't care if she is superpowered, that walk makes no sense in those heels."

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1 Numina's Unique is 250 Merits...That's 5 Posi runs on 1 guy. How casual of a gamer can you be and still have time to do that and nothing else.

[/ QUOTE ]

How casual a gamer can you be and want a Numana's Unique?

[/ QUOTE ]

Anyone can look at the markets, "hardcore," "Casual," or "Bleedin' Loony."

Anyone can notice an IO and think "Wow, that might be useful."

A casual gamer can see and want a Numina's unique just as much as anyone else.

You cannot run fast enough to escape the Wrath of the Forums!

Er...

I mean, Hi!

[ QUOTE ]

Greyhawke asked
[ QUOTE ]

I understand the limit of 30 invention salvage in the rack, thanks for the feedback. However, are there plans to return event salvage to their own tabs with larger limits? The inability to store costume salvage and candy canes without impacting invention salvage storage is a big inconvenience.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, Holiday salvage was a big concern when we converted the salvage racks, but we thought it more important to give players access to invention salvage racks. Unfortunately, the code to create different salvage caps for each is non-trivial, so we will need to address this in another way.


[/ QUOTE ]

Might I suggest a (non-counting-toward-rent) "Special salvage" rack at the current limits that only holds event salvage?

[ QUOTE ]
First off, thank you for taking the time to answer some of our concerns about this. One of your answers was actually linked to a question I asked in the original thread, although the reply was to a different post:[ QUOTE ]
Poster: EvilGeko
Q: Will you state right here, right now, that you will not further nerf rewards on content that the playerbase learns to do quicker?

A: We can’t do that. However, we can state right here and now that we won’t take such decisions lightly. We’re going to only decrease rewards on a task if we don’t have the option of immediately making adjustments to a Task Force and we find that the majority of players are running the Task Force at a significantly reduced average time than before.

[/ QUOTE ]

My concern is how you determine the majority of players are running at a significantly reduced time, as opposed to the same group of players running the TF or SF more often at reduced times, which causes the majority of runs to have a significantly reduced time.

Because this seems to be gearing the system towards the speed runners, and leaving the "average" player who doesn't stealth the objectives with reduced rewards. This is already shown in the time estimate from the Virgil Tarikoss SF and Eden Trial - an 8-person team fighting their way through each mission will not take an average of 50 or 10 minutes to complete these, so obviously the rewards are geared towards the multiple runs of a smaller group of people.

I'm also concerned about the cost of several of the rewards and pricing of them. Do you honestly want to say that defeating 20 AVs isn't even worth one single origin enhancement, through two runs at least 24 hours apart of the Katie Hannon TF? Also, a couple of developers that aren't on the rewards team have stated that they had slightly lower estimates for how much effort should go into a random recipe roll, both listing times of around 60-75 minutes. This would put the cost of a random roll at 12-15 merits, which is honestly where I see the average completion time settling into once speed runs are done more frequently on the higher-value TFs.

I'm still wondering how failed attempts are accounted for in the average as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

Welcome, Synapse.

The above states a concern of mine very well, as well.

Say - to be ridiculous about it - someone finds a way to run a "Speed Quarterfield." Ok, stop laughing. They finish it in, say, 1 hour. 80 (from memory, not looking it up ATM) merits.

He gets a group together. Every day, they run a SpeedQ. Others find out. Soon there's an average of two Quarterfields an hour being completed. It's the same, say, three groups of players, just switching characters. The normal player, who rarely touches it, finally decides to run one, taking six to eight hours over two or three days. Their "average" is pretty much lost in the data, I'd think.

To counteract this, why not - while in a Task Force - award a merit to everyone in the group for, say, every 250-300 enemies defeated? That way, when "SpeedQ" is inevitably nerfed because "it can be done in an average of an hour and a half," those who slog through are getting more of a reward, instead of being *dis*couraged to use their time on this TF? Sure, the speedsters (no offense ) might get more merits in the end - but for each run, the "regular" players are getting more per TF.

Hey, glowy-boy! >.>

Little feedback on this.

[ QUOTE ]

Q. Base salvage, why replace it, and what will happen to it?

A. Base salvage has little value to most players. Since there are a limited number of base items to construct, once those items are built there is little need for any further base salvage.

As a result, base salvage tends to either gather dust on salvage racks, or be a source of confusion with Invention salvage. Base salvage will not be removed though, so anything not converted to Brain Storm tokens will remain in game.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has been brought up a bit in Ex's feedback thread of two or three days ago.

While it may have limited value to anyone not in a SG, when you're *in* one, even after building, it has two purposes... even when things aren't being built.

First, it's a no-pain way to contribute to the SG. Have base salvage? Give it to the base. Using invention salvage, *ignoring* theft concerns for the moment, you have to decide if the SG needs it (and you may not know,) if you want to sell that nice piece of salvage (and the expensive ones are not neccessarily rare - see "Luck charm") or if you need to use it for your own character.

To me, that directly contradicts things like the post-35 change in SG mode where, instead of getting 0 XP, you'd get half.

Second, and this ties somewhat into the first, are empowerment stations. These are what eat up salvage in between base growth spurts. Increased attack rate for an hour? Resistance to all that smashing and lethal? Invisibility? KB protection? Yes, please!

... except now, again, you've got to weigh that against your IOs that you want, the base's needs and the value of the salvage on the market.

Personally - and this is not against you - I just don't buy the "confusion" explanation. I really don't. If the *amount* was the issue - lower the drop rate on base salvage. I know I'll look in and have a metric tonne of amulets, E-chips, Daemonologicas and the like... which all get turned into components, mostly for the empowerment stations.

[ QUOTE ]

Q. Salvage Storage Racks, Why only 30 pieces of invention salvage?

A. In short, the market. The market system is designed to have a steady supply of salvage coming in. If large salvage racks were added, it would create a temporary supply problem of unknown duration until the salvage racks filled up.

Since having salvage temporarily dry up would be a big problem for all players, this number was intentionally kept low. Once the impact on the markets as a whole can be measured, we will look at adjusting these numbers again.


[/ QUOTE ]

So increase the drop rate... The impact on the market is going to be to drive prices higher as more people bid for a few key pieces *even more,* drying *that* salvage up, and increasing frustration.

I highly, *highly* doubt - despite the claims of a few (hands-rubbing-with-glee) market forum folks, that "hoarding" would be an issue and demolish the market. People are *still* going to drop it off between missions as they fill up. Wentworths requiers no zoning if you're in the same, often busy zones, after all.

Hey Sunstorm.

Good luck. >.>

Base Repricing
1) How will the repricing of bases affect you personally?

The majority of mine that I'm responsible for are small SGs. It will, in general, help.

2) Will you dismantle your base to gain the additional prestige from the repricing?

Possibly. Most of mine aren't all that complex, so it's more a matter of "Having more open prestige to do something nice" than "Rebuilding to get prestige."

3) How long would this process take you if you were to engage in this practice?

As mentioned, most of mine are small. Hour each.

4) What are the positive and negative concerns regarding repricing?

Rent, mostly. Of course, I'll be on a bigger plot, most likely, so rent would be inevitable, but the warning and scheduling needs looking at.

5) How will this feature affect you long term and short term?

Honestly, it's more short term being able to do a bit more. Long term... hard to say.


Base Salvage Exchange to Invention Salvage
1) What is the negative effect on your base for this feature implementation?

Ugh. Let's see, security concerns, storage limits (30? I've got single types of event salvage that'll take more than one of those...) going from cheap base salvage to potentially expensive, in demand for more items, "willt hey steal it or not" invention salvage, the sudden loss of value of empowerment stations (since who's going to burn *invention salvage* that's needed for so much else?) The list goes on.

2) What is the positive effect on your base for this feature implementation?

Honestly? I can't think of one. Other than having a place to share invention salvage. The old system wasn't confusing.

3) How long will it take you to adjust to learning this new system?

Learning? Quickly. It's not hard to look at recipes.

4) What side effects to this system do you currently see from transitioning the old to new system?

Less involvement with building the base from SG members, as people transition from giving "free" salvage to the SG to having to decide between using invention salvage for their own IOs, selling rare pieces for much-desired INF or handing it to the base (and its limited storage.) Empowerment stations being even less used - *I* use them heavily, and don't see me using them as often after this. And the conversion process with what's left over? Click, click, click, clikc, click, click, click, click, click... ugh.

5) What security concerns do you have regarding this change?

There's no security *now* and bases get raided for relatively worthless base salvage. The temptation's going to be *huge* when valuable invention salvage is in storage. Which is another thing that's goign to keep people from wanting to add theirs to the group pool.

Additional Notes:

I find it very hard to believe that there was such massive confusion between invention salvage (named as "invention salvage" when it drops, put in its own "invention salvage" tab, and listed by name in inventions) and base salvage. If there was... add the word "Base" to when base salvage dropped. It couldn't have been easier overall to do *this* than that.