baron_inferno

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I've known plenty of considerly talented people who don't work professionally because, to them, it's just a hobby or creative outlet which takes a back seat to the rest of their life. Writing professionally enough to make a living is a tough gig to break into and, for some, they'd rather keep it a fun hobby rather than turn it into work.

I'm not speaking for myself -- I have no illusions that I'm exceptionally talented. But making the test "how come you're not a professional?" is just silly.

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I come from an art background. I've been drawing and painting since I was 6 years old and I've taken countless art classes prior to college. I minored in Art history in college and I still continue my hobby to this day. I've also did my summer internship at an interior design firm during my college years.

I did not continue into that field out of college because I realized it is only a hobby to me. The art field(music, modern art, painting, sculpting, design) is very cutthroat with opportunities very limited to begin with. I wasn't serious enough about my hobby to try to turn it into a profession. Consequently, I do not hold any delusions as to just how much attention other people should pay to my work no matter how good I think it is. I don't need public acceptance to stroke my own ego because I am confident enough about it as it is. That's the real point behind the issue at hand. To turn a hobby into a profession takes serious committment (time and monetary) from a person. If someone is only doing it as a hobby and is not serious enough to commit to it professionally, why should they expect their audience to take it seriously in return? Why should they be offended if people overlook their work in favor of something else? Do they really have the right to complain? Frankly, they should be glad that people are looking at it in the first place.

Easy answer. Good and fun is subjective. What you consider to be a "fun" and "interesting" story arc can be a yawn fest for others. I've played some story driven MArcs, even the developer's choice ones and frankly, I'm not that impressed. Granted, some of them have their moments but is it worth the 1 to 2 hours I spent on them? The answer to that question can vary from person to person but for me, it wasn't. In terms of storyline and plot, I can get a much better return for my time by turning off the computer to watch a movie or read a book.

Nextly, storyline driven MArcs are a total crapshoot. The chance that you'll get sucked into a mediocre/below average arc is far higher than running into a good one. Frankly, the flawed rating system does not help to mitigate this risk since again, it is completely subjective. Why would I play that kind of odds? It's like going into a casino not knowing how you'll come out except that the odds are stacked so heavily against you. At least with farms, you know what you're going to get.

Lastly, I disagree with the statement that farming is "borderline exploit". That is not a factual statement. No MMO I've played (and I've played a lot) has said such things. They may discourage it but they can not prevent players from repeating a particular mission or raid over and over again. It is perfectly within the ToS agreement for players to repeat missions/instances as many times as they please as long as they're not exploiting a bug or game mechanic. There is no such thing as "borderline exploit" as defined by the ToS of MMOs, not any I've read at least.

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I am disappointed people keep telling me that I should only play there MA arcs because they spent so much time making up a story.

I have not read one scrap of the stories there is no draw for me there sorry if I want a story I will go read a book. I mean I have read hundreds of books and if I want a good story I freakin go read a book. When I log on to the game I want to beat up on stuff get my new shinny and move on that is fun to me.

Sorry your idea of a good arc does not even come into my realm of what I would rate as fun.

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Couldn't have said it better myself. So many people seems to think that their arc has such a good story that deserves to be played. So many people think that their creative juices are so abundent that it is almost like a crime for people to ignore it. Well I just have one question. If those people are so good at creating compelling and dramatic stories, why aren't they writing professionally whether it is novels or movie screenplays? I know the reason, it's because a lot of people out there tend to overrate their own work. It's a human condition. It's just the way it is.

Playing a computer game does not equal to reading a good book or even watching a good movie, not by a long shot. The next closest thing is when you play an good single player RPG which could takes years to develop a compelling storyline/plot. That in itself is drastically different than MMOs in terms plot depths and reader immersion. There is no way a story arc in a MMO that is cobbled together in a week can match that level of intensity. That's why I am not particularly impressed nor have the desire to experience "stories" in MMO. It's nothing I couldn't have thought up myself to put it bluntly.

An alternative to the originial thread title.

Don't assume your teammates WANT to do story arcs written by amateurs which in all honesty, anyone with any artistic background could've thought up themselves.

This is starting to resemble another "blame it on farm" thread which only serves to disguise the fact that some people only want to whine about how farming is making it inconvienent for them to get teams/teammates. Sorry but your convience is the least of my concerns. I pay 14.99 a month to entertain myself, not you. Selfish? You bet but then it's no more selfish than the people who whine about the opposite.

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The thing is... there is no final battle. Neither Heroes, nor Villains truly win anything but the ability to fight another day, and if they lose, they get to inspire someone else to fight another day, or be forgotten and sink to anonymity.

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When I said villainy, I didn't mean only notoriously evil acts. You're right, the battle of good vs evil is ongoing and a true winner can never be determined but individual acts of villainy are different. We see it everyday and we get away with it as well. Things like shoplifting, cheating on taxes, animal abuse and so on are all technically evil acts, however minor, at least in the eye of the law. The law even protects people from prosecution after a certain period of time (statute of limitations). In my book, if you commit an evil act and get away with it, that can be considered a victory.

Villains in reality generally win. The so-called villains in real life also deal more in the gray areas as opposed to the black and white that is good vs evil. This is due to the fact that in real life, being villainous is not so clearly defined in many of the cases. Such interpretations are heavily influenced by personal opinion, cultural view, ideology and religious connection. For example, many Americans hail Thomas Jefferson and Dalai Lama as heroes but to some others, they're little more than slave overlords. It's hard to argue that slavery is a heroic deed by any stretch of the imagination.

On the other hand, villains that only focuses on the extremes garners all the attention thus all of the resistance that comes with it, which ultimately makes them lose in the end. Adolf Hitler and Kublai Khan are two examples of this.

This is why I don't see the point behind all the rhetoric regarding whether CoV is "evil" enough. Evil operates in its own way and is far more often subtle than it is overt. I think that makes villainy all the more interesting.

Uh, all the pros you listed for CoX are all doable in the other games you listed (with the exception of badging) so I don't see what your point is. You can't use that kind of logic to praise a game while degrading others. Especially since in terms of depths of content, a lot of those other games do offer more alternatives than CoX, even if much of it is fluff or time sink. Unless of course you're a CoX fanboy in which case I apologize for having responded to your post because it is uncharacteristic of me to waste time with fanboys to begin with.

And to the OP. Frankly, if any lowbie wants to squeeze their way into a high level farm group (unless they're a friend/SG mate of someones), they should be charged a fee. It's not about greed but principle, three of them to be exact.

1. If you're going to sit at entrance and do nothing, you should pay for that luxury while someone else is doing the work. One exception is that you are LKing someone else's alt for better exp. In which case your presence is mutually beneficial(symbiotic relationship) and you're not just hitching a free ride.

2. Even if you're going to fight with the team, you're still not going to contribute to the team as much. That's a fact, not a theory. Player skills being equal, a level 50 IOed out character is always going to be more effective than a 1-30 character armed with DOs and SOs. There can be no argument about that.

3. There is no such thing as a free lunch in this day and age. Charity shouldn't be given to people who don't need it.

I was farming Nemesis with my SS/SR brute with no problem before the introduction of AE. Of course I always had a kin with me for SB and FS so minions and lieutanents were dead awfully quick. The bosses hurt a bit once their vengence went off but they weren't on their feet long enough to do any real damage. Besides I had aid self as backup.

As for AE, SR brute is super easy. 52 bosses are a joke for my SS/SR and he can even survive a full group of 54 bosses for a while, good enough to be the lead brute if needed. Granted, he won't do as well as a stoner but it's still better than other sets. I've lost count the number of times I saw a WP brute face plant to a group of 54s.

Dark Armor is a very misunderstood set. It can be both powerful and pathetic, depending on who is using it. It is a set that requires a lot of finetuning, tweaking, and not to mention micromanaging. Granted, you're not going to be able to survive a group of level 54 bosses in AE for very long but then besides Stone Armor (and perhaps /SR) brutes, who can? In fact, before WP came along, it was considered to be a jack of all trades, master of none set for brutes.

Contrary to popular opinion, you don't *need* to turn on Oppressive Gloom all the time to survive. I have it on my Fire/DA brute but I barely use it except for the hairest of situations. Sure, OG can make survival easier but it is hardly required when you need to build up fury. Anyways, once IOed out, a /DA brute can have decent resists against almost every damage type and decent defense (20% or so) if you combine it with weave and CJ. If you go with the Ghost Widow Patron, you can also pickup Dark Obliteration and Darkest Night, both of which can make your defense seem that much higher with their -tohit debuffs. If all else fails, you still got the best combat heal in CoX (Dark Regeneration) as a backup. The biggest drawback of /DA is the endurace issue (KB too but that can fixed easily with IOs) but once you get that under control, you don't have any glaring weaknesses.

I don't see how leveling quickly can equate to being disappointed. For me personally, one of the signature points of this game was the fact that you can try out a multitude of character types (different powers, etc) within a relatively short period of time. I suspect that that's what drew a lot of other people to this game as well. I've played a multitude of MMOs before CoX (Ultima Online, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Final Fantasy XI, Dungeons & Dragons Online, WoW etc) and in all those games (except DDO) it was hard to achieve that same diversity of characters. Not without putting in an ungodly amount of time power leveling at least. In essence, getting a character to level cap, equipping him, and finding out his maximum potential is entertaining to me. Once that's done, I can then move on another character with different flavor (and costume). It certainly isn't disappointing.

In my roughly 2 years of playing CoX, I have 13 level 50's, all of which were leveled through a combination of standard grinding (levels 1-40) and farming (levels 40-50). From my perspective, I can actually say that CoX is more farm and power level friendly than some of the other MMOs I've played. One reason is the mentor system in relation to experience gain. Second reason is the fact that the game itself is relatively easy which means a team of 2 to 4 characters can clear a mission meant for 8, resulting in a bigger individual share of rewards. The final reason (and possibly the main one) is the simplicity behind the crafting/gear system. Unlike most other games, CoX does not require you to spend hours upon hours farming for no drop crafting ingridients or gears. You can't just buy it from other players, you had to farm/camp/raid in order to acquire high end gears for your characters. Back to CoX, the only thing standing between you and the best equipment available is cold hard cash. The best and fastest way to acquire that wealth is the tried and true method known as farming.

Anyways, I guess this is all a difference in perspective.

This farmer vs non-farmer topic will never end will it? Through out the dozens of MMOs during the past decade, this topic is just rehashed over and over again for what? It's really quite simple, both sides want to do things their way because the majority of us are *selfish* at the end of the day. Don't bother denying it. Don't bother getting indignant. The truth is the truth, simple as that.

Farmers farm because they want to advance in the game as quickly as possible. The fastest way to do that is to use the most efficient method as allowable by the game. Farmers also farm because they want to get *loot* for their characters. To them, building up their characters is the best way to maximize their enjoyment of the game (not to mention the monthly fee they pay to play). Low level content to farmers is just like a minor speed bump. Things don't actually get interesting until you're high level and decked out in gear. Chalk it up to the competitiveness mentality that has always been a part of human pscychology. You could even blame it on the instant gratification culture which we've became immersed in these days.

Farm haters (or some RPers) on the other hand want to take their time. They want to level leisurely while soaking up all of the scenery and read every story. They resent the farmers for making it hard to find a group that wants to play the content they enjoy. They also resent farmers for driving up the prices in the marketplace to the point that they almost can't afford it. Many of them also seem to share the mentality that what they want is what's good for the game in the long run even though that's a highly debatable topic not just restricted to CoX but the whole MMO genre as a whole. Call it the holier than though mentality if you will.

To me, this argument will never be settled. It's been around since day 1 of the whole MMO genre. The mother of all grinding/farming/camping Everquest is still alive and kicking after 9 years despite all the doomsayers claims to the contrary. MMOs will always have farming. That's not a choice, that's a reality without any alternatives. Many games have tried to curb farming, all have failed. Farmers will always have more money, more max level characters, more top end gears and so on. Why be so concerned with what other people have? Not everyone is created equal. Not everyone will have the same wealth or talent, in life and in a MMO. If being a casual player or RPer is about enjoying the content at a lesiurely pace, what difference does it make if you can't afford a certain recipe? What difference does it make if you aren't leveling as fast as others? This game is already quite forgiving when it comes to difficulty. Not being able to afford the best IOs is of little consequence when you're running things on villain or malicious. And please refrain from absurd claims such as "farming makes bad players". That type of comments only shows that some people have too much confidence in their "skills". Frankly, in terms of strategy, tactics and character development, CoX is actually a rather simple game when compared to some other MMOs. You hardly need to level a character 1-50 using the traditional method just to be proficient with it.

The bottom line is, no one is entitled to have a market where they can buy all the goods they need for their characters. No one is *entitled* to be able to find a group at any time of their choosing, doing content of their choice. No one is entitled to have a certain feature of a game to be tailored to suit their needs. For any farmer or anti-farmer claim otherwise is just selfish. Case closed.

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Say what you will about farms being good, bad, or in-between, it's been clearly stated from day one that they didn't want this used that way. Oh, and other games haven't come out with this because it wasn't feasible or they didn't want to, not because OH MY GOD, PEOPLE WILL FARM OH NOES!!!!!

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Tell me you're joking. Not feasible? You speak as if CoX is the only instance based MMORPG out there. GW, DDO, WoW, EQ2, Phantasy Star Online (just to name a few of the bigs ones) and tons of other smaller ones are all instance baseds MMOs just like CoX. What makes the programming behind CoX that is so unique that it is unfeasible for other games to try to implement similar features? Do you have extensive programming background under your belt? I don't but just from a logical standpoint, instance based MMOs would have the easiest time incorporating player created content and any of these games should have the capabilities. Are you saying that the programmers at CoX are somehow more talented and capable than those of the other games?

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But thinking other companies haven't done something similar because they were afraid of farmers is a bit ridiculous.

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Afraid of farmers? No. Afraid of player generated content? Absolutely. You have to understand that with the release of player generated content, enforcement of appropriate content must follow. That is the very same growing pain which CoX is going through right now. They have to set aside employee to filter and monitor player generated content which can both be expensive and time consuming. No developer out there would trust their players to self-regulate. Players by nature (at least a good portion of them) would often try to find ways to cut corners, bend the rules or simply feel compelled to create obscene/vulgar content. Is the cost of those additional features worth the benefit? Well, that's up to each developer to decide. However, what we're seeing in CoX right now is just the beginning, there certainly will be more headaches to come.

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One of the best things that you can do at this point is to post to this thread ::
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthrea...page=0&vc=1

The MA was never intended to be a farm-making tool.
Help make your voice clear that farming missions need to be removed or be clearly marked as such so that the MA can be used for what it was intended to be used for.

Those of you that are farmers, like farming mission, etc. - you should know that all of us don't want to farm. Those of us that don't want to farm should not be forced to go out of our way not to farm.
Yes. The MA was not designed to be a farm-creating tool.
No. You don't have an excuse for using a tool in the wrong manner.

Telling someone not to use the MA/AE because they are having a hard time find a mission that isn't a farm is a "farming" problem.

You do understand that the MA is a really big deal because it allows players to create their own content, right?
That this is some ground breaking in-game technology that was created to allow us to tell stories and create adventures in game, right?

Turning something that has such great potential into a travesty of farming is just sick.

On the other hand, we could just drop the City of Rogues idea and have the DEVs create the City of Farming. That would give all the farmers some place to go where they could be happy doing what they like to do and they could leave the rest of us alone.

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Sorry but the whole "proper usage of MA" argument is just a bunch of balony. There is a reason why other MMORPGs didn't introduce content creation tools for players. It's because each and every one of those developers knew that there WILL be tons of players that will use the tool to create farms. You don't even need to be a developer to know this. You can easily figure out the mentality of a large number of MMO subscribers by just playing 2 or 3 games yourself over the years.

MMORPG isn't a new genre. It's more than 10 years old now (25+ if you want to go back to the days of MUDDing and so on). Through out all of these games, the one consistant characteristic shared by them all is farming (as defined by running the most profitable missions over and over again to maximize reward vs risk). Even games where the developers have made a conscious effort in the past to eliminate farming have failed miserably. How can anyone claim that "oh, player creation tool wasn't meant to be used to create farms"? To claim such a thing exhibits the utmost level of naivity and ignorance when it comes reality of the MMO world.

Lastly, don't speak of farming as some kind of unethical or detrimental behavior. Frankly, it's a part of human nature which most of us practice every day, especially when it comes to money. If you know something works, would you not do it over and over again? If you're flipping stocks in the stock market and one particular stock/sector consistantly gives you the highest potential profit, would you not go back to it over and over again? To expect people to behave any differently just because it's a computer game is laughable. To put it plainly, a person thought process is not going to change regardless of the medium.

I'm split on this. There were times when I got nothing worthwhile after several silver rolls but then times like last night came along. I ran 3 AE mishes last night (at about 1500 tickets each). After each run I do 2 silver rolls and then 3-4 bronze rolls with leftover tickets. From the 6 silver rolls I got LOTG Def, LOTG Def/End, LOTG Def/Rec, Obliteration Acc/Dam, Touch of Nictus something and a scrub recipe. From the 10 or so bronze rolls, the only decent recipes I got were Crushing Impact and Makos Bite. Actually now that I think about it, the night before I ran about 5 or 6 AE mishes and did the same roll combination. I walked away with 4 Obliterations, a LOTG something, and like 2 Positrons Blast recipes. I just don't remember which ones I got from silver rolls and which ones I got from bronze rolls.

I'm not sure Hasten is needed. Fire as a primary recharge pretty fast as it is. All you need is about 30-40% global recharge from IO sets and you're good to go. Dark is already an end starved set, the end loss from haste drop will only compound the problem. Might I also suggest that the soul mastery pool is another good choice for /DA brutes. You get an AoE immobile (good for keeping mobs around you for oppressive gloom), a targeted AoE attack that debuffs tohit, and a toggle -tohit debuff. That last power is a bit of an end drain but since you already have weave and cloak of darkness, the -tohit on mobs will make your 15-20% def even more effective. At least, that's how my fire/dark brute is built. Have fun.

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I fail to understand why so many people vilify other people for working within the rules to maximize their rewards.


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Welcome to America. That's how it is here in the good ol' U.S. of A where people love to tell people other what to do due to some misguided sense of self righteousness and moral guideline. This mentality was first reflect through the international policies forumlated by government (see manifest destiny) as if it is the responsibility of the U.S. to advance the human civilization. Over time that thought process slowly filtered down to the general public until it has reached the level of what it is you see today. As a result, we as a society loves to meddle in others affairs. We love to forcefully insert ourselves into an issue which we may *percieve* as an injustice whether it is actually justified or not. We love to villify anyone who may disagree with our moral agenda since we are supposedly a nation found under christian principles thus we hold a higher moral authority (what a farce). The best you can do is to ignore those people and do things your way as long as it is within the confines of the law/rule of course (which farming is without doubt, within the confines of the rules in this case). In anycase, the words of those meddlers are only as influential as the ramblings of an hobo driven mad by extreme poverty.

Edit: Oh, almost forgot to mention. Another reason why people like to meddle is because their own life is unfulfilling or unsuccessful. As a result, they try to fill that void by dictating to them how they should live theirs. That false sense of empowerment and authority can seem fulfilling at first. That is until the people they are dictating to stop playing the victim and brush these people off as just another nut.

I agree with the OP. There are reasons why other MMOs have avoiding adding player created content to their games. The biggest and most relevent reason is of course, player abuse. Let's face it, the vast majority players will always look for shortcuts to get to where they want. It's human nature. This doesn't mean that they'll be willing to hack or cheat, it just means that they will use the easiest method as allowable by the game to advance their goals. That is the main achievement for AE so far, which was to provide an easy and convienent method for players to get what they want even faster than before.

This is why I find it hilarious that the devs are now getting so indignant about how players are using AE to farm and PL. Come now, any 16 year old MMO kid could've figured that part out without using the benefit of hindsight. CoX has opened the Pandoras Box and now they have to deal with all the problems that come with it.

Server: Freedom
Character Name: Baron Inferno
SG/VG Name: Avatars of Malice
When do you crash: Umm, anytime and anywhere. Twice inside a mayhem. Twice inside a mission. Three times in the VG base. One time just standing around in SH. Basically 2 to 3 times an hour.
Does it affect all characters: Yes, I have experienced crash on 3 different characters now.
Does it affect only characters in one or more SG's or VG's: Don't know since all my characters are in the same VG. Though it does affect multiple accounts running on different computers with completely different OS/settings.