Solarexx

'Twas a lot of fun. I got to talk to Balorn, Bill, and Rowr again, and meet Ex...nice lady! And the swag was really nice (love the cape). Lots of folks from Virtue and Justice in residence.

Oh, and if hadn't been discovered yet, I think Lord British gave away Cuppa's real first name.

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I've stealthily been in Toronto for (CLASSIFIED) months now, working across the web with Lighthouse and Ex Lib. I was in Austin for a year, but the north called me back. ("Winter is coming," so it has been said).

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Jess,

Ha, funny you should mention that quote, since I happened to meet you in the Austin airport when you noticed me reading A GAME OF THRONES and we struck up a convo (you were on your way to Toronto then, too, for Christmas vacation). It was too funny to find out that you were Arctic Sun and we also shared a love for COH as well!

Good luck on your new job, and I'll miss your backgrounders.

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Barring unforeseen disasters, I'll be at the Austin one again, likely wearing my new hat.

Here are pictures from the Austin one last year at Cyberjocks. Much fun was had by all.

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That was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I'm going to this one as well.

Looking forward to seeing y'all again.

Yay! Thank you so much!

Jesse,

Man, you just got here! I really enjoyed your backgrounders and I was hoping to see more of them from you. But you gotta do what you gotta do. I hope you stick around your Real Life stomping grounds and that we meet up again. If not, good luck wherever you go.

Awww, Alexa. We'll miss you! Good luck with the future!

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...Unlike the rest of Texas...

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Yeah... I do love living in Austin - I just wish it wasn't surrounded by Texas.

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I concur. Now if I could just get all the conservatives AND the liberals out of Austin.....

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But, Bill, who would that leave?!?

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Any backwater hole the company resides in (apparantly this one is in texas)

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This comment and another one further up the thread has pushed me to comment.

Austin is not a backwater hole, and it certainly isn't hicksville, as someone called it earlier. Sure, it's not a huge [censored] city like Boston, New York, or LA by any stretch, but it's a city of roughly 550-750K in population, and it's a damn fine place to reside. Unlike the rest of Texas, which is a pretty conservative place, Austin is a very laid back, liberal, and polygot place. It also has a HUGE number of tech firms here (Dell is here, for one thing), so it's not just farms and hayseeds.

Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest. Thank you for your time.

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Wasn't saying anything about austin. I don't know austin, never even been there.

What I was saying is that a possibility for a convention (as is obvious in this case) is wherever the company winds up being. Doesn't matter if it's in the middle of alaska, it's always a possibility.

Of course, that said, I'm not a big fan of the south, and from what I can tell, texas winds up in that genre for me. At least as far as the modal personality of the area goes, which is what i didn't care for (texas at least would be an educated part of the south I'm guessing, which is always a plus). So far every texan I've known has sworn up and down they're totally different from your average georgian, and yet neither the georgians or anyone else can tell them apart.

But that's my bias... I had to live in Georgia for a couple years and the beating my sanity took was almost too much to bear.

Zeus - god of backwater roads

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Nothing against you, Zeus; it's just that two comments were made in this thread about Austin being a backwater or such, and it got my hackles up. So I felt the need to educate. That's all.

Texas is pretty unique among the southern states for many reasons, so comparing it to any of the others isn't quite right. Visit Austin sometime and you'll see what I mean.

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Very, very cool. Wish I could've been there. And Cuppa looks badass (in a good way).

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Yes she does. Some of her pm's now scare the <bleep> out of me. She used to only scare the heck out of me, her threat level is upgraded.



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Maybe that was her evil plan all along, you know, have people meet her in person so she could project her menace more personally and have it reported back to the forum.

"I am CuppaJo! Fear me!"

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Any backwater hole the company resides in (apparantly this one is in texas)

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This comment and another one further up the thread has pushed me to comment.

Austin is not a backwater hole, and it certainly isn't hicksville, as someone called it earlier. Sure, it's not a huge [censored] city like Boston, New York, or LA by any stretch, but it's a city of roughly 550-750K in population, and it's a damn fine place to reside. Unlike the rest of Texas, which is a pretty conservative place, Austin is a very laid back, liberal, and polygot place. It also has a HUGE number of tech firms here (Dell is here, for one thing), so it's not just farms and hayseeds.

Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest. Thank you for your time.

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Crud, stood right next to Gilgamesh and didn't even realize it. Yea, it was groovy, and I hope there's another one. However, next time, I'll be planning a pre-party at a nearby bar for us old folks.

Was anyone else surprised at the age average in the crowd? I honestly expected to be one of the old guys there, but was way off. If anything, I was the average at 33.

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Hear, hear! I could have definitely gone for a Shiner.

As for your age question, I guess I really didn't think about it. However, most of the gamers I know these days in Real LIfe ARE old fogeys like me, so I guess I'm just used to seeing grey and wrinkles.

It was a lot of fun. I got to chat with Artic_Sun, Awry, and Alexa quite a bit, and talked for a few seconds to CuppaJo. I also met Rowr, Moggie, Masaokun, Bill Z Bubba, Plasma, and Balorn, and possibly others, but I'm an old man and forget sometimes.

Everyone was really nice, and the swag was pretty cool. I'm sorry I missed out on the Virtue picture and the CCG action, but it had been a long day and my feet were killing me.

Definitely count me in on the next one, and I hope to see y'all all there.

I just got back (and met Bill, actually, as well as Rowr). I got to say hi to all the devs, although I only spoke to CuppaJo for a few seconds...seems like she always had someone talking to her! It was fun, and I enjoyed myself quite a bit. Awry, Alexa, Arctic_Sun, and Cuppa were all really nice, and it was nice to put faces to names.

Thanks for the event, NCSoft, and I'll certainly come to future ones if they are Austin-based.

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Damn Longhorns...Go Texas Tech!!!

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I agree with this sentiment, except I'd say, "Gig 'Em, Aggies!"

Yep, I'll be there as well. Looking forward to it.

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Pos,

Will Elite Boss versions of AVs count towards earning badges like their full-fledged AV versions do?

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Yes (there is no way to do this any differently).

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Thanks for clearing that up, Pos; you're a righteous dev.

Pos,

Will Elite Boss versions of AVs count towards earning badges like their full-fledged AV versions do?

Nicely done, Artic_Sun. Dang, I actually felt a bit of sympathy for Frostfire...he was just trying to do the right thing. But his subsequent record pretty much means he's fair game.

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Are you positive these events were not Ambush related? Some reports sound like that could be the case, others I am not so certain about.

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This happened to me in beta with my Mastermind in Port Oakes. I apparently aggroed a purple Wolf Spider (who was just standing around) onto me on my way to the Aribiter. I outran the Spider, and figured that's that.

I attack some other guys about a mile away from the Wolf Spider, die, go to the hospital, talk to the Arbiter, and then head over to the Quartermaster (this has been about 2 minutes).

While I'm standing at the Quartermaster, a purple Wolf Spider runs up and starts shooting me! I run all over the area trying to shake him off, but no dice. I summon my boys to give me time to get away, but they die really quick and he finally nails me. He starts running off, and everyone else dogpiles him and kills him.

Anyway, I thought it was just a really weird, rare bug, but I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.

Laughing Man, I just wanted to say thanks for writing this WONDERFUL guide. I've been playing a Emp/Psi on and off for a while, and just recently started playing her regularly, so any guidance is wonderful.

I'm disappointed to hear that Regeneration Aura does not live up to the numbers behind it (500% boost to regen rate, IIRC). I was looking foward to getting it at 26. Oh, well, maybe I'll pick up Psychic Scream earlier in my build, then.

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Clarification - Monsters in TF's do not count towards the badges for those monsters (Babbage for ex). It has been this way for some time.

Also - after much pushing and shoving - we were told that there will NOT be data mining for TF badges. So if you did a TF before I5 - when I5 goes live you will not get a badge for it auto-magically.

I know - it stinks - I'm sorry about that.

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First off, thanks for the info, Cuppa...you always rock. I don't believe in blaming the messenger.

Second...interesting. I did the Synapse TF two weeks ago and got the badge for Babbage.

As for not getting badges for the other TFs...darn. Not sure why this isn't being done, but there's no way in heck I'm going to do the Moonfire TF again for just the new badge for it in I5...guess I'll do without it.

Very cool! I'll check it out when I log back into the game. Thanks!

And, yes, those toggle heavy players DO make it hard to keep track of the status effects that have been laid on them. I feel your pain. But we knew it was a difficult job when we took it.

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Entry 78

****Mini-Fanboy Lovefest Alert***
One really cool thing, makes me wonder how deeply the Developers read the boards. I didn't even read about this change in the Updates, but maybe I missed it. When you're on a team, if you want to you can press an arrow that displays all of the status effects active on each team member. When I play my healer, those are handy to help me figure out who gets Fortitude or Adrenalin Boost next. As a left-hander, I posted a request that they change the coding so you could make the status effects read to the left of the team member names, since it was only showing to the right. I have my team menu on the right -hand side of the screen, and I had to drag it more to the center to see my status effects. Stupid Scrappers have 20 other status effects on all the time anyway, mutter mumble grumble, gripe... Anyway, when I posed the question, a reply from a board member said it wasn't likely to change, but lo and behold, I can now switch which side the status effects display! A small quality of life change to the game, but it will come in real handy for me. As irritating as power changes can be some times, it's little things like this that show you the people creating this game pay attention to little details, and really try to give you a good experience. I have no first-hand frame of reference to compare with developers of other games, but this little change makes me think the ones we have here are a cut above the average game developer in caring about the player experience. I'm gonna claim credit for suggesting that change, whether I was really the impetus or not! Heh.
*End Mini-Fanboy Lovefest *

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A question, if I may: How do you get the status effects to appear on the left side of the window? I have several Defenders and would love to be able to do this effect as well.

Love the journal, tpull. I've been reader from day one. Keep up the good work.

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This time, hoping the math holds (I double checked my I5 values), my S/L resistance is up to 95.2% (capped to 90), energy/elements is 33%, and toxic holds on at 10%. Gods, I'm going to have zombie vomit now.

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Not to mention that Devoured spit is Toxic too, I believe; thank God there's only a few of them in most DE missions instead of the hordes of Zombies you see in the lower levels.

Good luck, Hero, and remember that Star, Styg, and I are going to try our best to help you make it to 50!

Thanks for the guide! I've been playing an Ice/SS Tanker on and off for a while, and I've been hoping for more guidance on the powers and such. This helps a lot.

Question: Statesman posted this piece of information today. Given that Wet Ice only gets to 3% defense (which just seems so wrong), I guessing we should slot it for just 1 End Reduction now...unless I'm missing something?

*Edited because I hadn't had my morning coffee yet and realized how redundant parts of my post were.*