Thrillseeker

It would appear that my 'Main Villain', Commander Kitty (Protector server version of her, as she exists on all servers), the toon that was my first one to get to Level 50, is not getting the 'Threatening Letter'.

Must the Alpha Slot be unlocked to get this 'intro arc' for villains? Or just being level 50. She has 54% towards unlocking Alpha (did a BAF and a Lambda a while ago, but skipped the unlocking arc with Trapdoor).

I'd like to get her to start the 'solo path' but I am not getting the intro arc. I know I can likely 'just go to DA from the portal in Grandville', but I would like more than curiosity about the new portal there to draw me ICly into the zone and it's content. Is anyone else getting this difficulty?

We will deeply miss your presence. I have loved talking with you at the focus group, other events and the pummit. You've done a FANTASTIC job. Thank you for it all!

I still say the best way to provide real, tangible feedback that will really give the powers-that-be information on the dog vanity pet is to NOT purchase it if you disagree with it's price.

Of course, that does not invalidate speaking your mind about it here, too. But NOT buying it is the strongest way. If sales are low compared to other items of the same point cost range, then it will be clear it is either overpriced or not wanted by the playerbase.

It will likely go on sale and/or the price go down.

However, I am betting that the reason for the price is the amount of impact it has on server resources and the amount of manhours it cost to develop for the Paragon team. It is the first item to use the new quadraped 'rig' and there will be other items using it. We'll see if that will bring the price down.

If it was less expensive, everyone would be buying it, the servers would be full of them and they would both not be so special, wouldn't have the prestige of vanity that makes them 'special'.

Remember folks, there is nothing, and I do mean NOTHING in the game that requires any vanity item.... other than your own desire to collect every item in the game, or find that the pet provides you with that cosmetic, vanity aspect that completes your character.

You don't HAVE to buy it at ANY price... keep that in mind. I personally plan to wait for them to go on sale. They are really beautiful. For now I will only have them on the beta server where they were free because we were Testing them.

Last point: Other games have vanity pets. They have historicly charged up to $25 for them, and at most people could use them as an alternate mount for travel. The dog is 500 pts aka $6.25 approximate. There was as much complaints about those $25 pets in other games as there is about this dog, in ratio with the number of players we have. I don't think the Paragon Studios folks are going to drop the price any, except in sales. But I could be wrong.

Have fun, folks! And be good... if you can't be good, be careful... or just play bull in the china shop!

Hmmm... 500 points. You know, considering the detail of the graphics and the A.I. and all that, I am not surprised at the cost. If they priced it below 400 points, everyone would buy one, we would be over run, and the servers would crash from so many of the things. Or lag all to hell. So, 500 points is about right. Only those that REALLY want it will buy it.

I'll wait until it goes on sale someday.

Donated! This rocks! I always love how Paragon Studios and the City of Heroes community goes the extra mile (or in this case, 'extra life') to be real heroes in real ways.

Considering that I can buy a low-level awaken inspiration in the game for 50 INF or by combining three like-item inspirations or get it as a drop, and one can earn a rez-other through day jobs, and some powersets have either a rez-other or self-rez powers, and there is a 'return to battle' self-rez in the paragon rewards... it all adds up there being more than enough ways to rez in the game. So the revival powers in the market are for those people that don't want to wait, go to the hospital, or the like and prefer to spend real-world cash to get them... you don't HAVE to buy it. And believe me, if no one buys them, they will go away or come down in price.

Seeing this thread I just want to say this about any 'new flight aspect' that City of Heroes may put in...

Please try to stay away from the 'stand on object X' to fly. Yes, this idea is good for ONE type of flight that way. Like the 'Rocket Board' of the original post here. But to have a half dozen copy-cat powers where the toon jumps on substance X and flys off... that's been DONE to death in the <C>reative <O>pponent to CoH out there. In Ice, Earth, metal discs, etc.

Now, what I -would- like to see, for Flight, is the ability to choose my over all flight effect. The current one has the standard 'look ma, no wires!' / 'You will believe a man can fly' effect. That's nice.

I know we are getting path auras (with the Clunker Aura from steampunk pack being the first)... why not non-pathing travel auras - flame, water, bugs, ghosts lifting me aloft, ghostly wings.

For that matter, why not travel-only costume pieces, like wings that unfurl from a folded position on my back, packs with wings that swing/fold/transform out when I take off, mystic sigils when I teleport, my body turning to a lightning bolt while I am running at super speed.

People should be able to buy various backpacks, beltpacks, and the like that do 'something special' when they turn on their travel power. And some of these things should only be available if you are a partcular origin. So the magic character buys a cloak of flight. On the ground it's a cape, but activate flight, and the cape becomes glowing nimbus (in the character's selected colors of course) set of wings or the like. If he teleports, the cape wraps around him, glows and then he's gone. If he superspeeds it sparkles and leaves a trail of magic sparks. Super Jump and it billows like it's catching the wind.

(It doesn't have to be locked to magic origin... that's just an example)

Tech packs and belts and all sorts of things could be worked this way. Yes, it's a lot of animation. Yes, it's a lot of work. Perhaps even difficult with the current engine. These are just ideas... my point is whatever CoH does, don't feel limited by what's in comics or what some other game is doing. And whatever you do, make it as customizabile as possible, and make it work with whatever travel power a person uses. The piston boots, winged boots and rocket boots from the recipie drops are examples.

The upcoming store means that almost anything is possible. Play. Be Free. That's what Freedom means to me!

Okay... Samuel and Power_Play have hit the subject right on target with my feelings.

If all the content for my 'end game' characters requires either 'grinding' or 'teaming'... I am likely not going to be seeing it until most players have it all figured out, mapped out, published walk-throughs, etc.

I loved Going Rogue! 20 levels of NEW content. I could finish my latest 49 off to 50, and then put them on the shelf and go play new characters. And with all the arcs to play, I have had a blast. Those 20 levels seem throughly geared to the solo player. Play them in a team and you will see that for sure. The spawn groups are almost overwealming, even on +0x1 for the owner. 8 Players means HOARDS of mobs, many with overlapping area effects, secondary effects, end drains, resistance debuffs, etc... For a solo, they seem just about right (though, of course, the people that regularly are bored when playing the old content at +0x8 or +2x1 or even +2x6 will still get bored with +0x1 in Praetoria).

If we had another 30 levels of Praetorian grade non-incarnate content, I would be completely willing to let the TF-Players and Raid-Players play their incarnate end game stuff to their joy. And I would play it, too. On team nights. With friends.

As it stands right now... I am grinding shards. And playing less of the game when it is not team night. And I have yet to play an Apex TF or Tin Mage II TF... but then, I have not played the Statesman TF, or Cathedral of Pain, or Lord Recluse Strike Force... not onces in all the time I've played the game. Lady Grey's TF and our team night team didn't get along. We really didn't like being KO'd that much. I have never done Hamidon. We did do the ITF once... and finally beat it on our second night of trying to complete the final mission.

I left that other War-filled World of Blizzard's because I couldn't find people to team with in order to play their end game (before they raised the level caps) that I was WILLING to play with. I do NOT do well on Pick-Up Groups.

So, if the City of Heroes End Game becomes all raids and team play OR all slow grinding I am likely to participate in said end game only in a minor way. Will it mean I will stop playing the game at all and rage-quit or the like? No. But I might stop playing the game as much as I do, and try other games out, or read a book. Or go back to routinely watching TV (something I have not done as much of since CoH came into existance and my wife found out she liked playing, too).

Please, Devs... Yes, an end game is important. But don't forget to throw us Solo-game fans some more bones. We're almost done digesting the last one (Going Rogue - the T-Bone steak of solo content).

Castle, it's been great reading your posts and knowing that the player's concerns were being heard. Thanks for the six years, and best of luck wherever it is you are heading off to!

Played Hero side, Level 27. Team leader was level 50, so was sk'd to 49 most of the time.

I believe this is going to be a good addition to the Winter Event. It's not too different, adds in a little something. The thing I am worried about is what the requirements are to spawn the ability to get into the Winter Ream. Does it REQUIRE that there be a WL on both Blue and Red side at the same time, or was that just so we could test to co-op nature of things?

That was unclear.

In general, it felt good. You may have to tone down the WL a little so that on the less populated servers we will be able to gather enough folks to take him down. (That was my problem with the Halloween event and those spawn sites and the requirements of that... very hard when there is not a lot of population in a zone or at a time of day on a server to get things working right.)

Other than that, looks good. Feels good inside the Winter Realm, too. Maybe with all the people we had it was the reason it went so fast and 'easy' for us in the test. It needs to be easy enough that low population nights and times can do it, yet not so easy that it is a push over on high-population servers during peak times.

My other feedback is about the timer on the 'preparing the present' that is the gateway to the Winter Realm. Ghost Falcon said in the channel to wait for the timer to run out then click... and it took me a while to FIND the timer there on the compass. Yes, we had it there for the UI with the Halloween Event, but other things already were drawing the eye there with the change in the UI... the Winter Event doesn't do that, so I didn't know to look at the compass for the timer.

Might want to use a larger font on the timer. Make it more obvious or color it in red/green, whatever.

Having the dot on the zone map showing where the present/gateway is really helps rather than running all over trying to find it. I thank you for that!

All told, it 'felt' good. But then, winning always feels good. It WOULD be nice to have a SPECIAL temp power, rather than re-filling the spirit/cheer powers. Maybe you DID give me one and I missed it, but those were the ones I found... and I know I cleared them out by using them before going off present hunting.

Okay, enough of my rambling. I look forward to it on live.

--Axe To Grind/Thrillseeker

I and my Dark-Star blue side mates were playing from shortly after double XP started on Friday (I took a paid day off from work to do this) and we played on and off all weekend. I know of 2 people that got to level 50, many others than got 2 or three levels out of it, and I, myself, got one of my seldom played characters from level 45 to half-way through level 47.

So, all told, a fairly good time.

Now, we ALL did suffer about 20 minutes on Friday night of Mapserver disconnected storms, which seemed to come through again sometime Sunday afternoon. And our villianous brothers over on Protector in the Primal Darkness villain group suffered some down time. Guardian had ONLY the Mapserver storms. Guardian rocks!

These may have already been asked... but I just have to stick my own oar in the water.

1&gt; What has happened to the Paragon Times? We used to get this wonderful paper delivered daily. (As in it used to be published on the website as the 'official cannon voice' for the latest strange events in the game.) I miss this paper and can only seem to find a weak two sheet occasionally in the hands of others on the street. And while the Newsboys near many of the tram stations seem to be hawking something, they won't let me buy one. What gives?! (In otherwords, it would be sure nice to see this feature come out again on the website from time to time. Fact is I can't even seem to find the back issues of it on the site any more. As the last one was about Dr Brainstorm's foray into Power Proliferation, maybe he's done something nefarious to prevent it from being found again.)

2&gt; What's up with these Zombie Attacks? I mean, what's the CANNON explanation. I don't necessarily want the developer reasons for it (as it was a 'cool thing' added for last Halloween). What I want is what the scientists and the Midnight Squad and the factions in the Rogue Isles are saying about it. Has any great power or force claimed responsibility for it? (Never mind if they really did so... do they CLAIM it?) Obviously the fact that they drop TECHNOLOGY enhancements is a clue here.

Used to be we would hear Cannon-based speculation on what caused things like #2 in #1, which is why I ask these questions together.

The Paragon City Times was a wonderful tool of the company in providing this sort of resource for the players. It gave us an 'official' jumping off point for what was happening in the seasonal events of the city and how those events changed from year to year. And while it's all fine and good for the answers to these sorts of things to be left to the players, it doesn't feel completely right.

I don't need the TRUTH about things like this. I'd just like some 'official mouthpiece pundit' to at least provide the 'official unofficial in-game reason' for things. Of course, I would ALSO like to have at least one DEV-WRITTEN story arc or mission backing up that side of things, and hinting at it not being the only possible answer... And yes, the MA allows the players a way to write THEIR version of said arcs... but it still feels like a gaping hole in the supplied hype for the seasonal events when they contain the yearly changes.

Enough of my soap box. Thanks for allowing us to ask. I'd love to hear an answer. And if it's been provided somewhere and I just missed it.. someone at least point me to it in a PM with a link. Thanks!

In the words like those of so many comic book covers:

"Welcome, EMpulse, we hope you survive the experience!"

Welcome!

Thank you for all YOUR hard work, Ex Libris. We will deeply miss you here on the forums. It was a pleasure to meet you at the Hero-Con '08 event and before at the little meet and greet so 'long' ago. Fly high!

Subjective: I am of the opinion that the Present-Opening mechanic needs to be redesigned in some manner. Right now since having a team of 5 or more characters formed to do presents causes too great a chance of a Winter Lord spawning, there is a GREAT deal of solo present opening.

This means that for characters with low survivability or who are just inconsiterate of others, they click and run, leaving their Naughty Spawn behind for the next present hunter to deal with or avoid.

This APPEARS to cause the presents to take longer to respawn. It APPEARS that by cleaning up after oneself, the present will respawn for other players (and yourself if you are doing a circuit farming presents) quicker.

With the advent of the event-only Universal Travel set and it's much desired SLOW resistance recipie, there are a LOT more people interested in getting candy canes. So click-and-run present opening is much more of a problem than it was last year.

Basicly, during this event my regular supergroup gatherings have been chaos because there is no group-benifit to opening presents, only punishment in the form of a Giant Monster spawn that has no real ability to be taken out by the group that spawned it. ESPECIALLY at the lower levels.


Suggestion 1: Make it so ALL the members of the team, not just the person that clicks, gets candy cane's if it's a 'nice' present.

This will make grouping for present-opening MUCH more likely, despite the risk of getting a Winter Lord.

Suggestion 2: Change the presents to only open to people level-appropriate to the zone the present is in.

This will stop the issue of Level 50's going to the early zones of the game and present-grinding for candy canes, as any frostlines are just a Area Effect power away from defeat.

As far as the issue of this causing PI getting overcrowded for present hunting and rife for griefing behaviour... that leads to...

Suggestion 3: Please add some other missions that can be done for candy canes. I bet Baby New Year could use some supplies he's going to need for the new year. And I wouldn't be surprises if Lord Recluse might not want to delay the new year for some purpose? Or maybe Mender Silos has something up his sleave that needs changing/correcting so the new year will go the way He needs it to in order to further/prevent the coming storm.

There should be an endless number of things that could take advantage of the situation with Baby New Year. And what about where all those presents come from in the first place? And the Winter Lord, and the frostlings.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Midnighters would want to get involved. Maybe a Winter Event Task Force invloving a lot of things. Why be so locked into this one event that has been happening again and again in the same way for 3 winters now (with very slight varience in reward systems).

For that matter... will we be able to make Event Based content with the Mission Architect??! If you guys can't come up with more content for the Winter Event, then let US do so!

Oh, where'd this soapbox come from I am standing on... sorry, I will get off of it now. I'm rambling again.

<ul type="square">[*]TVs with non-medical information, preferably flat panel ones somewhat similar to real world ones - showing Paragon TV or Rogue Isles TV or both (Paragon City and the Rogue Isles DO have Broadcast/cable TV right??! - Or has Radio won all the battles against Television?)[*]Holovision displays for the same as above[*]Scrying mirrors and crystal balls showing the same as above[*]Steam-punk and Pre-TV imaginings of what TV was going to be like for the retro-look[*]Doors for our hallways - they don't have to do much. Just obscure line of sight (unless transparent or containing transparent parts) and open and close. - Lots of these things in the game. Rollup doors, sliding open doors, the 'airlock' style door-pairs, the 'iris' doors from the sewers[*]Doorways - arches, crawl ways, pipes, - passages that constrict movement down to 'chokepoints'[*]More textures for walls - do we have to be so limited in what we can make our walls look like? What if I want a white stucco texture, wood paneling, wallpaper, etc?[*]Stalactites and Stalagmites - so we can make caverns[*]Portholes, windows, viewscreens and images to see through them - so we can seem to be in orbit around earth, in alternate dimensions, floating in the air, suspended in lavaflows, etc - A way to see 'where' the base seems to be.[/list]I can easily see a list of themes of types of things:
<ul type="square">[*]Real-world modern styles[*]Space Man Tom style - what the future looked like in the 50's[*]Art Deco[*]Decor from Tabula Rasa(tm)[*]Decor from Lineage(tm) and Lineage 2(tm)[*]Decor from Guild Wars(tm)[*]Decor from Dungeon Runners(tm)[*]1960's style 'secret agent' decor[*]NASA Moonbase stuff - Similar to the style of Space: 1999[/list]Basically what I am trying to do is create apartments, caves, clubhouses, libraries, labs, etc.

I'm also slightly tired of square rooms. I want to be able to do hexagons, spheres and the like. Or irregular shapes to emulate caves and caverns.

I could keep brainstorming for hours on this. Just what would all our heroes be doing when they are in these bases and hideouts...

Oh, BTW, for the distant future rework, it would be nice to be able to SIT-on-click or the like where we get moved onto a chair or couch or bed in a pose that's right for that space. Emotes help it look right, but it would sure be nice to have some 'help' in being able to USE the furniture in the bases (and in pocket D for that matter).

Keep the faith Lighthouse... we'll miss ya! Lots!

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Commander Kitty
Global Contact: @Thrillseker
Level of Classification: 50 Mastermind
Origin: Technology
Super Rank &amp; Super Group: Primal Darkness

----------------------------------------------------
Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Purple Moose
Global Contact: @Thrillseeker
Level of Classification: 37 Brute?
Origin: Mutant?
Super Rank &amp; Super Group: Primal Darkness

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Thrillseeker
Global Contact: @Thrillseeker
Level of Classification: 50 Tanker
Origin: Science
Super Rank &amp; Super Group: Dark-Star

-----------------------------------------------
Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Knight of Power
Global Contact: @Thrillseeker
Level of Classification: 50 Defender
Origin: Magic
Super Rank &amp; Super Group: Dark-Star

----------------------------------------------
Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Stand In
Global Contact: @Thrillseeker
Level of Classification: 44 Defender
Origin: Mutant
Super Rank &amp; Super Group: Dark-Star

Fantastic, Bruce! It's great to see you back in the Bay Area and back with superheroes. Amazing where the roads of one's life brings one is it not. I remember all the Hero System games we used to play back in 'the day' before the Ice Age of Hero Games with Steve Perrin and others both at his home and at game stores and at conventions.

I wonder what The Marksman would say about all this?

It's great you are writing content and systems for the game, and I look forward to interacting with the content. Your writing and editing style has always provided cool and interesting touches to the games you have been involved with.

Welcome to NCNC and welcome to The City!

(Karl)

Edit: Fixed a little typo.