The Grim Heaper

Does anyone know what the maximum character length of the battle cry field in the ID screen is supposed to be? I seem to be able to type 29 into it, but it always gets truncated down to 19 after clicking the "enter paragon city" button.

I know that it's just as easy and far less limiting to bind something else to f10; but it seems such a waste to not use it.

My best guess is that it's as buggy as the rest of the UI on that screen. Seeing as I have NOTHING typed into my bio, but the character count shows '3/1024'

nope; DB as well.

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I think it is -possible- to have a game with CO's version of power selection or DCUO's version of power selection in the world because, low and behold, they are actually developing those games to be that way as we speak.

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You know, the sorry history of vaporware in the superhero computer game genre (and I'm not just talking MMOs) inclines me to say "publish or it didn't happen." Ar either of those two games released yet? (Honest question -- I haven't kept up.) Until they are released, they can SAY anything they want about their system and it's all talk. Remember COH had a classless system too before it released.

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Yeah, and never mind vaporware, look at some of the stuff that made it to the shelves; "Procedural animation" my rear end...

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Hi Guys,
just ran an AE mish.
Team chat was about how we had mixed feelings about how it had affected the game.
One member says they thought it had screwed up Ww's.
Another team member, a level 44 controller asks "Ww's?"
Everybody else replies "Wentworths".
Then silence.
Something is not right if you can get to high levels with that amount of non knowledge!
Have fun, cheers.

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This, in my mind, may not be the best example. If, after saying "Ww's" means "Wentworths", they asked what THAT was, you might have a case...

There are altogether too many abbreviations used in our game. Sometimes keeping them all straight can be difficult for even experienced players.

Recent example here in the forums "the devs nerfed MM!" ... Munitions Mastery? Master Minds? Mickey Mouse? Mental Manipulation? Mairenn MacGregor?

although, I must say; hazard zones are rather convenient for badging purposes when you've out leveled your target(s) by a a significant amount.

But otherwise; meh.

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So the elitists run rampant again.

Far be it for others to play your precious little game in a manner different than what you perceive to be the right way.

The 'wonderful community' of this game that has blown it's own trumpet for years about how friendly they are to new players seems to have turned into something completely different.

So what if someone fills their account with 50's that never leave Atlas. SO WHAT. If they enjoy that, that is their fun time.

The lack of acceptance for new players, simply based upon how they have chosen to play the game, is appalling to me.

But, by all means, carry on with your gamer-geek rage. You have every right to dislike them and post here about it.

And it's a very interesting train wreck to watch. A great example of cognitive dissonance actually. Very educational.

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We (in general) aren't trying to shoo then away from their precious AE if that is what they truly wish to do. Personally, if they wish to kill mob "X" over and over, until the game ends, that's their prerogative. I don't care.

The issue we are discussing is that, with the AE buildings being where they are, and available when they are; new players aren't given much of a choice. They enter the game, and their chat is almost immediately inundated with call to join in on the farming.

-Some never escape; with these our concern is that we aren't going to be retaining these players long, as they don't know that the game world is so much larger than the one building; but they've already "beat" the game by getting to 50, there isn't much keeping them around.

-Some do try to broaden their horizons; nothing wrong with this - but generally the existing population of the game has some expectations of them that could leave both sides frustrated, and the newer, less established players may quit as a result. If a lvl1-10 character of a new player is having difficulty finding something on his/her map (or with any other "obvious" aspect of the game), I'm usually quite patient and helpful. We were all new once, and some of the stuff that's second nature to many of us by now just isn't that obvious if you don't already know.
But a lvl 50 (and in extreme cases, lvl 50 EATs) are expected to have, well, experience. But far too frequently (as demonstrated by someone else's anecdote) they don't even know the role enhancements play in our game. I'm not talking about the difference between origin types, as I can see that confusing someone who didn't know, but that they have any practical use at all.

Thus, the immediate and obvious solution is to get that building the heck out of Atlas and Mercy. If nothing else new players will have learned of the existence of other zones along the way.

Another is to force the tutorial on new accounts. While we can't force them to read any of the text there-in (hands up; who here chucks game manuals asside, and dives in head first into newly bought games? *raises own hand*), It still provide good practical experience talking to contacts and finding the mission door.

The last one is to level limit the AE to 10. It's not that hard to reach this level within a day, and gives practical experience on the basics of the game along the way. Although doing this would make moving AE out of the lowbie zones unnecessary; it's still probably a good idea.

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Besides, we have already have 2 ATs on each side that are a "jack of all trades", from the usual line up of 5.

Peacebringer/warshades, in human form have controls, blasts, debuff, and mitigation. In squid form, they have innate flight, and blaster atacks. In Crab form, they are (I think) some kind of middle line between scrappers/tanks in terms of damage/mitigation. Plus, they are buffed in various ways simply by having other ATs on their team.

VEATs... well, on a crab alone you have decent blasts (I have a full AoE only atack chain), more than sufficient defence/resistance, and a potential full compliment of 6 pets (not controllable, and on 4 minute timers, but still), and leadership toggles that cost less endurance, and provide a little more defence.

I won't get into the others much as I haven't played around with them.

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Also note that most, if not all mobs in the shadow shard can see through stealth, even super speed. So don't even think about ghosting missions there.

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And the Eye balls have crazy to hit, so if your a defense set like /SR it is going to hurt.

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Found this out the hard way. "Hmm, I want the rularu weapons... Meh, I got visionary easily enough on my fire tank, and this lvl44 /SR scrapper has been about as (if not more) survivable, with a lot more damage... *10 seconds later* ohgodohgodohgod! run away! AAH! their optic blasts have snipe ranges!"

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Then you don't team with those people.

Don't deliberately make the game non-fun for yourself.
Do what you need to do to have fun in this game and let others do what they need to do to have fun.

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Ah, yes, because everyone who goes 1-50 in AE has a glowing icon next to their name that says "AE Baby." How silly of us all to miss that!

Oh, wait, there's not?

So, pray tell, short of being psychic....

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Well, for me most of them do now. When I am not teaming or doing Tf's and just hanging around... I will join the team take a look at badges, builds and playstyle.

I might do up to one mission with them but no more. Add note to who I need to, rate one star put in comment MA noob.

So they are rated one star and I don't have to do TF's or SF's with them.

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Pretty much; but as time moves forward (as it tends to do, despite my best efforts), they will start getting their first veteran reward. And then it will be more difficult to separate them from the crowd based on badges alone. Although there's still the time tested method of playing with them first, and waiting for them do do/say something so monumentally stupid that you wish to ad notes/stars to them.

Personally every single player that I've marked as "2 stars; suspected/Likely/definite AE baby" I also add the date. After a few weeks I'm usually willing to team with them in a casual (non TF) manner, and change their note/rating as necessary. There is a (slim) chance that they've since improved.

Side note; Sitting a popular AE building on Freedom (with broadcast and "Not Accepting Invites" enabled) can be fairly useful for filling out player notes before they ever bother to disrupt your gameplay elsewhere. Might want to take some aspirin beforehand if rampant stupidity makes your head hurt.

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Having only recently come back to the game after a break I haven't really been exposed to "Generation AE." Just curious..has it impacted the way character builds are put together? Travel powers come to mind. I understand that there can be any number of reasons to take a travel power, not the least of which are that they're cool and fun, but it occurs to me that if you never have to leave Atlas nor the standard selection of mission maps, they could be easily skipped in lieu of other primary/secondary/pool powers.

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To an extent. But then, since the addition of the safeguards/mayhems, you can go quite far into the game relying almost entirely on the temp travel powers granted in the first few.

Amusing (in a sad way) build find: A lvl 29 DB/SR scrapper, with only three powers from his secondary (Focused Fighting, Agile, and Quickness). And no less than three pool powers, and took the attack prerequisite from each as well as the travel (Flurry, Jumpkick, and Air superiority)... And then complained that SR wasn't very good, because he kept faceplanting. Meanwhile my Claws/SR was Aggro-cap deep in freak LTs, surviving quite well (and at the time, not much higher in level).

I am vaguely reminded of a semi-recent attempt by someone to form an ITF team... I really don't know why we kept those people on the team as long as we did. If they say "Where's Cimerora?" there a fairly good chance they haven't done the required arc to get in (extra bonus points for the one who couldn't find the university "you know; the place where you craft inventions..." "what?")

It reminds me of the period of time where LTs were refusing to spawn properly in missions. so many Bosses in their place.

I found it very odd that the only bosses I got (solo) on difficulty 5 were the objective ones. >.>

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I'm holding out for the "going teal" expansion.

We get to be the common folk on the streets, hitting bad guys with canes and purses. And we finally get to drive cars!

Can't wait to run over my first Vahzilok mob in Atlas City. Do you think embalmed puke will eat through my tires?

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I can see the misspellings already; the "going Tealc" expansion... the one where they finally give some love to the Shadow Shard, with a new contact, a rebel Noble Brute. With catchphrases like, "Indeed, Bruce Boyd"

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(I do note that that wouldn't be a particularly good idea, since that would be the same as two basic Heal IOs, and a lot more expensive...but you can do it.)

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Well; the two on their own; yeah, not highly effective. But start slotting more of both sets...

correct; exception being combat auras from the cyborg pack. Those you can use at lvl 1.

Woo, downtime! What a wonderful way to start off America Junior's birthday! Thanks devs!

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Fixed the bug where recipes did not display a tooltip when moused over

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Does not appear to be completely fixed within the auction house window. And not limited to recipes - I can only infrequently get tooltips; seemingly at random.

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I just think, in retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to put the initial contacts (if not the buildings themselves) in the lowbie zones, and introduce the player to those contacts right out of tutorial/character creation.

That contact being there is probably what sent most of the higher-leveled heroes to atlas. And contrary to what I'm guessing was the thought that they would all branch out and go to other AE buildings afterwards; few left. Those people filled atlas with their broadcast spam, and most new players got swept into it.

Not sure that there's much we can do about it now, but it might be a worthwhile experiment to NOT automatically add the AE contact to the contact list until lvl10

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One thing I did notice was that while Ulterior is on the server, Vines is not.

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Vines appears to be just a coloured pattern to apply to most any costume piece, whereas Ulterior is this as well as it's own material type.

I'm no voice of authority on the matter, but you should be fine unless you did something like name your character "Master Splinter" and your ninja henchmen after various turtles, Casey Jones, and the like. Although - be aware that sometimes the naming filter flips out and rejects some names for no apparent reason.

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(...)But by all means, keep on thinking that we get together to gloat about how we crushed some 14 year old in Wisconsin's dream about being Wolverine.(...)

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Yeah! I mean, what kind of jerks would do THAT?! ... ... On a completely unrelated note, who's bringing the booze next week?

Probably for one of those 'Mas Firming Ions' I keep hearing about.

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Those with Granite Armor and wings will not so much "fly" as "plummet".

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Yes, I use this tactic myself to "dive bomb" my targets

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For an encore, do you inhale them and absorb their powers?

One time I got LotG 2 times in a row. I was a happy panda. Ever since; nothing but snipes, immobilizes, and the like. :/

It's been the same since before merits... I get nothing of value 90% of the time, my friend lucks out and gets more LotG/Numina/Miracles than he knows what to do with. ('Cept he knows what to do with them; not give them to me. 'ebil marketeer that one is)

Although I thought they semi-recently made the reward rolls slightly weighted so set types that very few people even had the powers to slot them in were a bit less frequent.

Broadsword. I don't care what AT it gets proliferated to (Blasters, dominators, master minds, whatever); just too many awesome weapon models to limit them to scrappers only.