Turgenev

I'm a rarity on Thursday nights; last night was a fluke, honestly. I'm happy to help, but I don't expect to do the Thurs runs all that often. If I AM around, I'm happy to step up if it's called for.

Wow. Well, think of it as "hardcore arcs" if that makes it easier to digest. Difficulty with a point? (Usually? ) The TFs are fairly insular, so you don't need to have run one to understand another, but each one does help to explore the lore of the various criminal organizations and personalities that come up regularly.

If you haven't done TFs at all, then you should like it. Positron's TF just recently got revamped, and it's MUCH more digestible than the original. Some of the newer arcs that were released with Issue 17 are just fantastic as well, and you can run them solo or teamed (teamed is always more fun, but can be harder).

Enjoy your run, Gintoki and the rest of the Horde keep the TF flagons a-flowin' on Freedom. Be sure to sign up and participate. Most of us show up on time and have a really terrific attitude towards what's basically organized PUG runs.

(I'm the only one who has no sense of timeliness.)

I know, read that the moment it went up. I just think it's silly to see things like this taken away. If it's in there, it should stay in there. If you wanna withhold it, do so from the onset.

I was of the opinion that it was generally useful. Sure, people who were pegged at either end of the scale are most likely artificially done, but the midranges were a good indicator of general usefulness on the part of the forumite. I didn't have an issue with the extremes; it was the "real" values that generally did a good job of telling me "okay, this guy's a moron" or "okay, give this one a chance".

Huh. Went the way of Dev Choice badges, I see.

Sure it does. These items weren't meant to be standard fare for players. NOT having the costume pieces does not represent a balance issue. You've made my point pretty well.

The balance here is understanding that these rewards were not meant to be standard fare for all players. They were designed as... wait for it... "rewards". Freebies, meant for players to enjoy as they played the game for longer periods of time. Not freebies meant for everyone who subscribes - that's what the invention system is for. Craft wings, craft boots, craft temp powers galore. But this reserved set is for Paragon Studios to say, "thanks for subscribing, here's a lovely little mint."

They don't want you eating all the freakin' mints at once, cuz that's just piggish.

Balance.

I actually have suggested a modified version of that for quite a while now, as a compromise offer. No one really backed it from the "want the rewards now" crowd, however.

I argued that, for a given year, you can choose your rewards within that yearly pool. Say you hit your 3 month badge. Instead of just getting trenchcoats and a costume token, you'd get those as possible choices mixed in with the greek alphabet emblems (6 month), respec/belly shirt/kilt (9 months), or the preorder sprints/sands of mu or ghost axe/base items (12 months). When you hit your 15th month reward, you get to choose from the next tier pool, and so forth.

The idea here was to introduce some choice flexibility for up and coming players, while not throwing open the door to ALL the rewards all at once. In my opinion, I felt this was the most balanced compromise for holding to the vet system as designed, with the want from certain players for all the various rewards.

I'm mentioning it again, because I'm wondering if there'd be any real consideration from the "must have now" crowd. I really think this is a "best option" choice for the system as a whole, but if previous track records are any indicator, it'll be ignored.

Now I wanna team with you on principle. I'll be around more this weekend, but if you have any toons 25+ blueside, find me @Turgenev tonight around 945pm Eastern. Gintoki's running the Ernesto Hess TF tonight, and here on Freedom, we learn by doing.

Ask questions, tips, opinions, anything. The worst we can do is not answer. (Which we never do. More fun to exercise our rapier wits!)

The best we can do is make you realize how awesome this game's become since you've been gone.

Truthfully, neither did I, but it kinda makes sense. You can't "flashback" to something that was never available to you in the first place.