chatman

Hi,

I had a thought about getting some more mileage out of AE, PvP and personal Nemesis.

Now to all who read I beg your indulgance but will try to make this as clear as I can while trying to be brief.

PREMISE:

What if Dr. Aeon is wrong? These stories that have been concocted for entertainment are not stories at all but glimpses into alternate or parallel universes and some young hotshot at portal corps sets out to prove just that.

IDEA MECHANIC

The Devs could periodically pull out interesting stories rework them into canon and lore.

They could be part of a larger story line involving the correction of events from mid level to incarnate based heroes called "The Portal Corp. Contengencies"

The author would be rewarded with possible extra story slots or whatever was felt appropriate. Also it would be a random sampling the Devs could leaf through at their leisure and expand content while encouraging more quality use of the AE system and giving a greater sense of direct community contribution while still maintaining control over the overarching story line.

NUANCE 1

Given that with AE we can create custom critters, why not allow players to create their own personal nemesis(main villain and possible henchmen/henchwomen) who would periodically bedevil their efforts in these "portal arcs". Also try to link these arcs to two or three other arcs as possible story line paths such that if the player fails a mission the story goes into another direction. That would take some work but most of it would have to do with story telling and tying dialogues together.

NUANCE 2

Further, add a mechanic that allows for a player who wants to either solo or team pvp select at the start of the "portal arc" select a radio button, nemesis, solo pvp, or team pvp.
Players who just want to pvp can click, be placed in a queue and popped into a mission without having to wait and gather a team OR can elect to join a channel to set up teams to go into the arcs. This way the players elect their path. Once in mission Teams have their objectives given to them through their contact, cut scene what have you. In the team PvP realm a version of capture the flag could be done where the player stealing the flag is slowed because of the object's fragility or volatility. Perhaps there's a time limit? Perhaps its just as simple as a last man standing or total defeats contest. Either way they player's set the conditions in the context of a mission story.

NUANCE 3

Additionally personal objectives can be added based on alignments. Protect objects, destroy objects, plant scanner, plant jammers,disarm, scanners, steal scanners... you get the idea. Now alignment means something in terms of gameplay objectives and possibly rewards. Also failure can have story line consequences. This same mechanic could be used to enhance smaller factional base raids for people who just want small pvp skirmishses in a base atmoshpere.

Just some thoughts. I hope I got the gist of my ideas across.

Its been QUITE a while since I've been on the forums. Where is the current best forum thread for possible game play ideas?

Greetings all!

I've looked around on the web and even through the forum references here on how to get demoplay working on the mac with no success. The methods I've tried so far yield only the "night sky cloud" display which I gather means it cannot find the file in the path:

/Applications/City\ of\ Heroes.app/Contents/MacOS/cider -- cohupdater.exe -demoplay c:/Program\ Files/City\ of\ Heroes/client_demos/pb1.cohdemo -disable2d

/Applications/City\ of\ Heroes.app/Contents/MacOS/cider -- cohupdater.exe -demoplay c:/coh/client_demos/pb1.cohdemo -disable2d

Neither method works but another curious thing is that when I invoke either method the "updater" goest through a 1.5 min checksum verification. I suspect this has to do with the fact that the classic updater has been replaced with the new NCLauncher.

Proceeding from that assumption and also copying and moving my test demo file around I tried another path that launches the game but not the demo:


/Applications/NCLauncher.app/Contents/Resources/City\ of\ Heroes.app/Contents/MacOS/City\ of\ Heroes -demoplay /Applications/City of Heroes.app/Contents/Resources/transgaming/c_drive/coh/client_demos/pb1.cohdemo -disable2d

Quite obviously I am doing something wrong. The question is what? In the last method listed the "-demoplay" option seems to be entirely ignored. It causes no obvious error but just doesn't seem to matter. I did capture some curious terminal output from the console when using the last command:


2012-01-09 10:07:00.578 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: bash
2012-01-09 10:07:00.674 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: login
2012-01-09 10:07:00.675 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: Terminal
2012-01-09 10:07:00.676 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: ntpd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.677 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: VMware Fusion St
2012-01-09 10:07:00.677 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: VMware Fusion He
2012-01-09 10:07:00.678 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: HPEventHandler
2012-01-09 10:07:00.679 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: UserEventAgent
2012-01-09 10:07:00.680 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: fontd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.681 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: vmnet-netifup
2012-01-09 10:07:00.682 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: vmnet-natd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.683 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: vmnet-dhcpd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.684 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: vmnet-netifup
2012-01-09 10:07:00.685 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: vmnet-dhcpd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.685 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: coreaudiod
2012-01-09 10:07:00.686 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: WindowServer
2012-01-09 10:07:00.687 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: socketfilterfw
2012-01-09 10:07:00.688 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: blued
2012-01-09 10:07:00.688 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: fseventsd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.689 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: loginwindow
2012-01-09 10:07:00.690 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: mDNSResponder
2012-01-09 10:07:00.691 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: mds
2012-01-09 10:07:00.691 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: securityd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.692 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: SystemStarter
2012-01-09 10:07:00.692 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: usbmuxd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.693 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: cron
2012-01-09 10:07:00.694 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: syslogd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.694 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: configd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.695 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: diskarbitrationd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.696 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: notifyd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.696 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: kextd
2012-01-09 10:07:00.697 City of Heroes[306:903] procName: launchd
my system:~ me$ 2012-01-09 10:07:01.024 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x20b020 of class NSCFArray autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
2012-01-09 10:07:01.031 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x20a790 of class NSCFNumber autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
2012-01-09 10:07:01.032 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x400420 of class NSCFNumber autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
2012-01-09 10:07:01.033 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x21b750 of class NSRunningApplication autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
2012-01-09 10:07:01.035 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x20a790 of class NSCFNumber autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
2012-01-09 10:07:01.036 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x408750 of class NSCFNumber autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
2012-01-09 10:07:01.037 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x21b800 of class NSRunningApplication autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
2012-01-09 10:07:01.038 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x20a790 of class NSCFNumber autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
2012-01-09 10:07:01.039 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x21e480 of class NSCFNumber autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
2012-01-09 10:07:01.039 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x408760 of class NSRunningApplication autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
2012-01-09 10:07:01.040 NCLauncher[308:903] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x408950 of class NSCFArray autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking



To my knowledge none of my virtual machines are running yet it picks up processes for them. Odd but no damage seems to be done. Then there is this matter of NSCFArray auto released with no pool in place - just leaking. Is this an indication that the java object isn't being cleaned up and its just going to eventually chew through memory? I don't know.

I do know that my game works(albeit slowly on old mac hardware) but I can't seem to get the demoplay thing to work. I really don't have room or desire to to do bootcamp and running through a VM is FAR too painful (tried it, VM craps out after running painfully slowly) so looking for a way to make this work through the Mac client.

I'm sure that was all as clear as mud but if you suffered through it this far I'd appreciate any help or thoughts for other avenues to pursue.

Thanks in advance!
c.

My apologies if some of these have been covered before but I don't have a lot of time and wanted to just throw some things out, to see what others might like as well.

Things that I am happy were added:

More costume slots and options!
More open mission slots!
More Auras!
More weapon selections!
More power options!
More power proliferation options!
Added flexibility to select certain power animations as well as color palette!

Things I'd like to see:

• Ability for all team members to read story dialogue/clues if they choose.
  
• Ability to tie visual/sound effects to certain powers/animations (Based on current game engine might not be possible) I think it would be cool for the player to be able to tie camera shake to certain moves as well as the heavy "thud" walking sound to characters of their choice.
  
  
• Allow Hurl to either throw bigger chunks of ground or cars as part of animation depending on environment

• Make civilians vulnerable to certain power usage:
  
  If being attacked by "do-baddies" they can be harmed. To me this would add a greater sense that the heroes should intervene to help the populace. Also it would allow for some creative ways for heroes to use their abilities to rescue the civvies. Additionally it could be tied to the going rogue path by how many civvies they save versus harm.
  
  
• As part of the fire alarm in Steel,
  
  ...add an entrance mission where you go inside the burning building and "tag" civvies with hospital transporters. It could add a new badge and or temp power.
  
  
• More zone events tied to player actions in different zones.
  
  For example If players are concentrated in one zone the villains from another may "invade" another zone, or attempt to move some equipment or mystical item that they ordinarily wouldn't be able to for fear of "meddling" heroes. An alert goes out to stop X faction before they reach x-gate.
  
  
• Zone events tied to player actions based on mission selection.
  
  If everybody (teamed or solo) is beating up on Skulls then maybe Hellions raid Atlas or KR. If none is bothering the DE in Eden or Council or Clockwork in Boom Town then a mini Hamidon(not the full scale need 50 level 50s to beat. Something much lesser.) or giant robots start spawning in zones to destroy certain buildings. The raids would be defeated by either destroying all the spawning bad guys or going to the "source" zone and defeating the AV or monster who started the raid.
  

The idea of the zone events is to give the player a greater sense that their actions do affect the city.

The zone event ideas could be triggered by server population and or timing based on the other triggers as well so as not to be too inconvenient. Just some ideas. Would like to hear others as well.

I hope that wasn't too long and I hope it was a bit clearer than mud.

Cheers!

I don't know if I see this as too complex so much as a question of "is is worth it?" to the Dev team. I can't speak for them and I won't. I'm just merely speculating that given the direction of the game and its obvious bent towards team content and mechanics I just don't know if they'd be willing to invest much energy into it.

Personally I think its not a bad idea in the sense that it gives you an opportunity to kind of see your own heroes in action, even giving the sense of them acting as their own mini super group. It also allows for a more immersive story experience in that you can take your time and enjoy the content. Now if you added the "option" of using Master Mind controls you'd almost turn it into a crossbred mmo and rts.

There'd have to be some serious fleshing out and design considerations and implementation limitations but on the whole in broad strokes not a bad idea.

You know I was sooo excited about there being a mac client, I just bought and downloaded it. Now my memory may very well be faulty but I never recalled reading the minimum specs excluding the GMA 950. Now maybe those postings were always there, but I just never saw them. Well regardless, as Bender would say "I'm boned", but I hope the fix does go in and people can play without "The Curse of The Orange Hand" looming over them anymore.

I'll play as long as I can on borrowed time with my GMA 950 because in this economy I can't justify buying a brand new computer to play a game. So hang in there heroes! And a special THANK YOU to Ghost Falcon for the reply, to the devs for working to fix the problem and to the forumites working together united to find a fix to defeat "The Curse of The Oange Hand"!

Okay I've just spoken with support and they are still gathering data.

To that end they asked me for my System Profile which I just uploaded to them.

So for now any further data you can give them would be helpful, I would suggest opening a ticket with support and sending them the appropriate info, other than that I guess all we can do is sit tight...

Are there any other Mac Users having trouble since the last patch?

For myself it seems to have broken the mouse cursor making it nearly impossible to mouse over any in-game interaction objects, or players or even the chat windows. Its like the code to switch over the cursor is bused any time it has to change from pointer to hand it freaks out and "leaps" to another part of the screen. If I move my char such that an interaction object( like a door) fills the screen then the the cursor will become a hand but refuse to move out of frame to become a pointer again.

I have contacted support about this and will post any solutions or suggestions for a fix as I receive them. By the way I'm running on a macbook 2G Intel Core Duo with a Gig of RAM.

Any help from the community is also appreciated!

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Hi, does anyone have any experience using (or trying to run) CoH/CoX using Parallels? Would it work at all?

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Yes. I run coh on my macbook using parallels. I had an old copy of windows 2k and used that as my base OS. Its late and I have to remember what I had to do to get it running, but it took some minor tweaking. All command line stuff. I did have it posted somewhere on the forums but cant find it. It may have been deleted though. I'll try to find it if I can.

My level 50 tank does not have taunt, but I'm at work and can't post his build sorry. However I will say this, I found taunt to be fairly situational. As most have pointed out in a heated battle one can use it to snag runners provided your not at the cap.

Well because /axe was not available in scrapper secondaries I went with the tank and it still fit the concept rather well. I found that prior to the GDN I needed to do more damage as I mostly soloed due to odd play times. When teamed I made use of the soft control of knockback/down/up,(I even slotted my weakest attack with knockback and recharge for just this purpose) along with my aura to keep effective control. Gauntlet only added to it given the magnitude of the effect when nearby npcs are hit with an axe!

When managing crowds for a group I try to be mobile so when I see enemy health bars dropping I slowly start shifting position in a direction dragging them with me, so if I see a potential runner (a guy on the edges starting to pin-pong) I try to drag the cluster closer to that direction to lock him in the aura. Most of the time the bad guys are dead before I have to do this as many of the other Team has either killed or debuffed them to the point of death. Often when teamed I barely get a chance to swing at more than two badguys, they die so fast! Once I was teamed with a bunch of blasters and defenders who just oblitereated everything around me except one guy. I wondered why the fireworks had stopped when one of the blasters sent me a tell saying, "Well we felt like you should get a chance to play too." Then another blaster killed him and said "It was taking too long." I laughed it off.

My point is that usually in high power or well synergized teams, even our primary abilities (let alone those which tend to be situational) can be unnecessary. Tanking in a sense, just as taunt , can be situational. On teams that are so well protected by smart defenders and controllers I just tend to let loose but just keep a watchful eye just to make sure. If there is another tank I may let them take lead and hang back with the squishies in case of "unintended consequences" such as over aggro or surprise patrols. In short I define my role not based on the AT so much as on filling a team need. Which Is why I prize survivability. Yes I went the aid self route and it has saved me quite often against things that hit very hard.
I didn't optimize by getting every accolade so I'm neither the toughest nor the most damaging tank on the block but I'm not an obstacle easily dismissed either.

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OOC: Thanks! Although Temporal Strikes exploits seem a bit more deliberate in terms of TCB . Sentious would have to be pushed into "offing" peeps. Having read TS's style Sentious would likely welcome her in a fire fight but would steer clear of her socially for fear of risking any offence. He's a careful guy. I do have other heroes that would likely go "painting the town" with her though! Different speeds and all.

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oh sorry for the misunderstanding Chatman. I was actually talking about the situation, my comment just happened to be below yours, and possibly correspond to it (sorry I haven't read any of the 4th situation posts yet).

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No worries! Open written forum coincidences are quite common. Thanks for the clarification though. Looking forward to your next tale of daring-do!

Another "How would you handle it moment...."

Trust:

In your travels you've teamed with lots of people over time. Now for some reason 3 former team mates and you find yourselves on teamed up again ostensibly to rescue a someone. Your mission is to bring them back, someone in your group plans on taking them to another organization. Someone else plans to kill them. Some one else has moitves that are unclear, capture, kill them, torture them, kill everyone, kill another member of the party or expose a traitor, do nothing, who knows?

You only know about this because a contact warned you to becareful before being assasinated. This mission is too important to pass up and there is no time to investigate this further before the mission begins...

OOC: Thanks! Although Temporal Strikes exploits seem a bit more deliberate in terms of TCB . Sentious would have to be pushed into "offing" peeps. Having read TS's style Sentious would likely welcome her in a fire fight but would steer clear of her socially for fear of risking any offence. He's a careful guy. I do have other heroes that would likely go "painting the town" with her though! Different speeds and all.

The Ambush... (Long)

Janice Carlisle was a woman with a very short life expectancy. She was a former project leader in Crey industries and she had turned against them. Much of the evidence she had given the Justice Department as well as Hero Corps proved to be quite damaging to Crey's subsidiaries and some ancillary branches alike but Countess Crey's battery of lawyers time and time again kept the Countess and mother corporation's image legally unsullied.

Constant threats and attempts on Janice's life by "rogue" elements kept her on edge but she was determined to do what was right in her mind.

Though she was one voice, she spoke for many others who lacked the courage to come forward. Some of those still made contact with her. Dropped hints about things to be "looked into", names, places and dates.

It was through her that Sentious received some unnerving news. Mark Lawson a friend and colleague had survived the lab fire he'd read about a month ago. The fire, funeral and everything had been staged!

He had to know why this was done and where Mark was now. His only lead was a Crey transport in King's Row, 10:00PM tonight. That was all Janice had time to tell him.

Though this was a very personal matter Sentious knew he needed help. King's Row was a big place even for a superhero.
He needed eyes everywhere and didn't have too much choice about tipping his hand, so he called in a favor from PPD. If any of their patrols spotted a Crey truck to contact him.

Sentious left the station and teleported along the rooftops of the city. He stopped on the roof of a warehouse in the garment district. Sat on the ledge to watch the sunset. He was ill at ease.

He called all of his other contacts, especially those he regarded as friends and spoke with them about everything and nothing. Each in their own way thought this strange behavior from Sentious but had too many concerns to let it weigh too heavily with them.

It was dark now and Sentious nervously awaited any news. He began pacing the roof when the call came in, "Inbound blue Crey delivery truck from Skyway City. Headed towards the Industrial area" Sentious sent a confirmation and was off to meet them.

PPD kept constant reports coming in when just passed the transformer towers all communications ceased. PPD had to abandon their tail due to a massive wave of clockwork scavenging and rioting in the streets.

Sentious teleported by the area and saw that it was worse than the broadcast said! There were clockwork everywhere! They were assembling a Paladin and were on full alert. The Hero channel was flooded for calls to help for anyone who would respond. Sentious scanned the streets frantically for the Crey truck. All he saw were Clocks swarming over any and everything metal. It was a nightmare! Skulls, PPD and Longbow fighting, shoulder to shoulder and back to back just to survive.

Sentious saw 3 officers and 4 civilians pinned against a wall facing a whelming tide of Clocks. He screamed internally as he knew they'd die if he didn't act but he had to find that truck!

He tapped the gas canister on his belt and breathed in the gas mixture that augmented his mental abilities. He watched as his body faded to the ethereal. Then teleported to those in greatest danger. He summoned 3 spectral warriors to draw off the attackers from their human prey. There were wounded. He concentrated drawing a healing curtain of radiation on the wounded and began teleporting any people he could find to roof tops, out of harm's way. His warrior illusions would being to fade soon and there were so many people to save. He spotted what appeared to be some sort of command bot. He focused his mind. It resisted. He pushed harder and succeeded in confusing it to attack its former allies. Other heroes began to arrive on the scene. He began to breathe a sigh of relief when panic siezed him. Where was the truck!? He ran to the edge of the building and through smoke and flame he saw an overturned, burning and partially stripped Crey transport. His heart sank as he teleported in.

As looked around he saw wreckage from the truck and Clockwork strewn about but no bodies. As he picked through the refuse he noticed a partially uncovered manhole. "Maybe, just maybe they made it down the rabbit hole.", He thought to himself. He decided to remain invisible and hover as to reduce his chances of being detected while looking for traces.

The sewers were dark, dank, odious and altogether unpleasant. He wondered how anything chose live down here. Areas like these were home to horrid things like Vahzilok, Amoeba and Hydra. Chills ran through him as his mind's eye contemplated these living horrors. The radiant gas that had infused itself into his being augmented his senses such that he could see in varying frequencies. Silently he drifted on through the corridors through the deafening roar of the surging sewer drainage and runoff to a broader quieter control area.

Something was wrong. Even with his augmented senses he couldn't penetrate the darkness that now surrounded him. Then he heard it. The sounds of the flood gates closing. Before he could react he realized he couldn't move. He was trapped. Then he heard it. Softly at first but growing more distinct as it drew closer. The casual splashing of footsteps as if after a rain. Then a small light. A match lighting a cigarette. A face. "Mark?....Mark! It is you! What happened? What's going on?!"

"You know me?" Mark said between puffs, inhaling languidly. "Ah but of course you do, as I know you or rather knew you. You call yourself Sentious these days, correct?"

"Well our time is short and as a last personal gesture I'll try to satisfy your curiosity. In brief I and others were not what we seemed. The Rikti are not what they seem. When I realized that I sought to help them. I and others were branded collaborators. Traitors. Well due to our prominent position in the government as well as the scientific community we proved to be something of an embarrasment. Public accusations and trials would damage too many reputations so the government. Your government staged a graceful exit for us. Unfortunately for them our friends found me first." Just then the room was filled with intense light, numerous Lost and Rikti.

"My friends have been intrigued by how the irradiated gas had transformed you and when our link was discovered, well it was just a simple manner of planning. A few leads here, trades there, but you get the picture. So now here you are. Satisfied? Hmmm?"

Sentious heart and head sank simultaneously. Behind Mark's smooth sinster voice he heard the ominous thrumming of the Rikti blasters trained on him. He was being held in some sort of gravity well. Obviously he could be seen so he became corporeal again.

"Ah! That's better!", said Mark. "Shall we begin with the examination then? Oh I should warn you that this will hurt. Quite a bit I'm afraid. If there's anything you'd like to say while you can?"

Sentious head remained tacitly bowed. "Nothing? Very well then." Mark said turning on his heel as Lost captors seized Sentious by the arms. As they removed him from the field Sentious screamed and teleported to the ceiling. Looking down he emitted a bright flash, blinding half of the room. He dropped, splashing down into the muck covered floor. The Rikti soldiers raised their weapons to fire but stopped and began to cower in fear confonted by some awesome spectral terror. A Lost swordsman charged at Sentious weapon held high cutting him deeply and sending Sentious sprawling into a wall. The swordsman advanced on the run again for the killing blow. Just then he was stopped and assaulted by 3 phantom warriors. Sentious blanketed himself with healing radiation, when he heard the flood gates unsealing. Mark was escaping. Sentious gave chase leaving another spectral terror at the exit point. He could hear Mark running ahead. Sentious breathed the gas deeply and focused. He was now moving so fast that he left a standing wake. He overtook and tackled Mark as they tumbled in a heap. They had stumbled to the very entrance of the sewers. "I have you now" Sentious said. "Do you now?" Mark quipped as three Rikti teleported into view.

Before Sentious could react, they turned to Mark and fired, killing him on the spot. The look of shock and surprise on Sentious face was matched only by its mirror in Mark's. Then he felt it more in his head than he heard it. "We are not what we seem". With that The Rikti and Mark's corpse faded from view.

Sentious left the sewers, but that night, that memory has not left him. He's not sure why, but he feels he'll see mark again.

I don't know how you did your relative speed calculations but it sounds good. Anyway what if you wanted go another route? Say taking swift 3 slotting it 2run+ 1jump and 2slotting sprint and combat jump each with 2 jumps? Wouldn't that give you decent vertical movement as well as good ground speed for earthbound combat? I don't have numbers so just asking how this would play out.

Thanks

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Heck make a SG badge to unlock it so you can put a ball on the base. SGs everywhere will me making a room soccer style for events.

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Forget AV testing, I'm making an arena on test tonight!

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Y'know if they do this then I'll want my grav chars to be able to spawn a big red ball when using propel! Of course it would be random like everything else but that would be kind of cool to to set up for a dodge ball game!

And I also say yes to the BRB! Why not? People seem to like it and we're all here to have fun anyway right?

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Inconcievable!

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Currently listening to Robin Trower's King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents

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Careful - last person that went around saying that died of iocane powder posioning.

I mean, really, how sucky do you have to be to die at the hands of a guy named, what, Wesly?

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Wait a minute. I thought that was the dread pirate Roberts not the farm boy Westley.

Not much better than Wesley or Wesly as a name though. You know, "The boy?"

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*whaps SwellGuy upside the head with a cast-iron frying pan... repeatedly*

My 9 year old is named Wesley.

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Feelin' the love.

I was thinking of a Star Trek episode where someone mentions Wesley (Crusher) and Worf's response is, "The boy?"

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Quit while you still have a head!

*ducks flying pan, scuttles to safety*

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I'm trying to explore the nebulous areas of coolness, fun and game play. It's a question that has been avoided on these forums (for good reasons sure). But even tho there is no right or wrong answer, i think it still is a good question to ask and discuss. I would think Cryptic would want to know why people gravitate toward and like playing a particular AT.

Why play a tanker? What is fun about playing a tanker? Why do ppl play tankers until lvl 50? Or has I5/I6 ensured the death of a tanker legacy? If so, how? Bc we're less tough?

To me, tankers should play differently than scrappers. In practice, they do but bc of my role. As tanker, I look out for the team first, looking to grab aggro and looking at teammates health bars. As scrapper, I look for quick arrests. Both offer different game play experiences, and I look to one or the other depending on my mood.

I'm not sure if I have a point here. I'm trying to get at the "psychology of a tanker".

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Ok I'll take a crack at the coolness factor. Everything cool about a Tank is what everyone else hates. They say its bad for the game.

What was cool to me was jumping into a massive spawn of bad guys punching swinging and thus getting nailed by tons of various attacks with flashy effects and cool heavy death-knell sounds and SURVIVING ON MY OWN.

That was cool! Like the Thor or Hulk or Ironman comics wading into hordes of badguys, taking damage and being an inexhorable force. Even though my damage was slow it was heavy and with the right knockback effects made for some cool still shots.

What was cool was watching the health bars of your team and if you saw trouble or if a team mate was fleeing being pursued by bad guys that meant him/her serious hurt you could leap into their path and give them pause then have them swing at you.

What was cool was knowing you could take the hurt. Not being a namby pamby oooh he has energy damage I better not fight him. Oooh she uses fire or cold I can't stand up to that better let somebody else with less protection but more power handle this.
Even facing psi enemies you didn't flinch you knew you had to do what needed to be done.

What was cool was that he was the closest thing to be a self sufficent hero next to a Defender or Controller (in the late game).

That is my opinion. Now others want to Skrank and some want to be a meatshield. What used to be cool about this game for me was that you could be any or all of those things. Not quite anymore.

And before anyone leaps to the conclusion that I'm talking about standing in a sea of +8 or +20 or +2000 purples or whatever exaggeration they want to use this week, no I'm not.

I fought things that could hurt me. Sometimes I lived sometimes I died. Solo and teamed. I didn't pick and choose and run and hide. The tank was the guy that was supposed to be undeniable force in attack and the unyielding defense when under assault. He was there to the last to hold the line if necessary to advance the line when possible.

Tanks didn't have to be weakened to balance against other ATs. Other ATs and NPCs should have been given the tools to deal with them. I still maintain armor piercing enhancements to attacks (done right!) would have allowed Tanks to still be whatever their creator chose and allow others to shine in teams, if being "unkillable" was really all of the big deal its made out to have been.

Just my opinions, my apologies if in my passion I spoke harshly or derisively.
Some will doubeltess disagree as is their right. I state my opinion and they can state their own.