The_Alt_oholic

Mmm ... since CoH is derivative of practically EVERYTHING ...
I doubt this is legally binding. They might want to re-think this as they can be sued by practically any Comicbook company that has been around previously.
It over steps copyright laws.
I'm not signing over my ALL my creative rights at all by signing this and I think a substantial part of it can be battled in court. You don't become a work-for-hire-agent if you pay for a game subscription.
You can't, however, have Stateman rescuing people.
There is no legal way to say that players can't write about alien invasions, being granted "god-like" powers or the powers of certain gods themselves, any of the greco-roman pantheon, creatures invading from the spiritworld, etc. This is pretty silly.
If it comes before the average jury, they will probably all say "I've never heard of City of Heroes" so I doubt this is enforceable on an level. It needs to be specific to the CoH world and not general themes that have been used for hundreds (most thousands) of years - especially since the game has in-jokes based on practically everything.
It's just silly to put this in there in this manner.
----
This does, however, clearly put it down that there is no need to try to create new names for the game that you want to use for your own use in any way in the future. This goes for your missions as well.
It's pretty stupid to FLAT OUT STEAL all the creative ideas that players bring to a game of this nature that make the environment better and promote the game. This is a SONY move. I don't think this was ever so clearly put down in the EULA as to say that they own everything, every name, every charater, everythign you do or say in game. They take it all, they reap creativity and give nothing by the the temporary enjoyment that YOU PAY FOR in return.

I've apparently scraficed quite abit of creativity to the game. Creavity that the game company will never utilize, but, apparently, if I use it for commercial success, they will want to claim complete monetary gain and rights to anything that I do based upon things that I have created in game to make that world better - even if they do not...
It pretty greedy and not necessary to insure that the game makes a profit.
If anyone asks me again if they can make a character in CoH and not have to worry about it being stolen, I will say "Yes. You are not even selling it to NCSoft, you are paying to give it to them."

Are you "selling your first child to Crey Industries?" No. You are paying to give any creativity you put into the game to NCSoft.
You would think they would want people to be creative and help their world and that would be enough, but some people are greedy.
I think this needs to be rethought on their end.

I love this game, but at some point I just have to throw up my hands.
With all the characters I have, I really don't need to make any more. What's done is done. I can enjoy it for what it is. A creativity sink that I sucks away my creativity for it's own hording. It doesn't go to any good use other than the enjoyment of other players and that NCSoft can't take away from me - unless they cancel my account or I stop paying for it.

This isn't a fantasy game. The things created here are far more over-reaching than the fantasy enviornment. In fact, fantasy is a subset of this game.

I hate reading EULAs and TOS. I've wasted most of my evening doing it and I'm still not done.

It's pretty pathetic that I'm putting this much time into reading all this legalize in order to get the privelage to PAY to have a company take my in-game creativity and my rights - and indemnify themselves of all legal recourse against them.

It's a horrible day.

Truly, the Dark Yuga is upon us all.
Keep your creativity out of the game, folks. Don't sell your first born or your soul.
The Signature characters rule. Your characters are second rate inferiors - except the company owns them too.

I have to say why would a compay/game with such sucky marketing not want fan fiction and Player-character reference fiction out there to steer players to the game?

Grrr. I have more EULA to read...

It needs WAY more fixing that just that. There have been plenty of threads about it in the past.

Group Fly and Group Teleport both need work more than Teleport Self does and Teleport Self could still use some fixing as far as I'm concerned.

Pets still can't keep up in Group Fly. I think it is partially due to the pet pathing, but still ... This power should be very pet friendly. Even putting one fly enhancement in it makes it go far too fast for pets to keep up with it. It seems only to enhance the fly speed of the caster.

People need to be able to decline group fly. Make it a toggle in Options (I want this for Team Teleport as well. That power just sucks. But then the first time I saw it I was teleported to the feet of a Winter Lord on my Empathy/Electric Defender. Not a good first impression.)

For most, yes.

It is an endurance hog.

The trick is to turn it on and off quickly.

It's great for drawing agro and slowing down the enemy momentarily if the team is getting beat down. It can easily stop a team wipe by throwing th enemy around giving the team time to recover.
It's like using one of the Tornado powers, but you are incontrol of it and can shut it off when you need to.

It is a power that takes constraint.

Some players hate any power that has knockback in it.

I love knockback, but I control myself aka use my knockback in a way that it isn't detrimental to a teams strengths.

Any power can be useful, if you know how and when to use it.
The repulsion powers are the same way.
You don't want to knock enemies away from a melee character that isn't flexible eough to track them down if you knock them back or to lure them to a place where you can use your knockback powers effectively for the benefit of the team. But if the melee characters aren't capable of defending the squishes, then they have a right to defend themselves by whatever matter they need to - and, in most cases, this means keeping them out of melee range. Knockback is really good for that - in fact, you can knock the enemy back to that Melee character that refuses to be flexible and must stand in one place in order to feel that they are playing correctly.

With great powers comes great responsibility. Use your powers-wisely.
A team is strongest when all the players can use all their powers to augment each others powers.
It's a hard concept for some, but it's a force multiplier.

First off, I do think that Hasten is the new Stamina. In that "so many do take it that it" that it is like Stamina was when it wasn't an Inherent.
Some people didn't always take Stamina on all their characters, but it was popular enough and there was enough complaining about it that it finally became an inherent.
However, Stamina was not part of a travel pool.

Though I often do take Hasten, sometimes I do not. It is simply too useful to Dominators and Brutes that require rapidly using powers in order to gain the use of their inherent AT ability.
That being said, if I have a set of powers that I can keep rotating and using with out running out of a power that is ready to go. I'm usually fine with that. Especially if it means that I'm not pushing my character so fast that they run out of endurance.

I would say most specifically this happen on some of my Blasters. I'd rather have them do more damage (and make sure I hit - that's my first priority on any character) than have to worry about slotting in an end reducer or two so I can keep my fire rate up.
That isn't so say, that I don't have Hasten on some of my Blaster.

Also characters with Radiation Emission (Accelerated Metabolism) or Kinetics (Siphon Speed, Speed Boost) that can give themselves and others an increased attack rate.
Conversely, I'm less likely to get it with characters with slow powers as the enemy's attack rate and speed can be greately reduced.

Partially, it's still a matter of character conception to me. Some will definatley take it. Some are just inherently not supposed to be "super fast" so I try to avoid getting a power that simulates that on those characters.

It might be just that there are powers that keep on coming up that seem more important to me than hasten while the character is leveling up. With so many characters, I'm not usually taking the time to min-max, I'm just picking a power that would be cool and fit with my character conception on-the-fly so I can get back to the teaming action.

I try not to mini-max at all, but I'm bound to tweak somethings if the situation seems to merit it character conception-wise or if it just seems to be what is needed. It is by no means necessary to min-max any character to make them playable. I have no intent to make a character the best it can absolutely be by ignoring my concept of the character in favor of the current mini-max'ing'ist build.

Hasten is quite useful, but I don't feel it is a requirement. It does increase spike damage per second as you are (in some cases) doing more damage in a shorter amount of time.

Having Stamina as an inherent sure sometimes make it seem that you are wasting endurance if you aren't running it down to empty quickly enough. I admit that Hasten helps with that; that is to say, helps you feel like you are running your powers without Stamina or Hasten.

I don't know if you are using a standard or custom group.

If you are using a standard enemy. You can set the mission to staggered and it will make them slightly higher in some groups.

If you want an custom LT charactet to spawn with minions then make the LT a minion and over-power them by jacking up their powers. At the top of the custom character screen you will see the xp modifier. 100% is 100%. Jack it up past 100% and you have a tougher than minion minion.

You could have a "bodyguard" boss to be a hostage (this might only work with allies, but I can't remember). Set them up to need to be taken to the EB. Then set the trigger for it to turn traitor when reaching the destination. Now you have your EB and your "bodyguard" boss fighting the team at the same time.

I think it is directed at one group; the players.

If anything, I think it's a little late to be bringing in a relatively low Strike Force target.
Hopefully, this will allow lower level characters to team with the 50's that have been "in hiding" in higher-level content than lower level charaters would ever be invited too (even if they let in lower level characters).
Sure, there will be plenty of level 50 snobbery even on a low level tf, but the xp and merit bonuse will realy help out the lower level players.

Just wait. Positron is coming soon.

It's going to go full circle. The higher-level ones will come back.

So maybe it's time to climb down from Mount Olympus and spend some time with the mortals. They are the Heroes after all. Incarnates are personified gods. This is City of Heroes.

Ack.
Almost getting me to post an idea on this one.
Yes, it is a good idea that should have been done along time ago as players do what they have to do to get this done at any rate.
I think there are easier ways to do it than e-mail. I'm not going to say how.

This suckage is in DC's stuff as well now.

Not just the character deaths like you said, but reboots and the need to completely change charactaracter until they become something that has nothing to do with the orginal character other than name.

Even worse than killling a character is bringing them back. Well, killing them, bringing them back, killing them again, and bringing them back again while possibly having them turn evil or return pre-some MaCarthy-esque Commie-killing escapades.

So I've finally thrown in the towel on the new stuff. There is a lot of old stuff that I would like to read that was too expensive to get that are coming out in B&W compilations.

I'm sure there will be "some" cool new stuff that I'l miss, but it seems that it will be few and far between and only a couple of issues in a row of any comic and possibly a team writing that comic.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I really liked the first run of the new Power Girl book. It was funny and quirky. Made fun of itself and made the charater likable.
Then an new team took over, destroyed the character's life, and turned her into a mean statue of a superheroine.

I like to see variety in writing. But when everyone turns into a dark and brooding character, it isn't variety any more. It's just the same thing. And if I wasn't buying it in the first place for some character that I'm not reading, why would I want the charater that I LIKE to read about THAT ISN"T DARK AND BROODING to suddenly be the kind of character that I don't enjoy reading about.
I'm not saying that I don't like a dark and brooding Batman, but that's Batman...but then, ...he can't stay dead either...
...I guess I don't have to worry about enjoying my favorite character -from here on out that character will become something drastically different every year or so .... maybe at some point it will become something that I want to read again ... at that point it will probably be more likely as I'll get it as a graphic novel rather than a comic book, but then it would have to be as a comic first, but t would be highly unlike that it would come out in a graphic novel if people werent' buying the comic, and if people are still buying what I don't like ...
... yeah... it's not about the fans, it's about the speculators now ...

Yeah.
Very disorganized.
I do have characters on every server already -
15 on Champion
14 on Freedom
13 on Guardian
14 on Infinity
16 on Justice
13 on Liberty
12 on Pinnacle
13 on Protector
12 on Triumph
12 on Victory
15 on Virtue

I don't even game on Freedom any more, so I didn't go there.
I did visit the other servers. I was in PD 1 in maybe one server where 2 codes were handed out in the full pd1 and one in a partially filled PD 2 on the same server.
After that it was all PD2 or greater for me. I may have even been marked with a name so I was out of selection for a code on the other servers at any rate.

I do feel it was not good to go to only the PD 1 in any server. It was a joke to yell, come to the Pocket D! when you can't get into one, only hav the choice of 2 and no one say anything about you wasting your time being there.

Don't the DEVs watch the [Help] Channel? Come on! They'd rather answer private messages instead of making rules clear on the Admin or Help channels?

Just a little inteligence goes a long way.
By now, most of you know, I don't care about rubbing the DEVs the wrong way.
I'll buy this pack but, that's beside the point.

It's not just the treatment of my characters, but a treatment of all the players that couldn't get into a PD1 instance.

The rules seem clear. Be on that Day and be in the Pocket D - Not "you must be in Pocket D 1" on certain servers but not other and, hey, we'll arbitrarily give out more codes on some servers, especially if they suck up properly..I mean beg and grovel before the true gloriostiy of the brilliant shining coolness of the undenyingly superior ones know and DEVs that would give us something for free that we would have to pay for otherwise (monthly subscription fee).

If they are going to ignore the costumes anyway, they could just as easily take a random pick of ALL they players on ALL the pocket d instances that aren't on HIDE. Come on, give a warning to get into the D. Take a capture of all the characters names there, pick for the give away, write the global name down on a list so no repeats on other servers, give away the codes, and announce winners on the ADMIN channel.

Really, that doesn't seem hard to me, but maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way.

Often times I've been told on these servers that I'm crazy and I make no sense.

Of course, I'm not trying to stick my nose up a DEVs ...
...so there was no expecting me to get a code anyway or for the contest really to have any kind of relation to the skill of costume make for animals - You know, like Animals, Mineral, and vegetables. Not all Animals have fur, and even humans are animals. Insects are animals. So probably really only my plant characters or living stone creatures couldn't really show up and be legit as Animals.

Well, wrap it up.
I love this game.
Once again sloppy performance by the DEVs. It must be overwhelming. Maybe a practice run on the Test server to work out the kinks and figure out a way of resolving issues for the next time. Forethought.
I do really like the animal pack.
I had a fun time hanging out with the animals and checking out the different animal costumes on the different servers in the instances of Pocket D that I was able to get into.
I even had fun /e protesting the DEVs for not showing up in the Pocket D 2 and completely dis'ing on the players there.

I need my
/emote pitchfork
for the next protest. I already have
/emote protest
and
/emote holdtorch

angry villagers always need pitchforks!

You could start here ::
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122411

With Zombie Man's Guide to Guides
in the Player Help section > Player Guides

There really isn't anything concrete down about ethics of e-mails, tells, joining teams, or sending team invites other than what is in the EULA and Rules of Conduct.
I'm assuming you mean teaming by "team" and not supergroup invites.

There is an option for setting preferences on your e-mail status in the Options menu. I suggest using it to limit who can send you e-mails and it will stop the RMT'rs (aka Gold-farmer) e-mails. These e-mails are against the rules and there is a button to report them as spam.
You shouldn't be e-mailing anyone you don't know (as far as I'm concerned).

If you don't want to get tells from someone, the use the /ignore [character name] or /gignore [character name or @global name].
Generally, the people playing this game are pretty cool about getting tells. If you ran into a jerk that's giving you attitude because you sent them a tell, they are few and far between. Some might let you know why it was a bad idea to send them a tell.

If someone's name is Red in the search window, don't bother them. The Red means that the "aren't looking for anything".

Be polite, don't blind invite. Blind inviting is when you get a team/sg invite out of the blue. You have no idea who the person is.
Be polite.
Send a tell with a message asking if someone would like to join a team before sending an invite. In fact, wait for them to say that they want to join before you send an invite - unless you get the message that they are on a trial and then just send an invite and they will take it or not.
I suggest including the level of the missions you will be running and the kind of missions you plan on running.

When using the search window, you are primarily looking for players names that are in "sky blue". They aren't on teams.
Also on the far right hand side, there are notes about players current statuses. Check this before sending a tell asking them to join a team.

Players that are in purple are team leaders. Don't send chat to "team leaders" blindly by using players that are showing being on teams. This could very well send a bunch of tells to the same team leader who may decide you are a spammer - report you as a spammer, or just put you on ignore.
If the team leader is in your level ranger or lower, you are more likely to get an invite then if you send a tell to someone of a much higher level. When you sent that the tell, make sure to send your level and your archetype.

If someone replies to your tell and says they can't help with whatever, I think it's polite to thank them for taking the time to reply.

That's pretty much the basics.

Invisibility never works against ambushes if the ambush is targeting you. Ambushes know where you are in order to head to where you are; therefore, they can "see you" even if you are completely invisible.

If you are the mission holder, the ambush target IS you.
I think the only exception would be a character escorting a hostage, which, apparently, wasn't the case since you were invisible.

Also if you are outside and pull up a fresh mission, there is a chance to trigger an ambush "on you" based on your current thread level.

I would say you were the first one in the way of the ambush, but you said that they run past other characters aren't invislible to get to you.

On the plus side, if it is an ambush against your entire team (as a whole) and it singled out you, then the AI sees your character as the biggest threat on the team. (Just like in old PvP team matches, take out the healers/buffers/debuffers first. They go down the easiest, and they help their teammates the most.)

You could even use this one ::
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=207352

By the time you get done answering the questions, you should have dozens of names to try in the generator.
I started that [Name Generator] thread because these kind of threads keep popping up from time to time.

My intent is quite clear.
I'm not trying to give ways to create a name alternative for a character who's name is already copywritten.
I was trying to honestly help those with character name creation issues.

I do sometimes think of a name first (or general theme for a name) first. This leads me to picking powers that fit my conception of the character.

Most of the time, however, I want to check out a certain archetype and certain power sets for that archetype. So that generally leads me to picking names based on what my character does or somehow implies it.

Sometimes I think up a good costume and try to pick names and powersets that I feel fit the costume.

Regardless of the initial character conception, I do want a name that fits with my conception of the character.

I've never had much of a problem finding what I consider to be a good name for a character, but I'm willing to be flexable with the name - and sometimes the costume or powers - in order to find a good name that still fits the end result.

This is one the innate problems I can see that there seems to be with CoH. I think it is common to many MMORPGs and many video/computer/digital games in general.
What is so hard to understand that I want to the game to be about my character and the other players that I directly interact with and not about Signature Characters or the World Views?
Fine. The Statesman is running around, but I don't really care. (I won't bring up that this is the Player Character of the Lead Designer that is with Cryptic and, therefore, has nothing to do with CoH as far as I know.) Why I want to hear that he is so great and overshadowing my characters and my fellow player's characters? (Maybe at the very end end-game with 50 +10 "Incarnate Levels of Lordly Might" content they might actually be just sub-par to the Statesman?!?)

This is the same kind of thing with the Loyalist and the Resistance. There isn't a movement of your own that I know of. I have said the before. I like neither of the options. The Loyalist are pretty much fascists; so you get to play a fascist. And the Resistance aren't what I would hope for out of freedom fighters; they are more like a bad 1980's underworld gang of thugs out of a Don "the Dragon" Wilson movie - but then I've only had limited exposure - but that's okay because you won't get to hang out with them - instead you get to go play a fake fascit.
..wait ... that seems like even less of a choice.... having no choice that is!

PS. I'm excited about the Animal Pack. Best thing since the AE; and I don't think it can get exploited like the AE has been. So that's a win-win for me.

Objective and Subjective Feedback ::
Watched the video.
Wow, that looks cool. Is that running on all fours? that's running on all fours!
I have a bunch of characters that this stuff would work better than the original animal heads.
Cool animal stuff, but it sucks that the wolf tail was in the Mutant Pack. I would definately get it if had the wolf tail, but it was in the Mutant Pack. Oh, wait...it does have wolf's tail.

Crafty Devs, you sold me on this one!

This is both what "...a user see or experience that other users may also see and experience" and "how you feel or experience the game as yourself."

Ten-ton Hammer of Game Design driving the nail home and firmly embedding it in the fan base.
Thanks.

This is honestly the greatest thing that I have seen out of this game since the AE ...and I can't see how it will end up being exploited in the same horrendous and on-going manner.