captrench

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On the other hand GW has only one faction and all the servers are effectively the same one.

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What difference does that make though? The fact that we have two factions is not really an issue as i never envisaged, or suggested, that account wide storage should cross the red/blue divide, in fact I have stated the exact opposite. In terms of game programming, i would imagine its no more difficult to implement than the "no trade" rule between red and blue across shared zones and the markets.

I understand you have a slightly different slant on the way you would prefer to see account wide storage implemented (if it is, fingers crossed!), i just dont see why GW's one faction/server is relevant?

/SIGNED
by eck Liz thats a bloody brillaints idea!!! Agreed with Landrig, its worth a suggestion at least.

I think we're in agreement, but I'm paraoid and still cant believe I haven't been flamed to toastyville and back for suggesting this thread, so i'm going to restate something to be sure.

I think its really important that PEARS(tm) should not undermine sg bases in any way. An sg base should come across as being superior in the same way that the Fantastic Fours huge complex and technological gadgetry inside it seems superior to my one bedroom flat and my glow in the dark kettle in the kitchen... (still much love for the kettle though )

I just think that theres room for a few things with PEARS(tm). Firstly, adding another background detail/backdrop for your toons roleplay or player personal gratification (like a well written bio). Secondly, as far as storage is concerned, account wide or not (and no, i never envisaged it being available across the red/blue divide) to not have to make it compulsory to declare yourself a Super Hero "The Omega Squad" just for the priviledge of a single room and some cupboards. But i would not want to see PEAR's(tm) overshadowing the pros of owning your own sg base, if thats what you were prepared to work for and build, whether it be solo or not. If that were to occur i would definetly rue the day i ever suggested PEAR's(tm)

I dont believe that if implemented as i envisage that new players would feel disadvantaged, any more than i did when i first started and saw well developed flying toons whilst i was still making bunny hops cos i thought it seemed faster than sprinting. Everything one player has is achievable by another in this game, and I've never started playing a new game under any illusions that i'm going to hit the ground running. I dont think any player that thinks like that will stick at any game, never mind CoX.

I know some players have definite views on storage not being account wide, but other games do this (eg, Guildwars "Xunlai chest" I think?), and it breaks the game, or disillusions newby players not one iota. I dont see why its game breaking, when people swap inf, enhancements and salvage all the time already, really, they do, and are not likely to ever stop. I wouldn't want to overshadow sg storage, so in the interests of preserving sg base superiority, and "object creep" is never good for a games performance, account wide storage should be limited, severley, if implemented. I suppose one compromise is to allow a maximum of 10 items(maybe less even), plus inf transfers to be account wide stored. That way you would most likely only ever use account wide storage to transfer items between your heroes, or villains, exclusively. That space would not be sufficient to serve as a permanent storage space for all toons.

I've just had another random idea. Keep PEARS(tm) as purely personal for your toon as far as storage is concerned. If you want to share storage across your account, there could be a "Static Miniture Dimensional Wormhole"(tm?) type item available only to sg's and their members, so that you would need to join an sg to fascilitate easier item and inf transfers. It could work in a similiar way to the Vault, one static device that only shows player specific items. This item wouldn't even be difficult to imagine in game, given all the dimensional and time hopping we do via Portal Corp and Ouroborous already. It might even be a Portal Corp (Tech) or Ouroborous (Arcane) type item. You could still own your own PEAR as normal, but as a solo player, you might still be motivated to either create your own sg base or join anothers sg for that functionality.

Personally i would prefer also to see a different tileset for PEAR's(tm) but thats just me, and may be a lot of work for something thats just a scaled down version of functionality that already exists in bases (but the fact that that functionality already exists means that PEARS(tm) would not be that difficult an idea to implement in itself).

(runs for his flak jacket and prepares for the onslaught)

ok, thats a good point Imoba about the Medicine Pool. And i also wasn't aware that a policy statement on this had previously been made by the devs, so again, fair enough.

Personally though, i dont see it as a problem to have badges that are not attainable by some AT's. its not the player who cant get them, its the toon, if you really want the challenge of earning a badge, create a toon thats capable of it. It may be that i'm the only one who sees it that way though

ok, well, i dont want to hijack the thread if my suggestion doesn't fly, so i'll quieten down now

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Getting crits isn't skill though its random

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I dont agree, but ok, if thats the case, then my suggestion is neither harder or more difficult than getting any other defeat badge, so whats the real objection? But... i do think killing targets with sniper powers is a little harder. it takes timing, patience and placing if you are attacking mobs of your level or above. Otherwise you risk aggroing the mob and you're not likely to be sniping much in the middle of them, unles you run away and wait again, using timing, patience and placing. It might not be much harder but its a little bit more complicated than "see mob of chosen crit, plough in, use area of effect powers to kill multiple targets, finish of stragglers with single target attacks, go to next mob". Sniper powers are single target attacks, so accumulating a kill count of 100-200 via sniping alone is somewhat more praiseworthy.

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Besides only Blasters, Defenders, Corrupters and Stalkers get a Snipe IIRC. What about the rest of us?

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ummm... maybe i'm mising something here... how is that different from the already existing healing badges? Last time i checked, scrappers, tankers and brutes are not going to get those either. Leastways, i've never seen any of the above with an earnt healing badge.

I guess what i'd like to see more of is badges that actually mean something, as well as all the usual fun but meaningless ones. Defeat badges dont really mean much generally (and i am generalising, there are some defeat badges that aren't so easy), in terms of skill or patience, but they're fun to accumulate. I just think its always cooler to get a badge that wasn't as easy as the rest usually are.

No?

/signed from me Coolio

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Or was that taking it too far?

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Fine by me

Here's another thought (blimey this luck cant hold out, THREE posts and not one a flame???). At certain points you could be able to choose and fix the type of door/entrance that best matches the theme of your PErsonal ARea (PEAR for short???). Then you would have to find doors that matched that before being able to enter it. These could be any potential mission entrances that you do not currently have missions for. So all those unused caves, wooden doors, warehouse entrances and drain covers could all be selectable as entrances but not all at the same time. One thing i like about the idea that you could re-choose the entrance type at any point is that you could match the entrance to the ones available in the zone you are mostly spending your time in at the lowbie levels. This would make sure that no-one would have to be permanently tied to an entrance type they didn't like, nor would an entrance type be permanently out of reach for a lowbie (imagine hoping to use the Portals in Peregrine as your PEAR(tm) entrance

I would suggest disabling accessing the PEAR(tm) in a pvp zone i think though...

So, just to be clear, at low levels you would only realistically specify a door type that existed in Atlas, Galaxy or Mercy. If you chose another type (eg Portal Corp Portal entrance type) you would be making things hard for yourself as you would potentially have to travel through a high level zone to reach it, being squished repeatedly on the way. But this limit reflects nicely on you being a poor starting out hero/villain, with something to aim for at higher levels. It would also emphasise the sg/vg bases superiority in being able to access your base from most if not all zones at all times, just one way in which sg bases should generally be superior and keep their value overall. Maybe some door types are so generic that they exist everywhere anyway, i haven't checked but i'm sure there are, no worries if thats the case. Its really just another use for all those unused mission entrances that it would be cool to dissapear into (those Do Not Enter signs make really cool entrances!) and again, just adds another element that would add to the realism of the whole idea. If your PEAR(tm) has an arcane theme, then it might make more sense to choose a cave entrance than office block door for example. The choice should be the players, but the option to make the entrance relevant to the PEAR, when there are so many differently themed instance capable entrance spots on the maps, should also be available ideally.

hope that makes sense, its a side detail really to the original idea but Heyman's post prompted it, so cheers for that . btw, just kiddin on the (tm) stuff...

Maybe I'm going pushing this too much (two positive responses is boosting my confidence to unrealistic levels ), but wouldn't it be good to have something else to spend your money (influence/infamy/brownie points whetever you want to call it) on than just recipes and salvage for enhancements? So all your excess cash after you've reached 50 and respecced could go on your toons crib/personal living quarters?

If there was enough to do (spend) in your private little getaway maybe that would also help reduce the soaring prices of salvage and other market related purchases. Maybe... I'm not an economist so i may be making "hoooje" assumptions. But providing another outlet for inf/money cant be a bad thing. I mean, when you get to level 50 and have nothing else to do with your money except farm for it and then transfer it to your lowbies, wouldn't it be good to have a pad to spend it on and show off how successfull your life of crime/heroism obviously is? In pretty much the same way we show off our bases. No?

k, think i'm spent

Originally posted in the Bases section, thought it should go here too...
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I also think adding an account level base, housing if you will, using Inf for currency rather than prestige should be looked at. Then even those of us who cannot edit their base due to not being able to edit their SGs base get to use a great system.


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Yes, many players are starting a private SG just for the same reason (or to have a safe personal storage) which in turn excludes some or all of their toons from a real SG.


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This ^^

This is the main reason i started all my sg's, as a previous super group i had been with had had trouble with members stealing stuff so it was the only way to not have to worry about this. Then i discovered how much fun base building was (and how difficult earning enough prestige could be) and now its impossible for me to create a toon for anyone elses sg as i need all the prestige for my own.

If there was a smaller scale non sg related housing/customisable space that also could be used for storage for the whole account it would address a few current play bottlenecks in one fell swoop.

I would suggest making a seperate set of content for a personal housing area so as not to simply duplicate bases in look and feel. Each alt could have its own personal space, but with certain storage objects that could be used account wide, and maybe some that were not account wide but only single toon specific. They could still enforce the "no trade" of villains and heroes by limiting storage in the same way. For instance, my demon mastermind places his hard earned inf/enhancement into the global storage vault in his own personal little pocket dimension of roaring flames or just a simple apartment. When i log onto my hero scrapper and look at my global storage container in my personal fortified bunker I only see items placed by my other hero alts, so i wouldn't be able to access the villain placed storage, unless I was logged in with a villain too.

Now i appreciate that the devs may want sg bases to be the only way to get certain functionality like storage and teleporters, so as to drive players to form sg's and team in the first place, maybe. But i still think that a personal toon level living space with account wide storage would boost the game, and solve a number of current problems all at the same time.

1/. players wouldn't have to create sg's just to have a safe storage area, along with the slow grind in developing a respectable base.

2/. if account wide storage/banking was possible players wouldn't have to depend on other players just to swap stuff from one toon to another, there really is no justification for that to be a necessity in game, its daft. i've heard it all before that inf is not money its influence, but i think thats basicly been shredded as an idea in game as soon as you could transfer it from one player to another, never mind the fact that CoX does actually have an economy now (along with a hero side store and villain side Black Market), using inf/influence, so whether its gold or influence, its now money. Lets give up the ghost on the original concept of influence, its a nice idea, but its not backed up in any way in game. Maybe if the devs wanted to enforce the "it's influence not money" thinking of the early game they should have created politically themed ways of exchanging goods rather market trader themed?

3/. A personal living space would allow a little (maybe lots) more game immersion as players could flesh out another detail in their characters backdrop/background. so long as it could accept visitors, players could show off their living spaces in the same way we currently show off a costume or base we're proud of. currently the only way to do this is via an sg, and the base concept (arcane or tech, factory or sewer etc...) may not be a good logical fit for all your individual toon concepts. Currently the only way to scratch the "itch" of wanting to create a toon related area is to create an sg with a theme around your chosen toon and then make every other toon you have a member of it (so as to earn the needed prestige), even if some of your other alts dont thematically fit together. its too "all or nothing" for some players creativity.

i know i'm probably going to get shot down in flames by dev fanboi's for daring to suggest that maybe the devs should do something they "have no reason to do/obviously dont want to do because it violates <<insert high minded principle here>>".... but here goes...

i have to say, i like the original idea posted here. Bases are generally under appreciated for all the work that goes into some, and this suggestion would open up the community a bit. I mean, at the end of the day, we are all real life people who are curious and want to see stuff and maybe socialise a little too, not actual heroes or villains concermned for our anonymity, protecting our secret identities...

but i mainly like the idea of lowbies who might also be new to the game being able to see bases and if they see one they like they might bump into an sg member and get chatting about possibly joining.

If you want to be a total purist about it you could limit the visiting rights to just that, so that no tp, or medibay (the base tp list could get too long granted) fascilities, just visiting rights to have a look and the exit via the base entrance when done.

i cant see why any of this would be a bad thing if its optional.

how about a badge for killing a certain number of crits with just your sniper power? i can think of a few reasons why it might not be as simple to implement, but, just a thought. Killing snipers is really no different from killing any other type of crit so whilst the extra badge for killing snipers is always fun to have, it would be good to see a badge for something slightly less obvious, that required a bit of skill and/or patience to earn.

[ QUOTE ]
I also think adding an account level base, housing if you will, using Inf for currency rather than prestige should be looked at. Then even those of us who cannot edit their base due to not being able to edit their SGs base get to use a great system.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Yes, many players are starting a private SG just for the same reason (or to have a safe personal storage) which in turn excludes some or all of their toons from a real SG.


[/ QUOTE ]

This ^^

This is the main reason i started all my sg's, as a previous super group i had been with had had trouble with members stealing stuff so it was the only way to not have to worry about this. Then i discovered how much fun base building was (and how difficult earning enough prestige could be) and now its impossible for me to create a toon for anyone elses sg as i need all the prestige for my own.

If there was a smaller scale non sg related housing/customisable space that also could be used for storage for the whole account it would address a few current play bottlenecks in one fell swoop.

I would suggest making a seperate set of content for a personal housing area so as not to simply duplicate bases in look and feel. Each alt could have its own personal space, but with certain storage objects that could be used account wide, and maybe some that were not account wide but only single toon specific. They could still enforce the "no trade" of villains and heroes by limiting storage in the same way. For instance, my demon mastermind places his hard earned inf/enhancement into the global storage vault in his own personal little pocket dimension of roaring flames or just a simple apartment. When i log onto my hero scrapper and look at my global storage container in my personal fortified bunker I only see items placed by my other hero alts, so i wouldn't be able to access the villain placed storage, unless I was logged in with a villain too.

Now i appreciate that the devs may want sg bases to be the only way to get certain functionality like storage and teleporters, so as to drive players to form sg's and team in the first place, maybe. But i still think that a personal toon level living space with account wide storage would boost the game, and solve a number of current problems all at the same time.

1/. players wouldn't have to create sg's just to have a safe storage area, along with the slow grind in developing a respectable base.

2/. if account wide storage/banking was possible players wouldn't have to depend on other players just to swap stuff from one toon to another, there really is no justification for that to be a necessity in game, its daft. i've heard it all before that inf is not money its influence, but i think thats basicly been shredded as an idea in game as soon as you could transfer it from one player to another, never mind the fact that CoX does actually have an economy now (along with a hero side store and villain side Black Market), using inf/influence, so whether its gold or influence, its now money. Lets give up the ghost on the original concept of influence, its a nice idea, but its not backed up in any way in game. Maybe if the devs wanted to enforce the "it's influence not money" thinking of the early game they should have created politically themed ways of exchanging goods rather market trader themed?

3/. A personal living space would allow a little (maybe lots) more game immersion as players could flesh out another detail in their characters backdrop/background. so long as it could accept visitors, players could show off their living spaces in the same way we currently show off a costume or base we're proud of. currently the only way to do this is via an sg, and the base concept (arcane or tech, factory or sewer etc...) may not be a good logical fit for all your individual toon concepts. Currently the only way to scratch the "itch" of wanting to create a toon related area is to create an sg with a theme around your chosen toon and then make every other toon you have a member of it (so as to earn the needed prestige), even if some of your other alts dont thematically fit together. its too "all or nothing" for some players creativity.

i know i'm probably going to get shot down in flames by dev fanboi's for daring to suggest that maybe the devs should do something they "have no reason to do/obviously dont want to do because it violates <<insert high minded principle here>>".... but here goes...

Hmmm... just a thought, this whole post should probably go in the Suggestions section.

re the warehouse type room, yep, i saw it too, briefly, on my base edit menu's. hopefully it a sign of more goodness to come base wise, and hopefully they'll switch base raiding back on too!

/signed to all ideas on this theme. bases are a hugely underdeveloped part of the game.

Client crashed while zoning to Capu and presented a dialogue box stating to post the following info on the Beta forums. there were various buttons on this dialogue box, such as "Launch remote Debugger" (opens browser but thats it), "Debug" (closes dialogue box and exits CoX, nothing more) and "Copy To Clipboard" (used this to get the text of the error). There was a few other buttons too but cant remember them and didn't try them.

Anyway, the question is, where are the Beta Forums and should i post this error to them? For lack of anywhere else to post it i've included the error below.

<<
Assertion failed

Program: ...am Files\Games\City of Heroes\CityOfHeroes.exe
Time: Sat May 30 04:47:31 PM
Process ID: 2188
File: c:\src\utilitieslib\utils\superassert.c
Line: 1857
Expression: 0

Error Message: CRT abort() called

ERROR: swDumpStackToBuffer - timeout (258) waiting for dumpHeap is NOT corrupted
Last windows SYSTEM error: Not enough storage is available to process this command.
>>

regardless of the plausability of the set itself (of no fixed opinion myself personally) i salute a great bit of creative thinking. some cool power descriptions, yay!

whenever that happens i type my password into notepad and paste it in. still annoying though...

glad to hear all working now regardless. Now... Go.Kill.Skullz!

i read a while ago that CoX code didn't always successfully detect multiple cores/processors, hence the necessity for the renderthread parameter to force it. it may not be necessary anymore, but i use it all the same just in case. it made a difference last year when i bought my first core2 duo cpu pc and i didnt see the performance gain i'd looked forward to. turning on this switch certainly made difference. whether its going to help with a graphics glitch i dont know, but it wont hurt thats for sure.

try this, hope it works. add this to the end of your shortcuts command line

-compatiblecursors 1

eg...
"C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" -compatiblecursors 1

the mouse cursor will look awful, its a blocky black and white cursor, i've tried it, but it should hopefully be visible. fingers crossed for you. let me know if not (or if it works!).

Sorry to hear this, but as someone else said here, i hope this is because you now have something else "better" (what could it be???) to focus on

/signed/ to every positive comment here on the contribution to the game that MID's HD has made. its the mutts nuts as a program and does exactly what i feel a toon planner for CoX should do, and some, and was well worth contributing a little to Midnights beer fund for.

Glad to hear though that your still going to be part of the CoX community. Also happy that your handing over future development so that MID's as a tool will carry on being the great thing it is.

heya, i assume that before you launch the game you can see the mouse cursor as normal on your desktop/screen?

i often find, with all the special effects that can be vie-ing for attention onscreen, that it becomes difficult to track the cursor position. This can be a problem in pvp for instance, when you lose precious seconds moving your mouse frantically from side to side to find the cursor so you can click your power tray.

is there a way to customise the cursor to be larger, and/or change its colour/style so that it stands out more against the visual backdrop of maxed out graphical settings?

PS - i've already tried the -compatiblecursors option. it doesn't really solve the problem. and looks butt ugly in game too.

the sensitivity of the mouse is fine already. adjusting that wont help me find my cursor on screen. regarding using keyboard for powers, sure, that helps, but doesn't solve the problem of a hard to find cursor on a screen full of visual effects. i still need the cursor for other things, like selecting through multiple possible targets quickly or even just clickable objects.

i dont really need to justify this. the cursor is an important tool to play the game. it should be easy to use (and therefore find). if your keyboard can be customised to be more user friendly, why not the cursor?

i actually changed the size of the mouse cursor in Windows XP, thinking that the same change may just get picked up ingame as well. unfortunately no, the cursor size seems to be hardcoded. i'll post this in the suggestions channel as well i think.

cheers for all responses so far though

i often find, with all the special effects that can be vie-ing for attention onscreen, that it becomes difficult to track the cursor position. This can be a problem in pvp for instance, when you lose precious seconds moving your mouse frantically from side to side to find the cursor so you can click your power tray.

is there a way to customise the cursor to be larger, and/or change its colour/style so that it stands out more against the visual backdrop of maxed out graphical settings?

PS - i've already tried the -compatiblecursors option. it doesn't really solve the problem. and looks butt ugly in game too.