TrueGentleman
-
Posts
1732 -
Joined
-
Quote:Absolutely, although the current Animal Pack and all-access costume parts cover the various minion types in Beast Mastery (viz. Wolves, Hawks, Locusts, Lions, Dire Wolves).Originally Posted by Night_Hornet
A current example would be up-coming Beast Mastery, while not release some more animal related costume parts when that is released - surely demand would be highest at that time?
Perhaps to make the existing Animal Pack more attractive, Dink or someone in the art department could add one more option to the current pieces, say, chimp or ape parts. If not, then adding new animal-themed costume elements piecemeal could work in the Paragon Market. -
Quote:Functionality is a good thing, in the first place. In the second, Ouro is now technically broken since it no longer works as well as it did now that side-switching and incarnates are part of the game. And in the third, reducing this to an either-or proposition is a poor method of business planning. The devs have let us know that they work several issues in advance, so fitting in a renovation for Ouro into the long term plans shouldn't automatically preclude releasing new content. Besides, as I said, renovating old content can also provide the opportunity for unexpected directions for the new.Originally Posted by Doc_Reverend
Well, you can either spend a lot of finite resources fixing something that isn't broken, or you can use them for other stuff. Ouroborus in it's current form isn't broken, and works most of the time. Perfectionism is a bad thing.
Certainly, and that would factor into the scheduling. If it were simple (and it's not, from what the devs are telling us), then it would be easy to slot in sooner rather than later. Since it will have to be later - and it's already almost a year and a half after Going Rogue's launch - then figure out if it should be Issue 24 or 26 or 30, etc.Quote:Originally Posted by Katie V
Depends on the cost. Would fixing it cost "one mission with custom mechanics", would it be "Dark Astoria makeover", or would it be "Ultra Mode"?
Otherwise, Ouro is just another example of CoH legacy code no longer working quite as it should but well enough for the devs to ignore, despite players' requests for revision. -
Quote:Thanks for pointing to that, GPBunny.Originally Posted by GPBunny
In case you aren't reading the market thread for 2/21 Ghost Falcon did post about this topic.
Just to put it on record in this official thread:
It's reassuring, perversely, that Ghost Falcon's own personal accounts are having similar problems with inconsistently awarded points.Quote:Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
GPBunny - for the record, I don't monitor that thread daily although I hop in every once in a while to catch up. I'm not the point person on Paragon Points, but I do know that Zwil, Doc Delilah and others have pushed for answers from our Billing Team. At first, we just delivered the information as we got it..., but then when it turned out the information we gave wasn't exactly jiving with reality with some customers, there was a decision to withhold giving updates to avoid causing even more customer angst and confusion.
At the Player Summit, I believe I even said at the Paragon Market panel that we were just as frustrated (if not more) than you in the award dates of Paragon Points and Paragon Reward Tokens.
Lately, I've been sorely tempted to post in that thread, but anything that I posted would be from anecdotal experience, and not from a position of "I've-got-all-the-answers".
I have 3 accounts (non-work - personal/play accounts) with billing dates spread throughout the month. I get my Paragon Point stipends inconsistently like you all, but they are always awarded in the month. I have never had an experience where my points were not awarded.
Please note, and I'm saying this to manage your expectations of what type of support you can and should expect to receive from the forums: As a general rule, NCsoft and Paragon Studios do not resolve customer billing issues on the forums. We *always* direct customers to file tickets so that those tickets can be tracked and assigned to an NCsoft Billing Rep or another appropriate person for investigation and resolution. Paragon Studio employees (and that includes our Community Team) have zero abilities to provide Paragon Point Support because we do not have access to those support systems (No developer should ever have access to a customer's billing information. Period. I mean, to use an example, should an Apple iPad engineer have access to a customers iTunes account? Answer: No.). So when customers post problems on the forums, our Community Team gathers that information and rolls it into a summary for our Support Teams. If a customer provided a ticket or ticket number, the Community Team can include that for specific examples.
Our Community, Development, Biz/Dev and Marketing Teams are not in Billing Support (the Billing Team handles Paragon Point awarding). We can and *have* escalated those issues when we could, but if customers don't fill out a ticket, the Billing Support department can't investigate or assist you.
Also, no one has to hurt my feelings for a response. I monitor some threads, but not all threads. I respond to PMs when I can. I also get pointed to certain threads via PMs. I respond openly when I can. The post I made the other day was made at ~2:00 in the morning Pacific.... My takeaways were:
1) never respond to a thread at 2 in the morning
,
2) never respond to a thread at 2 in the morning on an iPad that doesn't have a bluetooth keyboard
, and
3) typos by tablet stink
(...and can you please cut me some slack on the post since obviously I was paying attention at 2 in the morning during the middle of the week? I could have just ignored the whole thread, but then if I had, then players would have missed out on using me as a punching bag for a couple of days, and where would the fun have been in that?
.)
PS: Please be kind to the new Assistant Community Manager. He's still kind of new, and you have more than enough time to break him and have him curled up in the corner crying for mercy.
PPS: That was not a challenge. -
Quote:All the more reason to budget out resources with "big picture" goals in mind instead of making everything an either/or proposition by jerry-rigging for the short term. Letting a kuldgy pile of code sit around for years will only cause more and more problems down the line. Moreover, fixing Ouro eventually may very well open up new possibilities for content later.Originally Posted by Doc_Reverend
I don't think a co-op Ouroborus is worth it if allocating those resources means cutting other new content or revamped older content. Their resources and time are finite, and the QoL benefit of a new Ouro isn't worth, say, throwing away new content.
EDIT: This issue was brought up when Going Rogue was in beta, and it got shoved aside with the explanation that renovating Ouro was too big a project for the expansion. Well, it's been almost a year and a half since Going Rogue was successfully launched, so how far down the back burner is this? -
Quote:So just do it, devs: Budget and allocate the coding resources with the long-term goal of untangling the spaghetti code behind Ouro and revising it so that it's a full-fledged co-op zone. Players have been asking for this ever since Going Rogue promised side-switching. If this had been started around that time, we'd likely be fairly well along.Originally Posted by Lothic
Unfortunately when they first coded Ouroboros they didn't envision a game where side-switching would become so common and routine. Sadly it would probably take a huge update to untangle the knot of code to make that work better.
This would be an enormous quality of life improvement, especially if there were the option to stage iTrials from Ouro instead of/in addition to Pocket D and RWZ. Perhaps if enough people let them know in person at the next Player Summit, the message would sink in. -
Goodbye and good luck, Beastyle. Thanks for all your work with the community team.
-
Quote:Welcome aboard - we hope you relish your job as much Zwillinger and your predecessors.Originally Posted by Hit Streak
Thank you all for the warm welcome! I'm excited to be a part of this community and I'm looking forward to interacting with every one of you.
We'll see if we can come up with a suitable trial by fire thread for you - Facebook is just now being sued in a class action for its latest privacy violations, and Google's overreaching new privacy policies are about to go into effect.Quote:Originally Posted by Hit Streak
We've discussed quite a few things in the short time since I've come on board. First, Facebook will continue to be key as we have our largest audience there with over 50,000 people. But we want to explore ideas that will strengthen our communities on Twitter and Google+. We think Twitter is a great place to be a bit more casual with our fans while Google+ gives us a place to hang out (literally) with you.
-
It's ... Return of the Study Group:
-
Quote:Oh, his defeat is pretty much inevitable. The more important question is how he's going to lose, particularly since that is both going to affect Praetoria and likely to tie in to the Coming Storm.Originally Posted by TonyV
Who said he's going to lose?
Ideally, Praetoria would get the Recluse's Victory treatment, where 50+ characters could visit a revised version for further adventures. With Paragon Studios' bad habit of letting resources sit around neglected, though, I'm not expecting anything for a long time. -
Quote:The dreaded grind is what MMO designs used to inflict on subscribing players to fill the time. I'm not sorry to see that unchallenging game mechanic lose popularity (although I appreciate that some old-school players got into its rhythms).Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Lately I've been playing FFXIII (forgive me if we still can't mention other games here but it's the only way i can get this point across Zwill
) and it's gotten very punishing very fast unless you do a significant level of grinding to upgrade your characters.
You mean Space Wizards of the Ancien Régime? To nobody's surprise, it features a large amount of content that's more or less a single-player experience, while other MMO facets like PVP are in dire need of bug-fixing. Odds are it will go F2P as soon as Sony is confident enough they can recoup its ~$250M budget.Quote:And LOL at another recent space faring mmo doing very well even though it's a pay one (though I have heard that it's super casual also)
-
Quote:Indeed. The irony was a bit too rich that these newbies were teaming up with the estimable TonyV, who runs the best information repository for this game, but couldn't follow his directions on this task force. "Casual MMO player" was once a contradiction in terms, yet now it's the Next Big Thing. Maybe it's the games industry, maybe the economy, maybe just the way of the world.Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Yeah the heroes never lose mentality is what I was alluding to, but only partially. I was alluding to the more aspect of the typical mmo player being more a casual player, that a F2P game will appeal to . . . which like it or not this game now is.
-
Quote:Meanwhile the actor who plays Inspector Spacetime is running a Kickstarter campaign to make some web episodes...Originally Posted by Coin
I knew Inspector Spacetime could never be stopped
Good news all around. -
Quote:And if one can't, then we applaud your decision to let your previous work stand on its own merits and to eschew cashing in for another paycheck. Garfield 3 would be less of a disappointment than a mediocre Ghostbusters sequel.Originally Posted by Nericus
But.....if a good script/plot can be developed
-
Quote:That brings us to the larger question of what a fantasy game (like an MMORPG) provides as entertainment.Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
MMO players of today aren't the same as the ones of the past. There are so many mmo options out there that they don't need to be.
If the emphasis is on the "fantasy" part, in CoH's case the adolescent power fantasy of superhero comic books, then failure becomes problematic since it breaks that fantasy's illusion. For those players looking for that kind of fix, then naturally other fantasy games - swords 'n' sorcery fantasy (Orcs vs. Dorks!), sci-fi fantasy (Space Wizards!), action-movie-style fantasy (Modern Gorefare!) - would be more attractive than a game that frustrates them. "Theme park" games cater to this type of MMO player. Additionally, F2P MMO players are notorious for bailing at a moment's notice for greener polygonal pastures since they tend not to make lasting commitments to their virtual communities, say, a simple subscription payment.
On the other hand, if the more important aspect is, well, the game, then winning every time would sap the satisfying challenge from the experience. A game you can't lose isn't a game any longer, and a game that doesn't require teamwork, on some level, isn't an MMO. For players in search of competition-driven stimulation, whether PVP or PVE, faceplanting is just another experience to be learned from*. This kind of player thrives in a sandbox online world—which CoH wasn't much of one to begin with.
So, yes, the Super Pack inspirations will appeal to a certain type of player. They'll tip the odds in their favor for a nominal price and keep them playing CoH Freedom. They'll make them feel more "super". ("And when everyone's super... no one will be.") This is hardly a deal-breaker issue as far as I'm concerned, just another recent decision from Paragon Studios where we part company.
* These are classified as "Achievers" in the Bartle Test. -
Quote:Once again, killing off a nominally major character doesn't automatically come with dramatic significance. While Statesman embodied, at best, a cardboard "might for right" heroism, Sister Psyche is set up as blandly empathic and nurturing (and "prissy", as one NPC put it). Her signature task force doesn't present her as much more than a psychic early warning plot device ("I sense" this and that). Her rehabilitative bond with Malaise was severed ages ago, but to no great consequence for her. Mainly she serves to play off the vigilantism of her husband, Manticore, a marginally more complex character.Originally Posted by Android_5Point9
Apparently every character that Jack Emmert's created. At first I thought the whole Statesman thing wasn't such a big deal, he is the figurehead and all that, but Psyche too? Wowzers. Batmanticore doesn't need to do any more team killing, really. I get it, he's teetering on the edge of vigilantism, and the lead develo-... err, head of the Phalanx, Positron, is going to have some natural conflict with him. But we already had that aspect with him and Statesman, because States had that stubborn old guy mentality to him. Why did we need to bring in Penelope to fill an identical roll that Psyche did? Was she too hard of a character to write, so much that you needed the extra aspect of rookie hero that needs to prove herself to round out a character? More importantly, where the hell has Citadel been during all this? Oh, right, having absolutely zero significance aside from, "hey a robot."Quote:Originally Posted by Zombie Man
So... Who Will Die?
Now that she's dead (if it's not "comic book dead"), she's been quickly replaced on the team by Penelope Yin, but her point of view and personality haven't been sufficiently portrayed for us to appreciate what her absence from the game will signify. Just as with Statesman, if we don't really know what Sister Psyche stood for, why should we be moved by her fall?
Please bear in mind that Martin, in addition to being a fantasy/sci-fi/superhero novelist, is also veteran pen-and-paper RPG GM. If there's a genre where "anyone can die" is a staple, it's the old-school dungeon crawl. It's altogether likely that Martin is one of those GMs who delight in killing of PCs at the roll of a die.Quote:Originally Posted by Zyphoid
I think someone on the dev team has been reading too many George R.R. Martin books. -
Quote:Fair enough. Did the newbies learn to ignore the other targets and focus on that Cleansing Flame? Bothersome as the implications of the amped-up Super Pack inspirations may be (or not), that's the important thing in the end.Originally Posted by TonyV
It wasn't "pay-to-win." It was pay-to-have-a-decent-chance. It took something that was a bit frustrating due to things beyond our control and turned it fun. Also, it's not like I popped them and though, "That's it, we've got this one wrapped up." It crossed my mind more than once that we might still have failed. We didn't defeat that Cleansing Flame with a ton of time to spare, and if it had healed Positron back up to full, it could have cost us the task force.
-
Quote:Sounds more like you can't be bothered to listen to other people's opinions when in a discussion. If you really want to write off your interlocutors as doomsayers when they disagree with you, then there are plenty of more volatile forums on the Internet than this one.Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven
If you don't like other peoples' opinions on your opinion, then maybe it's best that you don't share yours.
-
Quote:Who said anything about the sky falling or any other kind of hyberbolic doom? (That is, apart from you.)Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven
So just because we have these new team inspirations that could save a doomed taskforce from failure does not mean the sky is falling.
If you can't have a simple discussion without caricaturing someone else's opinion, then are you just posting to increase your forum count? -
Quote:I'll let TonyV speak for himself, but for the overall CoH community, there's no question that newbies learning to listen to their teammates and employ the right tacticsfundamental and uncontroversial skills in all MMOsis a better outcome than their bacon being saved by any kind of pay-to-win inspirations.Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven
I'm pretty sure the happiest outcome for TonyV's story was the way TonyV already stated it was. Perhaps you meant to say "the happiest outcome for TrueGentleman's story would be if...".
-
Quote:Surely that would increase the odds of one of them being a reasonable discussion?Originally Posted by tanstaafl
But that would only encourage _more_ threads.
-
Quote:It's true, I have made my position about the Super Pack selling model of random rewards and exclusive items quite clear, but in this case, it's the pay-to-win side of the new inspirations that rub me the wrong way, regardless of how they were obtained. The idea that new players would get the impression they were necessities of any kind, rather than dispensible supplements, is bothersome.Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
It's quite clear that you dislike the super packs, TG, but this isn't the most convincing way to debunk their virtues.
The happiest outcome for TonyV's story would have been, "But then after faceplanting a few times, we regrouped, discussed our strategies, then went back and kicked ***!" Wiping is a time-honored tradition in MMO raiding, for newbies and vets alike. It builds (forgive the pun) character. -
Quote:If one failure on a Task Force is all it would take to turn them off, then, to reiterate, is that really the lesson the CoH community wants its new players to learn?Originally Posted by TonyV
I'd rather us succeed with some team inspirations than fail and turn the new people off of task/strike forces on probably one of the first ones they've tried.
-
Quote:The problem is that these new players have now had the experience of winning the Mortimer Kal strike force only through the use of the Super Pack boosters, as opposed to learning the appropriate tactics to defeating their opponent (i.e. listening to their teammate tell them repeatedly "You have to drop everything and focus on that Cleansing Flame!"). Is that really the lesson the CoH community wants its new players to learn?Originally Posted by TonyV
Now to be fair, I think that three of the people were relatively new and still getting used to the game.
-
Quote:Pay-to-win boosters?Originally Posted by TonyV
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?
-
Too bad about your experience with Super Packs. Coincidentally, Gamespy reviewer only just wrote, "I've heard stories of people dropping more than a hundred bucks on boosters to get {a Black Wolf pet}." so it seems he wasn't exaggerating.