Smurch

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((We went to the moon. WE went to the moon. We got our stuff together for once and accomplished something huge. It's insulting when people claim it was a hoax. If it was as impossible as the conspiracy theorists say, then don't you think that this country's detractors would have exposed the hoax way back when? Is it easier to deny that we ever had such vision and ingenuity than it is to aim for such heights again?))

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The hoax conspiratorists are provably wrong by the simple existence of moon rocks. If NASA had claimed to go to the moon and brought nothing back, then maybe they'd have a point. But moon rocks are unlike any rocks on earth. They've been studied by scientists all around the world, in most every country in the world. Either there is a vast conspiracy of ALL the world's scientists to uphold the moon landing hoax, or NASA figured out how to manufacture a rock that is unlike any rock on earth. The staggering difficulty of accomplishing either task means it would be both less expensive and much easier to simply go to the moon and get a rock in the first place.

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And playing devils advocates advocates.

Busted! :P

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And of course:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

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looked at server status, they're all up no firewall settings are active that would prevent us from logging on so yeh, bit stumped anyone got any ideas?

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The Rikti Invasion this weekend was ignored by a large chunk of the playerbase who would rather stay in the AE buildings all day. As a result, the Rikti were able to not only get a foothold on our server, but they in fact were able to detonate a doomsday bomb that destroyed both Paragon City and the Rogue Islands. Now our server has been laid to waste, a burned out husk. If only everyone had pulled together, this crisis could have been avoided, but too many were reluctant to leave the safety of their AE buildings. For shame!

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Regular server maintenance is scheduled for Monday and Friday mornings.

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Actually, regular server maintenance is scheduled every day. However, Mondays and Fridays, this maintenance will involve a server reboot. Other days of the week it will most likely not involve a reboot (but can, if required).

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Actually from a pure Sun Tzu point of view of combat it's probably not a bad thing for enemies of heroes like Superman or Wonder Woman to be "distracted" by their flashy outfits because while the bad guys are busy laughing/gawking they are getting their butts beat down badly.

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Again, if you have the invulnerability to get away that, fine. At that point it's a matter of vanity or personal taste.

If I were an invulnerable super, I wear something durable and sensible because even if I don't care about Godzilla's breath, my clothing should be tough enough to withstand that. Bikinis and briefs made out of buckytube fibre might not burn or tear easily but they can get pulled off in combat, right? At least Superman has considered this. I suppose someone could give him a superwedgie but his suit is composed of Kryptonian fabric that can't tear easily and it covers most of his body so someone can't pull it off easily.

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Why do you think costumes at Icon/Face Maker cost so much? You think it's easy to make bullet-proof, fire-proof, untearable fabric into a costume?

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Hmmm, my Agent Wildkatze is guilty of just that in her base costume. The suit covers head to toe, but has stilettos. I vaguely recall debating about it for half a second and deciding she's just that agile she can do it. As a comparison, my tankers I don't expect to be that agile, and have flat soles.

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A colleague at work says she doesn't find high-heel shoes at all uncomfortable because she always walks on her toes when wearing them, so the heel doesn't matter. I'm not sure how much faith I can put into this, but it's certainly POSSIBLE that an agile character can dash around in high heels by just not touching the heel.

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My wife wore heels for so many years that if she wears flats for too long, her ankles hurt.

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This is also fun.

Recorded this last night.
The most fun I've had in a long time.

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Gah! Nice job. Lot of work for no reward, if I remember correctly

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Fun is it's own reward

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It's a lagfest. I don't quite understand it but the kids apparently love it.

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Except it's not a lagfest for everyone. Certainly not for me. It's fast paced, fun and exciting. I don't have a top of the line machine, but I do spend a bit here and there to upgrade it from time to time. That's all it takes.

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In some of the busier zones you'll get server-side lag which has nothing to do with end users' computers. I noticed it in Cap Au on Friday and Saturday (to the point I just didn't go to invasions there) but didn't see too much in the other zones.

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A bunch of heroes/villains standing in a spot, mashing buttons basically? I just don't get it.

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Usually I'm not standing. Oh wait.. that sounds bad. =P

Short Answer: The people.

Long Answer: This year and last, we scheduled time together as a group and head out into the great pea soup for a bit o' adventure. Maybe because we're on Virtue? The personalities. Their responses are priceless. The wild costumes and running dialogue in the /request and /broadcast channels made it a blast. We consumed the zone(s) we visited and one another's company and just had a blast.

And lag? We had twelve brave souls leading teams in the Isles Friday night. Twenty team leads ran Saturday night. Yeah, there was some lag. =p I can't imagine anyone who attended either year saying, "We shouldn't do it again, the lag sucked and it wasn't worth it." Especially considering that both years, I specifically posted "No rewards" of any kind.

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I was in the big Drop Ship assault on Friday night when we downed, what was it two dozen drop ships? It was fantastic. I'd do it again, lag and all.

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No, I AM BACKALLEYBRAWLER!

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prove it

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No, I AM SPARTICUS!

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No, I am Spartacus and so is my wife!

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Hmm...while I laud the warning posted here, I wonder why not doing so in game, as by all accounts only a fraction of patrons actually visit here.

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You read the user agreement that you click "I Agree" to when you launch the game, don't you? You've already been warned. Posting an additional warnings in the forums is a COURTESY.

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Players can now fine-tune their difficulty levels by telling the game exactly how they want to be treated. They can choose to be regarded as a specific size team (even if they are soloing), and even have control over the level they are detected to be when it comes to the dynamic spawn system. So if you ever wanted to see if your Scrapper could take on a map that is populated for an 8 person team, four levels higher than your own, now you can!

Issue 16 Info

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Playing at a higher difficulty level is not farming.

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Ever since the AE missions were put into play, the Dev's had a problem with players wanting to farm missions. First the Rikti Communication Officers, then Freakshow, and lately the Green Mito's. Personally I see it as a great way to get some of my other characters (ones I don't play as much) leveled up quickly. Some don't like these power leveling groups. Nerfing the players missions won't change anything. Best thing to do, would be to re-vamp the whole AE Mission system, by letting all characters earn the same XP. Meaning whether its a minion of the Council, Freakshow, Character Created, or any of the many enemies picked; they earn all the same XP. Truthfully, who would want to fight a Boss, Lieutenent, or Minion that gives out less rewards than another one. By making them have a set amount of XP, players can then focus on the story line. Common sense can go a long way.

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Who else spots the immediate and fatal flaw in this line of reasoning?

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So I was running a normal mish when all of a sudden my graphics went completely crazy, but the UI was still showing. I died and loaded in to another zone and it was still crazy. I quit the game and my comp froze and I had to hit the reset button. Here's a screenshot: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...5-22-22-33.jpg

Any ideas? Thanks.

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Video card make/model and driver version, please.

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It looks like its a heat problem - my cpu is spiking up to 55C and above.

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55C shouldn't be that bad I'd think. If it were 65+ then maybe (MAYBE... 75+ is more likely a problem area), but 55 should be a safe operational temperature.

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things just keep going from bad to worse.

So, pretty much right after submitting that post, my comp crashed, and this time it had nothing to do with CoH.

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What did it do when it crashed? Did it power off? Did it give a windows stop code? Did it just go black with a flashing white cursor? Was there an error message? Did it reboot itself?

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Truth be told, it is about 45 degrees out, so my comp was probably running hotter than normal, but i figured it must be heat, and that CoH is just making it abnormally hot sometimes.

So, i opened my computer, and noticed that the heat sink was starting to become detached from the processor, so i took it off, cleaned them both, and re-applied the thermal grease.

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Yeah, that's not good.

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I made sure everything was nice and secure, and turned on my comp. Nothing happened. Power goes through it, the fans spin, but it doesn't beep, and my mouse, keyboard and screen stay blank and unpowered.

Now i have no idea what to do. (i'm posting this from my mac atm) I have no idea why it's not starting. I even double checked it to make sure everything is connected properly

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Well, if the proc was that hot it can take a while to cool down before it will work again. Leave it unplugged for a few hours, check all the connections, and give it another go.

We had a server get baked once at a place I worked, and we literally threw the processor in the freezer for 10 minutes to get it to a good temp.

Barring that, my best guess is your last crash finally cooked your mo-bo. The processor overheating will only rarely kill the proc, and if it does, it will still give you a beep code most of the time. But the proc overheating can cook the circuitry around the proc on the mo-bo. Your system core temp rises when that big hot bit of silicon and metal sits there and burns.

The most likely situation is you need a new mo-bo, but I'd get a new system board and proc combo if I were you. Your fans spin so we know your PSU is probably good.

How about your video card? What happens if you yank it and try to boot? Any beeps?

Hate to say it, but the prognosis here may not be that good. But lets not give up hope yet. Try removing all peripherals from the system, reseat memory, check connections, and see if you can get it to at least beep at you. A beeping computer still has hope!

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F_M_J he said his external HD and even Flashdrive are affected. I don't know about you, but that's where my backups are.

Sin, if you tell us more we might be able to help you recover those files.

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I'm 1000% confident that those files are recoverable.

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Meh, wish it'd let you mess with your height, allowing 9' tall and 3' tall varients.

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It does!

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Rather than search through to see if this was brought up I'll just ask. Is there going to be a lvl requirement to "Go Rogue"? Can a lvl 2 corrupter have a change of heart? Can a lvl 10 scrapper get mad at the world? Or do both have to wait until they are at a higher lvl?

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Unless something has changed, new characters start neutral and, through some early choices, pick one side or the other. That would imply that the experience is open for characters of any level.

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I don't mind the patch updates. We got booted pretty qucik this morning, but it's no huge thing to miss a few hours a day... I sort of expect one each morning, am pleased the mornings when it doesn't happen.

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And THAT is the right attitude to have.

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I don't think anyone would argue with an unexepected server downtime for something URGENT.

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It's NOT unexpected downtime. It was downtime that happened in the normal DAILY maintenance window.

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I don't give a fig what their user agreement says. It's very poor form, appalling customer relations. If I did that I would expect a major flare up from my clients. And I would deserve every angry word.

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Man, you really are spoiled you know that? They have a daily maintenance window that's open every day. For over a year they've been very good about minimizing any downtime for that maintenance to just a couple of days a week (something that NEVER used to happen) and when they actually use the window that they DID tell you about, you throw a hissy.

Maintenance is every day from 8am to 10am M-F. There may or may not be downtime. You have NO right to EXPECT that there will not be maintenance in that time period. You should absolutely EXPECT downtime in that time period. If there isn't any, you should be happy about it, not come to view it as an entitlement.

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There is a villain accolade which you can only get by completing timed missions in sequence - one starts when you finish the last. You cannot go back and re-do it via Oro, you have to get it done right the first time. I would scream seven bells of murder if I was a badger that lost that chance because of inept communication skills of the staff of this company.

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Actually it wouldn't be their communication skills. It'd be your reading skills that would be at fault.

Maintenance is every day 8am to 10am. There is a possibility of downtime in that time period every day. This is understood and the expectation. If you want to run a time accolade mission, then I'd recommend doing it AFTER 10am. Do otherwise and you only have your self to blame.

The company doesn't need to inform you when it's doing something usual and expected in a scheduled outage window. It only needs to inform you for unexpected outages. Which this wasn't.

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<QR>
http://boards.cityofvillains.com/showfla...=0#Post13754879

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http://help.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/ncsoft.cf...amp;p_topview=1

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Ok, so I understand about the need for regular maintenance on Mondays & Fridays. Its right in the middle of my peak game time but thats just my bad luck for living on the wrong side of the planet I guess. I can anticipate & adjust.

But when we get the server down times on other days/nights, thats really annoying - especially because it seem so hard to find out WHY I'm missing out on my vent-work-day-frustrations-by-bashing-things time!

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"City of Heroes and City of Villains undergo server maintenance daily from 8:00 am to 10:00 am Central Time. During this time, the servers are not accessible as we perform maintenance and make any updates to them. We may also perform maintenance on additional game-related servers, such as the web servers, message boards, or login servers.

On Mondays and Fridays, this maintenance always includes restarting all North American game servers. However, maintenance does not always include "server downtime," the servers may also be restarted on days other than Monday and Friday, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis.

Please note: While we are reserving this daily two-hour period for maintenance updates, they will not necessarily require the entire two hours and additional updates may be scheduled outside this time-period as needed. Also, the maintenance window may sometimes need to be extended. Deviations from the normal maintenance schedule are typically posted on the official news page, patch notes, and/or message boards.

We appreciate your patience as we work during these time periods to provide our players with the highest quality of service in City of Heroes and City of Villains."
http://help.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/ncsoft.cf...amp;p_topview=1

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Right now what is lacking is COMMUNICATION from the company we are paying. Dropping the servers with ten minutes notice on a non-scheduled maint day is poor form.


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What do you mean "non scheduled maintenance day"? There is scheduled maintenance EVERY DAY and always has been. From the support center (the COMMUNICATION you claim was lacking):

" City of Heroes and City of Villains undergo server maintenance daily from 8:00 am to 10:00 am Central Time. During this time, the servers are not accessible as we perform maintenance and make any updates to them. We may also perform maintenance on additional game-related servers, such as the web servers, message boards, or login servers.

On Mondays and Fridays, this maintenance always includes restarting all North American game servers. However, maintenance does not always include "server downtime," the servers may also be restarted on days other than Monday and Friday, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis.

Please note: While we are reserving this daily two-hour period for maintenance updates, they will not necessarily require the entire two hours and additional updates may be scheduled outside this time-period as needed. Also, the maintenance window may sometimes need to be extended. Deviations from the normal maintenance schedule are typically posted on the official news page, patch notes, and/or message boards.

We appreciate your patience as we work during these time periods to provide our players with the highest quality of service in City of Heroes and City of Villains."

It's been like this since I've been playing (I6). It used to be that we had downtime practically every day. We've just gotten spoiled lately that there hasn't been downtime as often.

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Debt? What is this debt of which you speak?

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It's what you get when you're on a PUG without a clue and have to go to the hospital when you're out of patrol XP.

I think I got some once.