Obitus

Yeah, but you gotta admit that's a pretty cool mask she's wearing.

Oh, you mean she isn't wearing a mask that makes her face look a five year old's? Oh.

Yikes.

Ahhhh. Well if you're a Cowboys fan, then I must withdraw the due sympathy I expressed earlier! (I kid, I kid.)

Seriously, though, good stuff from Captain-Electric. Glad to know that at least the problem has been identified. Hopefully it's resolved soon.

Definitely there are exceptions; blocking when in doubt is a good policy. I just wanted to emphasize that blocking isn't strictly necessary as a rule, and perhaps I went a little too far in the other direction to make that point. Generally, I can kill the foe before my lack of blocking is a problem; if they hit me with a control effect, I can usually break free manually (or I just click an active offense that breaks me free), and melt face before I'm in serious danger. If I get in serious danger, I can fall back on my two active defenses and two heal powers. Failing those, you also can use consumables.

Those cowboys are a huge annoyance, though, for sure. And granted, you'll have to block more in the lower level range, when you have fewer tools to deal with bad situations. And granted, ATs are more squishy as a class than free-form characters.

It's just that I prefer to look at block as a supplement rather than a staple mechanic of the game. The fact that you can reduce your damage by ~75% (last time I checked, which was admittedly a long time ago) with the press of a button when you get in a jam is a good thing, unless you believe that the game is tuned for every character to be doing it all the time. The game isn't tuned that way.

Actually, this is probably a better analogy: Block is like inspirations. You can use them liberally or conservatively, but generally you don't need to use inspirations except in rare situations. In COH, when you're in a tough spot as a squishy, you might pop 2-4 Lucks. In CO, you press shift more.

Ditto on pretty much all of this. DCUO is a beautiful game, and a lot of its mechanics appeal to me quite a bit. Hell, I think I'm sitting on something like 7,000 Sony bucks (or whatever their currency is over there) leftover from a sale that happened to take place during the month or two that I was playing the game. DCUO does a good job of pulling you in, IMO.

There's just no there there. What starts as a refreshingly different take on MMOs transitions disturbingly quickly into a painful, transparently repetitive end-game raiding grind. And there's basically nothing else, except for grinding out skill points, which requires a completionist mindset to put any compulsive CoH badger to shame. The leveling progression is fast and easy, but the skill-point system makes alting painful. That, and the fact that you accrue costume looks by acquiring gear.

Anyway, I wouldn't tell anyone not to try DCUO. It's worth picking up just for the week or so of leveling content. But for what it's worth, I think it's obviously the least appealing of the three superhero MMOs, and that goes double if you're a COH player looking for a new home.

As far as CO goes, I haven't had any problems with zoning or playing in general. I've tripped over a couple of annoying quest bugs, and there are a tiny handful of QoL issues that I'm frankly surprised Cryptic hasn't addressed in the last two years, but with all due sympathy for Atlantea's plight, I wouldn't recommend against the game on the basis that one CoH player reports game-breaking bugs. CO may very well be buggier than the usual MMO; honestly I can't say, but as usual with PC games, technical issues are pot-luck. You might have 'em; you might not.

You won't know til you try.

That's true, and believe me when I say that I've gotten annoyed in CoH deleting a bajillion temp-power recipes every time I get near full up.

But inventory tetris is a whole new level of annoyance, subjectively speaking. At least in CoH, loot is pre-sorted for you in a somewhat orderly way. So although you may occasionally wonder whether that spawn you killed with a full recipe tray might've dropped that elusive Apocalypse you were looking for, you don't have to spend a lot of time sorting through your inventory to sell/delete the garbage.

To be clear, I have no direct experience with GW2, so this is only tenuously on-topic, but Sam's comment (I think it was Sam) about inventory tetris struck me because I've been dealing with that very thing in Champions lately. Mousing over a bajillion ambiguous item icons to see what the items do, and not even knowing exactly which items are worth keeping, is like an obnoxious and mandatory mini-game. (An obnoxious mini-game made worse in Champions, for me, because they revamped the whole gear system while I was gone, so I have purple items from two years ago with half the stat budget of current greens ... and I have craptons of both old and new in my bank. Took like two hours the other night to sort through it all, and even now I have a bunch of stuff I'm hording because I'm not sure whether to ditch it or not. Man, can I just play the game?)

So ... *ticks fingers* ... you're saying there's a 6200% percent chance the game will survive? Huzzah, we're saved!

Ah ha. And now you and Feycat are white names again. NVM, false alarm!

OT, but you just got flagged as a VIP on the forum, Feycat -- or at least on my screen you did. Good sign, sunset-of-the-game-wise?

Yeah, been there, done that. I never saw anyone's standards go up simply because a young kid got hired, but the general premise is that production must always go up. If your factory/whatever doesn't raise production by an arbitrary percentage every month/quarter, chances are someone's going to catch hell.

Which, of course, is ridiculous. It's good to have goals, but you can't expect the same number of people using the same equipment to increase their productivity ad infinitum. In practice, what happened was that we'd seesaw up and down, and in the down months we'd get chewed out in a meeting by the regional manager -- but his threats were usually toothless. The whole thing was more-or-less symbolic, a ritualistic formality that served no purpose except to allow the semi-local bigwig to save face.

In any case, that was years ago, and I only stuck around for a couple of years as a youth. Your comment about your mother struck me, though, and perhaps for the wrong reason: my first thought was to shake my head and mumble to myself, "Yeah, and the young'un pushing everyone else won't have the long-term stamina/interest to keep up the pace." Long ago, I was that young'un, and I got a fair amount of praise for my naive enthusiasm -- but in retrospect, that younger me would've annoyed the living crap out of me now.

After about two weeks of reacquainting myself with CO's mechanics -- the new equipment and the new specializations and the balance changes to various powers and trees over the last two years -- I'm finding that you rarely need to block at all in solo content, even at high difficulty levels.

Actually, that was always true, IMO -- but now it seems more true. It's just a matter of working enough survivability powers into your build. Hell, I've been using an offensive passive and I can herd up whole rooms for AoE destruction. Granted, I haven't played any Archetypes; free/premium players might feel differently.

In any case, and provided you're willing to subscribe and/or buy free-form character slots, I wouldn't sweat the blocking thing. Blocking is more a measure of last resort -- something to use when you need a breather and/or when you take on way more than you can chew -- than it is a staple tactic. There are many reasons not to like CO, but block shouldn't be a deal-breaker.

All of that said, and on a tenuously related side note: I was just a tad annoyed that all of the high-end Unity gear I grinded for ~2 years ago was rendered effectively useless in the interim. The good news is that it's not difficult to get the newer version of the same. (Silver Recognition gear)

I love you.

Seriously, thank you for the heads up. Wing Commander was the shiz.

Pretty sure CO's celestial armor pieces predate CoH's. In any case, CO's always had a seeming bias towards armored/mech looks, and actually I think CoH has moved in that direction over the last coupla years.

So-called normal heroes look better here, though, IMO.

Yep. It's one thing to tout the increased efficiency of voice chat for the purpose of coordinating a team or whatever.

But part of the reason that voice chat is more efficient is that it's harder to ignore. Personally, I like voice chat occasionally and/or in the right company, but not when I'm just pugging with random gamers. No matter how efficient voice chat is, you can't convince people to like it. Their preference against voice is perfectly legitimate.

As for whether a native voice feature in a game is a good or bad thing? I'm on the fence. It seemed almost necessary in DDO, because (at the time I played, anyway) pretty much all of DDO's content was for groups, and many of DDO's dungeons had quirks that would have been difficult to explain to newcomers in text. Asking every person you grouped with, in DDO, to install Ventrillo and sign up for your personal server would have been impractical.

In a game like CO, where most of the content is soloable and (for me at least) the most compelling part of the game is messing around with different self-sufficient character builds? Native voice chat almost seems like a disadvantage, or at best a curious use of development resources.

Yeah, the issue is unlikely even to come up any time soon, for a host of practical reasons. But for the sake of argument, let's pretend that NCSoft publishes an Arcanaville comic book 20 years from now, and that it turns out to be the most successful comic book ever published.

The broadest interpretation of the relevant clause in NCSoft's EULA essentially says that you have waived your right to claim any share of the profits from NCSoft's Arcanaville-derived enterprise, simply because you chose to roll up a virtual incarnation of Arcanaville on CoH in 2004. NCSoft is basically telling the court, pre-emptively, summarily to dismiss your inevitable lawsuit for your fair share of the money.

YMMV, but that idea strikes me as absurd on its face, and all the more so because EULAs are so common, lengthy and arcane these days.
We click past what amounts to a formality (because every piece of software has one, practically) before we log in to play a game. Intellectual property rights probably don't even enter the average CoH player's mind at any point in the experience, much less every time they technically agree to the EULA.

You're right that there's law, and that there's court interpretation -- and that potential reversals of the latter don't necessarily nullify the at-the-time validity of the former. But I find it hard to believe that there's literally black-letter law permitting NCSoft to claim, in perpetuity, even non-exclusive rights to your intellectual property just because you decided on a whim to see how Arcanaville might play in the CoH milieu, which is soon-to-be defunct. NCSoft almost certainly has the right to use a likeness of Arcanaville as she appears in CoH, perhaps even to use a likeness of her in any CoH-themed product, but that's probably about it. Everything else is likely up in the air until and unless the matter is more clearly defined by precedent (or by specific legislation, which may itself end up getting challenged in the courts).

Put it this way: I wouldn't worry about NC's seemingly expansive rights (based on the EULA) to use our characters. In the extremely unlikely event that NC someday earns a mint using your ideas (or mine) in a context divorced from CoH, we'd have a good shot at winning a court case challenging NC, or more likely, at getting a settlement from NC beforehand. If all else fails, and if the stakes are high enough to justify the effort, you can always at least try to sue.

Maybe I'm not in tune with your intent here, but again, to clarify: Just because NCSoft feels they can do something, it doesn't follow that NCSoft is legally entitled to do it, certainly not in all cases, in all localities.

So although I wouldn't advocate that anyone try to sue for lost subscription fees (because it's just not worth the cost or the effort), I would also caution against the knee-jerk belief that you have no hope in complaining about and/or disputing the idea with NCSoft. There's a decent chance they'll pay you off just to get rid of you.

That depends of what your definition of "it" is. If you're referring to NC's decision to close the game service, then yeah, that's NC's prerogative. If you're referring to NC's potential decision not to refund money for undelivered CoH subscription services, then that may or may not be within their rights to do, depending on a whole host of factors.

And yeah, regardless, consumers have a right at least to fight against the latter decision, to whatever degree they deem worthwhile.

Yeah, that's sorta the point; you shouldn't take the EULA as an iron-clad guarantee of your success (or failure) if any of these matters should come to a head. There's a natural tendency (EDIT: among MMO players) to take the EULA literally when in fact, the validity of the EULA's wording is only the tip of the iceberg. Where (in the document) and how prominently various clauses are displayed could potentially be a deal-breaker, depending on the court or jurisdiction.

As for the complaint in the OP, and as stated earlier, hiring a lawyer to get back ~$100 in un-refunded subscription fees is a little like renting a Ferrari to save money on cab fares.

Yes, and that's a deliberate over-reach on their part, in my opinion. Has any of this stuff been challenged and upheld in court? If it hasn't been challenged in court, then why wouldn't NCSoft make the language as broad as possible? There's no downside, from their point of view. Write yourself all the rights in the world, and if they're taken away at some point later, then oh well.

On a semi-related note, there was a case not too long ago wherein a recreational skydiving business, which had forced its customers to sign an expansive liability disclaimer, was found to have no basis on which to disclaim liability (or rather, a very limited basis). There are, I'm sure, other cases in which waivers like that are upheld. An agreement can say anything at all, but that agreement isn't necessarily legally and literally binding until and unless it's challenged and upheld as valid. (Or until and unless the principles of a given agreement are challenged and upheld. IP rights in online games is a fairly new and obscure area.)

And as for the deletion of characters, if you make a good-faith effort to revoke whatever rights to your intellectual property that NCSoft might (try to) claim through the EULA, then at least you have a basis on which to challenge their further use of that property. Deleting your characters is not a clear-cut termination, but it's a step you should probably take just for the sake of thoroughness (assuming you're concerned that NCSoft will one day release an Arcanaville comic book or whatever).

Yep. The decision to close CoH and give the players three months' notice sucks, but it's NCSoft's prerogative, and frankly it's a fair enough arrangement in principle (for the players; the developers deserve sympathy).

But if NCSoft decides to keep money paid for CoH subscription time that NC can no longer deliver? That's on a different level of shady. Granted, none of this stuff is set in stone as of yet, but FWIW I wasn't truly angry about NC's handling of the situation until the store-credit thing became news around these parts. And I'm not personally affected because I cancelled my sub on August 31st, so it's purely a matter of principle.

I've seen the way MMOs in general and NC in particular advertise long-term subscription bundles ("A SAVINGS OF 30%!"); if NC's going to hide behind the EULA to force people who paid for post-November CoH time to subscribe to Aion instead, then NC is not acting in good faith. Their refund policies, AFAIK, are not prominently displayed in easily understood language prior to sale, and therefore you can make a very strong argument that their refund policies are invalid, at least in various states in the US.

Now whether it'd be worth the effort to inquire with a lawyer or actually take steps to sue NCSoft is a whole nother kettle of fish. Personally, I'd say no; even if you paid up for a full year on the very day (Aug 31st) that CoH's cancellation was announced, you're only talking about what? About $100? The time and effort that would go into a lawsuit, even before you consider potential legal fees, is probably worth far more than whatever money you stand to lose.

I don't think the intent here on anyone's part is to offer legal advice; my intent is simply to offer encouragement to people who might otherwise feel like the EULA is an iron-clad guarantee that they have no recourse against NC. You do at least have an argument, and if you make enough noise, there's a chance NC will give in without a lawyer's interference.

This is a much better summary of the issue than mine. I shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard without at least 4 hours of sleep in the last 24.

Thanks, Tex.

Yes, that comment was tongue-in-cheek, and a little muddled as a result. To be clear: If you use a character that prominently features elements that are obviously and uncommon/unique to CoH, then yes, NCSoft may be obligated to come after you, to protect their ownership of the CoH IP.

Just as Marvel/DC felt obligated to come after NC for what could have been perceived as ripoffs of their intellectual property in CoH.

But as Uber implied, that's a pretty high standard. If you have a character that doesn't obviously and prominently feature elements of City of Heroes (the game or the world), and you try to use that character in a future venture, then chances are NC isn't even going to notice, much less object. They don't have an obligation to go after every superhero that resembles something that might have been rolled up on a CoH server in order to maintain their IP. They don't care about their supposed property right to your characters. They probably don't want the headache of suing you over a prospective comic-book character.

More to the point you raise, if you make a good-faith effort to delete the character (a character YOU invented), and the character doesn't have any obviously CoH-unique characteristics, then NC would have an uphill climb in trying to sue you. NC's right to your character's likeness is pretty tenuous to begin with; the presumption that NC has any right at all to your characters stems from over-broad language in an obscure clause of their EULA. The language covers their butts and dares the courts to place limits on their EULA-claimed powers. And if the issue gets brought up, the courts very likely will impose limits.

I'm not suggesting that someone with a legitimate IP claim to your characters would be thwarted by your good-faith effort to delete a character from their servers (if such a situation is even possible). I'm suggesting that NC's claim (to player characters rolled in COH) isn't obviously legitimate, and that NCSoft's claim actually won't stand up to scrutiny if the matter is pressed in court. The purpose of the IP clause in the EULA is not to lay claim to your intellectual property, per se; the purpose of the clause is to save NC from potential headaches in the operation of its business -- and the language happens to be broad because there's no reason not to make the language as broad as possible.

That does not mean that the courts would acknowledge the broadest interpretation of the clause in NC's EULA. More likely, the courts would pare down the legitimacy of the clause til it just barely encompasses NC's ability to carry on its affairs without interference from attention-seeking players (players who might, for instance, claim that NC can't publish a promotional gameplay video because the video features a likeness of the players' characters, that sort of thing). There's a stark difference between saying that NC has a right to feature characters rendered in and presented by their software, and declaring that NC has a right to all possible representations of said characters, invented by other people, that may appear anywhere else in the future.

TL;DR: EULAs are not law. EULAs are (often intentionally over-reaching) attempts to dissuade consumers from getting the law involved. You are obviously free to disagree, and I'm certainly willing to acknowledge that the consumer's superficial agreement to the EULA gives NCSoft a leg-up in any disputes with regard to matters covered in the EULA. I'm just trying, in my tired and rambling way, to point out that the EULA is over-touted on this and every other MMO forum in existence.

Well said, on all counts.