TonyV
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Posts
1977 -
Joined
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Incidentally, one of the things I'm dreading about the launch of City of Heroes: Freedom is this entitlement talk. I can almost guarantee you that when we see how much stuff is in the store and what the microtransaction costs are for all of that stuff combined, will everyone be amazed at the sheer volume of new stuff that we now have access to? Some people will, thank goodness. But others, oh hell no, we're going to see the whining start.
"ZOMG, it's going to cost me a hundred bucks to get it all! This is insane! It's the monocle debacle all over again! It's so unfair, the devs don't care about us, all of this stuff used to be free, yada yada yada!" Um, no, it's not. You're not supposed to get it all. Sure, you can, and there will probably be some people that do. Instead of focusing on how much more stuff they're getting than ever before, how much amazing content and how flexible their choices are, there will be people who can't get past the stuff that they don't have, even if it's stuff they'll never use, even if it's stuff that, if it had never been released, they wouldn't have given a second thought about.
I foresee me posting many links to this guy. Everything is so amazing now, yet some people are just determined to not be happy. -
I'm sorry, but I really, really, really do not see the problem here. I understand that some people don't like trials, I really do. I understand that some people who want the rewards quickly find it "grindy," I really do. But it all boils down to a very, very simple concept:
If you want x, you must do y.
That's it, end of story. Maybe someday they'll tweak exactly what y is; in fact, based on history, I can almost guarantee it. But that doesn't change the fact that in the here and now, you're stuck with the y we have. This has always been true. No matter how you slice it, no matter how you dice it, always. Either do y, or wait until they make it easier.
Want to get to level 50? You have to first get to level 49. You can do it quickly via lots of teaming, or you can do it slowly via soloing, taking time to read all of the mission text, role-playing and doing various other non-experience-gaining activities. There's no way around it. At some point, you're going to have to buckle down, go out there, and defeat some enemies. You can't get to level 50 just by exploration badge experience. You can't get there by dancing in Pocket D. It's going to require some time and effort on your part.
About the best analogy I can think of are purple recipes. Some people hate dealing with the market. Seriously, they despise it. Do you have any idea how long it would take to get a character completely kitted out with purple recipes without engaging in some marketeering? I'm not even sure it's possible, it's that long. Sure, you can do it through A-merits, but my god, man, even that would take forever. Assuming you collect them as quickly as possible, one every two to three days, it takes, what, 30 or 35 of them to get just one specific purple recipe? So that would be two to three month's worth of work just to get one recipe. Now multiply that by 30 or so powers and umpteen slots, if you've made up your mind that you're never going to use the market, it would probably take you decades to kit out one single character.
That's what I feel like when people say stuff that boils down to, "This is so unfair! I'll never be able to get all of this incarnate stuff!" First of all, you're not supposed to. Do you really need every single aura, every single emote, every single costume piece, every single everything? That's like saying, "I have to have all of my characters completely kitted out with all purples!" Sure, you can do it, but that was never the intention of putting this stuff out there. You're supposed to figure out the stuff you really want and get it quickly. Then figure out the stuff that would be kind of cool, and collect it over the course of several weeks. In the coming months, you'll still be collecting stuff just because you've got the merits and it's silly to let them sit there collecting dust, and some day, you'll find that you've pretty much got it all.
Second of all, I've said it before and I'll say it again, these are long-term rewards. That means that you're not going to have all of the cool stuff today. You're not going to have it all tomorrow. Issue 21 is still probably a few months out, and Issue 22 will probably be four to six months after that. If you had it all today, what would you do tomorrow? People really used to vehemently insist that purple rewards were too hard to get and that they would never have a full set. Over the course of time, the hubbub subsided as people figured out that yes, it is indeed possible--nay, likely!--that they actually will be able to obtain these things, given enough time. This is no different.
So instead of thinking, "ZOMG I'll never be able to get everything!!!" and refusing to do trials and coming here and grousing constantly because you're so miserable, the devs are so unfair, everyone must love grinding crap over and over, and talking about how this game has become [insert other game here] and that's not what City of Heroes is about, try this instead.
Pick one thing you like. I suggest an aura or an emote because they're relatively cheap. Now go get it. It's not that hard; it won't take you more than a night or two max. That wasn't so hard, now, was it? Stop thinking so much about what your character doesn't have and focus on what he or she does have, and what he or she wants next.
Do people do this in real life? Holy crap, if I want to go skiing, I'm going to have to request vacation from work, gas up the car, buy some food for the road trip, save up some money for a hotel or lodge, pack a suitcase, drive there, find a place to stay, buy or rent ski supplies, maybe take some lessons to keep from busting my butt, and--oh, crap, I just realized, it's summer! Skiing is time-gated and I have to wait another four to six months before I can go or else spend insane amounts of money to fly to South America or something! This is so unfair, I'm NEVER going to go skiing again, EVER! Skiing SUCKS! People who like skiing must just really like grinding away at menial tasks like driving and scheduling stuff! I'm entitled to some alternate path to skiing besides doing all that work!
Yeesh. -
Quote:I hear what you're saying, but you have to understand that there's enough hyperbole on both sides to last a lifetime. For every person acting like not enjoying incarnate glurge is being selfish, there is another person acting like it's the end of the game that one cannot obtain all the new shinies in a day or a week or whatever, that everything must be unlocked to everybody right now, or that the developers should have waited another five years until Issue 20 was released with 15 new ways to unlock stuff so that everyone could be happy.Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Winterterminal summed it up perfectly. I only have one thing to add: I am beyond sick of people trying to act like not enjoying this incarnate glurge is the fault of the player for being too selfish and wanting the rewards too much.
When I'm actually in-game, I don't see people arguing over this. I don't see drama, strife, misery, or anything else I see reflected on the forums here. Minor irritation sometimes? Of course, just like it's always been. But on the whole, people are happy and having fun. The thing that gets under my skin is that DOOOOM!-crying is infectious--it can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. I honestly think that some people WANT the game to be doomed just so that their predictions will come to pass and "that'll show 'em, they should've listened to me!" That's especially prevalent among the ragequitters, and the attitude that "if I can't have fun, NO ONE should have fun!" most certainly is very selfish.
It's why I like threads like the OP posted here. It's a nice counterbalance. I hope that everyone realizes that it's human nature to mostly seek out forums like these and post complaints, that you get a lot more of those posts than the type where people say, "I really LIKE this stuff!" Well, I DO like this stuff! And apparently, so does the OP. And from my in-game experience, so do throngs of other people. Just like having an opinion that you don't like trials doesn't make you selfish, liking the trials and the reward structure also doesn't make me a mindless grinder (I plan on these rewards taking me months, maybe even a year or two, to obtain), a farmer, or any of the other negative stereotypes that the other extreme keeps hammering on. It means that I just don't think that having long-term rewards is a bad thing. It gives me stuff to look forward to down the road. -
Color me intrigued...
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It's killing me that people have this false dichotomy in their heads. Either a VIP will move to the new server, or they'll stay on their home server.
I think the reality of the situation will be that almost everyone will do what I do. They'll create some new characters on the VIP server, probably move one or two over there, and try it out. They'll probably be part of the community that develops on that server.
But that in no way implies that I'm going to abandon my old servers. My main characters will be staying home. I have friends on those "old" servers, I've helped to build up supergroups, I like the mood and feel of those places.
When they combined the server list, I created a new character on Defiant. I've been playing him a lot lately, but I haven't "left" the servers I was on before. I still pop in there, and once my Defiant guy hits 50, I'll probably stop playing him as often and play characters on other servers again with more-or-less equal frequency. When the VIP server hits, it will be no different. When I play there, I'm not avoiding free players any more than when I play on Defiant, Infinity, Triumph, or anywhere else, I'm avoiding VIPs. -
Quote:Suckerpunch is retired from the Titan Network, so I wouldn't expect that one to be updated anytime soon. Hopefully, we'll eventually get someone who is a javacript/web app whiz who can possibly recreate the online build planner. web app frameworks are still very immature compared to app frameworks, though, so it would definitely be an undertaking not for the faint of heart. If anyone is interested in taking up such a project (we're running a LAMP stack as our web server), let me know. (tonyv@cohtitan.com)Originally Posted by Justaris
There are a couple of others, but Mids is by far the superior tool to use. The only other one I am aware of is Suckerpunch's which I believe is still available on Titan Network, but given the choice I would opt for Mids.
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Quote:I don't think it's an eff'd up perspective to point out an inconsistency.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
People have a really eff'd up perspective.
Yeah, but using that logic, the whole "you won't lose anything you paid for" formula breaks down. I mean, think about it.Quote:Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
NOW:
You stop paying them money each month, you lose access to your Incarnate powers, Mastermind and...oh...EVERYTHING.
NOW:
You stop paying them money each month, you lose access to character slots you've bought, bonus packs you've bought, and...oh...EVERYTHING.
However, you WILL retain access to those things as a premium player, so that makes your rule inconsistent, too.
I think that what what everyone--people digesting this change and Paragon Studios--needs to realize is the "you won't lose anything you paid for" statement is a rule of thumb, not an etched-in-stone, legally binding contract. There may be exceptions out there on the edge, but generally speaking, if you paid for something specifically, then you will still have access to it.
Another example that could be rule-lawyered is the whole two-slots thing. I mean, I bought the game which gave me access to twelve slots per server, right? But if I lapse into Premiumdom, I don't still get those twelve slots, even though I paid for them! Yeah, but you didn't buy the game specifically for twelve slots, did you?
They might do well to start clarifying that you won't lose anything you paid extra for--i.e. anything outside what was included with City of Heroes, City of Villains, and Going Rogue. Of course, you'll gain access to most of the stuff that was included in the games, but not necessarily literally everything. I will agree that people shouldn't rules-lawyer dev or marketing statements, but I don't think it's necessary or helpful to rules-lawyer people who are confused about exactly who will have access to what, either. -
Am I the only person who read the OP and thought he was complimenting the game? I interpreted his "screed" as yelling "Play me! PLAY ME! PLAY MEEEE!" in a good way. It's lipstick, not pig!
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Quote:We're not allowed to talk about PIGGs here...Originally Posted by Necrotron
Some have said the constant upgrades to the game are akin to putting lipstick on a pig. At this point, it's rather more like pig on a lipstick; there is very little left of the original pig. More like a cow, I guess.
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Quote:That would be my vote.Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
-Honor?
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<Kinda QR, read first 15 or so posts>
Here's my take on the whole VIP server thing.
I might be a little naive, but I honestly think that the VIP server is going to be considerably less crowded than the rest of the servers, even with VIPs. I think it will be booming for the first few weeks or even a couple of months, but once the novelty wears off, people will be going back to their old homes and playing there.
I know that for my main supergroups, there's exactly zero chance in hell that I'll be abandoning them to go play on the VIP server. I'll be doing what I suspect most people will do: create a few alts on the new server, poke around, meet some new friends that have always played on different servers, but spend the lion's share of my time on my "home" servers.
There is one advantage of the VIP server that I can think of that will make it attractive to some people. Since everyone there has pretty much open access to everything, you won't have to deal with, for example, sending a tell to someone to join in some gated content just to get back a bunch of replies saying, "I can't, I don't have access to that." Honestly, though, this is one of my main concerns about the whole change, and I'm hoping that the devs are baking the system as to minimize or eliminate the possibility of such. Still, on the VIP server, that will never be an issue.
One thing that I'll be intensely interested in is to see how the new VIP server community develops over time. We've never had a single server spring into existence like this from scratch. There will be representatives from all the other servers, some of whom have been playing for years but never actually met in-game, finally being part of the same groups. Everyone there will be new, something that hasn't happened since the European launch in 2005. I seriously doubt that it will be made up only of elitist snobs, any more than any of the servers are today; it will be just average schmoes who have been playing all along and want somewhere new to try out. I'm pretty sure they have no intention of letting people move supergroups and/or bases over to the VIP server, that they will be forcing everyone who wants to play there to start from scratch. I really like that idea, because we'll all be starting from scratch, and I think it will be really fresh and interesting to see how it plays out. -
I am looking forward to seeing a bunch of people over the years that have left because they couldn't/didn't want to pay $15 per month. And it sounds like they're doing a lot to avoid pitfalls of other F2P games.
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Just as a point of interest, I was watching one of "mathemusician" Vi Hart's math doodle videos, Doodling in Math Class: Snakes + Graphs, and I was struck by one of the finest practical application of Ouroborii that I've ever seen. She even two-ups the City of Heroes "Infiniborous" design...
With a couple of her own designs: Ouroborromean Rings (based on topological Borromean Rings) and a beautiful Möbiaboros.
Anyway, if you're a math geek like me, you'll love seeing something semi-obscure in the game in a context outside of the game. (And you'd do well to voraciously bookmark and watch Vi Hart's videos.
)
Edit: Watching it again, I just caught her reference at 1:06 to "snakes on a plane..." *groan*...
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Crap on a stick, man, don't do that to me. I thought you were announcing that you were leaving.
Congrats, EM! -
Quote:I'm confused, what have you been doing the other five and a half years?Originally Posted by Silver Gale
That's enough time to get asked out by a friend on a Global channel, meet, fall in love, date long distance for a couple months, get engaged, move in together, and get married.
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Quote:Egads, man, the thing that introduced City of Heroes to the Wonderful World of RMT™? That's the best thing you can come up with? As soon as I saw how it was implemented, I thought, "Sure, that sounds great and all, but as soon as you make something that takes a long time tradeable, you're going to be barraged by spam." Sure enough, for a year or two after Issue 9, we had to put up with literally thousands of spam messages every day being pumped out via tells. Then e-mails. And now with RMTers standing around in Wentworth's and other populated areas.Originally Posted by Airhammer
Ok I sat down.. had breakfast, took a shower and had some time to think..
I said to myself what exists in this game that works really well that the majority of people seem to enjoy, but doesnt seem to add a level of frustration?. And while I am sure different people would have different answers I came up with one..
The Invention System.
As a direct result, the devs had to nerf trial accounts to the point where they're barely playable. Also, does anyone else here remember the good ol' days when influence was so plentiful and relatively useless at level 50 that you would give millions (which was, at the time, massive quantities) of it away to new players? Costume contests and other types of events were nightly occurrences. Now, thanks to the Invention System, you have to horde billions to get that purple you want from the market.
Not to mention that it drove farming to an all new high level. Sure, there was some of it here and there before, but for most people, it seemed kind of silly to accrue vast amounts of influence when it wasn't really usable for anything other than twinking your alts. After Issue 9, though, all of a sudden, you had something to do with billions of influence, and boy did people do it.
Now mind you, I'm not saying that the Invention System is all bad, just that your romanticized version of what it was like when it came out is more than a bit of selective remembering.
Okay, the Invention system hit with Issue 9 on May 1, 2007. Incidentally, purple recipes/enhancements were not added until Issue 11, released November 28, 2007.Quote:Originally Posted by Airhammer
They created a whole economy that never existed before with the markets. They made all the pieces ( salvage and recipes ) trade-able and you could even sell or but what you didnt want or need.
Merit rewards were introduced with Issue 13 on December 2, 2008.Quote:Originally Posted by Airhammer
Then they created merits as a reward at the end of a Task Force which could be utilized to buy merits you couldnt find on the market, through drops or that you couldnt afford.
Incidentally, the Lady Grey task force was introduced with Issue 10 on July 24, 2007. The Imperious task force was introduced in Issue 12 on May 20, 2008.Quote:Originally Posted by Airhammer
You could do an ITF and then go to a LGTF and then go do a Synapse.. if you had that kind of time.. and make progress...
Whoa, now you're really jumping forward. AE was introduced with Issue 14 on April 8, 2009Quote:Originally Posted by Airhammer
Then they added AE which produced AE tickets which allowed you to use the tickets to get a random roll on a pool as well..
So this "well thought out" system, which I'm not disagreeing was actually well thought out, had its own set of problems and challenges. Also, the stuff you mentioned was spread out over the course of two years, between April 2007 and May 2009, incrementally making it easier to obtain the rewards that initially, may complained were much too hard and "grindy" to get.
Issue 20, which introduced the Incarnate Trials, hit the live servers on April 5, 2011, a little over two months ago.
Two months.
So you're unhappy that after two months, a system you don't like doesn't have the maturity of a system you do that took over two years to roll out, while simultaneously acting like that system had no problems at all? You really don't remember how grindy the Invention System was when it was first released? You really think that what we have now will be the one and only way to ever obtain these rewards, that in a year and a half from now, we won't be having this exact conversation over the next long-term rewards, having forgotten all about how the trials were once viewed by some as grindy, before they opened the stuff up further by whatever is in the pipeline right now? You really think that the Incarnate system was just thrown together, as compared to the Invention System?
Wow. -
Quote:I have to be honest, this never bothered me. You have to understand that there's a fine line to walk when you're a spokesperson like that. Saying nothing is interpreted as an action as much as actually asserting something to be true or false. I'm not condoning lying, but you said it yourself--he *technically* told the truth. Unfortunately, when a group of rabid people like the CoH playerbase repeatedly put you in awkward positions by asking you questions you really can't answer, at some point, something like this is going to happen.Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
He did *technically* tell the truth about it - but he really lawyered it, so to speak (going by the letter instead of the spirit of what he said.) "We won't make any more drastic changes to powers like GDN." What did we get next? ED. No, the powers themselves didn't change... but it was a wholesale change to the way they were slotted - and worked afterward. If anything cemented the image of Jack as dishonest, it was that.
To be in that kind of position, you have to be not just a good developer, but a good politician. And like good politicians, sometimes you have to lawyer an answer when you get backed into a corner. It depends on what your definition of "is" is. We don't torture people, for certain legal definitions of "torture." It's not ideal, but it happens.
Also, it neglects the fact that sometimes things change. It's entirely possible that had the global defense nerf (sorry, I hate obscure abbreviations) accomplished what the devs set out for it to do--make the game less boring for non-burn tankers--that enhancement diversification may have never been necessary to balance the game further.
Personally, I don't hate Statesman. I kind of liked having things as unfiltered as he sometimes provided. He also did a great job with writing interesting material and for several years, he directed the troops in providing one of the most compelling diversions I've ever engaged in in my life. I thank him for his time and effort, and wish him well. -
Quote:First of all, you're right. However, there are people--and I see a lot of them here--who are on the opposite end of that extreme. People who are rank amateurs, who have no idea what they're talking about, armchair quarterbacking the experts who have spent decades doing precisely this based on study and actual data.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
This argument is petty, small, and pointless; it takes more to "make a game" than having well-founded and solid ideas on what should go into your entertainment. You do not have to be a professional (meaning "get paid for the work"; the amateur/professional divide is a paycheck, and nothing else) to have a valid point; a great deal of our technological and scientific advantages have been made by people that were not paid for the time they put in making them.
What bothers me about a lot of these conversations isn't when people say, "I don't like trials." It's not when people say, "I want a solo path to getting this stuff." It's not even when people make suggestions that I think are zany and "out there" to alleviate the situation.
No, what gets under my skin are the trolls who come along ragequitting (which is never a valid argument; it's nothing but a temper tantrum), who cop an attitude of entitlement ("you owe us this!"), who don't just criticize but who lay on the venom ("the devs are lazy and don't know what they're doing!"), and who constantly engage in gross hyperbole ("we can't do anything else but trials, the devs are ignoring us, it's a slap in the face!").
It's amazing to me how many people think that $15 per month playing a game makes them experienced developers. Matt Miller has been working for 20 years in this industry, and over eight years on this game alone. He has seen its ups and downs and been instrumental in just about every cool thing that we do in it. I put a lot of weight in his opinion and trust in his judgment, and though it's been tested a little here and there, it's always panned out pretty well. Arcanaville has earned some leeway in providing data that has been repeatedly acknowledged by the developers as helpful. When she says something, I put more weight to it because she's proven that she's a smart cookie who can hold her own.
But when some random Joe Schmo starts railing that he hates x, the devs are awful people who hate us, if they cared about the game at all they'd do y, everyone who disagrees is an idiot and a suckup, this new feature they've poured their heart and soul into is going to destroy the game, and they're leaving!!!11!, those opinions actually take away from credibility.
Fortunately, most people fall somewhere in between those extremes, and thus the game goes on. -
Quote:This game would not be around today had they delayed Enhancement Diversification much longer than they did. I'm not exaggerating. Anyone who doesn't like trials, you have no idea what an exercise in tedium is like until you go on mission after mission, watching a "burn" tanker gather hundreds of enemies into a dumpster and wait while enemies' health ticked down to zero. And if you had the gall to do anything that you thought was helpful, people would get mad, chastise you to just wait by the entrance, even kick you from the team.Originally Posted by Airhammer
The problem with the whole ED scenario is that Statesman wasnt honest.. He flat our LIED to the community and tried to sell the lie, when they should have just been honesty about it and delayed the ED until the Invention System was ready to go..
I actually left the game for two or three months in 2005 precisely because I wasn't doing anything and the thought of rolling a burn tanker just to play was nauseating. Had they not fixed the issue like they did, I would be permanently gone. As much as that might please some people, everyone else would have too and there would be no City of Heroes today.
Retro-hate Statesman all you want, but Enhancement Diversification was a very good thing for this game. -
Quote:I just don't see City of Heroes ever making the transition to a tablet. I won't say it will never happen, but it would require at a bare minimum:Originally Posted by Rodoan
All that got me thinking, where does the rise of tablet and mobile technology put the MMO market, and specifically CoH for the not-too-distant future? Will tablets become the computer of choice for the game? Will tablets begin catering to gamers, putting gaming video cards into their devices? Will we ditch hardware keyboards and develop a CoH touch screen UI? How will that affect our style of playing (chat functions, response time, etc.)?
- A voice client built-in. It's just impossible to type with any speed and/or accuracy on a tablet device, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. It's also based on the premise that the developers even want a voice client in the game; I get the vibe that they don't.
- Considerable changes to the UI to "tabletize" it. Those little power buttons will take up almost all of your screen space if you're a level 50 with a bunch of temporary powers. I suppose they could design some kind of gesture interface, but still, ugh. And given how they're working constantly to improve just the desktop client, I can't imagine taking dedicated resources to rewrite the engine like that.
- Significant advances in the horsepower of tablets. Right now, while they're perfectly good for doing graphically tame stuff, to build a full 3D game with any bells and whistles at all, it would take faster processors, more memory, more video capabilities, etc. Eventually, tablets will catch up to the current level of technology of laptops and desktops, but of course by the time they do, laptops and desktops of that time will be much more advanced as well, and we may very well have gotten more graphical updates to the game client.
Those are the three major hurdles that I can think of off the top of my head. However, I do believe that there is room for using a tablet or mobile device as an auxiliary gaming device for City of Heroes. I discussed some of these options over in this thread not too long ago. Stuff like using such devices as a portable costume creator, AE mission creator, market interface, chat client, as well as more exotic things like using it as an auxiliary input/output device to do things like display mini-maps or additional game information, would be extremely cool. Again, though, it would take developer resources.
I do think there is room in the community to create mobile tools. Every once in a while, it comes up at the Titan Network the possibility of developing, for example, a mobile version of Mids. Unfortunately, we're lacking development experience right now for mobile devices and like Paragon Studios, we have our own resource bottlenecks for our existing projects, so I wouldn't look for something like this anytime in the near future.
If you're talking about the industry in general, I absolutely believe there will be MMORPGs that are released for mobile devices. I think there already are some out, though they're probably relatively primitive compared to something like City of Heroes or other A-list games for PCs. I don't think that the genre will be very conducive for that format anytime soon, though. They haven't ever really taken off on consoles, either, at least not anywhere near how they have on full PCs, and that platform has more horsepower and arguably more conducive interfaces to operate an MMO than tablets.
Mind you, I don't hate tablets, I think they're very fun and useful devices. I just don't think they're ready for this genre yet, and probably won't be for at least another decade, probably longer. -
...And just like that, we're back! I'll be monitoring everything for a few minutes, but let me know if you have any problems! (tonyv@cohtitan.com)
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Hey all, if you can't get to the Paragon Wiki, City Info Tracker, Faces, City of Data, etc. for a few minutes, don't panic. Our hosting provider Linode.com (yes, shameless plug with referral link...) recently bumped up our disk space limits and I'm resizing some filesystems to take advantage of the increased space. It was just in time, too, as some of our backups were blowing out the space I had allocated for the database filesystem when I stupidly forgot to archive them, causing system crashes.
Anyway, we'll be back up soon, probably in five minutes or so. Sorry for the inconvenience! -
Quote:So stop doing them. You did know that it's supposed to take a long time to get up the new ranks, right? That you're not supposed to do the trials to the exclusion of everything else?Originally Posted by Mr_Grey
But I'm getting nauseous grinding these things out to slowly crawl my way up the new ranks.
See, Draugadan caught on, albeit probably a bit late. If only he had figured out pacing from the start, he'd probably be doing what I'm doing, which is not trying to cram everything in and taking his time, and he wouldn't have felt any strong desire to just quit. He would have been working on that purple set all along, with a healthy mix of tip missions, AE arcs, probably some task forces here and there, and even some regular ol' contact missions, Rikti ship raids, an occasional Hami raid, etc.Quote:Originally Posted by Draugadan
I quit weeks ago. I haven't done a BAF or a Lambda in awhile. Just couldn't do it anymore. I have tier 2 of my Judgement, tier 1 of Interface. I'm at 70 something percent on Destiny and 16 percent on Lore.
I know others have done far more. But that was it for me.
Would he be as far along as he is with Incarnate stuff? Of course not. But he would be further along with that purple set, he would have been able to spread the work out among three trials instead of two once the Keyes trial goes live, and it's not like Issue 21 is coming out next month or anything. Shoot, he probably has six months to a year before worrying about any more Incarnate stuff, since we've gotten exactly zero indication that Issue 21 will be significantly adding anything on the Incarnate system.
So yeah, if you're tired of the trials, stop doing them or at least slow down. If I did them over and over and ... and over again, I'd be sick of them too; so I don't and I think they're pretty durn cool. -
Quote:Okay, one, what does this have to do with anything? We're not talking about active players being banned, we're talking about people who aren't even playing the game possibly losing character names. Yeesh.Originally Posted by Red Valkyrja
Lets go find some of the people that were banned because their characters had leveled too quickly while level-packed.
Two, what do you mean, "level-packed"? Are you referring to the people who exploited known issues in the AE system a while back? The ones who exploited AE after Positron said, "If you exploit AE, we're going to smack you down"? That wasn't nerdrage, that was stupidrage. And honestly, if someone is going to quit because the developers don't want people using exploits, then good riddance; these people do not have the long-term health of the game at heart, and they will ultimately do more damage than their $15 per month helps. I thought we had hashed all this out already like two years ago.
But again, that has nothing to do with the conversation at hand. It's not like we're saying that if you play for seven years and let your subscription accidentally lapse for a day, your characters should be immediately deleted and your forum name changed to "Idiotface." -
Quote:Which is the opposite extreme of people advocating that people who have left the game deserve to have names reserved in perpetuity.Originally Posted by LittleDavid
It's been made pretty clear that there are people who don't care how short a time someone has been out of the game, nor care what the reasons might be for that. They believe anyone not actively paying a subscription, no matter how short a time they've been away nor their reasons for being away, is a non-person and doesn't deserve to keep their character data.
Which is also why I advocate a middle-of-the-road position that boils down to a couple of simple concepts: 1) If you are really attached to a name, you never have to lose it, and 2) the more you play, the more your attachment to characters is recognized by earning longer-term (even for throwaway characters) and permanent (for your cherished few) reservations.
If you play the game for a month and leave, I genuinely feel that you haven't played enough to really be attached to much of anything. You absolutely, positively, shouldn't be tying up names indefinitely. If you play for a few months, you've probably gotten a bit attached to the game and, if you have to leave for a few months because of whatever but plan on coming back, you get some leeway with your characters. The longer you play, the more attached you are to your characters and their names, and because you've been funding the game, you've earned the commitment of NCsoft not to just blow away your identity.
In short, the more commitment you've shown us, the more commitment we'll show you. It rewards current players and treats former customers with an amount of respect commensurate with their financial support and contributions to the game.