Slashman

That would certainly explain it. Well at least I got it to patch...eventually.

That was my understanding of it as well.

I thought, at first, that the problem was a result of everyone trying to get the latest patch at the same time. So I gave it a day or so but when I tried again...I got the same result.

Ended up playing some other stuff and then just left it downloading. I don't think it ever got past 29K/s.

Not sure what the problem is...but it feels like the old updater speeds to me.

I'm wondering what the 'always something' is. Windows XP is a decade-plus old OS that really shouldn't be around at this point.

Even so...I ran Windows XP for 3+ years on my system with no major issues that were related to Windows specifically.

Furthermore, after over 15 years working as a field engineer and IT admin for Windows based systems, I can say for sure that the biggest problem with Windows is usually PEBKAC.

That's not to say that there are never issues stemming from Windows, but on average I've seen more hardware and user-created faults than anything that comes from Windows itself.

The one thing I can truly accuse MS of with XP is not making their OS idiot proof enough, something they tried to correct with Vista and the UAC. I, of course, don't excuse idiocy, so someone not knowing how to use their own PC isn't something I think MS should be responsible for anyway.

Windows 7 though, I have found a joy to use. I didn't think I'd like it much after the whole Vista fiasco. But it is much better optimized and all around better to use than Vista.

I've used Linux a fair bit while I was doing support for the company I worked for previously. Its a pretty decent OS but it isn't particularly aimed at the 'average Joe' user segment. The advantages of using Linux aren't really things that the guy off the street would jump at or appreciate. Which is why its not the preferred choice for most users. Especially so if you're a dedicated gamer(which I am).

*Maybe there are distros of Linux which fit the bill better than I remember. But I haven't been inclined to explore it all that much recently.

You cheated! You turned up your difficulty.

Of course...I do the same now that there are dispatchers. But *gasp* GG is right...mix in some repeatable missions. It helped my stalker to get through.

Not sure what your build was, but I can't see how 3 lucks plus a break free and containment as you are stacking holds and immobs on her couldn't win you that fight.

If you went 3 lucks and a break free for the first part...then as those wear off...3 more lucks and a break free, you should be at least getting her near 1/4 health while surviving.

You still have 2 more inspiration slots which you can use for greens or two more lucks.

Sorry..but this all seems just a tad overly dramatic. In any event...I thankfully stay away from controllers while soloing(being as they are not all that solo friendly in the first place). If you had gotten just 2 more friends(one of them a damage dealer) you could have picked her off before she spawned more than 2 sets of clones. And as I said...you don't have to kill her...just get her to about 1/4 of her health.

I'm loathe to tell people to learn to play...but this just seems like you not thinking your way through the encounter...

Interesting. I did that mission the first time at +1(I was level 18) and smacked her around in short order. She's not very tough. You just have to focus on her and not the clones. I was using my nin/nin stalker too...not exactly the most robust stalker out there. You don't even have to take her life all the way down...

I don't recall seeing anyone telling anyone else how they should enjoy or play the game. The closest I came to that was suggesting that searching for a classic 'hero' path in the 1 - 20 Praetorian content may be fruitless because I didn't think that the devs intended for there to be one. Whether you enjoy that type of content or not is entirely up to you.

I'm going to snip out the methods of play you listed below. I'm also going to point out that only one of those methods requires an engaging story.

Are there folks who will do some of each method? Sure. My point was that whaling about how boring the PRaetorian content is and expecting that to change what the developers have planned for the next few issues is rather unrealistic.

Lets look at another aspect of this. When people do what most MMOs expect them to do, i.e. team up to fight together, most of the time, story takes a back seat to gameplay and the drive to progress. I have not seen any MMO come up with a way to counteract this that works. (Well...I suppose we'll see how TOR manages to do it. Bioware just might...but I'm not holding my breath.)

They created an entire expansion of 1 - 20 levels worth of Praetorian content in GR. That's an optional, paid expansion which brings with it the ability to switch sides(something that has nothing to do with Praetoria) along with a mass of alignment missions(which are available to any player regardless of owning the expansion).

Issue 19 had a bunch of stuff that wasn't directly tied to Praetoria as well. Including 2 story arcs which saw zero Praetorian characters with any direct influence on the story.

I'd say good luck to you with that. Nothing you've posted in any way indicates to me that a majority, or even a sizeable chunk of the playerbase are fed up with Praetoria and think that its content needs to be curbed.

And I as noted before, only the developers have access to the data which shows if people are avoiding Praetorian content. I'd say that based on the current server activity, the game is more lively than ever in a long time with the addition of GR and the Praetorian focus.

I said as much earlier.

Also, I'm not sure its that they don't listen sometimes. I think it's more along the lines that they listen to things that can truly impact the majority of players in a meaningful way. They have to distill a LOT of crap from us forum posters with our personal agendas/grudges and illogical likes/dislikes.

But it's also true that if anyone has anything worthwhile to say, it will be one of us because the rest of the players of the game don't give a crap or aren't smart enough to give a crap. They just want to get on with playing. They aren't paying very close attention to much else as long as it isn't stopping them from playing the game.

Personally I wish it didn't work that way. But I suspect I know why it does.

In an MMO...there really aren't any 'do overs'. You can't save your game and go back and do something different. A lot of people pay almost no attention to the mission text and story. I think it would be a rather big downer for some of them to find that they are locked into a side(until doing 10 random missions) that they may not have actually wanted to go to.

The dumbness of the average human tends to get the most consideration.


Does it actually do that? The morality meter is noticeably absent in Praetoria. I don't think that's by accident. In all the GR interviews I heard devs talk in, they were always highlighting the fact that Praetoria is about shades of grey where there is no good or bad path. There are just different sides of warring factions.

Like I said, you may not agree that this should be the case, but not being able to play the shining hero may have been a purposeful intention of the Praetoria content.

Thanks for replying to that because I thought I had made a mistake in my previous posting somehow.

Ok granted...but there is no direct Praetorian involvement. You fight groups that are familiar and there are other things going on. You don't interact with Praetorians in the arc...unless I miss something.

Haha...that is kind of funny. And I agree to a certain extent that they are pushing a lot of Praetoria at us.

In their defense, we did get Roy Cooling and Vincent Ross. Neither of those arcs had anything to do with Praetoria. Not a whole lot, but its something.

The major problem here is: How does the playerbase feel about the focus on Praetoria? Is the player population as a whole tired of it or is it just some of the more vocal and discerning forum members.

From what I'm seeing, server populations are still elevated and that may just mean that people are happy to grind away at high level content for the sake of advancing their 50s and have no real care for the story behind it. If that is the case...we're probably screwed as far as the devs mixing it up is concerned. They'll get the slots out that much faster...

Fortunately it isn't. But I don't think it failed as badly as people are trying to make out either. It just did things differently than some people would have liked.

That's just it though. In Praetoria, you're not a hero or villain...yet. You're just a guy/girl making their way through a conflicted and twisted world.

Are you sure you like the actual change of pace? It seems like you'd rather have the same formula this game had been using forever.

I have a query here. Is the Praetorian content shallow because you can't be completely goody goody every step of the way and have to actually do things you find 'morally questionable'? Because that's not being shallow...it just doesn't always present you with options you like.

That has nothing to do with depth and everything to do with the fact that Praetoria isn't actually supposed to be about heroes vs. villains. It's supposed to be about discovering the truth behind the twisted society you live in while aligning yourself with one group or the other which represent its factions. You choose what you'd like to be at the end of the road. And even up to the very end, you can still choose hero or villain regardless of what you did in Praetoria.

Now that part may be shallow...but I bet that most players would be even more ticked off if they found that they couldn't choose between Rogue Isles and Paragon because they decided to explore certain story lines.

That's fine. Except that there is no real world analog to Praetoria that we can use. Its a society where people are controlled through brainwashing, covert drugging and psychic watchdogs patrolling the streets. I'm pretty sure that 'waking up' folks from that kind of thing would require some kind of jarring shock. And maybe it would have to be the unpleasant kind of shock that makes them question if their benevolent overlord can actually protect them.

In the end though, I suspect that this isn't about morality or lack thereof among the opposing faction leaders. It's just about you whining that you can't play a 'hero'. And again...I don't think Praetoria was ever meant to be about heroes versus villains. Whether that is a good idea or not is something else entirely...but so far, I've only really heard any protests from vocal people on the forums. I suppose a dev poll among players or something like that would help.

Mmmmmm! White chocolate/macadamia ftw!

First off, Dragon Age 2 is a joke compared to Dragon Age 1 where choices are concerned. But that's an aside.

Still, every choice you make should have a consequence of some sort. The problem is knowing in advanced what a consequence is. In the example you gave, did your friend know what would happen before he made the choice?

Did he read a walkthrough or did the game spell it out for him clearly? If it was the latter, then that's bad game design. If it was the former...then he 'cheated' essentially by knowing what was coming.

But in the end, that's the problem with good, evil and 'in-between' choices that are clear cut.

Take The Witcher. Its choices are rarely ever a matter of good vs. evil. In one case, you are hired by a knight to search out his lost sister who he suspects has been bitten by a vampire and fled to spare her family.

You find her working in a high class brothel and eventually find out that the brothel is actually run by a Vampire Lady. However, she presents her case to you and tells you that she didn't arbitrarily attack the girl and force her to work there. The girl made the choice to get out of a forced marriage to a dirty old man and live a glamorous life of luxury(for eternity...drinking blood).

The knight then shows up and demands that you help him cleanse the brothel of the vampires(his sister included now...since she doesn't want to go back with him). You then have a choice of turning on the knight to save the vampires and the girl(they say they never actually kill their clients, who are unaware that they are consorting with vampires), or helping the knight kill the vampires as he is acting as his sworn code demands and appealing to your duty as a Witcher.

In the end, there is no 'good' or 'bad' outcome, someone has to die. Neither opposing party is particularly more evil or good than the other, they just want the other side eradicated so they can live on.

I've assisted my real live team in Team Fortress 2 with my engineer many a time by building and upgrading a health dispenser, by placing teleporters from the main base to the front lines where the action is.

I've done many things to assist other people while PVPing in most games that have PVP. Is it crazy that someone should get just as much satisfaction from healing/buffing a teammate in a PVP game as in a PVE only one?

I never made the statement that all interactions were meaningless. As I said before, I simply question placing so high a value on 'harming' a player avatar in a video game environment. It's not rocket science that people don't like to lose. But I have to wonder about a person that would get so badly hurt by losing at a video game but won't have a problem losing or winning when playing a simple card game or chess or scrabble.

I salute your consideration for your fellow man's feelings. I just choose to look at it in a more practical way. That is. I like playing x game and it doesn't matter to me if said game is PVE, PVP or some combination of the above. As long as I'm having fun doing it.

That's entirely all in your own head. My 'objection' to your viewpoint is that I highly doubt most people who break out the peace signs and white doves whenever someone mentions the phrase PVP are half as pure and wholesome as they'd like to let on.

I'm repeating myself here but...I'm not talking about PVP in COX. I really don't think I could care less about it if I tried.

Its a broken system that really would be better off not being in this game. (My personal POV)

I am, and have always been discussing PVP as a conceptual whole. The entire idea of competing against another human being(s) in any genre and platform of video games.

You know its interesting that there's no shortage of peace-loving, hand-holding people ready to stand up and state how horrible an impact PVP can have on someone's life. I tend to wonder if those same people never have spiteful or hateful feelings towards family members. They never say harsh things to their significant others. Never cheat. Never wrong their children or fellow workers. Always turn the other cheek in any conflict and live perfect little lives with nary a bad word being said about them by any one.

And if that isn't the case, where do they possibly find the leeway to be horribly offended by the possibility of maybe hurting someone in a multiplayer game who's design is to have teams/individual players compete against each other?

That bolded part of your statement is exactly what I have a problem with. You are 'killing' and 'harming' a computer-generated avatar rendered by a GPU which feels no pain and is an infinitely renewable resource.

This is the part that makes me face palm. Its a game where no one can be physically hurt. You're not harming another player. Just like getting sent to the hospital by that Council boss didn't harm you.

I actually get that there are players who won't PVP. I never said anything to the contrary. I just think some of the reasoning behind it is nuts. By that same token I never said I was advocating forced PVP in this or any other game.

I actually think that PVP in most MMOs is a bad idea. Its a bad idea because your success in PVP should never be something that is heavily build dependent. It should(ideally) be due to the actions of the individual player/team.

As such I'm not a big fan of PVP in COX. It probably sounded like a grand idea when the developers thought of villains and heroes going head to head. It just never worked out all that well in practice. Hindsight and all that I guess.

That's interesting. Reflexes don't have much to do with playing most RTS games. Your ability to plan and strategize do. (Starcraft and Starcraft 2 at the Korean Pro level may differ.)

A real world example of that is that when I play Command & Conquer: Generals against some of my friends who have far greater dexterity than I do, I still win because my overall strategy is better in terms of planning and using my resources.

In fact, that applies to a lot of games that people think are all about reflexes(not that those don't exist). Playing an engineer in Team Fortress 2 has practically nothing to do with reflexes and everything to do with knowing how and where to deploy your turrets, med stations and teleporters.

Your post stated that it was an all or nothing activity. That there is no state other than winner or loser. I'm suggesting that your knowledge of games is pretty limited since this isn't always the case.

And still...it doesn't matter if everyone is having fun. Its a game...

Whether you pick a target out of thin air or whether you set your sight on something someone else has done is largely irrelevant as long as you accomplish what you want to accomplish.

If I set my mind on breaking the Guinness Book of World Records record of the most one-arm push-ups and it just so happens that my friend has the current record, should I feel bad that I'm trying to break it?

I mean if doing one-arm push-ups is something that I love and train for, how rational is it to not do it because maybe I'll do better than a real person?

Again...you're misunderstanding me. I'll explain again after your next quote.

This has never been about pushing people to do PVP. I commented because I'm rather tired of hearing people flog PVP as if it was some sort of plague while not really getting what its all about.

This is where you're wrong. I'm probably less competitive than you think. I don't live to PVP. It doesn't occupy my every waking thought and I have no overwhelming urge to assert myself as better than the next guy.

I enjoy some friendly competition yes. The point I'm making is that I like playing games period. And I find it nuts to not play a game that I like with friends because I might find myself up against them in a match. It just doesn't make sense to miss out on doing something I love because all of a sudden I may be trying to score points against *gasp* another human.

If a game is a bad game...fine I won't play it. If a game has all the elements I love in it and happens to be a PVP game...then it's not going to stop me from playing it..because I'll be enjoying the game for the love of the game.

Not much. But to say you suck at all PVP(across all games of all genres) is a rather difficult statement to accurately make. It would probably be more accurate to say you suck at the PVP games you've tried. That's not actually the same thing.

So there's no second or third place? That's interesting. There are winners and second and third places points awarded in many online multiplayer games.

TF2 even awards you for just doing what your chosen class does well with a variety of perks and achievements regardless of if your team loses every single round.

Here's where the problem is. I keep stating that I'm talking about PVP as a whole concept across all computer games and genres. You keep bringing it back to COX which I stated before has very poor PVP, and I further stated that PVP in MMOs is usually pointless unless said MMO is built for it from the ground up(Guild Wars and EVE might be good examples).

So do a lot of multiplayer games.

No doubt. But that doesn't mean they won't do what it takes to achieve their goals in said situation.

My point is that competition or the drive to do better is part of human nature. It allows us to progress. I absolutely don't know anyone who is so absolutely repulsed at the idea of harmless competition that it carries over into playing a game with friends.

Here's the other key thing. Getting together to play a few rounds of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory with friends, has never caused me any high levels of stress and quite the opposite has helped me to relax after a hard, long week at work. The only thing that truly attaches stress to a video game is the person sitting behind the keyboard and mouse. Because everything else takes place in your head.

Not saying those people don't exist. I just question the number of them that actually do. It's something I suppose neither of us can prove conclusively. So it's probably worthless to argue about in the end.

Again...this is post set dead in the context of MMOs and COX in particular. I stated already that I'm referring to PVP in games across the board. As such...your statement isn't entirely correct as I'll show you below.

This right here is wrong. And it very much depends on the game you're playing. Team Fortress 2 is a pretty excellent PVP game that focuses squarely on a group of players cooperating together to achieve objectives. Its not the sort of game you can win alone and your accomplishment of objectives/rewards is made easier by working together with your team to complete an objective before, or in opposition to, another team.

There are tons of PVP games that stress cooperation and helping your teammates in completing objectives.

I hate to break this to you, but in this world we live in, there are lots of people who are not completely honest about things every single day of their lives. Lots of the time, they just aren't honest with themselves. It's how humans work.

I also took pains to explain where my perspective on that came from. Which is years of being involved in PVP gaming(and gaming in general) both casual and professional. You can of course say that it is anecdotal, but I think I've proved it out personally enough times that I at least have some confidence in what I say. If that offends you, then tough luck. I'm not going to say something to the contrary now just because you or some folks you may know are possible exceptions to the rule.

In all fairness...this forum is full of exceptions to general rules. Its why so few people post on forums versus the number that actively play the game.

Who are you referring to exactly? Eva said that her friends will not compete in a PVP environment even among good friends. I don't recall her saying anything about past experiences.

My argument was that people are seldom honest about why they won't do PVP(not MMO PVP...PVP period).

There were other people's posts debating about Veterans and Newbs and how they respond to the 'try it, you might like it' argument. I wasn't one of them.

And here we come to my point. If you get together with friends to play a type of game that you all like to play, and the ONLY variable in the setting is that you're playing a PVP version of a game you all love, and you come away with the experience sucking, then there are only a few things I can conclude from that.

1) The PVP design of the game sucked and wasn't fairly balanced. (A gameplay issue)

2) One or more of your friends acted like jerks and ruined the game for you somehow.

3) You lost a lot and discovered that you don't like to lose so PVP is not for you. Maybe your skills weren't up to par and you felt embarrassed etc.

The scenario that I find the least credible, as noted in my first post, is the one where a person says they are so non-competitive that the thought of even playing against their friends is terribly uncomfortable. I find it hard to believe because those same people likely play all sorts of other games where they can win and someone else loses or they competed in sports at one time or another or they tried their hardest to get a promotion before someone else at their job etc.

Its human nature to want to do better. Anyone can suppress it, sure. My point is that most of the time people aren't being honest about it and the true problem lies elsewhere.

I can actually say that with at least a bit of authority, because up until a few years ago, my friends and I regularly hosted LAN parties and tournaments here in Barbados.

I've seen the 'I don't want to compete' type come in and get a taste of actually playing with other folks and having fun and turn completely around. And that includes people who have tried PVP before and gotten turned off by it for whatever reason.

Maybe the difference is that our guys, no matter how competitive we got, always found value in teaching the new guys how to play and practicing with them. Again though, that comes down to the people you play with and is less about PVP sucking in general.

Thanks for the heads up Sam. And yeah...that's really weird.