Shadowe

<QR> The thing that's currently in the game is "context-sensitive dialogue", and has been used in a very limited sense in Cimerora and later arcs.

Essentially it's a pointer that checks specific flags on your character, and then displays different information depending on what is found. The most obvious one being the Origin of Power arc, where when you speak to the contact specific to your own character's origin, you get a different speech.

Multi-response outcomes would be a fantastic addition to the dialogue code, but is likely to be significantly harder from a coding perspective.

Right now, context-sensitive dialogue simply (heh) checks flags that are permanently attached to your character, like $Origin and $Archetype, and will amount to "If $Origin = X, then display Y" commands.

Multi-response dialogues would, if written well, require at least the following steps:

1) Specific objective success/fail.
2) Create flag attached to character designating success/fail of specific objective.
3) Dialogue call resultant on context-specific result of success/fail flag.
4) Next Mission called as result of dialogue used.
5) Delete flag from character.

It is theoretically possible to have a success/fail flag set for each and every objective in a mission, of which there can be... well, lots. That's why you want the flags to delete - otherwise the character database will suddenly get a LOT bigger. I suspect that preservation of flags, avoiding false returns, and avoiding database bloat are all at least moderately complex coding issues, and that doesn't even account for the huge increase in dialogue for each mission that uses this hypothetical tech.

I'm sure the devs are working on it, but it is not a trivial exercise.

On the other hand, I /SIGN this hugely, because it would be awesome.

The cloning lab certainly had a buggy spawn point for objects - one of the floor slots at the "back" was actually in the floor and, depending on the object, could make missions impossible to complete. That's a map geometry issue, and, depending on resources, may be a non-trivial fix.

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There may be a clue to the demons in Desdemona's biography.

It says she can summon an "immensely strong Sothoth demon."

That is a very Lovecraftian sounding name, so maybe we will get some cool demons. It's not the name of any of the CoT demons anyway.

Personally, I like hordlings.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yog-Sothoth

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Edited for the English version.

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I hope it only removes the fog of war from the city zones, not the mission maps.
I need it there to see where I already have been.

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It does say that it's a power and when you activate it, it will remove fog of war from a map (I assume the map you are currently on), so the simple solution there is to not activate it on mission maps.

For everyone experiencing the rubberbanding issue (time-delayed bounce back to a previous position on the map), is the /sync command able to mitigate this at all?

For the record, no, I'm not suffering from this problem at all. It is not universal. Had a 7-man missioning team last night with zero problems.

See, I saw this thread, and I asked myself "Hmm, Shad, do you think it would be good to have a tutorial on how to skip? Yes, you do."

And then I find out that it's all about jumping past the game tutorial.

I'VE LOST MY FAITH IN YOU ALL.

Is a spelling pedant. At least when it comes to Transformers.

Yus! I will answer!

Oh, and any chance we can at least get the start time in Europe confirmed in BST? Converting across the pond is awkward.

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Good point, Coolio.

Another possibility that springs to mind is that your firewall software might have a block on the latest version of the .exe (sometimes happens after a patch).

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That wouldn't cause the checksumming. It'd just leave him at Connecting...

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True. Hadn't considered that far. And that is why the Airborne Rotund Gent is the tech guru and I am not.

Good point, Coolio.

Another possibility that springs to mind is that your firewall software might have a block on the latest version of the .exe (sometimes happens after a patch).

Go into the install folder and delete the .checksum file(s).

Try again.

If that doesn't work, I'm sure FFM will show up with a genius solution.

Oh, and welcome to the forum, gratz on second post!

Edit: I really need to learn to read... umm... hang on, let me hunt down a tech guru... Where's FFM when you need him?

Ah, see, I'd prefer Teleportation to Flight. But other than that, yes, Invisibility and Regeneration.

Mids has left the game, but he has handed the reins for the Hero Builder to another player. I'm sure it's being worked on.

"I, Carnifax , take you, Ms.-soon-to-be-Mrs-Carnifax ,
to be my sidekick,
to have and to hold (with containment)
from this day forward (WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW);
for buffs, for debuffs,
for influence, for auctions,
in low hit points and in having an Empath,
to love and to cherish,
till debt us do part;
according to Paragon's code.
In the presence of Statesman I make this vow."

*sniffles*

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[ QUOTE ][*]Please note that Tiger is not an officially supported Operating System for City of Heroes, and that when Snow Leopard launches, users using OS X Tiger may not be able to run City of Heroes.

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Pardon?! wait is this a serious "slip in there under the radar to cover our [censored] thing"?... Considering i have no other option but to play it on a mac at the mo this puts me in a slightly worrying position. I hope its not a foresight either and if it is, something is being done to organise testing the compatibility. I'll be willing to give feedback too but ...

Perhaps it would be a good idea to post it somewhere like the mac forum bring more attention to the fact that suddenly you might not be able to play (and get flooding posts in the tech forums)

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Just because something isn't officially supported, doesn't mean it won't actually work.

CoH isn't officially supported on Vista (which has been out years), or Windows 7 (which isn't out yet), yet it works perfectly fine on both.

Mac compatibility is the job of the 3rd party company who did it for Paragon Studios. If their wrapper doesn't work right under the latest OSX, you'll have to wait for them to fix it, or stick with your current OS. No one's forcing you to upgrade, after all.

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For anyone concerned about this, there are posts in the MAC Technical section of the board - Ghost Falcon has even popped in to say a word or two.

The short answer is that OS X Tiger has never been supported. It's just happy coincidence (like Vista and Win-7) that CoH works in it (though a better analogy would be for CoH to function in Windows 3.11 normally). However, when Snow Leopard is released as the official MAC OS, it is possible that CoH won't work in Tiger (admitedly with the subtext "upgrade to Snow Leopard, ya numpties"). Who knows? The compatibility wrapper might allow it to still work. But the development team will only offer support for the Snow Leopard OS.

See, I don't read it that way. Now, I'm not a MAC user, so please excuse me if I've got this wrong.

What that says to me is that OS X Tiger is not supported by the client. When Snow Leopard is released, it will be supported by the client, which may result in users who have Tiger failing to be able to access City of Heroes, probably due to some client incompatibility issues between Tiger and Snow Leopard.

Essentially, it's saying "Upgrade - we support the upgrade. If you don't, you might not be able to play the game."

Bravo to the support/development team for a) the warning and b) being able to squeeze it into a reasonable time slot for themselves and the EU players.

This took (as it should have) precedence over any other bug-fixes, tweaking or anything else. Fifty percent of the EU servers were unavailable. Over 13% of the total server list was down. This HAD to be fixed.

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I politely requested ("would the French speakers mind terribly...") that they revert to English, team, /tells or a private channel, since public channels are, under the EULA, server-language specific, and while none of them acknowledged my request, they did cease broadcasting in French.

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Be interesting to get GM confirmation on this point as the circumstances are unusual.

I imagine that the EULA dictates that server-language is used as the GMs are language-based and can't be expected to moderate in languages that they don't understand.

So the EULA stops someone going onto a server and unleashing a torrent of swearing in Russian or Portugeuse or whatever. Or rather - it means that they can be reprimanded for breach of EULA if they do.

However with the French/German servers unavailable I'd hope that the French/German GMs are available on Union/Defiant and so moderation/assistance in French and German should be available on those servers.

Under these circumstances, I'd hope that the GMs were allowing the French/German to use broadcast without fear of reprimand.

Not everyone uses the forums. So even if new French/German private channels are created, broadcast may be the easiest way to alert players to its existence.

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Oh, no argument from me on your reasoning, JD. In fact it didn't bother me in the slightest. The point is that despite there being extenuating circumstances, the letter of the EULA does say that the public access channels on a server should be in that server's language only.

My request was at least as much to prevent the ignorant bigotry as it was to try and enforce the EULA - the bigots actually have a case for telling them to "shut up", whereas the French and German players only had extenuating circumstances on their behalf.

The servers were taken down at Midnight UK time (this morning) for a two hour window to implement an Emergency Patch.

Considering that you posted the second post in this thread just before 1.00 this morning, I think it's safe for me to assume that you were trying to log on during this downtime.

Warning was given over 4 hours in advance for this emergency patching, on the Announcements section of the forum.

I spent a little time in Atlas Park yesterday, and while my french speaking is utterly attrocious, my comprehension is so-so.

While I was there, several French players began discussing the situation and the upcoming downtime (as it was), in French, on Broadcast.

I politely requested ("would the French speakers mind terribly...") that they revert to English, team, /tells or a private channel, since public channels are, under the EULA, server-language specific, and while none of them acknowledged my request, they did cease broadcasting in French.

It was at that point that some thoroughly objectionable individual decided to go into an anti-French rant. One sentence, on broadcast, that was simply rude, offensive, laden with swearwords (modified to get round the profanity filter - obviously some kid who doesn't know you can turn it OFF). I promptly petitioned said individual, as such behavious is utterly unacceptable as far as I'm concerned.

So, in keeping with this thread - to all displaced French and German players, thank you for coming to the English-speaking servers and making our lives that little bit richer. On behalf of those people who were happy for you to come over, I apologise for the treatment you received from some bigotted, ignorant fools. While I have to admit that I would be less than pleased to see broadcast spamming in protest, I certainly understand your frustrations.

The problem with RP griefing petitions is that it's easy for someone to stop doing it, and if that's the case, no GM will witness it firsthand, meaning that chat/game logs are the only way to find out what actually happened, which means the GM in question doesn't need to appear at the RP site for it to happen.

I believe the Galaxy City Arena Confuse bug griefer got a ban (if only a short one), but that is, admitedly, rumour and hearsay.

Oh, there's definitely light at the end of the tunnel.

Out of curiosity, which of those characters in your sig is the one you're playing currently? If it's Blast Bolt, then I can sympathise completely - Shadowe is an Eng/Eng Blaster, and I know it can be tricky at times.

If you're on Union, give me a shout sometime (@Shadowe) and I'll see what I can do to help out.

A couple of fun hints:

Play at challenge level 2 or 4, to get bigger spawns. You can take them, believe me.

Find an Empath to play with, and turn yourself into an Eng/Eng/Regen Blaster.

Find a Kinetic to play with, and turn yourself into an Eng/Eng/OMG HOW MUCH DAMAGE?! Blaster. (For fun and frolics: Aim, Build Up, Nova, <Kin uses Transference>, Conserve Power, keep on rolling..., rinse and repeat as needed.)

As soon as you ding 38, GET TOTAL FOCUS. It's totally worth it to be able to Aim+Build Up+Snipe+Total Focus... wait, there was a Lieutenant here?

Ah, the late 30's grind. Welcome to an experience many of us have had.

Hmm, suggestions...

Do a few radio mishes, then the bank job and pick up another contact. There are a LOT of contacts in Brickstown and Founder's Falls (the zones for your level), and there are some very nice arcs, too - though some of them can be a bit long, and a few of them suffer from Excessive Defeat All syndrome.

The drag you're feeling will not last past Level 40 (when the joys of Peregrine Island become available).

Also don't forget that at L40 some new contacts in RWZ will start to be available, too.

The date is fine (kind of). It's the date the last patch that's a part of this Issue hit Test Server. Yes, it should be updated for Live, but it's not strictly needed.

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Sheesh! Some people around here obviously haven't been around for any issue releases in the past.

Historically, Cryptic/NCSoft/Paragon have never told us that they are releasing an issue until after that issue is live. They just take down the servers and let us suffer. Only when the servers are actually functioning do they tell us what they've been doing.

Thus, we know this is an Issue release, because for "Emergency Patching", they tell as quickly as they can.