Mister Rik
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Posts
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Joined
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That seems odd to me - we have to come to a complete stop anyway to attack, so I don't see why my mode of ground movement before I stopped would require different animations after I stopped. Of course, I can see why different animations are necessary for fighting while flying/hovering. But, I'm neither a programmer nor an animator, so I'll take the dev's word for it .
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I don't know if I've just had bad luck with picking up contacts, or what, but I've found little reason or ability to spend much time in Skyway City.
My main issues I see here:
1) Skyway City perfectly matches Steel Canyon's level ranges.
2) Steel Canyon has "essential" content (Monty Castanella, invention tutorial, first costume mission) that Skyway lacks.
3) Skyway is a nightmare to navigate if you're not a flyer, and this provides a disincentive to visit the zone any more than necessary.
Admittedly, some of the "problems" I perceive with Skyway are caused by my personal playstyle preferences. The main "culprit", probably, is that I like to do the whole Shining Stars storyline, mainly because there's a nice reward at the end. I like to do Monty's arc ASAP if for no other reason than it gets his face out of my Contacts list (and same for the Invention Tutorial and the AE Tour, though there are no XP or other rewards for the latter; I want to unclutter my Contacts list). And I love the Faultline story too much to skip it. The end result is that my characters are level 20 before they've really even sniffed Skyway.
As to my second point, are there any "essential/awesome" story arcs that come from Skyway contacts? The only one I've managed to find before outleveling the zone is the Vahzilok arc that ends with fighting the Doctor himself. That one is fun, but it's the only one I've found.
Finally, the navigation issue. I can't really see any practical way for a non-flyer to get around Skyway. Really, all of the zones can be confusing to get around on foot (a problem I think could largely be solved by replacing the current topographic maps with plain old street maps c'mon, it's a city, street maps would be fare more useful than what we have). I've made enough alts that I can finally zip around Atlas Park on foot without having to constantly consult my map to see where the streets go, and this is even easier now that I've purchased the Ninja Run power. But later zones, unless you've been playing long enough to memorize all of the streets ... good luck. Skyway City is the worst, because the map itself is completely useless for trying to determine where all the various routes go, what with the way they overlap and criss-cross each other. I've got a few characters who have Super Speed, and they're not gonna touch Skyway (except for the ones I finally trained Flight on out of frustration). Super Leap is a bit better, but the vertical distances between roads in Skyway make leaping up a level impossible in most cases.
Basically, is there any good reason to spend time in Skyway City? Right now, for me, it's basically a quick stop on my way to Faultline. -
Quote:Kudos to that guy - that's pretty coolOriginally Posted by Forbin_Project
Tough. Walk was created by one dev on his own time specifically for role players that wanted to be able to walk around and RP when they weren't fighting.
I retract my "ridiculous" and just call it "surprising", as this is the only game I've seen where "walk" isn't a simple toggle that doesn't affect anything else. My initial assumption was that it would function like Sprint, which *doesn't* disable everything.
*GASP* I can't believe I didn't think of that myself!Quote:Originally Posted by Nethergoat
don't like it, don't use it.
SOLVED!!
But seriously, I obviously don't "walk" when I'm in combat. But the functionality got me in trouble a couple times when I was brand new at the game I'd been trying out the different features and failed to notice that "Walk" had turned off all my defensive toggles (I play with "Disable FX when close" enabled because a lot of the defensive auras murder my FPS, so I was accustomed to not seeing the FX anyway) and then I went into combat without my defenses up. But this was no different than using the Rocket Board, which did the same thing to me a few times before I caught on. -
Quote:Yeah, there wasn't much my Energy/Energy brute could do to healOriginally Posted by Thunder Knight
They've definitely changed it. They're Lieutenant-level characters who are cheerfully aggroing every enemy on the map. I can only do so much to keep them alive when they're trying to take on multiple Bosses at the same time.
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For the benefit of we relative noobs, what the heck is "ED"?
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Quote:Cool, thanks. I think the only contact any of my characters have had with Vanguard has been during the Montague Castanella arc, when he sends you to the Vanguard building in Atlas to talk to the Rikti defector, and I usually do that at a low level. I didn't even realize the portal to RWZ was in that building until I made a wrong turn on one character and walked right into it.Originally Posted by OneWhoBinds
Once you hit level 35, you can go to the Rikti War Zone and talk to Levantera. I don't think you get a specific notice that you can talk to her, but she will start handing out her missions at that level.
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Quote:Kings Row must be an example of what somebody upthread said about "routing around" the weaker, older material. I discovered I basically have to turn off XP and actually go out of my way to even find Kings Row content that isn't directly related to the Shining Stars arc. Aside from the KR detectives, I don't think I've ever found a contact there without turning off XP and doing Safeguards.Originally Posted by Guinefort
The King's Row missions are, in my opinion, the rock bottom worst still in the game. (Note that all of this material is blueside).
Love Faultline.Quote:But stuff from a just a couple of years later can be excellent. A lot of people consider the Faultline arcs to still be unsurpassed, for example.
The Red Coral arc is fun. I especially liked the ending, on the boat... (don't wanna spoil it).Quote:Redside is a matter of taste. I don't have a problem with most of the arcs; there are only a couple of real stinkers (Operative Kirkland, I'm looking at you), and quite a number of really fun or interesting stories.
Somebody mentioned the "Meet Vanguard" arc. I've only gotten two characters to level 35 or beyond so far, but I don't have any recollection of either of them getting any in-game info on that arc. How does one get that? -
Thanks for the tips
I left the "dead" NCLauncher sitting there, and eventually Windows popped up a "Microsoft.NET Framework" alert box (and NCLauncher went away).
"Unhandled exception has occurred in a component in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue.
Cannot access a disposed object.
Object name: 'ExtendedWebBrowser'.
The "Details" button gave me the following debug text:
************** Exception Text **************
System.ObjectDisposedException: Cannot access a disposed object.
Object name: 'ExtendedWebBrowser'.
at System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser.get_AxIWebBrowser2 ()
at System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser.get_Url()
at NC.Launcher.SmartParts.WebDetailView.RefreshPage()
at NC.Launcher.SmartParts.WebDetailView.m_timer_Tick( Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Timer.OnTick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Timer.TimerNativeWindow.WndPr oc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)
************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5456 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
_Launcher
Assembly Version: 1.6.7.2
Win32 Version: 1.6.7.2
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/NCSoft/Launcher/_Launcher.EXE
----------------------------------------
NC.Logging
Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/NCSoft/Launcher/NC.Logging.DLL
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5456 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)
CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5460 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)
CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5462 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)
CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
NLog
Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/NCSoft/Launcher/NLog.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Runtime.Remoting
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5420 (Win7SP1.050727-5400)
CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Runtime.Remoting/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Runtime.Remoting.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Configuration
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5420 (Win7SP1.050727-5400)
CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5420 (Win7SP1.050727-5400)
CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Security
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5420 (Win7SP1.050727-5400)
CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Security/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Security.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Design
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5460 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)
CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Design/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Design.dll
----------------------------------------
UnRar.Net
Assembly Version: 1.0.4461.28482
Win32 Version:
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/NCSoft/Launcher/UnRar.Net.DLL
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This can be described fairly simply:
Toshiba laptop with Windows 7 + NCLauncher
If I neglect to exit out of NCLauncher when I'm done with it, and the laptop puts itself to sleep, upon awaking I'll find that NCLauncher has effectively become a part of my desktop wallpaper. I can't move the window, everything in the window is unresponsive to mouse clicks, and I cannot exit the program in any way*. My only solution is to reboot the computer. Simply logging out and back in doesn't seem to do the trick.
*"Any way" that I can think of, that is. I'm primarily a Mac user, and Windows 98 was the last version of Windows I used "seriously" before getting this Windows 7 laptop. And it would appear that CTRL+ALT+DEL works differently in Win7 than it did in Win98. What is the new method to "kill" or "force quit" an application? -
Quote:I've suggested the same thing with the "missions" you get from Steel Canyon/Skyway City contacts to go meet the Hero Corps Field Analyst in Kings Row, and the ones that direct you to the PvP zones. And it's not just because by now I already know good and well where to find these things; it's because nobody else in the zone will give me a mission until I finish them.Originally Posted by Tyger
However this is something I'd like to see done for one particular contact who shows up: Architect Manager. I know how the AE works, I don't need to take a tour on every character nor should I need to be introduced to you on every character when it's a global meta-game system tied to my global account. We have five of the AE badges globally (and personally I'd prefer the entire set to be global) from level 1 once we have them so why do I need to take the same boring tour EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. (or leave him hanging in my contacts list until I actually bother to run it because I have a spare minute).
OTOH, I was starting to get annoyed with Montague Castanella cluttering up my Contacts list, until I realized I needed to do his missions to get access to the Midnighter Club. -
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Quote:"If I worry, will the future change?" - Kwai Chang KaneOriginally Posted by Healix
If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?
*GASP* You've discovered the source code for the AI of those panicked civilians in so many missions!Quote:Originally Posted by Schismatrix
When in danger,
or in doubt,
run in circles,
scream and shout.
An idealist is somebody who, upon finding that a rose smells good, assumes it would make a good soup.Quote:Originally Posted by jwbullfrog
Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. -
Oops, I should have read this thread before I posted my own on the same topic. I guess the only difference is that I was doing it for the first time, so didn't know that it wasn't always like this. Though my main complaint is that the mission doesn't "fail" when one of the mages dies - it just lets you continue on your merry way completing the other objectives. And if you abandon the mission and try to reacquire it, you have to go back and redo the previous mission first.
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The First Ward mission, "The Dark Host", needs some tweaking, methinks.
Specifically, I think it needs some sort of immediate "fail condition" if one of the NPCs you're supposed to find dies. I was doing this mission for the first time a couple days ago and ran into an extremely annoying issue. I met up with Blind Makwa and led him to his Spirit Ward. Mistress Nadia was waiting there. Upon attempting to set up Makwa's ward, I was attacked by a group of enemies. At the same time, Nadia decided to run off and engage a completely different group (or perhaps she was ambushed), something I didn't notice until I'd finished with the group I was fighting. By that time, it was too late Nadia was down.
Here's the first problem: There was nothing to indicate that Nadia's death (5 minutes into the mission) meant I could not complete the mission. I finished setting up Makwa's ward, then located Cerulean and Vanessa DeVore and got their wards set up, and then finally, after much hunting, located Nadia's ward. Whereupon I got the "You can't complete this objective yet" message when I clicked on it. I'm assuming this was because I hadn't led Nadia to the ward. And I couldn't lead her there because she was dead. So I'm mildly annoyed that I wasted my time completing all of the following objectives to no effect, and that the game just let me continue with the mission. I couldn't complete the mission, and exiting and speaking with Blind Makwa offered me neither "failure" text nor the option to autocomplete the mission. All I could do was log out for a while so that I could log back in and Abandon the mission.
That leads to the second problem. After abandoning the mission, I spoke to Makwa to reacquire it and try again, only to discover that I can't just reacquire the mission; instead, I have to redo the previous mission, "Splitting Souls" a mission that can only be completed when it's nighttime in First Ward. So if it's daytime, I'll need to stand around First Ward waiting for the sun to go down. Either that, or go back to Primal Earth and run Radio or Tip missions, checking back into First Ward in between missions to see if it's nighttime.
Suggested fixes:
If an NPC dies in "The Dark Host", fail the mission right then instead of letting the player continue on pointlessly.
Let the player who failed abandon and then reacquire "The Dark Host" instead of making them go back to the previous mission. -
To be honest, I find it utterly ridiculous that "Walk" is a "power". Particularly a power that disables all my other powers. I'm walking, so I can't fight?
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Quote:Aside from that message doing a splendid job of validating Aaron Thiery's complaints, from a gameplay perspective it makes little sense in a game where every mission except street-sweeps is instanced. CoH's instanced missions eliminate the problem other MMOs have with high-level characters getting in the way of lowbies and "stealing" their kills.Originally Posted by Issen
It always somewhat bothered me that the message when you outlevel a zone is "These are beneath your notice", which felt a little alarming when I play a hero who doesn't mind helping the police.
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Quote:Wolverine? Nightcrawler? Batman? All of those sound more "scary/villain" than "heroic".Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
(they actually sound more like throw-away villains to me than franchise heroes, but whatever), they do not ring the bell for me in terms of sounding like classic four-color superhero names like you would see starring in a comic book from Marvel or DC
Pigfoot!Quote:Originally Posted by Traska
And the adjectives and adverbs idea (especially the examples given) honestly make me think of "The Deadly Bulb". A good superhero name should *never* make me think of The Tick. -
Quote:My very first fire/fire blaster is female, and dresses in red and orange leather with chains and a spiked collar for the BDSM look: FlaminatrixOriginally Posted by Traska
The thing is, I like four-color superhero names. And there's a limited pool of them to go around. (Don't believe me? Try making someone with a fire themed name that sounds even vaguely superheroish. Good luck!)
My female fire/fire scrapper: Incinerata
Both are on Justice, and I got both names on the first try.
I present to you, Strong Guy! (actual Marvel character, current member of X-Factor)Quote:Originally Posted by Traska
A name is important. If The Flash had been named "Runs Really Fast Man", or if Cyclops had been named "Laser Eyes Man", who here would take them seriously? A superhero name is more than what other people call you... it's insight into the character. Thing, Superman, Juggernaut. All three have immense strength, but all three are utterly different characters. The Thing is unsophisticated, Superman is more than just a pile of muscle, and the Juggernaut is unstoppable.
Heh. Now I'm thinking of the 20,000 characters in the 800-pound-gorilla game named some variation of "Goku".Quote:Originally Posted by _eeek_
When the name I want has already been taken, what I hear is "you're thinking along the same lines as 32,547 people before you. Think differently."
Why would anyone WANT a name that everyone and their 3rd cousin has? I can't think of anything more dreary.
I'm a relative newcomer (been playing since Sept. 2011), but I've had relatively little trouble coming up with names, despite being an altoholic with 80 characters already.
On Virtue, I created a "team" concept revolving around a middle-aged scientist who developed a process for imbuing normal people with superpowers, and created a team from an international group of volunteers. The team is all-female (like most of my characters) and has a "solar system" theme:
Mother Sun (team leader, the aforementioned middle-aged scientist, rad/fire defender)
Girl Mercury (England, kin/SR scrapper)
Venus Lass (USA, former Miss California, grav/earth dominator)
Erdmadchen (Germany - couldn't find any English variation on "Earth Girl" that I liked, so I decided she was German, plant/storm controller)
Ms. Mars (an actual Martian, sword/shield brute)
Fille de Jupiter (France, ice/fire tanker)
Saturn Signal (USA, psych/mm blaster)
Princesa Urana (Mexico, elec/time corruptor)
Neptune's Niece (Canada, ice/ice blaster, though I'll be rerolling her as Water Blast, since it fits better)
Notta Planet (USA, representing Pluto, but annoyed that Pluto was declared "Not a planet" shortly before she completed her training, dark/dark scrapper)
Lunagetic (Dominican Republic, dark/energy blaster)
Haylee Komet (USA, fire/dark blaster - I was astonished that this name was available)
Solar Sail (rad/energy blaster)
Full list of my characters here -
I've been having similar issues lately and have some suspicions about where the problem might lie. Do you, by chance, sometimes have Firefox open in the background while CoH is running? I'm really starting to get the impression that CoH and Firefox don't play well together.
I usually have my e-mail client and Firefox running while I'm playing, and will tab out to check my mail or look at something on the Web while I'm waiting for a loading screen or waiting for a character to log out. So sometimes when I'm playing and the game seems to be lagging a bit, I'll go to close Firefox and my mail client, and either or both will freeze up (with the spinning beachball) and refuse to quit - I can't even get the "Force Quit" window to come up. This is followed shortly by CoH freezing up completely, and I'm forced to manually shut off my Mac with the power button. And of course, thanks to the improper shutdown, it takes absolutely forever for my Mac to reboot.
I've long heard reports of Firefox memory leaks, and have heard a few rumors of the Mac CoH client having a memory leak, so I wonder if these two programs running at the same time might be causing big memory problems. -
Yeah, seriously, 5th/Council. There's a contact in Steel Canyon as well who seems to have three different Council-hunting missions, and half the time the only Council I can find who aren't in a running firefight are the ones lying on the ground as "prisoners", surrounded by 4-5 5th Column soldiers. I end up having to defeat 50 5th Column to collect my 10 Council.
Amusingly, on one of those hunting missions, the contact states that the Council is doing a lot of "heavy recruiting" in Steel Canyon. Seems to me that "repeatedly get butt kicked by 5th Column" is a pretty poor recruiting strategy
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Well, I still can't read the fine print, but those are a lot sharper than what I see in-game
Interesting thing about the DFB poster is that I spotted a character hanging around Ms. Liberty 3-4 weeks ago named "Death From Balogna" (yeah, with "bologna" misspelled). I don't know if he got the idea from the poster, though - I don't think those poster were up yet, unless he saw them on beta or something.
But it gives me an idea for a "sequel" - "Dipped in Batter", or maybe "Drowning in Beer"
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Quote:I was able to make out that the Hero 1 poster said, "One Man. One Chance. One Way.", but I don't think that's what you're talking about. Unfortunately, moving my graphics slider any higher than "Performance" renders the game mostly unplayable on my machineOriginally Posted by Dark_Respite
It's even better when you've got your graphics cranked all the way up and you can actually read the text at the BOTTOM of the posters.
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Thanks
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Huh. Going just by what I've read in the Shining Stars arc, I was convinced that Twinshot was Praetorian. In her dialogue, she makes (or attempts to make) pop culture references that don't quite make sense. There are also a few places where she seems to be trying to use common American figures of speech, but uses them incorrectly, sometimes mixing her metaphors.
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So I was passing through Kings Row on one of my lowbie characters yesterday and found myself in front of the movie theater near the police station. I noticed that the posters were not the same ones I remembered from the last time I'd stopped and looked a few months ago. ("Death From Bologna" )
Am I just misremembering, or do those posters actually change from time to time? -
Quote:Out of curiosity, is that a MacBook-specific setting? There's no such checkbox in my iMac's Energy Saver CP.Originally Posted by CuppaManga
Also, usually it's on by default, but in the Energy Saver panel in System Settings (on your Mac) you want to turn on that checkbox at the top about automatic graphics switching.