Samuel_Tow

We have, yes. That's the one I was talking about.

I absolutely HATED Roy Cooling's arc right up to the very end, when I was willing to give it a passing grade. Why? The writing. Yes, I'll be the first to admit that, on the technical side, his arc is well done. Unique and interesting maps, cool mechanics, nice surprises. But was it too much to ask for this to come with writing that doesn't make me tear my hair out?

Seriously, this has to be a new low when it comes to writing, and I don't say this lightly. I haven't seen it this bad since Montague Castanella, and at least his writing could be ignored because his missions are simple. But Roy is rife with horrible grammar, text errors, really forced dialogue and just overall bad writing. I mean, I played Vincent Ross' arc almost immediately before this one, and it was GREAT! Vincent was excellently written by a clearly talented writer (which can't be said for that arc's supporting cast, but oh, well), but Roy Cooling is just... Ugh! It feels like this was written by a level designer or a programmer or ANYONE who should have no business writing professionally.

I mean, yes, I can see that there might have been a good idea somewhere in there, like the plot may not have been so terrible... But it's executed SO BAD! This is the kind of writing that makes me want to skip my briefings and just kill stuff to make it go away. And it manages to bastardise existing contend YET AGAIN!

You know Malta, right? That clandestine paramilitary organisation that almost NO-ONE KNOWS ABOUT? That's their shtick, after all. They're a secret conspiracy that secretly runs the world behind the scenes, assassinating presidents, toppling governments, mind-controlling people. Crimson and Indigo go out of their way to explain how no-one really knows about them. Crimson even claims they're still largely unknown, even in intelligence circles. In fact, the entirety of the result of World Wide Red is that Malta is finally known to SOME authorities, and it'll be harder for them to hide their business.

But forget that. Secret organisations are no fun, so let's make it so everyone knows about them. Oh, yeah, Roy Cooling knows. The rogue PPD know about them. The Sky Raiders know about them. It's no big deal. It's not like they're secret or anything. Hell, if Daedalus over in ancient Rome knew about the Malta group enough to send you to hunt them down across time, why wouldn't Roy Cooling? Good job making both Crimson and Indigo into complete idiots, Roy. Good job!

What happened to the "story bible?" Serious question here. Wasn't there supposed to be this large compilation of background lore and future story development that the game was following? They made a big deal out of it when they removed the 5th Column back in the day, so what happened to it? Because from where I'm standing, it feels like none of the current writers really care one bit about currently existing lore, nor do they feel like they've actually played the actual game. Any place that new content interfaces with old content, it manages to make a contact redundant, a story arc pointless or an entire plotline obsolete. Why does this have to keep happening?

*edit*
OK, I will admit. That one EB Zeus Class Titan right at the end was cool. But would it have been that much of a problem to NOT reveal who Malta is? Just treat them like these "mysterious benefactors" and drop the Titan at the end as a "What the hell is that thing?!?" moment, then leave the thing with no resolution until people actually meet Malta for real.

I deleted the checksum and the .prv file, and it's checksumming right now. I hope this will let me through.

I was playing just fine up until an hour ago when I logged out to have dinner. Came back and the game won't let me in with the message in the thread title. I tried verifying files and restarting the computer. So far this hasn't helped.

*edit*
It seems that deleting the checksum and the other file is what made it work for me. The game reverified and fixed maps.pigg plus a few other files that went by too fast to read. Seems to be working for the time being.

Indeed, adding more lieutenants that use Stone would be a good solution to preparing players for the bosses using Stone powers. Personally, though, I wish they'd scrap the Ogre bosses in general and just use Supatrolls, instead. Saves the need for Stone Melee altogether.

People keep talking about Energy Cloak vs. Stealth Inventions, but don't all of those Inventions suppress? I know the stealth radius in Energy Cloak only ever suppresses when you click an objective.

Beyond that, Energy Aura has always felt weak to me. I still took an Energy/Energy Brute 50, mind you, but I had a significantly harder time staying alive than with all my other Brutes, then or now. I'll see if inherent Stamina and Health plus some respeccing won't make a difference when I get around to playing Xandra, but really - I survived more on my primary than I did on my secondary.

To go back on topic, I see no problem with a Tanker running a stealth power with no taunt aura. That's what the power called Taunt is for.

Now, I will definitely support adding six slots to level 50 as opposed to three, but...

If the intention is to make level 50 something more, isn't that what the whole of the Incarnate system is for? I mean, you hit level 50 and BAM! Mender Ramiel has requested to speak with you. Much better than what we had before, which amounted to a "Congratulations! Game Over." screen.

On the one hand, I actually would like to see the game able to be played offline. Sooner or later it will go under, and when that happens, I don't want to lose access to the game along with the continued development. The way I play, I may as well be offline anyway.

On the other hand, I know this isn't as simple as flipping a switch. Much of the game's operation is not, in fact, in the game client. Our characters are stored on the server, all combat mechanics go through the server, there's a whole complex mechanic of setting the server up, maintaining it, controlling it and so forth.

The only way I can see City of Heroes being playable offline is if Paragon Studios release a standalone server app to run locally for the game to connect to and run off that, which I imagine would put quite a bit more stress on the person's computer. Remember that server lag on the hill in the ITF? That's powers calculations, and that's something YOUR machine will have to do this time around.

Still, when it eventually comes time to close up shop, I do hope that Paragon Studios will release such a standalone server for people to run their games over. I'd buy that for the price of a AAA title, I know that much.

I'm going to turn your request around and suggest the opposite: Aura Weapons! I've wanted these for a long time now - weapons which don't have an actual physical form (which is to say, 3D model) but are instead constructed entirely out of highly opaque sprite arrays. You know the kind of red phantom weapon you get when you use Build Up with Axe, Sword or Mace? Like that, only denser and more permanent. This is completely and entirely doable in the current game system.

As far as adding auras to weapons goes, BABs used to explain why this can't happen. He used to say that we could only use one weapon, so it either had an aura or it didn't, and we'd need multiples of ever weapon to achieve this. Shield Defence brings in compound weapon customization, where effects can be added to each weapon, and those effects can be unique to the weapon. For shields, this is usually emblems or spikes or doodads, but we've seen no reason why those can't be an aura. This would, however, require weapon customization to be altered in a big way, which I'm not sure is possible.

As far as elemental weapons goes, I'd like to see those, myself, even if they don't deal elemental damage. After all, my Fire Shield doesn't protect me from fire or cold any more than my manhole cover does, so why should my fire sword deal more fire damage than, say, my rusty piece of angle iron? I'd like to see at least a fire/ice/rock/dark version of at least Broadsword, Dual Blades, Katana, Battle Axe, War Mace, Claws and Archery. Stone bow FTW!

The only reason why Vigilantes and Rogues exist is to allow for cross-faction teaming, like I've asked for about fifty bazillion times. The only reason Heroes and Villains get Hero and Villain Merits is so there's a point to NOT being a Rogue or Vigilante so not everyone is all the time.

I'm not a fan of adding more Rogue-only and Vigilante-only content to the game, especially if it means having to rewrite every contact's dialogue to account for that. The more you restrict content, the more cumbersome it becomes to do it. I can live with the faction divide restriction, but anything beyond that isn't necessary.

Lastly, though they CAN cross over, Vigilantes and Rogues are not intended to live on the other side. Vigilantes are still heroes and Rogues are still villains, and as such do not belong on the opposite side.