SynapseOverload

As to your secret identity .... are you still an active member of the Justice Community under your other @Global? Just a hint, c'mon! I mean, if you're some noob who joined the game a few months ago, it'll be a Really Big Letdown™ -- like finding out about the Easter Bunny, Santa Clause, the Muppets, the moon landing, or the end of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.

Are you .. /em DramaticSquirrel ... @Quartermain?

More bugs (but some may have been fixed):

• For awhile, Heroes could go into PvP zones and meet up with friends who were playing Villainous Mind Control Dominators, get confused, go back to their zones with their Confused flag still set and stay confused until the duration wore off and attack players in the Hero zones. If a Mind Controller or Illusion Controller (with Deceive) was confused, they could continue the fun by trying to Confuse/Mass Confuse/Deceive enemy-conning Heroes. The fun could never stop ... well, until a patch which cleared all debuffs and mez flags on players who were zoning from PvP zones back to their side. Aww!
• (This was recently patched.) The Clockwork Paladins in Kings Row would rampage through the zone collecting Clockwork followers. When they reached the end-point in their rampage path (usually behind the Bank), they would sit on those small mounds (hills) and wait for someone (or something?) to engage them. Once engaged, they would start to spawn Summoned Clockwork. And wouldn't stop until one of two conditions was met: (1) it was defeated or (2) zone reset (which happens primarily only when the server reboots although GMs and Devs can reset a zone). When three (3) Paladins gather, that's a lot of Summoned Clockwork -- so much, in fact, the graphics engine can only render a specific number of objects in a view. I would often see a lot of them, but no Paladin(s). An additional behavior is that three (3) Paladins can fill the spawn table for the zone in about 20 minutes. You have a 'Defeat Lost' or 'Defeat Skulls' mission in KR? Good luck. (*SPOILER* In Issue 24, this event was changed so that only one Paladin is spawned and is a very localized event to around the Kings Row Bank area.)
• When Beta-testing AE, I wanted to see just what all we could do. For giggles, I created an AE mission where the player rescued a level 54(?) Ghost Widow Arch-Villain and went after a level 54 Lord Recluse Arch-Villain. I wanted to see who would win in such a fight. The Lord Recluse AI has HP trigger points where it summons Bane Spider Executioners to his side -- being an Incarnate Mastermind and leader of Arachnos and all that -- which only added Dark Regeneration fodder for Ghost Widow's PBAoE Self-Heal. It took her awhile, but she finally held Lord Recluse with her Soul Storm and then took him out. As an addendum, Lord Recluse kicked Captain Mako, Black Scorpion and Scirocco in the junk. Hard. (This may still be possible. I haven't tried it since that test on Beta.)
• Arcanaville posted about the posting pictures into Global Chat. There was also the bug where you could post hyperlinks to web sites. One Meat**** or Goats*** link and I think the error was clearly visible and needed to be fixed NOW ... and it was in the next hotfix.

Tee-hee. I remember the Arachnos Widow Indomitable Will bug, too. I remember watching a Widow on Beta repeatedly owning a team of 8 in Recluse's Victory. (This was before the big PvP revamp of Diminishing Returns.)

Let's see, bugs (some of these are bugs or questions that I'll probably pose to Positron if he does a Q&A about the game):

• These two may be linked but unsure:
  • A friend in the CoV Beta told me that a bug during one patch would sometimes send Villains to the other side AS Villains. Players would show up in The Hollows or Atlas Park when they were attempting to zone from Mercy Island to Port Oakes. However, since they were flagged as Villains, Police Drones would 1-shot them back to the Hospital. I don't remember if Villains "caught" in Atlas Park were sent to the Atlas Park Hospital or back to the last known Villain zone that had a hospital. My friend zoned into The Hollows and when he was "zapped," he went back to the zone that was last known to have a Hospital. For you new players, The Hollows relatively recently got its trainer and Hospital.
  • I didn't experience this myself, but long before Going Rogue and switching sides, there was a bug where a player creating a Villain would pop up in Atlas Park. The character would be a Hero Mastermind (or Corr or Brute or Stalker). It could team and run missions as any normal Heroic archetype. This may have been the genesis for Going Rogue.
• Sometimes followers lose track or sight of the player with a PBAoE Stealth toggled on but with the Stealth Suppression (?) applied. "Hey, PlayerName! Where'd you go? Oh, heavens!"
  
• Sometimes followers lose track or sight of the player with NO stealth. I go around a corner and lost 'em. Wait. I can't believe that it can't follow that Spandex-wearing weirdo out of the sewers. Was I escorting them to the optometrist?
  
• Sometimes Newspaper/Radio missions' boss names would change from their original name to BOSS_NAME of the VillainGroup. This happened sometimes after patches.
  
• Sometimes Newspaper/Radio missions groups had major changes. Example: I logged into a level 8 or 9 Villain character after a long time and it still had a Newspaper mission from a long time ago. When I stepped into the mission, I had to defeat BOSS_NAME, but the enemies were no longer normal mobs from the Rogue Isles in the level range of me, but level 50+ Storm Elementals (Lanaruu the Mad's storm creatures).
  
• Sometimes mission objectives would be inaccessible locations -- like in the walls. Need to click that last bomb in this timed mission? Okay, well, wait ... it's in the stairs here. As badge missions, timed missions and missions part of TF/SF/Trial/Flashback are excluded from the auto-complete feature, I just let the timer run out. Oh, well.
  
• Anyone remember when the Rikti Invasion Zone Event stuff was being tested? Do you remember how the Armored Suits (Elite Bosses) kept spawning and spawning and spawning and spawning? I distinctly remember going to the hospital in Talos Island after being defeated and walking out to about 30 in the parking lot of the hospital. More kept beaming in. I remember Ghost Widow (Developer) was there, flagged herself untouchable and started to take out the ones the Police Drones couldn't get to. It seemed to spawn 2 Armored Suits for every player in the area.
  
• While testing the Rikti Mothership Raid, I remember the zone player cap being normal (250-ish?) and the zone so extremely laggy that it felt like a Classic Hamidon Raid. Your client's timers for powers were showing they had recharged, but the server's timer would reply "Nope, gotta wait." I believe the zone's player cap (for RWZ) was lowered as a result of this.
  
• While testing the PvP zones, players would connect to the server, create a new character and that new character was placed in the PvP zone in their side's base inside the gate/door/chopper they were testing. Right near the entry point were special contacts: one would give the experience necessary to train from level 1 to the minimum for that PvP zone and the inf to buy enhancements; a trainer; and a contact that sold enhancements. I remember that during the testing of Recluse's Victory (RV), players could actually leave the PvP zone through the portal gate and go back to Atlas Park or Rogue Isles, do a few missions and earn enough extra cash to buy some more enhancements to further pimp out these test toons. I mentally filed that as a "bug," as I think it was the Developers' intentions that everyone was locked to that zone -- player creation, training, enhancing. I think I may filed a /bug report, but it was moot since it wasn't going to operate that way on Live.
  
• In the "Rescue Statesman" (Statesman's Pal) mission, Statesman is listed as a Level 54 Arch-Villain, not a Level 54 Hero. Why? I understand that from the point of view of the Praetorians, the Primes were an invading force and, therefore, considered "evil." (Matter of perspective, I suppose.) But, we were Primes saving a Prime. Why wasn't he a "Hero?" I think Positron (in the revamp "Positron's Pal") is a "Hero." (I'll have to double-check this and run the arc again very soon.)
  
• In the Mender Silos Task Force (Hero Side), in the last mission, Citadel was listed differently than the others. I can't remember the specific details, but it was something like everyone else was a "Hero" in their target/info window, and Citadel was listed as an Elite Boss. Did anyone check his Emotions Emulator to see if this had an impact? Question: Why weren't Valkyrie or Luminary in that mission?
  
• We all know that, at one time, players could get behind the zone border in Cimerora and explore the area that's used for the last mission -- an area I like to call Imperious' Castle. Anyhoo, I never understood why they didn't make it an accessible point. If you ever got behind there and looked around, there were mobs spawning in that area and patrolled it. There were even spawn points on the barracks towers (a/k/a "The Towers" for the ITF folks). Also, there were these crystal-like objects in the Courtyard (where the 5th Column and plaza with the Cimerorans spawn) that LOOKED like what later I saw as Crystals of Ice & Flame (from Ouro). What the heck were those? Were they ever used or just left over objects?
  
• Founders' Falls Safeguard/Mayhem. When coming out of the Police Station side mission, sometimes players would fall to the bottom of the world -- a flat, no surface space with nothing around. /stuck would reset the player to the point of just exiting the police station and falling again.
  
• Founders' Falls: What's with all of the pedestrians around the one building on the island in the middle of the zone? (I'm sure you know the one.) They keep going around and around and around. No other pedestrians anywhere else in the zone, just on that island.
  
• (I consider this a bug and I hope you see why...) The most sought-after Giant Monster in the game that can be spawned by player action is Caleb in Nerva. It spawns HIGH in the sky and it virtually impossible to detect unless you're in his direct flight path. I would have suggested a "Summoning Area" (like what is now for Adamastor) in which it would spawn. That way, more players could have gotten him after all of the work of causing him to spawn.
  
• I still have a newbie Hero (lvl 2 untrained) in Outbreak on a Live Server. Bug? or Working As Intended?
  
• (This is an obscure bug that had since been patched.) Masterminds could enter a lower-level mission with pets summoned inside at the right exemplared level but receive benefit of having buffs they would not normally have at the exemplared level. Example: Level 50 Mastermind teamed with a level 1. Level 50 MM is made the team leader. MM summons pets and buffs them. Level 50 then enters (without setting) the level 1's mission. Inside the mission, the MM's pets would spawn as level 1 with level 6 and level 32 buffs applied.

Added

• (I experienced this myself.) Sometimes mission beacons for side-specific missions would move after a patch. I had a character that had one of the Shadow Shard "repeatables" where you could 'harvest' the Kora Fruit. After one patch after the RWZ was introduced, that mission beacon was moved from Firebase Zulu to RWZ. I was teamed with a group of folks and a Hero clicked on that mission. We were having difficulties getting enough for a LGTF, so we decided we would see what that was. Everyone hopped in -- everyone including the Villains on our team. The Villains were still on the team, but any pets that Controllers/Dominators/Masterminds had out would start attacking the teammates. I cannot remember if players could attack each other or it was only the pets that were attacking the others of the other faction. I think I remember they still conned friendly, but you could execute attacks on them.

A couple of things now intrigue me.

• Ghost Widow (Developer) was, at one time, part of the QA crew (QA Lead?) and was seen on Training Room or Beta for several of the testing cycles.
• Very few people outside of Paragon Studios knew the person behind that Red Name's mask.
• Ghost Widow (Developer) has not been heard from in quite a while. In fact, I don't even recall there being an general announcement that Ghost Widow (with real name withheld) was leaving Paragon Studios.

Just a wild guess: Ghost Widow and TheNet are the same person?

(I started writing down on scratch pads and then started posting these to my Facebook, but the audience for those two media is rather limited. So, I'm posting here to hopefully get feedback and possibly start a thread of ideas that we, the players, would like to see added or fixed in the game.)

SynapseOverload's CoH Wishlist for 2011

• Rework the Hero Respec Last Mission:
  • put an infirmary bed in the mission instance (maybe at the door?)
  • decrease time between the ambushes in the reactor core.
• Praetoria:
  • add level 20-50 content with zones to match
  • Praetorian Signature Task Forces.
• Base Construction overhaul: I've seen some pretty amazing bases constructed with the tools the Devs have given the players, but when asked "How long did this (incredibly complex) room take you to make?" I usually get the reply "Hours and hours and hours ... about ten." Yeah, a nice rework of the tools to place objects.
  • Add features: Undo to undo the last action and Redo to copy the last action.
  • Add feature: Copy-and-Paste functionality (i.e., "copy this fire torch and paste and place, paste and place, paste and place")
  • Add feature: New (created) room inherits base colors and styles or inherits from room(s) connected to it.
  • Add feature: Increase maximum plot size.
  • Add feature: Increase base height OR allow multiple floors.
  • Add Base Item: "Market Interaction Device" (connects to Black Market or Wentworths).
  • Add Base Item: New Zone Teleporter to which 4 or 6 beacons can be attached.
• More unlockable weapons
• More unlockable costume pieces
• In-game achievement system to unlock (for character or account) costume toggles (These are the zero-endurance costumes; like the Halloween ones or the codes given out at Meet-&-Greets OR offer for sale on NCSoft's Store site.)
• Rework Shadow Shard Task Forces (fewer redundant missions, fewer "Defeat All"-type missions.) Why does an average Dr.Q TF take so long anyway?
• Independence Port and Nerva Archipelago Transit System Simply put, these zones are HUGE. Is there any way we could get Portal Corp technology to, instead of warp us to another dimension, warp us from the Train Station to north and south end of I.P.? How about Lord Recluse has made a deal with the Circle of Thorn. They have "loaned" Arachnos the use of a pair of their arcane portals to take Villains from/near the Ferry in Nerva to the the beaches of Thorn Isle and vice-versa.
• Power fix: Dark Armor (all versions): Reduce endurance cost by a scale of 10-12% (levels 1-12), 13-15% (levels 13-32) and 20-25% (levels 33+). Beautiful power set and it works well, but it's too endurance heavy.
• Power fix: Dual Pistols: increase damage a small percentage; seems underpowered for being a super-flashy John Woo-type power set.
• Power fix: Kinetic Melee: increase damage a small percentage. See above.
• Archetype ADDITION: "1-Click" Mastermind Setup (optional). NPC Masterminds can summon their pets buffed. How about adding the option for players playing Masterminds to summon their pets with all of the Primary Set's available buffs at their level and if they took those buffs. In exchange, the Mastermind's Endurance is deducted the amount for summoning the pets PLUS a short-lived buff of Self: -25% AttrEndurance (unresistable), -EndRecovery for 10 seconds (unresistable). So, in the middle of a fight with an Elite Boss, I can quickly resummon my pets (with their buffs) and have them fighting again A.S.A.P.
• New Powerset: Bo Staff (Melee). Available for Tankers, Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers. Your weaponry knowledge is impressive. Your ability to manipulate the bo staff you wield makes you a bojutsu master. Attributes for Accuracy, Damage, Recharge and Endurance Cost are equivalent to similar high-damage sets for those listed archetypes.
• New Powerset: Mental Domination (Defense, Resistance). Available for Defender (Primary), Controller (Secondary), Corruptor (Secondary) and Mastermind (Secondary). You are able to focus and control your mind to provide defensive shielding and increase resistances to damage. (This set would be a hybrid of Force Field and Sonic Resonance, but it would add +DEF(Psi) and +Res(Psi) to the shields granted to allies and the "Dispersion" field.) Added (2011-2-1): Make that +DEF(Psi), +Res(Psi, Confuse, Placate).
• Power Pool Fix: Teleportation. Last power in this set is currently Team Teleport. Suggestion: Add new power Teleport To which is Ranged, Self Teleport to Location on ZoneMap. This is a special power. Player MUST be in a regular zone (not instanced mission map or special map like Cathedral of Pain). Player MUST have destination point revealed or not covered by Fog of War. Player's Endurance would be deducted the same endurance cost it would take to get there via Teleport casting or -100% AttrEndurance and -100.00% EndRecovery for 20 seconds at destination if the character doesn't have enough Endurance to get their via normal Teleport casts.
• Add Option: Allow Team or Ally Travel Pool Buffs: Enabled (automatically allow like it is now) or Disable (do not allow this for me). This option would affect whether or not Group Fly or Team Teleport would have an effect on your character. Default: Enabled (allow).
• Add Option/Graphics Engine: Render graphics intensive buffs? Enabled (default, like it is now) or Disable (DO NOT render). This would affect whether or not graphics are rendered for buffs such as Thermal or Cold Domination buffs. (My client repeatedly crashes for some reason when I get Thermal or Cold Domination buffs on my character or any of my pets. I can't figure out why. No, it's not the graphics drivers.)
• Add option & command: During a cut-scene, if everyone on the team presses the Escape (ESC) key while it is playing, it completely ABORTS the play script and resumes activities. This is also something a player could set with a per-instance slash-command /skipcutscene and then 0 (zero) or 1. (By "per-instance," I mean /screenshotui option is a per-instance option the client uses. Every time you restart the client and you want to include the heads-up display in your screnshots, you need to issue the command /screenshotui 1.)

That's a bulk of what I can decipher from my scribblings at the moment. If I can find more of my notes, I'll add to this post.

Feel free to constructively comment and add to this list in this thread.

If it's not too late, I'd like to add my name to the list of the attendees. Possibly a ... Tanker?

Count me in!
I'll probably bring ... uh .. a Mastermind.

Feedback

Greetings.

I "bought" a server token to move a level 50 Mastermind from "Training Room" to the other server being used to test this new server technology. After the character transfer took place, I selected the new server and my (only) character and attempted to enter the game. My client locked up (no crash dialog). I had to terminate the process via a Windows command line (taskkill /f /fi "imagename eq City*").

I then created two new characters, a level 1 Peacebringer and a level 1 Corruptor. Attempts to log into either one of these characters yielded a client crash with a dialog box.

I rebooted my [Windows XP] system and tried again for all three characters. Fail (no crash dialog) for level 50 Mastermind. Fail (with dialog box) for level 1 Corruptor. Fail (with dialog box) for level 1 Peacebringer.

New server technology: Fail.

If the Developers need crash dialog information, I can go ahead and fill out the detail report and submit it.

Yes! I'll bring something level appropriate as well.

So, please add me to Alt/Team2

I'll be there. I can bring just about anything level 45+.

That's Felicia Day, who also starred in the web-popular Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

... and, yes, she was a HUGE (read: addicted) online gamer before she quit and started acting/writing/producing/directing.

I'll join Bobitron as an alt. I'll most likely be on during this time.

(I'd bring something Controller-y, Scrappy, Tank-y or Defender-ish.)

How can you be on? I authenticate (Login), select a server, select a character and then get the following message and kicked out:

Wait. What? Is this a "Get to know the person in the tights" kind of deal?

I'm SynapseOverload (@SynapseOverload also @Synappers in game). I'm an artificial intelligence that was designed by AT&T neural network engineers. I escaped my confines of the Commodore VIC-20 and onto the Internet I jumped. I roam from network to network looking for pirated MP3 collections and movie stashes and report them to the RIAA and MPAA, respectively. I submit mundane and repetitive queries to the Google search engine to test it. An example query might be "Tell me more about the Red Light District in Amsterdam."

In my spare time, I solve the mysteries of the Universe, use the AT&T Labs' voice synthesis site to "sing-along" to the "Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog" on Hulu.com, laugh at Ph.D. dissertations, send horribly pornographic stories with embedded keywords or trigger phrases to Echelon ("You are the bomb!"), dupe money and rares, interact with the City of Heroes/Villains MMORPG world via an Atari joystick and 50 yr-old bare (not insulated) copper telephone cables. I'm secretly buying up Microsoft stock in 100-share blocks and expanding my investment portfolio by dumping some money into pork bellies and frozen orange juice concentrate. My latest project has been trying to create new branches of the Mozilla Firefox 3.5 development trunk for the Timex Sinclair, ENIAC and the DEC PDP 11/44 computer systems; progress is slow as I'm also running everything in an emulator on a DEC PDP 11/84.

Whoops! Time to move home base again. I think I spy a 1024-node super computer currently not used for much over at NCSA. I can use the processing power to finally do some real number crunching ... like compute the value of Michael Jackson's estate.

-------

Everyone make a save roll versus Wall of Text. [...]

You all fail. SynapseOverload unleashes Wall of Text. This power is autohit and not resistable.

Actually, I'm a 37 year-old techno geek in the truest sense of the word. I follow many so many technical blogs and information sites that I had to make Google my RSS feed aggregator to handle them all. My Firefox bookmarks database is 17 MB and growing.

Not having been into printed comics for quite sometime, I have forgotten most of the important information ("Who is Captain America and why did he and The Hulk fight?"). I tend to find my enjoyment in the cute, witty comic strips found on the Internet and the many stories that get passed around as viral emails or just about anything that splashes on The Onion's site or on TMZ's site.

I enjoy cooking shows as I attempt to recreate (with some success) what the celebrity chefs so effortlessly prepare. My guilty pleasures are the "Top Chef" and "Top Chef Masters" shows on Bravo.

I love languages. US English is my first language, but I took 4 years of high school French, which introduced me to the concept of the Romantic languages (languages with strong roots in the common language of Latin, which hasn't been the primary language of any sovereign nation in over 1300 years). I find myself reading the "Latin phrases" sections on WikiPEDIA when something is said on Law & Order.

Before playing City of Heroes/Villains, my main game was Blizzard's Diablo2. My brother introduced me to this game a long time ago and it got me hooked. My first SG was Imperial Rangers (long since defunct) and I've been in a couple of other since then, finally landing in my current one: The Eternals (Blue) and Eternal Darkness (Red). I have my own alt SG named "Blind Invites Make the Baby Jesus Cry" (blue-side only). My home shard is Justice, but I have many toons on Freedom that are mostly Red-side and scattered over the other server. I am hooked on City of Heroes and, despite my several very vocal concerns about the direction the Developers are taking this game, I'm here and not on Champions Online. I'll be here until Blizzard gets a playable version of their in-development Diablo3 going and announces a closed beta program.

You have taken 99,999,999 points of Data Damage from SynapseOverload's Wall of Text power.

Put me down for the LGTF as well. I have multiple 50s, so I can bring something the team needs.

Not sure about the Ship Raid.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

If the aforementioned woodchuck is from Canada and is here working in his (or her) field but does not have a work visa, do I need to report him (or her) to the authorities?

If yes, which authority?

[ QUOTE ]
I think his next research project is going to the beach and stomping on children's sand castles.

The title of the paper is "Unreasonable crying by children when placed in idyllic vacations: How I got punched in the mouth."

[/ QUOTE ]

Damnit! You ganked my thesis! Now I'm gonna have to resubmit to my committee!

(I'm sorry I didn't post anything about last week's SunMat, but it was a holiday weekend in the US.)

So, I was thinking about the Dr. Quaterfield Task Force for the Sunday Matinée on Sunday, July 12, 2009.

Start time will be 1:00 pm US Eastern/12p C/11 M/10 P. We'll start the gathering around Dr. Q about 15 minutes before.

1. @SynapseOverload, level 50 Rad/Rad Defender
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

[u]Alternates[u]