Netwyrm

I'm personally feeling very segregated... for me, the fun content is what they've locked off from the Free players, which means I'm either seeing the "Sorry, you can't join us for the BAF", or I'm not seeing the new players except in flyover, because they are playing in zones I'm not spending much time in.

The most bitter pill is the IO system issue--I once had three paid accounts, before I decided playing CoH 24/7 was not how I wanted to spend all my time and dropped down to two, then one. I used to visit those characters on reactivation weekends. Now I can pull those characters up again anytime, but they are useless--as they were purpled and IO'ed out in every slot, and are unplayable flat. And no, I am not going to make them paid VIP accounts again--I'm much more likely to cancel the remaining subscription and have done with it.

So, essentially, there is now resentment settling slowly over everything like smog--the world of haves and have nots, rigorously enforced in code, has greatly curdled my excitement for the "renewed" game. I can't play with old friends willing to try out the game again, as we're locked into different zones away from the interesting post-50 content they have heard me going on about (and their characters need a respec right away); I can't play my old characters on other accounts; and I feel really, really weird about telling people they can't be on my team: the one true strength of this game--that just about any team could play together and succeed, feels very broken.

One way to think about it is someone, in surgery, with all of their skin and bones removed and their various organs distributed amongst physical hardware, the nerves and bones the cabling running between them. Logical services, say for the market, are in no way reflected in the physical layout of the hardware. The market likely resides on its own dedicated hardware, with special cabling connecting it to devices whose own interrelationship conceptually spans both U.S. coasts (assuming there are still West and East Coast server clusters), but which is physically made up of segments provided by several phone companies, each with their own set of physical components in the mix.

The programmers at Paragon write to the concepts when they design the game, but what lies beneath is implemented by disconnected teams geographically far removed, and who have no concept of the concepts the programmers at Paragon are writing to--those only make sense from inside the game.

It's horridly complicated. And the work being done to the hardware is likely carried out by teams who work in the IT department for NCSoft, not Paragon Studios, and they are probably not familiar enough with the game to parse, "Oh, the market is down" directly into the physical group of connections and machines without having to stop and figure it out.

I'd like, during the downtime, to see an article like the one written oh so long ago when the game launched about the backend itself. I cannot turn the article up readily with a search (it really has been years), but it was an interview in which some description of the City setup itself was given. I seem to recall it was multicore Xeons (at the time quite shiny) but it was a very long time back.

It's inherently interesting (to some of us), and might serve as a way to quietly reinforce an appreciation of the complexity, that what the game runs on in no way resembles the setups most people conceptualize when they think of "computers".

I think it's marvelous it can be made to work at all.

I'll bring Myztar, my lvl 50 bubbler, as I've already gotten my defender and tank through this week's task force.

I've not done this, as it's been offline my entire subscription. I suspect there is a badge involved, so please add my badger Myztar to the list of signups (lvl 50 Mind/FF).

I would like to earn badges and shards on Myztar (lvl 50 Mind/FF).

No refinement to an existing system is going to pull in new players.

However, it may roll existing players over to reconsideration of their subscription--particularly if their playtime had already dwindled (after the butchery of PVP and Mission Architect in preceding issues/updates) to playing the "market game" to an hour a week or so.

The new interface tries my patience--it adds steps to any task undertaken. Adding the resettable vertical scroll tray at the bottom, which loses index position and scrolls back out of view with every action--that's the icing on the cake. Combined with the need to constantly inform the user of potential usage for every single recipe and salvage item--words fail.

I really do not care for the new interface, and would prefer the old one be reinstituted at the earliest possible opportunity--perhaps an emergency patch, say, tomorrow?

I've usually been too burnt out after running the Winter Event to participate in the Spring Event, but over the past few years I've picked up the badges on my core characters--and I'm certain at least two of my characters still have the Snaptooth mission from last year on them.

The reason I like to see the "same" content stay in the game is thus: every year, I run the BNY mission solo with each of my alts--because the mission is SO perfectly static, I find it to be an excellent way to measure each character's combat prowess against an identical challenge.

I've been surprised by several alts success or failure--the tank who can't beat Snaptooth, the empathy defender who can take him out faster than almost any other alt, the scrapper for whom it is neck and neck--it provides a really good metric for me as to ascertain whether Thor or Hulk IS stronger

Also, the thought of what it would do to the mission database if anything were to be removed is SCARY--many old-timers are sitting on copies of missions which no longer exist in the live game* and it could completely break their contact progress to arbitrarily delete data.

*I think the Faultline revamp knocked it out of the park (GOOD JOB!), but I would still really like to see the old Faultline map available through Flashback. I started playing just before the zone change and only got to fall into the crevasses of the old map once.

I won't team with people who can't express their thoughts coherently in written form.

It's a terrible failing on my part, I know, but I've found it impossible to dismiss the high level of correlation between people who ask "Would you like to join level 35+ in Brickstown?" and an enjoyable PUG, and those who begin with "wana tem?"

Anything--ANYTHING--to kill the:

- Hasten glow
- Superspeed glow
- Combat jumping glow

I often avoid selections in these numerically highly-desirable powersets because the visual effects push me right off the ledge of rational discussion. Combat jumping turns a dark scrapper into murky gray when active... and superspeed burns my eyes (I play on a very large monitor in a usually dim room).

What I was looking forward too in customization was setting these effects to "black/black" or "none"; i.e., turning them "off".

The White Dwarf has no forward walk cycle post-patch unless he jumps--after taking any other action, such as an attack, he goes sliding across the floor.

I love the darkening sky events... but I sincerely hope someone other than my lone character shows up to the fight, which has been pretty much the case since the AE went in.

Maybe if there were a second series of accolade badges created... or badges for dropships added?

Sigh. THIS trial. Put down Myztar please (lvl 50 bubbler) for the team who will most benefit from boosted defense. I would really like to obtain this badge... I'm familiar with the parameters of the mission.

I had an interesting experience in PI last night on broadcast. The four players in-zone (myself included) had a conversation containing complete sentences, some observations, and several LOLs. Not once was "LF anchors" or "PL meh pls" heard.

Please understand, I am not promoting this as the "way things should be", but passing it along as an anecdotal contrast to the "way things have been." "LFT" and "anchor" spam in broadcast doesn't really bother me, I tune it right out.

Casual PUGs outside of the AE, the mainstay of my multiplayer exposure in COH, have vanished into the aether; although I did receive one invite to an ITF last night (unfortunately just prior to bedtime!). Outside of that, the last month or two has been soloing in the vast regions of silence which lay beyond the walls of Atlas Park.

AE would have worked at lot better if it at minimum required travel beyond a single AE location to pick up each mission of a story arc in sequence.

A concession to running Posi, I believe, are the purple sets which provide toxic resistance--said resistance being of little use except facing Vazhilok... and are peculiarly available only at level 50.

Besides, running the Cavern of Transcendance at level is much more painful, in my experience. At least Posi throws you a map!

I really like the Rularuu as opponents. I am okay with some of my characters not being able to solo every villain group, and honestly, I like fighting exotic, strange opponents like Rularuu a whole heck of a lot more than monochromatic bores like Malta.

I bought the white MacBook (2009) model, which released in February. Stock, it has an nVidia 9400M, and 2 GB of RAM. Although the Mac-OS native client does not play as smoothly as does the native PC client (P4, 2GB, 8600GT/512)--I'm looking at YOU, SG and Vanguard bases--I have found only one way to require a forced restart: tab the game client out to the desktop, and leave it there in the background more than a few minutes.

Without running the game client, I can force confusion and occasionally require a hard restart when I shut it down and move it from the office to home, which involves connecting and disconnecting an external monitor--this can cause the dock and menubar to be attached to the wrong screen, with the easiest fix being just restarting.

Amusingly, I've even closed the lid on the machine while the game client is running, sending it into sleep, and been able to continue playing by opening the machine up again in less than the server disconnect cycle time.

This machine retails for just under $1000 new.

I have one of the new MacBooks with the 9400M, and I'm extremely pleased with it in general--performance is overall slightly better in dense actions like ship raids than on my P4 PC equipped with an 8600GT/512.

I run at both 1200x800 on the built-in display and on an external monitor at 1650x1050. Lag in the Vanguard base has been noticeable, and in the SG base has been downright abhorrent to date.

I also set the Gamma slider to 131% in Graphics Options, as this matches hues better to the Windows version to my eye--the Mac is overbright elsewise.

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Myztar
Global Contact: @Netwyrm
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Magic
Super Rank & Super Group: Mystic Avengers

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Grim Fae
Global Contact: @Antimagic
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Magic
Super Rank & Super Group: Mystic Avengers

"Pain Domination"? Just call it "Antipathy" >.>

Yay! Invasions are a'comin' and my new graphics card and alts from Double XP weekend will be here to meet them! It's fun to run from zone to zone and see who else is doing the same, there gets to be a crowd of regulars!

I like the every-so-often Rikti incursions. There's a regular cadre of raid-chasers on my home server, and it's fun to see them turn up to shut down each incursion. Many, many heroes (or villains) can participate at once, without the agonizing organizational overhead of a Hamidon or a Mothership raid.

I like the spontaneous big fight aspect of the incursions, the chaos they create in a zone, and the sheer intensity and numbers. The opportunity to get the badges for all my new alts created for I12 is also very welcome.

I'd be more than happy if another event was created using the Rularuu as enemies offering similar badge setups, or one in which the Circle of Thorns constant thinning of the dimensional walls caused an eruption of behemoths throughout the city.

And thank you to the power-that-be that got the announcements moved to the Events channel, where the wording appears in purple--it's very much easier to pick out the signal than it was from the green noise constantly scrolling by!

W00t!

Yay! The Rikti invasions are possibly my favorite part of the whole game!

I currently fake Super Swimming on one alt... entering the water first, and then activating Fly allows you to give the appearance, at least, of superspeed swim.

Love the idea of Burrowing travel... I can see that being *very* popular with Stone Tanks. Like a Teleport that only works at street level, and unlike the other suggestions, probably well within the current engine's capabilities--all you'd need is modified teleport and the Red Cap earth entry/exit graphics. Great suggestion!

Hmmm. I think what I'd do is alter the tool the GMs have, by tweaking the expletive filters with a pre-step.

All the chat text gets passed by an expletive filter already, most like whether the player has it "on"... and assuming this is done server-side (it might be handled by the client, in which case this approach would be unfeasible without daily client patches, and thus should be rejected)--it means there is already a bottleneck through which all chat text is passed, so why not exploit that bottleneck further?

1) Some pre-determined number of subscribers send harassment petitions to the GMs when a tell is received. These tells contain a website address. If enough instances of the same website URI are referenced, the policy is enacted.

2) The website address, such as "123games.com" then gets typed into the pre-filter scan list by the on-duty GM responsible for this task.

3) When a text line is received by the chat engine, it now runs that string through it's list, and substitutes out "########.###" for that particular string.

4) Altered text line is passed on to the expletive filter as normal for futher checking.

By removing the ability to get potential customers to their storefront, the economic viability of the activity would be destroyed in simple manner.

It would slow things down in miniscule fashion, but string manipulation tends to be one of the fastest things a computer does--I'd write the system because it is so simple and then look at the possible performance hit with actual data, rather than dismiss it out of hand.