Soul Train

Didn't we learn anything from the Winter Lords?

"I cannot believe, of all the people Countess Crey tried to copy... she chose Scorpion over ME."

When choosing an alternate RP server, you probably want to switch coasts as well. That way if you run afoul of network issues to your primary RP server, your alternate is not as likely to be affected.

That said, I have had very good RP experiences on:

Triumph
Guardian
Liberty
Pinnacle

There's "Map Zone" music where you get a soundtrack for specific portions of a map (usually the door, but some sewer maps have it in several places.) The Carnie outdoor maps have calliope music around the tents.

Ultimate dream which will never happen cos it'd immediately break the 100K arc limit, not to mention invite all sorts of copyright abuse? Allow arc writers to upload their own music along with the arc and attach it.

But being able to tap into the existing soundtrack - good idea.

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Mod08 seems to be closing down a lot of farm related threads in this forum, even though they are directly on topic for discussion about Misson Architect and it's usage, asking in the last post of each one that he lock that we "limit conversations on farming to one of the existing topics."

Does anyone have any idea which thread in the "Mission Architect: Resources, Discussion, & Questions" forum he is talking about, or should we just be guessing and/or creating new threads in the absence of a clue about this?

Or is there no existing topic and this is a way to curtail discussion without looking like that?

Just trying to figure out what is the proper way to continue to discuss these important matters in this appropriate forum.

Thanks.

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Here's an idea, send Mod08 a PM and ask him.

Hall of Fame needs to be a permanent setting.

Once something gets there, is should stay put unless you repub the arc.

Otherwise, people will grief you right back out, as has been demonstrated.

The folks on Test didn't want to grief anyone, they wanted to see what the badges were, and so on and so forth. I think the numbers were different as well. There may have BEEN folks on Test who knew this... but preferred to not let it get out, so that once the code was Live it'd take a lot of effort and time to get it changed, and therefore they'd have months to mess with people.

I'd love for the Devs to datamine the votes that knock something out of HoF, see how many are the same people doing the same thing to other arcs.

And then ban a few folks from the AE (or the game) for at least a few months, if not permanently. There's no other way to deal with griefers, really.

Psygon (EU servers) rendering of Soul Train as a "City of Cute" chibi.

http://www.icon-forever.co.uk/images/soul-train.jpg

Resize as needed... but try not to make me look too skinny.


and...

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I'll submit Desmodas vs Black Swan by Candra .

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... that is SO awesome. I love Candra's work.

it's in their movement powers. None, Fly, or Reflections Effects... which means you do have to make a custom mob.

I'd have to make a failable last mission and test it.

<<< Has been rendered.... CUTE!

... I wonder if they'll card me in the D, now....

Careful, he'll sticky it, comment in it, and then lock it.

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You guys honestly care about the noobs that play this game? If they were willing to learn to play the game in the first place, they wouldn't be involving themselves in farming from the get go.


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Yes we do. New players = money for the game and more people to play the game with. We don't want to run them off, or give them a false sense of the game mechanics, lest they get disgusted and go elsewhere. CoH != WoW or other games, where apparently it's all the rage to deprecate the new players.

And they're new, how would they know? Imagine the first day you picked the game up, would YOU have known?

Yanno what? this is beyond disgusting. I'm not talking about the farming itself. I'm talking about the crusades on the forums that are steamrolling valid posts.

OK check it.

The devs have only culled the enemy mob lists TEMPORARILY. Posi stated that the missing mobs/objects would be back once the dev team had time to recode AE-only versions of them. In the meantime, they're stepping on exploits.

And I think we're all in agreement that getting rid of exploits is in everyone's best interest, nu?

As for the "I'm not messing with your game, don't mess with mine" and "I pay my $15 per month too, sometimes more." arguments... we ALL pay, some of us for multiple accounts (yes RP'ers dual-box too). We also have our pet peeves about what we're willing to put up with while we play. However, AE has jammed all of us into one or two zones, where we must interact whether we like to or not.

We're also seeing a lot of cross-server conflict, whereas before, that wasn't really a problem.

Just so no one gets the idea that they are NOT at fault here, everyone's contributed to all of this.

Farm arcs crowding story arcs in the ratings: Really, we don't NEED a hundred versions of the same map and the same mobs... but they're there. Everyone gets three arcs per account, so if that's what people want to write... oh well. It WOULD be nice to have better search tools, yes.

LFT spam scrolling the RP chat: Make new tab, put broadcast in that tab.

Market prices getting out of whack: run a few arcs, exchange for salvage, sell it.

... what, me? I'll be reporting the exploit farms I find. The others I'll leave alone. Even if I don't like them.

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This is a commission piece I ordered from John Becaro, for my character Dolphin.

It was his $7 sketching spree that raised money for him to attend a con.

If this isn't appropriate for a submission since I wasn't the one that drew it, please excuse.

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John Becaro's work has appeared in the City Scoop quite a few times, and he's more than willing to have it featured. However, to be sure, always ask the artist for permission to have their work featured (the comment thread on the original artwork is a good place), and that way you can refer the City Scoop staff to both the artwork and to the permission request in one step.

*looks grumpy*

First off, I'm really amazed at how much material is on the Virtueverse Wiki. You're all so prolific, it's scary sometimes. I think this is the precursor to the MA, or the 'backstory' version of it. Fun stuff.

However, occasionally someone decides to just wander out of their own corner and spraypaint someone else's work, sometimes as revenge, other times just for the 'lulz'.

And when it happens, they discover on their return that Virtueverse no longer likes them, and tells them to go away. Why?

Because we all take a really dim view of page vandals.

It doesn't matter who the target is, or what kind of IC or OOC opinions you have. Blitzing someone else's page is a no-no. Swapping out their images for your own versions is a no-no. Redirecting their page (or even a similar name) to a prank page... yes, sir, it's definitely on The List Of Things We Call Vandalism.

We don't hold a hearing to get everyone's side in the matter, we don't warn, we don't shake our fingers and say "don't do that again". We simply ban your account... and if we find you using a new account, we ban it as well, over and over ad nauseum. Vandals are simply Not Welcome, no matter how 'cool' they might be in the Virtue scene.

If you have a disagreement with someone else's material, TALK to them about it. Ask them to not mention your characters if you can't settle on an equitable compromise. In return, it's best to just edit any mention of their characters off your pages.

Otherwise, the sysops will get involved... and unlike King Solomon, we actually WILL cut the baby in half. You don't want us deciding what goes into your pages, because it's not our job, and we get grumpy when we're asked to play arbiter.

That said, if anyone finds their pages vandalized, drop any of the sysops a PM either here or on the Virtueverse forums (not the Wiki itself, as it's not private). We can find the perp and lock them out, and if necessary, lock your page so that no one can make changes (which means you have to bug us for an unlock when you want to edit again... this is not something I mind doing at all, BTW.)

http://virtueverse.com/index.php/Unoffic...Verse_Etiquette

http://virtueverse.com/index.php/Unoffic...tueVerse_Is_Not

http://virtueverse.com/index.php/Uno...e:Terms_of_Use

http://virtueverse.com/index.php/Uno...erse:Vandalism

put 'entry point configurable on jail/prison maps' in the Suggestions forum.

It's actually a really fun idea, and the Dev mission designers might like it as well.

The only obstacle to this seems to be the fact that you can't re-read a local file on a published arc without unpublishing it; you must edit in situ.

Otherwise, you could publish this month's episode, then compose next month's and test it locally. Then, when the time came, rename the new episode to use the same filename as the published one, and re-upload it. But, alas... there's that "can't re-read local files" hurdle. Cut and Paste field by field is your only option.

Now... if you were willing to lose the ratings? It'd be easy-peasy. Just use the same contact and the same 'general' title in every arc, unpub and repub as needed.

When everyone in the zone/raid instance/server instance complains of the exact same symptoms with different client hardware, the problem is most likely NOT on the clients.

Granted, there will be some variation, but when the extreme issues move from the ends of the bell curve to smack in the middle, then "upgrade your computer" ceases to be a viable option. At that point it's simply server and network congestion, and no amout of money thrown at Alienware, Newegg, or <insert high-end computer vendor here> will help, much. Instead the people running the servers need to call THEIR vendors and say, "OK, we need to add X, Y, and Z, because we've so much going on we're dropping traffic to and from the clients."

Or, alternatively, balance things out, so that a large crowd engaged in one activity don't add to the lag and server load of another crowd doing another activity in the same instance. My idea was to make the AE complex similar to Ouroboros or Pocket D, its OWN ZONE, and that clicking on the building entrance would transport you there.

We would lose out on the 'cool view'... but I'd trade that for lag any day. Shoot, set the markets up this way too. That'll limit market lag to only those people at the market (if the zone is big enough you can set it up as several vendors spread out in a large area instead of just one), and the city zones won't hiccup at all. It also becomes easier to instance, so as you get more crowds, you start making Market 2, AE 2, etc etc.

Wow, Kai, that's awesome.

And yes, a Pitr Dubovich, Evil Genius in Training, always said...

"God, root, what is difference?"

Ohhhh, that last one is so amazingly beautiful, I nearly cried when I saw it. Grass Angels, indeed...

Yes, you could edit the file.

No, there would be little point.

However... you can... BACK UP the file. Then when your souvies go POOF! ... restore it.

I think what we have here is closer to the game Magic: the Gathering

Wherein during the course of the game, players found ways to make the rules work FOR them instead of against them. Guaranteeing tourney wins and so forth. Which mean that the game publisher revised (nerfed) the rules on subsequent releases, as well as making cards with the old rules ineligible for tournament play.

And, still, people got creative with card combos that would 'lock' a win using the later sets.

It became a battle of players versus WotC - or older players against newer players - and at some point, people decided, to hell with these tourney rules, I'mma play some Magic with my friends, and if we throw in a few of those joke cards, all the better.

I do think that the MA system is the BEST thing to come along since, oh, CoV.

But, there is that concern that all the new players, from Steam, from the Mac pack, from wherever, are going to really get a skewed idea of what there is to DO in this game. Either they'll think that they level "too slow" in the non-MA content, or they'll shoot to 50 and then ask "is that all?"

And in both cases... they'll leave for another game.

What we as players want is for this game to remain viable, to grow, to expand, to remain a FUN pastime. It can't do that if it's not making money.

So I doubt we want to give new players the wrong expectations. What's the point in buying a month's worth of time if you level to 50 in two days? Why have all these zones with no one in them? Why do these TF's not allow solo play? It's a real hassle getting SIX players together out here...

We as veterans know how all this works.

But if you PL someone in AE in a couple of afternoons, they never leave the starting zone... and then they get to SKIP allllll that outleveled content, no contacts, and show up in PI or Grandville going "okay... is this it?"

There's a spreadsheet / text template that you can use to design arcs.

I believe, as long as the text doesn't violate any of the censor filters, you don't even have to edit it before publishing as long as you filled everything out correctly.

Actually, since this game takes place "in the present" and theoretically COULD crossover with a lot of modern life, you can be 'immersed' and still discuss out of game stuff.

So I'd not think current events discussions to be immersion-breaking - your character is paying attention to the news.

It's when the fourth wall is broken that immersion breaks, nay, shatters. Especially if it's repetitive.

Thus my request to stop SPAMMING.

Requesting a team once isn't spamming.

Macro'ing the request and hammering the key over and over and over is. I'm sure you've been irritated by someone's "RP" macros before... every attack had a corresponding "shout" or "emote" or whatnot. Probably told them to [censored] after the first couple of minutes (I would have!). The spam is the same thing for me and a lot of other people.

I can understand the drudgery of leveling up lots of different characters. Shoot, some of mine barely make it out of the teens, mainly because they were concept characters, level pacts, or other "spur of the moment" things that depended on other people. My Superteam Fire/Rad Troller is stuck just shy of 40 because the team itself went poof. Without it, she's wiiiiiimpy... and begs for an alternate build. Others I fully intent to take to 50 because I like to play them a lot, they're good endgame builds, they MIGHT make decent PvP builds if I'd ever learn about any of that... et cetera.

It still doesn't mean I want to coach noobs through a Ship Raid, or worry about pick-up mechanics during an ITF. These things can swing on a dime, and require smart players, not fancy builds.

Let's see... I put a "Dr. Dibbley" into one of my arcs. He is reciting a list of things he needs to take with him if he's kidnapped, although I left out some items due to the teen rating. "... you never know!"

I based the NPC text of one of my bosses off of GTA:San Andreas, specifically Ryder.

One of my arcs makes loose references to Euripides "the Bacchae"....

... and another pays homage to a section of these very forums.

How eclectic is that?