Positron

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Nice work

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In regards to the poll being up for less than 24 hours:

We amassed a ton of votes in that short amount of time. In addition, a large percentage of those votes came from people who signed up for the forums just yesterday, so it's not just the "vocal minority" having their say. A lot of new-to-the-boards players got their voice in this.

In addition, there is a weirdness in the forum software that would force us to re-put up the polls (again) allowing you all a chance to vote twice, and that would have a far greater impact on the poll results than the data we received.

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This is the first issue in over a year that actually made me glad I'm OCD-completist enough to keep buying the comic.

SPOILERS ARE AHEAD BY THE WAY

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Hints for Issue 10 storyline:
-The Dark Watcher (from the first CoH novel), two sisters called Borea and Levantera, british woman called Lady Elizabeth Grey, a martial artist with a spirit helper called Serpent Drummer, and some unseen guy called Gaussian are The Vanguard


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I assume you mean this one:

Lady Grey 1

Lady Grey 2

Though she's called Victoria, strange.

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Yeah, all of the department heads in Vanguard are from the CCG. Dark Watcher got his start before then in the Web of Arachnos novel.

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Thanks everyone, its a great honor and privilege to be featured in a comic

Now if I can get the dev team to make a statue of me I will have everything a hero could ask for

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Give the guy an inch and he asks for a mile.

Seriously, it was fun to put you in the book. Glad I could make your (and Ascendant's) day.

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Bah. Lighthouse pokes his head in and I STILL get no closure on the proper pronunciation of "Talos."

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The video pronounces it right. I had to have Statesman (Jack) confirm it himself specifically for this vid.

Reasons why devs might be silent on an issue:

1) We didn't see the issue. There are a lot of threads out there.
2) We are in the middle of looking at an issue, and saying anything at the time might be invalidated. Even something like "we are looking into it" can be read as "we are going to change it" if we look at it and find it to be fine, we would get blasted for not changing it when we said we would.
3) The answer is already being given by a lot of players already
4) The answer is obvious (and thus will eventually be given out by a lot of players, see #3).
5) It involves talking about stuff we can't/shouldn't be talking about.
6) The question is a "when" question. We rarely answer these, because even when we put disclaimers on it, our answer becomes taken as gospel, and if we fail to deliver, we look bad.

There's a secret 7th reason that I am not going to give you because of reason #7.

Use this thread to discuss the STF.

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Wait... Posi goofed?

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I take credit for the mistake, but blame the fact-checker for being sick that day.

I think I can now safely say that I have forgotten more about this game than most will ever know, and I proved it.

Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.

Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.

Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.

Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).

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I actually wanted to go with Drops II: Drops Harder

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*sniff sniff*

Hmm. A faint odor of a positronic suit, there. Must be my imagination.

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No way, I would have gone with Drops II: Attack of the Drops.

It's been a while since I posted a top issues list, and for that I am very sorry.

We've been working on a few of the bigger bugs that have been hindering your overall gameplays and I just wanted to chime in and let you know that we are looking into the following with a high priority:

* Framerate drop when exiting a mission
* Missing (invisible) objects on mission maps.
* Client crash due to capes.

The last thing on the list (the cape crash) is causing us some major headaches and long nights, so it might not get fixed fully in the next build for Training Room, but hopefully it will be improved. For the meantime, if you find yourself on a team that is crashing a lot, you may want to have everyone switch to non-caped costumes for the duration. This includes trenchcoats unfortunately. Not the best solution I know, but we are working hard to get this completely fixed. Watch the boards and patch notes for when it's safe to put your capes back on.

In addition, we've made a bunch of fixes to power FXs for various powers to improve framerates. I don't have a list in front of me, but if I get one today, I will post it into this thread.

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Sheesh, the devs sure are lurking tonight.

Quick! Someone see if they can trick them into revealing more I9 and Inventions info!

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Soon (TM)

I have played:
Gemstone III, Dragon Realms, Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Everquest, Anarchy Online, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, AC 2, EQ 2, World of Warcraft, Eve, and Vanguard... I am probably leaving a few out as well.

I include GS3 and DR even though they are text-based, simply because I feel they set the foundations for what players come to expect from a massively multiplayer game.

Just to clarify:

Anything that is a reward "can" be made with the invention system.

This does not mean everything rewarded in the game is Inventable.

This means that, if we wanted to, we could have an Invention that gave out XP. Or Prestige. Or a Costume Piece. Or Infamy. Or a Badge. Or an Enhancement (we do a lot of Enhancements with the initial implementation of the system).

The invention system will not have all of this to start, but I am very excited with the sheer power of the system, as is Jack, which is why he touted it so positively in the earlier interview.

And also:

Start submitting your questions for me here. I am going to take a good sample of the more popular questions and answer them in a future update. After that, you will see other developers bios and a thread where you can ask them questions. The bios will help you ask appropriate questions of the appropriate developer. That way you don't ask Jay about what %'s Invented Enhancements give and you don't ask Castle why the Witch Hat has no hair.

Quick update:

Ms. Liberty getting Rezzed in the final battle is a bug and will be fixed.

Hey guys, our plan is to get you new Issues three times a year. Issue 7 was bigger than originally planned (Mayhem Missions got thrown into the issue at the last possible second) and that, coupled with other delays, screwed up the schedule for 2006, thus only 2 free content expansions on the Live servers this year.

2007 has three Issues planned for it, one near Q1/Q2, one for the summer, and one for the end of the year. I can't give more exact dates than that because everything is subject to change.

Since this has come up so often, I guess I will leak a feature of Issue 8:

You can change your title at any of the following levels:

15, 25, 35, and 45

At 50 you can change your title at any time.

You need to visit a trainer still to change your title and they "don't stack" (in other words, if you don't use your level 35 change, you don't have two changes when you hit level 45).

There is no Influence or Infamy cost associated with this.

Hey guys, a quick clarification:

The Invention System and the "Legends" System are "one in the same"...

Basically the Legends system, as it was designed, was not implemented, but out of it grew what will be known as the Invention System. The Invention System does what we wanted the Legends System to do, and a whole lot more, and lays the ground work for limitless expandability that the Legend System just didn't have.

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Don't count on it. There might be something from the veteran rewards tho.

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You are my new favorite forum poster.

Teleport fix should be in the next patch as well, as well as some code for memory leaks and other nastiness.

A fix for Group Teleport will be coming in I8.

Patron Respec issue should be fully solved in the next patch as well.

Dominators are getting a buff that should make them more desireable on LRSF in I8 as well.

Lt.s should be spawning in missions again (I don't know if this is fixed in the patch, or was fixed in I8).

We are constantly datamining PvP, seeing which side is winning more. The results are not what you expect. One side wins, then the other side, then the balance shifts back, and then back again.

I had 2 PM's in my box, back to back. The first was "Stalkers are useless in PvP" and the next was "Stalkers are overpowered in PvP". The grass is always greener they say...

Our lead programmer has been doing nothing but fixing bugs since I7 was released. He mentioned to me the other day that he hadn't written one line of code that was only in I8. We -are- trying to get the major issues fixed, but eventually the new issue has to come out, and that gobbles up the Training Room server, and we have to button down new fixes until that Issue goes to Live.

The next patch for I7 is not in NC Soft's hands yet, but will be shortly. You can expect it on the Training Room once it has passed their internal QA process.

And yes, all of this bug fixing has pushed out I8 beyond the original "September" estimate I gave back in May.

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This may have been covered already, but any idea when the Hero side version of the LR TF will be implemented instead of the Hami hunt? I8 maybe?

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This is a feature of I9

* "Looping Sound Crash" - We think we MAY have this finally fixed.

* "Invisible Players/Enemies on Map" - Again, we think we may have this fixed.

* Choice table for Lord Recluse's Strike Force. - Upon completion of the mission, you will get a choice table, instead of the Enhancements simply being put into your tray (and if your tray is full, put into oblivion). You will NOT be able to pick the specific Synthetic Hami-O, but you will be able to choose a +3 level SO instead of the random SHOE if you want.

Yes this means that the Freedom Phalanx will drop SO's again.

I don't know when these will be hitting Training Room, but these will probably be the last big fixes in I7... onward to Issue 8!!!

Teleport reticle and Patron-granted Respecs are two I should have mentioned, but since our guys have already fixed those internally here, they fell off my list. Sorry.

As for players who think they will just be albe to drop every mission they get to PL off a contact... think again; we're crazy. Not that crazy.

* Debt in PvP Zones. Currently we "Pro-Rate" debt depending on how much damage you took from NPCs vs. PCs. When this is fixed we will zero out any debt if the killing blow comes from PCs, and Pro-Rate debt if the killing blow comes from NPCs.

* Salvage disappearing from storage objects. If you click too fast, some salvage may get lost in the transaction when pulling from a Storage Object. This is a high priority bug to fix.

* Back Alley Brawler gives debt in Recluse's Victory. Yeah, he was not set up as "debt free". Sorry.

* Ability to drop missions. Coming soon!(TM) I know this will make a lot of players happy that they don't need to contact Customer Service just to continue thier story arcs.

I'll try to clear things up:

Original Design: 5 Day window to get your Item(s) of Power. You then held it for 25 days, reaping the bonus. Then it disappeared and you would need to re-do the CoP trial to get it.

New Design: 7 day window to get your Item(s) of Power. You then hold it for 21 days, reaping the (now larger) bonus. Then it disappears and you need to re-do the CoP trial to get it.

Original Design: During the 25 (now 21) days you hold the Item, you would be vulnerable to raiding from another Supergroup who would try to steal your IoP in PvP combat. These raids were "scheduled" so that both SGs knew when to have members on to attack/defend.

New Design: During the 21 days you hold the Item, you are not susceptible to losing your Item of Power.

Future Design: During the 21 days you hold the Item, you are susceptible to losing your Item of Power in PvP combat.

Losing your IoP's in PvP combat is an integral part of the design and of bases (otherwise, what good are secure plots and defense items).