Smurch
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Posts
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Having a disputed charge for anyone who takes credit cards is serious business. It can cost them thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in fees and fines if it's decided that the charge is reversible.
I would simply state to the vendor that they have two weeks to finish the work now that you've approved a sketch as promised. If it is not delivered, you will be filing a complaint and requesting a charge back from your credit card company. The threat of that should, if they have a sense of self-preservation, evoke the appropriate response.
If it doesn't... then make good on the threat, call the credit card company, and tell them the story as presented here. You made a contract in good faith, have been more than reasonable, but the merchant has yet to deliver. Have the transaction number and company the charge was made to handy. If they used a payment service like PayPal, I'd suggest going directly through them first before going to Visa or Mastercard. They weren't the ones who wronged you and will probably be happy to refund your money.
If your own bank doesn't give you the satisfaction you want, go directly to the merchant bank (Visa, Mastercard, etc) and file a complaint with them. this will usually yield results.
Credit Card companies are almost entirely on the side of the consumer. They'll happily screw over a merchant to keep their consumer happy. Consumers use credit cards because they want to. Merchants take them because they have to. Everything the credit card company does is to keep you happily charging away and sending them money every month... which means you have alot of power in your hands. Use it. -
Quote:You see, there is an energy field generated by a machine deep inside the earth called The Plot Device. This device creates a unique kind of gravitation, measured in MacGuffins, that draws anything of cosmic importance towards it. The graver the threat, the more MacGuffins are emitted by the Plot Device to attract it. Thus, something dimension-destroying is going to have mega-MacGuffins of Plot pulling it towards earth.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Why do these things always come to Earth to try and consume the universe? Is this some kind of "If Mohammed can't go to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohhamed." thing where because humans can't travel through space and go to where evil occurs, evil has to come to Earth so it can be beaten? Why not pop into the middle of empty space and consume the dimension from there? Or if you need a planet, why not show up on an uninhabited one? Rularuu certainly doesn't strike me as someone who needs sunlight and air to survive (begging the question why those are present in the Shard, but that's besides the point).
It's quite simple really. -
Quote:1.) there's no reason you cannot create a base already on your own, as others have pointed out. My wife and I run 3 SGs that are pretty much just us and one or two very casual play friends. We've already got 4 telepads, a supercomputer, two plot upgrades, all tables and nine salvage racks packed with orange salvage, and a bunch of other nifty convenience items. And that's just in one of our three bases. It's not that hard.Originally Posted by Fire_Away
And so the small community remains small and grossly overlooked until or unless SG bases are addressed (to your satisfaction) before we do anything new/better. Yuck. Thank goodness we have bases at all (my read of your view is they appear not to be "done right" to start with). Geesh, if the dev community agrees with you no wonder we have been stuck in second gear so long!
What I (and others) propose is something that just might appeal to a larger portion of the player base... and maybe... just maybe... increase the appeal and visibility of player created structures (be they bases, quarters or "batcaves"). Thus, the development attention they receive will increase accordingly. I can't, for the life of me, see how having some personal space and capablity while belonging to an sg at the same time (w/o the different versions BS) is such a bad thing. [edit add: BTW, I find it a little "short-sighted" (to borrow an expression I read somewhere) to suggest that a new currency will be undoubtedly required.].
2.) Yes, it's a great idea to duplicate an already broken system on a smaller scale to compound the problems we already have rather than fix them. Base builders have been asking for alot of things for a very, very long time. Personal housing as a PART of the base is one of them. But frankly, bases need alot of love and are loooong overdue for it. Your "I can't be bothered to go to the crafting table in my current SG base so I demand developer resources to accomodate ME" plan by no means should take precedence while there's a feature of the game listed ON THE BOX that still doesn't work right. -
Quote:There has to be some collary of Godwin's Law to cover Monty Python references. Particularly Holy Grail.Originally Posted by Yellekai
I once joined a supergroup that required I provide them with a shrubbery. When I got them one they demanded another and insisted that I place it slightly higher than the first one so they'd get a two-level effect with a little path running down the middle. I said nuts to this and started my own shrubbery-less supergroup.
Off-topic, but does anyone know the air speed of an unladen swallow?
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I feel again obligated to post this video.
Because the Daleks are just this cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjqKXX4RMr4 -
Quote:One thing that I found charming about DDO is that enemies can pretty much see you if you can see them. There's none of this stand just a few feet further away and they're oblivious nonsense.Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
It wouldn't be the first one I'd complain about; the first game mechanic I'd complain about is that NPCs are demonstrably all deaf, since they can't hear their friends screaming for help from 75 feet away, even in the same room.
It's also fun that they'll go summon help. Some will run ring an alarm gong, calling in reinforcements. I had one wily kobold run off into a room with some sleeping guards, wake them up, and they all came out of the room to fight us.
It was a refreshing change. -
(5) Subscription Fees.
I don't consider this "broken". I've played games with subscription fees, with microtransactions, and free to play. I can say without reservation that, for the most part, the quality of players decreases along with fees. I find teaming in games like DDO and Guild Wars impossibly frustrating due to the huge horde of complete morons that populate such games. However, with a few notable exceptions, PUGs in CoX have been decent quality and generally fun.
(4) Aggro
I kinda agree with this one. I'd prefer enemy AIs that make more dynamic and intelligent choices. I think the paradigm of Tank/Healer/DPSer/Controller is outdated. I'd like to see something new that shatters those conventions. I think CoV does a pretty good job of this with the hybrid ATs that villain-side has. However, I'd prefer less specialization in general. The "build your own class" in Dungeon Runners was a step in the right direction.
(3) Button Lock
Less a problem in CoX than other games. This *is* a problem in many other games. Some even have a global recharge rate that hampers your ability to fire off powers: you CANNOT press more than one power button every 2 seconds in Warhammer Online, for example. I think CoX has done a pretty good job of keeping you engaged with multiple powers. I think Age of Conan did this even better with directional basic attacks as well as rechargeable combo attacks. I think "button lock" is something that seems to be being phased out of MMOs already, at least ones that aren't trying to be WoW.
(2) Static Worlds
This IS a problem. One reason I am looking forward to Global Agenda is the promise of a persistent world with player-conquerable territory (ala EVE). I think a persistent world is always much more fun than a static unchanging world. I hope more game developers take this to heart and find ways to introduce at least some degree of persistency in their games.
(1) You can't play with the people you want to play with.
I think Super-Sidekicking is the Gold Standard for resolving this sort of issue. It's something other games certainly do need to take a look at. Its one of the most frustrating things I've experienced in other games, that I can't play with friends who have a different rate of leveling than I do. This very quickly wears out the fun in those games. Teaming with friends is part of the appeal, and someone shouldn't have to stop playing just so they can team with their buddies next time, for fear of outleveling them. -
Quote:Agreed!Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Issue 16 was full of win.
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Quote:No, the crime was a result of people taking something that didn't belong to them.Originally Posted by Nethergoat
A more accurate analogy would be some janitor forgetting to clean up the gold doubloons covering the bottom of the pool after the board of director's party, club members saw dollar signs and filled their up their backpacks, after which the owners prosecuted them for theft even though the 'crime' was a result of negligence by their own employees.
If I neglect to lock my car door, and someone takes my car, they're still guilty of stealing my car. A failure to secure against theft does not legitimize theft, neither ethically nor legally. -
Quote:If those fail (and odds are, it's one of those), you should be able to go and rename the file yourself. It'll be missing when the patcher runs, but it should (I say *should*) just download and apply the new one. You can always put it back if this doesn't work.Originally Posted by FitzSimmons
Just a couple of quick ideas:
- Is your hard drive full?
- Is the folder marked as read only? Can you try creating a text file and saving it in that folder? Try copying cityofheroes.exe manually to see what happens.
- Maybe there's a lock on the file or folder, try rebooting. -
absolutely any archetype... but take nothing, and I mean nothing, but pool powers above level 6.
That'd be useless. -
Quote:Many on virtue were experiencing the same thing when I was on earlier (myself included).Originally Posted by Kahlan_
I'm getting the same constant mapserving I was last double xp weekend, on Champion. It's pretty frustrating. Many other champs are reporting the same thing.
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Quote:Intellectual Property law is a very complicated and somewhat hazy area of law. It's constantly been decided by courts because it's tough to decipher for just about anyone. I've heard IP lawyers give very different opinions on a particular legal question.Originally Posted by DJ_Shecky
Then with the whole trademark thing, all of a sudden you have another game pop up, on of their developers use a name you have been using for years and you get Genericed. Happened to a friend of mine just recently. I won't state names cause I'm not calling anyone out, but the whole trademark thing is a bit vague at times, especially when you hit a situation like this. Legally because of the CoH EULA, NCSoft has first right in a case like this one would think.
Its further confounded by the fact that Trademark and Copyright, while related logically, are in fact entirely different branches of law overseen by entirely different government agencies. It's a confusing area of law at best.
Given that, it's just a good idea to be as cautious as possible unless you're prepared to go through the lengthy and extremely expensive process to challenge a claim in court. -
Quote:All of those things are in the public domain, and therefore are legally fine.Originally Posted by TheLadyK
I have characters based on all sorts of things. A MM based on "Much Ado About Nothing" (Beatrice), Goldilochs, characters that bare some resemblance to Mulan (a Chinese woman trying to regain family honor) and Poison Ivy (plant control.), more Shakespeare... my main is Rapunzel, for goodness sake!
Yes. We live in a land of laws, both domestic and international, that say you cannot just copy whatever you want from whomever you want without getting permission.Quote:Having inspiration is part of creativity, every idea comes from something else, no one lives in a vacuum.
Wicked was based on the Wizard of Oz which is in the public domain.Quote:Wicked, for instance, is a creative musical, based on a creative book, based on a creative story, that was based on basic fairy tale structure.
global ignore is a good solution. -
Quote:Trademark. Not Copyright. Everyone always gets those mixed up.Originally Posted by Sephorus
It may be your $15, but it's someone elses copyrighted material.
But otherwise, yeah with Sephorus said. And a response of "oh but mine isn't as much of a rip-off as other peoples'!" doesn't make it any better. It's either legal or it's not and the general benchmark for this is if a reasonable person would be able to identify the "knock off", then it's considered dilution and a no-no. The fact that someone recognized it so quickly and easily suggests that maybe you may want to reconsider your design or risk having your character generic'ed by NCSoft. -
Quote:To reiterate, if someone consistently does not spell correctly, then they are either illiterate or they are lazyOriginally Posted by Soundtrack
Respectfully, I disagree. I've had many students who can read (decode the letters) and comprehend quite efficiently text that is meant for students a couple of grade-levels higher.... but couldn't spell their way out of a paper bag.
It's odd, really. If I write:
FRENDSHIP FRIENDSHIP FRIENZSHIP PHRENDSHIP
They could circle the second word as the correct spelling in a heartbeat.
Then, moments later, they'd write "I realy like having a frendship with Amy becaus she is nice."
There are just some people who are not good spellers and it has nothing to do with their intelligence level or an inability to read or write (definition of illiterate).
To be completely frank, your example sounds like they're being lazy. If they can identify the correct spelling of a word, then later misspell the word themselves, that means they didn't proofread what they wrote. If they had, they'd have noticed the incorrect spelling. Because, as you pointed out, they can tell if a word is spelled correctly or not. Once or twice? An excusable typo. But over and over again?
Failure to proofread to the point of a consistent level of misspelling may not be illiteracy, but it's certainly laziness no matter how you slice it.
...and rarely accomplish either.Quote:Now, I will agree that some people are lazy spellers, INTENTIONALLY choosing not to spell words correctly, do u no wat i mean? (often just to save time and precious keystrokes)
With intentional misspellings of that nature, I'd go further than to call it lazy. I'd call it "Willful Ignorance". -
Quote:I suspect it's actually a case of learning bad habits rather than a lack of learning.Originally Posted by TheNakedNinja
In my experience, the people who use short text don't really know how to type efficiently to begin with. Hence, why they use short text. And I don't say that as a slight against them. Not everyone can type at 80 words a minute.
I actually only type something around 50 words per minute (with accuracy, that is. I could do 80 with wild abandon and blatant disregard for making any sense whatsoever).
I'm not the best typist in the world. In fact, I am unable to use my pinky and ring fingers to type at all (tendinitis prevents those digits from functioning with that level of precision). I type with just six fingers, three on each hand (including the thumbs) and they're completely in the wrong positions for "correct" typing.
The point is, if *I* can do it, then just about anyone could do it. I've known people who can type with one hand better than I can with two.
Someone who can't be bothered to even make the attempt really shouldn't be surprised when the rest of us can't be bothered to take them seriously.
In short, you chose not to be lazy and to instead improve your skills.Quote:Yes, being a bad speller doesn't make you "stupid". It does mean you should be paying attention to what you're reading. I used to be a rather atrocious speller, until I took the initiative to actually focus on the words my spell check keeps picking up. After a while, my spelling improved. At least to the point where I don't butcher words too badly.
Right. Exactly. -
Quote:Actually, yes. Of course, I've learned to type and spell properly, and can therefore type fast enough that I can kick off an attack, queue up the next attack, type out a short sentence properly and pick up with the fight without missing a beat. If I'm in a situation where I can't do that I don't attempt to say anything at all until I can. I find it's actually more effective to communicate clearly, especially in combat situations, rather than use some form of lazy shorthand and hope that everyone infers my meaning.Originally Posted by shikraria
So, your telling me, that when your in the middle of a huge battle, you take the time to spell each word correctly, ect?
Also, as pointed out previously, most "shorthand" isn't really much, if any, faster to type. Typing "@" instead of "at" saves you zero keystrokes, for instance. Many contractions, like "srsly" actually slow you down if you know how to type, as it's an unnatural word to spell out. I can type "seriously" much faster because I don't have to think about which letters to omit.
Poor spelling indicates you're either illiterate or lazy. Neither is terribly flattering. -
Quote:"You offered a rare recipe for sale on the black market... here's more free stuff than you could possibly use!"Originally Posted by Smash_Zone
Keep in mind the in-game currency isn't "money" that can be put in a bank. You get influence, which can be explained like "Oh, you just saved Dr. danger-prone from the evil Arachnos, and prevented them from extracting his secrets. Have some free stuff!"
When your running low on influence, it's also like saying "Hey, you haven't done anything heroic in a while, go beat up Tsoo and I'll give you some more stuff."
So, the currency in this game isn't tangible. You can't save some girls purse, then tell her "Hey, go tell the bank I saved you, so I can store some influence in there."
Yeah the analogy kinda breaks down where the in-game economy is concerned.
I'd prefer a SG bank actually, that INF can be deposited in and withdrawn from. For the purist, this still makes sense. One character is lending their influence/infamy to another (much like a character-to-character transfer). "Hey FantasticMan sent me, said you can help me". -
Quote:Concept is my first concern when picking a travel power. For melee characters with flight, I tend to take Air Superiority which isn't a bad attack, with knockdown and -fly components.Originally Posted by Vitality
Has anyone taken flight because they wanted it for concept even though doing so gives up some defense?
Here is my problem...I want Flight as my travel power.
I would take Hover and Fly.
I would use Hover for the extra defense during AV fights only because I am unable to use Footstomp while hovering.
My other choice would be to replace Hover and Fly with Super Jump and Maneuvers.
Having maneuvers basically allows me to have the extra defense that Hover would have gave me on all the time.
Super Jump does go with the super strength concept but it falls short of being iconic compared to Flight.
What are your thoughts on this?
Is having fly worth losing the extra (on all the time) defense from maneuvers?
I find the defense of hover or combat jumping very very optional. Nice to have but by no means make or break a character. -
...with this job.
(check unemployment figures)
eh... maybe I'll give it another go. -
Quote:Defense Sets take longer to mature than Resist Sets. I started playing Brutes with Resists and I find Defense sets maddening until well into the 20s. After that they really shine, but you have to give them time to blossom. Someone who is coming off a /invuln or worse yet /WP will find /EA squishy in the early levels. All I can say is it does get better. My Fire/EA brute is 43 and is practically untouchable. Things started to flip for me around level 26-28 or so.Originally Posted by Leo_G
Seriously?
Mine is lvl 10 and he doesn't seem any less survivable than my Stone/Shield brute and he only has Kinetic Shield. It does exactly what SR would do at that lvl (dodge/deflect certain attacks at that lvl) except SR would be for melee/ranged and EA is for smashing/lethal. -
Quote:And thats why we have /ignoreOriginally Posted by TheNakedNinja
I can understand a non-RPer to be curious and pop his head in just to see what the hub-bub is about. But I don't know; I can't help but feel the only other reason that non-RPers go to PD is to actively grief other players who are just trying to have fun. I think it's a shame that people feel the need to ruin it for others. We all pay monthly to exist in the same game world. We shouldn't have to put up with it.
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Quote:I've been on Official RP servers with WAR and I have to say, Virtue is alot more RP friendly, as an unofficial server, than the Official server in WAR. Unless the company is prepared to have alot of CS reps who do nothing but enforce RP policy, it's simply not going to work.Originally Posted by Animorph
Just finished visiting Pocket D where a "RP" SG was arguing with a group of nonRPers and telling them to go to another server. Was somewhat funny to watch. I really enjoy seeing two people start a fight online and hear them talk about how they're gonna kick each other's butts if they don't shut up and leave.
Like either could really do anything.
But it got me thinking, I remember that WoW has official RP servers where if even your name wasn't good enough they would ban you from the server. Would you want Virtue to be like that?
Part of me would, I think since AE was introduced there's been alot more idiots on Virtue and a whole heck of a lot more Marvel/DC clones. Call me biased but I wouldn't mind it going back to being mostly RPers around Virtue.
If the devs ever did make Virtue the Official RPing server do you think that it would hurt them in the long run with people getting kicked/leaving Virtue?
First, labeling something as Official RP will attract RP griefers en masse. Second, petty arguements about the official rules will break out. Third, it will be ultimately up to the community to police themselves, which is what we're already doing.
So there's no real advantage at this point of making an "official RP" server. Virtue is, quite honestly, about as good as it gets. -
Quote:Correction:Originally Posted by Candlererun
Myth: You should play this game with the Sacred Trio(Heal, DPS, Tank)
Fact: The most effective teams are ones that stack Buffs and Debuffs, rather then Aggro, DPS or Healing.
Fact: The most effective teams are the ones who have players who don't suck.