TrueGentleman

The devs' realization that they didn't have any way to prevent VIPs from pacting with F2Pers. That's the way I interpreted the announcement coinciding with the significant date of the CoH Declaration of Freedom ending. If that's the case, since they've decided on their workaround for it, i.e. no new level pacting in CoH Freedom, they can presumably pull the trigger on VIP Head Start when they like.

Then again, that's not the only major bug in the beta, so it's entirely possible I could be wrong.


Post scriptum: I got randomly DC'ed in the game just now, so I really do hope they road test the new servers.

Ha! Comic Sans's foul mouth has drawn the wrath of the CoH forum's swearfilter, which has censored the URL.

Comic Sans: The disease is inside of you.

Ta-da! seems likely, given the near-miss of the unannounced VIP Head Start on Tuesday (unless I obtusely missed advance notice of it).

I already have a couple of PMs to community management but have yet to hear back.

Extrapolating from all that, my bet is next week, either Tuesday or Thursday, on the assumption they've fixed the show-stopper bug.

Thanks - I was going to ask. I have a few comics lettering-style fonts, but I'm not sure of their legibility in the CoH interface. What point size is yours rendered in?

(Also, Comic Sans is a worthless, sloppily designed font, popularized only thanks to Microsoft's ubiquity. Fortunately, there are alternatives.)

I spoke too soon. When I wrote that they were up, everything was green, but currently, I cannot even maintain the map connection on a low-pop server like Defiant. <shakes head>

EDIT: And I just crashed the Mac client trying to access one of the evidently offline servers, which was craftily labelled green. Well played, server, but we shall meet again.

Infinity is now inaccessible to me, Freedom's officially grey, and Virtue is red but functional more or less. truly would like to be more impressed with this server upgrade.

There were half a dozen War Walkers by the end, but the valiant heroes of Infinity made short work of them. Call it an impromptu stress test.

I humbly submit that is a better indication of performance in the immediate future than going back half a decade.

But then, I live in the moment, which, on Infinity, is terribly laggy with intermittent map connection loss for everyone. But Beastyle's promised a War Walker in Atlas Park, so there we are.

Going back to 2004 to predict what will happen with the game's massive changes in the coming month? Can you say past performance is not indicative of future results?

That CYA interruption clause - one that is quite common in MMORPGs - may scare off a small-claims lawsuit, but it does not impress anyone with common sense. The agreement between subscriber and NCSoft for access to the game is self-evident.


Be that as it may, it's a moot point 'cos the servers are up now.

This is all quite true, and approaching it philosophically will make getting through the short term easier. And yet...

What evidence do we have for this supposition? If anything, a pattern may be starting to emerge, as this is not the first time of late in which Paragon has had severe server problems. Moreover, the general circumstances are less likely to improve, given the imminent new issue, major change to the game, and (presumed) mass influx of new and returning players. Now is precisely not the time to start making the natives restless.

My common sense tells me that at the present, I am a subscriber to City of Heroes and therefore am entitled to access to the game for which I have paid. Every minute that I am unexpected cut off from this is money wasted.

When the game switches to a hybrid MTX-subscription model, that will change. For CoH Freedom, a connection to the basic game will be free, i.e. commercially valueless, and VIP benefits such as numerous character slots, Going Rogue, priority queues, et al. will be what we'll spend our money on. Since its launch has slipped unexpectedly, now is an entirely appropriate time to expect proper access.

In any case, I'm off to go watch a movie or play a solo computer game or something. I've experienced worse with other MMO studios, but I've come to expect better from Paragon Studios.

In the words of a distinguished gentleman with more technical skill than I, "Woob woob woob! (Nyuk nyuk nyuk!)"

It's worse hypocrisy than that. When tinkering with Empire Strikes Back for DVD, Lucas didn't have a very high regard for the work of either its actual director, Irvin Kershner, or its veteran screenwriters, Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan. He presumably trumped them in his role as executive producer. The irony that Lucas would do exactly what he predicted, e.g. altering dialogue in Empire and replacing Sebastian Shaw with the "fresher" Hayden Christensen at the end of Jedi, is pretty rank, though.

Perhaps he felt that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Well, some of us prefer playing on CoH as opposed to other MMOs precisely because of its comparative reliability. These recent jolts are not what we've come to expect from Paragon Studios.

So you're suggesting the choice is between waiting around for Paragon's servers to come back up or go play the ever-reliable TF2?

Lucas probably feels that since he's both the creator and copyright holder, he doesn't have to worry about holding the Star Wars films "in trust". Since his testimony failed to move Congress back then, he now doesn't have to worry about any US copyright laws on the books regarding moral rights, so he doesn't have to worry about what his collaborators on those movies may think. So, James Earl Jones can't have any say, figuratively, in what Darth Vader now does: "NOOOOOOOO!!!!"

Every time someone suggests that it's not worth getting worked up about the things geeks love - comics, sci-fi, cartoons - I try to remind that whatever the aesthetic value of them, they have cultural significance that will make an impact beyond the their niche pop appeal.

An interesting theory. Somewhere out on the 'net there's another one that goes into great detail about how each regeneration's new persona is a reaction to the previous one's experiences, but this Reddit discussion is the best I could find at short notice. Meanwhile, back in reality, the casting choices for replacement actors over the years have been the decisions of the various Who producers on the basis of their plans for the next installment, the audience's preferences, and the pool of available candidates.

The idea wasn't necessarily bad, but the execution was terrible. (Eccleston's Doctor may owe more to the Sixth than than most fans like to admit.) Supposedly Colin Baker has done good work properly characterizing the Sixth Doctor in various Big Finish audio adventures, though I haven't listened to any of these.

Likewise, there are a lot of spin-off Doctor Who media, e.g. audio plays, comics, and novels, that can be fun but aren't a good starting point for new fans.

LA LA LA LA WE CANT HEAR YOU LA LA LA LA

(Yes, there are weird elements scattered throughout Doctor Who that aren't considered "canon" simply because everyone ignores them. Another example is the parade of never-before-seen-and-never-seen-again images of previous Doctors during the Time Lord "mind-bending" contest between the Fourth Doctor and Morbius in "The Brain of Morbius".)

These crossover episodes are a bit of a mixed bag. Probably not a good place to start Who-viewing, although they have a lot of fun moment. Pertwee's and Troughton's Doctors played off one another quite amusingly in The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors.

If ranting is the only way that one can register displeasure, then that shows a lack of self-restraint and composure. Maintaining a degree of calm when matters go awry is a pragmatic philosophical approach to life.

To be fair, Baker had in mind a costume closer to the Ninth's, to complement his "darker" take on the character, however badly that turned out, too. Incidentally, Baker's turned out to be a decent sport about his infamous run. His quasi-fanmade series the Stranger (Doctor Who with the serial numbers filed off) almost intrigues me.

For reasons both internal and external, it was the nadir of the original series's run, absolutely the last place for a new fan to start.