Steele_Magnolia

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... If we've been having issues with getting NC mail, what then? I have to wonder, because the only NC emails I've been getting are my bug reports and petitions in the live game. Nothing whatsoever other than those.

Gosh this year has gone by so fast. This is just... so cool.

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Likewise. I haven't changed my email address since I started playing but it has been over a year since I last got any game email other than bug and petition report replies. I used to get NC Soft emails.

1. What is your favorite word? daffodil

2. What is your least favorite word? *censored*

3. What turns you on? alcohol

4. What turns you off? grumpiness

5. What sound or noise do you love? rain

6. What sound or noise do you hate? people chewing with their mouth open

7. What is your favorite curse word? none

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? medicine

9. What profession would you not like to participate in? teaching

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Yes, animals are welcome in heaven too. Your cats and dogs are all waiting for you, just like all the people you love.

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Now you know why I think this idea is perhaps the most intelligent thing they could have done - buff the ability for farming so it would be discouraged? Who knew?

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Remove the necessity to have fillers and padders and thus PLing lowbies, many of whom are new to the game.

Farming isn't the real evil, PLing AE newbies is.

That's my take on this. I'm glad to see the change.

Hooray and thank you for the new difficulty settings! I expect to see broadcast spam shrink drastically now. I am going to put my favorite tank through the wringer and see how good she really is. Invinicible wasn't hard enough (except for AVs).

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So the time investiture really isn't much of an argument if you ask me. So A and C in Billz' list are pointless. Leaving only B: The Antisocial player.

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Also D: The player who wants the full story, and to take it at his/her own pace.

Putting together a team of 8 people to do a TF may not be that difficult. Putting together a team of 8 people who don't want to speed run it is difficult.

I like TFs - there's a lot of good stuff in them - interesting stories, unique maps, encounters and enemies. I'm just tired of going to the Wiki following a TF to find out what I just did.

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Putting together a teamof eight that wants to roleplay it on a server other than Virtue....

I and a friend have 50s on Liberty(who have been 50 for quite awhile) that haven't done the LGTF yet because the LGTF is very important to character story. Finding a team that is willing to do the task force long form fighting through every map, not killing Infernia and Glacia, and who are RPers and willing to spend add in a couple extra hours for RP? It is not going to happen.

Doing the TF otherwise would be a killjoy for these characters.

It's an extreme example, but it is one case where duoing a TF that is a teamsize of 8 would be useful. We could load up on warheads, shivans, HVAS, warwolves, wedding rings, etc.

I can see why the developers would not want to do this. I believe the TF merit farming by certain builds(*cough* Ill/rad soloists) and PLing characters with those builds specificially to do so would occur. It would also have an effect on teaming. Why build a team for a TF if you and a few friends could solo it? That's desirable from my POV, not necessarily from the developers'.

I agree that forced teaming is bad for a game. It's why I play COH where I can solo just about everything instead of other games where I can solo just about nothing.

I remember you.

Welcome back! I hope you enjoy the game and stay. Please join us for a Rikti Mothership Raid.

How about just Liberty's Channel.

My $.02

(Currently on vacation out of state.)

I think level gating AE and removing the auto-SK is a mistake and this is why:

Auto-SK is a big feature of MA. The ability to have mixed level teams facilitates teaming in a way that PUGing and TFing never can. "Bring whatever you like!"

Level-gating won't stop AE farming and PLing. Established players already have the level required characters. Determined new players will very quickly get them. The time needed to code this is wasted before it is even begun and it will only frustrate and bewilder players who see a double standard.

Slash and burn shouldn't be the first step. Don't nuke from orbit to be sure, you might kill your playerbase's interest in MA entirely. Take a measured approach. Get the AE buildings out of the lowbie zones first; this hurts no one and gets them out of the impact on new players and stops the constant PL/farm bombardment the minute they step out of the tutorial.

Wait and see the effect on the game before taking further steps. At least think in less drastic terms than "throw the baby out with the bathwater."

I see what you're saying but I really enjoy COH's differences from other MMOs. I like its lack of crafting. I don't feel a drive to sink (waste) gobs of currency and time on a pointless task to drive up skill points on another type of collectable like a badge counter. I can do that in LOTRO. In contrast, in LOTRO I don't worry about where to log off which is refreshing.

The auction house in this game is more advanced than in LOTRO. It's timer is 60 days rather than 2 for LOTRO (with a 14 day timer on your money delivered by game email, if you don't check it it's gone). There are no respecs there. Selling your gear and drops? Ha! A comparison - I bought a horse for 750 silver, it sells for 1.55 silver.

I enjoy inventions but it has been an adjustment and I still long for the days of simplicity. That was a big selling point for me with COH - getting away from the loot system. 10 enhancement slots for drops and a simplified drop system - so nice. I don't like the greed and 'screw your buddy in the auction house' mentality that came with inventions at all.

I can see why inventions appeal to a greater market share than the simplified drop system. Maybe market PvP does too. The human mind can be nasty.

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I agree, but if you've played the game before you should know how to run to the AE building in Cap or grab a teleporter there. It isn't hard.

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No? If you don't have a travel power, you have to go through all of Mercy to get to the Port Oakes ferry, then change to the Cap ferry, then get through half of Cap. That's not exactly what I'd call easy at level 1. Not everyone joins an SG immediately--maybe there's no one on at midnight Pacific Time to invite you, or maybe you just don't want to accept the first blind SG invite you get.

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Villain side already has fewer zones and a more limited selection of beginning story arcs than Hero side does. Also, the AE building in Mercy? Not that easy to get to. Unless you're a stalker, your only safe option is to swim halfway around the entire island and come in via the ferry door, and hope you don't get killed in the dash to the AE building and tp'ed back to the medical facility in Darwin's Landing. I think that's plenty challenging without making low-level alrs go to Cap--which means making the Mercy run plus getting to the Cap ferry and to the actual AE building.

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No, it's not hard at all. I've run the dash to the MA buildings in Mercy and Cap on a level 1 SoA and dominator respectively. I run to the tailor all the time at lowbie levels to fix my costume or change something. If you can't duck the mobs stay out of MA until you learn how. I think that's a pretty good "must be this tall to ride" guideline.

I too have done the Kalinda and Burke content more than a few times and am sick of snakes too. I would rather run mine and some friends' arcs, hit level 5 or 10, and then head to Port Oaks or Cap to get a flight pack or jump pack and start playing the rest of the game. (And MA too. For me SFMAs are like candy, the canon of the game is regular food).

A friend of mine plays EVE. He showed it to me. The game world graphics look incredible, but I can't get excited about a game where my character graphics are alittle snapshot, spreadsheets are crucia, and PvP means 'start over'.

I think there is something in that there was a window of opportunity in the beginning that COH did not exploit, and did not grow. Instead we got ED, developers stolen for other projects, a surviving Freem-15, NCSoft buying out Cryptic, and here we are.

Was it worth it so we could nerf enhancements so we could gut production and make room for Inventions waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay on down the road? I don't think so.

Moving the AE buildings out of the low level zones will not impede the ability to level from 1-50 within AE. It only will require a short run and then a train or ferry ride. That argument is null. If a new player picked up the Architect boxed edition and specifically wants that a "Where's the a AE building?" in broadcast will get him/her the answer. So will adding the information to the tutorials.

I referred a friend in LOTRO to COH today. I specifically warned her away from the AE PL teams in Atlas and Cap Au Diable. I told her to avoid AE until her trial was over and she had explored the game first. I want her to learn about the fun of the game not get sucked into the morass that is AE PL/farm that awaits to drag down the new and unsuspecting player.

I pity anyone who picks up the game and has no one to warn them. AE will totally ruin the experience. This is absolutely not how it should be.

Get the AE buildings out the lowbie zones if you care about the game.

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Note that during a "decent" raid you won't get like 20 or so merits, you will walk away with hundreds of these things to spend as you please, raids are a bunch of fun and well worht the time if yuo can manage to get the right people doing one.

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Around 250 for an average raid, more for one that goes well. To put that in perspective 250 Vanguard merits will get you an HVAS pet and 500 will get you the +10 invention salvage.

We're running 300-500 merits on our raids on Liberty. I can't remember the last time we had less than 300 merits and had one night were we had nearly 700. We really enjoy our MS raids on our server.

If double xp applies to AE the <exploit du jour> farming is going to be obscene. The screaming after the fact when the Dev Banhammer comes down later and accounts are locked and characters PL'd 1-50 are deleted will be heard from space.

If it doesn't apply to AE the question is going to be "Why the double standard?" And it's a fair question. Not all AE missions are farms. Not all AE teams are PL teams.

I wouldn't want to be in the Devs' shoes right now. They can't be very comfortable.

Yes. I and friends send emails with binds, macros, event information, MA arc #s, and out of game information like books and author names quite often. It's easy to misplace pen and paper notes, not a game email.

Just because you don't use the system doesn't mean others aren't clever enough to do so.

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We pay to play with other people, and lately if I want to do that, I have to resign to Cap and the AE.

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Join a server global channel if you haven't already. This will facilitate teaming outside of AE.

I play on Liberty which is a lower population server and finding teams isn't a problem. I also play on Virtue and it is not at all a problem there.

Dark/Psi Defender too

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Is the Bolero being removed?

Characters with it get to keep it, but we won't be able to make new costumes with it?

Can someone clarify, please?

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The option to use the bolero with wings or capes snuck in when the magic pack was released. That option was removed shortly afterwards. People who still have costumes with a bolero and wings or a cape can keep the costumes, but when they edit them they won't be able to use the invalid combination anymore.

The bolero isn't going anywhere, you can still use it, just not with wings or a cape, just like the trenchcoat it's based on.

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Thank you.

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Wow. Some of you people sound like you're jaded beyond enjoying the game anymore. Myself, I've only been playing since January, and I can't wait to see this. I get all excited when the sky turns red or green...

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Me too! Sky turning eerie and then crowds of players pumping up to take them down the min they arrive... I love it.

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My 5 year anniversary day will be in 7 days. I feel like this invasion is a party for me! I am not jaded, I love fighting Rikti.

The sky turns green.
Type /cc 4 and now I'm in my Rikti fighting armor.
It's time to defend Earth in good old Space Invaders style!

Is the Bolero being removed?

Characters with it get to keep it, but we won't be able to make new costumes with it?

Can someone clarify, please?

The ITF is my favorite TF in the game for a simple reason:

Miniobjectives. There are things that simply have to be done, X number of mobs that have to be defeated, bosses that have to be fought. You can't sit at the door and stealth your way past the entire damn thing, get the hostages killed, stealth/tp to the end and fight the AV... You actually have to fight.

I like to fight. Yes, the TF can be finished fast by a steamroller team, but there still has to be fighting. That's why I TF.

I like the Nictus cave. I don't like stealth or speeding it, I like to clear the entire thing. I would like, for once, to be on a team that clears every single map of this TF. I'm just funny that way.

I do agree that the idea of soldiers with swords being able to go toe to toe with level 50 heroes and villains is just ludicrous. The EB monsters at least make sense.

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One thing though: The villain side starter area stinks. The snakes are one of my least favorite groups in the game. I relish the idea of using AE to level past Kalinda/Burke (though Burke has some decent missions).


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I agree, but if you've played the game before you should know how to run to the AE building in Cap or grab a teleporter there. It isn't hard. Players who want to do this can do so. This isn't much of a sacrifice to get the AE buildings out of Mercy and Port Oakes so that new players to the game experience the real game before AE.

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AE buildings out of Atlas, Galaxy and King's Row, yesterday.

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This, as well as Mercy and Port Oakes (for equality). I believe the only reason the devs haven't done it is they don't want to admit they made a mistake putting them there in the first place.

New players need to experience content. Ten levels worth is enough to taste what the game has to offer and learn a bit about it.

This leaves plenty of AE buildings to choose from. The farmers can pick up and move elsewhere, it isn't a burden. Anyone whining about removing the buildings from lowbie zones, IMO, is a farmer who just doesn't want to have to move his toons and whining about having his access to lowbie padders removed.

The game is alive and well. In the last week I've:<ul type="square">[*]Run with a level 44 Indigo story arc mission team.[*]Duo'd level 36 Borea missions in RWZ[*]Been duoing a level 50 PI mission arc (can't remember which one) every night[*]Done an ITF[*]Co-led a MS Raid[*]Solo'd the MA Portal Bandits[*]Solo'd the MA Operation: Discredit[/list]
I also mod the Liberty LBx channel and am on VU2009. There are TFs, arc, scanner, non-farm MA, and badge teams going on practically non-stop, and Virtue has either a Hami or MS raid practically every night. If people can't find things to do they aren't looking.

Nooooo! I'm going to be out of town!

/em cries

I love Rikti raids and Rikti weeks and Rikti weekends. I'm disappointed I'm going to miss this.

I'll be out of town for two weeks until the 21st or thereabouts. I won't be scheduling one until I come back. Unless Vaxin or Valor (or someone else) schedules one, won't be until then.