Vargr

Yup! They still have a few more bugs to work out in this process; it seems they didn't factor in the "protected accounts" and how that would play in the event.

If your account is protected, and you are following @CityofHeroes, you can retweet their messages. But only the people on your "followers" list can see your retweets.

Since @cityofheroes doesn't "Followback" folks that follow them, you'll never get a request for @cityofheroes to be added to your followers list. And they'll never be able to tell that you are retweeting the stuff they send out.

The only 2 options in this case appears to be; to (temporarily) disable your protection, or to somehow get @cityofheroes to request to follow you in your protected mode.

There's something major broke in the Twitter interface, Justice. It didn't show me either, but I just got the code response a few seconds ago. The icons on the original message show over 200 folks retweeted it (I suspect that's "light" as well), but the #Cityofheroes search doesn't return anywhere near that result.

I've seen this happen rather frequently, where posts I know I've made disappear from the main twitter stream but I can still see them in my list of personal tweets, and where posts from folks I follow also disappear, but can still be found on their profile page.

Hopefully you'll get your code soon, and Twitters flaky web code won't be a problem for this event.

Water blast? All I can say is, after trudging through miles and miles of sludgy greenish gunk and water in the sewers, and enduring cubic yards of Vaz puke all over my fluffy fur, I'm THRILLED I finally got a set that lets me wash it all off! YIPPY!

Firstly, Welcome to CoH/V/P, and to the Forums! You may not yet have realized just how deep of a rabbit hole you've stumbled across, but it won't take long to dawn on you just how fantastic a place this can be.

Vargr has a tendency to ramble, but I'll try to keep the walls of text to a minimum so as not to scare you off.

My advice to a new player:
1) Take your time.
- With VERY few exceptions (timed missions), there is no stopwatch on you. You have no deadlines to make a particular level, or to reach a particular zone. And this world is full of wonder. It's very easy to race past it, and miss things that make these realms special. With that being said...
2) Keep your eyes open, and don't be afraid to click things.
- There are plaques and monuments in the oddest of places. Most will offer information or history. Clicking random pedestrians may surprise you with the result. Check out the banners, store signs, and billboards; there are puns, 'in jokes', and flavor all around you. There are little architectural or other "neato" elements scattered about. Many long-term players may bypass these or take them for granted, but you will have the unique opportunity to see it all for the first time with "new eyes" - take advantage of it.
3) No matter what others might say about "best" anything, always remember there is No. Right. Way. To. Play. Or, to rephrase that; if you are having fun, then you are playing it "Right", regardless of what anyone else thinks!
- This game probably has one of the deepest and widest selection of "play" options you can find. And the primary philosophy behind most of the development would seem to have been "If it be fun, our job is well done." Unlike some realms where you really need to work at getting the strongest, hardiest, most focused, best equipped, etc. char, this realm acknowledges that as ONE of many play styles, but not the ONLY one. Want to try to craft the ultimate in power-damaging characters? You can min/max to your hearts content, and you'll find forum folk willing to help you 'tune' that. Have a particular concept gleaned from years of comics, TV, or just pure imagination? There's likely a way to make it work here. Want to "live" your character, speak in character, react in character? Yup, that's available. Want to just get through the char creator as fast as you can, hitting 'random' until you come up with something that makes your eyes bleed the least (or most) and just leap in to knocking heads? Yup, you can do that too. Want to take a turn on the wheel and do all of it, support characters, solo characters, hero, villain, ambiguous.... You can play this for years and not exhaust all the possibilities.

So, check it out for yourself. Check it ALL out! Don't let anyone talk you into skipping things or avoiding this or "only" doing that. Will you run into stuff you don't want to do again? Yup! Will you find archetypes and play styles you like less than others? That's a given! Will someone say "told you so" when it happens? Probably. But, will you find things you absolutely love, that someone else told you to avoid? Yep, that's gonna happen too.

Enjoy your time here! And if some blue bunny happens to hop up to you, boost your stats and heal your wounds, and hop away with a cheery, "Good hunting, Hero", well, you may be getting just a LITTLE inkling on how deep this rabbit hole goes. Have fun exploring all the myriad twists and turns it has to offer!

Site is still letting me in to vote. Voted COH. It's currently 3rd, behind the leaders by roughly 300 votes.

Hopefully Formspring gets their act together before this Friday.

Currently, they're having "technical difficulties" that are preventing questions and the answers to them from showing up in timely fashion. Right now, it's taking anywhere between 24 and 48 hours for a question asked by friends to migrate into my inbox so that I can answer it.

Answers to my questions, once they finally show up in the inbox, are taking a similar time to migrate out to the "profile" page so others can read them.

The devs there just acknowledged today that they have a problem, after a couple days of complaints on the forums, but haven't provided any information as to when/if the problem might be corrected.

If things are still running in this fashion on Friday, and CoH isn't opening the account for questions until that morning, then, come the "session time" there won't be anything in the box for them to answer. And likely won't be anything until Saturday or Sunday. Answers provided wouldn't be viewable until sometime early in the next week.

Devs here might want to "ping" the Formspring crew and see if their service will be ready to handle this, come Friday.

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The "Overwhelming," though - that I could see as, potentially, an issue. I think the published arc limit is a tentative step towards controlling that - with three arcs per account, even the most prolific creator is going to have to sit and consider strongly what they want published - which in theory could give them time to polish more.

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I'm thinking much the same from the folks wanting to focus on high quality arcs. Or perhaps a lot of incremental "upgrades" to previously published arcs as they get more proficient and tweak the designs, taking down old arcs and replacing them with newer versions.

I'm also thinking that there's great opertunity for new versions of SG's with focus on collaborative Architec designing, sharing tips and tricks within the groups. Perhaps a chance for the really polished and prolific designers to 'hire out' or team up with other folks to publish more of their ideas in arcs outside of the three they can post personally.

It would also be kind of cool if the Devs could award "bonus slots" to designers that achieve certain thresholds of popular arc, most run, selected for Dev notice, etc. If such developers are really that good at producing arcs the rest of the player base likes to see, why not give them a bit of a larger stage to dispay their talents?


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Honestly, I see a lot of opportunity in the Architect. If, say, a host of DA missions come up and stay there, it would probably guide the devs into considering the zone for new content or a makeover. Or a "501st" could happen, where a piece of player-made lore (or player explored) becomes official. I don't see it happening *often,* and Devs Choice selections should not be confused with "Official canon," but I see the possibility.

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Agreed. The Dev's routinely data mine the game now in various ways to help in "tuning" the engine and developing content. If there were a way to find "Most played" or "best liked" (votes?) for MA runs, I'm sure that would be another great flag for the Devs in prioritizing and weighting their development decissions.

And, as you say, they're already putting in place the ability to select arcs as developer's choices. Surely those can't but help to influence ideas and direction in future game content.

One thing, though. I participate in several writer's boards. Sometimes folks come upon a story that makes readers say "Why isn't this dude published yet?" Unfortunately, for every one of those, there are TONS of others that are absolutely painful to read.

MA is likely to fit that paradigm as well. And reviewing the arcs probably won't be as simple as skimming a story first to see if you want to shelve it or go back for a deeper read. I pity the Dev crew who get the job of running through MA content to come up with "best of" Dev decisions. Hmm.... perhaps there's an opening for "interns" there to pre-screen those?


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Plus, to me, it's an extension of how the devs are with the playerbase anyway. They talk here, more freely typically than other dev teams (where you speak through an "official representative" - imagine everything going through, say, Niviene, instead of getting replies from Castle, BABs and the crew) - and now they get to see what *we* see and can do with their world, and give feedback as well.

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Agreed whole heartedly!

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: BlueBit
Global Contact: @Vrghr
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Name: GrrLump
Global Contact: @Vrghr
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Though the article specifically mentions bosses and NPC's for customization, I’m hoping that we can at least make some “cosmetic” changes to others, such as the lieutenants and lower “bosses” in the mobs met along the way. I’ve a few ideas for mission arcs that would rely on visual clues to lead players on to the next mission in the arc.

For instance, a new bio-engineered plague, where the initial clue is a change in skin color for a standard villain group; “That’s odd! Since when do Warriors have bright orange skin?”

If the customization went beyond just changing colors to the addition of changeable costume parts, I’d love to do a take on the Clockwork deciding to try to “blend in” to the human population by adding fake flesh (like the old Star Trek episode with Data and the Borg queen). If I can’t re-skin some of the clockwork because of those rather radical body types on some, perhaps I can add existing robotic limbs to Shockers (for that electricity feel) so the player still sees a hybrid mechanical and fleshy foe which from their perspective they can’t tell is a human going toward clockwork, or a clockwork evolving toward human.

Unfortunately, these ideas lose impact if only the “end goal” foe can be modified. Letting the mobs fought along the way also inherent some of the changes would add to the immersion of such story lines.

I’d also LOVE to be able to script a ‘costume change’ in the MA, perhaps even link it to a mission event like a defeat and resurrection (a la Freakshow rez). Great for those “surprise possession” storylines: *Hero defeats the signature foe. Foe rises in the (costume change) form of CoT Balrog. “Okay, you destroyed the shell I took so long to craft. I guess I’ll have to take yours instead.” *Hero* “Like heck!”*

Okay, perhaps Vargr is just a poor, confused fuzz-head, but I’m not really getting the gist of why all the angst and whining is going on against offering something new for a price; especially since, as has been stated, none of the existing options are going away?

Perhaps putting it in another perspective will help me understand:

*Announcer* Hello one and all, and welcome to our sports park. We hope you enjoy your time here.
*Clients* We’re thirsty! Do you have any soda?
*Announcer* Yes indeed! We have many ways to get a free soda here. For instance;
We have that obstacle course over there! It’s not a triathlon, but it’s not the easiest gauntlet to run either. You might not make it first time. But if you finish, we’ll hand you a free soda!
*Announcer* Also, once a year, we’ll pull up a big ol’ tractor trailer and hand out free sodas to every one!
*Announcer* Also, two or three times a year, we have parties here where we give out free gifts and neat sports apparel and all kinds of different treats. And at all of those, we give you a free soda too, along with all the other goodies.
*Announcer* And finally, while you’re here playing in our park, you’ll occasionally find, at random among the jumps and races and contests you win, a certificate for a free soda in your prize package. If you’re not thirsty then, you can even sell those certificates to someone who is, it’s up to you!
*Announcer* Yup, you can get sodas all those ways, just for the cost of admission to our park to play our games!
*Crowd* But what if we want a soda now?
*Announcer* That’s a good question! Tell you what; we’ll just install this soda machine over here. And, if you want a soda in between all the free ones, you can buy one there.
*Clients* NOOOOOOO! DOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!


*Vargr ponders, then shakes his head* Nope, still not getting it! Sorry!

*wanders away, confused*

All this talk of refunds, rebates, etc., gave this wuff an idea: why not adopt the automotive standard and give “Trade In” options?

Just think of it! Someone gets griefed over a new release, they can run (fly, jump, teleport) on over to the NCSoft dealership (set the outlets up next to Wentworths or the Black Market) and demand the latest and greatest edition at a discount if they trade in the last “model” they’re griefing over!

That’s right! Just hand over the “keys” to your old base, all your base items, archived salvage, recipes, etc. And don’t forget to trade in those “used” heros and villains too! Then NCSoft can give you discount on a brand new, shiny update to this year’s model, with air conditioning and cruise control (You’re going to want that last one as you start re-leveling all your toons up from scratch, “cruising” your way through all those missions you’ve done so many times before to get your shiny new toon back to what you traded in.). Discount to vary by the “mileage” and condition of your trade in, of course. After all, you can’t expect to get as much for a petless MM or a beginning plot base as for a full, RAID ready lair or a VEAT level 50 all “tricked out” with purple IOs.

And what a resource for the rest of us! All those “previously owned” heroes and villains out on the market: “Archery/En blaster! Custom tinted weapons! Rare drops! Cheery! Low debt (teamed only, never solo’d). Previously owned by a little old lady who only took him out during double XP weekends.”

Can you imagine all the possible uses for such a resource? Replace the target drones on the Outbreak tutorial mission with old, broken-down villains! Heroes as baseball stand-ins for mace Brute (Louisville slugger model only) batting practice! Buy a second hand TP defender as your personal buffing and transportation pet and you’ll never have to enroll in your own travel power (good for freeing up those tight builds)! The possibilities are endless!

Vargr says, Go For It!


*Note: Anyone that thinks this was a serious proposal needs to pop a few humor Insp's*

Would be interesting to see an "alternate timeline" future where the Villains have become the victors. Where Paragon city is battered and run down and the "red side" all spruced up. Of course, it's liable to be the cleanliness and sparkle that comes from sterility and the rule of a dictatorial iron fist...

Then the heros could run missions to try to keep that future from happening, and the Villains to make sure it does (including war zones, etc).

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... the idea that you're going to go in and be able to select everything and customize the map itself is just ridiculous. The time needed to deal with potential exploits would push this feature into the same category as Power Customization.

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Perhaps not. How about the simple expedient of not initially allowing Exp, Debt, and drops (insperations or otherwise) on user-designed scenarios? Or, if that is a bit too extreme, implementing a "Rikti Invasion" setting limiting the experience, debt, etc., similar to what you get fighting the Rikti hords during a zone invasion? As I recall, that equates to minimal experience, no debt, and only lowest level drops (I'm sure the 'number crunchers' out there could give more precise figures, but you get the jist of it.)

Posi said that folks could play and vote for favorite scenarios. Perhaps those scenarios at the top rungs could be vetted by the developers and have the "normal" setting restored as part of the incentive to build non-borked, non-exploitive missions in hopes of winning the "prize" of having your mission moved to that next level?

Since the "Rikti invasion code" is already tested and implemented, it shouldn't take as much effort to overlay the new user-missions with it (or a customized version if needed) as it would to create an entirely new set of precautions to prevent exploiting the missions.

Even with the limited tangible rewards, the user-designed items would likely still be popular from a role playing, content perspective. (Though, admittedly, likely not so popular as if they were fully enabled.)

Frankly though, the assertions of what "can't" or "Won't" be in this new feature are pretty much as valid/invalid as those of folks who assert certain functions "Must" or "will"; all we have is what was in the interview's statements, and anything outside of that is pure speculation, no matter what direction its bias.