MrCaptainMan
-
Posts
2452 -
Joined
-
After being less than impressed with the new 'tutorial' mission on Beta, I wondered if it was possible for me to keep Oubreak (which I am quite fond of) alive for myself, somehow. I rolled up a new toon, parked him in Outbreak, and then transferred him to the Beta server using the character transfer tool.
On the VIP Beta, he is still in Outbreak!
This is either a temporary bug-like thing, or when I21 goes live, my live version of 'Old Tutorial Guy' will still be in Outbreak too!
I'm hoping the latter, so i can visit from time to time and beat up a few Contaminated for old times sake.
Eco. -
I think your forumname is v cool, Nihilii.
Eco -
Now that I've seen the new tutorial 'zone', which they should have called 'Generic Ruined City Map's Last Stand', I'll miss Galaxy as we have it now.
Boomtown is a ruined ZONE. The new tutorial isn't.
Eco. -
If someone farms their way to 50 in a week, they might take the view that they've 'finished' the game and stop subscribing. if they farm every toon they roll up to 50 for 6 months, they might look at their full server of 50s and feel they've finished the game and seen most of what it offers in terms of other ATs, and stop subscribing.
6 months is better than a week for NCSoft, but 6 years is far better.
I don't know if there are people who have been playing CoH for 6+ years and who have farmed and PLed their toons non-stop for that whole period. I would surmise that those people are few. I may be wrong.
Eco. -
Quote:Wait, there's going to be a lot of new players coming to CoH? Because of something called Freedom? Cheers for the spoilers, Captain Spoiler!Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
Every so often you encounter some serendipity where some topic pops up repeatedly in numerous different media; enough to make you wonder if the Universe is sending you some kind of message
Just recently, I've seen the topic of plot spoilers pop up here in the forums, on Twitter, on mailing lists and even in the popular press.
It got me thinking that with Freedom close to launch and the presumed influx of a lot of newbies into Paragon City, that it would be a good time to start a discussion about how to handle talking about the game without outright spoiling things for the hopeful influx of new VIP's.
Eco. -
Quote:ROFL i just spat coffee over my keyboardOriginally Posted by SpaceNut
Wow, you're in it for the long haul!
Eco. -
Can we talk about beta here now? How about posting pics?
Cos there's something i really want to start a discussion here on...
Eco. -
Quote:I'm planning on changing my current 3-month recurring sub to a yearly one before i221 hits, and an answer to this would interest me too.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Thread title, really, but let me elaborate just the same.
My old card that I was using to subscribe to City of Heroes for the last three or four years has expired and I've had a new one issued to me. My bank manager cut it up with scissors, which to me was a novel experience. The point, though, is that now I have to swap to my new card before my bill date is due (which is still a while away, luckily), and I don't seen an option to do this on my PlayNC account. The only way I can think of to do this is to cancel my account billing, then restart it and enter the new card's details, instead.
Here's the kicker, though - won't this somehow interfere with the Paragon Points we're already accumulating towards Freedom? I remember a few people got burned with the Vanguard Pack promotion that required uninterrupted subscription for a few months when they had to swap payment methods or had their cards expire and such, and I was wondering if that won't be a problem when I go about cancelling and resubscribing. I wonder, furthermore, if there isn't some kind of "Swap Card" or "Add Card" option in my game account management that I'm not seeing. I know PayPal have that, but I'm sure they use a different infrastructure.
Basically, thread: Will swapping payment methods interfere with my Paragon Points acquisition and is there a better way to do this than cancelling?
Eco. -
I'd actually be quite haoppy giving a smallish ticket/inf/xp/whatever bonus to arcs tagged as farms. Would farmers actiovely choose to tag their arcs as farms if doing so gave 10 more tickets and 1000 more xp? That's pretty minimal, but it IS a plus, so for min-maxers, it's more optimal than not having it, however small the advantage.
Eco -
Quote:I apologise for misunderstanding. However, if the devs altered the system so that story arcs got better rewards than they do now, then farm arcs would also see their rewards improved, since they use the same mechanics to create their rewards.Originally Posted by BeyondReach
People really should read people's posts. I was saying that story arcs should not provide superior rewards to farms. They should just provide better rewards than they currently do.
Eco. -
Quote:Good ideas all.Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
1. All existing arcs are tagged as farm arcs (people who care about their stories will be more willing to update their arc than someone who created an old farm using an exploit that no longer works)
2. New arcs are set to "farm" by default (again, story writers will care enough to change this, farm creators are unlikely to)
3. The AE arc window defaults to the farm tab the first time you open it (after that it defaults to the last tab you looked at)
Eco. -
Quote:I agree, there's no need to 'bribe' layers to play Story Arcs. If there were better rewards for story arcs, the farmers would begin searching for a way to disguise their farms as story arcs or something. Which would possibly be entertaining, however.Originally Posted by Crysys
Why? The reward for playing a "real" arc is the story, right? Keep all AE missions the same, just segregated. Separate but equal.
But seriously, I think story arcs and farms should offer the same reward system as each other.
Eco. -
Quote:But the farm arcs arent even comic books in the eyes of the creative types. I don't mean 'competition' in the sense of 'oh, someone prefers a farm arc to my story arc', to me, that's like I've got a restaurant and someone posts a review saying 'This restaurant fails badly at selling me lapshades' lol. By competition, I mean that both farms and story arcs are 'on sale' in the same place, the AE interface. And because of the mechanics of how farms are played, ie over and over, repetitively, they're going to rise to the front pages.Originally Posted by Crysys
Mostly in agreement, yes. Although I don't see the Search engine as representative of a "competition" between the farms and 'genuine' story arcs at all. Farmers don't care about the story arcs. Story Arc'ers obviously do care about being lumped in with the 'riff-raff' that is farms.
I think its just a feeling on the part of those who write and enjoy reading others' writing that the AE farms are more popular than their own 'legitimate' efforts. And thats a swipe to ego no matter how its sliced and diced. If I were Hemmingway and the AE was the only outlet for publishing my works, I'd likely be pretty upset if my stuff was cluttered up with a bunch of comic books.
Please understand that it's not about 'popularity'. However many people like and play a farm arc is irrelevant to me, because I don't write farm arcs. if there was a farm tab and a story arc tab in the AE interface, I'd never open the farm tab, and my arcs placing in the story arcs tabs leaderboard would actually be meaningful because it would be in a place where it would be judged amongst its peers.
I try to avoid using language like 'legitimate' and 'genuine' arcs for story arcs, since a farm arc, as long as its not an exploit, is as legitimate as a story arc. They are both arc, but they are not the same in terms of what they're for or how they're made, and they shouldn't be gathered together in the same place.
Eco. -
Quote:I get this as well and it's teeth-grindingly annoying.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
So how about the bug where people on my team perpetually display as in another zoning in so I can never see their health bars in my team window and I can't see them on my map so if my team-mate gets separated or killed I'll never know about it? Does that count as a bug?
Eco. -
Quote:We obviously have a very different concept of how long of a wait is too much. Maybe farmers have shorter attention spans than me, i don't know. I enjoy playing story arcs in a duo with my SG-mate, and a big part of the enjoyment is jointly discovering the story. Waiting for her to read a misison briefing or copying and pasting a clue for her isn't something I class as at all onerous, because we are both interested in the story. If you routinely team with tl;dr players, and you are one yourself, then it's understandable that you prefer to just race through hitting things for metagame reasons, and if it's the destination not the journey that is important to you, then since reading a clue doesn't grant xp or recipes, then obviously you're going to want to avoid any narrative.Originally Posted by Crysys
Reading a story is not a group activity. Its a personal pursuit, unless we are talking about reading a bedtime story to a child. Again, I think you miss the point of what makes the game fun and exciting for a (overwhelmingly?) large percentage of the playerbase. Its an action video game. Nobody likes to wait at the mission door for extensive periods of time while someone reads the next chapter pre-amble. The Dev's understand this...this is why TF's have fairly short textual updates between missions in the arc.
In this manner, most of the AE mission arcs I've run are slanted mostly towards solo players who are willing to take the time to read everything...nobody else waiting on this. Waiting while someone else reads stuff isn't fun for me. Maybe for you?
I think we at least both agree that the problem with the AE at present isn't that:
there's too many farmers
or
there's too many story arcs
but that they are not segregated. The farms in the AE interface are in direct competition with the story arcs, and it's that which causes such bad feeling towards the AE farm community from the story writers. It's not necessarily the farm writers/users fault. But it IS a problem.
Eco. -
Quote:I think this might actually cause a worse mental image for me than the expletive it's replacing rofl.Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
*PANCAKEs his pants*
Eco -
Quote:I would be very happy to see ALL rewards bar the enjoyment of the narrative removed from the AE. Death To Disco (Ac ID 84420) would still be a hilarious well-crafted arc even without any beans to count IMO, and the many well-written entertaining story arcs out there would still thrill, engage, provoke thoughts, amuse and excite as well.Originally Posted by SinisterDirge
Mostly hoping for best sellers, but getting 10 for $1 bin at walmart. Sure, there are some diamonds in there, but that is only after much digging.
Its the same for farms though, there are many, many bad, unorganized and plain painfull farms out there.
My turn. Since it is proposed so often to be rid of xp/ticket rewards in AE, what if they got rid of the HOF, Dev Choice and badge rewards. What if there were no rewards at all. Would the majority of arc writers still be interested in writing?
Turning your question around, if you play farm arcs for the action and the challenge, would removal of the shinies stop you?
Eco. -
Quote:It's my belief that the 'most of the story arcs are crap writing' is basically a strawman argumentfrom the hardcore farmers. it comes acrsoos as 'I WOULD play story arcs if the writing was good', but IMO they wouldn't because no matter how great the writing is, they don't want to waste time on text.Originally Posted by Zamuel
Some have stated that they don't do AE because they feel a lot of the writing simply isn't good. The question I prevent to you is, what is it that you dislike? Is it typos? While people should fix these on their own, this is where the part of being hungry for feedback comes in, plus more eyes help. Is it style choices? If most writers have a Coke style writing and you prefer Pepsi nothing can be done about individual arcs but perhaps you could be directed to arcs that better suit your tastes. Is it things like logic errors/story conflicts? This is also where feedback comes into play and is probably more useful than typo fixes since a typo is easier to fix.
I've yet to see a farmer saying 'most of the story arcs are rubbish, but here's a list of story arcs which I really enjoyed, and why.'
I like to read books, and i like to play story arcs. The enjoyment I get from either is similar. i'd be prepared to bet that all the story-arc fans in the MA community also like to read books. I understand that not everyone is alike, but I simply don't believe that people who trot out the old 'if I want to read a story I'll read a book' line actually read books in RL either.Quote:Originally Posted by Crysys
I'm playing a VIDEO game, not reading a book on my Kindle. The reading should be supplemental to the battles and action. Just like many of the posters here, there's waaaaay too much talk and not enough substance in the mission itself.
This is one reason I like farms. The emphasis is on action and lots of it. If I want to read a book I'll go do that. I play COH for action, not as a fancy chat client.
Eco -
Quote:I never said I was an intellectual lol. I'm not sure what it is you think I'm ignorant of either. I think this started because you disagree with my opi ion on why some people choose to play farm arcs over and over instead of playing story-arcs.Originally Posted by SinisterDirge
For someone who fancies themselves as an intellectual because they like to read, you sure are ignorant.
It was probably the 'cretin' comment rather than the reading one that got your dander up, so I apologise and I'll amend my comment:
I think that a major reason why farm arcs are being played is that there are a lot of CoH players who don't like to read, and who place value not on a narrative being experienced but on numbers. Levels, inf, xp, tickets, all these things are quantitative, easy to attain, and give measureables with which they can know how much they are 'winning the game'.
That sort of playstyle's not my cup of tea, but they pay their sub, same as me, so I'm not going to demand they're stopped.
I just wish there was a good way of segregating their arcs from story-arcs in the AE interface. Everyone would win then.
Eco -
Quote:I'm sure no farm arc creator or user will lose any sleep over my opinionOriginally Posted by SinisterDirge
This superiority thing isn't helping anyone mate.
Eco. -
This news has made my day. Wonderful news.
X Eco -
Quote:I think the real reason is a combination of the fact that unfortunately, a lot of people are simply cretins who don't like to read, and the prevalence of the WoW-attitude that the game begins at 50 or for some reason a toon at the level cap is the thing to get as soon as possible. And it is easy to get to 50 quickly in the AE.Originally Posted by Djeannie
...They should be asking themselves WHY people are farming in the first place.
- They hate the first 20 levels of game play?
- They enjoy farming?
- They need inf due to stupid high costs on the market?
- They need tickets for rolls to get recipes/io's that just aren't for sale on the market?
- They need tickets to circumvent the stupidly high prices on salvage?
- They want to do ticket rolls to try and sell io's to make some more inf?
Eco. -
Quote:Well, yes, my presence on this forum should show that i don't put much store in the AE interface. But you and i are outliers. The in-game AE search interface needs to be improved.Originally Posted by SinisterDirge
I I would probably find a different way to find my way around the arcs then. For instance, much like your culinary analogy, word of mouth always works better than reading adverts from the yellow pages. Or as people have done, can create global channels specifically for decent MA arcs. Kinda like a concierge.
The taxi driver needs to say 'You want fast food, or you want a michelin 5-star?'. At the moment, he takes you to Burger King every time.
Eco.
EDIT: My sig is a comment on my own Arc review column, btw
-
Quote:It's in the South-East? How far away from Rzeszow is it? I might be able to make it.Originally Posted by TonyV
So Paragon Studios isn't coming to Dragon*Con this year.
I've begged and pleaded, and I haven't given up hope that one year they'll come, but it seems that PAX always either 1) interferes, being held the same weekend, or 2) is close enough that they can't do two cons in a row like that.
With players probably from the whole Southeast (and probably some from further away) coming, I was wondering if anyone has maybe thought about having a player meet-and-greet? It doesn't necessarily have to be part of Dragon*Con, but still, if we have enough people interested, maybe we can get a room reserved at a restaurant or something where we can have dinner, meet and talk with our fellow players, maybe even have a contest or something?
Anyway, post a reply if you're going to be here that weekend (September 2 - 5), and if we have enough people interested, maybe we can set something up.
P.S. Here's this year's guest list in case you're considering whether or not you should come. Some really impressive names are in there!
Eco. -
Quote:I was heartened to see that the writer of that article had a better time of it than Teilios back in 2005, but the stuff posted at http://fatuglyorslutty.com made me angry, and also irritated me, since the site's tagline 'You play video games?' is too generalising. As far as i can see, all of those tosspots who're belittliong female gamers are players of games such as counterstrike and Black ops and XBox live arena games (with a smattering of card games thrown in). If you youtube 'XBox live smacktalk' you'll find thousands of unbelievable arsewipes spouting all kinds of racist, sexist, homophoic bollocks, and I personally feel insulted to be included in the catch-all 'gamer' with those knobheads. I'd happily see all of them banned from the internet forever.Originally Posted by NuclearToast
The whole time I was reading this thread, I was remembering an article I recently saw that surprised even the author.
The tricky business of being a woman on Vent
--NT
If I set up a site dedicated only to communiques taken from Tale of the Desert or Portal 2, I'm sure the asshattery would be rare. it's not about being male or female. It's about being a normal reasonable person or an illiterate ignorant cleft.
I loathe plotless arena multiplayer, and one of the main reasons is that in my admittedly limited experience, people who like repetitive narrative-free ganking are predominantly plonkers of the highest degree.
Eco.