Scarlet Shocker

Thanks so much for the welcome guys.

I've only skimmed the fora occasionally (hence I knew about the coming "Gone to teh Americans" merge) but anything else I need to know?

So... some of you knew I'd be back. Or at least hazarded a guess. Those of you who did deserve a pat on the.. well you choose whatever part of your anatomy you want to touch.

Me? Well I spent just over a month out of the game and realised that I was less happy out of it than I was in it. There's nothing out there that's got my interest, and when what Sir Winston Churchill called his Black Dog barks at me, well without the ability to take down some nasty villainous (or heroic) types, things got pretty nasty in my head.

So to cut a long story short, rather than suffer my depressive broken angst alone, I'm back to share that horrid meme with you all and rip the proverbial out of the deserving

Now... shall I change my board name or not?

Scarlet aka Riff

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Scarlet Shocker stood in the vast meeting hall of the Shock Tactics base, her hold-all in her hand, her red leather coat unfastened. Corona, Alexia and Mauve stood close to her. It was an emotional moment, and nobody was quite ready to break the uncomfortable silence - as though speaking would make it happen.

Scarlet was leaving. Nobody was quite able to grasp the concept, least of all her. Alexia and Mauve had known nothing else but life under her tutelage. Corona... well she had been in Paragon before they met, but had grown, side by side with the tall woman. But Corona, of all beings, knew that change was a continual process and this was simply a part of that. She broke the silence first, and not for the first time surprised the three other women with her prescience and empathy, despite her reputation as a tank.

"You have everything you need Scarlet?" she asked.

"Yes, thanks. I've left some stuff in a storage container. If I need it, I'll send for it. If not, it won't come to any harm."

"You sure we can't change your mind Scarlet?" asked Alexia, anxious.

Scarlet grinned lopsidedly. "Positive. I'm out of here. I've got a new gig and I'm gonna see how it goes. I've done what I can here, it's time to move on. You kids don't need me any more."

Mauve bit her lip and said nothing. As the newest recruit to Shock Tactics she was feeling all the more isolated, but didn't want to appear too needy. Alexia, well Alexia was Alexia, wild and unpredictable as the fire she wielded, but like the others, unnaturally subdued.

Silence descended uncomfortably for a moment, so with her free hand, Scarlet reached into her red leather greatcoat and presented an envelope to Corona. "Wait til I'm out the door before you open it. It's just... last minute instructions. Plug them into the heroes database."

Corona nodded. "So, Millenium City it is?" She accepted the envelope readily.

Scarlet shook her head. "I don't think so. Paragon's been my home and has been good to me. It'd be like swapping lovers or something... or... just... no. I don't think so."

The others nodded. They got it.

"Where will you go now?"asked Alexia.

"I've got a gig lined up. With Spectrum."

"SPECTRUM?!?!!" The three other women exclaimed in unison. This was a bit unexpected.

"Scarlet, you can't fly a jet, you can't drive properly, let alone backwards, and you're a blaster. If there's one thing you're not, it's indestructible," Corona reminded her.

"True. But they know that and they are happy with it. They want me on board anyhow," said the taller woman.

"Then why?" asked Alexia, almost pleading.

Scarlet grinned, and gave all three a perfunctory hug in turn. She was close to cracking, but so were they all, so nobody minded. "I dunno. I guess I qualified because of my colour."

Then she was gone, through the portal out into... who knew where.

Alexia and Mauve Marvel both looked at Corona expectantly. Corona sighed and led them through into the Shock Tactics control room, and then opened the envelope. She read the contents and laughed softly, but then typed into the main console of the database as instructed. She pressed send, as she did so letting a flame from her finger incinerate the letter Scarlet had given her earlier.

The mainframe beeped and Alexia looked at the incoming message, sent from Scarlet by proxy to all the heroes of Paragon. She looked at it, and her mouth fell open. Mauve and Corona both grinned as they read it, and as Alexia got the point, she also began to grin.

"Damn she got us again huh?" said Mauve.

"She did," agreed Corona.

They looked at the screen again. In large red letters it blinked, regularly, comfortingly, with a simple message for all to read:

"Merge teh svrs ;-)"

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Thanks to everyone for your greatly appreciated replies and especially those who helped me reprise Frostfire tonight! Where it all began!

Cheers for now, take care of yourselves.

Ok this is my last weekend here guys. My account expires in 6 days so I just want to say thanks to all of you who've made the last three years so much fun and if you fancy catching me in game and teaming, it'd be a pleasure.

Cheers for now

@Riff

Edited by Avatea

I could see some sense in adjusting counts given the ready availability of achievement... so keep the badges and multiply by a factor of 50

Better still keep all count badges and make them require a count of one!

That levels the playing field, gives the badge whosoevers an opportunity to get the badge and doesn't encourage farming.

Well done devs you've just dropped the ball again!

You missed us?

What the hell kind of debuff are you under then?

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So isn't your outlook on this somewhat contradictory?

You seem to criticise the trailer/assumptions for maybe only having 1 new zone, and 2 new powersets whilst at the same time criticising the devs for not managing expectations...

We've had Posi mention dual pistols and demon summoning, and we've been expecting one or more new zones soon - so I'd say that the devs are certainly not overhyping the additions this will bring. I'd say that they're managing expectations fine and should easily deliver more than they've given away in the trailer/email.

BTW - Posi mentioning dual pistols/demon summoning also makes me think that the mail has only gone out early by a day or two at the most. And I'd like to think that this was a purposeful 'leak'.

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I don't think you can say it's contradictory. I'm saying that if they expect to be taking on CO, it needs to be more than just a zone or two and a few bits of fluff. It needs to be something that will compete head to head with CO. If it comes in well below par it could end up doing CoH more harm than good.

Imagine this scenario: 2 or 3 zones, introductory arc that then gets you from those zones into either the worlds in City of Heroes or City of Villains, depending on your choices with most content taking place in the existing world, with a price tag of £14.99

After 5 years of free issues, many of which have had only similar levels of content, the exisitng playes will feel gypped - arguably rightly so at an expansion that costs more than a months sub - especially when CO will probably come in with an entirely new game at similar cost levels to CoH.

My point is that this absolutley has to work for CoH. I also sincerely hope it does because I love the game and want to see it prosper but my faith in the people running the game is not strong. It's a leader in its field in a field of 1. But can it pass muster in a field of 3 or 4? This is their only opportunity to reinvigorate the game and show that it's the class leader.

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Oh, those lazy devs - whenever will they give us something new?






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Nobody's ever accused them of being lazy GG.

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Well you know us, as players we wanted to make sure that there was SOMETHING to look forward too. Now we have we'll all be happy for the next few days

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Now see, that's where you and I are different. As a cynical old git, this doesn't make me happy. It's only got me on the edge of my seat praying that they bloody well get it right!!!!

(edited to add that if they do get it right they get to keep my subscription fee.)

Brilliant timing!

We've known they were going to do something big to coincide with the launch of CO, and a new Box expansion's the best way of doing it. A new issue with just one zone wouldn't cut it frankly - and the Devs know that if they don't pull something out of the hat CoH is dead in the water.

But let's not get too excited just yet.

First there are some telling questions, the most important one is: "Why have they announced this now?"

I have a theory about that. They should have announced it on the 5th anniversary but what we got was meaningless fluff. That was so poorly managed as to be laughable and it rightly ticked a few off. But that doesn't explain why now. There's no logical reason to announce this now, and personally I think if they'd managed to make the Birthday go with a bigger bang they should have announced it then. Posi's address would have been the perfect time but they kept it quiet. This tells me that they've announced this now simply as a palliative. It's a knee-jerk "throw them a bone" tactic because they've got a lot of p'd-off-puppies on their hands because they mishandled previous announcements.

I'm betting they wanted to keep their powder dry a bit longer otherwise why let this out of the bag for a nothing occasion when it would have been fantastic breaking news for the anniversary. Strike One.

What have we actually seen and what do we know? Not a huge lot. Suddenly there's talk of new graphics. Horse Manure! There's not one single thing in that video to indicate that other than the video itself which is very similar to the original publicity trailer. That's FMV, not game graphics. Yes we can get all excited by it but we have no indication it's happening and in fact Positron's mentioned several times in the past that he doesn't want to leave older PCs behind so graphics tweak? Minor at best. Strike 2

New Zones? Well if it's a box and it's going to be in the shops, a whole new game, then there'll be plenty of zones. The game's been crying out for a reason to get into the shops for 2 years now. This is a good thing - if it happens pretty quickly after CO goes live. Timing is critical but with a whole new game to play in: Score!!!

There's other stuff that I wouldn't expect to be addressed here: PVP, Story completion of other arcs, etc. That's not what the box set needs. It needs vibrancy and excitement - new power sets (surely not just 2?) and something else to set it apart from City of Heroes and City of Villains. It needs to be able to stand alone and my instinct tells me that's what will happen - but if it's a box with one new zone and two power sets and access to Atlas Park or Port Oakes at level 5 a few people might be disappointed.

What we've seen is just a teaser to get the juices flowing and so far that's worked. But I'm sceptical because although the Devs are great at developing, Paragon Studios have proven a few times they are below par when it comes to managing expectations and don't have too many clues about good marketing - they've missed opportunities to grow the subscription base in the past. Let's just hope they manage to make this one work.

We want a shrubbery

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if you consider that GW has no monthly fee, GW does exceptional better then COX.

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Actually if you compare the two quaters, Guild Wars has done very poorly - revenue almost halved and their operating costs won't have gone anywhere but up.

FY 2009 (Unit : KR Mn Won)
1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q Total
Lineage 29,351 29,351
Lineage II 41,126 41,126
Aion 42,649 42,649
City of Heroes / City of Villains 6,837 6,837
Guild Wars 4,300 4,300
Others 1,730 1,730
Total 125,994 125,994



FY 2008 (Unit : KR Mn Won)
1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q Total
Lineage 29,023 29,023
Lineage II 35,673 35,673
City of Heroes / City of Villains 5,416 5,416
Guild Wars 9,481 9,481
Tabula Rasa 1,870 1,870
Others 648 648
Total 82,112 0 0 0 82,112


Looking at this, Q1 08 and Q1 09, looks like there was a significant increase in most of their games, with the exception of Guild Wars. At a glance City of Heroes gained fewer sales percentage wise, but generally good and I'm betting that Q1 figures don't include Mission Architect.

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And since he's not logged in since patrol xp started...

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...he'll get squat!

Yeah this forum software is a dogpile.

However don't expect anyone to actually do anything about it.

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guys this is the only solution...

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Well reasoned argument, beautifully put, backed up with evidence and salient facts... NOT.

Just stating something doesn't make it so and I've not seen too many posts in this thread agreeing with you so I'm fairly confident that you're in a minority.

Closing the MA will not happen. In fact it would be better politically for Paragon Studios to close the entire game than their flagship anniversary free update. To close the MA would result in ridicule from the games media and a severe loss of face for all involved at NC Soft.

If you have a counter argument I'd love to hear it.

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MA probably fits in as a fair part of CoX endgame, although I think it's more important role is to free up resources to allow the creation of dev-created endgame.

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It actually can be a significant slice of end game content - and by that I mean highly significant, but that's providing that the powers that be allow it to be more than a "game within a game."

Sure there have been teething problems, some of which should have been foreseen, others less so, but ultimately it's not been that long in the Devs taking action. Let's face it the MA in Atlas has been a lot quieter this week but the servers still seem pretty active. That may change but for now thre's a reasonable balance. Sure you can still farm the MA but it's not the rampant 1-50 in 3 hours.

But once that's settled down and the search functions are added, once people realise that they can make content that will actually be played because it can be found in search then those with a knack for storytelling and creativity, the big fans of the game can go to work. And once they do, I forsee a situation where the Devs can take player generated content and with a few tweaks here and there, make that part of cannon, make it become "an official arc."

For the player that's probably the ultimate accolade. Seriously, imagine how good you would feel if you write a story and it becomes a part of the game - like there's an in game contact who gives it to people and then at the end of the arc you get a mention in the credits? Wouldn't that be seriously fantastic? And there is no other MMO out there that can do that.

That's the end-content of this game. I honestly can see the time when somebody writes a couple of arcs that make Dev choice , then cannon and then that author gets put on the pay roll as a result of their dedication and fandom. Not tomorrow, not next week but I bet it will happen, so long as CoH keeps itself alive in the face of the competition.

If the game survives the onslaught of CO and DCUO, then this can happen. If it doesn't it'll be a moot point.

In some way the OP is correct, but I suspect not as intended.

I've got to say I thought that was not bad - and I'm a pretty harsh critic of Mr Miller - but I thought it showed the game in a pretty positive light to new punters. Which is what's needed.

The biggest things to strike me out of that were that Matt actually came out and said who was coming back in I15. Sure it was no secret but could he have actually learned that feeding the public and fan base [censored] is never a good idea. If you're gonna do something, do it. If you can't, then say you can't and give some reason why.

But yeah this came across really well but the theme music - News at 10 anyone? Is there no copyright infringement going on there?

COOL is misleading if we regard it as a hint at temperature.

When Matt Miller drops a hint, it's deliberately misleading. He said we'd be able to destroy the environment and we got bank/paper missions. He said the War Walls were coming down, and they do, every time there's a Rikti raid.

So when he says "COOL" in capital letters that may well involve like a jazz lounge or something similar.

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There will be a thread here, and as there will be fewer posts on it, the chances of the devs seeing them will be higher - another benefit of the Euro servers

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I'm glad at least somebody still believes the Devs actually bother to look here

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As I was on a break from Paragon at the time what did he say that was so terrible at his 5th anniversery address?

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He came to Pocket D, gave a lot of people a strong impression he'd much rather be anywhere else, left in a hurry without giving us any hint of the future (we did learn that the City Vault is shelved.) Then his "anniversary announcement" was that we're all in the closed beta for I15 - so in other words they are skipping Closed Beta in favour of Open Beta.

Ack massive continuity breakdown but Lemmo does some great stuff on his weekly web comic.

Irreverant and funny Check his ongoing series out on Massively here

Well we know Posi is a twit but he's less of a twit than Statesman so cut him some slack.

Nuff Said