Slashman

Ok...I specced out of CP and into CI. Best move I've made in a while! The AoE chain shock plus LR and JL is a nice combo!

I fought and beat Silver Mantis as a +1 EB last night...although I did end up using 3 greens. I got cocky and thought I could do it without Power Surge...but when she hit me for 429 damage I had to rethink things...fast

Anyway...thanks to all for the help and suggestions!

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I keep both, and have no problem with building Fury (unless the Masterminds are hogging the Aggro - *shakes metal fist*).

Take both, Ditch the Clap.

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I'll ditch Conserve Power instead. I never use it. Even when I didn't have Power Sink I'd always think to myself that I'd use it and then REALLY want it later on(recharge time is stupid long)...Power Sink I use whenever I need end and 2 foes can refill my bar no problem.

So I'll get CI and lose CP.

Hmmm...I may just drop conserve power then...

I do like the idea of CI a lot and it looks like a fun power!

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I really disliked Jacob's ladder. Long animation and tiny, tiny cone.

Chain Induction I really like. Very fast animation and I can use it as a filler between spamming other attacks.

YMMV.

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They tweaked the cone a bit. It's slightly wider now...hits easier than before...but its still a cone...

Well I do like Lightning Clap and currently have it slotted with Razzle Dazzle. It can buy me some time when I'm taking a beating(usually from things with toxic damage...like Banes and Tarantulas) and is a good AoE stun.

What I CAN get rid of(now that I look back at my build...is Conserve Power). I practically never use it anyway.

My other concern is that the game doesn't show the numbers in relation to the jumping effect of CI. I dont' know what its base damage is or that it jumps 100% of the time as long as a melee target is in range. I only knew they fixed the Fury and confuse issues it had. Also...its lower numbers were a deterrent for me as well.

I'm thinking of respeccing into Chain Induction and out of Jacob's Ladder on my elec/elec brute.

I'm wondering if this is a good move or not. I currently have Charged Brawl, Havok Punch, Thunder Strike, Jacob's Ladder, Lightning Clap and Lightning Rod.

I notice that Jacob's Ladder does more damage and costs less end though...and its damage is pure energy. Also, Jacob's Ladder recharges faster. How often does the jumping occur in Chain Induction? And is it worth it versus having to line up the cone in Jacob's Ladder?

Any feedback you give will be appreciated.

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A fix is being implemented internally, but probably won't see the light of day until after Issue 15 is launched.

We do read and appreciate all feedback.

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This is obviously a much more complex issue than I've been thinking for the past couple months. I confess I'm no programmer but...AFTER issue 15?

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Last, but not least, I use the e-mail system. I know others who use the e-mail system. Global tells are not an acceptable substitute for several reasons, the biggest ones having to do with the lack of persistence and limited length. Just because you don't use a particular feature, just because you think that no one else does, is not a valid reason for getting rid of it or gimping it to the point of being useless, considering that doing so would not solve your particular problem.

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How is giving people the option to turn it off 'gimping' the system? You're not removing the function...only allowing it to be turned off for the people who don't use it.

Right now, whenever I see the email light up red...I know I got spam. No one on my Global or in my SG uses email to communicate. So what is the use of it to me except to get spam?

Removing inventions is a stupid idea. It's already too large a part of the game and there is no way to compensate someone for the work and influence they spent in obtaining the stuff they got for their characters. I proposed a simple solution where no one gets affected unless they want to...and you propose to remove and recode what has now become a central part of the core game. Smart...

I'm pretty sure that if we had an option to disable email...or at the very least halt all email from anyone not on our friend list, this would screw over the RMT spammers.

I also think that email should be disabled by default for all characters at creation until you turn it on manually. Why make things easy for these turds? What are you thinking devs?

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The arc I'm personally working on at the moment includes neither AVs nor EBs, but the main antagonist in it is not worthy of such a status in my book anyhow. I know a lot of people use the MA solo or in small teams, and without easy ways of categorizing difficulty at the moment, I tend to lean towards keeping my arcs accessible to everyone, but that's a personal preference really.

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It's the same with my arc...its much more story driven. I tried to give the player a sense of urgency and them being a driving force in getting to the bottom of the case. Of course, it practically never gets played now...buried under...whatever else is there.

Now we just need some additional travel powers to add to the mix!

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They're specifically hiring more people to handle the graphical update.

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Have I missed this somewhere? Because up til now we have been discussing a hypothetical graphics update and the results it may or may not bring. I can't recall seeing anything like that mentioned in the GR press release. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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The argument, though, was more about not having combat decided before it ever starts. I don't want my battles to take place in the spreadsheet and on the stopwatch, with the ACTUAL encounter being only a foregone conclusion.

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That's the problem with MMOs though...even this one. There are very few encounters where anything surprising happens. You've noticed how boring the powers of most AVs/EBs are right? They are simply inflated in damage and effect to make the encounter 'hard'.

That should never be the case in ALL encounters. That's why I used Countess Crey in my example earlier. To me, it's ok if the actual AV/EB is whimpy...but their encounter is still challenging in some way. The devs have obviously felt that this is too much of a hassle to design any encounters this way.

My position has always been:

Stop making AV/EB encounters nothing but hacking away at a massive number of hitpoints.

Countess Crey is a normal human, not some psi blaster. Make encounters that make sense. Yes...Recluse and Statesman are tough and powerful physically and take a lot of damage to bring down...that makes sense. It doesn't with a lot of the foes we fight.

When this comes up...I always go back to my super hero game standard: Freedom Force. Lots of the foes you fought in that game weren't uber tough...and if they were...the environment they were in had interesting ways to bring them down to size.

When all our EB/AV encounters are reduced to pounding on something for however long it takes to drop it's hitpoints and nothing else...it just screams boring and unrealistic(even in a game sense).

If I'm going to take down Countess Crey...I'd expect her to taunt me...then run and hide behind some kind of forcefield while filling the room with special Crey Troops from her personal guard.

Most of the time...big brain villains will set up traps and other 'inescapable' scenarios that heroes have to fight their way around or figure out. It's never always about force on force and/or zerging. That's what lends a comic/epic feel to fights.

I loved fighting Deja Vu in Freedom Force. He was wussy...but one hit from his giant clone cannon would create a duplicate of your hero that you would need to deal with. Plus he was always cloning himself. FUN scenarios make the EB/AV equation less annoying for me. Because I simply stop thinking about them as such...and think about the game and having fun instead.

YMMV.

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I don't really see them bringing us what some folks see as the holy grail:
being able to customization animation and effects (+DMG, +stun etc)

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I'm doubtful on this one myself. I think being able to add specific damage types and effects to powers would present a nasty balance issue for the game...and that's shaky enough in some areas as is.

An 80% full Fury bar plus build-up and Lightning Rod on my elec/elec brute, Mr. Socket.

I understand your POV and situation. Sometimes cash sense comes first and you're not that hung up on graphics anyway.

I'm not opposed to customization...I know that there are people who have trouble getting the exact concept for their characters even with the large number of options we have. It's like that with a few of my own toons.

It's just a lower priority for me since I value the gameplay side of the game a bit more...but there is nothing inherently wrong with PC and the additional options it may bring for us in the character creator.

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You fail logic forever.

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If failing logic means that I can avoid dipping into the vat of insanity that seems to be driving you in this thread then fine...I fail logic forever.

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You are looking for absolutes, and if I disagree with your absolute, you immediately ascribe an absolute to me and begin dissecting it. That's a straw man, because I'm not vouching for absolutes.

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I'm not vouching for them either. My whole point in this is to counter the argument that graphical upgrades WILL lead to misuse of bloom, that they WILL sacrifice the style of COX for meaningless detail and that they WILL cause major performance problems for most people. None of those things can be known for sure.

I said: 'Sure there are people who don't want(or care about) graphics updates. A lot of them have sub-par gaming systems already and can't turn the graphics up anyway.'

That statement doesn't exclude any other group simply because I didn't list every single reason why someone might not want to have a graphic update happen.

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You can't speak for everybody, that's all I'm saying.

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I'm not attempting to speak for everybody. But that's not stopping you from trying your hardest to make it look like that's what I'm doing. I never used the words 'everybody' or 'all people' or 'most players' in my posts.

What I CAN tell you is that in my experience with the gamers I have come across and the people's systems that I've worked on and people who have been coming to LAN parties and tournaments with me, I have hardly ever heard any of them argue that they don't want graphics updates because they dread bloom and the way it's overused in the game industry. Or that they are afraid that a game will sacrifice style for shinier graphics. Mostly it will be about sacrificing GAMEPLAY for graphics. And they usually applies to NEW games...not established ones.

Most of the time a person will say they want to be able to play x or y game or its expansion. They want to know if their system can run it. If it can...fine...if it can't they know they have to upgrade. A lot of them don't want to spend the money on an upgrade(sometimes its financial constraints)...even if they have an old system that needs it anyway because what they were playing was fine with them. That is unless the game they want to play is really important to them. Then they decide to shell out the cash.

That pattern is consistent because people don't want to spend money on gaming rig upgrades if they can get away with using what they have. So until they are 'forced' to do so by a new game coming or a current game getting some kind of graphical facelift then they won't. And they will [censored] about it constantly.

No one has ever come to me saying: 'I have money to spend on this upgrade but that stinking bloom is ruining all games...so I'm not gonna.'

I have had gamers say to me that they didn't like the graphics of certain games no matter how many bells and whistles the developers add to them. That's natural...but Mr. Joe-on-the-street seldom even knows what his graphic settings DO...much less be concerned with too much detail level vs. style.

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SOME people are like that, SOME people are not, and you really have no standing to step over the latter group unless you can find reliable, quantifiable information proving that they are a negligible number worthy of ignoring, to which effect anecdotal evidence is simply insufficient.

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You realize that this works both ways right? Unless you have some kind of quantifiable proof that older hardware ISN'T the drawback for most people who don't want to see graphics updates...then you're talking out of your hat too. You're just trying to make it seem like you have some kind of inside knowledge.

I've been working in IT for 14 years. Currently, the company that I work for has contracts for warranty service for both Dell and HP products in my country. We do IT support and PC repairs for a wide range of people and companies here as well. I build and upgrade gaming rigs in my spare time for friends and other people who can't/don't want to do it themselves. I have, up til a couple years ago, been helping a local game group host LAN tournaments and other events here. I can safely say that I come into contact with lots of gamers both hardcore and casual and most of my friends are gamers themselves.

I think that should count for something, but you probably don't think it does. In any case, that's what I have been basing my opinions on.

Can I still say I speak for everyone? No. But my opinion is no less valid than yours and at least isn't based off some personal vendetta that you currently have against the gaming industry. I'm not even disagreeing with you on the over-emphasis developers place on graphics these days. I'm simply saying, that its very unlikely that as large a number of people share your POV, when in my experience, most average gamers just don't care about that stuff.

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You want better graphics, and that's fine.

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I have NEVER said that in this thread...or on these boards. So you can stop trying to go for shock value and deal with facts now. I said that I wanted improvements to the core game...you can go back and read what I posted. Better and more expanded gameplay options is what I want...and we have, in fact, argued about that before. But apparently you're too busy posting useless IQ questions to read what I did say instead of reacting to falsehoods.

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I said a graphics update. What on earth does ANY of that have to do with an ENGINE update?

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Because a lot of the time the two SHOULD go hand-in-hand instead of trying to put high-res textures and other effects on an aging engine that can't handle them properly.

Just forget it.

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My point is that gameplay > shiney graphics.

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I'm not disputing that! It's obvious to me! That's why I said when this started that I wanted core game improvements first and foremost even before customization. Have you even read my posts in full?

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Also bloom is stupendoulsy overused currently.

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Why don't we all just flog this horse to death? No...in fact lets get a mob together and lynch it. Bloom is obviously the new target of hate. We all learned a new graphical term today and bloom is the devil's own child besides. Why don't we choose mip-mapping for tomorrow? Or perhaps point-source lighting? How about we follow those up with trilinear filtering?

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And I was talking specifically THIS game. Couldn't care less what other mmos are doing.

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Of course not...because considering a case where graphical upgrades were helpful would start to invalidate your argument.

And of course upgrades could never be done without the inclusion of the dreaded bloom(which one can usually turn off from what I remember)...so that helps cement your argument too.

This whole thread has become totally nuts.

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...or I make enough money that I'd rather have someone else put my system together for me, and I bought a top-of-the-line system.

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Well I could have one of the techs I manage do it for me as well...but when I do it, I know it's getting done exactly like I want it. YMMV...I'm picky like that.

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I believe The GeForce 7600 GT was released in March of 2006, btw. I bought my system in January of 2005, just for reference.

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Ah...that's right. I forgot I took a year or so off, during the time COV came out. So when I did get back into the game I had a 7600GT. I think around issue 8 or just before.

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I'm not sure what your point is here. We're talking about CoH and the proposed graphical updates to it for Going Rogue, not the performance in other games.

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My point is that just throwing higher res textures and effects on an old game engine will cause some performance hits. It's different than doing a major engine upgrade or creating a new engine.

There are going to be teething problems with any kind of upgrade though. I know a bunch of people who did complain that their old systems weren't running COH well after the villain graphics upgrades were moved across. They eventually upgraded and aren't really complaining anymore.

My point is that going forward, the devs are more likely to try to push the graphics envelope a bit more. Like how new costume pieces look better than old ones a lot of the time...they aren't that likely to be less conservative with that kind of thing. There are limits...but expect that new zones and content will try to top old zones in the graphics department.

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Re-read what is actually wrong: People who don't want graphic upgrades are people who have older systems. False on its face.

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Really? Because I have several friends who play this game, and one in particular, who is running old hardware and don't want to be bothered to upgrade it. In fact, it was only just recently that he asked me to spec a new system for him to run it with. He's been in the game longer than me and simply did not want to bother upgrading his old stuff because he thought it was perfectly fine even if he had to turn down the graphics.

There. Now does that make me universally right and you unalterably wrong? So my statement is, in fact, not false on its face. There are people out there who don't want to be bothered to upgrade their systems. And I've had arguments on this forum with several of them about this exact thing.

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People who don't want graphic upgrades are people who don't like graphic upgrades. Like... ME! That statement is simply false.

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Please make up your mind as to if you actually want them or not and why. Because you were the one who gave reasons why you didn't want want them and why, in your mind, there are almost always undesirable.

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And what would you have me say? I hate it, so the developers should do it? A statement was made that assumed why people were against a certain thing. That statement was false because I have at least several examples to the contrary, and at least one other person has chimed in to the same effect.

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I have some examples as well...whoohoo!

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Also, if "other MMO" you mentioned is the one I'm thinking about, then the "improved graphics" made Northrend completely unplayable for a friend of mine who never got to see it. And for what? The place didn't LOOK all that impressive for all that lag and invested effort. The Outlands looked and still look better, just not as detail-busy.

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Please read my post carefully...because I named the examples that I was referring to and explained what they did and why. I mentioned WoW only to say that the developers hinted at a general graphics upgrade in the future. I have no idea where I mentioned Northrend...I don't even play WoW.

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None of us can talk about what is to the game's overall benefit but to express what we want to see added to it. We can theorise about what everybody is going to want, but we are also going to be wrong about it more often than we are going to be right.

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I never said that an upgrade would definitely be to the game's benefit or detriment. That was you for the most part. I simply stated that there are cases where they have taken place and been for the better. I listed EVE Online in particular not WoW. Actually I would like to think that I made it clear that a graphics upgrade just for the sake of 'shiny' isn't what I was talking about at all.

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What I said was not what's best for the game's future, but rather what is NOT unambiguously best, and that the people believing so do not hold that belief for the selfish reason that their systems can handle it.

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Well since YOU can't speak for the people that I know and play with who do think in the way I stated, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. That's one of the reasons I try to never say I speak for the majority because I know a guy/girl who... It's one of the reasons the devs can't base the direction of this game explicitly on what vocal people in the forums say.

I have friends I've been LAN gaming with for years who are highly attracted to games with all the shiny bells and whistles that may not matter to you and me...quite a few. I may not share their taste, but they buy and invest in games based on it.

My experiences with people aren't any less valid than yours, which is why I used an example of where a graphics upgrade was a good thing. I personally like the better ship details and FX in EVE...and judging by their growing population...its not hampering their game any.

How one does a thing is important. You can point to something that failed and say it won't work...but if it was done poorly, it means just that. It was a bad effort.

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just because you don't like Bloom.

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To be fair the usage of Bloom in games is generally overused and crappy looking.

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Granted, but you get the gist of my point I hope.

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I agree with this. For me, the graphics at CoH's release were satisfactory, and the upgrades we had when CoV came out were in no way worth the performance hit (especially the fire graphics). I'd bought a $3000 SLI system 10 months before CoV came out, and the CoV upgrades erased my performance gains.

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Either you got severely ripped off, or you suck at setting your system up for gaming. I have never spent anywhere NEAR that much money on a system...never had SLI and COV ran just fine for me when I first played it. And I had a Geoforce 7600GT at the time.

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Sure, better graphics are good, but the performance tradeoff needs to be worth it. I've got a high end system (Quad Core, Nvidia 8800 GT, 4 gigs of ram), and CoH still slows down under some conditions. I really don't want a repeat of the CoV upgrades.

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Some of that is due to forcing the old, not-very-upgradeable engine to do things it wasn't designed with in mind. Take your rig and play another more recent game and you'll see you get very satisfactory performance.

I stand under correction, but COV simply took higher res textures and effects and applied them to the same old engine we've always had. I have no idea what or how much under the hood work was done to make it function. A good example is the odd slowdowns you sometimes get in the university and Grandville(although I don't lag in Grandville very much myself). I'm not a graphics guy...so someone from the dev team would be better qualified to explain this...but some of that isn't due to your system not being able to handle it.

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I'd be all for it, if it didn't take away from getting some actual content.

A graphics upgrade ISN'T content.

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No MMOs that I know of ever did a graphics update without it being related to delivering new content. take a look at the new Jumpgate...it's not using the old engine.

In EVE...their update was also to help make the new avatar feature(where you get out of your ship and explore space stations) possible(not sure if that's live yet...been out of touch).

Even Blizzard has expressed their desire to upgrade the graphics of WoW at some point in the future. So its silly to act like graphics upgrades are unprecedented and have no purpose, just because you don't like Bloom.

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You assume, and you are wrong.

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Because of course, you are automatically right?

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Better graphics do not automatically look better. I HATE...

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And here we go. I hate something so of course there is no merit in it or the devs doing it because...I hate it.

I already gave you an example of an MMO(one that's more successful than this one btw) that did just that. They completely upgraded their old engine. That's not a crime or horrid. The developers wanted to do certain things and they thought that an upgraded engine would work better for what they wanted. You think that people who had older systems didn't protest on their forums because the specs for the game went up? They're STILL doing better than COX and increasing their numbers after the upgrade...so perhaps it was for the best. Everquest also upgraded their graphics a few times...and one of their upgrades practically forced most of their players to buy new graphics cards and killed off support for an OS.

Ironically I'm not arguing that I hate the current COX graphics...I'm simply saying that because you(a singular person) does not want something to happen...does not mean that it isn't to this game's overall benefit.

A lot of people wanted the new Diablo 3 to look more like the old Diablo 2. The developers decided that's not the way that would best serve the game going forward.

I don't know what the entire playerbase is thinking and I don't pretend to. I think its rather foolish to assume that everyone likes exactly what I like for the exact reasons I like it. I'm stating that there may well be very compelling reasons for graphics upgrades of SOME sort. If you think that means the devs are automatically going to try to make it look like Far Cry 2(which was just an example I used) then you're free to do that.