RavenSoul

Saturday's are my weekly gaming group's day to meet, but I'll stay home and be late just for this. I'm really excited, as with GR it seems Atlas Costume Contests disapeared completely, and I really miss them. GR gave me hope that I could finally participate in non-Pocket D CC's with my Villians, so it was a let-down when they vanished. So thank you for bringing them back!

One quick question - I'm assuming that a time-traveling vampire cowboy occultist would probably fall under the ghoul category?

And I agree with Dead West - in the tradition of Jaws, I think I'm going to need a better routine... So I'll be working on it, but I'm assuming we won't have a target for our attack routines? If not, we could adjourn to the RWZ Base and use the test dummies there...

Anyways, can't wait for this, and thanks again for running this event!

~Raven Lord

I have a couple characters I'd like to do this with. The one I'd prefer to use needs to grab a level, however, as she's currently 39th. So unless the wife has plans, I'll be there.

~Raven Lord

Looking at these posts has me fairly convinced that I'm wrong to blame these problems on my modem.

Which, is a shame, really. I can fix my modem. I can't do anything about the server.

I've been experiencing similar lag spikes ShadowKitty, but with my current internet connection I was putting the blame on my modem. Currently having to connect through a broadband usb phone modem, and it can get downright grumpy.

If I'm not the only one, though, then perhaps not? The rubberbanding you describe I've had happen to me two seperate days this week. <shrugs>

GratZ Rockmar!

My first 50 was an AR / Dev who took 3 years to get there and had earned nearly every debt, mez'd, damage, and failed mission badge on the way. I almost renamed him Captain FacePlant. But Weresloth's a good name, too!

Keep on rocking, Rockmar!

I was aware of, and interested in, CoH due to an old friend who was in the beta test, but it was another group of friends who finally convinced me in December '04 to bite the bullet and sign up.

These were the founders of the USELESS SG* here on Liberty, and though most of them eventually packed up and left for various destinies, I still had some real good memories here. My friend the beta tester wooed me over to his server - Triumph - but eventually he quit, too. After having this happen another time or two, I gave up for a bit.

Not entirely, though. I checked the forums once in a while, and one post caught my attention, namely GEL sounding the call for anyone to give Liberty a try, whether new to the server or old.** Recalling that I had started there, but more importantly the good times, I came back.

I'm still here, and I'm not moving again. As you said Geronimo, Liberty is home, and I agree on that point absolutely. My two cents, in the final analysis, is that the people here are good people, so why go anywhere else?

~Raven Lord

* United States Emergency Law Enforcement Special Services, thank you very much. "Stand back, folks: We're USELESS!" was a popular battlecry back then.

** I believe this was '07, the 'when' isn't as certain to me as the effect it had.

My main is a 50 AR/Dev, and I agree the trip mines take a lot of time. In teams, I might throw one at my feet before pulling in an AV, which means I get my satisfaction at the explosion but without the team tapping their fingers. Done right Trip Mines or Gun Drones can be used in combat, but when I say I do this, it's still uncommon, and in all cases situational.

That said, I built this guy to solo mostly. He does this well, running I think +2 or +3 notoriety (don't remember exactly atm). As was said though earlier, this takes time. But I'm proud to say that every EB I've run into solo has not walked away. (Continuing to work the build to solo AVs will take time, but that's my current goal for this toon)

This is due to my choice of Fire for epic: Melt Armor doesn't do -Res or -Def as well as surveilance in Munitions, but the self-rez comes in really handy (and makes a satisfying boom, too). For my build, this APP helps both solo and team, as Melt Armor is an Aoe, and the self-rez means my face plants are temporary.

The build is slow, the end-game resists a lot of my damage, and I'm actually using my deaths as an ingame tactic. If high explosives and bullet casings aren't enough to outweigh that, AR/Dev isn't for you.

~Raven

Gah! If my computer wasn't a week late I could've been doing an MSR on my birthday?! Again, gah!

Oh well. How'd it go?

~Raven

First of all, the OP was awesome - Thank you Mac.

Now, it pains me to realize that I missed out on a great deal of fun. When PvP was introduced, I looked at the learning curve's steepness and said to myself, 'maybe later'. From everything I read above, it's well explained more than once how the changes were made to level the curve, as well as how it failed miserably and steepened it far more dramatically.

As I said, it pains me to see what I missed. What pains me even more is that the changes made in the ironicly numbered Issue 13 were counter-intuitive in several ways. I am not going to re-hash what has already been said, but it is related. Instead, I'll look at this through the lens of 25 years of gaming experience.

Fact #1: Many games that have had significant policy changes made midstream gain notoriety at the least, some simply don't survive. The CoH PvP community was happy with the dev's 'hands-off' attitude, the new 'hammer-on' attitude caused serious grief.

Fact #2, and very important: Every game that is or was a celebrated and loved Multiplayer / PVP game does NOT treat 'single-player', or PvE, ANY differently than 'multi-player' or PvP. Why? Cue next fact...

Fact #3: The PvP / multiplayer aspect of any game possessing such a thing ALWAYS has a steeper learning curve than the single-player / PvE aspect does. The environment will NEVER challenge a player as much as their fellow players will.

How do development and design teams of famous games get this right? I can think of a few rules, presented in no particular order:

1st Rule: Documentation! Seriously, many gamers may not read the manual beforehand, but if they can't figure something out and it's not documented, or the info isn't readily available? Then hope the community is feeling helpful or you might be losing a customer. It is really depressing how often this happens. In CoH, the documentation for PvP seems incomplete and must be found after searching, and this can be discouraging.

2nd Rule: Engage! Paragon Studio Dev's are admitedly solid here. Not perfect, they're human after all, but props where due. Anyway, this one's a 3 step process --

• A: Dev's, play thy game. Even the parts you're not good at - especially those parts. If you're having problems in the game, others are, too.
• B: While playing, identify the people who know what they're doing, and find the ones who're struggling, too. In the case of CoH, lot's of people like giving honest feedback, and are an excellent pool of players to tap.
• C: Now, listen to both sides of your newly established think-tank. They number among the many who keep you clothed, fed, and sheltered - don't piss them off.

-- Bonus, following this rule will help you come up with accurate estimates in the risk vs reward debate. Customer Relations does a great job, and the devs get my thanks for making this game a blast. But somebody dropped the ball on I13, because the PvE 'want to PvP' crowd was louder than the true PvP crowd, and the difference wasn't accounted for.

3rd Rule: 'Ready, Aim, Compromise!' Time to swing the Nerf-Bat? No death-grips, head-shots, or aiming below the belt allowed. In other words, when making changes that people won't like, be gentle. Compromise will anger less people, and be less likely to cause damage.

On the other hand, I13 was not entirely Paragon Studios's fault. Yes, the players helped, or hurt as the case may be, too. While every gamer newly wandering into the PvP side of any game is never prepared for the experience, the trash talking adds insult to the injury of having gone through the noob meat-grinder. We all know the complaints that resulted from the fresh-ground-chuck caused some serious damage, but that could have been mitigated with sportsmanship.

I'm lucky in that Liberty players tend to behave in a friendly manner. We still go for the throat, but we're polite about winning and losing. Without specifics, I'm often appalled at the immaturity displayed when talking to people on other servers. Oh, and let me be perfectly clear: This point goes for BOTH the noobs AND the vets. I am dead serious about this. Every ladder-topping veteran was a noobish map-stain at some point, but some people like to forget that judging by their language.

My condolences Wildcat, I have memories of Mike stretching back over the last ten years, and it's sad to hear this sort of news since most of us scattered to the winds four (five?) years ago. I remember him as being one of those people with a rather "unsinkable" attitude.

As for memories of Chuda, it's thanks to Mike and the others at the time who were playing CoH - in what I thought was one of the more creative SG names I have ever seen* - that I became hooked on this game. One of the first memories of CoH really at all that I have was teaming with Chuda and others from USELESS to farm Warwolves in Werewolf World, I was 10th level at the time. Chuda had a huge herd of Warwolves following him, affectionately referred to as the Chuda Train. Though I don't recall what possessed me to be on the ground, I know that Mike didn't see me as he came up over a ridge with the Chuda Train. Before he could finish saying "Was that Morthoron?", I had been clobberred by more Warwolves than I had Hit Points to begin. I was laughing so hard that I had to take a break and walk away. Needless to say, there was NOT enough of me to teleport to the hospital, and as it was my fault there were no hard feelings over the debt (in fact, I still think that rates as all-time funniest face plant). Morthoron, an AR/Dev Blaster, is now Raven of the Red Sky, my sole lvl 50 toon.

Thanks to Mike, I got started in CoH, but I would like to point something else out: that it is people LIKE Michael who have kept me coming back. Not just in CoH either, part-time heroes don't have to own computers. If you know someone like that around you, CoH or not, you should thank them. They may be a teacher, mentor, friend, or family member, etc., but they're here, and you can thank them. For me, that's my dad, and if you'll excuse me, I need to go make a phone call.

~Raven

* USELESS is an acronym for United States Emergency Law Enforcement Special Services

My first large PvP event, was rather surprised that I got picked as Green Team Cap the first round (Empyrean Wolf). I think it worked better with random teams this time, but I'd love to be captain after I get some experience at PvP (so I'm not slowing the event down).

Had lots of fun, I haven't felt pushed to get toons to 50 (atm, I have only one 50 - chronic altitis), but now I have a huge motivation to lvl-cap my toons. I can't wait to see what happens in the future here on Liberty for PvP! Thanks again, Gunnr!

~RavenSoul

My sincere condolences for your loss, Xisha. Your message hit home to me, because my father was diagnosed a couple months ago with lymphoma. It was found to not be Hodgkin's, and he's in his first round and month of chemo. They say he'll likely kick it in the teeth with this round, but it will never go away. Eventually, it will come back. Adding on the fact that he's had Parkinson's for 5+ years, and my father has had it really rough.

My Dad is my hero, always has been. I know I'll lose him some day, but it doesn't stop me from doing everything I can to love him and help him through tough times.

In the end, that's all we can do, right?

Xisha, if you want some help getting Q's hero to 50, and going on a Hami raid afterwards, I am there for you. Send me a global friend invite (@Raven Lord) and I'll help anytime I'm on.

~RavenSoul