SDragon

Oo oo, I have an arc!

To Serve Crey

Arc ID: 210267

By Silver Dragon/@SDragon

It should be soloable, 30-35, one custom EB at the end.

Uhm, there's likely spelling errors n' stuff. I tried my best to clean it up, but...

It's three missions, it worked last time I ran it through. But I haven't checked to see if anything recent broke with MA updates. Lost maps n' such. Well, besides a cursory glance to republish. (Lost one of the destructible items)

So, hope you see/enjoy it and I would love any feedback. For story or gameplay mechanic wise.

You have to remember though. This isn't like Comic Con OR past issues.

At Comic Con, they brought up a private server. And if they're smart. An "Off the record" version of CoH. One with only the new power colors. And one with all the broken stuff just cut out of it. They polished it up. That's what these guys do at the Cons. The DCUO I saw was pretty good. But that's just because they removed all the broken parts, leaving a tenth of a game that looked real shiny.

The Test sever will be much less polished, with all the unfinished pieces put back in.

In previous issues. They only added a new costume piece or two. Or reordered old ones. This time around, they're remaking the entire character creation process. And even then, it caused a lot of bugs to crop up. If there isn't at least ONE game crashing bug with the new system then I will be very surprised.

Now they closed this part too. I imagine they wanted to for a long time and just didn't have anything in there that could check if you were in the Beta until you clicked on the log in button. Thus letting us get access to the character creator. A "Two birds with one stone" situation pop-ed up here. Heck, they might have manufactured it.

[sarcasm]Yes, I agree. The Closed beta isn't for anything other then marketing their new shinies to us. The fact that it's on the "test sever" is only because they never got around to changing it's name to something more appropreate. Like. "Pre-server" or even better "Preview server"

There's no reason for the test server to exist but to do just that. Provide a preview. If the Devs wanted it tested. They should test it on their own time! Besides. It's not like locking out the players actually DOES anything other then alienate their player base. Having thousands of people hammering the already weaker test sever for hours durring the testing time. All of them using the new updated costume creator to see the new colors and animations without the actual ability to go in and /bug things or provide any useful information to the Devs. While at the same time lagging and perhaps damaging the ability of the actual Beta testers to DO their work. [/sarcasm]

Edit: Dangit, how do you work these new board tags?

Lets see...

In no order.

Reporter(Redo building heroside, use SPDR villain side)
Trashperson(Garbage piles)
Fire Rescue/Arsonist(Buildings in steel/Fires in Mercy)
TV personality(Radio Towers?)
CEO(Large imposing buildings)
Mechanic(Redo some buildings)
Store Owner(Stores)
Author(?)
Musician(?)
Dancer(?)
Artist(?)
Gardner(Parks?)
Wanderer(?)
Mailperson(Mail boxes?)
Magic-User(?)
Psychologist/Lunatic(outside hospitals?)
Military Personal(Vanguard warehouses?)
Mage Hunter(CoT buildings around the game)
Robot Smasher(Malta bases)
Cultist(?)
D.A.T.A. Researcher/Mad Scientist(DATA labs in Galaxy/AP or... not sure)


Maybe let you join villain groups by leaving day jobs in areas where they hang out a lot. Longbow/CoT/etc. Or "hunter" versions for heroes?

60+ month Vet here. Started back when I first saw a blurb about a new "Super-hero MMO" coming out. It was only a stamp sized mention in a gaming mag. But I remembered it and a while later googled it.

Made a forum account. Much later, I got into the Beta, etc.

Never left, but for a three month period or so in my life when I had literally no money all I could do was read the forums. And, I think, I missed a day or so here and there.

Oo, I like random speculation! Ok, lets see...

They go back and altered it so each mission/arc currently existing in the game had a good/evil factor to it. Anything from Westin Phipps gives tons of "Evil points" where as stopping bank robberies gives tons of "Good points."

Pretoria has missions available for both sides that give Good and/or Evil points. Obviously most missions in Paragon/The Isles are going to give Hero/Villain points. Your alignment is decided by how many points you have of both sides. Might also include a a "Grey" alignment too. If you have tons of Good points and little to none Evil, you get to be a "True Hero" and get access to special rewards for sticking with the Light Side™

Same is true for villain side.

A roughly equal mix of them gives you either an Anti-Hero, Anti-Villain, or Neutral. Anti-Hero has more Good points then Evil. But it's still awful close to even. Anti-Villain is the other way around. Neutral is either more "Grey" points, if they exist. Or roughly even in points.

Personally, I see "Grey" points as a better option then trying to force players to balence doing good/evil missions to maintain a character that floats between the two.

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Perhaps I am just burned out but I have kept my subscription active in support of what I believe has been a truly great game. I just have not logged in for about 6 months and I still find no desire to log back in which is why I have finally canceled my account. I just feel there is nothing I can make anymore that I have not already made.

Like I said the ability to color change completely is what I wanted and would have opened many possibilities in what I could have made. I use that rubies thing as an example. It may be their decision for artistic reasons not to do it, but they lost me because of it. It would be fair to say that they may have lost me after a few months even if they allowed it, but I guess we will never know.

I suppose my problem boils down to the fact that I feel like there is not a single thing in the game that I have not already done or explored, and even the content I have not done doesnt feel different from everything else enough to get me excited. I suppose it's just my time to move on. Owell, I can't really bash the game, I have about 60 months in vet rewards. Can't say I didnt enjoy the time. I just wish there was something they could do that would save me from leaving so that I could enjoy the game again and I was hoping Issue 16 would be it.

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You know... There is a whole boxed expansion coming with several NEW ZONES in it?

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I'm having a serious cognitive dissonance moment here. I hope I'm not having a stroke.

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*holds up a sheet of plastic wrap incase of spatter*

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Am I the only one disappointed in the limitations of the color system. If they spent so much time redoing everything they could have at least taken a bit more to do a total overhaul.

The tinted stone hammers for instance are barely noticeable. The limitations on what colors you can choose is just silly. So what if I want bright red ice? Maybe I want to use Ice as a representation of a character that manipulates Rubies (Chick from Naruto Anime anyone?).

Anyway, I am just disappointed but I feel this game is falling on the "feels archaic" gameplay spectrum. The stuff we get is becoming increasingly stale in my opinion. I am one of those who is going to try CO, if it sucks then my Superhero MMO's experience is over for now at least because this game is just all over the place now.

Color me disappointed. And thats real color, not a lame de-saturated tint.

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I imagine the idea is that if they want you to use Crystals. They'll make it a set

After reading through and admittedly not thinking too hard about it, I have a suggestion.


How about a "Restraint" bar? Starts out full and goes down while in combat. As it goes down, the Tank does more damage or their powers recharge faster. Maybe their Gauntlet gets stronger too.

Factors that could lower it would be teammates taking damage or even just getting aggro. But that doesn't help solo. I'd make it so...

As long as the Tank has some aggro, the bar will tick down. Allies getting attacked may take off a chunk or two here and there. But the bulk of it comes from getting aggro. The more foes the Tank is fighting, and the higher their rank, the faster the bar lowers. So, the Tank doesn't need to unleash his full strength on several minions. But a boss thrown in there, yeah. More so, an AV would make the bar drop quickly.


It's effectively a Rage bar. But the idea is that it works in reverse. Brutes get stronger from their anger. Tankers were already strong enough and are just being careful to measure it out.

The only other thing I could thing of to make them more comic booky/fun is to redo their powersets. But that's not happening

Thought I'd post this to provoke some ideas, who knows, maybe someone will come up with the one perfect idea if people keep talking about it.

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Post Deleted by Moderator_08

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Incorrect...unless something happened between Friday and now, which I seriously doubt.

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That's one way to get a dev to post

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I can't believe that no one even commented on the other two videos.... isn't that a big deal to people?

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I think that new Spines animation will show us more people rolling spines.

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Agreed. I've always liked the idea of a spines character, but just couldn't make myself play them because I hated the look.

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Agreed. I think I'm going to reroll a claws character I had, if I can have metal spines.

I think they won't be doing them, not because it's hard.

But because it will take extra time. And they just want to get this out and done. If they don't do them, then it's less to test and deal with.

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The big problem with a lack of customization of hero epic pools will be when "Green Fire Blaster Dude" turns on his Fire Shield and uses Char and Bonfire and they are still ordinary orange flames... or when "Pink Ice Controller Girl" is stuck with a blue Ice Blast or Hibernate bubble.
It is really going to break up the theme and the look of many characters. Patron pools won't be as much of an issue because they are so unique and most of them don't really match up with primary powersets like the hero pools do...

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Man I'm slow these days. That rather serious problem should have been obvious, yet it flew right over my head. Yeah, most pool and Patron powers may be designed to be visually different, but a lot of Epics actually look like extensions of the character's own powersets. Without customization to them, there really isn't any point to changing certain powersets at all, at least from my perspective.

I have a planned Fire/Fire/Pyre Blaster. If I can change the colours of Fire/Fire, but not of Pyre, then I won't be "able" to change anything at all. Let's hope for this in the very near future. I'd sooner have this than more animations, if that were ever a meaningful choice.

[/ QUOTE ]I think thats a bit of an extreme position to take, but remember that this is jsut what they are shooting for for issue 16, most likely the others will be done thereafter, either in another issue or just a nice patch , as was heavily implied in sm's post. there is no reason to get too specific in equine dentistry here, the main powersets were a lot of work, and undoubtedly more work is continuing. I want to give rian blue eye beams too, but lets remain reasonable.

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I'd like to point out, when they're finished with it. They'll have all the resources they were using on it that they can now direct to other things. Now that all the systems are in place, it shouldn't be hard to do pool powers and such afterward.

Honestly, the giant bulky armor is what keeps me from using it as a set.

I'd like to see a sharper more jagged ice set. With, ideally, thinner amounts of ice. So I don't look like I'm covered in giant transparent blocks of cement.

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On a somewhat unrelated note, I just want to take a second to thank you guys for being so positive and excited about this feature that's consumed so much of my life for so long. It's been a very long haul and tremendous amount of work from many people on the team. Your excitement about this feature is making it so much easier for me to continue to be excited about it, and that's making it a lot nicer to get through the final stretches of finishing this issue up and into your hands. I can't speak for the other people who've done a tremendous amount of work on this feature as well, but for me personally...it's a huge deal.

The handful of non-glowing responses I've seen have been very reasonable and more in the realm of disappointed but still understanding. For that I'm exceedingly grateful.

So thanks for staying positive and constructive, it makes reading the forums so much easier and working on this game so much more rewarding.

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You don't know how long I've waited for this feature... thank you. You've made me incredibly happy. I really don't know how to express it to you guys. I assure you though, I will be here for a long long time.

I can't know how much work you put into this but I believe it was very large, based on what I know of the game's works. Knowing what you've told us, the unfinished product we've been getting pictures of is above and beyond what I was expecting.

You knocked it. Out. Of. The. Park.

So thank you, thank you for your work and for caring enough to push through all the hurdles that existed. You didn't have to but you did.

Thank you.

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Dear Developers: My soul will be arriving in the mail in 2-4 days.

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Cheapskate, I paid for express delivery, mine will be there by 9am tomorrow! (if its not, I get the soul of the delivery driver)

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You fool, they're all at Comic con. You have to wait until it's over or else your soul will just sit on the doorstep for days. And we all know souls melt like spun sugar in the rain!

My brain! AHHH! YOU-- HOW COULD YOU!

You've set my alt-itis into overdrive!

Look at those Dark blasts! NEW BLOOD CHARACTER! Blood drain, blood tendrils, blood blast!

Ice armor = Glass armor

Energy Blast = Solid Dark Blasts(not fluffy)

New--with the-- and...

You get all my internets for these pictures.

Dear Developers: My soul will be arriving in the mail in 2-4 days.

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Have we heard if we can change the powers customization based on the costume slot, or is it going to be one set of power color customization for one character?

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Powers can be individually customized per costume slot, but not supergroup mode.

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Great job, man. Don't know what else to say on the topic.

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I do: What about altering the particles? Can my Energy Blast be stars instead of bubbles?

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Pain Domination is entirely based on mental control. You don't actually 'heal' anyone, you just make them ignore any pain they might be feeling.

Kind of like how someone hopped up on PcP can demonstrate feats of 'invulnerability'.

Which is why it's a villainous powerset.

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Right. We would never give heroes the ability to Dull Pain as a combat ability. That would be off-theme. In other news, Aspirin is evil.

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:| Because Pain Domination is so much different from Empathy. Oi.

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I think it's more the intent behind it. It's one thing to grit through the pain. It's another to go around dopeing up teamates 'cause it's easier then actually fixing their wounds