Pax__

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Name 1 hero that operates with flunkies... Henchmen ...Goons ...Slaves ... or whatever you want to call them.

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Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.i.E.L.D. ... or his earlier incarnation, as the head of the Howling Commandos ...?

Any of the team-leaders of the post-WW2 Suicide Squad.

It's not a comic, but fits the bill anyway: Major Reisman, of the film The Dirty Dozen.

The ever-popular Squirrel Girl (hey, she even took down Doctor Doom - solo, when she was fourteen!)

Or, Sgt. Rock of Easy Company. Who says heroes have to have superpowers ...?

Also: what about robots? Or, what about criminals, serving their time faster (and with more relative freedoms) in return for "hazardous duty" helping to FIGHT the very sorts of crime they once comitted?

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Not other members of an elite force that he/she is leading through example. Those who obey out of fear, or because they are being paid, or they are being physically forced. Name me that hero, and ask your question again.

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Special Pleading, for the "/epic fail".

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Wait. How exactly do we still have our powers in Ancient Rome? I thought that was way past our "tether" or something?

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The Carbon Teather is over 5700 years long. Roman was about 2000 years ago.

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Yes, but...I thought we couldn't go past Breakout (or Outbreak) because our powers were only level 1?

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It think the excuse there is the "you exist in that time/bound by the you in that time" kinda thing. Bascially.

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Besides which, at least Redside - the TF that whats-her-name sends Villains on? That goes to a point before Breakout, too - REcluse's overthrow of the Rogue Isles certainly predates Breakout! Yet, I know that If there was scaling ... it wasn't to lower than 26, because I kept my Assault Robot for every one of those missions.

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Great. Whatever makes CoV unique, let's give it to CoH. Why bother playing CoV at all?

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Masterminds, Corruptors, Domination, Fury ... gee, I can't think of a SINGLE reason ...

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But hey, let's fix the hallows -- never mind at all that Grandville has been the bane of most people's existence due to its lag nature.

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Update your friggin' computer with some more memory - 512MB simply doesn't cut it anymore.

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But at least you gave us a unique epic AT. Oh wait. We've seen them throughout all our levels thus far in the game. Not really new are they?

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... my MM fights Kheldians all the time - the PPD appears to have recruited Peacebringers HEAVILY.

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Sorry i dont share everyone's enthusiasm over what is a fancy band-aid, a shiny glittering object of distraction and the removal of anything remotely unique to CoV. I guess i passed my d20 will save.

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Can I have your stuff?

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So, was I reading it right that each AT will get one primary and secondary power from its corresponding AT? If so that's awesome!

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Every AT gains at least 1 powerset -- Masterminds only get a Secondary, no new Primary. Brutes get 2 new Primaries, and 1 secondary. Everyone else gets 1 Primary and 1 Secondary.

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When do we get to know which Secondary MMs get? I can think of two right off that would not be IMO terribly broken - /Sonic and /Radiation emission.

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I'd rather pay $15 extra a month to get say 7 more slots on ONE account and keep my veteran rewards.

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This.

But if it's a whole $15, it better be 10 extra slots - I could still only use one character at a time, for example.

For another 12 slots on every server, I'd pay ... $5/month to $10/month ... hoping for the former, willing to accept the latter if need be.

Alternately, I'll take a $10 one-time-only fee to add a single slot (on each server) to my account.

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My apologies, in my rage, I must've missed it.

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A_C, go take a walk. Then a cold shower. Then more walking.

Seriously man, I'm *this* close to putting you on /ignore for being an @$$hat with the way you're taking a net-positive issue and complaining that it didn't cater to your unique-and-special-snowflake wants and desires.

I mean, come on ... you're upset that you couldn't replace Lord Recluse ... it's a freakin' MMO ... what, did you want it to be "only the first guy to do this, gets to finish the mission - the rest of you just get to fawn at that player's feet and worship his uber leet-ness" ... ???

PERSPECTIVE ... get some.

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Like everything for the most part, but...

...not really feeling the VEAT's just yet. I can be convinced with time, though!

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I was hoping for VEAT's that were less tied to Arachnos, but the rest of the issue is enough win to make up for that! Plus, the VEAT's may turn out to be awesome anyway.

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These are the "earned at 50" EATs.

Who says we won't get a Hero/Villain shared EAT that is earned by some other means? Wasn't "earned by some other means" on the list of things the devs WANTED to do with any future Epic archetype(s), anyway?

In no particular order:

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More Real Numbers: Players can now display stats on powers before they choose them enabling more informed power selection and new temporary powers allow players to display enemy stats.

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Very, VERY nice to see the bit about "seeing before buying" ... and the temporary powers bit sounds intriguing. ^_^ A+

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Inspiration Conversion: Right click an inspiration to convert three of that kind into any one inspiration of another kind.

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Hey ... that's a nice QOL change! My g/f will love it ... about he only kind of inspiration she cares for/about are greens ... ^_^

...!!!

Hey, wait ... that means you can make an Awaken on demand, if you need to!! Woo!! A+

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Contact display redesign: Contacts are now listed separately as Active and Inactive, and players can sort contacts by a range of criteria including Name, Zone, and Level Range.

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Excellent ... this is something I, personally, have wished for ... well, for all but the first month of my time here in Co*. A++, with a gold star!

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Eight configurable new power trays let players customize their User Interface by placing them anywhere on the screen.

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... *gamergasm*

Okay, okay, it's not WoW level UI-customisability (best feature of that game, IMO), but it's probably the next best thing. EIGHT power trays, and we can stick 'em anywhere independantly of each other ...?

I repeat: *gamergasm* ...! A++

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Infiltrate the Arachnos organization from within! Upon reaching level 50, Villains unlock two new Epic Archetypes; Wolf Spiders and Blood Widows. They have their own unique storyline and missions, power combinations and costume sets. Branching powersets allow the Wolf Spider to specialize as either a Bane Spider or Crab Spider and the Blood Widow chooses from the Fortunata and Night Widow branches. Each brings with it unique costumes for your Arachnos duties, as well as your newfound role as a Destined One.

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WOOOOO HOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!

My villain main is ... 46.4, IIRC. That means, I need 36 bars of XP between now, and when i12 come sout. Oh sweet Mary mother of God ... CRY HAVOK, AND LET SLIP THE HAMSTERS OF W- ... um, well SOMEthing like that, anyway. ^_^

This makes me an extraordinarily happy camper!!

A+++ with an entire PAGE of gold stars!!

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Using his newly built Resonance Manipulator, the Villain scientist known as Dr. Brainstorm™ has discovered a way to alter the energy strands which connect every Hero and Villain to their powers. This discovery has not only opened the door to new powers for his fellow Villains in the Rogue Isles™, but has also done the same for the Heroes of Paragon City ™! Specifically, new characters of almost every Hero and Villain archetype gain access to an additional primary and secondary powerset that they didn’t have access to previously. Details to come!

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Oooooooooo, shiny ...! A+

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JOIN THE MIDNIGHT SQUAD (LEVELS 10 - 20)
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NEW ROMAN-STYLE ZONE MAPS (LEVELS 35 - 50)

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This sounds very interesting; I hope those of us above 20 will still be able to do the "Join" arcs, even if we face walls of Grey-conned mobs and earn no XP for it? B- (pending a yes/no on that hope of mine - it'll go to A+ if the answer is "yes" ...)

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The power drone looks exactly like a targeting drone so now everyone that's 48 months can have lasers flying above them. Looks like /Dev blasters get shafted once more.

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Nah, once I get to 48 months - in about, um, two years ... heh - my fire/dev blaster can have TWO of the suckers orbiting him!

... those buffs are for the whole TEAM?

My god ... eight veterans with those pets ... my GOD ... O_o

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OMG OMG thank the lord i did not buy the wedding pack LOL @ u if u did. You have a right to be disapointed.

No badges????
all recycled material!!!


o boy the future of COH?COV is bright all right like my glow in the dark skrinky dinks and their 28 years old

goes back to farming for what i dont know.....

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Can we get a refill on this Ritalin perscription please? Stat.

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Heh.

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This is what is seems like to me and it is very upsetting. I've been with this game from the beginning but nothing would cause me to leave faster.

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... can I have your stuff?

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You couldn't handle my stuff, sorry loser - get your own.

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Oh, I have my own stuff, whiny elf-boy ... but I figure I can put your stuff upon the MArket for 1INF apiece, and get some more progress on my Seller badges. Probably all it's good for ...

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This is what is seems like to me and it is very upsetting. I've been with this game from the beginning but nothing would cause me to leave faster.

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... can I have your stuff?

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Any thoughts to which one?

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... but, where would he get the cup of tea?

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... to places you've been wanting to go, but thought not possible.

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Moon Zone please.

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My guess? a Rikti expansion, making them the "third faction" parallel to Heroes and Villains.

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The long line (I'm in the middle of the line, just entered the street)

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... and there's me, on the far left of the screen. ^_^ I love showing up in other people's screenshots ...

Nice video, very well done. I especially liked the fade from Hero-costume to Wedding-garb for Manticore and Psyche.

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Whoa, there was PvP?

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... you might say yes ...

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I took a bunch of pics of the wedding and the antics of AP1 (and a couple of AP4, which was much more civilized). Check 'em out here. Thanks for the awesome event, devs and mods!

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Ha! That's my Medi-Lad in your image "AP1_07", the boy in the blue-and-yellow tux with flaming red hair ... somehow up HIGH in that image, and trying to back away as directed (and not having much luck, given the crowd behind me). To my system, I never left the ground, though.

AFAIK, second-to-last run - I logged out just as they were trying to get more villains for another run, so there may have been more after that. I don't know. And, well, most of my pics were, as often happens with photographing an event, crap. Ninety-zillion pictures taken, for a dosen or so GOOD ones. ^_^ C'est la vie!

Anyway ... I started out well once hte line started forming. Okay, it wasn't much of a "line" at that point, but it was vaguely line-shaped, and I was nowhere near the Usher ... but not hideously far from him either. Based on others' screens, I was well outside the forcebubble too. A different view shows how crowded it was, though.

That crowd, and everyoen PUUUUUUSHING forward, plus the counter-force of the gigantic Repel bubble Castle put up, caused me to pop out of the crowd/line like a cork from a champagne bottle that's just spent an hour in a paint mixer (!!) ... landign me way the #$^& back here. 8(

Still, a line is a line, and unfair or not ... *le sigh* ...

Had a conversation with Fleeting Whisper by /tell, and managed to get a lock on him (?) with a /targetname; by then, I was actually back on PAVEMENT, imagine my glee! Half an hour later, I was even back across the street, and closing on those stairs at last! However, I really felt bad for the people stuck back in the grass, still.

By this point, I could see why the line wasn't moving very fast. Eventually, I got mostly back where I'd started. Note the mob still clustering around the Usher ... oy ... which only makes the plight of these poor saps all the worse.

It was about this time that Ex Libris showed up - apparently, I missed her getting smacked by a Police Drone, and then, some PLAYERS, even. Ouchie! Still, the back end of the line, by now, was overflowing with golden Dev titles. Nice spot of generousity, and the best way to go about it - start at the BACK of the line, and move forward. Gotta hand it to her for thinking of that.

My next shot is an establishing shot of the Wedding itself. No labels here ... but the next one is the same pic, with some labelling. And this shot shows where BAB was standing.

I did remember to turn around and get a shot of the crowd itself ... nice to see people weren't jam-packing in a cluster at the foot of the stairs, here ... everyoen stayed nicely spaced, and folks like me who didn't mind being off to one side or another were able to get unobstructed views of Manticore and Psyche. Yayy for smaller crowds, yes? ^_^

I am particularly happy with this image, which just happened to be perfectly timed on my part. Only an angle from slightly to the left could have improved it - but that would've unfairly crowded a couple folks who were there before me. Ah well, it's still a great shot!

This one, well ... speaks for itself.

That's it from during the wedding; I was a bit too busy staying un-splattered, and trying to help others do likewise, to, you know, futz with a camera or anything. I did grab two shots of my Chat pane afterwards, though.

First, Lord Recluse was pulling some of MY arrows out of his armored backside, that night!

Second, I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

Anyway. Those're MY wedding pics ... now to eagerly await the video, and see if I show up anywhere in it ...! ^_^

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AWESOME CHANGE! Softloading is the most stupidest thing.

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"What about the players who don't have Pimped out accounts with billions of inf.?"

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I'd make the special-salvage version non-tradable. Like Vanguard Merits. Do the mission once - if you get it, great! If not - sorry, maybe next year!


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I would love to see this scripted into an instanced event on the Live Servers as a recurring event. Say an Ourobouros Lvl 50 Arc?

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.... capital idea! /signed!!

But make it a 45-50 arc, so people don't have to be at the absolute level cap to enjoy it.

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(Well the Valentine's Event is Live and my alts are screaming for their shinies. I must obey the voices in my head and go feed my Badgers.)

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^_^ Likewise, later today, for me.

And, since I just ranted a bit about the "hwo you get in" non-system, I want to stress and reiterate the fact that, once I did get in? It was a great event. Truly!

I just wish the waiting-in-line part had been less frustrating, that's really the ONLY flaw I saw.

And here's the best "in" for my own post on the selection process.

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I'm a tolerant guy. I understand the nature of waiting in line to get into an event. However, I have to say that I'm not entirely satisfied by the manner the wedding event has been handled.

1) If you wanted us to line up in lines to enter the event then put in controls to direct the people. Rope lines, funnels, any sort of crowd control would be nice. I laughed like most when Castle KO'd people close to the Usher in Atlas. I even got him to laugh when I said it was like "Look! It's the WHO!" [that's an old person joke for all the folks under 30 based on a crowd stampede at a WHO concern years ago ]. You need better crowd control for events like the wedding.

2) The equity of the access to the event was lacking. Making it "whoever can click on the Usher through the effect of the Force Bubble" lacked balance. Why did this happnen? Not thinking through the methodology of accessing the event is why. Plan for orderly entry next time. The shotgun approach is a poor substitute for proper planning.

- B.

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QFT.

I'm standing, right now, on the first stair - where I've been since we were told to "Form a line," what, over an hour ago.

Haven't moved.

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I'll do you one better. I was in Atlas Park, next to the tall green shrubbery just at the top of the stairs. A good, fair place to be, in line - it was a line six to eight abreast to be sure, but, at least I wasn't trying to mob the usher, despite Castle's repeated threats (carried out, no less) to set people's HP to zero if they didn't move back, and then the force-bubble-ing.

I couldn't move, neither forward nor backward nor side to side. I was getting pushed around in random locations, little sudden "whoosh" movements as the server tried to resolve the conflicted /location data for so many characters.

And when I accidentally hit the spacebar, just a little bit? I was shot, LIKE A CANNON, all the way back to the sidewalk ACROSS the street from the stairs. I wasn't about to cut in line - not even to try and get my entirely legitimate place "back" - so I went to the back of the line ... halfway through the park space across the street from those stairs.

After two hours, I was barely back to where I had started. Plenty of people were ignoring the line and just running right up to the usher - and getting into the Event before the people trying to actually cooperate with developer instructions.

As I said in /broadcast multiple times - I wouldn't have used a Force Bubble. I'd've wielded the Ban Hammer. Crossed the line described, prior to being told to step forward? *wham*, four-hour ban, thank you for playing. Cut in line, where I could see you? *wham*, fifteen-minute ban, when you get back, go to the BACK of the line. Did it again? *wham* four-hour ban, thank you for playing.

I was lucky enough to get into one iteration of the Wedding ... and it was a WONDERFUL, if very brief, Event. Heck, my wee bairn of a 15th level Empathy/Archery defender managed to plug Recluse in the back ... twice. Plus the Empath's typical routine of CMing, healing, and so forth. Great fun!

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Very, VERY poorly planned and handled.

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I agree.

In the future, here's my suggestion for how to handle doling out access to limited-space Live events; I'll put it in terms of the Wedding because it's what's on my mind:
[*] Create a specific form of salvage ("Wedding Invitation") ... or better yet, if you plan on running the Event eight times? Eight special Salvage types ("Wedding Invitation 1", "Wedding Invitation 4", etc). The Ushers give access to anyone who has the right sort of Salvage; if it's the third run-through, you get access if you have "Wedding Invitation 3", and only if you have that.
[*] Create a quick and laughably easy NON-REPEATABLE instanced mission - no enemies, just "go into a room, talk to an NPC, and click the glowie" - that may or may not drop the event-access salvage (with a very LOW chance - say, 5%, if not less). A running total of this salvage given out is kept on the server, and once the limit has been reached ... no more of that is given. For everyone who does NOT get that access-salvage? Something else special and NICE is dropped. Maybe 1 each of Rare Arcane salvage, Rare Tech salvage, and a rare recipe (from the pool(s) least-often dropped). If you have EVER gotten ANY invite ... on ANY character ... you automatically fail to get the "access salvage" (in a manner similar to how they locked people out of repeatedly getting in, last night).

Total aside: for the wedding, the mission could have been written as "drop off your weddign presents", at least for Heroes, and then describe an in-character "lottery", because Manticore and Sister Psyche didn't want a mob of "thousands of heroes" ... those who didn't get lucky and receive a wedding invitation, would get a thank-you gift for expressing their desire to attend.
[*] Create MANY Ushers on each side, scattered in widely-separated places (In Paragon: Atlas, Galaxy, Peregrine, Talos; in the Rogue Isles: Mercy, Cap Au Diable, St. Martial, Grandville; in Pocket D: one upstairs in the MFC, one downstairs in the MFC, two in the main room (on the corners not used by the existing V-Day contacts), one upstairs and one downstairs on each faction's "side room" areas). Give them all a few constant effects - power suppression, NPC-kill (like the Market), -Fly, -Jump, maybe moderate Slow.
[*] Sit back, and let the system do it's job.

This, while noone would have a large chance of attendance, would indisputably be an egalitarian method for controlling access. It would even allow, should they want, to specifically invite particular characters/players to attend the Event - by gifting them a unit of the required Salvage. For maybe, oh, three of four people a year, that sort of thing.

And most importantly, IMO, it would not:

(1) Create mobs/swarms of people rushing the sole point of access;
(2) Reward @ssh@ttery (line-cutting, etc);
(3) Frustrate those trying to comport themselves in a mature, well-behaved manner;
(4) Require constant, heavy-handed Dev oversight.

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Casual,

I'm going to be honest with you, that both Lighthouse and I raised our concern flags over this event. The main reason was the limitations of the event. We also knew that it would be a really great time for the people that do get in, and a creative opportunity for some of our various community groups, like video editors, DJ's, role play, etc.

It was a tough decision, and with the wedding pack, server upgrades, double XP, and the list goes on, our window for announcements and planning was narrow.

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I actually have a suggestion relating to that.

A lot of what happened was pretty pre-scripted; it'd be nice if a not-Live-people version were released to the Live servers. I know it's too late this time, but the next time an Event of this nature is planned? Make sure that after the "actual, live people at the controls" version is run, you can pop a "canned / scripted" version onto the Live servers. It won't be the same as saying "hey, I was actually there" ... but it'll be better than nothing.

I have other suggestions ... and complaints ... about the process of GETTING in. But that's for a different post.