Obsidius

FYI:

Updated my previous post with a video and many screenshots of the event. Enjoy

Great to hear from you Cricket/ Crickette Happy 3rd Anniversary! Keep on rockin'

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They learned from the last Event. They camped the hospitals for I think it was Cuppa's party, or one of the prior anniversary shindigs

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Not true. I was playing as Manticore during the Cuppa-thon and was responsible for spawning all of the critters during that event. None of the devs ever camped the hospitals. I spawned the RV versions of the Freedom Phalanx and Arachnos AVs at one point and I believe what happened was some crafty player managed to train some of them up into the rez stations. I was babysitting everything I spawned and killing off the things that were wreaking too much destruction. In the chaos, I lost track of a few of the AVs and just assumed that all of the players had taken them out. As soon as I heard over broadcast that they AVs had gotten up there I went up and killed them off. It was never us griefing you. At least not directly.

I suspect that this is what happened this time. Ghost Widow was actually the only dev who had permission to spawn anything during this event. I don't believe anyone working at Cryptic or NCSoft attacked another player. We actually have very strict guidelines about what we can or can't do while logged into a signature characters. So if you were attacked by Lord Recluse it was undoubtedly one of the AI critters spawned by GW.

We took a lot of extra steps to make sure everyone was aware of what was going on this time so everyone could avoid it if they wanted too. We had 8 or 9 instances of Pocket D open during the event and things were only being spawned in 1 instance at a time, with plenty of fair warning beforehand.

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I for one think the devs did a bang-up job with this event. There was plenty of warning when spawning GMs. From what I personally saw, there was no intentional griefing (except from my bloody ISP, resetting my cable line while fighting Black Scorp ), and the spawns inside the club were easily defeated.

The mass zerging of GMs happened only on the chalet, and personally it was a blast taking on over a dozen Kronos Class Titans! It was fun being part of the spear's tip, as it were

Eh well, you can't please everyone all the time

<Hands BAB some Slings and Arrows Repellent>

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Ok if Hero1 comes back as a villian is he gonna take our capes away

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I think the real question is, why does Hero 1's memorial keep moving? I've seen it in Perez, Galaxy, Atlas, and Skyway. Does it also have it's own pocket dimension?

Just got back in front of the forums after the weekend, and I will never forget the Night of 1,000 Kronoses.

I got on kinda late (Being on the west coast), but immediately my wife and I find Lighthouse hiding in Atlas, apparently AFK. As soon as we line up to get a picture with his avatar, he started moving. Apparently, he'd stepped away for some dinner

So we got our picture taken w/ Lighthouse (a very cordial person I might add), left him (which was a little harder with Power Suppression, no Fly ) so he could finish his dinner, and promptly headed to Pocket D for some fun.

In switching between a Pocket D instance, I walked onto the floor and was immediately assaulted by four Kronos Class Titans! Fortunately, I popped into GA as the rest of the heroes and villains commenced to lay waste to them.

Lord Recluses (the dev-controlled version this time ) graced us with his appearance a couple of times. BTW, don't /e slap him like one player did, he does have the Touch of Death apparently

Some other guys showed up to ruin the fun, like Ghost Widow, Mako, Recluse, and Black Scorp (AV versions all), but we wiped the dance floor with their unconscious heaps

Just when things seemed to be dying down, the chalet in PD 3 came under attack by at least a dozen GMs. Winter Lords, Kronoses, Eochais, Jacks, etc. At one point heroes couldn't get through the chalet door without running directly into half a dozen Winter Lords (no pictures of this I'm afraid, I was too busy trying to win some trivia prizes ).

After we cleaned up the top of the slopes, we proceeded to the bottom, which had almost a dozen more GMs of the same variety. It was a back-and-forth battle, but eventually we won the slopes back.

Or so we thought.

Kronoses appeared on the slopes and came sliding down to meet us, intermingled with a few Jacks (Fear FTS!) and Eochais. At one point I counted 13 Kronoses alone (not including some of the other GMs).

At first we were totaled, but we re-grouped and wiped them up. And more came, wash, rinse repeat. By the time I left, a third wave of Kronoses had appeared for some pummeling. But by that time I had seen enough of them to last me into I12

Thanks for the excellent get-together devs, and thanks to Matt for yet-another-cryptic message about the next upcoming content (I10+). Devs and events like this is why I plan to stick around for (hopefully) another 3 years

Edit: Edited to include photo-commentary and a short video with my narrative

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Quick, someone post Scrapulous' IO slotting examples in here.

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IO build example: Fire/Fire Tanker

by Scrapulous !

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2) Log into the Test Server (allow enough time for the latest version to download to your PC - maybe an hour) and head to Icon/Facemaker for a make-over. This will cost you no *real* influence/infamy because nothing on the Test Server affects your real characters on the other servers. The Theme for the party is Secret Identity, be inventive, if your character always goes around in street clothes then you won't have much work to do, if they're a demon / robot / etc then magic and holographic projectors can do marvellous things. It's a suggested theme, ya don't have to dress up if you don't want to.

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QFT! Don't worry about free tailor sessions or Inf! What you use on Test won't affect your Live character!

Also, I realized last night I already had a perfect costume for the event (the P&P Obsidius had Obfuscation - it does wonders for one's complexion )

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It was when X was on, and everything on my end is set properly. Didn't mean to sound rude.

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I kinda figured it was X - I've heard him more than a few times

No harm, no foul IMHO

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Someone at w00t radio needs to adjust the gain on their broadcast...the distortion is quite annoying.

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Perhaps you need to adjust something on your system b/c I'm listening to DJ Screaming Lord right now and not getting a single bit of distortion.

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Could have been when X was on <shrugs>

Screaming Lord's stuff isn't my cup of tea, I'm afraid. No biggie - to each his own

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When I logged on to the Test Server this morning the free Tailor visit hadn't been added. I assume that will happen later today - if it hasn't been added already.

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No free tailor visit, nor was one meant to be implied.

It's the Test server; just copy your character and make a costume.

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what statio are we listening to again

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http://www.w00tradio.net/

"Where the only zeros are in the name!™"

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Just wanted to say what an awesome guide this is. Your guides really help a casual player like me become more and more excited about the possibilities of I9. *thumbs up*

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It's huge, and I'll need to read it in more detail, but gWrath succinctly summarizes my sentiment of this guide. Good work Scrapulous

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Costume Theme: ‘Secret Identity’ – Dress like your alter ego secret identity!

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What if we don't have one?

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Stuff your character in street clothes. Would your hero go clubbing in their tights?

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Tights, no.

Skintight patent leather, on the other hand...

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first post after dev!!!

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Who the hell cares!!??

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go [censored] yourself

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Ah, another quality post from cohwatchdog, the best poster EVAR

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first post after dev!!!

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Who the hell cares!!??

Cool, thanks for clearing this up Jester

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Three years ago on April 28th City of Heroes exploded into the Online Gaming scene! Countless hours and many thousands of players later it is still going strong! To commemorate this milestone, we invite you to join us on the Training Room test server April 27th to party with the NCsoft Community and Cryptic Developer Teams.

Here are the details:


What: Official 3rd Year City of Heroes Anniversary Party


When: April 27th, 4pm to 8pm Pacific (7pm to 11pm Eastern)


Where: Training Room Test Server – for details to connect, <a href="/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=shibboleth&Number =3022340&page=0&fpart=1" target="_blank">See this post!</a>


Costume Theme: ‘Secret Identity’ – Dress like your alter ego secret identity!


Be sure to tune in to w00t Radio to hear live broadcast from the party floor!

Discussion on this topic is here!

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Did this change again?

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ACTUALLY after speaking with Lighthouse... we're moving the party to Friday, April 27th, starting at 5p.m. Eastern. (emphasis mine)

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Please clarify

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farm for hours before doing actual content

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Actually, I think one of the arguments is that you don't have to farm for hours - that these powers are easier to get than intended.

<QR>
Alaestor: "Shopping list - pick up more Shivans"

(Man, this thread has so derailed since this morning)

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While the news from Castle is disappointing, I would move on and say that one of two things needs to happen:

1) Either they allow for the fix as described by iakona.
2) They Document this ingame somehow.

These little +heal IO bonuses are pretty commonplace. However locking people out of them in the fairly ubiquitous self heals that give Toxic, seems to be shooting them in the foot.

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As the owner of a Stone tank, I must completely concur.

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While an interesting article, these Wings have been finished since Issue Eight went live, with the exception of the Tech Wings I believe. Did it really take Jay the entirety of the months since then to make a few pairs of boots and one set of wings? Furthermore, the drop rate for these new Wings is so poor that Jay may as well not have wasted his time creating them, as a teeny, tiny, minority of players will benefit from his work if the situation is not improved.

Also, I really hope those costume designs for the example characters in there are the product of the random button. They're not really what I'd expect from a professional designer.

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I really don't think it's Jay's call as to when his designs make it on to the game...that's more State's and Posi's call.

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I would think that if there were more costume pieces ready to be put in the game, they'd put them in. I'm not of the opinion that costume options have been developed and withheld. I'm of the opinion that they haven't been developed.

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Well, there have been other "leaked" pieces displayed on Live, such as weird backpacks and Wyvern pieces appearing on player characters (my Wyvern-themed alt would kill for those ). I don't know the details, but they pictures appeared to be legit. Unfortunately, I don't know where those posts ended up (possibly lost to the pruning).

So there may be more in the code than meets they eye. It took some skilled "diving" to find the extra wing options in I8, after all. And it was pretty obvious that some of them weren't ready for release at I8 when Gabbos made his video (one pair didn't even connect to the back in I8, but has obviously been optimized for I9).

Although it's just speculation, I suspect that there are more pieces, but they either aren't ready for prime time (need refinement), are linked to other content (TF, trial, recipe, etc.), or are otherwise withheld to spread more content between issues (so the next issue isn't flatter than the previous issue).

Just my 2 influence.

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I played 2.5 years for my demon wings. For all I know I might be playing 3.5 years for my tech wings.
It'll give me something to look forward to if it takes me a year.
It'll give me something to show off if I get them the day I9 goes live.
Either way I'm not really seeing the downside of this as much as others I suppose...

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QFT (played a wingless gargoyle for 2.5 years )

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Yes, Negative Nancy, I read them. Of course, reading the closed beta forums was even more of a chore since the Digests didn't collect posts from them. I think my forum browsing comprehension is pretty good. But I appreciate your berating of my acumen (me not kno how to reed)


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Anything in particular you'd like reposted? I saved all the dev posts from the secret forums into Word.

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Not yet, but thanks. I just get snippy when my forum browsing skills are mocked

Edit: Zombie Statesman save me!

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Who knows indeed? Because all the evidence we have of his handi-work that hasn't been known for months is 3 pairs of boots, 1 pair of wings, and a new pair of glasses.

Of course, Cryptic has other projects under way, so perhaps he's working on those.


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You see some leaked costume code in one issue, and expect a a mountain more before the official issue release?

Of course, we could speculate some more about the inner workings of Cryptic, but I doubt they've been sitting on their hands the whole time

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I've never argued that these costumes should be automatically available to everyone. I just think the drop rate needs to be reasonable. Which it currently is not.

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That's a matter of personal opinion

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Also, your point about the Test Server is absurd. Do you even read the Community Digest? Or did you miss the "Issue Nine Final Focus Testing" thread Ex Libris posted? Thats a pretty good indication thats whats currently on test, small bug fixes aside, is what will go live.

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Yes, Negative Nancy, I read them. Of course, reading the closed beta forums was even more of a chore since the Digests didn't collect posts from them. I think my forum browsing comprehension is pretty good. But I appreciate your berating of my acumen (me not kno how to reed)

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The Test Server is very representative of what goes Live. The vast majority of changes that go to Test, go to Live unchanged. There are a few exceptions, but they are a very, very, small percentile of the total changes.

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Of course, things never get changed after they go to Live. So I guess if drop rates aren't good enough after launch, we're hosed

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Furthermore, drop rates are coded into the game, unless they are intentionally changed by the developers, they aren't going to magically change just by I9 being pushed to Live.

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And here's the rub - the population on Test is, arguably, not representative of the average player population. People get their 50s online and test the STF. They copy over millions of Influence and sell things for 100M influence. Not everyone plays on the Test server either.

Arguably, the drop rate may be right, but cursorily, it may not appear that way. Of course (without speculating about the inner workings of Cryptic), I've always been optimistic about the devs' ability to address and change problems in the game and not so dysmal

There again, IMHO, the whole wing thing is so trivial compared to all the RL stuff going on currently anyhow. Between friends and acquaintances expiring left and right, I'm really quite apathetic about it, cool as wings may be. Not trying to make a strawman, just explaining my current mindset; keeping things in perspective.

I'll get my wings when I get them.

That's probably my last 2 Inf on the subject.

"If for any reason, you're not completely satisfied, I hate you." - Futurama

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While an interesting article, these Wings have been finished since Issue Eight went live, with the exception of the Tech Wings I believe. Did it really take Jay the entirety of the months since then to make a few pairs of boots and one set of wings?

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Sadar said in the previous Warcry interview that they were already working on Issue 11 features. So if the models for these wings have been in the code since I8, who knows what Jay has been working on since.

Of course, it makes sense that the article would only come out when they were officially released

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Furthermore, the drop rate for these new Wings is so poor that Jay may as well not have wasted his time creating them, as a teeny, tiny, minority of players will benefit from his work if the situation is not improved.

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Because the Test server is representative of what will happen on Live. And because everyone should always have every time whenever they want it because rewards are pointless