MrCaptainMan
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Originally Posted by fatalnova
if its depressing u just dont check back here!, so great ur on the US servers and have been for a great deal of time meaning that u probabily dont have anything to complain about! what if u where told in order to play with the masses u had to abbandon your 68 month vet account supergroup and friends to move to the EU servers? this is the problem were faced with no improvments for the eu community there will more than likely not be an influx in new players this side of the seas again, part of the reason being (not the only) that no boxed copys to come across in stores (they way i found out about the game, complete impulse buy) those that do manage to know about the game are on the US 14 day free trial love it go to US servers if they stumble across the eu servers there like this is meant to be an MMO not a handful of people and me. The reason we are angered is that if you scroll back through the thread we were told that we have been heard etc. yeah weve been heard what are they gonna do about it its the same excuse everytime! if there was a server LIST merge there all the US and EU could choose any boosting the poplutaion of everyones server better teaming more friends longer game life for people but the devs are wank.
And I get accused of a wall o' text? I can't read this, it makes my head hurt.
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Quote:The ones I'd like to see are these, especially the 80s arcade machine one and a sequel to DtD. Don't forget 'the Rise of Rock' or 'The Revenge of Rock' as a possible title for that lolOriginally Posted by Wrong_Number
- Insert Coin! – A cult of 80’s arcade and pinball purists are outraged by the perversion of gaming today and plan to put gaming back where it belongs…..in full sized arcade cabinets.
Death to Disco! - Possible Sequels
- Long Live Rock! – Dr. Disco Fever takes another shot at reviving Disco
- Disco Lives! – Villain arc where you are hired to help Dr. Disco Fever take down Rock and Roll. Are you really that villainous?
Trademark Infringement, In Poor Taste - Possible Sequel
- Name? – Ms. Manner is once again on the case and this time she is tackling the overly skimpy costumes that many heroes and villains are prancing around in.
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Here we go.
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This is what I mean - i put one minor addendum poiting a completely theoretical and probably unlikely situation, and there's immediately 4 responders jumping on it, ignoring anything else, with 'I'd leave!' threats. Next up, someone'll be saying 'theyre talking abt closing the eu servers down on the eu boards!'
it's depressing, this forum.
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Quote:Yes, you're right. However, I still think that phrases such as 'EU players SHAFTED!' are not helpful and only serve to get people's backs up, as evinced by my own reaction.Originally Posted by Days_
[SNIPped reasoned sensible response to my post]
I hope that helps.
Eco.
EDIT: Incidentally, and this doesn't have any bearing on other people's choices, I understand this, but if for some reason the US servers were closed and I was offered nothing more than the chance to start again from scratch on the EU servers, with a reasonable guarantee that the player numbers there would be equivalent of what I currently see on Freedom, I would, even if I'd lose all my toons and vet rewards etc. -
Double post cut.
Also, any asterisks that appear in my posts ar not intentional-my iPhone puts them in for some reason.
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Quote:You're right, I don't really understand your predicament. As far as I see it, and I stated this upthread, I'm playing the same game as you. I have been to ONE ingame dev-attended event, at sth ridiculous like 3am on a thursday. *i only stayed for abt 5 mins cos I had to go to sleep, and in it i saw Lord Recluse across a massively crowded Pocket D. It was rubbish.*
I really don't think you appreciate our difficulties, from what I gather you are a NA subscriber so you really can not understand our predicament. Having said that, I applaud you for not waltzing in and going " Omg, lek stfu EU whine nubs" like I've heard many a time. I can't be bothered badgering this fallacy of a relationship between EU and the studio again. It's entirely subjective of course how you take it, but our fervent complaining has roots that established themselves a long time ago.
As far as I'm aware, there's ONE other CoH player in Poland, she lives in the South and she was quite rude when I PMed her with a 'hi, if you're ever in Wawa look me up if you fancy a beer' ( and I wasn't attempting to chT her up either.
)
I'm just saying this to explain my situation. It looks to me as though i've potentially got it worse than you apart from having more servers.*
So don't sit here. Make City Life your base forum. My base forum is the MA Stories and Lore forum. I'm quite happy there.*Quote:*
We have been ignored and for far too long. And you know the pathetic thing, even being on these joint forums has changed nothing, we just got chucked a sub-forum so we can sit in a corner and twiddle our thumbs.
As a geographically European fairly marginalised niche player, I was unaware tgat 'the devs hate EU' until i read it in this forum. It sometimes *looks to an occasional drop-in like myself that all you lot do is moan. I say that not to offend, btw. *
I apologise sincerely *for maybe coming over as too critical earlier. *If you remove tge things which have been addressed and no longer apply from damz' list, what's left?*
Your words (and your measured polite approach, pleasantly unlike SS' feeble attempt at patronisation) remind me that when i complain about ny own personal bugbear, minimum TF team sizes, I'm perplexed by opponents who don't seem to grasp that what I ask for would have no negative effect on their game. Looking at my comments here, I agree that I have been a tad too aggressive in stating my opinion on your claims. My apologies.*Quote:
The last time we attempted to get their attention, I'll state this again, is when we insulted one or two red-names. I don't think that is how attention should be brought about.
Don't underestimate our situation, it's far worse than I gather you seem to comprehend. I am not bearing on you, I just have cynicism when non-EU subscribers tell us something. I do like you.
Personally, I am very happy with the service I receive from NCSoft as a European subscriber (despite not having access to a box set of GR on the same day I decide to buy it, not having dev-attended events on my server at convenient times, having maintenence times that interrupt my play at inconvenient times, and having zero dev-presence at meet n greets or other RL gaming events in the country I live in. However, I've no right to disparage those who feel that their level of service is lacking, and as:
a. We dont have potential income vs distribution costs figures to hand
b. More choice is always good IMO
c. Damz is Welsh
then I /sign the 'GR box set for EU, please Devs' request. **
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Quote:The advertising NCSoft does for the NA version is miniscule compared to the size of the potential market. We don't have access to the exact numbers, but if you compare like for like, factoring in the populations of the respective markets, I'd be willing to bet that the EU would come out on top if advertising media that applies to both (online advertising, interviews with devs on massively.com etc) is included.Originally Posted by Tired Angel
Although some have said they would like to own a boxed copy of the game for collection purposes it also represents a lack of shelf or online shop presence (e.g. amazon, play.com). There is a concern that the fact that NCSoft aren't willing to invest resources into advertising the EU side of the game that they don't care about the servers and are willing to let them just die, unlike the NA servers which they are trying to attract more customers to.
If you've never heard of Steam, then you are definitely in the minority of the PC gaming market. Coca Cola doesn't try to attract customers who only take notice of adverts placed in Potato World Magazine, for sound economic reasons.Quote:
I know have read arguments about Steam(?) the online store but I hadn't even heard of that until the threads about this mentioned it, so there are probably others out there to!
Historical meaning they no longer apply?Quote:
There are also others historical things such as the closing of the Brighton offices, the loss of EU side specific maintenance times, the EU website/old forums/updater not being updated at the same time as the US ones, EU not getting access to closed betas, the belief after the EU didn't get the MA boxset we would get the next big box release (ie GR) not happening to name just a few.
Dial up? Next you'll be complaining that CoH won't run on your green-screen monitor, and bemoan the lack of support for MS-DOS. Give me a break.Quote:
And honestly I think having to wait overnight to download a game in which I could play in 15mins from a disc installation is rediculous. Some broadband providers actually limit the amount of data you can download, some people have to share an internet connection (I know I have to negotiate with my other half when I want to play and when they want to download stuff) and some people still play on a dial up connection.
So the EU members ARE in fact eligible for Closed Betas (which are btw utterly optional, bonus, free giveaways from the devs, not included in the price you pay and they've never said that this is the case)?Quote:Originally Posted by EU_Damz
Off the top of my head here are the lists from down the years that i can remember.
[LIST][*]Only since i14 have we been involved in closed betas [excluding city of villains]
Something else which no longer applies?Quote:
[*]While it shouldnt be seen as expected, more of a luxury, on the old forums we had next to zero red name postings. At the most it was 1/2 a year.
This is the only valid point I can see, TBH, positing that a presence of boxed sets in EU shops may garner extra players from casual purchases. Unfortunately, the number-crunchers at NCSoft, who are presumably better at determining the economics behind their decisions that we are, have analysed the situation and concluded that the income from any new players gained in such a way would not overcome the expense of distribution. I don't want NCSoft making a loss on EU physical distribution, as that means less money to be pumped into development for my game (and there is a direct connection between profits and development funds, as shown in the case of the wedding pack, for example).Quote:[*]Good v Evil boxset was the last time there was any sort of box life on the shelves to try and increase the EUs playerbase numbers, which as a result has seen EU players either leave the game or start up a NA account.
I'm not sure if this is still the case, as you used the past tense. If it's OK now, then why the long face?Quote:[*]While this obviously affects everyone in our timezones it was still a slap in the face. We were actually told on the forums that the AE and WW were not going to go down outside of normal maintennance [sp?]. Ended up going down smack in the middle of the day on an almost daily basis, this was right after i14 was released. The main focus of the new release was unavailable to us at a time when a lot of players log in.
So you do now, the devs listened and changed things, apparently.Quote:[*]Only these last few months have we been having dev/CC competitions in our actual servers. Before all we had was to look over at the NA's in envy.
I'm a huge Doctor Who fan, and one thing I bear in mind when it comes to 'news' or news from anywhere is something that Russel T Davis said once. "If you don't read about it on the BBC DW site, or in DW Magazine, don't treat it as true. When you do read it on the BBC DW site or in DW magazine, it IS true" - That has served me well in terms of CoH, too. We on the NA side used to get announcements that were unlcear on a number of things or opened up additional questions, and the doomsayers on the forums would get all rabid and ranty and spout loads of bollocks, frankly. Blaming the devs for forumgoers immaturity and panic-mongoring is unfair. Until the devs say "We're closing the EU servers", then letting speculation convince you it's true is pandering to the trolls.Quote:[*]When the brighton offices were closed down and a lot of the EU staff got laid off, the forums were literally in a frenzy for about 4 days i think with almost everybody under the impression that the EU servers were being closed. Took that long for somebody to come to the forums to ease our fears. That post basically consist of "dw your servers are fine, more news soon". While it did turn out to be nothing major to affect the playerbase, the harm done from that alone was big. The announcement to say we're ok should have been done way before.
Without a verifiable report on this 'test', I can't comment. I'm not versed enough in server software etc to speculate on why the EU servers should not have this mechanism in place.Quote:[*]If a character gets deleted on the EU servers they can not be restored. When a character gets deleted on the NA servers they got restored. Some players actually tested this out.
It may be 'well-known' to you, but again, without any links or numbers to back up this claim I can't comment. I'm not saying you're lying, but evidence to support this should be fairly easy to produce, with programs being available that record such things. The people who tested it may have been comparing peak time EU to the dead zone NA, for example. IAs I'm playing on the NA servers at Central European times, my game is wonderfully lag-free, on a comparitively low 1.5 Mb connection. I wonder, if an NA player compared peak-time NA play to 3 am GMT on tan EU server, maybe the lag would be less.Quote:[*]Its well known that people who play on the EU servers get more lag compared to the NA. Now dont get me wrong i dont mean as a person, i mean like if i log on to the EU servers i know i'll get lag at some point. If i log on to the NA servers, i get a whole lot less lag. Everybody i know who has experienced both has said the same.
Obviously far more factors than simply server population are involved, but without numbers, anything is just speculation IMO.
So now we have them.Quote:[*]Official competitions. Think we started to get EU related competitions just over a year ago. Before that we could enter, get recognition on the website for it but couldnt get the prizes.
Is this still the case? My updater has 'Check out the new Going Rogue website' on the left, and 'Dual Pistols Get it now' on the right. If your updater is consistently a month out of date then that is indeed terrible customer service.Quote:[*]EU website/updater got updated a whole lot less than the NA official home website. There was a thread recently in this section about how our updater was about a month or so behind i think?
I know that Brits like to moan, I'm a hated figure in my local branch of Empik (Polish version of Virgin) because of my demanding customer service requirements, but you lot seem to me to be bellyaching about a lot of really minor crap. I feel for you if you think you don't have large enough server populations - I actually shudder when i think of being made for some reason to move to the EU servers, mostly because of the fewer players that I hear are there (and I've got no actual numbers to look at) and the comparitively small number ofservers - but ranting in caps about GETTING SHAFTED because they're only releasing GR digitally in the EU is way over the top IMO. It's EASY (I don't care what Luddites on dial up think) to purchase GR in the EU. With prepurchase, you'll be able to take advantage of a pre-download too, very probably, as they do with the normal upgrades, so when you log off, it'll dl and ready the game for you while you're asleep. This is speculation on my part, of course, but even if they don't, waiting overnight for it to dl is NOT an onerous task for any mature person. Screaming 'I WANNA BUY IT IN THE SHOP TODAY, I WANTS IT NAOW!' just looks childish.
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Quote:If you're so hung up on getting a bit of cardboard, buy the box online and stick it on your shelf, and buy GR EU digitally. Yeah, you'll have to pay twice, but think of all the moaning you'll save yourselves.Originally Posted by craggy
well, for starters, I'd guess we're currently moaning about the fact that North America gets boxed copies of the games on shelves in actual shops.
edit: even as an EU based player, by playing on the US servers, you could theoretically buy physical copies of the games online and have them delivered to you and be able to use them. No such luck for anyone playing on one of the 4 EU servers
Sheesh. Anyone would think we were living in 1910, not 2010. It's a cardboard box and a bit of plastic, for Pete's sake! And moaning about bandwidth is ludicrous. What, do you guys play on a Babbage Engine? The game's gotta be a max of 10gig. That's an overnight dl even for someone at pathetic download speeds.
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PS isthat it, then? Its the lack of a box for your shelf that's the big disaster? Only the title of the thread is 'EU shafted AGAIN', so i wondered what there was before. -
Quote:If I hear this tired old chestnut again...well, i won't be sirprised.Originally Posted by Blue Rabbit
lolFreeDumb...
What did you expect, really? It's FreeDumb.
Even I know most NA think that a substantial number of the people playing there are only marginally more intelligent than your run of the mill amoeba.
All women drivers are crap too.
And all irishmen are idiots.
In fact, all cliches are completely true in every single case they refer to.
I've been on the Freedom server for 63 months, done plenty of RPing, plenty of great PuGs, met and played with plenty of normal, rational, intelligent, mature non-farming, non-PLing human beings. Freedom has the highest population, so yes it's got the most dickheads, quite possibly, but it's easy to spot and avoid them if you aren't a total mong, and it's also got loads and loads of good people on it too.
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Actually, I sort of realise now that I'm not entirely sure why some of you players on the EU servers think you're being shafted. I play on the US servers, but I'm Welsh and i live in Poland. I was under the impression that I'm basically getting the exact same game as you guys, except I've got, what is it, nine more servers to play on than you.
If that's the sole reason, then I sympathise with you. In fact, that's the reason I didn't transfer over to the EU side when I was given the chance to do it free of charge some years ago. And back then we couldn't buy any more slots, either.
But could someone please list ALL of The Reasons Why NCSoft Shaft The EU Playerbase for me? Then I can see both sides of the story, not just mine.
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Sob. I hate my mouse sometimes. It's got a 'back' button that I accidentally just pressed instead of the 'submit reply' one.
Start again lol.
Today, I actually managed to run an arc with the MA Super Team!
It was
Headhunters -- An OPA Adventure
by @Grammar Merchant
Arc ID 353468
I used my (lvl 8 at the start) kin/Elec defender, Bootstrap:
The plot was essentially 'kil skulls', and involved stopping them from raising Something Awful from the dead. There were 2 Defeat Alls, and 1 Defeat All In Last Room, so we did a LOT of skull-cracking!
Bootstrap went from lvl 6 to lvl 13 during the arc, which should give you some idea of how long it was. TBH, I felt it was just long enough. The Skulls were an easy enough mob group to mow through. There were 2 AVs in the arc, but neither was much trouble for our buff and debuff-heavy team. We suffered no team-wipes at all, though occasionally one person dropped for a few moments. I personally felt that the challenge (It's intended to be 'challenging for teams', according to the description) was spot on, although admiteddly I do like a milder form of challenge than most.
The story could use a little polishing, and some of the mechanics are a bit unfinished (one of the mob groups is called 'bosses', which seems to be a holdover from writing perhaps?), but there are no giant howlers, no surprise fails, nothing is actually broken and some of the dialogue is amusing.
In short, IMO if you're looking for a longish arc that gives some hefty XP without being a boring ol' farm, you could do a lot worse than this. I rated it 4 stars.
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I'm thinking of getting a netbook so i can browse the forums on my 2 hr lunch breaks on a bigger screen than my iPhone.
I was thinking of getting an Asus eee 1000H something, but then I wondered if there was a netbook I could get that'd maybe run CoH.
It's probably a pipedream, but any suggestions?
I'd rather not get anything bigger than 11 inch screen as my daily encumbrance total is limited.
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Quote:There is also a section of the gaming market who reads the online gaming press. It's not just getting new players by having some bloke sit down and google 'any new games out today?' Massively.com and gamespot and what have you are all sources of new players. I live in Poland, I'd expect to see The Krankies engaged in a live sex show with Simon McCorkindale, Benny from Crossroads and Shep, reanimated, broadcast live from the Blue peter studios with narration by the Queen before I'd see CoH in any shops here, but the internet's NOT a big place to search. If the government of Britain banned brick and mortar gaming shops tomorrow, the country wouldn't be full of gamers all forlornly knock-knocking on their monitors hoping that a selection of latest games would spontaneously parade across their field of vision like something out og the generation game, they'd do the online equivalent of 'having a look in a shop to see what's there' - they'd google 'latest PC games reviews', for example.Originally Posted by Dr_HR
its the fact that people buy the game from what they see around the shops. like EU Damz said, people like to buy games by going to shops and seeing whats there. unless they know about the game before they wont search for the game online. ok some do, but its a big place to search.
It's not brain surgery.
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Quote:snip.Originally Posted by Dr_HR
O.k my thoughts and i dont give a **** if this gets edited. blah blah i really do i'm sick and tired of having EU (EU not just england)
So nice to know you separate our part of the world into two sections, England and the rest of the EU.
AS a Welshman who's heartily sick of Americans, Englishmen and many Europeans using 'England' as a synonym for 'Britain', I hope your illiterate ranting gets the response it deserves from the Devs: stony silence.
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Quote:If Sister Psyche's mind is now not in ABs body anymore, why would Calvin want Heroes to do his TF?Originally Posted by Lord_of_Time
The problem blah blah date with posi bring back CS TF
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Quote:You don't have a hit counter? My site's got nothing but a hit counter!Originally Posted by Venture
Most people don't want to see screenshots of my characters, and the link has some other bits as well, such as power sets, bio, a brief blurb and in some cases build information (mostly out of date, I kept hoping they'd get the Vault working. Of course CO's developers were able to do all this for me automatically but I digress.)
And my site doesn't even have a hit counter.
And I, at least, do want to see screenshots of your characters. I love a good screenie, me!
But it's your thread, your rules, obviously.
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Quote:Lazy Venture, not using an embedded screenshot of his characters, meet lazy players who can't be bothered to feed the hit counter on his site. And why should they, I guess?Originally Posted by Kasoh
Its the character he ran the arc with. The link will net you the powersets for those who are curious, I imagine.
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Since most TFs that don't require multiple glowie clicks can apparently be soloed, there's no reason to have entry minimums for them.
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Quote:Yes, I think changing their group to Efficiency Inc would be a good ideaOriginally Posted by ArrowRose
Do you think it would be clearer if the group of the Office Freaks was changed to Efficiency Inc. or would it be better if all the enemies were Freaks?
I'm not sure. Have you tried using $NAME, with NAME in caps? Perhaps someone more expert in the MA could comment on that.Quote:
I have a question based on your in-game comment. You noted that the robotic caps talk looked odd with the lowercase name which came from $name. Is there a way to make that name uppercase?
I like the idea of ANT employing Efficiency Inc to help them improve productivity, and Efficiency Incs solution to replace all the office workers with Freaks and install their own management is wonderfully silly. Getting this across as the premise early on would be a good idea in my opinion, or at least making it clear for the player that the customs are NOT from ANT.
At one stage you had a Freakshow group drinking coffee and talking about it, and I thought it'd be nice to see this taken further. It may be amusing to have some objectives that illustrate the Freaks' difficulties in getting used to their new positions as office proles. You could for example have a group of them smashing up some office equipment (use a defendable non-required objective), maybe commenting in an amusing manner about 'fixing
' the photocopier (or whatever you use), or sth like that. I don't know what objectives that map can take, but play around with what's available to you. On a 1-mission arc with a relatively short map, it can be nice to add some extra (non-required will avoid backtracking, but remember to warn the player that they are non-required) objectives that add flavor to the mission, and you can use the dialogue fields for those objectives to clarify what's going on for the Player.
As for the Office parodies, I'd ditch them in favor of your own writing. The dialogue from Scott etc was amusing enough, but you didn't really nail their Voices (which is understandable if you haven't watched the show). I'm sure using your own experience will produce funnier and more true characters anyway.
I'd prefer to see the customs left in tbh, but maybe Control Freak's fire set coiuld be replaced by a passive of some kind to make her less annoying.
Hope this is useful advice!
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And before I hit the hay, I'll sum up my submission parametetrs in case anyone who'd like me to run anything hasn't seen the various places in the thread that I've put them down aleady.
I run everything at the lowest difficulty setting.
I don't want arcs that have:
Malta or KoA
Lots of sleeps or stuns
Killer AVs
a level range of over 40 (and I'd prefer sub-30 if possible)
no story.
Anything else is groovy, I love customs, and humor is always good, but i can do serious too
I'll cut and paste this into the post that re-opens my submission queue when i've finished the 8 or so arcs I'm currently doing, but I wanted to put this here in case there was anyone with a lvl 50-54 arc featuring a Lord Recluse Clone Army supported by Malta and the KoA with ambushes from the Ghost Widow Quads eagerly waiting to submit.
Gnight.
Eco
PS if anything already submitted breaks any of these guiudelines, I'll still attempt to run them. -
Don't Freak, Arc ID 384769 by @Gypsy Rose Heroic, Short (1 med map), lvl range 40-54. This was an early arc of Gypsy's, and she's reworked I, apparently. I'll be taking in my lvl 26 SS/Inv scrapper, Scoop Malloy:
“Hey, Red? Yeah, it's Scoop...Scoop!...SCOOP!..I'm outside your office! I bin ringing the bell for 5 minutes an' there's no answer...what? No! Shhh, quit shoutin', willya? I was on my way, honest! ...Yeah, I know what day it is! Well shaddup fer a second an' I'll tell ya why I'm late. About an hour hour ago I was walkin' over ta pick you up, like we aggreed, an' two blocks from your office, this broad comes yellin' outta an alley beggin' me for help!. She says she's – whassat? ...well, uh, blonde, high heels, fishnets...Hey, C'mon Red, you know you're the only gal for me! ...If you gimme a second ta speak, I'll tell ya what she wanted! Sheesh...OK, so her name's Pamela, right, an' she works for American National Technologies...yeah, that's right, just around the corner from the Times office! Anyways, she says that a buncha Freakshow just suddenly crashed the place an' she escaped, but her colleagues are all trapped in there, and could I help? What's a guy ta do? ...What? Sure I woulda helped if she' been an old bag, waddya take me for?
Mission 1: Stop FreaKing!
“So Pamela told me that the freaks were bein' led by someone called FreaKing, and that they'd put a few bombs around the place too. The PPD had sent one of their guys in, but he hadn't been heard of in a while.
“I just figured I'd go in the front door, since I was in a hurry, right?
[The maps a standard office jobbie, and I meet some Freakshow soon enough]
“So sure enough, the Freaks were all over the joint, so I got my bear on and started layin' out some smacks.
[Yum, Freaks.]
“I found my way to the central lobby of the building, and spotted a PPD heavy robot down on the ground floor – he wasn't fightin', so I guess he musta bin in some trouble.
“I gotta soft spot for those big blue guys, after what happened in Panama, but first I hadda go disarm a bomb I'd spotted across the room!
“It was touch and go, but, well, these fingers ain't just good for typin' out exclusives! One bomb down! After that, I dropped in on my friend the droid.
“The big guy was real happy ta see me. He tagged along an' we made out way up ta the next floor. Up there, we met some more freaks, an put em down. Whadda team!
[the PPD Heavy is great. He looks great, of course, and his K-chung K-chung K-chung footsteps are quite cute tbh as he follows me around. He bubbles me and shoots some sort of green healing ray at me I think, and occasionally lets off some machine gun fire at the mobs, but doesn't seem to be a very good shot, which endears me to him even more. He's called USaid Help, btw lol]
“On the second floor, main chamber, we found some more trouble. Plenty a trouble, in fact. First there was another bomb, an' also we found one of the employees, bein' threatened. The crazy thing was, this lady was bein' roughed up by her fellow ANT workers! What gives, I thought. They was management, I guess! Anyway, me an my lil helper sorted them out, an freed the worker!
[I'm a little confused now. The customs, various puns on the 'Freak' thing (The Freak 'n' Boss', Geek Freak, Control Freak etc, are apparently ANT workers, so I'm not sure why they are holding the hostage hostage. Hopefully I'll find out later]
“We found another one further in, an' his guards were ANT workers again. We freed him an' he ran off.
[This hostage is called Scott Michaels, who I guess is a parody of Michale Scott from The Office. I look back at the previous hostage, and find it's Jenn Hardinson. I sort of see why the other workers are roughing them up now, I guess, but I'm afraid the juxtaposition with the Freakshow (and the fact that one of the customs is called 'The Freak 'n' Boss, when Michael and Jan were bosses?) sort of feels odd.]
“I ransacked a desk to look for somethin that'd tell me what the behooby was goin' on, and there it was – a memo from Efficiency Inc, statin' that ANT was goin ta replace all its workers with Freaks! I guess that's one thing Jack Welch never thought of!
“We kept goin', an' up some stairs and around the corner we found the Freak boss, FreaKing. He was holdin' court and arguin' with another employee.
“Me and my buddy weighed in an' put the Freak down and mopped up his friends, and I gotta say, that guy we rescued wasn't grateful at all!
[The employee is a parody of Dwight Schrute lol]
“Up in the bosses office was one more bomb and a few more freaks, an' that was that! I led the PPD robo-helper out ta the police, and told Pam she could go back ta work. Then I headed over ta your office like I said I would!...What? It's true, all of it! I'd stake my Pulitzer on it!
“...you're WHERE? Aw, gimme a break, I was only an hour late! Maybe I can come join you...you took your mother? But she hates jazz!
“...aw, c'mon baby – Don't freak!
[end]
OK, There's good and bad in this mission IMO.
The good first:
I LOVE beating up Freakshow. I like the fact that they rez, as it gives me a chance to beat some of them up twice. I generally don't seem to be all that troubled by their mezzes, they're invariably amusingly written, and I think they look great.
The Ally, USaid Help, is one of the best allies I've met in the AE. I wish I could get him as a pet in the PvE game, tbh. I love him. If he crops up again in any more of your arcs, I'll play them without needing to know anything else.
The map is linear and perfect for this arc.
The objectives are simple and easily understood and there's no backtracking or confusion about what you have to do.
Now the bad:
I'm not completely sure that the Office/Freakshow mix works here, mainly because there's no clue that the human customs you meet are actually in league with the Freakshow until the debriefing, so I was confused as to why I was fighting them until after I'd finished. It seemed that some of the ANT workers had turned on their co-workers for no good reason (other than them being annoying parallels of Jan, Michael, and Dwight)
The level range is 40+, and I'm not sure why this is. I'd have preferred to see it at a lower level. However, Scoop wasn't ever in any huge danger.
I felt the 'story', as it was, was a bit sparse for all that happened, but since my style of review is often quite stop and start, I played it over once again from start to finish without stopping to take screenshots or type out stuff etc. The second time it felt a lot more of a smoother experience, and was a pretty good run n smash for Scoop, and so it gets a 4-star rating from me.
Eco. -
Well Done, PW! Nice to see you get some deserved recognition!
Eco. -
Quote:Originally Posted by GlaziusF
Vampires are ciphered bourgeois. (Zombies are ciphered proles.)
Twilight isn't some aberration, it's just the vampire story in the age of reality television.
I'm not sure what you meant here, tbh, but I just meant that my bosses secretary obviously hasn't seen Buffy, Near Dark, or Blade, Underwoprld, or any amount of 'new' Vampire stuff beyond old b&w Peter Cushing vs Christopher Lee 'aha, ze children of ze night!' transylvania stake-hous movies.
Turn into bats? When was the last time a vampire in current fiction turned into a bat, lol?
Eco. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Dispari
It's far more complicated than that. You're still only considering the overall kill speed as the only balance factor. True if you ran them over a bunch of missions you could find which one completes faster (hint: probably fire). But DP also has the ability to adapt and kill SAFER. It has the ability to use knockback when knockback is wanted, and not when it's not. It has the ability to stack slows with slows or stack -DMG with -DMG (my DP/Dark corr loves this). It has the ability to fight an AV and debuff his damage so the tank can take less damage. Fire might kill faster, but it can't do any of that stuff. In fact, no other set can.
Actually, I'm mainly considering how frakkin' cool it looks, lol. I also love KB, so I use normal ammo mostly.
But what I meant about comparisons was that to get a better picture of DPs overall performance against Fire, say, you'd have to take them both up against stuff that DPs holds, DoT (from toxic?), debuffs and KB etc would be useful against, including something that Fire is weak against.
My post was meant in support of what your point seems to be.
Eco.