Raven_Akurei

I had the same thing happen to me just now. Gamestop. Sealed box. Everything but Ghostwidow. Now I have two Statesman (Statesmen?) and no GW and one of everything else. So I either a) mod one States into Tyrant for the geeky-heck of it, or b) Trade with someone who has no States but two Ghostwidows?
Must. Have. Complete. Set!

I dimly recall reading somewhere that she had been a hero and that she's over a hundred years old as well. I want to say that it's in her "about this contact" and corroborated in the FBI report on States thats in the DVD and elsewhere. I know I read it waaaay back in the day when I was reading up on the game to see if it was worth buying or not.
(It was for two big reasons #1. I could FLY which is just super cool and #2 the backstory was a fun surprised for me. I hadn't been expecting something like that)

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The concept of a Numa Numa Dance TF scars the mind.

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This link is completely safe.

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Numina Numina ^_^
now I want to see Infernal standing next to her doing the peanut butter jelly time dance. hm I think I found an avatar

er, on topic, I too would like to see "about this contact" or something on the trainer/TF npcs

(and wasn't maria jenkins states' ally, not Sidekick? or did someone mention that and I missed the post)

I just got my 'shade and this has been very helpful since I wanted to go the three form route. thanks for typing it all up!
I'd made some binds for shifting forms+ trays but I didn't know the command to specifically turn a toggle on or off. thanks for posting that!

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Just wanted to thank everybody for their tips. I'm a Lvl 5 Blaster on Justice and I've read some excellent tips.

Again, very useful thread and thanks to all. I'm off to do some binding now...

(...and if only someone would tell me how to use "thought" emotes...)

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if you type a semicolon before whatever your message is in the chat window, it pops up as a thought bubble. Many-a-time I have tried to respond with a text smile only to think a parentheses :P

this can be overcome by hitting the space bar before you type ; )

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You are losing time though. I'd argue thats the most important resource you have to lose - actual real world time to commit to playing the game.
that IS a fact. In some MMOs you lose stuff (and yes, that is some invested time "gone") but it has been my experience that it takes about five seconds to repair my gear (more if I'm in say, Laggrimar or Lagforge) but my XP gain is not hindered.

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You must not have played UO pre-trammel. In UO it used to be you died, ran to a healer, and tried to get back to your corpse wearing nothing but a loincloth before everything decayed. People never went out with the best stuff in the game because the chance was too high that you'd lose it (to other players if not to monsters). So yeah, they used equipment that could be replaced relatively quickly... assuming you had the cash and could find a player vendor that was properly stocked.

But they'd also still use good magic items, because you had to to beat the high end monsters. And if you lost one of those, well you'd be out a good chunk of money or looking for a long time to find another.

Imagine this: You have a level 50 COH char. Instead of powers like we have them now, the powers are items and you can lose them. You never use your 9th primary power because it's too flashy and everyone wants to take it from you, so you leave that at home. When going to places you know not many players are going to be you take your 8th primary with you. But you die and lose it and need to spend 6 months getting it again.

XP debt is nothing.

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Nope. never played UO. From the (horror) stories I have heard I'm not missing much :P I was using WoW as an example since that's the other MMOG I've played a lot of. Yeah, comparatively XP-debt is nothing in that case. Though I think it was EQ (2?)that you can actually go DOWN in levels for dying too much.

We're already "better off" than UO since we're largely not an item based game and certainly I can't stomp into Atlas with my big bad lvl 43 dark defender, Fear all the lowbies around Ms. Liberty and steal their stuff (although the image is rather amusing)

An aside, it took us nearly a month to convince our Tank to play hero with us. He'd sworn off MMOs after playing UO for just the example you mentioned. He'd lost items it'd taken him YEARS to get, to the PK guilds. CoH is so different from other MMOGs it took him awhile to be convinced that the same thing wouldn't happen and couldn't happen. He's fine with PvE and isn't planning on going into the arena because of his time in UO.

I'm not saying Nerf debt, just that a slight penalty reduction isn't going to hurt anyone and will encourage more people to play longer I havent played UO, but again with the whole "Lots of first time MMOGers"(me too) this is all they will know first hand - (except if they grab a copy of WoW and see "debt...no debt...hmmm" )a reduction of a clear deterrant = good thing.

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No matter how little debt the system assigns you, someone will always complain about it to try and get it lessened.

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One poster on another forum I read described XP debt in City of Heroes as the cruelest of all MMORPG death penalties. He was wrong of course (you're not losing anything - enhancements, levels, whatever), but the perception is clearly there for some.

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You are losing time though. I'd argue thats the most important resource you have to lose - actual real world time to commit to playing the game.
that IS a fact. In some MMOs you lose stuff (and yes, that is some invested time "gone") but it has been my experience that it takes about five seconds to repair my gear (more if I'm in say, Laggrimar or Lagforge) but my XP gain is not hindered. for the moment my xp/time gain might slow down a bit because I need to visit a shop, but I'm doing that for enhancements here too. overall my gain is not hindered. For the duration of debt you are getting half as much progression to the next level. For the people taking months to get their travel power that's really no fun. This change is something that really won't hinder or affect experienced players (most posters here), but it will be a nice change for the many people who aren't as game savvy, and I think that's the main point behind this change

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Not that I'm complaining really, but why?

Debt is hardly even a penalty, and now it's being mitigated further? Perhaps I'm alone here, but I don't get it.

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Debt IS a penalty for a LOT of people.

Harsh too when you consider WoW has no debt but equipment fatigue and an optional run back to your body(if no in has rez). the cost is minimal time and some in game $. Comparatively in CoH there is a run back to your team AND extra time spent in a level. There are more harsh games, where you can even be demoted a level, I do realize that. No, I don't want to turn this into a WoW vs CoH thread. realize the differences and lets move on shall we?

CoH has a very large "First MMO" playerbase. Most of these cats aren't power gamers and don't have the time to spend hours and hours and hours of game play. Debt extends the time a person has to spend in a level before they get the reward, be it a shiny new power or some helpful enhancements, Dig? Most of these new MMO converts aren't as good with their game skills so Debt happens more to them than to someone who's been playing similar games recently.

"They can exemplar!"
-You wont find them on the boards often but there are people who have NO idea what exemplaring is since it's not in the official manual. I've explained it to people recently.

I cannot tell you how excruciating it was to get debt with my fire blaster before my travel power and then just leading up to Inferno. Each death meant that I'd only be getting half xp gain from each kill. Fly was so close I could practically taste it. A couple times I had to just Log off for awhile before I did anything else to cause even more debt.

Debt is depressing. It is a frustrating deterrant to the more casual gamer. This is a more causal MMO than other games. yes there are players who take play up a notch and they are a pleasure to team with and awesome in action, but most players aren't that good.

one main reason I don't play my blaster as much as my defender is because she already HAS debt and leveling up is slow anyway because CoH seems to have a steep leveling curve which you really begin to feel in the 30s (since now you're getting shiny new powers only once every three levels.) Enhancements are nice and useful, but I look forward to powers more.

You might not be alone in your thinking, but honestly I think the majority of people will think this is a great change. My guess is either you're quite laid back or you are an exceptional player who hasn't died enough for it to become a frustraiting grind, or you are much more of a "power gamer" than the general population of the game. *shrug* but I'm just guessing

To States: This rules for me and my play style as well as for my friends who are more casual gamers or even the hardcore ones with little time to spend playing CoH. I like door missions over street cleaning and with the mission slider a full team of 8 on invincible is a thing of beauty when it goes well. But that is also where the most risk is. This is great for encouraging the not so kamakaze to take on more risks for higher rewards because the possible negative consequence is a bit less worse than before. It also encourages more casual players to play longer in the beginning and get really hooked on the game
Kudos to the design team

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Oh please let there be killer mimes. I need to smack a group of those silent jack-holes around with my sword/gun/fists of fire.
Although, the invisible box they hide themselves in may be difficult to break through.

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I love it! Killer Mime, the evil forcefield powerset! Hey, since this is evil, wouldn't it be *really* evil if all of it was true and Lord Recluse was just, you know, lying to us? *hinthint*