MrOsterman

Is the late game balanced around fully slotted SO's or IO's?

I solo a lot. This event will probably mean that all my alts are locked out of the zones where there's an invasion for the lag, or the danger of cutting through.

I'll deal, but I'm not a fan of 'invasion' events in general. Especially since the "Liche King" events on Warcraft more or less shut the game down for a weekend.

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This. Totally QFT.

New players that only see boss farms really gets a skewed vision of what the "normal" game is and what they should expect.

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Do they? I mean seriously, do they really?

What kind of MMO would be nothing but one zone, where you go through a portal and watch the same guys kill the same thing over and over so you can hit the level cap in a day or two? What kind of game is that?

What kind of MMO would have an entire "class" that was full of useless powers just to 'kill time' before real powers?

I can't imagine that any player who ~honestly~ thought that the AE was all CoH had, really would have paid his $15/month for the game without the AE. They strike me as the kind of player who would have given up a few hours after the sewer run pre-AE and then gone away.

The only thing that's really changed is that they now have level 50's when they quit, and that they're a bit more obnoxious about it all. Before they used to get annoyed by running all over King's Row and then quit. Now they complain they can't do that late game TF's because they don't know how to play the game. But they've shown the same problems that similarly minded players showed before the AE let them have a level 50 overnight.

If you ask me, nothing, NOTHING has really changed with the AE. All it's done is to give people who don't "Get It" about super hero MMO's a bit more of a spot light.

A player ~can~ come in, get PL'd to 50 and still manage to learn to play the game: If He Wants To.

You're all complaining about people who are chosing to be ignorant and in some cases obnoxious about it.

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OK... I guess I'm the only one with enough sleep deprivation to have the stones to ask... Um... Are you just randomly reviewing stuff and posting it here (which would make sense, given the title of the thread), or are you considering requests?

Curious people want to know.

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Well I thought I don't have time to deal with Review queues, and I'm not really up for QPQ reviewing to get my name out so I thought, what the heck, I'll just hit the random button every so often and play what comes up and see.

So yeah.. just posting random reviews to.. post.

O

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Goal -> Skip unliked lower levels

You stated differences in scenery not goal.

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Here's the thing. I see the sewers as a fun alternative to running to a mission door where it takes all of 3 minutes to complete said mission compared to the 10 to get the team there. However I find the sewers much more fun than going up and doing some random 'farm' AE mission.

The different goal for me is in the fun factor of the sewers vs missions vs AE.

My goal is to have fun. Skipping content? I'm always going to skip content unless I turn off XP. It's what I have ~fun~ doing that matters most to me.

O

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Just this morning I tried to start a sewer team and no one wants to do anything other then stupid AE farms!

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Isn't the goal one and the same?

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Yes, your right. I cant argue with that.

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No no, my sister, argue!

Here's the difference:

In the sewers you are going to find people all on the same page with starting powers, not a mix of people all trying to beat custom critters with extreme defenses or something. In addition, it requires a little bit of knowledge of the game beyond how to get to the AE building. We had to teleport up a 15th level blaster to our AE mission because he didn't know how to GET to the AE entrance. He had never had to. He'd been TPed up, then flew/fell down to level, and then TP'd back.

I love the AE, I do. I love having my arcs up there (try them they're fun), but I also know that there's a lot more to the game and I won't touch the AE with a toon until I've done my sewer run, then gone to KR and gotten my Raptor pack from a bank mission.

O

What we need is something like RPhelper or AnnoyRP from the Warcraft Mods. What they do is tie a text comment to your power, but with a few caveats:

1) Cooldown. You can set it to not fire a comment more often then once a minute or once every 10 minutes, both for the given spell/ or over all (global cooldown).

2) Randomness. You can tie a dozen different things to a different spell/power. So one time you might say "Everyone hum jiggle bells!" and then next "Oh the weather outside is frightful" when you fire off Snow Storm.

3) One button off. You can turn them all off with a single button click if you're in a team that doesnt' like them.

Of course in Warcraft (and EQ by comparison) Mez's were more like CoH's sleep and could be broken easily if the party wasn't paying attention. That chat "spam" was actually very important tactically because it was rare to fight more than 3 or 4 things and knowing who the tank was trying to hold aggro on, and who was being mez'd or rooted was very important.

In CoH it's all just flavor, really so it matters more to be sane about it. I have a couple of 'battle' macros I fire off once a mission each, usually, but not attached to powers, just to goofy comments.

In fact my scrapper had a whole set of them based around the old gag of innocently asking for directions. "Excuse me but is there a pool around here?"

Come to the RP side. We have cookies.

We're on Virtue. Feel free to Gfriend @stormherald. I've got toons at all levels and love more people to team with (or run story AE's).

O

Parameters: Medium Length, Heroic theme, Random

Arc:87266
Author: @blackshake
Title: Serpent People

Rating: 3 Stars

So here's the basics:

A former magician asks you to investigate a bank robbery where 'something odd is happening'. You go and find that everyone is under some kind of magic spell. As the 'plot' unravels you learn about the dark magic that your contact had once used, and about the horrible accident that happened as a result of it. Now you're tasked to keep that dark magic out of the hands of evil.

The plot has the key words "Custom Characters" and "Horror". Honestly there was nothing horrific here. Now, in the AE it's hard to do "horror" because you can't control things like surprise or shock very well except with ambushes, or very very crafty use of the custom critters. It did feature a demonic looking AV at the end, but that was about it.

Overall the story was fair by most most mission standards. No real complaints, and really fairly stable. No real plot holes but then again it wasn't overly complex enough to offer up too many plot holes either.

The typoes, however, became distracting quickly, and then started to effect my ability to follow the story. You rescue an Ally named "Sophie", who asks about her aunt. Except your contact (a man) talks about an accident with his "Nephew". If the accident of magic caused two gender changes then it wasn't explained well in the arc's text. Couple that with phrases like "I bitted too much to chew" and a few really common words mispelled (claim is not spelled clame), and it really takes what could have been a 4 down to a 3.

In short: A cute little romp but sadly not much more.

So.. are there any more out there? Seems a good holiday to save the USA and put on the patriotic colors.

O

In the sig, my 4th of July arc auto levels to 40 making it fine for most groups with their core powers and I don't think there are too many mezzers in there.

A 4th of July Story Arc!

Number: 241976
Author: @Stormherald
Length: Long
Missions: 3 total, Medium Maps.
Enemies: Axis America, Custom (The Red Coats)

Several divisions of British Soldiers from 1775 are swarming over parts of the town, armed now with modern weapons. Someone is tampering with the timeline, and the Signing of the Declaration is in danger.

Your team will be sent into the thick of the action, finding out just what this evil plan is, and putting a stop to it.

Mission auto levels to 40, and with the custom enemy group is not intended for characters below level 10. Has been tested solo and in groups, though, as usual, non solo AT's will struggle with it solo. Final mission offers an EB and two allies

Bring a team, put on some BBQ at home, and enjoy a 4th of July romp. Updated to be I15 compliant.

Updated to work again with the I15 changes. Still auto levels to 40 but might change that up if requested.

Sadly had to republish and lost my ratings.

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I've never been clear on the difference between a homage and a copyright violation.

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A while back I was in a Weekly SG called "Guadians of Justice". The rule was that each of us did a character that was a direct homage to a member of the JLA. We had to use the same colors, and the same powerset theme, and our names had to be based in concept around our homage.

But we also had to be sure we were different enough not to get GH'd.

I took Dr. Midnight as my homage. To recreate his concept, I used his colors of Red and Black, and made him in a vest with tucked in pants and boots. He featured goggles instead of a mask, a black mustache and greying hair, and while he was a Dark/ Dark defender was called Prf. Twilight.

If you put the two on the same screen you'd probably miss that he was an homage without a nudge. But once you had it, you'd get it.

Another guy in our group did an homage to Super Man with a SS/Invul tanker. Dressed in blue spandex and a cowboy hat, "True Blue" played up the "boyscout" personality of Superman, and did so without crossing, I think, the copyright line.

Derivative works are acceptable; copies aren't. It's all about making sure enough is different to be 'unique' but just a touch similar to be an homage.

It's a line.. yeah.. but it can be walked.

Besides a JSA story arc doesn't even need elements of the JSA homages there; it's about theme and style.

O

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Anyways, due to copyright/EULA reasons you can't directly have a JSA homage arc but done right you could match the overall feel.

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Homages, actually, you're allowed. It's the direct rip off you're not.

Sadly I too can't offer up a true JLA/JSA homage arc myself. My 4th of July arc has the classic "We need to convince them we're on the same team!" theme in it, but not enough spandex I'm afraid.

Hmm... maybe I'll try to write one...

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There's a zone in there where the content is not unacceptable enough to warrant GM intervention, but juvenile enough to be unappealing to many mature players. I think the OP is honestly surprised that so many people voting for this arc aren't turned off by that aspect.


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Well.. I had my students telling me that Stepbrothers was the funniest movie ever made bar none. I said "Funnier than Blazing Saddles?" And they said yes. They said "It's even funnier than Borat!".

...

But look at the box office reviews. Well told stories rarely get the kind of money at the box office that "Big Hits" do. Follow the forumla, put in some good special effects, reap the rewards.

And with the AE market kinda flooded at the moment, I'd say that going "niche" is becoming the way to get noticed. Write something that will really appeal to a small handful of pople and get ALL of them to play it.

O

I think what feeds some of the frustration is that with all systems like this, there's a certain amount of Inertia built into the system. Once an arc gets over a certain number of plays, it's probability of getting more plays goes up because it appears "good". It may be good, don't get me wrong, but when people are looking, they go "oh.. wow, 300 people played that and it's averaging 4 stars!" where they might look at another, just as 'Good' that's only got 20 plays at 4 stars.

So the majority will pick the one's that gotten played. Not everyone, mind, and some people seek out the obscure or the under played to look for but I think that those are atypical situations. People going out and seeing what can be found.

Most players, I think, don't want to risk a wasted time and look for the the "big hits", which just gets the big hits more hits.

I rode this once to my benefit when I put out Spires of Ravenloft for NWN. I got out early, did a good job (I think) and it got a lot of downloads. Once that started I got a lot more simply because I was a highly rated modual in the 'download' category. THen once I got moved the "Hall of Fame", that was it.

Of course module building for NWN (and NWN2) is VERY different then making a story arc...

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Yeah they posted some Hall of Fame Arcs up today. I'm not entirely sure how to react to them...

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I believe that HoF arcs are set by standards of played, rating, etc, not by choice of any reviewer.

Developer's choice are the ones that are picked for some reason.

A 4th of July Story Arc!

Number: 241976
Author: @Stormherald
Length: Long
Missions: 3 total, Medium Maps.
Enemies: Axis America, Custom (The Red Coats)

Several divisions of British Soldiers from 1775 are swarming over parts of the town, armed now with modern weapons. Someone is tampering with the timeline, and the Signing of the Declaration is in danger.

Your team will be sent into the thick of the action, finding out just what this evil plan is, and putting a stop to it.

Mission auto levels to 40, and with the custom enemy group is not intended for characters below level 10. Has been tested solo and in groups, though, as usual, non solo AT's will struggle with it solo. Final mission offers an EB and two allies.

Bring a team, put on some BBQ at home, and enjoy a 4th of July romp.

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I think the golden rule is that if there's nobody listening who'll get offended, you're fine. But don't assume that someone won't get offended in a public channel.

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Depending on the standards that NCSoft uses, regardless of who hears, offensive is offensive. WHen I worked for a major retail chain renting movies, they told us we could be disciplined not only for harassing someone but for making any comment that a "reasonable third party" would find offensive or harassing.

In other words, I wasn't offended, you weren't offended, but if a "reasonable third party" had overheard us and be offended, I'd be in trouble. It's a thin line because in theory private tells are private but I think the policy was to head off "I didn't think she'd be offended, man!"

O

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No way am I gonna follow a crowd into a movie theater just to see Titanic.

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It sinks. A lot of people die.

Go see a movie with some suspense.

And I do the same. I search for 4 stars only too.

Mr. O

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I'll try not to add too many spoilers to this arc in my review as the description does a reasonable job of giving them.

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And that's a real challenge. You don't want to give too much away, but at the same time you want to say enough to build interest. I feel like I'm trying to write the teaser for a TV show like Lost.

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Another thing many authors do is use the 5th Column the current paragon city without batting an eyelid. I know they are just better than the Council but going up against them in mission 1 in this arc made me wonder why the contact wasn't taking their presence as a serious issue.

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Text Limit.

I wanted to get the info about Kismet out and why you were taking the mission, but at the same time I wanted to set up that these 5th Column Loyalists were an issue to be dealt with early, before they could get a foothold. I'll see if I can get some more info into the 'on accepted' page, and put some more in on the 5th column as an issue.

And I think I'm dumping the 3rd mission. It was a big headache anyways to write/ script etc.

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Well sking is one of the better features in the entire COX world. I highly doubt it going anywhere and certainly does not need to based of the absurd contentions being brought forth.

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The only way I got Mrs. O to play CoH was through the SK system since I play way more than she does.

O

I liked playing my TA Def up to lvl 30. Likewise I've had some fun, off and on, with an Arch Blaster, and a Bots/ TA Mastermind.

In all cases the challenge of TA is the lack of heals and the need to really be on your game as an offender more than a defender. Know when to use a mez, when to debuff and be aggressive on both. And if your plan is to solo you will have to get over the urge to open with your damaging attacks when you need to open with some debuffs.

TA's really shine in a group though. Because solo you tend to have less mobs in a group, your AOE debuffs will either need to wait for them to recycle, rotate who and how you debuff, or slot recharges. I thnk I overslotted my Oil Slick Arrow b/c as soon as it burns out (I ignite it nearly always), I can lay down another.

Mr. O

Name: An Army of One
Maker: @stormherald
Length: Long - 4 missions
Enemies: 5th Column (custom grouping), Custom Critters

When elements of a loyalist faction of 5th Column threaten a young hero's family, can you protect them? Your investigaion will take you from a 5th Column bunker, to the a hidden base, and finally to a buidling overrun with elements of the Bald Eagle Brigade, the popular children's show featuring Honest American Heroes.

Do you have what it takes to do one of the toughest jobs a hero can be called on to complete?