gameboy1234

I'd like to highlight this and point it out to the devs. In many, many cases, I've found that the solution to everything is "join your global channels." The number of issues global channels solves is just nuts. Given they're so successful, I'd like to recommend the devs pay attention and improve them.

1. A limit of 2,500 people is too low for a feature that everyone must effectively use to enjoy the game. How about 25,000 or 250,000?

2. I think I'd like to see more official channels that everyone joins automatically. "Help" is good but some folks avoid it do to spam. An official LFT, BMTR (Badges, Missions, Task Force, Raids) Channel, and a higher level Incarnate channel might alleviate some of the pressure.

Actually, now that I think about it, I "power-leveled" a new toon with DFB just two days ago, but I didn't want to deal with rookies forming teams so I just entered the queue solo, and I had the same problem. I also fixed it by selecting "first available" and that worked because DFB is the only Trial on that tab, but yes, this apparently affects everyone (I'm VIP right now).

Yeah, that was working in beta, so I wonder what happened. Also, there are Freem players queuing up for DFB all the time on Champion, so is this only folks who drop to Premium? Maybe there's some sort of time window after dropping where the system thinks you're ineligible for all Trials and then it would clear up after it realizes you're Premium?

Pricey but I still want it. I'll wait for next month's supply of free Paragon Points to get this, so the price will slow me down, but I'll still get it.

Already bought the path and the halloween bits.

*points at Cien*

Unclean!

The easiest way to do this is to run them yourself. Advertise for a "kill to objective" run, which is what most folks think of as a normal run. You might also want to toss "noobie" in there. As long as you shoulder part of the burden, like running to contact and forming the team, you'll likely have some experienced players on the team who can give you advice along the way.

Note this really doesn't apply to incarnate trials, which in fact are darn hard, at least if you're new. Those you just might have to suffer through the confusion until you figure it out. It you could find a dedicated group of new players who want to experience the content as new, I'm sure you could do it, but I doubt most of the player base wants to watch a bunch of new folks run around at random and fail an iTtrial a few times, which is what the rest of us had to do to figure it out.

Also, incarnate powers, Mids and IO set bonuses have made the concept of a general guide for any AT obsolete. Things are more complicated now, or at least we have more options to consider. It's best to post your questions in the appropriate forum and ask for advice now. OTOH the existing guides often make fine leveling/SO guides.


This bit may require more explanation. We now have two (or three, if you incarnate) builds. Your second build is essentially a whole new character that you build from level 1. This is like a free respec, so don't waste it. But you can switch between builds every 15 minutes by visiting a trainer. To get started, visit a trainer and pick "Train to a new level of power" -> "Choose your active build."

Note that the first time you pick a second build, you'll be level 1, so be ready to level up and SO, or be prepared to hang out for 15 minutes as level 1 while waiting for the cool down timer. (Or just play another toon for a while.)

Note that you don't have to earn XP to level up your 2nd build, XP earned applies to all builds. You do have to be prepared to pick new powers or choose slots.

Ayup, same here. A-Merits to the rescue.

Yes of course that is what he is saying. I thought everyone knew that the programming was done by Paragon Studios, in Mountain View California, and the servers were managed by NC Soft in Austin Texas.



This confuses me too. It seems normal to me to set up a system where the code at the servers could be "patched" from a master server at Paragon Studios. Obviously, creating a server-side patch utility is more work, more code and something else that has to be maintained, so there's reasons not to do it, but it does seem like it would have been handy in this instance.

Probably other systems could be imagined. I.e., bring the servers up internally and then immediately apply one or more "hot fixes," before the servers are visible to the customers. And the UI issue does seem seem "hot fix" worthy to me.

All this with the proviso that I don't actually manage any large server farms. I *like* tossing stuff over the wall, thanks.

Well that's a little more understandable the way you describe it, but still pretty sucky for us customers. I'm hoping there's a way to convey to customer dissatisfaction to NC Soft and get them to make a more flexible process.

And the dead parrot in Seattle that does their forum software.

To be fair to us:

1. Having to ask for TW access and level bumps inhibited testing. I didn't get nearly as much done as I probably could have.

2. I turned in two of the bugs on live. One was the problem with drop-downs/Collection not scaling right on Window Size < 100%, the other was logging in each time to borked UI layouts. I assume both of these were pushed-back to a later publish, but visible bugs like these generate a LOT of noise from players (and rightly so, imo).


If devs want/need testing, it seems to me the testing process needs to be fixed up a bit. Adding some auto-test fixtures for players (level bump, new capabilities like store items (TW)) would allow more people to test. Probably getting the character copy tool working would help also.

In my experience in software engineering, test inhibitors should be priority number one, and imo there are a few player side test inhibitors right now. Test inhibitors that don't get addressed mean that something(s) doesn't get tested.

I think you get a dollar off at the bowling alley.