Scarlet Shocker

Colour me "Meh!"

Oh and I bet we get the wonderful excitement of a DXP weekend in the month of may too...

Remember when DXP actually meant something?

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We should have Land of Hope and glory as the English Anthem.
Seeing as there is none (British anthem does not count)

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Us English always undersell ourselves. I guess it's what comes of being top for so long

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I always celebrate on St George's Day...mostly cos it's my bday!

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Happy Cake Day and the Dev's got you a patch specially to mark the occasion

Indeed

Happy St George's Day.

(toddles off humming and was Jerusalem builded here....)

Ok let's be totally serious here for a moment:

CoX cannot be the only MMO to have reached 5years old... so what kind of things have other games done for such a landmark?

And did they even publicise it?

I'm actually with FFM

we're gonna get a big fat NOTHING

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For the record, I'm not expecting or hoping for ANYthing for the 5th anniversary. It'll probably just tick over like any other ordinary day.

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So about as popular as a Led Zepplin then huh?

Cathedral of Pain anyone?

Oh that's right

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON(TM)

(PS thanks for the Zeager and Evans earworm)

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That's just one of several examples where I think that Posi and the Dev team have lost the plot.

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My impression -- and this is based by nothing but my gut feeling and is both over-generalised and probably quite unfair -- but my impression is that under Emmet the developers left features only half-implemented before hasting on to the next one, but the game had direction: it was going somewhere, although with only three wheels, a broken clutch and misaligned spark plugs.

Under Miller, new features are [/i]completed[/i] properly, but the game is floundering with new features added piecemeal and somewhat thoughtless: they've got all four wheels and fixed the clutch, but they're just driving around at random on the backroads trying to get somewhere, but not knowing where.

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Good analogy.

Some interesting insights here and I'm grateful to Dragon Alpha for expressing very eloquently how I feel about the game.

The thing is, I do love this game. But the Devs have stopped listening.

The players have been requesting stuff for ages and ages. We've been asking for a revamp of Boomtown, Dark Astoria & Eden. Villains have BEGGED for a new SF.

What we got most recently was Cimeroroa. I don't recall anyone asking for a Roman zone - or if they did it was not high on the list of asks. I would even venture to suggest that if we got to pick a new zone we would ask for a Space Station/Moon base or an Undersea Kingdom. We got Romans. Sure the TF is great but the rest of the zone's very light on content. Repeatable missions and an awful faction only contact system that caused a massive bug in the rest of the game and rendered a coop zone mostly unusable. Why put faction only in a Co-Op zone? It's totally against the point and caused troubles to fix a problem that didn't actually exist.

That's just one of several examples where I think that Posi and the Dev team have lost the plot.

I don't think I'm alone in this (but it's my opinion, so feel free to correct me) but I can't help feeling that the MA has left a lot of people feeling a bit "meh" about the game.

The Mission Architect was meant to be ground breaking - and it certainly has been. But I also think it's already shown that it's potentially game breaking too.

Yes, I'm using hindsight - I was as excited as anyone to see it coming and I looked forward to it and whilst it has some great stuff going for it, but there are several problems related to this issue that I'll try and describe as I see them.

1) The MA wasn't enough for a single issue. Given that it was meant to be part of other issues there should have been some nice shinies for those who had no interest in the MA. There sadly haven't been and with a blanket of silence re I15 it's been a disappointing issue for many.

2) It was released too early in terms of development and in terms of game play. In terms of development it had a few too many bugs. Some of which are requiring significant patching. In terms of development some exploits weren't discovered in time I guess but it's much better to fail to give than to give then take back. In other words, allowing people to use one type of critter in a mission then removing it because somebody's found an exploit is very poor form.

3) When the players ask for stuff, it's generally very eloquently expressed and well reasoned - and they've been asking for a major PVP fix for a long time and any changes that have been made really haven't worked in terms of game play or satisfying the players. Ok the "PVPers" aren't the majority of this game but this goes in stark contrast to when NC Soft first took over the IP of this game. Then there was a sea-change and they made strenuous efforts to give the players what they wanted. Now the pendulum has swung back the other way it seems to me.

4) We hear a lot about how much the Dev team has expanded. I'm sorry but I'm not seeing that. What I am seeing is the same number of issues per year but the last two have been buggy as hell. In terms of bugs, I13 was the worst since I7. I14 seems to be pretty similar.

I could be jaded. I probably am a little - hell I've played this game almost daily for three years and maybe the magic's beginning to fade just a little. But that doesn't mean that I hate it - not by a long shot. In fact the reverse is true - but I am concerned.

My biggest concern is that the devs have gotten so involved in their projects they've kinda of forgotten about the fans a bit. It's easy enough to do, we all get wrapped up in our stuff frm time to time.

Here's a few suggestions for the Devs:

1) Listen to the players a bit more. They are your greatest assets. We know you can because you have, but it seems like you've stopped recently.

2) Communicate More! Generally speaking the devs are good at talking to the media and the US forums, but when it comes to talking to the EU they are as much use as a rubber duck in the sahara. We do deserve better comms from you guys.

3) When we say something's broken (such as PVP) it's not out of pure bloody mindedness. Sure you can't do everything we want in one fell swoop but there are areas of the game that need a LOT of attention: PVP, Boomtown & Dark Astoria are all potentially excellent resources for the game but are woefully under-used and yet could be very cost-effectively turned into shinies for the players and we've been saying it for bloody years! See point 1.

Big things are on the horizon: CoX's 5th Anniversary, DCU, CO and other stuff. The silence surrounding the 5th Anniversary is actually worrying, given we know Positron's propensity for teasers. We've had one so far I believe but that's it. I reckon we're overdue for something else.

It looks as though I14 has brought a goodly amount of players back so let's hope that Paragon Studios now sits up and takes notice. It'd be nice to think so huh?

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As a rule Player characters will never get Non-player character items, especially signature NPC items such as BaB's gloves.

Trust me, I would love to be able to have the Clockwork Kings style brain in jar with the floaty eyeballs as a head options sadly it's about as likely as me winning the lottery for it to turn up because it's what defines the Clockwork king.

NPC costumes are specifically tailored to that NPC, it's not like they used a player model and simply stuck the bits on. If we were to get NPC costumes as parts, there is nothing more I would love trust me on this (I would willing pay £20 for all the non-signature NPC costume pieces in a booster pack) then they would actually need to be made for atleast 2 models if the pieces was gender restricted to male (male and huge) or all 3 if the piece wasn't to be gender restricted.

Only recently have they been making NPC costumes available to the player but these costumes come in the same issues when the NPC group was introduced (Vanguard and Romans have NPC versions and a version available to player characters).

The amount of work it would take to make all the NPC options available to us is quite staggering and sadly this late in the games lifespan, it's very unlikely they'll bother.

Personally I wish they'd have made all the regular NPC faction costume pieces available to us from the start bar the ones like Tarantulas and snakes (different body types completely).

Hope that doesn't depress you too much but it's the sad truth of the matter...

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Actually at the risk of being pedantic the chances of you getting the Clockwork King brain in a jar thing is less likely than you winning the lotto. However, if you did win the lotto you could buy the entire game and then do what you want with it

have a great one

Don't blame her!

Avatea if you're reading this while it's happening, have fun. If you read it after the event I hope that... ah well you get the point

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I'd say the game is already wrecked, if it's possible to hit level 30 in 1-2 missions.

As for farming in general:

There's a HUGE farming thread on the US forums(yeah, there are *plenty* of threads on the subject) where Arcanaville and several other posters well versed in economic theory explain exactly why farming is hurting the game. And nobody is willing to get what they're saying.
Here's the thing in a nutshell:

Farming generates huge amounts of influence that never leaves the market. This causes the prices of rarer items to keep rising continuously, since the piling up of inf makes its perceived value to drop.
Now, since prices keep rising, you need to farm more and more to afford stuff, which drives the prices higher again.

Some people would argue that salvage and recipe drops would drive the prices down because of increased supply, but the fact is that when you sell the drops on the market, only 10% of the item's sale value leaves the market, and rest of the influence stays in the game, enabling you to pay the inflated prices for other stuff.

Just from my completely non-scientific observation, the prices of some unique set IOs have tripled since last summer. I wouldn't cry DOOOM or anything, but this isn't really healthy for the ingame market in the long run.

Obviously farming is a fast and efficient way to get what you want *in the short term*, but you're shooting yourself in the foot by doing it.

Cue the moans of "You can't tell me how to play, I pay my 15$/£/€!" and other assorted rattle-throwing...

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Credit crunch! In a nutshell!!!

HAve a good one

heh you're even older than you were yesterday

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Yes, perish the thought players should be able to garner time for two day jobs at the same time... ¬_¬

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Well I must admit it became really difficult to get to the portal what with everyone camping around it, getting two day jobs at the same time

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Erm, if they were getting Day jobs, then they wouldn't have been visible to you...

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ROFL!!

I believe the word is....pwnd?

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No it was irony and you both missed the point.

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Yes, perish the thought players should be able to garner time for two day jobs at the same time... ¬_¬

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Well I must admit it became really difficult to get to the portal what with everyone camping around it, getting two day jobs at the same time

FRankly if you "cba" to go from 1-20 with the time that takes in this game you're not going to get very far.

That would make sense

Odd place to move it to tho.

Ok it didn't get far but it does seem to be slightly... mobile.

I understood why it needed to move from the bus stop what with all the Twirlies waiting for the 9.30 bus (in Paragon? Why bus stops anyway? But that's another question.)

I didn't see anything in patch notes about this and it does seem odd that it's moved yet again.

Thing is we shoudln't have to.

In one way I can't blame the Devs. I think this has been very surprising to them too, the number of arcs posted - but equally I'd argue they should have forseen it given that I14 is just the MA. With nothing else to divert attention from it everyone's going to get on the bandwagon and they have no contingency.

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Evolution rigs it so that yours get some weird mind control over you so you can stand em even if you hate other peoples. It also warps your mind so you think the fact they smear their own poo into their hair when you're not looking means they're artistical geniuses rather than gross little monsters.

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It also stops you from murdering the little ba... darlings, when they use the wifes lipstick all over the bathroom, then try to wipe it off with an ENTIRE pack of wet wipes, then cram then down the toilet, flush it, and completely block it.

So much fun, having your arm jammed round the u-bend...

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Ok that's an imagage I just don't want to contemplate. Ever.

FFM with his arm in the bog... Mindbleachtime!!!!!

But on a very serious note - and back to the Topic in hand, this rebranding really pleases me.

NCSoft haven't done bad by the game in many ways - certainly when compared to Cryptic's handling of customer issues. Sure they have done some bad things in other ways but generally the devs now do seem to be much more attuned to the desires and requirements of the punters (ie US!)

Rebranding as Paragon sends a clear message that

a) They are keeping this game going for a long time.

b) There's no likelihood of the IP being sold again (and if it does, then the Devs remain part of that package.)

c) No matter how we feel about how the EU's offices have been handled, and despite the gloom of TR closing, NCSoft still have a clear vision for this game as one of their core products.

d) They make this change just after I14 and before I15... and a few months before other games that play in the same pond come online. Therefore it's likely this could be part of the 5th anniversary celebrations... a precursor at the very least.

I have limited expectations.