Mister Rik
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Posts
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Joined
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I posted about this earlier when the problem first cropped up, in this thread (and got no response here). To sum up the problem: Attempting to access the Paragon Market (PM) brings up the PM window with a blank, black content area, and then immediately freezes and crashes my game client with an "Assertion Failure" error message.
Fortunately, I can still play the game without problems, as long as I don't try to access the PM. OTOH, my main character is "stuck" with the PM window open, so simply logging in that character causes an immediate crash. So that character has been unavailable to me since Feb. 24. Likewise, I'm now locked out of a second character after inadvertently clicking the "Shop" button in the Wentworth's interface, thus bringing up the PM window and crashing, leaving that character "stuck" with the PM window open.
I have a ticket in with tech support and they're looking into it; I've tried everything they've suggested, and tried several other things on my own, but nothing has worked. And I haven't heard anything new from them since March 14. Naturally, I'm getting a little frustrated. Not only am I locked out of two of my favorite characters, but I also can't buy anything from the store (and I really want to get my hands on that Imperial Dynasty costume pack).
It's been about 40 days now since this issue came up, and I'm despairing of a solution being found, considering that we Mac users are already a small minority in a small-playerbase game. And if I'm the one-and-only Mac user having this trouble, it's going to be even harder to find the problem. So I gotta ask - are any other Mac users experiencing this issue? "Circumstantial evidence" points to something in the small patch we got on Feb. 23 being the root of the problem, since I was able to access the PM the day before that patch, and the crashes started the day after. Nothing else changed on my machine between 2/22 and 2/24. -
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Quote:Potential, and experience. If you look at many of the well-known superheroes from comics, an awful lot of them actually have just one or two basic powers. But as they've grown more experienced, they've learned/figured out how to use those one or two powers in many different ways, and to use them better/more effectively.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
But I see slots as potential. Leveling unlocks potential. Slotting achieves that potential in a particular way. Natural human potential, Technological potential, Magical potential. Which is surprisingly close to what people are probably thinking when they build in Mids. I have so much potential slotting available, and I need to harness that in the best way possible.
In CoX, you can look at a lot of the power sets the same way. Fire Blast, for example. Are Flares, Fireball, Fire Blast, and Blaze really entirely different powers? Or are they just different ways of flinging the same ball of fire? For the defense/damage resistance sets, you can argue that they're all the same power it's just becoming more effective. Specifically, you'll notice that your character gets exposed to different kinds of damage/effects before you can train the specific power to resist those effects. So you might start out resistant to lethal/smashing damage, and then later, through being exposed to energy damage, you build up a tolerance, which is then represented by training the specific power that resists energy damage. It's not a "new" power, it's your original "damage resistance" getting better.
In real life, where I'm a professional chef, I use the same knife to slice, chop, and stab. One "power", three ways to use it. The same oven mitts I use to safely remove a hot pan from the oven can also theoretically allow me to handle something extremely cold. One "power", two different ways to use it. -
Quote:I would like to see a mechanic to enable "secret identities", though I realize it would probably require some major game-engine rewriting at this point. What I envision is, say, a costume slot that is designated "civilian" or "secret identity". You'd design a "non-costume". i.e. an everyday, normal outfit, and a "real name" to go with it. When that "non-costume" was active, the random wandering civilians stop making remarks about your recent adventures/accomplishments, and contacts address you as "Sir" or "Madam" or "Miss", or by your "real name". Additionally, your contacts wouldn't offer missions, because they don't recognize you out of costume, you're simply a citizen trying to chat with them. And of course, this "secret identity" slot would be completely optional if you're green-skinned or a non-human-looking alien or a robot, a "secret identity" is probably out of the question (unless you're some kind of shapeshifter).Originally Posted by Zortel
I tend to dislike the CoH column on Massively, and in the most recent one they complained about a lack of an alter-ego/job mechanic in game. I for one am glad there is no 'official' implemented system to handle this. Why? Because as the system currently stands, there are now over the course of 22 updates few mechanical barriers to have my characters do something I want them to do as a job, or be.
This idea actually occurred to me while playing a certain other MMO, when my rogue entered a shop while stealthed, and the shopkeeper immediately called out "Welcome, rogue! How may I help you?" and I was all, "Dude, shut up! I'm invisible!"
Edit: Actually, closer to the point would be my human paladin or warrior traveling to the other side of the world to visit the elf city where nobody knows him, walking around town in his everyday clothing instead of his armor, and still being addressed by his class name ("Greetings, paladin...") It's like, "Um, I left my plate armor and greatsword back at the inn. I'm wearing leather pants and a shirt. How does everybody immediately know I"m a paladin? Especially in this foreign city where they follow a different religion and most of these people have never left their homeland?" -
My Energy/Energy brute, White Orchid, in the smoke from a smokestack in Independence Port, with Energy Cloak active:
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Being superheroes, we're not cartoons. We're sequential artworks.
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I do it on every character. For one thing, I can stand there before I start, collecting the 736 Account Items in my mailbox and setting up my bars without the distraction of a dozen team invites and tells asking me to join sewer runs I would get if I was just standing in one spot in Atlas doing those things.
OTOH, I don't know how it is on the Windows side of things, but but the horrendous lagfest that tutorial is on a Mac (on my Mac anyway) kinda makes a poor first impression of the game. -
When I train Fly on my Natural characters, I just imagine they're issued a flight ring ala the Legion of Superheroes.
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Quote:Originally Posted by airhead
"NYEEEEEEEEEEOOM!"
I love how she's not making that noise, she's thinking that noise. Epic.
I originally made a speech bubble, but changed it to a thought bubble at the last minute. I figured she was thinking about how she just needs to do a few more radio missions and she'll be able to train Super Speed!
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Couple shots of one of my newer characters, Energy Ellie (on Triumph), fighting the Giant Shivan in Galaxy City:
Oops!
Victory!
And Mental Miyuki, also on Triumph, also fighting the Giant Shivan:
From Virtue, Girl Mercury zipping through Kings Row:
And from Liberty, it's Tora pouncing in an AE mission:
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Quote:I've had minor success doing this with Dark Armor, but turning Energy Armor white just makes it brighter and more intense. Though the color fits that particular character, a brute named White Orchid, so I like the look. I'd just like less of the lookOriginally Posted by Border_line
I'm not arguing against this idea, but can't you tone down most of these by using darker/lighter colors? I minimized how EnAura looks by using either the darkest or lightest colors on two characters already.
You could also argue that it isn't even necessarily fire. "Fire" is just a designation for a power set that looks and behaves a certain way. I have a defender named Lifecircle, who is primarily a healer who believes in the sanctity of life. Her secondary PS is "Fire Blast", but burning her enemies would be anathema to her. So I colored all her fire effects green and decided she's not shooting fire, she's blasting and overwhelming her enemies with pure Life Force, leaving them dazed in wonder at the beauty of life (and wanting to change their evil ways).Quote:Originally Posted by Dr Harmony
Fire Armor without Fire or heat could still make sense.
You're fairly tough, can heal yourself, damage people around you, can extract energy from those around you and tend to explosively revive yourself.
Could be radiation-based, generic magic, or a nano-tech effect or whatever you want it to be.
(Apart from the fact you're visually on fire)
I do that kind of thing with a lot of my characters. I figure an unlimited number of superpowered beings should sport an unlimited variety of superpowers, so why not come up with different explanations so that two characters with the same powers actually have different powers? Give a character the "Dark Armor" power set and change it's colors to sickly brown and yellow. Now, instead of that character being wrapped in the power of the netherworld, he simply smells really really bad: Stench Armor! And really, such a power set would logically have the same ToHit Debuffs
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Quote:I was going to address this - I'm a professional cook, and the surface of my grill gets all kind of burny hot without being covered in a sheet of flameOriginally Posted by Roderick
Just because my body is so hot that I'm resistant to heat and even burn those that get close doesn't mean that I'm on fire.
Anyway, I tried the slash command Rebel_Scum suggested (set the value to 50) and it seems to have done the trick this time. Though I still need to test its effect of other power sets, namely whether or not it makes my Fire/Ice Swords vanish the same way lowering the Particle Count does. -
I get what you're saying about "they don't work conceptually without it" (though in the case of Energy Aura, you could argue that "energy" can easily be invisible) — I'm not so much looking to turn the FX off; rather, I'd like to just tone them down a bit. I've had some luck in that regard by going into the advanced settings and lowering the Particle Count to a very low value, but that has some unpredictable effects. A low number will get a melee character's defensive auras down to a nice performance/aesthetics balance, but it also has a direct, negative effect on my blasters' powers, i.e. rendering them very "wimpy" looking, and making powers like Fire Sword or Ice Sword disappear entirely. I end up having to readjust the setting on a character-by-character basis.
I'll try out the slash command you suggested, though. Seems I tried that once before and it didn't work, but I don't know if maybe the person who suggested it gave me the wrong command, or maybe there's a glitch in the Mac version (which I have) that makes it work incorrectly. Can't hurt to try again, though. -
Quote:I throw ... one of these panicking civilians that keeps getting in my way every time I try to go through a door in a mission!Originally Posted by Leo_G
I THROOOOW!!!! A desk lamp!
*WHUBOOOOFFF!!*
I THROW!! A computer tower.
*WHUBOOOOFFF!!*
I throw. A TV monitor...
*WHUBOO- yeah, I'm not using this anymore... -
I find it kind of odd that some "armor" power sets, like Invulnerability, have a "Minimal FX" option in the power customization menu at the tailor, but others, like Energy Aura, don't. I really think this ought to be an option for all of them.
Aside from the fact that some of these armor PSs tend to almost completely hide my character (Dark Armor, I'm looking at you), they also introduce a bunch of unwanted lag. On some of my brutes and scrappers I'm forced to drop the "Graphics Quality" slider all the way down to "Minimum" just to avoid having to play at an annoyingly low FPS. I already play most of the time with the slider set to "Performance" (one step above Minimum).
Then there's the "aesthetics" issue. As mentioned, some of these FX effectively hide my character from me. This is especially bad on my main villain, who has dark skin, wears a dark costume, and has the Dark Armor power set ... in the Rogue Isles where it seems to be night or severely overcast all the time. I can't enjoy this character's appearance at all. While this is improved, along with performance, by setting the Graphics Quality slider to "Minimum", the "Minimum" setting also uglifies and ruinates the appearance of my characters' costumes, something I put a lot of time and thought into designing. I realize it's probably asking something that would require a complete engine rewrite, but it would be awesome if the Graphics Quality slider would simply affect everything except the character model and the costume attached to it. Maybe have a completely separate slider for "Model/Character Quality". When I'm in a mission I personally don't care at all about how detailed my surroundings are, since I'm just running past it most of the time. But I'm looking at my character all of the time, and I'd like him/her to look good. So the ability to "turn down" the environmental, terrain, and power set effects, while leaving my character and costume "turned up" would be awesome.
But in the meantime, I'd settle for that "Minimal FX" option at the tailor. -
Not to mention the "final objective" in a Council base is almost always found in that big grid-like room with all the water.
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A'ight, thanks
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Is there a way to move "active" contacts over to the "inactive" list? And related to that, a way to also clear those contacts' related mission clues out of the Clues list?
For example, a few of my characters have Montague Castalanella in their "Active Contacts" list. Having done his missions several times already, I decided I didn't want to finish his chain on these characters. But there he still is, cluttering up my Active Contacts list, and there are clues from the first couple missions taking up space in my Clues list. Some of my characters have more than one contact like this.
Is going back and completing the mission arcs the only way to get rid of these contacts/clues? -
Of course, this has to happen on my day off, instead of on the day I'm working a 12-hour shift and don't have time to play anyway...
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Before I caught on to the fact that Resistance NPCs in Praetoria have their own "secret language", I was convinced that the game must come from Japan or Korea, or at least have some portion of its development done there. Some of the things Resistance NPCs say read as exactly the kinds of mistakes non-native speakers make when speaking English, or when translating from their own language. For example, using a word that means almost what they meant, but not quite:
"What are we glimpsing for?"
I can see somebody checking their "Other Language to English" dictionary for the word "look" in their own language, and the dictionary suggests, "look, see, search, spy, view, glimpse, etc.", and choosing "glimpse", not realizing it doesn't mean quite what they wanted. This is pretty much the exact mistake I ran into in real life, years ago, when I was a shoe salesman and approached a Mexican man who was looking at some boots. I approached and asked if I could assist him, and he said, "I am seeing only". It took me a second to realize he meant, "I'm just looking". -
Quote:Actually, for realism's sake, the city ought to be devoid of payphones anyway. Thanks to everybody having a cell phone now, I can't even remember the last time I saw a pay phone in the real world.Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
But if I have anything to say about it, it will be completely devoid of mailboxes, pay phones, newsstands and fire hydrants.
Then again, when I walk down the street in my town, I also don't see a steady stream of 1970s land yachts rolling in traffic either... -
The general grammar of that sentence could use some work as well:
"Her safety is of the utmost concern to me, as per her orders."
And honestly, I'd have worded the first sentence, "... on Primal Earth." Unless, of course, Praetor Duncan's location is underground.
Quote:For me it was "awry". I first read the word when I was a little kid in grade school, but I never heard it spoken until I was in high school. I'd been pronouncing it "AW-ree" (only in my head, fortunately) for years before I finally learned it was pronounced "a-RYE".Originally Posted by Blood Red Arachnid
Same goes for when I see a word written out a hundred times, but have never heard it spoken.
You do NOT want to know how I originally pronounced "epitome". -
Quote:At least the costume pieces that are supposed to be "armor" appear to actually fit like armor. One of the things that always annoyed me when I was playing WoW was the way I'd make a female paladin or warrior, and her plate armor would be "skinned" onto her torso in exactly the same way a cloth shirt would be. That is, perfectly hugging every womanly curve and jiggling.Originally Posted by Lothic
Oh and those same smart people probably would've figured out how to give us clothing in MMOs that realistically stretches over cleavage like it would IRL as well.
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Quote:No kidding - last time I did that mission I swear I had to whack fifty 5th Column to get my 10 Council. The only Council in Steel Canyon (where the contact claims they're so active) are lone lieutenants standing on boxes, lone, unconscious mobs being guarded by four 5th Column, or small groups in firefights with the 5th Column where they get killed by the 5th Column faster than you can pop 'em.Originally Posted by Quinch
Because the 5th Column are filthy killstealers.
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Hey, can some of y'all mention the names of the characters instead of just posting screenshots? Some of us haven't been in the game long enough to know every NPC on sight. I have no idea who those are in posts #87 and #105.
Anyway, as far as in-game models I have to add another vote for Mirror Spirit, simply because she's got the best model of the NPCs I've encountered so far. Most of the female signature characters I've encountered, at least in their "stand in one spot because they're contacts" versions, are just way too skinny, which leaves even Twinshot and Flambeaux beating most of them.
Also, I'm a big fan of one particular Longbow model:
I first encountered this model while playing a villain, and it was hard to get a good screenshot while fighting, so I was happy to find this lady standing in one place talking to a civilian in Faultline