Turgenev

1. I said the fact checking thing with a smile. XD Sorry that doesn't translate well via text. No tension meant or had on my end. But seriously, try doing exactly what I said. You'll see what I mean for the mechanics.

2. ..am lost. 8-15 for each, what? Total amt on my global friends list? I have about 40-50 people who're ACTIVE on my list per night, with the rest totalling the limit of 200, I think?

3. I hide because I don't want to be found. On an MMO, some days, you just wanna log in and beat the snot outta Clockwork, and not talk to anyone. I can't make this any plainer. When I'm not hidden, people get chatty. I don't fault 'em, but when I don't want to reciprocate, I /hide. It's as easy as that.

The system limit on global friends never bothered me. If I hit the limit, I find someone on the list whom I haven't talked to in a long time, and I remove 'em. And yes, the two lists are different, but I find the global friend system to be far more useful.

And the best part of the reality is, the two facts aren't exclusive to one another at all.

GM's wrong, then. Stop fact checking me vs Lloyd (who's a nice guy) and just try it yourself. Sort by name, do a general search, note the first name on the list. Hit Search again. New list. Hit it again. Each time, look for that first name. You won't see it repeated 'til the list is exhausted and it starts over.

(EDIT: BTW, I didn't realize this for myself until @Master_Blade pointed it out to me a few months ago. Cheers, MB.)

Just keep clicking Search. It'll go to the next page, then the next, etc.

FYI, when you find good players, friend 'em. 80% of my teams are all arranged via global contacts. When you find good players, why lose track of 'em?

Yeah. Usually you can just do /invite PLAYERNAME and the invite will be received no matter what, hide flags be damned. (Unless they have the /hide from teaming toggled, which I generally don't.)

And yeah, I get questions like "what would you do for INSERT_AT build", badge questions, PUGgers LFT, people who are on my global and wanna know what my plans are for the night, etc. It's cool, I do the same; but when I want the quiet, I draw the drapes closed. No one's really begrudged me for it, and vice versa.

Lotsa reasons. I regularly go /hidden to all searches so I can basically play in peace. I like my friends, but some days I don't feel like being an paragonwiki parrotbot or want to hear about your build problems. Some day, I just want to fight crime.

Just saw your announcement on this now, sorry for the necro. Is this channel still active as a pub channel? If so, I'll add it to the master list.

Well, that's your problem. FB's not the only channel out there, and it's not nearly as active as many others that have cropped up over the years. You should take a look at the thread I wrote up where I list the more active channels on Freedom and try them. FB's only one of many.

I haven't updated that list in a while because nothing "new" for public access has come up of which I'm aware. I'll poll the forumites later tonight and see if anyone has suggestions to add for that list. Those channels ARE still valid and useful, however. I use Freedom TF Chat as one of my mains for teaming and general social chat, but it's hardly the only one.

This, pretty much. Just on a lark, I logged in two toons, one hero, one villain. Went to go find a team without using global channels on Freedom. Saw a few broadcasts, joined, explained to the team lead it was just for a test, but that I would find a suitable replacement. One said don't bother, he had a small line of /tells he was responding to.

As I'm writing this, there's five... now six people by Manticore, forming up at random.

Teams're out there, Rial. I AM looking in the hot spots for WST Tuesday, so if you're trying to form a Barracuda or Positron on a day like today, GL with that.

For years, I ignored Fly and just used Teleport or Superspeed (or both). SuperJump was never my thing, but Fly (at the time) had a nasty -ACC debuff when in use, and was an endurance hog.

Things change, and powers get updated. Oddly, I've picked up Fly on all my recent project toons simply for the convenience of it. The speed's much better now, no ACC debuff, and IOs help defray the END cost nicely now.

The game does accommodate those who don't want to dedicate a powerslot to Fly, which is great for SJ diehards and whatnot. IMO, go with what's best for your toon's theme, and with your own travel skills. Some people are just all thumbs with Teleport. Some people can't handle the twitch responses for Superspeed. Etc.

Temp powers are nice, but they don't match the real thing IMO. Fly at lvl 50 with one Flight IO in it and in Swift caps you on speed. There's something satisfying about being in the Shard, picking a direction, and just "going", while the SS/SJers are all putting about with the geysers or their aftermarket rocket pack.

EDIT: One last thing. Teleport + Hover = Awesome. Fastest travel power, and the Hover option gives you the ability to park in mid air while you recover after a long series of jaunts, AND has a defense component to boot. AND, its base speed has improved too.

AP gets slammed in general, yeah. WST season makes being logged in and actually doing something more common. It's hard to gauge population since a lot of gameplay is now instanced, but we've had a permanent uptick since GR was released. Good times, even with the occasional server farts.

I found it delightfully witty, myself.

The annual subscription is probably the best discount to find here, depending on your budget.

Geez. I read that as "Constipator".

I was gonna suggest a digestive cookie or two, Ulli.

E-Man doesn't have his alphas slotted up by now? Dude.

Lemme know when you want help, either for building your alpha work or for the Master runs, and I'll be there.

Gotta say tho... great way to build up shard reservoirs on your badger that way. (presuming you're doing the lvl 50 TFs)

I slot mine up. Speaking of common IOs, I'll do 2 END and 2 RNG in it. My mains that have TP use sets to get additional mileage, but I'll frankenslot a bit to throw in that 2nd range to really make it travel-awesome. I had someone "whoah" over how fast I could get across the Shard this week while they were still flitting around with their borrowed jetpack.

Does it add to my combat ability? Sorta. A lot of my primary's abilities are PBAOE-focused, so going inviso into a group, kicking off my PBAOE chains, means I'm more immediately useful that someone who has to hop and dance to get to where they need to be.

Used to be loads more fun in PVP before suppression hit, though. Ah, I miss those days.

That's a really long sentence.

Any TPers I have also have this power (although my Warshade does not). I find it useful for the following situations:

1. Wanting to thin out a particular mob who's particularly irritating to have alive, especially when matched with a group. Sapper, Sorcerer, Void Xers, Immunes Surgeons, etc.
2. Wanting to pull a particular group to you without disturbing other groups in the area. Say, a room full of Nemesis mobs with snipers in each group. TP a Lieutenant from a group, the rest of the group usually comes running, while the others in the area don't aggro.
3. Snagging that irritating runner who manages to stick himself inside a wall. Any mob type applies here, but I see it a lot with Cimerorans who like submerging themselves into the rock. See last week's kabillion ITFs.
4. Hooking victims in PVP.

I've found the power to be quite useful - enough to where I use it regularly in combat. Not all the time, but regularly.

This is pretty much the same take I have on the topic. I DID try running a villain badger for a while, but when Issue 9 came out and the bazillion-and-twelve crafting badges came out, it REALLY burned me out of wanting to work one up to top dog. So I do all the "hard" badge work on my main toons, hero, villain, etc; but the grindy ones (Empath, Leader, everything Inventions-related, etc) I leave to the side and just work on my main.

Wow. Sam, I am disappoint.

Marshal Jason Blitz, obstensibly rebelling against Recluse while kicking it in Warburg. Dude's been dying of cancer since Issue 6. Really good meds, or secret Incarnate-fueled Nemesis automaton seeking to destroy the world by sheer misdirection? Discuss.

Personally, I think the first week is going to be nuts: New issue, new encounter, new mechanic, people will be learning the layouts of the map (and I find the BAF interior confusing, personally).

I agree that keeping the badge runs to people who're dedicated to the idea is an obvious must. Using a global channel would help (Luna brings up a good point, the Horde's a good resource for that - the global channel's established, and a lot of the consistent players already participate there, no need to reinvent the wheel). Signups for these runs, similar to E-Man/Luna's format (with the signup and a quick rundown of what's expected for each mission, so everyone's on the same page) is a strong point too.

My direction on this would be the following:

Week One: Initial practice runs are set up. Everyone goes in with the mentality that they're going for the badges, but it'll be focused on familiarizing everyone with the encounter, and the lay of the land. That means more hands on from the league leader on each phase, making sure no one's running ahead making things chaotic, etc. If the badge attempt fails, continue forward and use the failure as part of the intel gathering. Post run, everyone stays on map for exploration, brainstorming of tactic changes, build requirements, etc. Keep a running draft of the mission summary and tactics involved. If you really wanna get fancy, take screenshots and reference them in your posts. (You can hotlink images from imagehost, picasaweb, etc.)

Week Two+: Everyone should be focused on a win run. Anyone "new" to this should be attached to a more seasoned player or team leader to keep the overall "omg whut is dis" chatter to a minimum. If it's a fail, everyone keeps a smile on, and plough through anyway. Look at the fail points, see what can be done to accommodate for the next attempt. Last thing you'll wanna do is alienate a person if they're just having a rough time with the learning curve (which is different from being a complete moron). Don't melt your knives if they're dull. Just sharpen them.

I wouldn't do more than two "real" badge runs a week until everyone's comfortable with them. That will lead quickly to badger burnout, and the last thing you want is resentful team players who want to help, but feel like they're being muscled into the job for everyone else's benefit. The trial's not bad, it just requires serious team coordination. You can get that with any seasoned pug crew here, but like you note, all it takes is one to ruin it.

I'm not a europlayer, but I liked the topic and wanted to share.

Here's an odd "good memory" for me. I was two months out of the US headstart, around May of 2004. My SG and I were in our mid 20s, hunting in the SW corner of Steel Canyon. A buddy of mine was a grav controller, so he was the "I trow forklifts lolol" guy, but that was our only experience with controllers.

So I'm on my blaster (elec/nrg, Cerulean Skie, first toon, still have her), and I see a mid-40s controller show up near us, by a big crowd of Tsoo.

My mouth drops when I see him spawn Phantom Army, and they clean up the whole group in about 15 seconds.

So I quit from team, and rolled up my new main, Dr. Turgenev (ill/storm), right then and there.

I wish I caught the name of that player. It was my inspiration as a controller, even seven years later.