lionsbane_EU

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I just teamed up in the MA (asking for 'team', not 'farm') and joined in a Rikti-farming mission with captive-freeing and object-destroying by the truckload.

This group had a lvl 37 asking/checking if the blue inspirations increased your Endurance.

Oh hurrah.

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I have a simple question. If it takes, what, an hour for us to construct a mission, then the experts should be able to do that too.

So,is it possible they never tested their own MA? In which case they would have seen just how fast you can level?

Because this is way way worse than power levelingever was even back in the early days. And you dont even get to experience the content the devs so badly want us to play out.

It's like the world (this world anyway) has gone mad.

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After reading some of the suggestions on how to deal with MA, I am so [censored] glad none of you lot are designing this game. Seriously, no offense meant.

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If I were designing this game, we wouldn't have MA in its current destructive form.

However .. The devs have previously dealt with such situations in a particular manner, that may make some suggestions here look positivley benign in comparison.

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This bloody MA- like giving a group of school boys an MMos version of a nuclear bomb...

Trouble is that, it seems to me, the genie is out of the bottle now...

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I overwhelmingly got the impression that Posi thinks it's their game, they know what's best and sod the paying customer.

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It IS their game. They can't give players what they want because players want everything, they want it now, and they don't even want the same things as each other. You can't build an MMO on that basis.

Posi, like Jack Emmert and any other lead designer in the industry, have to have a "vision" for the game and they have to take a chance on that vision finding the audience they need to keep them in jobs.

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Sorry Burning. this is so wrong that to find wrong you'de have to double back on yourself.
This is a commercial product. Not a painting you create to put on your own living room wall.
It's like The Sinclair car. that was his car, wasn't it?
Fat lot of good it did him.

That is not how to run any business, never mind one that requires customer loyalty because you want them to keep shelling out month after month.

No-one in their right mind, in charge of a product with this amount of money attached to it goes on "their " vision.
It's like commercial suicide.
And yes I know Emmert did and now positron does too. Maybe its something to do with the way game designers think.
Or that the bosses don't have a proper business acumen.

You're supposed to find out how to make the game as
commercially viable as you can by research and deliver it.

That's it.

It's not an exact science but it's not rocket science either.

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I'm not feeling optimistic about CoX after seeing the i15 news.

What's hacking me off is that yet again the EU site gets zero news.

The i15 news is on the US site only.

Our site:

web page


US site:

web page

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Given that it was posted in the dead of night in the US, the EU players did get the news first.

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That's semantics pure and simple. If they had any intentions of treating the EU as equals or with regard, they would have released this info at a time we are all up and about like 11 am eastern standard. Then all time zones are accommodated.
it's really not hard to keep your fan base happy if you want.

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"I love the game (but I'm going to complain constantly)", seems awfully close to "I loved the game, but I'm tired of it and don't recognise the fact".

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Doc, you are a good poster but you're off the mark here. I've been complaning since year two. And yet I have played and enjoyed the game for years.
That's probably over now but I'm not saying i haven't had my £9 a month out of it because I have.

My reasons foe being so cynical are complicated but ultimately lie in two intertwining factors:
That CoH was my hobby and I wanted that hobby to be as good as it could be
And I saw, after about a year the way the dev team, headed by Stateman was thinking and to my mind I judged it to be not up to the standard we needed to really put the game on the map. Or to really make it special.

But, through all that, because I have a certain mind set I played happily.

So moaning and enjoying are not mutually exclusive.

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<QR>

To those accusing people like myself of moaning, I have this to say.

I am a paying customer, and am entitled to make my feelings known. If you don't like that then please, feel free to not read my posts.

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Did I write that?

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Hey guys,

I could use a little help here, I'm stuck in a choice between super strength and energy for my new tanker, hes going to have invulnerability primary definately though.

The problem I have is I like both sets, but I want something that can perform well in PvP as well as PvE.

Im drawn to Energy because of the two heavy attacks (total focus and energy transfer) which would be awesome in PvP im thinking, plus the slightly lower resists of Energy damage in PvP but im drawn to super strength because of Rage and the lack of glowy pink pom poms of doom.

Any help making the choice please?

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You really got to decide on a couple of things.
Firstly, yes En tranfer and total focus are (even after the nerf) awesome and S/S can't match the combo.

But, you have to play 34 levels without a really decent attack before you get to transfer. So, what's your patience like?

Secondly, the aoe on SS is far superior and makes for a better alround Tanker.

You have to bear in mind, however, that for all rages virtues, its crash every two minutes does mitigate against that.

So, my conclusion is, If you want a one on one damage dealer then (allowing for patience) Energy Melee is the way to go.

If you want a little more of an all round Tanker, not quite as strong but can make up some of the damage via aoes, then it's super strength.

My SS Tanker mops up minions faster but maybe not so efficiently...

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CoH2 coming....

May not be called that, but CoH2 coming....

Soon.....

Probably....



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I'm not so sure now.

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Is it really worth getting worked up about the wording of something when you don't even know what it is, yet?

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Given what's coming out on July 14th, and given the devs have known about it for well over a year and that we've seen no tangible response, I'd say yes to that.

Positron will have some FUN information to share?
That's it. Fun information?

Not ground breaking news? Not An anouncement about the future direction of CoX? Not a watch this space? Just fun news?

This is the 5 year anniversary isn't it? The one we expected would reveal the future plans that the triple sized team have been working on?
Surely that's what they've been doing cause I haven't actually seen much of a difference between the triple sized team and the 15 staff that gallantly held the game aloft for so long.

Hope I'm wrong here but If so they have a funny way of hinting about it, specially as a hint like that would encourage more people to actually view the "fun address " in the first place.

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It's seen as the "cool" MMO, and quite surprisingly so, in my opinion, since I never really saw the appeal.

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I'm sorry? Since WHEN was WoW cool?

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Since living in a basement ordering in Pizza through a chat system and shunning your friends has been. Its Hermit Chic

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I have got to say, If I was NC or abnother MMO publishing company, I would spend a million dollars hiring the best people on earth to study the market, analyse WOW and try to find out exactly why it is so succesful and why, 5 years on, it is doing better than ever.

The players arent andriods, commanded to play WoW. They have likes, dislikes, boredom thresholds, the same as everyone else.
What they have got is the understanding of MMOs and are happy to pay to play. So, they're like apples on a tree, waiting to be picked off.

There has to be a way of grabbing just a small % away from that game and I'd want to know what they way is.

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It's seen as the "cool" MMO, and quite surprisingly so, in my opinion, since I never really saw the appeal.

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I'm sorry? Since WHEN was WoW cool?

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Listen. I'm the CEO of WoW. I am told by a fan the game is uncool. I lose sleep. Not.

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Superheroes ARE popular. If they weren't you can bet that Jack Schi... um Emmert wouldn't be trying to launch CO, or DCU bringing their universe to the MMO table. GW on the other hand is simply another fantasy MMO with a low level cap and an accent on PVP.

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I agree here and there's a number of points to consider as well.

Most of the people I know that like super heroes also like fantasy and sci fi. That is probably not necessarily the case across the board but there is a common denominator between them, without question.
And, the typical MMO player generally, although certainly not always, falls into this catagory.
So, if super heroes ARE popular then a sizeable chunk of the MMO market should be playing one.

Are they popular?

I believe Super heroes are bigger than either fantasy as a whole or sci fi icons such as Star Wars and Star trek combined.(although maybe not as an entire genre)

Why do I say this?
If you take the marvel universe and Dc universe alone (this example doesnt even include out of these twos heroes such as Hell Boy, Spawn or even Hancock or Dark horse comics etc )and look at the merchanising that goes into just one of the big hitters, like Spiderman, then add Superman, Batman,X-men etc etc, the money these heroes generate combined is collossal.

I'm not saying Superman or Spiderman alone are as big as the two I mentioned but combined? Adeed to all the others?

The comics, (and the diffent packaging of comics these days which gets people to buy the same story twice) books, the tv series the figurines, toys, movies, games amusement park rides (isnt Spiderman ride at the Islands of Adventure STILL rated the no1 ride in the world?)
It's endless.

I was in New York in the main comic shops. No kiddies there at all. I saw an NYPD policeman and a store parked wit everyday people. plus the odd goth .)

What there was was an endless collection of brilliant figurines, a libary of comicbooks converted into volumes..
Heck, there were even fabulous models of such periferall characters as Asam Strange or Man Thing.

Super heroes are huge!

You know my thoughts on why this game, when it had this entire phenomenon to itself has, as far as I'm concerned, blown an incredible opportunity.

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I used to be of that opinion, until I actually used Steam a few times. Sure, you could argue that digital delivery should be cheaper as there's no DVD printing costs, or packaging costs etc, but the distribution servers have to be paid for, and so does the bandwidth to delivery that content to you. It all adds up and could easily match the costs for physical distribution.

Just look upon it as a bit more environmentally friendly. Plus, you also get to reach customers in countries where your game might never have been released before.

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yeah. This is a good move. Certainly can't hurt that's for sure.

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Apologies to people if they are sick of seeing my name posted!
Am I the only person that understands that power-levelling and farming are two almost completely different things?
And no smart answers saying " uhh.. farming=PL plox"

Fury

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Nope your not but many people treat them as interchangable and to some degree they can be or atleast you can do one while doing the other.

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Whist you can farm without powerleveling, can you really power level without farming?

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I assume its those badly written arcs about how great your character is, where your honmored enough to get to follow their backstory - and, even better, watch and Av ally of them do all the fighting.

Personally I can't wait to play another arc where I'm overshadowed by a hero I've never heard of!

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Blimey. You described my arc to a tee! Scary... (kidding. I think. )

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Also, I think people should think about the size of the current dev team - a 15 person team gave us Faultline and the RWZ - the team is now three times bigger, so either NCSoft have decided to generously help out with the unemployment situation in America, or these extra 30 or so added to the team are actually working on something pretty big

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All well and good GG, but if the new 'big' content isn't in i15, I'll speculate that a large proportion of the playerbase will leave for CO.

The devs need to respond to the competition - it's as simple as that.

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i think now that CO have delayed release slightly, CoH have bought some time. But they didnt know that six months or a year ago.

I do not understand why they havent launched a pre emptive in an attempt to cement the player base. Sorry, I dont consider MA to be nearly enough. That said, If i'm proved wrong and CoH does survive the launch of CO with its player base mostly intact I'll be delighted.
I just don't think it will.

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Burt the devs do not have our limitations. they have far more resources at their disposal and, if they wanted to could add more.

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You keep saying things along these lines, and that the devs resources would have been better left elsewhere, but seem to be ignoring the fact that the devs were doing a lot of the work of this anyway, for themselves. Previously, they were using spreadsheets to make missions.

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You mean the capability to make an architect for themselves is new?

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Now, while they obviously still have a little more flexibility than we do at this point (given there are some things in dev missions we can't do yet), I'm guessing this method was probably a lot more time-consuming, possibly more error-prone, and perhaps meant not everyone on the team could just easily throw something together. So no, they haven't really had amazing tools.

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This project turns over something like $20,000,000 a year. Dont you think they should have? I mean, they employ programmers don't they?

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So between that, the fact that a lot of people love it and are using it heavily, and the fact that it's brought an ageing game an awful lot of publicity... how exactly has this been a waste,

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Never said it's a waste. I said it's crazy to concentrate on this when they should have been trying to match upcoming competitions inventiveness. MA, like it or not, is very much a double edge sword and in my humble opinion, doesnt carry anything like the juice the CoH need to inject into the game in order to fend off CO.

In another time, or if it had taken one issue rather than two, this would be a worthwhile addition. But now? Unless they have CoH2 up their very short sleeve, I don't think so at all.it does carry a double edge sword to it.

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even if you don't like using it personally?

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Says who? The two ain't mutually exclusive, you know. Check out arc 56763. And bring friends. Lord Anarchy is bad [censored].

One of many things ide like to see is if we rescue a hostage, the enemy actually tries to actively recapture or kill the hostage. And we have to use our brains to keep them alive.
I know that happens once or twice in CoH (for me notably in rikti war zone) but generally its just a race back to base.

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[AFAIK It's just the critter/character creator that has this problem.

Pressing return to get a new line seems to get converted internally to <br> - and the critter/character creator is throwing a hissy fit at this. This happened about a week ago iirc - and when the patch that altered this behaviour went in any characters with line breaks in the descriptions became invalid and needed editing to remove the line breaks/<br> tags before they were valid again.

Many other MA text fields (such as mission introduction or clue text) are fine with various HTML tags (such as <br&gt.

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Dave thanks. Ill try re writing following your tips.

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And if the devs did exactly the same thing, why would I complain?

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Because you're you.

If the developers simply rehashed pre-existing content (which is what players are doing with the MA system, minus writing), the playerbase would scream their bloody head off about how it was lazy and uninspired.

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That is exactly what they do and, funnily enough, exactly why I scream.

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You don't put mobs in the Hood 1 costume with some alternate colours and call it done, after all. You weren't on about customising missions, you were on about new ones entirely.

You don't get interesting stuff just by recycling the old. It's why nobody eats their own [censored].

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Charming analogy.

And to answer your point, yes all MA will do is allow you to put variations on a theme. We know that.
Burt the devs do not have our limitations. they have far more resources at their disposal and, if they wanted to could add more.

We should set up a thread of things we would (realistically) add to MA to make the missions different and original.

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None of your post made any sense to me, and that makes me sad.

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I had porn adverts that used the names of my COH characters in my spam email. I've never published those names online. I've only ever created and left one of those characters in Outbreak about 100 days ago. The other I haven't logged into in 75 days.
Very odd.

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Who? you or it?

Kidding.

It is odd and the reality is these names could only of come from you. As in either someone saw your names (highly improbable) or used names from a purchased list.

I'm not saying NC have sold the database names but it is common practice.

I've done it in the past several times.
But that's generally a business move as in I give a customer my database and they give me theirs kind of swap.
I don't think NC would do that ( I certainly havent seen evidence of it) and I can't see them doing it for hard cash either.

But if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck....

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any <br> in that?

That includes pressing enter

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No. its just straightforward character description. This comes from the character maker not the text you add to missions.

"Save failed. character is not valid. invalid description.HTML tags were detected in character sdescription."

I created an arc on test. Ive copied it here and a load of errors came up. The above was one of them. When I write in the char description on the character maker it wont allow me to save and quotes me that. Can someone help please?

Thanks in advance

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Get a grip mate, make your arcs for your pals, your sg or anyone that happens to stumble over it amoung the rest of them, if you want recognition write a book or take up a job in acting.

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Well, yeah but you're being a bit harsh here, Londoner. It's human nature to want recognition for your efforts isnt it?

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This is a game, played in the most part by people who want a relaxing laugh and couldnt give 2 hoots about what they publish or what you think of it cos its done for a bit of entertainment.

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What's funny about that is while it's a game to us, it's a multi million dollar very serious project to certain people. Yet the device that's kept them busy for two issues while big time competition is gearing up fast is, I believe, going to end up exactly as you just stated.

An occasional bit of fluf they'll use once in a while if ever. Because, once they realiose that their arcs will never see light of day, the enthusiasm for making them will drop like a stone. And we'll be left with the hard core MAers.
Good luck to em. Worth these two (imho) crucial issues with the storm clouds that are coming?
Hmmmmmm