Shazzie

You were my first Youtube subscription, and for a long time, my only one. There was nothing else I was interested in enough to not want to miss a single release.

Your videos would pull me back into the game when I had drifted away from it, (as I have always been prone to drifting in and out of games) or further enliven my interest when I already was deeply into it. Your videos would be passed on to friends to pull them back into the game if they were off elsewhere. And then, at the end, your video made me cry, and cry far, FAR harder than I would have expected any video ever would or could.

Thank you for your creativity in documenting a game that has always been of great importance to me- yes, important to me even at those times I wasn't playing actively. Never uninstalled since beta. Always recommended to others, often using your videos. Your videos will be one of the few things we will have left to look back on.

Thank you for creating these memories, as that is what your videos will now be to me- memories of the game I'm scared to lose, as this was always the special place I could return to when my disability overwhelmed me and I needed to fly in the sky for a while.

Thank you.

A quick note regarding mobs & their aggro:
In The Secret World, enemies don't have 360° vision. You can run behind something a lot closer than you could ever get within its frontal viewing range. Some things you can even get close enough to tap them on the shoulder without their ever noticing you.

Some things are a little more sensitive than others, and that's just something you'll have to learn via trial & error, testing to see what you can get away with. But right up front I'll warn you that ak'abs are on the sensitive side. So are wendigos, but ak'abs are far more annoying.

Hope this is of help to someone!

Save the studio.

I would still cry my eyes red & puffy, and wail at the injustice of losing my Forever Game, but I love these Game Devs too much to pick the game- as much as I love it and as important as it has been to me- over the studio.

I don't see this choice ever coming to pass, but still, it's a no brainer. A painful one, but still a no brainer.

Mostly lurking (in forums and in game) since 2004, but I dragged myself kicking and screaming out of my hidey-hole to put my marker on there.

I couldn't make this one- can we please do it again sometime?

May 8, 2004: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...30&postcount=2
Someone asking about emotes, and I posted a list I'd copied from beta.

Wow. I had no idea something like that would still be around on the forums over 8 years later.

EDIT: And wow, how short that list seems, even though I did say 'probably not complete'...

I said it in another thread already, but I will also never purchase another NCSoft game again. I was going to be buying GW2... now I won't. I was very interested in WildStar... sorry WildStar, I'm interested no longer.

I will speak as ill of NCSoft as every disgruntled SWG player speaks to this very day of the NGE. We gamers have very long memories and very potent ire.

If this winds up being at all possible, I will Kickstart the bloody hell out of it. Or whatever else is needed.

Even if I have only played this game off and on since beta (more on than off, but there was still a lot of off), this game is my Forever Game. My Always There game. The game I've said countless times 'I would so pony up for a lifetime, even after having paid 7ish years of subs for'.

You have my support. And then some.

I have been distracted by The Secret World since I picked it up a couple of weeks after its launch.

It's part typical MMO, and part 'holy hell WHAT IS THIS oh oh oh I'm in love'. (Investigation missions that require you to think. In today's gaming culture, the 'thinking' part seems to have generally fallen by the wayside.)

It's currently got a 3 day trial (extendable to 5 days if you complete enough missions), so if you're moderately interested in Real World-ish locations, mythology, cover-ups, conspiracies, horror (reminiscent of Cthulhu), a bit of magic, and something that's not as rigid on level & class, check it out.


Plus, at least I have faith that Funcom won't shutter it, because look at Anarchy Online still going...


Other than that, I'm a gaming junkie. I'll be picking up all sorts of single player games. What I won't be doing is purchasing any NCSoft games. Ever.

The only other thing I have to do involves this game. I have to park my characters in all their favorite spots. Boy, that's gonna take a long time.

I will, but I can't right now.

It's not safe to fly and cry.

I was too distracted by The Secret World to pick up GW2 when it launched. I was going to, eventually, but now I won't.

I thought WildStar was looking very interesting, it definitely had my curiosity piqued, but now I'll quit following it. Sorry, WildStar.


NCSoft will get no more of my money. CoH is the game that would have been on my computer forever.

NOOOO!!! Oh please, no....

This game is my Forever Game. This game is my 'always there, even when I'm distracted by another' game. Now I feel terrible by being distracted by The Secret World, but I'm also grateful to TSW, because it kept me from picking up GW2 on launch day.

And I'm glad. Because
I will never purchase an NCSoft game ever, EVER AGAIN.
I have no other way to show my displeasure at their treatment of this game and this studio, so I'm left with simply doing what I can to not support them in ANY way, and well, I'm also likely to badmouth them in the vein of how Sony's NGE gets badmouthed to this very day. I just can't trust them not to exterminate another game I love.

I'm sorry, Paragon Studios. I loved all of you from afar, and I really wish you all the best. You deserve better than this.

'Fingers tripping over themselves' happens. Typos don't bother me. They happen to the best of us, and I'm as guilty as anyone else of wanting to slap my own fingers with a ruler for their bumbling. Lack of interest in knowing how to spell a word, or even worse- knowing how to spell it and then continuing to use improper spelling- bugs the blazes out of me. When you are not in a hurry, or constricted by text limits, SPELL YOUR WORDS. Use 'you' and not 'u', use 'please' and not 'plz' (or 'pl0x', oh my gosh, where the HELL did that one come from?!), use 'thanks' and not 'tx/thx/tz/whatever the idiots are using now'. 'Thanks' is polite, 'tx' is 'I feel obligated to acknowledge your help, but I don't care enough to actually show my appreciation'.

There are a few common misspellings that irritate me more than others, but the one thing that honestly makes me grit my teeth the most? Improper use of apostrophes! Where did people get the idea that pluralizing something requires an apostrophe? If I have more than one sword, it's swords not sword's!!! Aargh....

Ahem. Ok. To sum up: Bad spelling doesn't always bother me, provided it's not bad spelling habits.

I also have a petition in the system (sent about 24 hours ago) with regards to this issue, since I have not received any points/token for my monthly renewal on the 17th.

Just waiting around right now for a Senior Specialist to contact me- the immediate post-petition response I received said I 'should receive a reply within 24 hours', but I'm not gonna whine if it takes another day or so. I just want to get clear, accurate, and specific information as to when points/tokens are received, as well as making sure there wasn't any freaky issue with September due to the changeover happening then.

My subscription renewed today, and I did not receive a token, either.

Is it accurate that don't award your token until your paid month has ended? That's counter to the other monetary way to get points, where I spend money to buy points and immediately get a token. I should also get a token when I spend money on a subscription then, yes? Not when the subscription is over. That would be like me purchasing 1200 points and then not getting a token until I'd spent all those points, or something.

I was going to give it a few days before making any fuss over it, though, seeing as how the transition only just occurred. But here we are with a post, so I figured I'd chime in with my experience.

Sometime in... 2003, maybe late 2002, I stumbled across a mention of this game. My first impression was 'Huh. A super hero game? Well, that's different!', and I had to check it out. Now, I'm not a big super hero or comic book fan- the comics I own are mostly two decades old and for the most part either of the graphic novel or the old TSR Forgotten Realms and other D&D varieties- so it wasn't the genre that pulled me in. It was the 'something different' in comparison to the fantasy that was (and still is) dominating the MMO market. I love me some fantasy, but I also love variety.

So, I followed the game, I lurked on the forums, and I signed up for the beta, which I got in on. And at which point I told every friend and friend-of-a-friend that they should really check out this upcoming game called City of Heroes....

Then the game launched. Me, my husband, and a dozen or so friends rolled up characters on Guardian. We played like mad up until the ED patch, whereupon those dozen or so friends vanished into other games. I stuck it out for a couple more months, but I was lost and flailing and shuffled off to other games myself.

I never quit keeping my eye on the game, though. I always wanted to come back, but I'm also the kind that likes to have at least one friend with her. Hubby was only vaguely interested, and while I knew I could convince him to sub for a month or so, he'd get bored with it. He needs a big group of friends around, and even then he's not typically your 'long term game commitment' kinda guy.

Then I managed to get my best friend to try it- he hadn't tried it the first time around. His first trial, it didn't click for him, but then a few months later out of nowhere he goes 'You know, I think I need to give that Men In Tights game another chance. I wasn't in the right mindset for it, then, but now I can't stop thinking about it!' Another trial and he was purchasing Good vs. Evil and we were rolling villains.

And that's when I truly fell in love with the game. Redside has my heart now, and I'm happy to be here! Even though I'm alone, again, because my friend got sucked into Real Life. (boo hiss)

I live in the Southern U.S., but my prime playtime typically coincides with Oceanic primetime. This particular downtime is of an emergency sort; or at least that's my assumption, as earlier I was booted off the server and discovered that the login server was down when I tried to get back in game. When I did finally get in, it was to hear reports of servers crashing, so I'm assuming that's why they're down tonight... this was definitely not 'scheduled' maintenance, it's emergency 'oh crud the servers are melting' maintenance.

Still, it's irritating when there have been so many downtimes lately. And I foresee lots more to come, as always right in the middle of my gaming time, with regards to I21 and Freedom.

Bleh.

My household is currently a 2-cat abode supporting Boris and Natasha, cousins from litters birthed on the same day.

Boris is a large ginger, over 20 pounds and little of it flab. However, Boris has never gotten over the trauma of our extended evacuation from Hurricane Rita when he was but a wee kitten, and as such is still terrified of even his own shadow. I can only qualify Boris as a Claws/Electric Stalker, sans Assassin's Claw (he only attacks in defense, anything else is too scary!), with the addition of both Stealth and Invisibility from the Concealment pool... just to be safe, you see.

Natasha is a tabby, not terribly much smaller than her cousin. Her Hurricane Rita trauma didn't lead to paranoia and fear, instead it led to an extremely vociferous must-be-center-of-attention-at-all-times personality. Thus she becomes a Sonic/Mental Blaster. You must never forget about, and always be on guard against, her Dreadful Wail. Chin scratches are your best defense.


(@Electric-Knight: I, too, have a beloved pet that has been gone from my life for nearly 8 years now, and I will miss her for the rest of my life. We can never forget them, we can never replace them, nor should we try to- you cannot 'replace' a loved one. The joy they brought us is a gift we'll have, always. To your Duke, and to my Mitsi: rest in peace, you were loved.)

My prime playtime is during the Dead Zone hours as well. Even on Virtue (which is one of my 2 prime servers) it can be bleeping hard, at times, to get anything going at 4am Central. Sometimes I can roll along with trials and such all night long (bless you Aussies, Kiwis, and NA night owls), but that's not common. I'm greatly looking forward to more ways to work on incarnate stuff aside from trying to put together a league during the Dead Zone, so I really hope they're working on that.

I'm simply going to add on to this thread with a plea to the devs:

I would like more non-sexualized costume options for my characters, please.


Ok. On to the meat of my post. I play females, I only play females. I'm weird that way, I've tried making males and they simply never get played. It's awkward staring at the wrong gender when I have the choice. This means I am incredibly jealous at the completely unused portion of every Booster pack I've purchased (which is all but the animal one). Especially the Steampunk pack. That jacket? Those boots? Speaking of the male versions, of course. I WANT THEM. Badly. Very badly. I would get far more use out of the male Steampunk options than I have gotten or will ever get out of the female options, if only they were made available to females.

I do have some characters with heels and sexy outfits, and I am definitely not asking for production of that sort of style to cease. But, please, give me other options. Give me fancy shirts and not just skimpy bustiers. Give me flat boots, or short chunky heel boots, with fancy fold down tops like the steampunk male sort. Make thigh-high boots like that, without tall heels. (If you ever saw a picture of Isabela from Dragon Age 2, her boots are awesome and I want them, please).

I am hoping that Freedom will bring in more options, especially now that they don't have to be bundled into a pack, and hopefully with less gender restriction. Please.

I've run many of the unlockables, but they're really... not worth it. And that's sad. You do so much work (a great deal of work, in some cases), frequently even having to turn off xp, and what do you get out of all that work? A chance at a bit more content than you'd have otherwise. A bit more content that redside seriously needs, but it's locked behind work work & more work. All that work would only be worth it if you got something special for all your time spent, but... you really don't. Just another story arc, as well written as it might be, is, in the end, just another story arc.

I don't even think they'd be worth it if they were introduced, though that would be a great first step. If they were advertised better, and made easier to access, or were given increased rewards (but that would probably have blueside screaming not fair!!), then I would consider them worth it.

But I really think it will remain a long forgotten and abandoned aspect of the game, and that just makes me sad, even while I'm working and working to unlock the ones I really like.

Overall, my favorite AT is probably Brutes. I simply know that pretty much ANY combination is one I will enjoy, so it's easy to say it's my fave. The first character I got to 50 (despite playing since launch) was a DM/Elec Brute. Lots of fun!

Then there's my Archery/MM Blaster, she's great, and I think I'd love Archery with another 2ndary as well. Oh and my Masterminds! Much love for them, especially my Thugs/Traps.

But...

My current favorite (yes, they change over time) character is a Mind/Psi Dom. I LOVE HER SO MUCH. Perma-Dom ohmygosh. Confuse ohmyGOSH. Soooo much fun, Sooo much love.


Now, pardon me. I have to go Dominate something.

Stalkers. The funny thing about this is: I have a double-decade-plus long love of rogues that began back in my early PnP D&D days. I love stealth. I love backstab stabby stabby and being unseen. But... it just doesn't click for me in this game, not when we have to kill the massive amounts of enemies we do. If we could get bonuses for killing the boss and *only* the boss in a mission, while remaining unseen, I would be all over Stalkerness.

Tankers. I had one, a Burn tanker, and I loved her, but this was many years ago in the pre-ED days of dumpster diving. Then ED happened, and then- the major stickler- Burn got nerfed, and thus the only reason I made her (omgBurnSOmuchFUN) was nullified. Yes, I literally only loved her because of the massive numbers of 5th Column I could SlaughterBurn. Hey, it was fun, don't judge me! But everything else about Tankers I simply found... boring, and not my style.

Kheldians. I really dislike the looks of their alternate forms, and the whole Void thing bugs the heck out of me, so I avoid it.

Fortunately, my love of Redside sans Stalkers is more than enough for me!

Addendum to my above note about considering Blind Invites equivalent to Spam Mail and Telemarketing...

A Blind Invite is sent to someone who is NOT marked as LFT and also does NOT indicate they might be interested in teaming in their Note.

If you send an invite to someone out of the blue, who has absolutely ZERO indication that they might be interested, then you are being impolite. If you do so even though their Note states that they are most definitely NOT interested, then you are being immensely rude. Now, not everyone is as bothered by this as others, but the fact remains that what you are doing by Blind Inviting is potentially very unwelcome. Sending a tell first is a great way to alleviate this issue... but that is something that a 100% freeb won't be able to do. Considering how little it takes to become premium, I'm hoping this won't be an issue for many, and I'm hoping that for those it IS an issue to, that they simply use the tools we're given, and use the LFT window appropriately, and if they wish to start a group themselves, they start off sending invites to those indicating an interest. Once they have others in their group, if any of those others have chat capabilities, well, the problem's solved. Or, they can just flag themselves as Looking For Any and accept any invites that come along, and again- problem solved.

Politeness goes both ways, as stated above... make sure you're making it possible for /tell-less freebs to be able to join your group, too!