The_Real_Energon

I can't verify this any more since I can't see my character in the character screen or during creation since the latest patch, but you should be able to switch the color choices from the cotume color grid to the skin color grid ( I know you can during creation of the character ) so if you have the tight and muscular look for your characters you can just change his pants/tights color to the matching flesh tone of his face

Yes the original first ever rules associated with D&D were actually rules for table top warfare with miniatures, but they evolved from there and if you look at all the other games such as ROLEMASTER that came along later claiming to do it better you must also ask yourself where are those games today??

I have not seen any ROLEMASTER products since the early 1990's. Are they even still around? I always equated the enmity some people seemed to have with TSR ( after Gary Gygax sold his interest ) and D&D/AD&D to the enmity people in the online world have toward Microsoft and Bill Gates ( on a smaller scale of course )

D&D was the first to do it and grabbed the entire market and games that followed had to fight to get noticed and because they had the top selling product TSR did not move very fast to change things when customers gave feedback on things that did not work well or work at all. That can turn fans off and other game designers did listen to those players and made a slightly different game. Some of those disgruntled fans made those new games. Just like disgruntled Windows users made Linux.

The ROLE playing part of any RPG or other game comes from the players and not the mechanics or even the rules. One thing people seemed to forget or not understand about AD&D was the rules were not set in stone and were only meant as a guideline to follow. None of the rules were about actual role playing just character creation and how the character could interact with the game world. Any rules for role playing came from the DM and players and how much the role playing part meant to them.

I think most players just enjoyed the getting together with friends and having fun. Acting like they were their character and going so far as to only call each other only by their character names while playing was a preference of a minority who felt that was the true definition of role playing.

I started playing AD&D as my first RPG back in 1984 in college. We had such a blast getting together every Friday night ( until about 2:00AM ) every Saturday ( all day and into the night ) and Sunday until about 6:00PM We did a marathon one weekend staying up and playing straight through from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening with all of us falling asleep at various times along the way LOL That kind of feeling has yet to be truely captured by a computer MMORPG, but they are getting closer.

Now I said MMORPG because I do just as much role playing in any of these games as I did in AD&D. I did not get totally into character and try to talk with Thees and Thous. I had my character behave as I felt he should by his class and alignment just as I do here by stopping crimes I see being comitted by villains even way below my level. I am supposed to be a hero after all

DDO is the first attempt to bring the "original" RPG from the pen & paper days to the computer and MMO's. I played in the 10 day free trial they had last week. I had a lot of fun. I hope they get the in game voice chat working properly before release as that ease of communication is one feature that will bring it closer to the old days of pen & paper. Yes players can use TeamSpeak now, but DDO is the first one to include voice chat as part of the game.

The quests are fun because it is not about killing the mobs, but about completing the quest however you do it. You have REAL traps to find, disarm, avoid and combat is real time and you actually move your character to dadge attacks not rely on a random number rolled by the computer to see if you did it. You get to use the terrain to help defeat mobs and if you THINK things through you save those traps to lead mobs into ( yes the traps hurt them too )

DDO does what I have been asking the Devs here to add since June 2004. It makes you think of other ways to get the job done besides combat. I feel it has come the closest by far of any of these games to that old feeling of sitting around the table with friends talking and having a great time.

Now I am not trying to tell everyone to go out and buy it because the differences in the combat system are not for everyone. It takes some getting used to since in combat it basically becomes an Action RPG. Many do not like that. They want it more like the traditional turn based combat. I do suggest if anyone has the cash to buy the game to test it out since your first month is free as with any other MMO.

Today most of us play more than 1 MMO anyway as it helps to keep us from getting bored with each of them that much faster.

For those still trying to get the Toy Collector badge here is a helpfull hint. If you take out all the mobs that spawn from a naughty present except one Frostling ( minion ) and leave the next time you open a present at that spawn point and it says naughty you get no mob spawn ( unless someone has killed off the lone minion in the meantime ) and with stealth on you can get close enough to open a present even with a purple con minion there.

Obviously if you get purple spawns when you open a present you will need help to kill all but the one minion, but otherwise this works very well.

I think both Rikik-Dnec and Evil-CoH had very good and workable ideas for a possible crafting system ( if the Devs think there is enough real interest in one ) We would only be able to collect thing randomly from different groups just like the current salvage and thus anyone can get the same materials during normal game play and no camping a specific spot or mob since camping a spot in CoH means no respawn there.

Now since everyone can collect the same materials with NO special ones nobody can be Uber. A Player economy could result from selling unwated enhancements you craft or from selling salvage you have a lot of and buying what you do not have much of. This way the players who feel there must be a player economy and crafting for a game to be complete get what they want without making those players who do not care about such things feel like they have to do them.

Ok so I now know what ED is, but I don't see it as a problem myself. I have been asking the Devs through posts on these boards since shortly after the game was released to do something about the fact that the way they designed the game ( in spite of their actual vision ) it is all about DPS and since there was no apparent cap on the amount of damage a player could do they were 5 or 6 slotting any damage power with damage enhancements. When most powers can take Accuracy, End reduction, Recharge reduction, Range increase as well as damage, but nobody ever uses them, what is the purpose of them or of those powers being able to be slotted with them??

I would have doen it by putting a damage cap on the powers rather than diminishing the return on having more than 2 enhancements of the same type. I think it would have done what they wanted with a heck of a lot less complaining.

I have seen many complaints about the enhancement changes affecting how Hasten works and people no longer being able to have it on almost continually. Again I have had no trouble with the change. I had it four slotted ( all I ever planned to put in it too ) before the change with recharge reduction enhancements and it works just the same now as it did before the change. ( at most 5 seconds more to recharge now ) I think the changes will help to start eliminating the belief in optimal or perfrct builds. I don't know if the way they have chosen to do it will be the best way, but so far so good.

I just wanted to post a few questions since I have been away for 2 months ( not by choice )

First to RemusShepherd I have to ask why you feel the game is being targeted at the PvP players? Is there anywhere in here where you are forced to participate in PvP ? Also what exactly do you mean by the "Competative Asian market" ? Are the markets in the rest of the world not competative? Are only Asian players competative with other players?

I rarely team in this game ( CoH or CoV ) as time to play seldom allows me enough time to do team tasks without knowing I would have to leave the rest of the team before the end leaving them shorthanded and I will not do that. I still find the game very fun to play and feel no pressure to participate in PvP even though I have before and will again because it is fun to fight an opponent who can think as opposed to nothing but AI controlled bad guys who can only do what they were programmed to do and become predictable and easy to defeat.

That is my opinion.

My last question is .... WHAT THE HECK IS "ED" ? I have seen this all over the boards since I got back, but no poster has explained what it means.

The problem with the spawns in The Hollows popping in ontop of players as they run through from everything that I have been able to gather by talking to many other players is this.

The game is designed so you can not sit in one place and camp spawns, meaning they will not respawn as long as you are in line of sight of the spawn spot. I think the problem in the Hollows is the terrain changing level so abruptly as you run through the non-city areas messes with the line of sight so since you are above or below the spawn spot it is not in your line of sight and spawns will pop in just as you bring the spot into your line of sight.

Granted this is speculation and I have never seen a dev confirm it or say they were working on the problem, but it seems logical since this is the only zone in the game where these spawns happen. With that in mind trying to take the speedy route through the zone actually works against you. Timed missions can almost always be completed before half the time has run out. Don't rush so much.

Here is an alternate suggestion to seeing the fights live in a viewing area or real time over a giant TV in game. have the matches recorded and your friends can check out your battles by accessing the info terminals where they can scroll down a list of completed matches ( they do not list the winner ) and a media player window pops up for you to view a replay of the match.

Well it is just a suggestion. Probably too many memory and storage issues to deal with, but it would seem easier than the whole re-write of the game engine for the TV screen idea.

I think the addition of the anime and manga work will greatly increase the options for hero creation and I would imagine they will be desinged to mix and match with existing art work so combination anime-present CoH heroes will be possible. Just because Paragon City is set in the US does not mean there would not be heroes from other places with different style looks.

This is the first game I have ever looked forward to PvP in. It will be fun to take on other players who can think and react to my attacks, even if I never win any of the fights the fun of the challenge is the whole point of doing it. I would bet there will be some kind of Arena ranking system for one on one and group combat.

Spectator mode would be a nice option to watch battles between lager SG's and hopefully when they can figure a way to make it work they will add it later. Too much risk of the rude player coming in and interferring in a fight uninvited since from the sound of how they have set it up once you enter the Arena area you are PvP tagged until you exit again.

They keep making the game better with every update and once they do figure out a non-combat or out of combat skill system that works the game will be nearly perfect. CoV will push it over the top.

Also not to hijack the thread, but EQ2 is getting a massive boost to the solo player side with a huge amount of content being added over the next few weeks making it soloable all the way to the highest level and even allowing solo players a chance for drops normally only seen by groups.

Now we know EQ2 is not a better game than CoH, just different in style, but I can't see the dev team here letting the solo player down. As a matter of fact I am sure they will not.

Well why they would call Hover a movement power at all is questionable. I took it only because it is the pre-requisite for Fly and when I do happen to have it on and try to move using it it can take me a long time to move any distance at all. I always wondered since you can let go of the movement button on fly and hover in place why they still give you the same minus to hit with fly active even though you are not moving ( I would love to see an extra power added to that set called Arial Manuvers or something that would allow for dodging attacks while flying thus making you harder to hit )

Sorry to burst your bubble Monkeybone, but the kind of game you are talking about does not exist yet and before you bring up Guild Wars please check out the restrictions of what players can actually affect and how long between updates. Minimum is 5 months, "Well guys we did all the quests and the story is over so now what do we do for the next 3 months before the next update comes out?" and even that game will still be using recycled quests.

The technology does not exist yet to make a game like what you were describing, only Neverwinter Nights comes close and it is not a true MMO since only a max of 64 people can play at once and that is if everyone has cable or DSL and each adventure the player DM comes up with takes months of plannig and putting together.

I think what you really want is a single player game tailored specifically to you. The closest CoH will be able to come is when CoV comes out and players can fight back and forth developing rivalries and throw in some RP'ing and thwart each others plans and so on

It is nice for players to want to compare playing this game to actual comic books, but remember first off NO comic book hero who is not using gadgets or specially made armor ever gets to choose the powers they have let alone gets to have over almost 30 seperate powers ( except Superman ) so please stop trying to use comic book analogies for or against the changes made to the game.

That said the change made to bosses inspite of the addition of the difficulty slider was because as we all know by now it says in the manual only with skill and strategy should even the hardiest of heroes be able to solo a boss of even level or maybe +1, but get help for anything tougher. Granted that should have been apparent from the begining of launch, but was not. The difficulty slider was unrelated to this change and would never be used by those who think bosses are tough enough the way they were before Issue3.

Now for those who think Scrappers or even Blasters have it too easy against bosses still I would advise keeping watch on upcoming Issues and see if they do not get downgraded against bosses as well.

I have done 8 missions with my L33 Blaster ( Energy/Energy ) since I3 came out and I used the difficulty slider to bump it up one notch. I have only had to fight bosses at the end when it specifically said I had to or when it was a defeat all mission. I have not found random bosses in any way guarding objects or hostages ( hostages are always guarded by minions only ) Obviously my 8 missions are not a large number, but they show the oddity of random bosses being near such things to be a bug rather than intended ( unless you are playing on a much higher difficulty where all the extra mobs leaves no room for proper spacing on the map so they end up too close together creating lots of cross aggro )

Btw if you get a random boss early and can't get by him try logging out and re-entering the game to reset the map before running for help since the mobs are random and you may end up with no random bosses at all.

I did not bother reading past the first page of this thread. It was not worth the effort. To the people who think this is such a huge problem I have to ask for I believe the 4th time in the last 3 days posting on different threads Exactly how many computer games or programs have any of you written before?? Most have to admit the truth and say none, some will be full of themselves and go on about web pages they made, but did you do them from scratch or with pre-made features? Did they load and run properly the first time? second? third? How much time did you spend searching the code of your small little web page program to find the problems?

Yes software companies never seem to release a program without bugs in it and that applies to every type of program out there. Do any of you have any idea why that happens? Try staring for hours on end at the lines of computer code and try finding the one line or character that is causing the problem in a program that is over a gigabyte in size. Do you have any concept of how many lines of code that is? How many characters make up that code? Try finding one missing character in there to fix the bug and take as long as you need for each and every bug reported during testing you want to say. Guess what you would be posting about in another 3 weeks when they still had not found them all... you would be posting whiney threads about how inept the devs are for not being able to release a simple update to the game and you would still not have your stupid FREE Respec.

The free respec was never part of the Issue 3 plan and was just put in as a holiday bonus so stop acting like they owe it to you. The other issues will get addressed when the cause of the bug is located. Computer languages are exact and if one little thing is put in wrong you can get something completely different from what you were after and the programs are written by humans who are not perfect ( as none of us are ) they make mistakes while writing the update or when they add it to the rest of the program and of course there is no spellchecker for computer language so the only way to find out the bugs exist is to test the program and the ones that seriously affect performance of the program get addressed before release and the ones that are just nuisances get worked on last and patched after release.

Oh and before you reply well they should wait until everything is fixed before releasing a program remember in the business world there comes a point where a product has to start producing money in return for the money put into making it or it gets dropped and never goes to market or at the least never makes a profit and has to be discontinued.

People please READ carefully and take a few minutes for it to sink into your heads.... Bosses below L25 have NOT changed so do not get all bent that you will have any more trouble beating them than before. As concerns the comment about the vocal minority I don't see where you showed us any figures to say the group that wanted more of a challenge was first off even in the minority. Just because you do not like it and a few people who feel the same post on the same thread does not make your view the majority view.

Not to say the change may not be too strong, but regardless of the number of people who worked on it while it was on the test server until changes make it to the live server the information on if they were good or bad is not enough to change them back or scale them down.

I have not noticed a significant change in the number of attacks I need to make to defeat a normal boss ( L33 )since issue 3 went live and I have also raised the difficulty of my missions one notch ( so far ) and found a better challenge. As another poster said why should the game be changed to accomodate a minority group. I don't have figures to prove it, but it can be reasonably stated that Defenders and Controllers who only want to solo are in the minority. Yes I know you can say well they put in the difficulty slider so why change the normal Bosses, but I say so some of those looking for a challenge are now able to find it in the normal difficulty game and if that proves to simple still they can then raise it themselves.

Do a little searching and find enough other players who feel the devs went a bit overboard on the change and they will respond. There is no way for them to please every person playing this game, but they will try to make as many people as satisfied with the game as possible.

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17) Random property damage. This a huge part of most any comic book is the random property damage that almost always occurs, possibly with an influence consequence for excessive damage to the city.


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Bad idea because after a period of time you would not have any buildings left to do a mission in. Yes property damage does happen in the comics, but will never happen here. Because the property damage in the comics can and usually is fixed by the next issue when the artist redraw the city. Paragon City cannot fix damage that fast.

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Actually a good idea and very doable I think as long as they make the damage disappear with the defeated mobs and repaired items appear with the next spawn in that spot. Not talking buildings here, just the the useless bus stops ( not one bus in the city ), newspaper vending machines, light poles, benches etc... and for door missions anything inside should be destructable, but none of it should be stuff you can destroy for random fun as the noise will increase mob aggro range. Alternately cars on the street should be able to hit you and hurt you if you get in the way.

Missions where you have to protect a paniced mob of fleeing civilians from attack or save people from a burning building ( maybe this is covered in the SSOCS but until they release details... ) anything that allows you to do missions where combat is not the objective and you actually fail the mission if you do fight. Stealth missions for gathering intell for contacts... the kind of intell where the villain group has no idea you were there.

Color options for power effects would be nice, but may not be doable

Chest logos on capes as mentioned many times as well as more logo and design options.

How about specific power effects or auras for Fly based on the power sets chosen.. fire based flyers would leave a flame trail .. energy would leave an energy trail... ice could leave a small snow flurry in their wake etc... Super Jump and Super Speed both have a wake effect and could be altered accordingly too so nobody feels left out

Anyway those are just a few random thoughts I had ( I refuse to have the organized kind )

Game "release dates" are ALL speculation or best guesses by the semi-informed and can not be trusted at least until the beta test has begun. That said we all know ( or should if you read these boards ) that the beta for CoV will go first spots to anyone with 12 or more months with an active account in CoH so that puts the beta begining at the earliest in May of 2005. Once the beta is underway it can be assumed that the release will be within 90 to 120 days after that.

That all said I never assume any game is being released until I see the announcement on the official web site that it has gone GOLD.

Finally... almost any countries beer has more alcohol percentage per 12 ounces than American beers. Hockey can stay locked out for the next 50 years for all I care ( I should be dead by then ) I have nothing against Hockey really and though I only watch it during the play offs and the olympics I do sympathize with the fans for the loss of a whole season. Hopefully all sides will come to their senses and remember the whole thing is about the fans without whom there would be no money for any of them.

Granted this option is not available to a L6 yet since I don't believe you get your first pool power choice until L8 ( I could be wrong on that ) If you take the concealment power pool and choose Invisibility you can go anywhere you like in the game ( heck you can stand right infront of an AV and unless he is like 20 levels above you he will not see you ) Even stealth works well with mobs close to your level cutting down aggro range severely since you have to be right next to them before they will see you.

I know mission doors are a pain when they are in areas of zones above your level. I died many times when I would exit a mission to find a group of higher level mobs outside the door. That of course is not as bad as having them there when you arrive.

This is everything I understand as of this moment from direct responses by Cryptic customer service people directly on this very thread. CoV as a standalone game = $15 a month
CoH as a standalone game = $15 a month
CoH and CoV at present are set to be $15 a month in combination unless for some reason NCSoft decides there must be an additional fee. That decision has not been made yet. I think they will keep the fee for the game at $15 a month for the two combined. They obviously want to make the right choice or they would have announced it already so the I look at it this way ... No official news is good news

I have played EQ from day 3 until a bout 8 months ago. Did you know there are still quests that are in the game from launch day that are broken even now? If SOE had worried less about volume of new content and spent more time fixing what they already had people would have leveled more through questing and learned the story rather thn just hunting each zone as they outleveled it. As for the Epic quests, they were an Epic waste of time and that was even when the item you got for the quest was something a high level character could actually make good use of, but then along came the Velios and Luclin expansions ( hey you know they had broken quests set up in those too at release and never fixed all of them ) and those "Epic" items were less usefull than many of the new basic items. SOE made EQ about nothing more than adding more power to the characters and thus to the mobs to challenge them and thus to the characters to be able to defeat the mobs. I would say in spite of the size difference file size that is of the EQ expansions vs CoH issue udates they were even buggier.

Remember this whole thread was speculation and even what Gaffer said about it relating to any increase was not fact. ALSO REMEMBER we are getting updates small or large on a regular basis for FREE what other MMO out there is doing that??

I have purchased every expansion for EQ except the last one so over the 5 years I bet I have added more than $24 a year to what I paid for the monthly fee and that fee was even raised from the original. They MAY I say MAY ask for a slight increase in the monthly fee while still continuing to pay workers to create new content to patch into the game 3 - 5 times a year. Where does that moeny come from people? We are not paying for the new content our monthly fee is paying for the upkeep of the server network and the staff of people who monitor the game, customer service and tech support. I doubt any of them work for minimum wage so all that is not cheap. I am sure the electic bill for running all those servers must be very high.

Lets say they can give us CoH + CoV for those who want both as one game and not increase the monthly fee. I bet their costs are still going to increase so where do they get the money to pay for it... uh uh they might have to start charging us for those updates to the game. Here we go will you pay an extra $10 to $15 dollars every 3 months for those updates then?? ( AGAIN EVEN THIS IS SPECULATION so do not get bent over it )

Also do not forget that we ( well except the relatively few players who got copies of the game outside North America ) get a comic book FREE every month as part of our subscription fee to the game and last time I checked normal comic book prices were $1.95 to $2.25 an issue so maybe they should start charging for those each month, but then you would all just cancel them.

LivingHellfire your idea I am sure will get looked at by NCSoft, but I am doubting they would get enough new customers at the increased rate to make up the difference, but at least you expressed an idea or opinion without getting bent over it or making bad annalogies to the continual rising gas prices.

This analogy is not really any better, but let me ask everyone should you get to see a movie sequel for free because you paid to see the first one or should they at least lower their ticket price back to what it was the year the first film came out? A sequel is still a stand alone film as well as an expansion of the story. I am not saying if they decide to raise the fee and that is still a big IF right now that it would be right, but considering all the other things in the entertainment industry we pay for continuations, expansions, sequels we have been doing it for years and never did more than complain to our selves and usually the price goes up each time if only by $00.25

For the reason I stated why I thought LivingHellfire's idea would not work I don't think an increase of more than $2 a month would work ( again that is IF they go that route ) as I am sure as business people the executives at NCSoft have research showing them what that kind of price increase would do to their market and customer base.

We can only wait and see and AFTER NCSoft has given their decision then everyone can rant about how evil it is if they don't like the ACTUAL decision. .... I wonder will any of us come back and apologize to NCSoft and Cryptic for our disparaging remarks if they decide they can accomodate one fee of $15 a month for both games??

I think Gaffer answered all concerns I may have had on this issue so I am content to leave Cryptic to getting CoV ready and helping NCSoft determine a fair price increase IF they feel the increased manpower, equipment and bandwidth to run both games warrants it. Thanks Gaffer

Everyone I was re-reading one of the interview excerpts quoted in a previous post and I think I finally get what Statesman is saying. He basically is saying you can buy CoV and add it to CoH for the new related content it will contain such as the bases for groups and everything else. Without having to have both games player heroes and villains can PvP and interact ( although I think it is unfair they would get to come to all the zones in CoH, but we would not get to see any of the new zones in CoV without having it... unless they plan to patch them in later fr us ) So if all you want is PvP you have to pay nothing extra, not even the price to buy CoV in the store, if you want PvP and the bases and other stuff you have to buy CoV, but do not need to purchase a seperate account, and finally if you want to play the game both ways you have to buy CoV and MAY have to pay a second fee IF the executives at NCSoft go that way, but the Cryptic team is fighting against it and they will let us know as soon as they can.

I hope that helped make things a little clearer to some of you. I feel a bit dense for not figuring out what he meant sooner.

Maybe I am wrong and there are a large enough group of people out there who would want to play just a villain oriented game so they can market CoV as a stand alone, do not need CoH game. That also means they do not get to go to any part of the existing game world and only whatever new areas are added ( that is only fair if people who don't buy it can't get to the new areas it introduces ) That said I see many groups targeting CoV as promoting a criminal life no matter how ridiculous that sounds they will do it and it will get bad press, then there will be parents cutting their kids off. Remember just today we learned that just about the most ignorant man to ever be President of the United States got re-elected because the major driving concern for voters was Moral Values... the economy sucks, massive job loss, health care is non-existent for many and we are in a war we had no right to start and have no real plan for getting out of and they were concerned most about moral values.... how do you think a game with CoV's premise will be received in such an environment??

I like the idea of being able to play a villain, but even in a lets make it fun frame of mind I don't see being able to maintain a player base for a game like that for an extended period of time. How long could any of you play evil and nothing else. I guess there are people that can ask the same of us playing good and nothing else. The two games SHOULD NOT be marketed as stand alones they belong together as one game.
I want to be able to play both sides and I want to fight player villains as a player hero not have some tidbit thrown out allowing hero vs hero PvP. I would pay a little more to play the two combined, but I see no reason to have them be seperate in the first place. This should be a non-issue. I have to say I personally feel Statesman is dropping the ball on this one by designing it this way. CoV should just be the normal very large boxed expansion to CoH that every MMORPG has roughly a year after the original game comes out. I would love to see marketing research or whatever other figures they cn show me that prove me wrong, but I just don't think CoV will survive as a stand alone game and if NCSoft opts to charge the same fee to play each game and then has to merge them later I think it would be the death of both games.

Devs please release some of the info you have been letting out in interviews to the official site for CoV. It has nothing ther but the same old info that has been in place since the site was set up. Everything I saw quoted in other posts on this thread was completely new to me, but should not have been because it should be getting added to the oficial site on a regular basis.

Maybe I will get lucky enough to be in the CoV beta and I will change my mind on the servivability of the game as a stand alone game. I am going to be playing EQ2, but also staying in CoH and for that I have no problem paying two seperate fees a month as I am single, but I would not be able to pay a 3rd one to have acces to the game content I should get to have with CoV as a CoH player.

I can only hope NCSoft will be as generous here with this situation as they are being with making Guild Wars free to play.