Sophism

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Have you written to LevelUp about this? If not, I'd suggest it.

Just because NCsoft supplies the product, 3rd party resellers are under no obligation to sell them. It's like when a CD is released and store like Walmart won't sell them because they object to something about the product.

Yeah, write to levelup and make your voice heard to them as well.

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To answer this, I'll quote myself from a thread I made about this some time ago:

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I've exchanged several tickets with NCSoft's Customer Support, and they claimed there was nothing to be done due to the agreement, and when pressed for more, finally suggested I should contact Level Up! Games instead.

I did, and their only responses were a generic "Thank you for your input!" message, followed by (When pressed further with more tickets.) telling me that they had no jurisdiction over this matter, and that I should contact NCSoft Customer Support instead.

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I'm not in the mood for being ping-pong'd between both Customer Support Services again. Also, I'd like to add that their agreement could easily have been narrowed down to physical media. As it is, both digital stores fail to offer this product and apparently have no plans of doing so.

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So you are angry because you don't have a credit card and can't buy the pack from a regular store? Guess what, it's not available in a regular store for anyone, it's a digital product.

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I never said that. I have a credit card. A VISA international credit card. I bought CoH/CoV, Good vs. Evil, and the entire Guild Wars line with it. I also used it to pay for my monthly subscription fee for two years. (Until today.) I can't buy the Bonus Packs with that exact credit card. Or Paypal. Or any other form transaction.

They simply don't allow Brazilian customers to access these products via the NC Store. Logging into the account, before a payment method is even selectable, it tells me this product is not available to me.

No Brazilian brick and mortar store has the Bonus Packs for sale. Level Up! Games doesn't offer it online either.

That's some beautiful, beautiful content pack...

...that once again I can't buy through normal means, (Or proxy-tampering means, for that matter.) simply because I'm in Brazil.

It has become increasingly clear to me, despite subscribing to this game without interruption and going out of my way to buy all the extras, (Even when I was forced to jump through hoops to acquire them.) that my money is unfortunately, not as good as North American or European money in NC's eyes, even after almost two years of patronage without a hitch.

I hadn't been playing the game lately, but refused to let my subscription go, out of gratitude for all the good times CoH/CoV had offered me. In fact, I was eager to purchase the Cyborg Pack, just in case I decided to hop back in.

So on that note, my subscription is canceled. I'll take my money elsewhere, and will avoid any current or future projects taken under the wings of NC or their Brazilian retailer Level Up! Games. Unless of course, their stance towards South American customers changes.

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Poison Dart vs Swipe; I started with Dart for all the reasons you mentioned, a ranged attack for pulling and runners is always good, but as I got more of my melee powers I found that the recharge time was putting a gap in my chain that got frustrating so at 24 I went to swipe.

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They both have the exact same recharge time.

Oh hey... yet another bonus content pack that's out of reach. And since the code won't even work on non-American accounts, there goes any chance of jumping through hoops for it either.

This is starting to happen frequently, and it's getting old very fast. And no, making it available as a Veteran Reward at 60 months or so isn't exactly much better now, is it?

Can we please stop adding costume pieces that only a minority will ever see? The pies in the sky routine is not amusing.

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Everything would be wonderful if Latin America users were able to buy codes!

LevelUpGames doesn't sell bonus packs codes, just serial ones and cd-keys. PlayNC store does not allow us to buy anything CoH related (and Tabula Rasa/Guild Wars/etc). So, make LevelUpGames sell these special codes, like, now? They don't even sell GvE codes, which is lame. (aka: buy GvE edition of the game and get no bonus pack code, now isn't it nice?)

I already sent a ticket (to PlayNC) about that, also dealing with Character Transfer and Rename (incredible tools also unavailable to us). Now, the same happens with this new pack. It's frustrating.

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Edit: just read the post before mine now, and... that sucks, really.

I can share my own experience about it since I'm a Latin America user:

LevelUpGames (LUG from now on) "distributes" the game in Latin America, apparently. So, NCSOFT blocked users from this region to buy from their site to "enforce" them to buy directly from LUG. PlayNC site doesn't allow credit cards to be added to the account as well.

The thing is, that blocks quite a list of features:

- Character Transfer and Rename are dependable on credit cards added intto the PlayNC account. Since these accounts can not have credit cards, they can't use these two features.
- CoX store has been closed down to these users and they can't buy any serial code from the store, *but* LUG does not sell these codes other than GTCs and CD-Keys.

IMO, no matter the region I live in, I should have equal access to a game I pay to play.

Suggestions?

- Make LUG sell all bonus packs codes.
- Make LUG sells Character Rename / Transfer "tickets." Unfortunately, that would require the features to change their behavior a bit and work based on these "tickets" as well as from credit cards added into PlayNC account. So, when checking if the user has a credit card added, it should add an extra step (in case the first one failed).

Sorry if I'm digressing here. But I can't seem to find a proper place to post this. PlayNC support, as quoted in the above message, doesn't seem to want to deal with it.

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I'm pressing this until I'm allowed to purchase this product. A product like you said, unavailable from the so-called "local retailer." Also, I created my PlayNC and City of Heroes account before this sales agreement came to be in the first place. Perhaps that's why I was able to purchase the Good vs. Evil Extras pack.

I refuse to have this limitation imposed on me. LevelUpGames doesn't handle game development, server maintenance or customer support. Their distribution is limited and frankly, crippled. It's not even an alternative in this case, seeing as they simply don't offer the item in question.

I'm not a happy customer at the moment.

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Ah, I've changed my mind. I'd like this to become free content after all; but not for the reasons most people here are debating about, oh no.

Here are the quotes from the relevant parts of a long trail of messages I've been trading with NCSoft's Customer Support for all of yesterday and finished just this morning:

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The NCstore displays the following message when I try to click a link to the Wedding Pack item recently released for City of Heroes:

"Unfortunately, this item is not available for sale to your region from the PlayNC Store. We suggest you inquire with a local retailer to make your purchase."

Is that working as intended or was it an oversight? I'm interested in purchasing it online, like I did for City of Heroes, City of Villains, Good vs. Evil Pack and the Guild Wars Platinum Edition. I never had any problems buying from the Store until now.

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, this item cannot be purchased from the PlayNC Store in your region. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Why is this item unavailable for online purchase in my region? I'm very much interested in knowing, seeing as it appears to be an entirely arbitrary limitation. Considering it'd be paid for with a verified international credit card, what is the reasoning for such?

Thank you for contacting the PlayNC Billing Support Team! Unfortunately, service restrictions prevent us from offering the Wedding Pack to certain regions. We cannot discuss the details of such limitations; we can only confirm that you will be unable to purchase this product. We do sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that may result from this issue.

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So you see, I want to purchase the Wedding Pack; I really do. But NCSoft, for reasons unknown, doesn't want my money.

If that's the case, then I hope they won't mind granting me access to the pieces for free, seeing how they're so fussy about me paying for it.

I'm a returning customer being denied access to a product they flaunt on their game client's updater, on the game's webpage and forums; with no apparent workaround available through their Customer Support. I'm not amused.

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Wow that is a bust. You should either PM Lighthouse or Ex about this... This is an online in game stuff, so why limit it to certain places... lol...

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Oh I've PM'd Lighthouse already. Waiting for an answer.

Meanwhile, the guys at Customer Support basically told me: "Oh hey, we can't help you, sorry. But keep watching the game website, maybe we'll change it and post something about it... yeah right, as if."

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Eh, well, I don't hold it against the devs for not catering to OCD players.

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How about catering to people with trained eyes that can tell the difference between a texture that was bumpmapped and one that wasn't?

Ah, I've changed my mind. I'd like this to become free content after all; but not for the reasons most people here are debating about, oh no.

Here are the quotes from the relevant parts of a long trail of messages I've been trading with NCSoft's Customer Support for all of yesterday and finished just this morning:

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The NCstore displays the following message when I try to click a link to the Wedding Pack item recently released for City of Heroes:

"Unfortunately, this item is not available for sale to your region from the PlayNC Store. We suggest you inquire with a local retailer to make your purchase."

Is that working as intended or was it an oversight? I'm interested in purchasing it online, like I did for City of Heroes, City of Villains, Good vs. Evil Pack and the Guild Wars Platinum Edition. I never had any problems buying from the Store until now.

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, this item cannot be purchased from the PlayNC Store in your region. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Why is this item unavailable for online purchase in my region? I'm very much interested in knowing, seeing as it appears to be an entirely arbitrary limitation. Considering it'd be paid for with a verified international credit card, what is the reasoning for such?

Thank you for contacting the PlayNC Billing Support Team! Unfortunately, service restrictions prevent us from offering the Wedding Pack to certain regions. We cannot discuss the details of such limitations; we can only confirm that you will be unable to purchase this product. We do sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that may result from this issue.

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So you see, I want to purchase the Wedding Pack; I really do. But NCSoft, for reasons unknown, doesn't want my money.

If that's the case, then I hope they won't mind granting me access to the pieces for free, seeing how they're so fussy about me paying for it.

I'm a returning customer being denied access to a product they flaunt on their game client's updater, on the game's webpage and forums; with no apparent workaround available through their Customer Support. I'm not amused.

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So if you subscribed to Newsweek, you'd be fine with them also charging you cover price for the magazine, right?

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Would you say that's what WoW does by charging for expansions and charging a subscription fee?

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I love the pack, and will purchase it as soon as my problem gets resolved with Support, but I must to comment on this quote.

It's a whole different animal in WoW's case, because you see, they update their game with "free" new content almost as much as CoX. And yet, they have an expansion out once a year or so, adding the equivalent of several Issues worth of tweaks, zones, new abilities, quests, etc. It'd be more fitting to compare it to City of Villains instead of the Wedding Pack.

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I'll tell you what; this friday's drawing for MEga Millions is up to ~$180,000,000. If I win, I'll take home, after taxes and cash-option penalty, about sixty million.

So, if I win ... I'll pay NC^2 three million dollars, cash money on the barrelhead, to simply add the Wedding Pack to every single non-Trial account, active or not.

Would that satisfy your sense of entitlement ...?


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Hey, pay that amount for some development time into brand new costumes for everyone, maybe a powerset or two. Better investment in the long run for your hypothetically earned millions.

Posting what I did in another thread... more likely to get a response here anyway.

So, uh...

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Unfortunately, this item is not available for sale to your region from the PlayNC Store. We suggest you inquire with a local retailer to make your purchase.

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That was bizarre. I didn't have any problems purchasing CoH, CoV, GvE or Guild Wars. Also, local retailer? For a costume pack?

Hopefully it'll be fixed soon. I'm eager to get those pieces, even though they're a tad overpriced. More options for my character creator? Yes please.

So, uh...

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Unfortunately, this item is not available for sale to your region from the PlayNC Store. We suggest you inquire with a local retailer to make your purchase.

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That was bizarre. I didn't have any problems purchasing CoH, CoV, GvE or Guild Wars. Also, local retailer? For a costume pack?

Hopefully it'll be fixed soon. I'm eager to get those pieces, even though they're a tad overpriced. More options for my character creator? Yes please.

Hello! First of all, I'd like to thank you for taking your time to write this excellent guide. It has helped me a great deal in improving my gameplay as a mastermind.

Alright, now... I'm a roleplayer and wanting to perhaps add some spice to my Necromancy/Dark Miasma villainess, decided to add some personality to her minions, via both the occasional dialogues through use of /petsay_name, but also some random quips from the henchmen in question.

I've written a set of hundreds (yep, hundreds) of files, to be loaded dynamically as choices are made, cycling through a number of scripted or blank responses to commands.

Much to my dismay, they not only aren't working, but have locked up my game twice. The first time, I was able to unfreeze it just long enough for a gargantuan error list (several dozen lines of error in my chat box) to catch an initial display of the generic sounding: "No Match for Henchman" or something along those lines.

As far as I can tell, all my /petcom_pow and /petsay_name commands are matching my henchmen, but I'll post example pieces from my bind folders to perhaps help diagnose the problem.

Necromancy (01).txt
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numpad0 bind_load_file "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\All (01).txt"
numpad1 bind_load_file "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Horde (01).txt"
numpad2 bind_load_file "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Knights (01).txt"
numpad3 bind_load_file "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Lich (01).txt"
lctrl+numpad1 powexec_name Zombie Horde
lalt+numpad1 powexec_name Zombie Horde
lctrl+numpad2 powexec_name Grave Knight
lalt+numpad2 powexec_name Grave Knight
lctrl+numpad3 powexec_name Lich
lalt+numpad3 powexec_name Lich


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Y'rael.txt is the first file loaded, which is an exact copy of Necromancy (01).txt, its name altered for easier access. From then on, it points to the henchmen's.

All (01).txt
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numpad4 petcom_all Aggressive$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\All (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
numpad5 petcom_all Defensive$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\All (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
numpad6 petcom_all Passive$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\All (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
numpad7 petcom_all Attack$$petsay_name Al'astor Muuust... kill... for the mis... tress...$$petsay_name Dev'iren For Y'rael! For our hatred... for the living.$$petsay_name Luhl'rax Forfeit and we shall vanquish you almost mercifully.$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\All (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
numpad8 petcom_all Follow$$petsay_name Al'astor Aaat... your seeervice... mistress...$$petsay_name Dev'iren We march onwards... we follow your lead.$$petsay_name Luln'rax Very well, mistress Y'rael. I shall follow you.$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\All (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
numpad9 petcom_all Goto
lctrl+backspace petcom_all Dismiss$$local *raises a hand, palm facing upwards and blows out a gentle breath, as if to scatter invisible ashes*$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\All (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
lalt+backspace petcom_all Dismiss$$local *raises a hand, palm facing upwards and blows out a gentle breath, as if to scatter invisible ashes*$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\All (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"


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The above one focus on all of them at once. Following is the Zombie Horde's, which is the last one I'll list. (after all, it's pointless to have every single one of them up) As you can see, it'll cycle through several iterations so as to create some diversity in their quips, as well as inserting a few buffer lines to avoid annoying myself and my teammates.

Horde (01).txt
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numpad4 petcom_pow Zombie Aggressive$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Horde (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
numpad5 petcom_pow Zombie Defensive$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Horde (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
numpad6 petcom_pow Zombie Passive$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Horde (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
numpad7 petcom_pow Zombie Attack$$petsay_name Al'astor Muuust... kill... for the mis... tress...$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Horde (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
numpad8 petcom_pow Zombie Follow$$petsay_name Al'astor Aaat... your seeervice... mistress...$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Horde (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
numpad9 petcom_pow Zombie Goto
lctrl+backspace petcom_pow Zombie Dismiss$$local *raises a hand, palm facing upwards and blows out invisible ashes towards the Zombie Horde*$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Horde (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"
lalt+backspace petcom_pow Zombie Dismiss$$local *raises a hand, palm facing upwards and blows out invisible ashes towards the Zombie Horde*$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Horde (02).txt"$$bindloadfile "F:\City of Heroes\binds\Y'rael\Necromancy (02).txt"


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As it is, I had to strip down to only the five basic files, with no henchman talking at all, for it to work. Needless to say, after all the work, (literally hundreds of files) I'd rather not give up on this just yet... as such, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks beforehand!