PerfectStorm

Personally, since I care not what a bunch of people that I don't know think of me, I turned it off. Also, since I really prefer to make my own judgements about the quality of people's posts and strictly for my own use, I don't pay any attention to anyone's ... Because the quality of any post is dependent upon its usefulness, pertinence, amusement level, etc. to each individual reader, and because each individual reader has a unique view on these things, I find rep meters to be useless in general. YMMV, of course ...

<shrug>

Storm

At just a quick glance... have you checked to see if there are any more recent ati drivers for your video card? Yours are showing as over 8 months old, and might need an upgrade if available.

Also, in your hijackthis log there are several items that show up with "(file missing)" including one reference to an ati related service:

O23 - Service: Ati External Event Utility - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\Ati2evxx.exe (file missing)

Any chance there are any driver upgrades for your audio? They are showing as 2007.

Don't know if any of these things are the problem or part of the problem, but they kind of stuck out when I looked over your reports above.

And the only other thing I can think of is to check your computer for dust in any of the ventilation areas or on the circuit boards. Too much accumulated dust will cause heat issues and heat issues will cause crashing.

Hope this helps in some way...

Storm

In a sentence similar to the one Sailboat proposes above: "The mother watched helplessly while her child was wheeled into surgery." The mother is watching and she is doing so in a helpless manner or with a helpless feeling. The word distraught describes the mother (so it is an adjective), not the action, so adding "ly" would definitely not be appropriate in that case.

In the sentence proposed by Healix, the word held is actually not the verb - in that case "is" is the verb, whch is why "helplessly" is incorrect. Ideally, to be very clear as to what is happening and to whom in the simplest manner, a better sentence would probably be something like: "The vines hold and slowly crush the helpless target."

Who is acting? The vines.
What are the vines doing? holding and crushing.
To whom are the vines doing the holding and crushing? the target.
Is there any way we want to describe the target? helpless.

I always wanted to be an English teacher. That college stuff just got in the way.

Storm

And... in case it helps:

LOCATION: Capital District area, upstate NY
IS Provider: Fairpoint Communications
Problem: Lag, teammates appearing to bounce around maps, NPC's appearing to bounce around maps, delays in power animations or power animations not displaying at all, LOTS of red spikes on the netgraph, in between which are a fairly short green "lawn" look... but a SERIOUS amount of red spikes ... i.e., dropped packets, right?

Storm

I'm glad I found this thread. I play on Triumph and occasionally I do have problems with my ISP, so I thought the issues were just on my end. I'll have to try out one of the west coast servers that I have characters on and see if there's a difference. This MIGHT just be the problem I've been having ... my netgraph looks very similar to some of the ones above ... and not the ones with the pretty green lawn look

Storm

At least the devs don't send you email saying "you're eligible to sign up for closed beta" and then never invite you to closed beta... I've had that happen with several new game releases - given them all the info they request and gotten SCADS of junk email about the new games that I never actually got into the closed beta for ...

One of those games was an NCSoft release...

And no, I didn't cry or have a tantrum. Just unsubbed from the junk mail eventually when it became clear that was all I was going to ever get.

I've since realized that I'm not really cut out to be a good beta tester. I like to play, not get bogged down in details of what works and what doesn't and documenting those details. I can't wait until I16 goes to LIVE.

Storm

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I'm getting a download right now when I try to connect to the Test server that I didn't get earlier. Perhaps they've been patching Test.

I'll edit this when it finishes to give the version number.

EDIT: I now have the .4T version and am able to log in fully. Looks like the server got patched and they forgot to push the patch to the clients. Or something similar.

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Yup, me too ... I was thinking someone maybe made a typo somewhere and then logged in quick to fix it. Whatever happened, it appears to be fixed, as I was also able to exit the game, then restart and log back in without any further "fixes" or problems. Yay - thank you to the Devs/programmers/community managers!!

Storm

Thanks, guys - at least it's not just me and my friend. Kinda sucks that it's a Saturday afternoon and will likely not get fixed until Monday, but, it's Test, I guess... what can ya do?

Thanks for PMing the devs, Texas_Justice.

I also noticed that Niv did not post the game version with the T on the end... I'm trying to remember if the T is always at the end of the game version number on Test, because she's not included a T on announcements involving the .2 or .3 versions either, so that may just be a habit?

Hopefully it'll get looked at and fixed soon.

Storm

I just downloaded and applied the latest test server patch with the intent of logging in with a friend to check out some of the science pack stuff. While I was doing so, he informed me that he was getting the error "Wrong game version" after logging in and selecting the test server from the list. After I had applied the patch, I had no problems at all logging in, getting to the character selection screen and into the game. However, once I exited out and to the desktop and then tried to reconnect, I watched a pigg file (didn't think to write down the name) be "repaired" (why would a newly patched installation need to be repaired?), and the T at the end of my game version disappear... then, I got to the login screen, logged in, got to the server screen and ... wow, guess what? "Wrong game version"!

The game version after I updated with the latest 87.7 mb patch was 19.20090702.4T Once the pigg file mentioned above had been "fixed" the game version changed to 19.20090702.4 - no "T" on the end.

Anyone else having this problem? Deleting the checksum file does NOT help. Verifying files does not help.

Any ideas? My OS is Vista Ultimate 64bit... my friend's OS is Vista Ultimate 64bit. And, please, no MS or Vista bashing ... looking for HELP. Thanks.

Storm

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Ah, never mind..I guess it was somethin'

Was still a pretty messed up thing to happen to an old lady.

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Hey ... I resemble that remark... Please ... 54 is NOT an "old lady"

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And, I still want to know what is wrong with the OPs picture. I dont see nothin'.

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Me too ...

Storm

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I'm not accusing anyone of cheating, don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm just saying that a game glitch is not going to make a naked character complete with pubes and nipples when models of those don't exist in game. There is some other explanation.

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Huh? Am I missing something? Or is my imagination just NOT as active as yours? There is nothing in that pic but a barbie doll figure with no undies. No details. If you think you're seeing details, I believe that you are either looking at a different picture than I am, or you aren't recognizing that there is simply some lighting and shadowing that may give an appearance of the details you'd like to see. I see no nipples or pubes in the picture in question.

Storm

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Nikita Storm
Global Contact: @NikitaStorm
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Natural
Super Rank &amp; Super Group: Co-leader, Viridian Alliance

I'm in.

Storm

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What I don't like is the Zombies are relatively difficult to defeat, yet give next-to-no XP. That really makes me not want to even bother with the Zombies. They need to have their XP increased.

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?!?

I find myself leveling very fast on a zombie team. Are you teaming?

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Last night during a Zombie Invasion red-side on Triumph me and my 4 other teammates noted only 3 and 4 XP per kill on even and plus one zombies. I did not get to look at XP for the LT's and bosses, though. So ... no, they aren't giving better XP for teams. Seems maybe that the more people there are in the area the less XP per kill? My XP gains took place during the ToT'ing we did after the invasion. Also, ToT door spawns were customized to the level of each of the door clickers on the team, and definitely not adjusted for team average, as the -1 (to me) team member's spawns were ALWAYS blues (minions), whites and yellows, while the +1 (to me) team member's spawns were yellows, oranges and reds. My own spawns were whites, yellows and oranges, as would be expected.

On other topics:
It's disappointing that the Spirits spawn issue cannot be fixed, however, for me, not a big deal, as badges are ... well, just a small part of the game. I'm betting that even if there was a temporary fix that could be put in place that seems as "easy" as some have suggested, that the entire QA process would take up the remainder of the event anyway - rendering the fix a true waste of development time given the current schedule. It's not like you can change code or even a database entry without testing it before putting it into the live game environment... trust me (I build and maintain data-driven content/pages for my employer's website), even changing a database entry can have unforseen consequences. I hope, however, that someone has this on their calendar so it doesn't get forgotten before the next Halloween event.

I agree a backstory would be very welcome - some way to fit this into the CoX universe instead of them just popping up out of the ground for ... well ... no reason?

And I definitely think the Tier 3's should drop more frequently. I get that we can click on doors more frequently, but I got zero Tier 3's in 2.5 hours of ToT last night, a couple of Tier 1's and a bunch of Tier 1's... I can get Tier 1's anytime - they are NOT a treat of any kind. I don't collect them to resell them later, and I daresay the vast majority of the playerbase does not ... so to use that as a reason not to support their dropping more frequently than normal is kinda lame - just sayin

Anyhow ... just some of my own thoughts ...

Storm

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But he talked about all of the stuff coming next year which will blow our minds.


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No frickin' kidding. What a load of hooey . I13 and i14 were supposed to be huge and they're so NOT huge. Give me a break. Before I was content to stay here and ignore the competition. The survey list was awesome. Looks like all we're getting for a while is the MA. Looks cool (depends on how it works) but where's the rest? I thought I'd stay loyal to this game but it has become kinda dull and I am pretty sure I will be checking out the competition - kinda sick of the, "So much awesome stuff but we can't tell you!" stuff. You disclosed the survey list so why not give us an idea of what's coming?

Ah well. The zombie event is a nice change of pace.

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Can I have your stuff?

Storm

I guess this gives me even more of an incentive to get the new build up and running ... and give it a CoX shakedown cruise! All the parts have finally arrived...

And my bestest RL CoX friend's wife works that weekend so he'll be able to play (in between feedings and diaper changes - his 7 month old son - not HIM)! Yay!

Storm

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Plus, it all depends highly on the writing of the EULA. "You consent that this service is as-is", "You may report violations of the EULA using this feature", "You consent that your conversations can be monitored at any time", etc. EULAs help protect a company from frivolous lawsuits.

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Well ... I doubt that EULA's actually protect much against companies being faced with frivolous lawsuits. That's why they are referred to as frivolous. All you need is a complainant, a lawyer greedy enough to give it a try and a judge with nothing better to do than to hear it - and it's on. Companies may not LOSE frivolous lawsuits with strongly worded EULA's, but they do still face them regularly - and lose financially in defending against them. Just look at some of the stuff that makes the news, and remember that there are probably plenty more that never do.

On-topic: There is one thing you can do easily in text chat that cannot be done in voice chat: filter language. You can't just turn off the bad words in voice chat like you can in text chat.

I use Skype with friends, so I already have an avenue for voice chat. I don't want voice chat channels, nor do I want to chat with complete strangers. When I play with a non-voice enabled teammate, I try to ensure that I include them in as much conversation as I can. Generally when I do it, so do my teammates who are on voice chat with me. Sometimes, even when we are on voice chat, we make silly jokes in team chat, or we use the text emotes.

Even without integrated in-game voice chat, there were already plenty of WoW guild recruitment messages "requiring" Ventrilo for membership. And they continue, even with the integrated game chat (which was just awful for me, incidentally - underwater sounding garble). I don't know if adding voice chat to the game will cause that same thing to happen in CoH if it isn't already happening everywhere now (I do understand there are exceptions to the rule, but it doesn't happen frequently to most of us). I would like to say I don't think it will, but I'm quite often totally incorrect

I probably won't use it. I already have a mechanism for voice chat which I use when I want it.

Storm

&lt;qr&gt;

Some of the issues brought up here are answered in this thread:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...umber=10736634

Enjoy!

Storm

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It's the negative and somewhat hostile responses like some I've seen in this thread that make the development team and its representatives less than excited about communicating anything to the player base. It's "damned if you do and damned if you don't" - if you have concerns, I understand - just try to take the announcement in the spirit in which it was undoubtedly intended: information for us to have BEFORE the event.

What if they hadn't told us there was any possibility of servers being locked if they reached whatever threshhold has been determined? What if they'd simply locked the servers and when you tried to log in on Friday night you were greeted with grayed out servers? Some of you would be here screaming bloody murder why is my server down! And then, when told "Oh, we locked it because it reached a pre-determined threshhold" these same people would be screaming "You never TOLD us you would be doing that!! You have no right!"

By announcing this ahead of time, IF the situation occurs, you'll know WHY the servers are greyed out and to keep checking.

I do wish they would put a queuing system in place now that they have the means to lock servers, as it does seem more fair to me that those who MIGHT get locked out get to access the servers in the order in which they got in line once they become available again. I really hate when I'm 5th in a line of 8 in a grocery store and another lane opens, taking the people who got in line behind me and checking them out before me....

As for those of you who plan to AFK in missions until you are really ready to play - well, I can only observe that it must often be very difficult to be so much more important than everyone else...

Storm

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With that in mind, we want to let you know that it may become necessary for us to lock servers should they reach player counts that result in a degradation in performance.

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Honestly? I hope this happens ... because then, that event can be pointed at the next time someone complains about dead servers, and asks for server mergers.

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What will you point to if the two busiest servers get greyed out (which is to be expected), yet the servers people complain about being dead still only have one light?

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I've not seen this happen on previous 2XP weekends, so I doubt very seriously that it will happen this time either. And, personally, I believe server mergers would likely be the only thing that might cause me to quit this game - I LIKE my quiet-ish server - never have had a problem finding a team if I want one, and have met some of the nicest people there.

Every previous 2XP weekend has seen all the servers either yellow or red, so ... why would this one be different?

Storm

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Real Numbers&lt;snipped for brevity&gt;

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I don't suppose we get a timer for our click/buff powers with all that goodness too?

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Quite honestly, I'd rather this before other "real numbers" - as well as timers on the debuffs that enemies place on us. I know the other real numbers will be cool - but I think the buff/debuff power timer would be welcomed by a lot of the playerbase. I could be wrong (and I often am), but ...

Storm

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Oh, I agree. However, while most of these e-mail addresses are unable to be reproduced by a sane person, they can by forwarded. Apologies in advance, but I've attempted to forward one or two to you, LH. Would it be possible to release a, say, GM_RMT_KILLER e-mail address that we could forward these to? As it stands now, I have to delete a dozen or so every time I log on--and they get away.

At least if I could notify someone about it, that account could be flagged for banination.

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Im with Dumple on this one, a "Attn Spam" address we can forward email to would be ideal.

Side note, isn't it some how possible to take legal action on these sites as a violation of some law, somewhere?

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Yes, but good luck with the cost and how successful you will be. If Blizzard the 100 pound gorrilla can't stamp them out, you think a smaller mmo company can?

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Part of the problem is that it's not up to the NCSoft or Blizzard to determine what is legal or not legal in other countries. Regardless of what the law of the land is in the US or Canada or Great Britain or France, the law that generally is the one applied is the law of the country where the spam is originating from. Since it's RMT spam and not terrorism or pedophiles, it's unlikely that intelligence organizations in various countries are going to take the time to investigate. The best an MMO can do is to ban the accounts of those who break the rules. And, with the anonymity of trial accounts, it may not help all that much.

I'd be happy to have a place to forward all the in-game e-mail spam, and the suggestion for banning the account generating the trial codes also seems like a good one. I'm hoping there is something they can do in those areas.

Storm

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Y'know.... your dreams were your ticket out...


Unfortunately, Malaise got 'hold of 'em.

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&lt;raises hand and waves it wildly for attention&gt;
Ooh! Ooh!

Welcome back to that same old place that you laughed about...

Happy New Year!

Storm

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Now I know alot of the ski issues are with flying/tp toons, or people with lag issues, griefers, etc. However there are alot of people in the game who do not come on the forums and never have a say in any of this. To me, if we only take what everyone here suggests, we are taking away from the mass of the players. Personally I enjoy the ski slopes, now my toon is a FF defender with SS and hurdle and I have gotten all three of the ski badges, but it still took me practice to know what to do and when. Another thing is, I do not have an amazing computer, I usually get massive lag, and get disconnected at least twice a day if I play so I can see where it can be a problem, however it can be avoided by using some tips presented in earlier posts. Also one thing that helped was looking on here for advice. For example, I steered with A and D, only other thing I did was use my mouse to direct. Just my two inf.

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Actually, I did try many of the tips here - and maybe I'm just too much of a spaz to have the seemingly overwhelming sucesses that others report. So, I've switched to WoW for a while. And, while still reading occasionally here on the forums, I'm not missing CoH at the moment.

Now, that is not a CoH bash or a WoW is better statement, simply that the ski issue frustrated me to the point where I did actually have to step away from the game. Silly, maybe, but, still ... last year I had enormous fun on the slopes. The difference was that last year, I didn't have the stuttering laggy issues that I did this year. I have the same computer with the same internet connection set on the same settings... what was different? More people? Whatever they added that started and worked the timer? I don't know - I only know that I didn't have fun. So I chose to play something different for a while.

I'll be back, I'm sure.

Storm