Metaphilosopher

I have yet to run the SF (and given the amount of venom expressed in this thread on that subject, I think I'll wait a bit for it...), but I ran the TF for the first time tonight and was fairly disappointed.

Once you got to Tina Macintyre, it things went all right, if for no other reason than you never had to deal with Dr. Kahn again in a serious fashion. The first half of this TF reminded me largely of Harry Potter 7, where, after having spent the first 6 books building this world and a mythology to go along with it, Rowling suddenly decides to toss in something completely random but nonetheless ridiculously important to final success (i.e. the deathly hallows).

The concept is good: Reichsman has escaped and plotting the conquest of this dimension in the name of a trans-dimensional Reich. The heros stumble on this while responding to a robbery under City Hall. All well and good (aside from the lame names and dialogue of the EBs/AVs in mish 1).

The problems come when first, there is no proper segue between mish 1 and mish 2 (a detail that could be easily corrected with the inclusion of a 'find out what they want' clicky objective that could provide an appropriate clue that the 5th Column will be invading Boomtown in the near future). As I say, it feels like it's jumping from one thing to the next with no attention to continuity.

Once actually in Boomtown, the good doctor says the Freedom Phalanx will be coming to fight the threat as well, and it'd be nice if they did show up. Secondly, and more irritating yet, given how hyped the return of Reichsman was in the run-up to this issue, one would think a cutscene when he shows up, featuring him being remarkably bad-a**, would be appropriate and even obligatory, just in time for him to wail on the Freedom Phalanx and take Statesman hostage using the accumulated power of the other Marcus Coles he's already collected. That would be a far better motivator to find out what Reichsman's up to that he'd want to kidnap Statesman rather than simply hang him from the highest tree.

After that point, the missions themselves are largely controlled by Tina Macintyre who has at least a different voice (if not a different writer) than does Dr. Kahn, and the entire storyline gets much better and more interesting in a hurry. I do have one final problem with the storyline, that being that there is little or no warning that you'll be fighting not just one AV in the last mish, but five. Just mentioning that, say, Countess Crey was seen leaving her mansion with guards dressed suspiciously like Nazis and hasn't been seen since, would be helpful in that regard.

So far as I'm concerned, Dr. Kahn is the largest problem with the TF. His dialogue is stilted, boring, pedantic, and useless, being largely a repetition of information the players already have and instructions to board this train or that to go stop some other completely random set of villains (the sheer number of 'board train, go here' mishes also annoys me). All in all, the TF is at serious risk of being little better than a series of single mishes tied together by nothing more than the continuity of the team, similar to a lot of the lvl 1-10 contacts blueside.

I certainly understand the difficulties that people are having with the SF, and no one will ever accuse me of calling three hours beating on a human punching bag to no effect 'fun'. But broken powers and ridiculous health and regen are something that can be fixed by fiddling the numbers for a while. The RTF may be the new KTF (which I doubt, by the way), but it will never be anything worth playing in my opinion until they fix the construction of the story itself. And that is a far more serious problem than needing to fiddle the numbers, so far as I am concerned.

Given how blessedly little else is in this issue and how much they hyped the Reichsman TF/SF, you'd think they'd have taken the time to get it right, both with the technical bugs redside and the storyline bugs blueside. It's quite depressing that they didn't, and given their performance in recent history, I can't say I expect better of them in the future, which is a wonderful way to kill this game.

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The seizure/palsy that people that are flying and hovering when they enter into a zone or into/out of a mission is evidently some sort of out of sync thing as well BECAUSE using /sync causes it to be resolved.

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I wonder if that doesn't have more to do with the fact that you've told the game client to do *something*, regardless what it is? Such things have tended to fix it on my toons, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's what was going on.

I'm gonna hate myself in the morning, but...

Only if they make a sonic/ MM, with pets outfitable as the various boy-bands of the '90s. They could have powers like confuse, disorient, and terrify, in addition to normal sonic damage.

They could then insert /backstreetboys and/or /nsync as pet summon commands.

Oh the horror...

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As concerns the new limitations to trial accounts:

Restrictions on trial accounts entering SGs make even less sense to me. The only two reasons I can think of why the devs would do that have already been mentioned in this forum: a) the padding for the prestige grant, and b) some SGs having their bins raided by RMTers (or other nefarious delinquents). As to the first, that should only be an issue if the devs are planing another prestige grant, and if they are, this is no reason to add such restrictions, as the same people hell-bent on restricting your access to cash would likely not also be willing to throw it at you.

[/ QUOTE ]Theres more reasons. If RMTs could join SGs, I think theyd form one with some paying accounts active as leaders, and use trial accounts as extra storage.

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As I understand it, storage as relevant to an SG is based exclusively in the SG base, with all its attendant bins. I am thus at a loss to understand how RMTers could use trial accounts as a form of spare storage for their SGs.

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As to the second, if you lost valuable stuff to an RMTer you errantly invited to your SG, it's you're own damn fault, not the devs, and trial accounts oughtn't have to pay the price for your error. I know it sounds harsh, but you have ample tools at your disposal to stop such thefts (such as restricting permissions--and if you made an RMTer a leader in your SG, you deserved what you got as far as I'm concerned). It is neither the duty nor the place of the devs to be fixing that for you, and it is inappropriate that you should ask someone else to pay the price for your own failings.

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The RMTs often disguise themselves as legitimate players(having a real person there to respond to checks devs may do occasionally). As to "if you lost valuable stuff to an RMTer you errantly invited to your SG, it's you're own damn fault, not the devs, and trial accounts oughtn't have to pay the price for your error." How would you know someone was a RMT, beside the obvious names like dshgdkjrty and such? If a RMT has a normal looking name, would you actually expect someone to be able to tell that the persons a RMT? And I dont believe anyone expects the devs to give back any items/inf lost to RMTs stealing from the SG, as I believe I saw somwhere that the devs have said that they wont do refunds/replacements on items lost to scams. Not sure, but thats how I remember it.

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This was perhaps poorly stated. My point here was simply that if you've lost stuff, it is in many ways your own fault for not having proper safeguards on your SG's bins, and gimping trial players' ability to experience SGs is not an appropriate response to that problem. It's not the devs' responsibility to deal with that, particularly not at that level.

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Last but not least, the chat restrictions do make some sense, yes. CoH, and to a lesser extent CoV, are, however, inherently team based games. There are ways to solo, and to solo well, but we should all know that no noob knows them and can only stumble into them by blind luck (kinda like I did... >.&gt. Allowing trial players to chat in broadcast is, I think, not unreasonable, but I note it's not on the list. I have played for the past year on Triumph, Infinity, Pinnacle, and Victory, and have yet to see an RMT ad anywhere but my inbox and in tells. Allowing trial accounts access to most of the other channels paying players have access to should increase their ability to effectively team without seriously increasing RMT spam. That said, they'd probably move there, given the other restrictions, so...

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Ive seen spam in Broadcast before, on Freedom, so consider yourself lucky.

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Ooooooh so many reasons why I don't play on Freedom

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Which leaves us with the prickly issue of tells. It has been pointed out, correctly and at some length, that tells are an integral part of the process most players use to get a team, or to recruit one. The idea has been put forward that trial accounts be allowed to respond to tells but not to originate them. This solution, while interesting, will prove ultimately unfeasible.

It works from the inherent (and invalid) assumption that tells function as a sort of in-game AIM conversation, which one person can initiate and another can respond to, and they do have that effect. But in practice, the mechanics of the game are such that every tell sent would be accounted as a new conversation, not merely a continuation of an old one. Most of use that handy little backspace key to reply to tells, but all that amounts to is a keybind that fills in the first part of what we're doing, the routing information. But that's not actually replying. There is nothing to reply to as far as the software's concerned. It's just a new communique from point A to point B, and the system doesn't remember if something went from B to A first.

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How do you know this? And besides, if "There is nothing to reply to as far as the software's concerned.", then how does it know whose name to start a tell to? I dont know about you, but if I hit backspace, on my regular account, I get (without quotes) "/t Playerwhosenttellsname, ". Maybe its an error somewere if you dont get that. Or, maybe you mean the game doesnt store the message? Im not 100% on what youre trying to say here, but I can say that I dont see how sending and replying to tells arent separate, you'll need to explain that.

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You'll notice that, when you hit the backspace key, it retrieves the routing information for the last incoming transition of that kind and puts it in your chat bar. Clearly, something is keeping track of your chat logs.

That said, is that something set up in a send/reply fashion? That's a lot more difficult to ascertain, and admittedly, I'm no red-name or programing wiz to have examined the code. That said, one can point to certain tell-tale signs in the way it functions. Most specifically, if the system were set up in a conversational fashion, with a send/reply structure, each sending of a tell to a new person would constitute a new conversation, and one should be able to just tap backspace to continue that conversation. But the function of that key is slightly different, so that if you send me something, and I then send someone else something else, if I tap the backspace key, it doesn't continue my conversation with someone else, but with you.

Quite aside from which, can you imagine the complexities of trying to keep track of who's in conversation with who according to whose chat tabs? Mine could still list me as in conversation with you, while yours could list you three conversations later, and trying to maintain such a thing remotely would be difficult, to say the least. I therefore conclude that the most logical way for the system to be operating right now is not as a conversational send/reply mechanism, but simply as a series of one-way communications, with something built in to keep track of who the last person to have sent you a communication of this kind was.

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This leaves us with a problem since, clearly, RMTers are abusing tells, but we still need something to fulfill the role that tells fill for teaming for most players, and simply replying to a tell is outside what the system has been designed to handle. Rather, I would suggest that, with their new-found ability to expand the number of global channels, the devs create server-specific channels for trial accounts to communicate to one another, to allow them to team and learn together, with an explanation in the GMOTD of all trial accounts what that channel's for, and what sorts of questions should be directed to help. Otherwise help's going to be overloaded and people with legitimate questions won't be able to get them answered for all the people ignoring the channel.

Those are just my thoughts, take them as you will.

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Now THIS I can agree with! That'd be very helpful(pun intended )

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Well, I'm glad we can agree on something

As concerns the new limitations to trial accounts:

Anything which can be done to kill the e-mails is a good thing. That said, now that they have that handy-dandy little 'spam' button in your e-mail window, this isn't as big a problem for me as it used to be. Nonetheless, no real trial account has much use for e-mail anyway, so strip it away, please.

As for restricting players to 13, yes, it makes good sense to put a level restriction on them. But for God's sake, let them have an ACTUAL travel power, not just some temp power that can't match the real thing to save its (or the player's) life. I'd personally like to see them set at 20, since that's where powersets generally begin to mature, but I'd be fine seeing them set as low as 14.

Some have complained that 50k is extraordinarily limiting, and it is--for a lvl 50. However, with the current level restriction of 13, this isn't unreasonable. How many 13s do you see running around with millions in inf whose players do not also already control a 50 from whom they're transferring that cash? That said, raising the amount is also not unreasonable, so long as we're not going beyond a six-figure sum.

There ends my agreement with the changes to the trial accounts.

Trial players being unable to start teams makes little to no sense to me. The RMT farmers will still be able to team with themselves, but players new to the game will potentially miss out on a key aspect. This will make it harder for them to get a team if they want one, and as has been pointed out, it will make it more difficult in some cases to team with an RL friend. I have also never, ever been invited to a team by an RTMer who identified himself as such. I have had a couple of instances of people asking to join my team and proceeding to spam us via /team chat, but the kick button is just so handy.

Restrictions on trial accounts entering SGs make even less sense to me. The only two reasons I can think of why the devs would do that have already been mentioned in this forum: a) the padding for the prestige grant, and b) some SGs having their bins raided by RMTers (or other nefarious delinquents). As to the first, that should only be an issue if the devs are planing another prestige grant, and if they are, this is no reason to add such restrictions, as the same people hell-bent on restricting your access to cash would likely not also be willing to throw it at you.

As to the second, if you lost valuable stuff to an RMTer you errantly invited to your SG, it's you're own damn fault, not the devs, and trial accounts oughtn't have to pay the price for your error. I know it sounds harsh, but you have ample tools at your disposal to stop such thefts (such as restricting permissions--and if you made an RMTer a leader in your SG, you deserved what you got as far as I'm concerned). It is neither the duty nor the place of the devs to be fixing that for you, and it is inappropriate that you should ask someone else to pay the price for your own failings.

Last but not least, the chat restrictions do make some sense, yes. CoH, and to a lesser extent CoV, are, however, inherently team based games. There are ways to solo, and to solo well, but we should all know that no noob knows them and can only stumble into them by blind luck (kinda like I did... >.&gt. Allowing trial players to chat in broadcast is, I think, not unreasonable, but I note it's not on the list. I have played for the past year on Triumph, Infinity, Pinnacle, and Victory, and have yet to see an RMT ad anywhere but my inbox and in tells. Allowing trial accounts access to most of the other channels paying players have access to should increase their ability to effectively team without seriously increasing RMT spam. That said, they'd probably move there, given the other restrictions, so...

Which leaves us with the prickly issue of tells. It has been pointed out, correctly and at some length, that tells are an integral part of the process most players use to get a team, or to recruit one. The idea has been put forward that trial accounts be allowed to respond to tells but not to originate them. This solution, while interesting, will prove ultimately unfeasible.

It works from the inherent (and invalid) assumption that tells function as a sort of in-game AIM conversation, which one person can initiate and another can respond to, and they do have that effect. But in practice, the mechanics of the game are such that every tell sent would be accounted as a new conversation, not merely a continuation of an old one. Most of use that handy little backspace key to reply to tells, but all that amounts to is a keybind that fills in the first part of what we're doing, the routing information. But that's not actually replying. There is nothing to reply to as far as the software's concerned. It's just a new communique from point A to point B, and the system doesn't remember if something went from B to A first.

This leaves us with a problem since, clearly, RMTers are abusing tells, but we still need something to fulfill the role that tells fill for teaming for most players, and simply replying to a tell is outside what the system has been designed to handle. Rather, I would suggest that, with their new-found ability to expand the number of global channels, the devs create server-specific channels for trial accounts to communicate to one another, to allow them to team and learn together, with an explanation in the GMOTD of all trial accounts what that channel's for, and what sorts of questions should be directed to help. Otherwise help's going to be overloaded and people with legitimate questions won't be able to get them answered for all the people ignoring the channel.

Those are just my thoughts, take them as you will.

Does this mean buff icons and global chat colors are still screwed up? I'm not seeing anything in the patch notes to correct those problems.

That said, it may just be a failing of the patch notes, as the icons for my MM's pets have been fixed on test for some time...