TrueGentleman

Eh, pointing out a predictable plot tweest ought to count for something, i.e. nothing in this case.

And boy, did mileage vary. Plenty of readers felt it was the most cynical corporate-driven editorial decision in comics of the decade with an entirely predictable return.

Obviously, Statesman's death isn't on a par with that since, as I'm evidently on a roll with predictions today, he's actually more likely to stay dead for the same reasons he's apparently biting it.

Called it today:

Where do I collect my "No-Prize"?

Well, Zwillinger has been tabulating exactly that behind the scenes, and since there are still compromises (of a kind) being offered, it's fairly evident that there are more than enough players who detest this turn that CoH Freedom is going to be taking. It would be great if he could share some of that data, or, for that matter, if Black Pebble could comment instead of leaving Zwillinger with the sole responsibility, on top of turning of his PM mailbox.

If Paragon decides to go ahead without further response to our feedback and the Super Packs bomb at the store, then the playerbase will have additionally lost out on all the time and resources spent implementing a flawed system instead of, say, improving the Paragon Market's barely acceptable UI. That's not an especially attractive gamble either.

Nice statistic. Care to tell us how you came up with it? One could just as easily say that 90% of the responses in favor of whatever the new scenario for Super Packs: The Gathering are from your thread-sitting.

While that might make this marginally more tolerable for Tier 9 VIPers, Paragon is still requiring everyone else who's interested to play Super Pack: The Gathering and is beginning to seem determined no matter how much negative feedback they receive.

(And let's not even get into the current clusterflock of the timing for subscription Reward Tokens or how VIPers were initially promised that they'd receive their Reward Tokens up front, the same as Preems buying points on the market. The thread devoted to that topic is approaching thirty pages and still growing.)

Remember when Avatea promised us that CoH Freedom meant "Pay for the content and features that you want."and Positron stated, "City of Heroes Freedom redefines City of Heroes based on the cornerstones of content, rewards, and choice."?

Because we do, and this is not it.

Thanks for the update, Zwillinger.

This does not address the fundamental issue that many players have: Offering random exclusives to VIPers undermines the basic promise of CoH Freedom that players could choose to pay for the content they wanted.

VIPers and Preems would like the option to purchase the exclusive items that are being randomly bundled in this proposed system, whether in the game or on the Paragon Market. There's been a compromise on ATIOs, but apparently not with the costumes and other exclusives. This new offer is just an attempt to make Super Packs: The Gathering somehow more palatable without addressing the fundamental complaints.

That's good news. The market still has a long way to go for acceptable usability, both in terms of stability and UI, however.

Ubiquitous, yet inert. Mercy Island was the first truly significant update for Arachnos that we've had in ages (and quite enjoyable at that). Then it's back to the status quo, with content that hasn't been refreshed in years on Red Side or new expansions on Gold Side in which Arachnos is a bit player and Recluse is sitting out the conflict despite having another Marcus Cole to hate.

Then again, we've had the same complaints about Statesman, who's been on the sidelines ever since Jack Emmert vamoosed. It's as though the devs can't juggle multiple projects in the lore. Their expansions and updates are all or nothing, depending on what has their attention at present. Incidentally, this is why I'm predicting Statesman is Who Will Die - the devs can't figure out what to do with him, so they're going to kill him off.

That's my fear, too. I've been thinking far too much about the Three Stooges after watching this trailer and am in line with the consensus that while the slapstick and impressions look promising, everything else is off (not to mention the obvious trendy pandering with jokes about iPhones and Snooki).

Exactly. The fundamental appeal of the Stooges wasn't that they were stupid and violent but that they were incompetent at whatever they attempted to do, whether plumbing (the quintessential "A-Plumbing We Will Go") or space travel (even the later Three Stooges in Orbit has the classic line "Push buttons! Push buttons!"). Seen from a skewed perspective, they're working-class heroes, trying to do a job as best they can, even if the results are mayhem, shambles, and eye-pokes. (Contrast this to the Marx Brothers, who were also always on the make, but as schemers, not workers.) It's likely that this movie will miss out on the opportunity of updating this aspect of the Stooges for a contemporary audience facing an economy that's the worst since the one in which they achieved their mainstream populaity.

Because the updates on the game have been rolling along for quite some time while Recluse and Arachnos sit on the sidelines? MMOs are dynamic environments. Neglected content withers away and is difficult to revitalize.

And why on earth should a major villain and his group feature comparatively prominently in new low-level content only to sputter out in the rest of the game?

Please, please don't give Paragon Marketing ideas. We're having enough trouble with the proposed Super Packs: The Gathering...

Since they're apparently still having problems getting some VIPers their points on time if their billing cycle is in the first third of the month, that might make sense. It's an incomprehensible way of doing business in general, though.

Truly, I don't know what they could possibly be thinking. I know that I'm thinking that they don't learn from their mistakes very well.

What on earth is Paragon Studios thinking? It's less than two weeks to Xmas, and they're only just now starting to release the first of their holiday-themed store items? Is this going to be another blink-and-you'll-miss-it holiday exclusive?

That would be incredibly short-term thinking. I'm not saying that it's not possible - NCSoft might have given Paragon an ultimatum to milk their remaining subscriber base for all they can for the next year or so while competition from new and existing MMORPGs, both in its genre niche and in others, erodes its popularity - but it would be disappointing.

Congratulations!

Now start grinding Incarnate Trials.

Lots of baskets for rather small eggs. What is he, the Easter Bunny of Evil?

Seriously, though, the climax of Statesman's Task Force seems to have deflated him, and the preferred ones for grinding are Lady Grey and Imperious, just as the preferred high-end zone for levelling is the Ritki War Zone rather than Recluse's Victory (and hey, what's Arachnos doing in the former, apart from standing around?). At the present, his raison d'etre is merely hating Statesman, something that's hardly unique, either among NPCs or players.

For a villain with a great deal of presence in the game and a clear philosophy as a motivation, Lord Recluse is yet another lore asset with untapped potential. If we're lucky, once the Coming Storm shows up, he might start taking an active role in the game again.

This is exactly how a business loses good will with its customer base. Paragon needs to address this officially now, even if they don't have a fix ready. Given what we were promised initially when red names like Positron and Avatea announced the details of CoH Freedom, we deserve more than radio silence about this clusterflock.

Nailed it. It's like decades' worth of scraps from "Lost in Space", "Land of the Lost", and "Lost" thrown together with bits of "Time Tunnel" and "Primeval". No wonder it's so bland when it tries to mix together so many flavors.

Also, any show with a line like "The two of us, we suffer from a Shakespearean relationship that borders on Greek tragedy." should be purged with flame.

That's fascinating - thanks for the information. My familiarity with the Second Doctor first came from the novelizations of the classic serials, so there's a precedent for having to use imagination recreating them (not to mention the bonus of the lack of distraction by the cheap SFX).

Ah, I see, so to speak. I've never listened to the audio releases of the Troughton missing serials (and I believe even those are missing ones).

The problem is that we don't have much more than a few minutes of six-part "The Power of the Daleks". Troughton's physicality and facial expressions make a tremendous first impression, but his performance only gets better when judged across an entire storyline - and there isn't a single fully intact one in his first series. We don't get to see Troughton in full until "The Tomb of the Cybermen" and "The Mind Robber", which are classics.



We can only hope. Meanwhile, doesn't this sound almost like something from Doctor Who itself?