SingStar

It was called Cathedral of Pain and was a grand failure of epic proportions. We don't talk about it. We don't mention it. We try not to think about it.

short answer: They lack the skills of doing it right! At least we do get the mothership raid with the arena chat as poor substitute of a proper raid interface.

Then again, the "other" game only has 5 people in each team and as far as I know nothing that even compares to raids - yet!

How an MMO can survive without real raids today is beyond me, I'm guessing we're just so stuck in this game we don't really know the competition anymore. Personally I'm rather amazed everytime I play another game. It really shows how old and dated this one feels, yet we're so scared they'd change it that most suggestions are beaten down hard, very hard.

Then again, in the EU, any villain would be hard pressed to find more than 8 players to join up with, even when using forums etc to arrange something. We've had several miserably failed Hamiraids due to the simple lack of people. I sometimes log on to my founders LOTRo account just to see the vast amount of people on. Can't stand playing that crap though...

Oh, well, see you in GR (most likely still without any proper raid system)

As usual there's a new patch and we're... as usual... without patch notes...
...will they evaaah learn?

Oh... wait.... Why do I bother?

Didn't notice... Home sick with swine flue, not playing, so...
Welcome back, see you when GR hits live or something...

I thought I16 killed AE!
Oh, yes, first few TF's... people dropping off madly....

I'm so happy I never ever tried any of the Shadow Shard ones back then!

Urhm, yup, 3-slotted brawn on my inv/axe brute.
Then my inv and my D3 got nerfed and I lost interest in the game. I learned not to build by guides but to build for fun/insanity. After more nerfs I ended up being pretty good and unusual on many alts without respeccing. Also it was fun to show off powers noone had ever seen, like black hole etc. Yeah, ED can't touch me!

I think everyone remembers the first frostfire mission. For me it was an endless series of debt and when we finally got to frostfire I actually never saw him. This was back when debt meant something and OMG the team whined a lot. I was probably the only one enjoying it. 6 months later I still only had a level 32.

Then came villains and I was reborn. The community team arranged a big battle in Sirens Call (not to mention the end-beta fight in mercy) and I saw it was good.

I still have "The Stalinizer" at level 30-something, with no arms (cossie bug since I haven't changed him for 3 years, hillarious wii mee-style). He was fun, because most people called him "Heay, Stalin" wich was censored and still is. One day he will bring Communism to Paragon. (Hint, GR, hint, hint)

While he's not 3-slooted with brawl, he's still slotted for damage instead of shields, which used to surprise Kheldians on the numerous TFs he's still managed to do.

Back then I also got a reputation for being a trustworthy bank. I probably made more inf transfers than most people have done in a life time and without ever asking for inf, during those transactions and TFs I recieved a lot of gratitude in the form of millions of millions of inf. ...which I foolishly wasted on others. Those where the days...

Noone told me about stores, DOs or SOs and they wheren't on the maps. I got a bit disappointed when I found out since I loved the simplicity of the game. Then came ED and inventions...

In the end, it took me more than two years to get my first lvl 50 hero and it turned out to be the least likely one (ill/rad troller) that I had rolled just to try out the Hollows TF, but I realised it was useful for...HAMI RAIDS! Good ol' hamiraids. Two years into the game I got to experience one and it was a defining moment of the game that is sadly lost forever.

Oh, before that, I'd taken on several GMs solo. Sure they where purple, but... I actually did solo one of Lusca's arms. She's my kind'a lady!

I remember, back then the game was.... fun...
...what happened? Or rather... what didn't happen?

Oh, btw, I've got the swine flue, so I might be a bit... you know...
...not kidding... It's pretty nasty!

Well, sort saw this coming....

Yes, indeed, I've got the swine flu. Not kidding! One of the, erhm, advantages of working in a school with 3.000 pupils: You knew it was just a question of time.

The good ol' Doc's expecting me to recover sometime this week, but I'm also so dead bored of CoX I can't stand the idea of even a single, quick ITF. Now, I've been bored quite often, for quite some time, but this time it's really, really bad. I just don't see the point in playing the game anymore.

Seeing that most of my in-game buddies feel the same, I'm taking some time off so I can hopefully enjoy I17 and/or GR. Most likely those will be another one-shot and I'll leave the game permanently - never thought I'd really concider that - and concentrate on real life(tm).

Right now, pinching hair out of my nose is more enjoyable. Try it, you might like it! Still hope you ppl enjoy your fire corrs, was fun while... it was still fun... sort of...

/Signed!
I'm a villain, I'm bored and I wanna do evil!
While Longbows are fascists that need to be taught a lesson - over and over again - it's pretty good D..n boring. Wyvern is a bit boring, but I'm sort of in love with the Legacy and Luddites (being a history teacher'n'all)... well, beating the livin' $##$%& of'em, that is!

Why we - as chosen ones - fight Arachnos all the time is beyond my understanding. Sure it's sort of sith-style evil, but ..for cryin' out loud! Let me be seriously evil, yet within the age rating.

Quite often I'm almost stunned by a feeling of amazement of how they've put in so much nice stuff, yet don't bother to use it: Factions, city zones, nifty little features...

Oh, well, it's their game! I guess it's up to them to mess it up in whatever way they want...

Cya in I20, possibly GR!

What's the point?
"The other game has it!"???
Bah! Humbug!

Swimming is just like flying without fly power and water is just coloured air, unless you add bubbles, powerful streams etc.

...and oh..dear... I don't feel like fighting mini-lusca's, sharks etc. But underwater base, moon base etc would probably be a way of facing the competition. Why, I have no idea. I just load the game and autocomplete mishs every 3rd day and occationally join ITFs.

What is sad, is when they close good games without trying to find new ways.

I think some of the "failed" games would have been fun as open source projects. Just imagine if they said "Heck, Tabula Rasa failed, but let's see what the community can do, release the server code and client code and see what happens."

It would be great PR and someone's bound to snatch the code and set up at least private servers or do something seriously fun with it. As I understand it some ppl are actually trying(?) to set up an updated old-style Star Wars Galaxies server(?)! Not to mention all the cool stuff other released-codes projects have resulted in.

Come to think of it, while it's seriously open for exploits, an open source MMO project - from the start - could become something seriously interesting if anyone dared to go down that road.

A quick temp toggle in the options would be quite enough for me for the flypose until they get it done properly. Wouldn't be hard to do since the animations are already there.

I fail to see the point!
For me it's all about not playing alone. If I wanted to play alone there's such a HUGE amount of great games that are WAY better than CoX, but playing (and finishing) a solo game feels empty even compared to buffing up a single alt with another purple recipe and taunting my fellow players about it!

Shortly... I'd never ever play this game unless I have some great people to play it with. Imho that's what this game (and other MMOs as well) survive on: Our desire to keep socializing with our "friends" and our profound knowledge they wouldn't all follow to the "next big thaang".

Sure I can solo a bit every now and then, but that's just a good way of having something nice to show the other people and use for the next round of ITF/whatever, and I'd much rather play Guitar Hero 3/4/GH/5, GTA 4(still haven't had much time with that one), Mass effect, Burnout Paradise, Call of Duty, Freespace 2 open source, The Babylon Project, heck... even old Marvel Ultimate Alliance or good old Starcraft.

I would enjoy the game and the character editor if I could record stuff and have it render it in the same quality as the "trailers" for CoX though. That could be a cool toy!

Zolgar: Agreed, don't want more "annoying" stuff, but...
Clawsandeffect: If you have the choise of getting tougher enemies with (possibly) increased reward it would be fun... Casual players would just not activate über-AI or whatever it could be called.

...also, more varied behaviour doesn't necessary imply any of you ideas, Claws, that's my point with the whole thread: What variations can we think of that we'd think be cool. Perhaps you have some ideas yourself since you don't like(?) the ones suggested?

...and personally I wouldn't mind the game getting progressively tougher instead of progessively easier albeit "grindier". Perhaps being lvl 50(+?) would actually account for, well... something...

I'm personally quite in love with traps, alarms going off, different triggers. Fairly easy to implement with the possibility to add a lot of fun as long as not every mission turns into a trap-mania. Stacked behaviours can go quite a long way too. (Just think of what we can do in the MA with stacked triggers/goals)

While the old forum had some serious drawbacks, you could, at a glance, see if there was something new in the sections. The new forum seems too "big" and anonymous and while we sure could duke it out it was never really bad because we knew each other.

Now, getting a -reputation/disapprove or comment feels so much more evil somehow because some unknown person bullies you when they don't even bother to actually read whatever you wrote.

I for one, have basically given up on the forum because it feels so pointless. I gave it a try a few days ago on the suggestions section and got trashed again pretty much for no reason.

...I'd just rather log on and chat for a while (since I've pretty much given up playing until I see some content) or do something useful with my time.

...so see you all again in I17/GR or another game!

Also, that freaking log-in bug on the forum, is so ... oh... well... you know...
Did they actually pay for this system? They should get a refund!

Indeed... Keep RP'ers out of Defiant!

I seriously doubt todays PATCH was for costume tokens.
They found a problem, fixed it and don't want us to know about it because it's not totally fixed yet... ...as usual...

....I guess!(?)

Welcome stranger!
Don't forget to give the villain side a try, or the (cough) real server: Defiant!

...and so, now it's also possible to do other things!
ergo, back to the subject at hand!

I guess I have to go against the flood of naaayyyh-sayers just for the H of it!

I understand a lot of people would want to use it. They don't wanna speak up.
I understand a lot of people would want to use it. They don't wanna listen to mindless endless whiiiners and kids.
I understand a lot of people would want to use it. It takes bandwidth and let's face it, this game already "lags" way too much during invasions, lag hill and god knows what.
I understand a lot of people would want to use it. There's already good programs you can use like (not gladly teamspeak, ventrilo and) Skype. Why use something inferiour?

but...

There's a whole lot of people that flat out refuses to get other programs, that don't want you to get more details about them like email adress etc, that you only team with temporarily and don't want on an ever-growing contact list.

During my experiments with "super" teams like fire/rad trollers, fire + rad/kin corrs, mixed all-troller teams, brute force and..whatever, I've found out two things:
1. When you do use skype and chat while playing (the game most of us know so good we hardly even bother to focus while playing) it's a whole lot more fun and you do get to really know people. Text chat, mail etc can never ever get even close to that.
2. When you don't use Skype or some other voice chat software the amount of team whipes etc increase dramatically, not to mention how immensely annoying it is to try to teach new players the trade by typing into some text chat bloody box while playing

That is, a decent voice chat makes any team so much more fun and so incredibly much more efficient. Sure, I can play with my regulars in Murders without voice chat, we all know what to do and how, but those people I enjoy chatting with. The others I play with, it makes life easier when you can shout "LUMINARY" instead of typing a long story they won't read anyway explaing first what's gonna happen, then during the fight, break off to type something.

ergo /signed if it's done..fairly... well with options to mute players/all. It's not that hard, just pretend you play without speakers as many does nowadays since they can't stand the sound fx anymore. If the team can't accept that, move on to the next one.

I can honestly say, without skype and the people on skype I play with, I would've moved on a looong time ago. I'd still prefer skype for regular teams (because ppl not on the team can join the chat) but for those PuGs it would be great.

My best suggestion would be for MMO companies to contact Skype Inc and ask the to make a good SDK for implementing skype calls within MMO's. I would hate for NC etc to waste dev resources on something they don't know erhm, jellyfish about when there's already good software out there.

..oh, and if you wanna know how you really sound, put your hands up just in front of your ears (between your ears and eyes) like walls and say the swedish word "Skööööönt". (The thing is, that word is very hard to say with anything but your normal voice for some reason). And yes, most people hate their own voices. If you want to offend someone, critizising their voice is a very good start. People take that very personal.

First off: I just gave examples of different behaviour. I don't actually suggest the devs put them in. It was just a way of getting the big, hairy ball rolling.

Personally I'd like to see BOTH:
1. More variety in behaviour AND
2. Actually more intelligent enemies, especially the bosses, EBs, AVs and GMs.

So far a lot of us has claimed that we think the game has become a bit too easy, we know it too well. "Master of" badges doesn't really make it tougher. More difficult, yes, byt the enemies are still the same, doing what they've always done.

I would love some serious new challenges for teams/SGs that makes me go "Whaaa.. what... what the ff.... I...Wh... What the heee....Maaaaan..." followed 30 minutes later by a "Omg that was so annoying... and cool because it wasn't 30 minutes of Mogged girl with big sword that just refused to die".

Indeed it would have to be carefully balanced and spread out in the game and most definitely the really intelligent(erhm, well) foes should only exist in optional, team-based situations, but even some fairly simple new behaviours/foes would bring me back to active duty.

And, Claws... Just because it's impossible in the current engine doesn't mean it's impossible. the I16 stuff was said to be impossible not long ago. I think the devs are quite busy updating the engine(s) for more coolness. Imho I'd say new behaviour/AI would do a whole lot more for the game than blue imps and lava pooh boots. Of course, like Malta sappers, many would hate such new additions.

An option for enemy AI diff setting? Hmm... Yeah /signed!

...but keep the ball rolling: Any more suggestions in behaviour that could be cool?

Aaaaaand.... No patch notes!
How can it possibly be so incredibly hard to post them?

Ok! Done with the tailor on all alts on both accounts!
Changed diff settings on some, played some missions... what now!
Oh, got it: Two strike forces I've done before without deaths or temps, but next time I'll get a badge for it. Oh, wait, ITF and 5SF is (pretty much) the only thing I do nowadays anyway, usually without deaths and always without temps!

Ok, I16 done! Bring on I17!

Oh, well... I have to admit I did like the lava pooh boots on my rarely played stone brute. Gives me a reason to respec him and get his movement speed up with all the merits I have little use for. Oh, soz, back to moaning:

Ah, well... There's always Travian!
End of I16 moan, promise! Honestly! I won't moan about it no more! Really, honestly!

Well... I KNEW it!
It's another government conspiracy!