Scarlet Shocker

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B) CoX players didn't get much more for our 5th Anniversary

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I got a weekend catching up with old friends and two new lvl 50s, one of which I only started on saturday evening. This game is much more casual player friendly than I remember.

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I'm really glad you think that. But of course catching up with friends can be done on both games.

As for a getting a new 50 in a couple of evenings, well I'm not convinced that's a good thing. The Journey is as important as the Destination IMO.

Very nice work I'm impressed

I guess it's time for that "Swansong" thing.

It's too long to post here so you can read it here

and then play the mission. Arc ID at the end.

Enjoy... and thanks to everyone who's made this game so great over the last three years.

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A mission(graveyard with a huge hole in the middle with all the graves) even got a huge boulder attached to a tiny tiny branch(on an elevated cliff to the south real hard not to miss).

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Ah... that particular rock is styrofoam. They ran out of regular rock rocks. The first time a stormie when through there she galed it into the tree where it was impaled on the branch.

My contribution to this thread is my shiny magic booster cloak seems to disappear at random (especially in the MA in both missions and lobby alike). The collar stays there like it should, but the rest is gone completely.

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Cloaks vanishing is a recent known issue

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Oddly enough I'd had this idea recently myself but it fell by the wayside


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I thought it would give us someplace to moan constructively

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Ouch! Ok as somebody who could be conceivably branded a "Moaner" here I would say that I hope I have never just had a pointless rant. I've always tried to have at least a logical basis for my gripes and I've tried to articulate them as clearly as possible. Sure, I don't always pull my punches - as a customer when my supplier drops the ball I will let them know in no uncertain terms - but I hope when I do "moan" I try and get across what I feel is wrong and why I'm moaning.

Of course not everyone agrees with me - but then not everyone disagrees either. How we react to statements will often be based on our own personal feelings and I'm certainly not alone in thinking that Paragon Studios missed a big opportunity this week.

But for what it's worth my GF also tells me that my new meds have turned me into Mr Grumpy so at least I've got an excuse now

Just been reading this write up from Massively about the Guild Wars 4th Anniversary, which happened to fall on the 5th Anniversary of CoX

http://www.massively.com/2009/04/24/...year-in-style/

Now when I read that I thought to myself: Not bad for a free to play game which is only celebrating 4 years, and arguably close to what we got on a game supported by monthly subscriptions and celebrating a far bigger milestone.

Several things struck me:

A) Stupid NCSoft for launching two games on the same date! Dumb dumb dumb.

B) CoX players didn't get much more for our 5th Anniversary and yet our cost/hour played is so much higher. How important do we feel? Sure we get free content additions, but if you consider the TCO of CoX vs GW over the course of 12 months, which comes out on top?

C) Even the GW fans are whining about what they got for the Anniversary. Does that say more about NCSoft's lack of regard for its players or fans generally?

GW is about the only other MMO I play, very occasionally - and I do enjoy it when I dip in so I wasn't unimpressed with the promised content for a free game. But considering what I pay for CoX what we got in comparison was a bit weak, but equally, clearly the expectations of the fan base is often unrealistic.

I'm not going to harp on here. I've said my piece about what I think of the CoX celebs, but I'd be interested in the thoughts you guys have.

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Maybe make the stars have a preset phrase to help narrow it down?


0 stars = really poor, no story at all.

3 stars = It was ok, but the story wasn't consistant.

5 stars = fantastic, i really felt like i was there!


Something like that.... Make it possible to rate half stars as well so the drop in rating isn't so severe if one person doesn't quite think it's 5 star material.



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Just make it out of 10


To the OP I think your opus is thwarted by the dogpile of a search system we have at present and the sheer amount of garbage that people are posting in the MA just so they can say they have.

It's tragic

Hellions wearing wooden boxes.

The Suicidal Medic MM Pet

Oddly enough I'd had this idea recently myself but it fell by the wayside

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nice welcome to the forums "i'll definatly be coming back"
from now on i'm stayin away from here and stickin to the game

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You call this unwelcome? HAH!
You should have been here when I first entered the scene.
Now that was nasty.

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yeah but we knew you were coming

It's not the lack of updates and new material that's a problem. It's the cow manure spin that's put on it to make it sound as though this new update is going to be the one thing we need to make the next issue the best one yet.

And then what happens is we get the next issue or update and it's not forthcoming and we get told "Ah yes, but SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON(tm)

We've been waiting for story updates for ages. The Coming Storm's been hanging over our heads for years, that's simply one example. Instead we get a new zone and two new threads to stories that are not obviously related to the plot lines.

The Dev's keep promising "Soon" and it never happens because they seem to have collective ADD or something and go chasing new stories before finishing others. Then when something is promised and doesn't happen, like the Vault, they don't even bother to tell us it's shelved.

When Positron spoke to us in Pocket D I was very disappointed. Presentationally he came across as arrogant and as though he'd much rather be anywhere other than speaking to the paying customers, to me at least, and I think that's the biggest problem the Dev team has: They are incredibly poor at marketing an otherwise excellent product and their expectation management is non-existent.

The game itself is great but when you get strung along all day and then get a "Special Announcement" that's just poor, that's not encouraging.

What compounds this is that nobody amongst the departees is saying they think the game's rubbish and I can say with a total certainty that nobody amongst those who've said they are leaving this week wants to see City of Heroes fail. Far from it. But we are all too aware that there is some massive (and interesting) competition just around the corner and when Matt Miller declares arrogantly that "they have to compete with City of Heroes" that's just nonsensical.

Paragon Studios have to really pull something out of the hat and I honestly believe they've dropped the ball.

I've said before that if they have their wits about them they would have a great issue just before CO lands, and then a couple of months later once the furore has died down launch a great issue to entice everyone back who went and had a look at CO. Sadly I think unless CO falls over and misses its launch date by a margin, Paragon Studios aren't actually capable of anything like that as things stand.

I await to be very happily surprised but for the last two issues things have backslid, and I see no sign of Issue 15 doing anything to rescue that. It's too little too late IMO. Jam tomorrow, to coin a phrase.

There are two redeeming features that I hope can save City of Heroes: They do have 14 issues of great content and there's still lots for a veteran to do, including (once the MA is fixed) create great stories of your own.Champions Online won't have the content at launch that CoH has now. They also have an apparently huge dev team now and it does seem to be odd how little content is being produced according to the numbers. Perhaps there's some hope there.

Time will tell, and I sincerely and fervently do hope we're not seeing City of Heroes' swan song because CO to me at least isn't making my pulse beat any faster and I've absolutely no interest in DCUO. But then I'm not most people...


but my subs still count. Or at least they should

Could be he went back in time. It's a Nemesis plot

Blimey welcome back! Kind of puts the discussion we've been having about the game in perspective.

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nice welcome to the forums "i'll definatly be coming back"
from now on i'm stayin away from here and stickin to the game

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Welcome. I guess jumping straight in with "let's do this" isn't going to give you a soft landing.

We don't bite...



(much)

Testing doesn't give XP

/signed.


(p.s. nothing wrong with motorcycles that go broom broom either

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I think this seems a bit obvious, either;
1.Make access to the MA a veteran reward nothig too big only 3 or 6 months just to get some trainin down for all the little noobs
2.Make the MA a level access zone 15 or 20 maybe
So thats just a couple of ideas let the feed back roll on!

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I'm not sure why you think this would resolve the farming problem, nor why Paragon Studios would want to limit its access to a significant chunk of the player base.

It's tough to get a testing team unless you've got buddies around to help... and once you've got the various "virtual" badges (a waste IMO) there's little incentive for anyone to join a test team.

But if you offer debt while testing - and faceplants can and do happen to the best toons during test, it's then possible to provide at least those who want the debt badges an opportunity to gain them without upsetting game balance.

whenever I've copied over I've only copied the files across. There's no installer per se, so you should be ok. However I've only gone from one version of XP to another, so whether adding Vista into the equation causes probs is anyone's guess.

Good luck

hey Happy birthday. I note with interest you manage to arrange your birthday to coincide with free comicbook day. Hmmmmmm... very clever

Really good project. I'm looking forward to teh finished product

Best of luck with it

Even if I wasn't off I wouldn't sign this.

I see no reason to move. Server pops are fine and currently the least of CoX's problems

The Dev's have a problem:

this isn't just about the MA in City of Heroes - they've delivered a potentially world beating tool that can seriously reshape the direction of MMOs and RPGs. It gives them a tool with which they can create an entirely new game where the players are in control. It's seriously showcase material and has I suspect got a lot of the other MMOs wondering and possibly more than a tad worried. It's an industry prototype.

That brings in two further elements:

The Devs who worked on this may not always work for Paragon Studios. They may find for one or other reason they will be looking for work in the wider world and having the Mission Architect on their CV is going to be a seriously huge feather in their cap. If it's a success.

Paragon Studios need the world to see this as a success to justify the investment they've made in it in time and money. To have it perceived as a farmers glory is problematic in the wider industry. With something as bleeding edge as this and the entire industry watching, to hit it with a NukeNerf would be damaging to the reputation of Paragon and the MA.


How they respond to that is going to be interesting.

My own thoughts are along the lines of the floowing options either individually or combined in some way:

Make the MA an Unlockable product that can only be achieved by having at least one level 50 (a la HEATs & VEATS, preferably one of each.)

Reduce all rewards (XP, inf & tickets) from MA missions by initially 25% and a further 25% if that fails to solve the problem.

Remove all existing rewards, give a single Mission Bonus reward and a TF rewards for completion of each component of an arc.

Deliver XP according to character level regardless of mission level (as per Rikti/Zombie invasions. Don't think I've ever seen anyone "farm one of them even when the go on over 30 minutes and the world isn't full of people dinging very 26.2 seconds.) In other words if you are level 5, you get the xp you'd normally get for defeating a level 5 enemy. I think as things stand the XP is higher but I could be mistaken.

Automatically give every mob on 4man team spawns and higher a Lt & Boss by default that cannot be removed (I appreciate this is clunky but it is an option.)

Limit the number of times a specific player can play a specific mission on an account wide basis.

Allow players to earn redeemable tokens in the main story arcs that allow them timed access to the MA. For example each mission you complete in the game proper gives you roughly 5-10 minutes time in the MA. So to get an hour playing (not designing or testing) MA arcs you'd have to do roughly 6 long missions or 12 short ones.

Those are just a few options available. I reckon every one of you can think up other ideas.

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That would be good if it happened, but remember that it's a 45-50 TF so the entire zone would be very grey to people on it. Other than travelling through, and maybe doing a quick "defeat 20 Council for info" as part of the TF, TF teams wouldn't be able to find anything to actually do in Boomtown.

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Unless they revamped the map.

Oh wait... it's easier to add new zones

Happy Birthday mate

Thanks for reposting it was apposite.

I could comment but I think I'll refrain for now