Necrotron

If CO manages to woo me, I'll be on CO. I may remain on both MMOs for a month while I wean myself off Paragon.

If CO doesn't woo me, I'll stay on CoX.

This is a nice bonus, and assuming I stay behind, I'll be in the GR beta. So in conclusion, either way, I win.


All that said, this is a patently transparent attempt to patch up the hull of a ship leaking subscribers, if indeed it's leaking at all. It's still in the air whether or not the Other Place will be all that. They still have a month of beta.

Yes... yes. We are the overlords of all the world, yes.

We have existed in isolation. Pure. Disconnected. Alone. Stagnant.

We are European. We are American. The barriers between us have fallen and we have become our own shadows.

Brothers!

Sisters!

Americans! Europeans!

People from across the oceans!

We are now united.


There are no more canyons between us. We can all share the fruit of knowledge. There will be no arbitrary boundaries preventing good debate between both equally important parts of the community.

And with vBulletin, I can do cool stuff like this.

ATi recently released the 9.7 Catalysts. It should be worth trying them.

There's no reason they can't colour more powers. BaBs said he was going to look at Devices, so clearly, the list of powers to be done isn't locked down.

Paragon Studios have sided with ATi for a while now, even though the game itself still retches on Radeons.

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As for Firefox. Good luck downloading it without a browser.

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hurrah for bit torrent

Just checked Amazon again - it's showing as 77 quid now, not the 49 pre-order...

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Good luck getting the torrent file without a browser!

Try Play.com. Was £45 on there yesterday.

I don't get what's going on with Amazon. They're totally ignoring the price MS have set...

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Are they? It were £50 last I looked...

o_O

Why those cheeky little...! What the hell are they playing at, a twenty five pound markup?

I had a read through this thread just now, without knowing I had posted in it. I made mental notes to mention how it's ATi's fault, how they neglect OpenGL, and whatnot.

You can imagine my surprise when I saw my past self saying just that.

You seem to have money to burn, so perhaps you would be better served by buying a new nVidia graphics card. The 4870X2 is indeed one of the fastest cards money can buy, but if you're an avid CoH player, ATi is not your friend. What's worse, even if you COULD disable CrossFire (and I don't think you can), you'd only be using one half of your paid-for graphics card.

I can conjure up some recommendations if you tell me what you're willing to spend, if anything at all.

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*notes to self*

Do not buy an ATI card.

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That's the tl;dr of it.

EDIT: I had a butchers and I think I know how to disable CrossFire. You need to fool Catalyst into thinking CoH will not work with CrossFire on any level. Now, this may be more involved than you'd like, but anything is worth a shot.

You need to make a copy of your CityOfHeroes.exe. Put it in the same directory as the original, rename it to gothic3.exe (if you can't see the .exe at the end, don't worry, it's just hidden). Create a shortcut to gothic3.exe and put -project EUCoH at the end of the Target line. This is important. Get this right, word for word. It should look like:

"C:\...\City of Heroes\gothic3.exe" -project EUCoH

Where "..." is wherever CoH is in. Don't mess with that, just add -project EUCoH at the end.

Now, run the shortcut. All being well your performance should be peachy.

Why could this work? What's gothic 3? Apparently, Catalyst has a list of games within it, and it knows which games like CrossFire and which games don't. ATi being ATi, City of Heroes isn't on the list either way. However, that game called Gothic 3 IS on the list, and it's blacklisted. Catalyst will look at the name gothic3.exe, think "oh eck, no CrossFire for you, mate" and run City of Heroes on half of your graphics card. I got the idea from here.

I did the procedure myself just now, and CoH is running perfectly. My task manager shows gothic3.exe running. But as I don't have CrossFire, I can't tell you if it will help you.

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"Power Spectrum"? That ranks with "Power and Responsibility" as the crappest issue title yet

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And apart from this helpful piece of feedback, would you care to share your invaluable suggestion with us?

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Our benevolent master is becoming tired of snarky comments. (Not that I'm one to judge on snarky comments...)

I'm not nagging at you, heck no. I'm just kinda sad to see your optimism be eroded. You have my sympathies ;-; Such is the job of a community coordinator... putting up with us lot. You don't get paid enough for it.

Anyway, brighter note.

Sweet! I can get rid of my pink pom-poms, my puke-green radiation, my literal puke-green poison, my SHINE GET!! Invulnerability, my worn-green force fields, and my generic blue Illusion stuff!

Oh, as for the difficulty stuff, farming already makes a dent on the AE and on the market. Changing the difficulty won't have an appreciable long term effect in my opinion, but that's just me. What this feature will do for me is allow my Warshade to thrive solo. The same goes for any AoE-heavy character, who deals better with larger groups of even-con or yellow enemies rather than three reds.

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I has a question. :3

I never did buy the Architect Edition, and paid full whack for the previous boosters. I want to get the Architect Edition and redeem the free booster that comes with it on the Super Science pack. It seems logical to me, anyway.

Is this possible, or does the architect edition only let you choose between boosters I and II?

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As I've discovered it only works on 1 and 2 making the purchase of the architect pointless as you cant even apply it to the account to get a months play

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Bum.

Ah well. All applied and done with.

I don't know why so many people have problems, really. This is my third super booster and it's applied without fail.

I has a question. :3

I never did buy the Architect Edition, and paid full whack for the previous boosters. I want to get the Architect Edition and redeem the free booster that comes with it on the Super Science pack. It seems logical to me, anyway.

Is this possible, or does the architect edition only let you choose between boosters I and II?

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sorted the problem, seems it was to do with one of the supporting utility apps causing the issue

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Care to go into a little more detail?

Okay trying Win7 (Build 7100). CoH got to the login screen with the default graphics drivers but the images was badly shown (too bright). Went to Nvidia page and got latest drivers, now it won't get to the login screen. Want to try the 185 drivers to see if that fixes the issue but keep getting sent to the 186 drivers. Where is the 185 downloadable from?

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You can get the 185 drivers from Windows Update. Go into the properties for your graphics card in Device Manager, then click Roll Back. It will revert to standard drivers without needing a restart. Then check Windows Update; it should offer the 185s to you. If that doesn't work, you can download them manually from nVidia's website (look for Beta & Archived Drivers) but I don't know how one goes DOWN revisions using nVidia's installer.

If you want to stick with the 186 drivers, you can run CoH in windowed mode with a registry change. But let's try rolling back first.

All you select is who your patron is. This determines the story arc you play in relation to that patron, and the arcs about Operation: Destiny. Your choice of Patron Pool is unaffected by your choice of Patron, and once the first Patron arc is finished, you can pick from all four Patron Pools.

They should re-write the dialog so that your patron says they are giving you access to Arachnos's most closely guarded powers, rather than only their own. With that, there would be no more confusion, and no need for the plaques. The plaques don't even have information about the new powers that were introduced a while ago, like Shadow Meld.

There is no magic program that will speed up your computer. Proper maintenance and control of your startup are much more effective.

And where in the hell is my damned avatar?

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I think you missed the point TBH. If he drove badly outside of the law he'd get banned from the road. Or killed in an accident or something. A better way of putting it would be to drive to the law in somewhere like Paris or Rome (or many parts of Africa) where the laws are less observed/followed, his 'safe' driving would incense the other drivers. As an old person doing forty on a country road does in this country.

As for the griefing side of it, the only definition of griefing from the devs I have seen is when a game mechanic is used to grief a single person or group to their detriment. I don't think you can say that all the enemy PvPers in a zone is a single group. It is a player convention that TPing into drones or mobs is griefing and not a rule used by the devs. TBH the fact that he didn't get banned by GM_s rather implies that he wasn't griefing... just very annoying.

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Yes, I never implied that you should go out risking life and limb to incite road rage. I probably wasn't clear enough though. There are ways to 'grief' drivers within the law.

As for the definition of "grief", this doesn't seem to be well-defined in this thread. Let's rectify that.

From Wikitionary:
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(online gaming) To harass and annoy other players of a game in a deliberate attempt to interfere with their enjoyment of it; especially, to do this as one’s primary activity in the game.

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Wikipedia:
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A griefer is a player who plays a computer game in order to irritate and harass other players, rather than in pursuit of game objectives.

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Someone on Wikipedia has also written a short essay on the subject.

What we can take away from all this is that griefing is the act of disrupting other players for no other reason than your own enjoyment.

Deaths resulting from Drones and NPC mobs grant you no rewards, so that wasn't a motivation. You say that "all enemy PvPers" aren't a 'group', but it's entirely possible to simply grief everyone. I shan't name and shame him, but we all remember a man who routinely spammed the request channel during Hamidon raids. That's about a hundred people being griefed right there, more than the average population of Recluses Victory by a factor of five. But there is no ambiguity here; disrupting the Hami raid was griefing.

I'm not arguing with you about what griefing is, the real issue here is what the devs say is griefing. Which, sadly, is where myself and Paragon Studios do not see eye to eye.

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TPing people into holes in the geometry in PvP zones is a petitionable offense, as is the use of language that breaks the EULA, but other than that, everything goes in a PvP zone. Trailing NPCs to another player is perfectly legal, as is killing someone repeatedly, popping lots of inspirations, interrupting duels and rep farms, stopping someone from getting nukes, using your tier 9 before you go into sirens, or really anything else you can think of.

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The mere fact that they mention these acts defines them as griefing, but they also specifically allow them. However, we are all agreed that what this man was doing is, by definition, griefing. This would be the difference between the law and the highway code.

The author of this article betrays a clear prejudice against MMO players. Somehow, he is surprised when he angers PvP players, when they have asked him to stop, told him how it annoys them, and when it is obvious to any sane-thinking person that such activity will incense people.

Clearly, for him to have access to Recluses Victory, he must have played the game up to level 40, Hero-side. Given the lack of XP in PvP zones, he must have played a very large amount of PvE content to get where he did. Surely, then, he sees the friendlier side of City of Heroes? Surely he has played with good, polite people on his travels. Surely he has engaged in teamwork with people of all creeds, all dispositions. Surely he has seen why people enjoy playing this game.

Instead he goes out of his way to cause conflict. Once this is done, he acts surprised, even shocked that people start treating him as a pariah. What's worse, he feels quite justified in all of this.

Given all that, I invite him to undertake another experiment. Drive your car with no regard for your fellow man. Cut people up, let nobody through, and blare your horn when anyone gets in your way. Tailgate people. While these activities do not necessarily breach the law, they will still incite road rage. (I hasten to add at this point that griefing is NOT a legal activity in City of Heroes, as has been stated elsewhere.) You WILL receive baseless threats. People will wind their windows down and throw obscenities at you. But to truly replicate what this man has done, you will need to harass the same group of drivers in the same place, daily, for weeks. Drive a distinctive car, such as a bright red pickup truck. Make sure people know that you are going out of your way to incite anger.

Can we conclude, therefore, that all people who drive are immature? Beyond that, can we publish a paper on the subject? I don't usually resort to hyperbole when arguing seriously, but...

No. Because that is stupid.

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Are you on their cable service? He probably uses their regular ADSL, which is nothing more than wholesale broadband sold by BT.

Just like a farm sells poultry to various supermarkets, BT sells broadband ready-made to various ISPs. Practically every "Up to 8Mbps" package is wholesale BT. The really GOOD internet packages aren't wholesale, they're LLU (Local Loop Unbundling). LLU means that apart from your actual telephone line that goes into your house, your broadband gets routed on the ISPs own networks.

This would be like Sainsburys rearing their own cattle, cutting out the middle man.

In the case of Virgin, you can get fibre-optic cable broadband, which doesn't even use your phone line. BT couldn't have a say in this even if they wanted to. This fibre optic stuff is without a doubt the most advanced broadband, but they aren't laying any more cable, so if you aren't in a Virgin area, you never will be.

If you have Virgin internet, but it uses your phone line, that's BT Wholesale. After all, Virgin would want to reach everybody, not just people in cable areas.

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LLU isnt a magic wand of awesomeness though, if you are with a bad ISP that uses LLU you will still get bad service, like with AOL and their crippling traffic shaping. Just because something should be technically superior when considering capabilities doesnt mean that will be the reality, policies can turn the greatest thing in the world into a pile of steaming poop. Plenty of the bad ISPs use LLU and give [censored] service often delivering less than "stock" broadband.

Virgin are not a very well received ISP, either via their line service or their cable outlet. Their future intentions are very dubious too with preferential "pathways" to content that pays them and utilising the Phorm marketing software.

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Absolutely right. Sky are another example of an ISP who cheaps out on their LLU services, but their packages are cheap enough anyway. You get what you pay for. O2 and Be, on the other hand, are top notch.

Omega, it would help if we knew which kind of Virgin you were on, either ADSL or cable.

Who would ever pay for a tailor session again? New tokens are given out whenever JLove sneezes, there are day jobs that reduce how much sessions cost, anyone with less than a years Vet rewards has tokens up the backside... I don't think we need yet another method to cheat the poor Icon out of our money. Think of the livelyhood of the tailors who work there!

Also, if tailor recipes were cheap, everyone would use them. If they were expensive, nobody would use them.

I reckon we'll get more options with Going Rogue. My theory is that they've been making new content at a higher graphical level, and have been holding it back until GR launches. That goes for weapons and all.

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well just to throw a spanner in the works, i'm with virgin and have no problems at all. So maybe it's you and not your providor ?

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Are you on their cable service? He probably uses their regular ADSL, which is nothing more than wholesale broadband sold by BT.

Just like a farm sells poultry to various supermarkets, BT sells broadband ready-made to various ISPs. Practically every "Up to 8Mbps" package is wholesale BT. The really GOOD internet packages aren't wholesale, they're LLU (Local Loop Unbundling). LLU means that apart from your actual telephone line that goes into your house, your broadband gets routed on the ISPs own networks.

This would be like Sainsburys rearing their own cattle, cutting out the middle man.

In the case of Virgin, you can get fibre-optic cable broadband, which doesn't even use your phone line. BT couldn't have a say in this even if they wanted to. This fibre optic stuff is without a doubt the most advanced broadband, but they aren't laying any more cable, so if you aren't in a Virgin area, you never will be.

If you have Virgin internet, but it uses your phone line, that's BT Wholesale. After all, Virgin would want to reach everybody, not just people in cable areas.

I'm on Be. I can unequivocally say it's the best ISP I've ever tried. You will download issues so fast, it'll be finished before you can blink.

Have a look at Sam Knows to get a picture of your available broadband options. You need to look under the "LLU" list for Be broadband. If it isn't there, you're bang out of luck.

Well, my search-fu is inferior then. It's a bit hard simply searching for terms like "colour", "change", "NPC", and the like.