Rodion

It's not the same. These services pay artists per play of each song or movie (look up ASCAP, which does the same thing with radio stations and so forth).

These threads are interesting, but they are sort of missing the point with the struggles that new players have making ends meet in the game.

First off, your basic premise is flawed. You are starting with something: seven years of experience (from your forum join date, assuming that your subscription is contiguous). That is more valuable than just about anything.

In the real world, someone with seven years of experience in pretty much any field will be able to do a job faster and better, and enjoy much more success, compared to someone with no training or experience. Assuming their field needs people who can do the job, they can move into a new town, find work quickly, get a high salary right off the bat, get loans from banks easily because they've got a track record and the obvious knowledge to succeed.

You're like a broker with an MBA and years years of experience telling a kid that he can move to New York and become a millionaire in just one year if he works hard, does all the right things, invests wisely and flosses every night.

But once the kid gets to New York he meets the owner of Club AE who offers him a job as a bouncer. All he has to do is watch the door for a week and he'll earn a million dollars. He's not asking the kid to do anything illegal -- just watch a door at club.

You tell the kid he should know something is shady if they're willing to pay a million bucks for a bouncer for a week's work. The place is probably dealing drugs or worse.

But hey, the kids says, there's always time later on to learn the ropes and get a real job. If they're doing something illegal what are the odds the cops will raid the joint the week I'm working there? But after the week, the kid likes the money, and stays on for another week and another month, and five years later he's dealing dope and worse.

And so it is with PLing in AE.

People who have an emotional investment in the game disdain the very idea of PLing in AE, but players who have no connection yet see it as the best investment of their time for highest return. Even though it will leave them unable to "earn a living" for the rest of their lives in the game.

No, you shouldn't be offended and upset. This is just a game, after all, and it should be fun. If you had fun and learned something about base building, and will able be able to do your next project better and faster from the experience then it was worth it.

But feel free to be annoyed if this guy wasted your time. The lesson you learn from this is that if you want to avoid having your work being wasted, you've got to be in control. That either means making your own personal SG, starting one with friends who have similar goals, or finding a new SG that will give you the level of control that you require.

Over the years I've inherited three or four bases just by joining random SGs on servers other than my home server (most don't have a lot of prestige). If you look around you may be able to find an SG that's lost most of its members. Try asking around on your home server.

I don't know what the rates are, but it seems tips drop from LTs more often than minions.

Edit: Perhaps it's just chance, but I was just in need of tips, so I went to Grandville and shot up three turrets (LTs) on the walls and got two tips.

Yes, in exactly the same way that 9 women can produce a baby in one month, instead of waiting nine whole months for one woman to do it.

This is always the problem with asking how to make lots of inf on the forums. Many other people read these posts and follow the same advice. When lots of people do the same thing it causes an increase in supply, which results in a decrease in price, because people would rather sell quickly than clog up market slots with stuff that doesn't sell.

The way to make money on the market is to sell what is in high demand and short supply. Since that varies on a daily basis, there's really not one answer. You need to evaluate this yourself by looking at the market, gauging what the supply and demand are, and then do what your research tells you will make you the most money.

That is, once you've got your tickets, check the market and see what's selling for a lot, has a lot of bids, recent sales and a very small supply. Then make rolls that will hit the largest number of those items.

I find the best approach is to make bronze rolls when I need uncommon recipes that are very expensive (Reactive Armor, for example). I'll roll at a level that will get me what I want, and if I get them, great. If not, I'll sell the good stuff that I don't need.

I personally don't like the 10-14 range because it excludes Reactive Armor and Kinetic Combat, which are always in high demand, and I use them all the time in my own bids.

Actually, there is a non-RP use for walk.

I don't particularly like all the effects on my characters when I'm try to do something like use the market (Fire/ and /Dark in particular) because they're so busy, noisy and distracting to me and other market patrons.

But if you toggle/detoggle walk they all turn off with just two clicks, instead of five to eight clicks.

What prestige does represent is the sacrifice of personal wealth for group prestige -- either by tithing up to 50% inf during play or by directly converting inf to prestige. The exception being for "founding" members of an SG who cause the group to get inf (is it 20K?) just by joining.

It's sort of like putting the names of donors to a symphony hall on a plaques on a wall inside the building. The people who donated the most usually have bigger plaques at the top. It doesn't mean they're better, or smarter or nobler. It just means they gave more money.

If we recognize it for what it really is, it's not unreasonable to have it there.

The best way to get Kinetic Combats is to make reasonable but not over-the-top bids on the doubles and let them sit for days, while at the same time running tip missions to get alignment merits which you can use on the KC triple. It will take a couple of weeks, but in the end you'll get everything you need and it will only cost you a fraction of two billion.

The other thing you can do is run trials, and use the Astral Merits to buy the Kinetic Combats. The doubles go for 16 Astrals, I believe, and the triple goes for 32. You can generally get 4-6 Astrals per trial.

You can easily run two or three trials in one sitting. It's best to run at least one of each trial every day to maximize the number of Empyrean merits, rather than endlessly repeat the same one.

If this case actually involved Jack Kirby that would be one thing. But he's been gone for 17 years, and much of the work involved was from 50 or more years ago. If he were still alive today and was in dire need of cash for a pacemaker and Marvel was telling him to go hang, the case would be much more compelling.

But is it really moral for a writer's heirs and their lawyers to circle like vultures after his death, hoping to pick the carcass clean?

Copyrights were originally tied to the life of the creator. Not to some deathless corporation or bickering heirs wanting to steal a piece of their father's immortality. Most of Kirby's work would be in the public domain by now if giant corporations hadn't convinced Congress to change the law in their favor.

The copyright and patent system is terribly broken, and should be fixed before it completely stifles innovation in this country, as endless lawsuits crush anyone with an ounce of creativity (especially in the software industry).

I wonder if this will address the lag in the prisoner escape phase of BAF?

Some problems we will not be able to solve by staying on Earth.

For example, there's only so much gold on the planet that we can easily get to. From Wikipedia:

That isn't much gold at all, when you come right down to it. At some point it's going to become too difficult and destructive to extract it from the earth. Gold is mostly used for non-functional purposes (jewelry and investments), but is essential in electronics and other devices and processes.

Yeah, we could increase our supply of gold by recycling electronics and melting down our jewelry. But there's still going to be a finite amount of gold. We can either choose to grind our planet into dust trying to get it, or we can go off-planet and mine asteroids for it.

The main problem humanity has is the idea that for economic success we must constantly grow. Economies that do not grow are considered stagnant and in danger of collapse. To increase wealth the population must increase, or your industrial output (and consumption) must increase. Economists say that the 2% growth the United States currently has is "anemic" and disastrous in the long term.

But the earth is finite. There's only so much room for people on the planet, only so much space to grow food, only so many resources. We're at 7 billion now, and will probably hit 10 billion within most of our lifetimes. Are you going to tell everyone on the planet that their economies are all going to have to stop growing, that only a select few can have children, that people will have to submit to euthanasia at age 80 in order to make room for the next generation?

Economies that do the right thing and voluntarily limit their growth will be at a tremendous disadvantage compared to economies that mindlessly expand. The growing economies will be able to crush the static ones in relatively short order. So no country will choose to be the first one to severely limit their own growth, because they know the less disciplined economies will choose to overrun them.

Countries will start wars to maintain their patterns of growth. Climate change will also start having a serious effect on populations in the next few decades, and will force migration from coastal areas, and cause major outbreaks of disease and famine, all of which will result in major wars.

So unless we have some major outlet for economic expansion, and some new supply of resources, and some place to put the pollution that all our industrial activities cause, the pressures of a finite earth will cause catastrophic changes to society. This will likely result in the untimely deaths of billions of people within the next century, ultimately leaving us in some kind of sustainable steady-state economy. Which many economists believe will spell the decline and ultimate doom for mankind. These kinds of collapses have occurred many, many times in the past, so this isn't some kind of idle speculation: all the trees on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were chopped down and it became overpopulated, the Roman Empire fell for many reasons, several cultures in Central and South America fell, even before the Spaniards came. Many of them were due to overpopulation, climate change or disease, problems which we will soon be facing on a worldwide scale. See Jared Diamond's books for more examples.

Or, we can expand into space, moving the worst polluting processes off planet, getting energy from clean sources (the sun), creating an outlet for new population expansion, and getting access to new mineral resources in the asteroid belt and moons of Earth and other planets.

Getting into space in a big way will not be easy. But it'll be easier than changing human nature.

I also jump around in combat, and have a SS/Electric brute. I don't get knocked around enough to make it so annoying that I feel I must go out and buy a -KB IO (I have them on most everything else that doesn't have inherent KB protection) -- it happens infrequently enough that I'm momentarily surprised when it occurs (I'm always alting to characters that don't have this limitation).

The question is really whether it's worth a slot. You can put a BotZ: -KB in your travel power, a Karma: -KB in Combat Jumping or Weave, or a Steadfast: -KB in Grounded or one of your armors. Doing one of those either costs you a slot or it means you can't slot Steadfast: +Def, a LotG: +recharge or a Winter's Gift: +slow resistance in a "free" slot.

If you have enough recharge (who ever does?) you could slot the Karma in Combat Jumping. But since Lightning Reflexes already gives you 40% resistance to slow, you might put the BotZ: -KB in your travel power and just skip the Winter's Gift altogether. It's an option that Electric Armor has that most other secondaries don't.

Check out the following page: http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/fre...s_details.html

As I understand it, you get a reward token for each vet badge you currently have and one for each year. For 18 months you'll have 7 reward tokens.

In the future you'll get one for each month subscribed, and another for each 1200 Paragon Points you purchase. It's therefore possible to "catch up" by buying Paragon Points.

So, basically you'll be able to get the vet rewards immediately by spending money now, instead of having to wait for the time to pass.

Another option once you reach 50 is Clarion for the Destiny incarnate slot. One of the T3 Clarions provides mag 6 (and greater) mez protection for 120 seconds, with 120 second recharge. If you've got high defenses it really rounds out your character well for soloing.

I've taken that one some of my squishies, and also made one of the Barriers for use on trials where tankers are going to attract all the aggro and mezzes aren't as much of a problem.

Another important feature of the OP's build is the Achilles Heal res debuff procs, and the damage procs. The Achilles Heel and Lady Gray procs can only be slotted in defense debuff powers, are they are both in Neutrino Bolt.

If Manticore is weak to negative energy damage (I'm not sure whether this is the case), this build has a leg up against him. Other secondary defender powersets may not have the same capacity against Manticore because they can't slot defense debuffs sets.

This is especially important when you've got the two AVs close to each other. It's gotten to the point where I move away from the group around the AVs when I get the first warning, because if both AVs decide to ring me in quick succession we're all sequestered.

On the plus side, I've found that if you're at range and you do get sequestered, you almost always survive because you stop attacking, the AV stops attacking you, and you're just held and taking no damage.

Finally: don't worry about losing participation points for not attacking while waiting for your rings to go away. I typically tried to continue attacking adds around a corner, but I've been sequestered at least three times now while out of line of sight of the AVs (though I didn't die any of those times). So I decided to try just moving away and waiting till the rings expired, not attacking anything. In the last two BAFs using this tactic I got a rare and a very rare, which means my participation metric was not adversely affected.

In the Ustream one of the presenters said something to the effect of, "Long-time vets don't like it if newbies can get stuff they have. They want people to pay their dues and not get the remote auction house on day one."

As a long-time vet, I don't feel that way. I don't need to repress others so that I can feel superior. If they pay their money they should be able to get whatever they pay for.

I can sort of understand the sentiment that vets had to accept years worth of "filler" rewards (respecs, costume change tokens -- I've got more than 80 costume changes on some characters, etc.) while waiting for the one or two decent rewards that came out each year.

But as long as I get to keep everything I already have, I don't really care if someone else can get all the same stuff I have by paying the same amount of money in one day that I paid over seven years. Because in the future I'll be able to skip over the stuff I don't care about and get only those things that do interest me.

Yes, if you're on a team where someone says they need a healer, you know you're in big trouble.

I was on a pickup ITF today that was not going at all well. Three players kept disconnecting, and two ultimately never came back.

After mission two one of the players said, "Hey, invite that healer over there." I knew then that we were doomed, that they didn't understand so many things at so many levels. But it was too late to do anything about it.

At this point there was me (a Fire/Thermal controller), two scrappers, a tank, a fire brute that kept dying and a PB. I struggled through half of the third mission but ultimately left as well. They kept getting themselves killed by intentionally aggroing multiple spawns, and then insisted on fighting in three or four groups separated by at least 50 yards (some behind obstacles and out of my line of sight), making it impossible for me to debuff multiple enemies, have my buffs hit more than one or two targets, or use my area heal on them. All the loose mobs running around constantly aggroed on me as well. I other words, they did everything to make a "healer's" -- or a debuffer's -- life total hell.

To their credit no one whined about how bad my "healing" was. They weren't ill-willed or bitchy. They just didn't seem to know how the game works.

And the reason they don't know is that they've seemed to only have played melee or blaster type characters. Every player should be required to play at least two different defenders or corruptors before they play any another character.

There was a guy who wrote a post about soft-capping an Inv tanker with Smashing Haymakers in your attacks and Reactive Armors in your defenses, which are relatively inexpensive as IOs go. Sorry, but I don't remember his name or how long ago he wrote the post. (You have to be amongst mobs to hit the soft-cap, but that's not usually a problem for tanks.)

I suggest you get the Mids character builder from http://www.cohplanner.com/ and experiment with those sets.

There's nothing new about this. Before AE people would save the level 45-50 Demon, Family or Battle Maiden missions, which were easily farmed by Fire/ tankers, Fire/Kins or Inv/ tankers. Instead of people begging to be PLed in Atlas Park's AE, people constantly spammed the broadcast channel in PI with ads for PLing back in the day.

The Family farm became so commonly abused by Fire/Kins that Family XP was nerfed.

The only thing AE does is "democratize" the ability to run these farms, and not restrict them to level 45+ characters who have the appropriate contact.

And, honestly, radio missions can be used in exactly the same way: most tankers/brutes can run Council radio/newspaper missions in their sleep. You can keep dismissing radios until you get the same old Defeat Archon Manuela mission and run it all day and night.

I find it disappointing that so many people choose to spend all their time running the same tedious farm, or even worse -- doorsitting in the same tedious farm. But if they are bound and determined to do it, they will find a way to do it no matter what barricades you place before them.

I ran a TA/Archery defender on Freedom in trials until I got all my T3s (back when iXP came at a reasonable rate). It performs fine, especially on the BAF. Glue Arrow and Oil Slick are quite useful during the escape phase, and the -resistance debuffs are helpful during the AV phases.

Just having one TA or Dark Miasma defender/corruptor or Earth controller/dom at a choke point can give you one or two more astrals and mean the difference between success and failure.

What!? Use strategy and knowledge when running missions? Then... then... I'd have to think and remember! This game is supposed to fun, there's not supposed to be any thinking and remembering!

Seriously, all_hell is right. Recognizing the mobs that cause you problems and immediately holding/stunning/KBing/whacking them avoids the problem. Even if you're a melee character, you can usually bounce into a spawn and use your stun attack and get the drop on the problem NPC. If you didn't take the stun/hold/KB power in your powerset because you think it's a waste of DPS, you have only brought this problem down upon yourself.

Nearly all the problematic mobs have tactics you can use to neutralize their "impossible" advantages. If there's more than one problematic mob in a spawn, your team should split up the responsibilities for who takes out what problem. All the problem mobs (sappers, Paragon Protectors, Fake Nemesis, malta stunners, PPD ghosts, etc.) can be handled with simple tactics. The challenge of the game is to learn those tactics and apply them where needed.

If you're running solo and you've set the difficulty too high and you can't deal with all the problem mobs in a spawn... well, you again brought the problem down upon yourself by virtue of the Peter Principle.

Yeah, I know these mobs are annoying. But there has to be some kind of tactics and knowledge involved in playing the game. Otherwise we're just rats pressing the button to get the food pellet.