TheLadyK

While you might be rusty and DOs are not as powerful as SOs, I can speak from experience when I say that parts of Praetoria can be really rough. The "stand here and get pummeled" missions routinely fail with my DP/Therm corruptor because I can't use many of my usual tactics. Its frustrating. I love the storylines, but I drop those missions all of the time because I just don't have the ability to handle them.

Wasn't this that thing that a bunch of people asked CoX to reconsider making us use?

Internet Security Person is leery of new software. ISP kinda wants to do things to it that would probably break the ToS and get her fired. ISP will just refer to herself in the third person and pout.

Real life:

My cat stayed with a friend for a few days while I was moving. She came up to him looking for attention while he loaded the game. At the sound of the login window, she laid down, put her head on her paws and sighed.

When the cat relates the login to the game to "No pettins for now", you play too much.

Conflating casual with solo is grating on my nerves. I team almost exclusively and I consider myself to be casual, but without a definition, or a checklist, or something it is hard to say. I also think that there are several flavors of casual. Here are my attempts to try to form some guidelines. And start arguments, so feel free to state why you think I'm wrong. This is intended to be like a diagnosis checklist - one or two doesn't mean you're a casual player, just casual about some things, but around five or six, its almost assured.

1. Casual players don't invest much time - busy with life or whatever. play schedules from several hours once a month to an hour a day (More than an hour a day is hard to call casual to me. Less than 2 hours a month is hard to call a player... though I'm glad CoX is gettig the subscription revenue!)

2. Has less than 100 million influence on any given alt - casual with the market.

3. Doesn't have a badging character. Bonus point for not knowing what badging consists of as an activity.

4. Casual players don't run everything through Mids. Bonus point for not having Mids.

5. Casual players don't use purple IO sets. Bonus point for not using IO sets.

6. Casual players don't know how to get to the Shard. Or what the Shard is.

7. Casual players have fewer 50s than veteran's badges.

8. Casual players don't read the forums.

...I'm running out of diagnosis questions without going into PvP (I personally don't think there are casual PvPers, but I have a huge personal bias.)

Mostly i think casual is an attitude, the opposite of "no pain, no gain". A player who does only what they feel is fun and doesn't worry about min/maxing rewards by doing certain activities.

Make something silly. Completely ludicrous. A concept and a voice that are pure comedy. Don't delete them when you get tired of the clown, just let it gather dust. When things get too serious/boring you'll have your Grav/Storm goofball to come back to. (Energy blaster is also a good pick.) And leveling them won't matter because they aren't a serious character, aren't a serious build.

Make a character with an RP goal, something bordering on soap opera drama. She discovers that her parents escaped from Praetoria but left a sibling behind and you can't resolve that until the later Praetorian arcs in the 40s. That is 43 levels of angst to toy with right there, and a goal.

Warshades. Warshades, warshades, warshades. Crazy fun from all angles. My warshade is my blaster, my tank, my cures-all-ills go-to gal for fun. Dechs' guide gives you the mantra "Must find more bodies" and its a good one. You love teaming, you love moving fast, and you love plowing through huge groups at mach speeds. You're also sharing a body with an alien. Who may or may not be quite over being evil and having a search for power. (Canon says that the two personalities combine to form one complete new one. I find playing it as a dual personality a lot more fun.)

Get to the tailor often. Screw replacing enhancements, you need new outfits.

Don't delete someone you've lost the love for unless you need the space. They're fine waiting for you to come back.

If you want to be a HERO! you should stick to blue side, Paragon City. You will be limited to only hero archetypes - blaster, scrapper, tanker, controller and defender.

If you want to play a villain archetype (AT), with out being a villain, you can play in Praetoria (yellow side) and choose to enter Paragon City (and become a full hero) at level 20. The story/morality/choices in Praetoria are more grey than in Paragon City.

I think some extra costume options did come with the complete collection, but I would have to check the NCSoft store to make sure. More costume options can be purchased as downloaded packs from the same place.

Lookalike issues are handled via a petition system - if someone sees you in game and decides that your name/costume/bio are too close to an existing piece of intellectual property, they will send a petition to the GMs. A GM will look over your character and make a call. So you want to avoid getting so close to an existing character that the man on the street will say "Oh yes, that is a copy of XXX!" If a GM has to take a look at it, complaining that you used a different shaped belt buckle is not going to help you.

I’m sorry to tell you, pal, that is doesn’t get any better.

I have been playing for over 5 years and only through valiant effort and a spreadsheet have I managed to consolidate myself to 3 (okay, technically 4) servers with 69 characters. I’m still trying to get a character for each letter of the alphabet (I’m missing Q, U, Y and Z) and I may upset everything to try to wedge in a spines scrapper. (Spines what?) My average level for all my characters is under 20, for my main server its under 25.

I really am trying to bring myself down and into one server, now that we have side switching and I can get everyone into the same SG. I don’t really like playing red side, but villain ATs are some of my favorites.

It took me over 3 years to get my first 50. (My second 50 was much faster, my warshade sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go. Toward the end I got upset that I wouldn’t be able to level her anymore.) I’m hoping to this year become a real, grown up player of CoX, where I do builds for my characters and stay on the same server (if not the same character) and have at least one 50 per year of playing. And have set IOs and inf and things, instead of spending all of my time in the tailor.

I have said this every year. (But this year I mean it!)

If you want to bounce around virtue, I have characters who love company of any build, any level on all three sides. @Rapunzel.

I had to make two lists, one for more general quality of life stuff and one for things that I specifically enjoy.

Some things have been just amazing for the quality of life in the game, removal of annoyances and building a richer experience. Things that have become so basic to the game that it is hard to imagine playing without them. In a very simple sense, this is game design done right, for the whole playerbase.

1. Inspiration handling – combining inspirations and being able to hand them off in combat. Being able to make a wakie or a luck when you need one is such a relief. Being able to give them to your friends encourages teaming as a team, handling resources as a unit.
2. Gleemail and sending stuff to yourself – awesome. You don’t have to delete things while on a mission or get someone else to hold inf for you.
3. Confirmation windows - For teleporting, for level changing, for people giving you stuff. Being in control of your own character is good stuff.
4. Radio/Newspaper (and to a lesser extent tips) missions - Not having to have an arc open and being able to just go do missions. This was revolutionary for the casual mission or two at a time player.
5. Pass the star – being able to hand over who is the leader of a team. Fluidity of team formation. Good stuff.
6. Level up boost – its just awesome to come back to life because you leveled early on. Later, leveling in the middle of a harsh fight makes you feel really super.
7. Chat window interactions – clicking to invite to team, dragging things to the chat window, no more mistyping someone’s name for a tell!
8. Trains/Ferry improvements – all of the travel helpers have been very good for getting from place to place.
9. Combined auction houses – everybody sells and buys stuff!
10. Respecs – we use respecs as a strategy now, having to re-roll because you made a mistake picking powers or want to adjust where slots go would be insanely annoying.

Then there is the collection of things that I personally have loved. Things that have changed my game and continually delight me and bring me back, week after week.

1. Tailors – I constantly call CoX “sims with super powers” and I spend as much time in the tailor as I do at WWs. I bought the martial arts pack for the new hairstyle. Honorable mentions to capes, auras, weapon customization and power customization. I will always cheer on more options for playing dress up.
2. Warshades – I love me some WS. This is the AT that taught me that doing damage is fun. My first WS was my second 50 and I played her nearly straight through to there. For someone who typically switches toons between missions due to low attention span, playing the same toon every day to level cap was huge.
3. Croatoa – Making the midlevels fun since issue 4. Since I alt a lot, midlevels and low levels are where I live. The more options with different views, the better.
4. Cimerora – The ITF gives me a reason to get to 35. I measure characters by who can ITF and who can’t. My biggest complaint about the ITF is that most teams want to speed run it, and I want to kill just about everything I can. It is also a really pretty zone. And came with more costumes.
5. Willpower – I have enjoyed several of the new powersets, but Willpower makes me very happy. I love the balanced, well oiled machine feel of it.
6. Real numbers – This was a huge change in how the dev staff treated their customer base. From the mushroom treatment to being honest and having something like a dialogue with the players. “Here, this is what powers do and how they are balanced against each other.” I don’t always play by the numbers (I like Rain of fire because it is pretty.) but I really appreciate that they exist.
7. Veteran rewards – yes, they’re a bribe to stay with the game. But they are a damn handy bribe to have, and since the money in MMOs is through ongoing subscriptions over churn, enforcing their love for people who stick around with handy toys is not a bad way to go. Plus, costume changes!
8. Pratorians – High level AV hunting arcs, low level ability to play a corruptor, mastermind or dominator without having to be redside. Pratoria seems like a wonderful place that entertainment comes from.
9. Alpha slot – high level character improvement that doesn’t require ages at WWs and getting into the guts of Mids. Just task forces. And I love task forces. And now my WS is even more awesome and my scrapper can scrapp for ever. Common IOs + Rare level Alpha slot may become my standard high level build. (This is the year that I will have one 50 per year of playing, I swear.)
10. SG Base recosting – I have several solo bases. I don’t need to prestige grind to maintain them. Life is good.

I love the tournament idea.

I'm not focused enough to operate my whole playing style like this, but I do maintain a spreadsheet of where all my characters are and what badges they need (of the ones I care about) and what names I want. (I'm trying to have a character with a name starting with each letter of the alphabet) And some other things that my boyfriend laughs at me about, since I pull up my spreadsheet while logging in.

Is there a link with the full set of tournament rules? Or current standings? I want to root for specific toons and teams. (Virtue!)

I was hoping that the powers that be would announce this thing today

Avian heads and feet are my $10, and $10 for my boyfriend as soon as they are up.

Maybe next week?

I don't know that I have a lot of "odd" builds. I have a lot of builds in general, and I level so slowly that I have a pattern where I build a concept, the sets get improved to not suck quite so much, it becomes a FOTM, it gets nerfed, and I look like I build FOTMs from three years ago. (Instead of building random crap five years ago.)

I have been trying to make Electricity cool since i3. I have an Emp/, a Rad/, and a Dark/Elec defender, Elec/Devices blaster, and now with Elec/Elec brutes and dominators my life is getting easier.

I love Grav/storm controllers, I have 3.

My favorite blaster is an Archery/Energy blaster named Satyrical. Archery is rare enough that anything is kind of odd.

I don't have an Incarnate, but I'm willing to pinch hit heroside if you need someone to fill out the ranks. ping me @Rapunzel and I'll come along!

I got my Fortunata to 40-something and a bunch of people out of Praetoria. I made a new friend. I made a ton of inf with my first forays into the market. Good time all around.

I play a lot of support. A lot of support. I don't care about how much damage a set does, I just like playing with interesting toys and pretty colors.

Forcefields drive me batty. I have a level 30 Ice/Storm controller that I have managed to solo for at least five of those levels. I'm patient. I'll level anything. My Rad/FF I built in i3 is level 6. Level SIX. I can play it for about ten minutes before the bubbles and boredom drive me up a wall. Great concept, great character, great costume... ten minutes.

I think that is just a personality mismatch.

For powers that could actually use some help - Electric blast. I have it on a defender, and while I like the animations, I would like my blasts to be able to help out a team's damage, if only a little.

I joined in i3 and promptly became the slowest leveling, altiest player ever. Here are some of the characters that have stuck with me. Given how I tend to make and play, I have watched a lot of my combinations come into vogue and then get nerfed out of it.

Rapunzel - Ill/Emp, actually made it to 50. (I have 60+ characters, and 3 50s.) Still love her.
Eternal Hush - Dark/Dark defender. Buckets of fun!
Vero Tesla - Emp/Elec defender. I love the Empathy set, and this is a good PUG barometer - if I'm shooting, its a good PUG.
Eternally (remade from another character with the same sets) - Dark/Regen scrapper. I do not tend to enjoy melee sets, so this was a lovely surprise.
Feral Ember - Fire/Fire flying tank. Started after the Burn nerf.

I have controllers of just about every flavor, the team support with lots of interesting toys role really appeals to me, and I don't worry too much about damage.

If Khelds are classic - I have a 50 warshade that is my precious pride and joy. I love that AT, so flexible, so many situational toys, and an awesome powerhouse when you use them well.

Of the new sets I love Dual Blades, Willpower and Robot MMs.

I don't think I would stop playing over it, but I hate .NET.

And an interesting study in Linux gaming would be this year's humble bundle, whihc tracked the amount paid by linux users vs. mac vs. windows, for a "pay what you want" bundle of games. Last I looked, the per user dollars for linux was equal to a mac and a windows user combined. Linux people will pay for games that work on linux.