Noxilicious

Still, updating those missions to involve GR maps, assuming they get new maps, would be awesome, no? It could even be a sneak preview to GR for those that have yet to buy it once it gets released.

That Glowie/Hunt Indicator is the kind of QoL stuff we should've had forever ago. Once that one's implemented, I might not hate Defeat Alls as much anymore.

I wonder if that Indicator will include hostages, too, because then it would be perfect. If I get on yet another outdoor instance where the hostages hide in the most unnoticable crooks and nannies, I will punch someone in the face. Even when I know where to look, it takes me ages to find that last, sometimes even the first hostage, just because their hidey spots are so easily overlooked.

Mega Mek Man GM. You know you want it, you know you want to beat the crap out of it.

Though I guess aside from Sharkhead Island and its Council base, the only other zone in the entire game it would fit in would be Striga Island, and that's blue-side.

I just wanna beat up a giant robot, you know? Aside from Kronos, anyway.

Tag farmers are ruining this forum.

There's been a Crotaoa mission on a farm.

Hate to tell you, but you're a zombie now.

Have fun with your unlife.

The best thing is, you still get the usual costume slots at levels 20, 30 and 40, so you get four normal costumes and the uniform. Furthermore, if you trade in Halloween salvage, you get a 'hidden' sixth costume slot, however, that one is a copy of your second costume slot you make at level 20, it's it can only be accessed through /slash commands, and you can never change it with the Facemaker.

Technically, that sixth costume slot isn't there, but if you prepare your second costume slot appropriately, you do have in essence five costumes and the uniform.

Out of curiosity, Folonius, if a MArc has rewards equal to your average mission outside the AE, because it doesn't use custom mobs or because it uses minion/lieut/boss groups all set to Hard or whatever the reason might be, would you still rate it 2 or 3 stars because it's not a boss farm? If so, would you then, theoretically, rate dev content lowly for these reasons?

You're in it for the rewards, cool, whatever. Not my cup of tea, but if you like it, that's your prerogative. Still, the movie analogy is still spot-on. It's easy to tell what arc is story-focused, and therefore unlikely to give boss-farm XP, and which is a boss-farm and therefore unlikely to tell an engaging story. These two try to accomplish completely different things, and so they should be judged by different standards. If you actively choose to play a story-focused MArc and then rate it lowly because it doesn't give farm-like XP, sure, you are excercising your right to rate arcs as you see fit, but you are also missing the point of the arc entirely, which makes one wonder why you played it in the first place.

Similarly, I don't play any farms when I see them just to 1-star them. Sure, I think they miss the point of the AE entirely, and I consider them dull even by MMO standards, but they're not what I'm after when using the MA.

The AE is an entire ghetto full of dining establishments. If you go to a 5-star restaurant only to remark on your blog that it took more time for your dinner to arrive than at a fast-food chain, you'll only make yourself look rather foolish.

This is an interesting question, actually.

I wouldn't call it a story being confusing, though, but intriguing, rather. It's a mystery, you don't get the full picture immediately. You get familiarised with the setting, yes, but all the finer plot details are progressively unveiled, and the fun is in crafting your own theories, being your own detective in uncovering the mysteries. It's simultaneously wanting to know what happens, as well as a race to beat the characters to the conclusion.

However, I also believe that a lack of details can be a valid literary tool as well. I haven't done the Radio yet, but froom looking over the arc at ParagonWiki, and also comparing it to the Television, I do get the impression the authors purposefully left out many details.

It's the idea behind propaganda, you know. You have no idea what exactly Radio is telling you, but it's RADIOOOOOOOOO, Free Opportunity!, so you feel compelled to just do it what it says, anyway.

Television is even more blatant about not being blatant about anything at all. Television just tells you what's good, what's not, and what to do, and you believe it because it is Television.

I guess you could call it social commentary, or something, how two major tools of spreading information in our world, Radio and Television, that help us stay up to date and continually shape our perception of the world at large, give you very limited information, if any at all, to purposefully manipulate your perception of the world in CoV. Since Radio and Television control information through the sheer scarcity of which you get from it, you also get a very limited picture of your greater surrounding on which you're forced to act.

This is also why not getting a proper conclusion is the best possible conclusion you can get. It leaves you wondering why you did what you did. Just who IS Television, and why does it do what it does, and most importantly, why did you help it in the first place? Even the souvenirs reflect you don't know why you did what you did, and that's the key part. The point isn't finding out about Television, but asking yourselves these questions.



tl;dr: The point of Radio and Television isn't who they are and why they do what they do, but that they are tools of information you usally trust, yet manipulate you through sheer scarcity of information. A 'proper' conclusion would undermine the point because then there's no rooms for questions to be asked. Also: Propaganda.


The authors of CoX are not exactly George Orwell and these contacts and story arcs are not exactly 1984 material, but I still love that they're around, because it's those kind of stories that realise that proper use of formal aspects of a story can enrich the experience so much more than merely using them as a foundation for the narrative aspects.

I don't care about benefits or efficiency or anything of the like, I just know that CoX's first person does nothing to help my immersion. I'm not a game designer or psychologist or anything like that, but I know that first person in CoX doesn't *FEEL* like first person, unlike other MMOs. It doesn't feel like I'm looking through my character's eyes, it feels like I'm looking through a camera lodged in my toon's brain while they have a cranium made of glass.

It actually *hurts* my immersion into the game. So, really, for me to enjoy the game I have no other choice but to play in third-person mode. Not that that's bad, at least you can have some pretty cinematic camera angles if you rotate around a bit.

Me, I love playing Masterminds and then pretending that all the other ATs on the team are just more meat-shields. But in all seriousness, I love Masterminds because they're a fairly unique experience to play in CoX, even if it often errs on the side of being easy-mode in an already-easy game.