rian_frostdrake

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Your problem is that you make the assumption that just because it's a different MMO that there is nothing to be learned from it. You're wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]and you make the similar mistake in assuming that because soemthing did work(and arguable point given ryzom's being pretty much nonexistant on the mmo stage) it will be generalizeable to other mmos. you yourself started by stating that ryzom was designed from the ground up to accomidate world building, since coh was not, can we really start drawing valid comparisons between them?

next, that nutty 90% farming statistic, care to back it up with something other than complaint threads? farming happens, no question there, it has since issue 1 and will continue to do so in this and other games, but assuming that 90% of ae content run is farming is a slap in the face of people who have worked hard within the limits of the system to make interesting content and dont make farms. there have been people who are willing to put in the effort and learn the system to the point that they make good stories, and to lump their effort with the farming trash is downright insulting.

however said casual player may have gotten it as a random drop during causal play, and guess how set up said casual player will be?

not really, like michelle, my appreciation of ae is about seeing what some clever wags can throw together when given some basic development creation tools and a forward thinking company willing to let them set up shop with their stuff in their game. similarly to why i loved morrowind, oblivion, fallout 3, spore and even little big planet, because some people like me are never going to have the access to make a game, we arent in the right location, we dont have the right skillsets, or our ideas just wouldn't sell to the boobs and shotguns crowd, yet here we have a limited stage to strut our stuff for the appreciation of a small group of people who are as big a nerds as we are..

so yeah, even though its been a few weeks since i have had the time to partake, ae is all good, and it has nothing to do with leveling.

oh, and i hate pie, flakey crusts put me right off, gimmie a cheesecake however, and gratitude is mine. occasionally pumpkin pie can conceal its inner-pie and be tolerable, but otherwise, pie is cake with applied oppertunity cost.

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lol today was interesting...i learned alot though, check out this new build fully socketed spent some good influence, but i think it was worth it

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/3075/69497824.jpg

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/4392/75983501.jpg

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/3122/63176698.jpg

[/ QUOTE ]not too bad, your build is ED compliant, now its time for you to learn about invention sets and really unlock your power. some people might be surprised with flurry and whirlwind, but if they work for you, run with it.

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I just read the first two pages. I cannot go any further. This is a total example of the bad side of AE. Let us hope a red name comes across it.

[/ QUOTE ]partially, but he wishes to learn, so its is a good story.

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I'd like to see Rularuu actually make a dedicated push into our dimension which would threaten to tear the world apart like the Shadow Shard.

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I'm picturing Rularuu Invasions where the sky takes on an appearance similar to the Shard, with the center being a single vast Eye looking down upon the city.

And besides the normal Rularuu, glowing holes open here and there with Lusca-sized, eye studded tentacles reaching out.

[/ QUOTE ]this works for me, after you destroy the tentacles, the eye descends and then the fun begins.

you know whats funny about people complaining that they cant find sewer teams because of ae? i run the regular contacts and was annoyed way back that everyone was in the frelling sewer and I couldnt get a normal mission team together. I beleive a canadian former child star has something to say about this. I still find teams, and maybe they are better quality with some of the less serious players screwing around with ae nonsense. or maybe not, either way i find fun groups, and thats worth it for me.

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thanks very much guys, i will defintatly roll a new char and relearn the game it is just SO HARD solo without ae, like i tried to do missions at the begining and i was struggling like crazy!

[/ QUOTE ]what server are you on, if you are on liberty protector or virtue, i can help teach you, once you know the basics its pretty easy to solo, particularly with a blaster.

It does seem that dakan was a polarizing figure, a guy who had amazing ideas but, as referenced in the forbes article, just didnt have a clue how to get them to work. That kind of moves the ball back to jack making the game we actually got to play, with rick setting down the ideas and characters.

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MMOs are about balance and even if you take farming out of the equation, AE is not balanced.

-Regular missions have contacts you have to earn/find, then continually travel to until you get their cell. AE puts the contact right next to you.

-Regular missions have doors that can be on the other end of the zone or even in another zone entirely. AE always has the door right next to you.

-If you want to go to the hospital in a regular mission it could put you hundreds of yards away from the mission door, the AE hospital always puts you right next to the mission door.

-Random missions give you random salvage and recipe drops. AE tickets allow you to more selectively choose your drops.

-If you're having to buy enhancements with influence you will have to find a vendor selling your Origin, then you'll have to wade through the sometimes oddly named inventory list (curse you Magic Origin). If you use AE tickets you travel a few feet to a single person who offers not only every type of regular enhancement, they even have a nifty menu that lets you select the type of enhancement you're looking for.

These are just a few of the examples of how convenient AE is compared to regular content. Why does AE not have ANY downfalls to balance all of its amazing features that dwarf the regular content?

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Well said. I really think the answer is just lower (not necessarily drastically) AE rewards. People who play for story and aren't focused on leveling won't care, but the farms go bye bye.

[/ QUOTE ]Maybe, really that depends on a very precarious number balance. Lemmie get it out of the way i wouldnt mind it, ae has added conveninces vurses standard contacts, so reducing the rewards is no issue to me, i really dow ant to see funny/clever stories, but i dunno. Farming is what it is because they can skew the rewards system, make guys that are no threat to your powerset, set them to rush you so you can aoe nuke them, whaever, im not a farmer so i dont know exactly what they do, but it seems to always break down to the fact that they can set the rewards to come to them at a lower risk and time investment, so the math would either really take a whack at rewards to negate all the spawning and weakness manipulation tricks, or it will still mathematically easier for farmers to keep in ae than going to greener fields.

So again, i dont disagree with this solution, but im not sure if you are considering how much rewards would need cut to really break the convenience that right now is feeding the farmer. There will be massive forum drama if they follow your advice, so have your loins sufficiently girded.

maybe but you know, its a thematic thing. heroes traditionally are seena s reactive protectors of the status quo, villains are proactive disruptors of it. This isnt a always the case, but id prefer heroes have more situations like the steel canyon fires,where they do heroic things. whereas villains get active villainous things. i wouldnt say no, but I think it probably is a higher priority in my mind to get the evil one.

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The only one of those that isn't already in game is the meteorite shower. I know for a fact that, blueside, you actually stop a couple superpowered viruses/diseases (one of which is actually nanites).

Personally, I'd like to face a few more doomsday organizations rather than doomsday situations. Rather than fighting one really strong person trying to bring about the end of the world or another single really strong person trying to take it over, I'd love to see more stuff involving a large number of reasonably strong (re: EB rather than AB) level entities that you've got to fight at once before they can shatter reality or somesuch.

Of course, something involving Rularuu and the Shadow Shard would make it even better.

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I think it'd be better if Villain players can do an event to start a Doomsday Scenario, which would then launch in a hero zone somewhere out in the world, which the heroes in that zone would need to stop. Player-driven events! Villains do Evil Stuff, heroes stop it. Everyone is happy

[/ QUOTE ]yeah, that works for me.

mine is kind of over the top. rularru breaks free into our dimension, all 6 nasty versions of him. leviathan breaks free and starts a massive tidal assault. Mot the sleeper awakens from the moth graveyard and is not particularly thrilled, and whatever happened to merluna finally comes back and brings help for the surface dwellers against the leviathan..and then shiva shows up in its full form to bring a full assault.

as some thing to help the hereos and villains, the dream doctor reunites all his forms again, and faathim helps too.

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Why is it I continue to run into gamers who have never heard of CoH? Actually seems like almost every gamer I meet has never heard of it, whether they are interestested in the type of game or not.

Somehow the word just isn't getting out on this game.

[/ QUOTE ]well, there you are, go to it. the public knows about wow, but not much else mmo wise, if you care enough to ask, make your effort to fix the situation.

for an actual interesting read about the psychology of online gaming communities, hit up nick yee's Project deadalus. not specific to any gmae, but it was a study of several different aspects of online gamer culture, quite a good read for both laymen and those who have a little more technical understanding.

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I'm pretty busy here right now with Issue 16

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So, does this mean that there is no "Issue" 15.5? Or that it's already done, and waiting approval to go to Test?

Or for that matter, was there ever supposed to be an "Issue" 15.5? I don't recall any Dev saying that there would be, just players saying that the Devs said there would be...

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BABs is the head of animation, so it is quite likely he is needed more with that, while there may still be minor updates that others are working with.

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Not meant as an insult to BaBs, but its sad when the only dev that connects to the playerbase on any level is the animations guy. (Again, no insult BaBs, ur awesum i swearz )

[/ QUOTE ]castle, the powers guy, posts often. jay, the costume designer guy, occasionally posts but his posts are always memorable, positron, the lead dev posts when time permits, honestly, compared to most mmos out there, the dev team, and i mean the actual guys making the game, not just the community relations guys, are pretty responsive. go check out some other mmo's forums for developer posts, including the 800lb gorilla and hit back with results for me. many mmos will not allow anyone other than the community relations guy speak with the forums, there is a certain business sense to that, but that isnt how things run here, and many people, including myself, kind of prefer that.

sequels to mmos tend to have the effect of splitting the playerbase. some move on, and some stay behind because that is where their characters they have grown attached to are, and both appear diminished. lineage 2 has been reported as having disappointing numbers vurses lineage 2, eq2 never got a large fanbase(shame because it was a good game) and ascarons call 2 died while the original still lives on. so honestly if they could get by with expansions and incremental engine upgrades, thats probably smarter than the path these 3 games indicate.

sorry to hear that, hope things pick up for you.

the only thing that really bothered me is that some idiots had to go and threaten him. way to stand up and be counted guys, can there ever be a community that isnt that blinkerdly stupid as to be lead down that route?

ok, heres a question, what the @#$% happened to pax arcana? I actually enjoyed reading his posts.

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Hmmmmm... not being into PvP, nope, can't say I know who he is. Although if I'd known that MMO research would get me my PhD, I'd have done it a lot sooner. Something tells me I could probably write one hell of a sociology paper on this game, on topics far less controversial.

These could include:
1) Which gender do men play vs women play?
2) Are heroes or villains more prevalent?
3) Are players more likely to get a hero to 50 or a villain to 50?
4) For those players in serious, commited relationships, how has the game affected the relationship? For those players who are in relationships with other players, is the game a 'bonding' experience or does its competition foster resentment in the relationship?
5) What are the three predominant reasons that players play CoH/CoV?

Hmmmmmmm... well, if I do end up going back to school in 2010 (and yes, it IS for my PhD), I may use CoH as my research ground...

I'll be at the University, working on my Professor day job badge.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[/ QUOTE ]check out nick yee and . he studies a wide range of things relating to online gaming communities, and they all tned to be a great deal more constructive than this fellow. daedalus project

When i saw it was a troll, i had thought of someone entirely different, never heard of this fellow, I am surprised he used coh for his paper, rather than a larger game.

I disagree strongly about eq2, having played both, i found eq2 to be vastly superior, the depth of the heroic oppertunities made combat less mashy, the races beat the snot out of wow, and the hideous cartoony graphics witht he popeye bodies, eeeych. maybe some people prefer that look,and the fact that it came out after 3 very popular rts games certainly helped, as well as the low system specs, but based on my playtime with both games, i simply do not see what is more polished about wow than eq2, i found everything better at eq2.

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My guess is that they are trying to find a way to put it on the store and avoid problems they had with the Magic Booster. Granted I would of thought they would have figured that out before they had the booster ready to be released.

[/ QUOTE ]yeah, lets not forget that the magic booster screwed up for a lot of people, i nearly bought it twice, and im usually pretty good with menu navigation. so the store may well be the hangup.

yeah, id play it, sounds fun.