TonyV

Where did you think the Hellions go to pay their base rent?

I know that this is going against the grain of the outrage expressed by a few people, but this was kinda cool and I have to add my dissenting viewpoint to the standard rants.

So like a lot of people, I bought the 24-pack of Super Packs the day they came out. I got all of the costume pieces, no black wolf (yet!), and a healthy mix of ATOs, boosters, unslotters, etc. Of course, I also got a bunch of inspirations, those things much maligned as the "useless crap" that the developers are accused of throwing in just to keep you from getting all of that sweet, sweet loot (and spend more money, of course).

Now, I admit I'm not exactly the target demographic for inspirations for purchase. Truth is, I find the game excruciatingly easy, even the "hard" content that is supposed to challenge players. Not that I'm a godlike powerhouse of a player, mind you, but mainly because if I get defeated, I'm like, "meh," life goes on. If you're willing to die a lot and put in a bare minimum of preparation, you can accomplish pretty much everything in a reasonable amount of time.

So anyway, this weekend, I went on a Mortimer Kal strike force. We got to the end, where you have to defeat Positron as that #@*$! Cleansing Flame keeps healing him if you don't defeat it in like five seconds. No one really knew the mechanics of it going in, so we'd get him down to half his health, and then he'd heal back up completely. I tried and tried to tell people, "You have to drop everything and focus on that Cleansing Flame!", but to no avail. Then the leader dropped, leaving us with what seemed an insurmountable challenge to overcome. I mean, if we couldn't do it with five, how could we do it with four?

Then, I remembered, "Oh yeah! I have all of those inspirations from my Super Packs!" I claimed a bunch of them, gathered everyone together, and before going in, popped four or five of them, including the defense, damage resistance, and damage ones. They carried us through the entire battle, and we managed to defeat Positron with just one of the Cleansing Flames to deal with.

I probably won't use the inspirations every session, but I've gotta say, it was nice having them--and having enough of them--to accomplish what we were trying to do. I'm not saying, "Wow, I hope I get a ton of inspirations!" in future Super Packs, but I will say that in hindsight, I'm glad I got as many as I did while trying to go for other stuff. It was a healthy mix of them with other stuff I wanted to make me try and like them. I don't look at them as the "useless crap" drops, I see them more as, "well, I'll eventually use them for something, so that cool."

Oh, and last night, I did pop a few of the individual dual inspirations while soloing Arbiter Hawk's Valentine's Day mission. I didn't have to, but it was nice defeating Countess Crey a little faster and not faceplanting so many times. I doubt I'll be buying any of the inspirations directly (barring really good sales on the market), but I do see myself buying plenty of Super Packs in the future and hope they add more goodies to the mix.

You seem to be a bit new here (welcome to the forums!), so I'm going to warn you up front that you're probably about to be bombarded with some nasty replies. Try not to take them personally. There are a lot of veterans who have a bit of history behind the requests you're making who think they know everything and who won't hesitate to inform you as such.

Here's the no-snark response to this post:

1) You need to post these kinds of messages in the Suggestions and Ideas forum. This one is mainly used to help players who are having technical issues running the game, or to report bugs or unexpected weirdities with the game.

2) The devs have a long history of basically saying that a level cap increase will never happen. No, they haven't come right out and said it that bluntly, but there have been things said like, "I doubt it will ever happen," "It would take prohibitively long to change the engine and rebalance the game," etc. They'll never come out and say, "This will never happen," but it's as close to anything they've ever claimed is in that status.

3) The space idea... Probably will happen at some point, but the player base has been going through various levels of expectation for it since a survey was sent out that vaguely intimated it back in, what was it? 2006 or 2007. They probably have actually worked on it at various points, and as far as we know, it might be almost ready and will be pushed out in Issue 23. Or it may never get released. It's just been kind of the running joke for years, something the players thought was imminently on the horizon and that never came to pass.

4) I'm not trying to be mean or obnoxious, but very, very rarely have the devs ever incorporated a player's story suggestion into the game. In fact, the only time I can remember it is Numina's back story, which was design by a player who entered a contest specifically for that purpose. The devs do, however, frequently incorporate player suggestions when it comes to game mechanics, quality of life features, and so on. I'm not saying that you shouldn't offer up story suggestions, I'm just warning you that it's highly unlikely that they'll incorporate them.

Hopefully people won't be too snarky in the rest of the thread, but like I said, if they are, don't take it personally. It's just that a lot of the things you happened to specifically mention touches on stuff that has a long history in the game.

Speaking of the store, there is another error. The icon for the item "Enhancement Increase (2 of 2)" indicates that it will increase your enhancement inventory by 5 (with a +5 in the corner). In fact, it increases it by 10. The first increase icon correctly displays +10.

Here are the icons for comparison (I added the red circle to make it stand out):



The description correctly does say, though, "Enhancement Inventory Increase (10 slots) (2 of 2)". Still, it could negatively impact sales if people are just glancing at the icon and thinking, "1600 points ($20) for only five slots?"...

Hey guys, the icon for the Invention License (30 day) in the Paragon Store is messed up. Someone probably typoed the image URL. It looks like a default "image missing" type icon. Note that the small icon in the list view is correct; this is the icon when you access the full description of the item.

Because your contacts don't actually have jobs.

Faces is back!

Hey all, in case you missed Codewalker's post in the other thread, he's been doing a lot of work lately on restoring CoH Faces, the last site on the Titan Network that was still down from our hackage back on Halloween. Aside from getting the software updated to avoid a similar hacking in the future, he's also fixed some other bugs and holes that could have caused potential problems. Yes, he really is that dreamy.

Anyway, we're really sorry it's been down for so long. As we've modified the code semi-extensively, if you notice any bugs or weirdities, by all means, let us know by posting a message on our forums or otherwise PMing me or him or responding in this thread.

Enjoy!

If I were really analytic, I'd also map how City of Heroes was doing relative to some measure of the economy as a whole. The time from 2008 through last year were pretty brutal. Sometimes losing ground but not as fast as the economy as a whole can be consider a win. I'd also map how City of Heroes did relative to some of its competition. Aside from seeing how our marketing people and developers stack up against other companies', it would also give insight into how the industry as a whole is doing.

1) Don't store passwords in clear text.
2) (related to 1) Don't allow passwords to be reverse-engineered. Worst-case scenario, just make the user reset it.
3) Don't make users give their real names if they don't want to.
4) Don't e-mail crap to people unless they've explicitly said they want whatever it is I think is so important.
5) No third-party ads. Not only are they annoying, but it's a good way to get compromised.
6) Allow users to control how much/how little of their own information is publicly accessible.
7) Don't allow people to post naughty things. Personally, I don't care, but out of respect for other people and to stay on NCsoft's/Paragon Studios good side, it's a good rule.
8) When NCsoft/Paragon Studios asks you to do something, try your best to be responsive and accommodating. They can make you and they can break you.
9) Treat the other developers and editors as if they're smart, even if you think they're being boneheaded. They really are smart, and it might be me that's being boneheaded. Still...
10) Don't let them do something that you fundamentally know is wrong.

...

What? That's how I roll. Aren't we talking about playing City of Heroes? That's how I spend most of my time playing...