Journal of a first-time MMORG player
By
187nut,
Posted on: 2005-01-20 01:10 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Entry 2
Second night on the job, so to speak. Martial Master goes up against his first Bone Daddy, I think the name was Scorch. I fail four or five times before I decide to try doubling up on inspirations. I stock up on a ton of candy and head back to the mission. We knock each other out at the same time! I get a mission complete as I fall to the ground, and wake up in the hospital. Umm, jello!
MM is invited to his first pickup team. He is actually the lowest level player there. This is in Perez Park, where it really is dangerous to walk around by yourself. We're in the middle of the swamp, tackling mobs of spawns, and here I make a mistake that I might try in real life, but doesn't really work here: I try to pull my own weight. I charge in to melee the spawns, knowing almost nothing about aggro yet. A couple of dirt naps later, my group mates tell me to hang back, and laugh when I tell them I'm trying to hold my own. They understand, and in a very good-natured way tell me not to worry about it, to hang back and guard their flanks. I add three or four people to my friends list for the first time.
An indoor mission the next day, with some of the same people. 7 of us in a cramped area, tackling large mobs. Surprisingly few deaths, and a lot of fun! I'm just eating up everything in the game at this point. One of the female characters is flirting with me as well, sending private tells. At the end of the mish, she tells me to look over at her. She has arranged for her char to be above mine, and she uses an emote to sit, so my char is looking up her skirt. Not really exciting, but it is amusing. This turns out to be a problem though.
The next night, she is on another team while I'm on the prowl solo. She tells me she's on a team with four guys, and I make a joke about how popular she is. She immediately becomes offended, and accuses me of calling her a bad word. I learn a couple more new things. One, it actually is a woman behind that particular character, not a man-gina, and two, maybe I should not be making innuendos as much, since I'm here to have fun, not have people misinterpret me and get their feelings hurt. Over the next few days, she just doesn't let go of it, so I drop her from my friends list.
I spend almost as much time on my alt, Ultra Meltdown. Originally supposed to be just Meltdown, I mis-spelled the name. When I realized it, I went back to recreate him, because no way I'm going for 50 levels with a guy called Meltwdon. The name Meltdown is actually already taken, so I add Ultra on the front. Super names are easy!
This sparks the idea that a lot of good names may already be taken though, so I start to design some costumes based on names only. I want to sample every power set, which will mean plenty of characters. I create Klarion, a Kinetics/Psychic Blast Defender on a different server, and don' find out until later that I have designed his look to be almost identical to the picture on page 127 of the game manual. I threw aside the manual earlier on, but I did go back to look through it some more. Had I seen that picture before? Who knows. Little creepy...
By the time I'm done, I've created about 12 characters total, and I'll go on to have 16 within the next couple months. That way, I've got a good sampling of power sets to play with, all of them different from each other, and I've got the names that are my first choice for each character locked in. This turns out to be good for a number of reasons. I learn later that the devs have added some new flavor to the older missions, so I get excited at the idea of doing some of them all over again, even if just to see the new graphics they have added. I've even got one character who is still at level one, which I'm waiting to use until still more changes have taken place. True, I can also use a Kheldian when I get one, but those haven't been introduced at this stage of the game.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
I'm enjoying it.
Even though I'm a MMORPG 'vet', it's still neat to listen to folks learning the game and how fun it is. Please keep going!
Sister Jeanne 50 Katana/SR Scrapper
Ami Mizuno 44 Emp/Psi Defender
Rei 04 41 Grav/Kinetics controller
Coronal Flare 28 Peacebringer juvenile delinquent
I'm with Jeanne. Do go on.
Just keep in mind that threads unresponded to for a long time are periodically purged from this forum. Post at least once every two weeks to avoid that.
Thank you. For my first nice comments, I post new entry sooner!
Entry 3
Almost everyone is nice in this game. A glitch had a villain trapped in the wall, and I couldn't reach him at all. Not knowing about the support option, I invite another player to help me out. He comes in using his cool-looking Lightning Field as an AoE to take him out. I thank him profusely as he leaves to go about his business.
I took my first Pool Power the first chance had. At this point, I know we can register super groups of our own, and since I'm going to be the leader of one, I take the Leadership Pool after reading the descriptions. I figure I can help out all my teammates. Oh woe is me! Martial Arts and Super Reflexes are both big Endurance hogs, and Assault takes too much End for me to even think about using it. Talk about breaking the bank! this turns me off of pool powers for a while, and I only choose from my two power sets. This means by the time I hit level 12, I don't have a travel power, and haven't even stared taking anything to get Stamina. I've nerfed myself, but I don't even know it yet. I'm too busy having fun. It doesn't enter my head to complain about anything.
By this time, I'm familiar enough with pickup groups to know I better take charge as soon as possible. Most people either do not want to lead, or just have no conception of what a leader is supposed to do. After a couple bad groups of people dying all over, I start talking people through little strategies. After about a month of play, I discover that I still want to be a loner, but when I do end up in a team for whatever reason, I almost always end up the leader before we're through. Only pet peeve at this point: people who are the leader who quit without saying anything. These are usually the clueless ones who get going when the going gets rough. It's better they do that, though. The people who stay pick up the pieces and form the core of a new team, which will then start to totally rock.
There is nothing like a team that meshes well. There are two types, which sometimes overlap: the chatting and the fighting. The fighter teams are more common, and everyone knows what happens. Everyone slips into a zone, slapping down everything that moves, automatically backing each other up. Healers heal without prompting, the teleporters bring people without travel powers to the mission entrance by habit, the devices blaster actually uses his caltrops, because he knows what to do with them... the whole team rocks. Suddenly, five hours has disappeared like five minutes. It feels like you just logged on, and are just making up for the ages-ago disaster pickup team you started with (that lasted twenty minutes, but felt like forever), but... time to log. 
The other team is the chatting team. People shooting jokes, flirting like crazy ("Hey! I'm not THAT kind of master!"), hurling insults at the villains and NPCs, etc. You know better than to take a sip from your drink, because if you're in that kind of team, odds are stuff will be coming out your nose. This is LOL for real.
When the two types overlap, that is MMORG heaven. You've got a tight-knit group of pals, usually just 4 or 5 total. You can take down almost anything in your path, and people only die by stupid brain-fart maneuvers, or if they accidentally hit their auto-run and go smack into a mob of reds. Instead of whining about the debt, since deaths are so rare, people laugh them off. Martial Master steps out of line when he realizes exactly how far he can use emotes, and starts doing disgusting things to his dead allies in the sewers while standing over their corpses (just bathroom humor, honest!). The fighting is fairly constant, but there are natural breaks at the end of each battle and mission, where the witty repartee reaches hysterical levels... and nobody has even had anything to drink. Except for a couple who play better drunk anyway. You can always tell when you have this team, because as soon as you realize it, it's time to log. It's the rule of the universe or something. I would estimate I've spent about 35% of my time teaming, the rest solo, but the team-ups are growing on me...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
[ QUOTE ]
everything in the game at this point. One of the female characters is flirting with me as well, sending private tells. At the end of the mish, she tells me to look over at her. She has arranged for her char to be above mine, and she uses an emote to sit, so my char is looking up her skirt. Not really exciting, but it is amusing. This turns out to be a problem though.
The next night, she is on another team while I'm on the prowl solo. She tells me she's on a team with four guys, and I make a joke about how popular she is. She immediately becomes offended, and accuses me of calling her a bad word. I learn a couple more new things. One, it actually is a woman behind that particular character, not a man-gina, and two, maybe I should not be making innuendos as much, since I'm here to have fun, not have people misinterpret me and get their feelings hurt.
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So let me see if I got this straight. She's flirting with you, even to the point of positioning herself in an suggestive way, then she gets highly offended when you say she's popular? Either you're leaving alot out, or she was ***way*** too sensitive. You seem like you're the literate type, and I'm prone to think that if there were some other huge pertinate details you would have included them. This person's attitude boggles my mind.
Let me, if I may, make a point that not all of us real women who play the game are like this. Some of us like to flirt, some of us don't. I personally am more or less in the "don't" catagory. Since I don't really like playful sexually themed banter, I refrain from starting it or jumping in on it as well. I don't think that many of us think that it's fair to start a suggestive conversation with a guy, then get all whack because he said something suggestive back.
You say you found out that the other person was a woman, but did you really? Some people will swear up and down that they are something they are not when they are safely hidden by the anonomousity a MMORPG provides. Some people can be very, very convincing. Just because she set you "straight" as to her true gender doesn't mean she was telling the truth about it.
I dunno. I'm hoping for the sake of the credence of my gender that you ran across some 16 year old male kid that was getting his jollies by messing with your head. Of course, I know that there are plenty of psycho women out there as well, and you might have well encounted one of these.
Whichever the case, please don't think that all real women who play this game are like that person.
I'm Tealeaf, and I approve of this message.
See [URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=2134817#post2134817"]Useful Tagging for the good of the Forum[/URL], my guide to tags.
Outside the Journal Commentary
Good question. I never confirmed that it was a she except through my continued conversations with her. I have to say I'm just using my own experience to verify at this point. But if she was a guy faking, then it was an oustanding job, because 'she' kept up 'her' act for over a month. And held a grudge when I went radio silent for a while, but still remembered me later enough to bring it up again.
The only other main detail I can think of is that her idea of what happened changed over time, from her telling me, "Are you saying I'm a (censored)?" to her actually believing I straight-out called her that instead of hinting at it by calling her popular. After apologizing three or four times she still wouldn't let go, so I just took her off the list, and added a new person who played well next time I teamed.
It is worth noting that this is the only problem I have had so far in the entire game like this. Most others have a better sense of humor, and the one or two females that don't like innuendo usually find a discrete way to mention it to me, and I tone it down considerably when they do. I am very sarcastic by nature, so I usually start with jokes and act more "appropriate" if I get a sense that a player would prefer that. More often, everyone plays along.
One example: one of my earliest friends, an Earth Controller, let his girlfriend play an alt, so I never knew which one of them it was. But the alt was female, so I would flirt shamelessly. One night when I knew it was him playing the character, I said I wouldn't stop my flirting, but he better not get any ideas in real life! He laughed and assured me that would not be a problem!
Also, sometimes I can tell a young child is playing, and then I go all game-talk only, and no innuendo. The teenagers can handle it, since I'm usually just suggestive in a funny way, not vulgar-blunt, but when a 9-year old is at the keyboard, I treat him like my nephews and nieces, and use only PG language.
One sidenote: I have no interest in identifying people by name when things are negative, but feel good about giving props where due for good things. So good experiences may have a character name in the Journal, but I won't ever give the name of someone I have/had a problem with in the game.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Bump for an excellent thread! I am a first time MMORG player as well with CoH and some of your experiences mirror my own. Particularly the team aspects.
I've been very lucky, I think. I have rarely been on any team that has self-detructed to the point of failing a mission. But then, I have a tight group of friends who often team with me in one's and two's within other teams anyway.
I really like your journal entrys.
Alot of what you said relates to me also. WIth my old main, a mind controller it was hard getting teams so i would always start teams. Ive been leader about 98 percent of the teams iver ever been on. And i love it, i have a blaster now and i know i can easily solo. But, i just hate it. Its boring to solo, boring to not have anyone to talk to or back you up in a bad situation. So even though i can solo i try not to. I think im in a small percentage of ppl who play CoH.
Nice. I like your journals, but it seems you took about the opposite roadfrom me. I picked a scrapper, simply because that's what I do, yet I will always team when the chance presents itself.
My only gripe is stamina. To call not taking stamna ASAP a newbie mistake is offensive to me. I've had the game for 7 months and have one charater level 42 (Katana/SR) and one 36 (AR/Dev) and I STILL don't have stamina on ANY of my character. Simply put, it works either way, but stamina eats up 3 powers.
Other than that, I'd advise you to team more. I guy in his mid 30s was playing with me and didn't stop cheering about how fun teaming was and how much he had been missing out.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Wow. Good stuff. I am also new to MMORPG. I avoided them for years because Im an old pen and paper gamer (GURPS and AD&D). Unfortunatly I am having hard times finding gaming groups. Also I have not been impressed with most MMOGs to date. But CoH was different. You are right about the people for the most part they are very nice(good thing since we are supposed to be heroes). I found a great super group. Unlike you I hate to solo, I play mainly for the social aspect. I hate real life people and it is so easy to log off if you get tired. Harder to get away from real people. You realy should be careful about assuming genders, my rule of thumb is react to the toon until you get to know the person. If they complain about something just say that you are reacting to the character and not the RL alt. I have one female character and I do roleplay her well, if I get a Tell I always reveal that I'm male but it would be very easy not to. It should not matter unless you are planning on hooking up with someone and well thats just weired to this old foggy.
Keep up the journal. I was thinking of writing an article on some of the philosophy behind CoH. You may have inspired me to actualy do it. Thanx
[ QUOTE ]
Let me, if I may, make a point that not all of us real women who play the game are like this.
[/ QUOTE ]
<Gasp> I thought you were a cat! Cat...woman? 
Great journal. I look forward to reading more of it, so please continue.
In all the games I've played I've gravitated to that jokey/flirty style of play. I even started out that way with CoH, but I've since stopped, mainly for 2 reasons:
1) I figure most guys think I'm really a guy no matter what I say.
2) Sometimes, like with that woman in the story, things can get a little freaky. I'd wonder if the other person was taking it a little too seriously when that's not what I intended at all. So now I keep the jokes to a general nature (if there's even time to joke in groups these days) and play it safe.
Entry 4
Ultra Meltdown can fly! This game is so incredibly cool, I can't believe it. I think I just hit a wish-fulfillment fantasy from childhood, and who cares that it's only virtual. This new ability keeps me feeling high (pun not intended, but no way I'm taking it out now!) for at least a week. I'm seeing how far up I can go, where all the neat building tops are to hide, I can finally hunt rooftops, just when they no longer give me those missions...... hey! What's up with that, anyway? Hover is so incredibly boring, I ignore it totally. I never can hit spit when I activate it anyway. I know nothing about coding, but in my suspicious mind, I suspect the accuracy penalty from Flight has also somehow crept over into Hover, and my mind is tainted against it permanently. I know it's not rational, but I also know I've had an uninterrupted stream of bad luck trying to use Hover and then actually hit something. I eventually use it to avoid some caltrops later, but that's about it.
This is pre-Hollows days, so I spend a lot of time in Steel Canyon. I pass one hero who is hovering over the bad guys just out of range and blasting away. I frown, the gentleman in me thinking that is poor sport. Then I think, he plays his way, I play mine, and move ahead. I probably should have tried it, but in my mind, the risk of debt is part of the excitement. Also, I tend to think how much it would suck if a villain could fly and I couldn't reach him, and for some reason I can't bring myself to do to others, if I wouldn't want it done to me. Which means I suppose I'm saying it's okay for people to shoot me with an energy sniper attack, since that's what I do to others, but let's not dwell on my selective-morality neurosis.
I have no clue how to slot properly. My blaster has one enhancement of each in his Power Blast, one accuracy, one endurance reduction, one recharge, one damage, and one range extension. I'm still ignorant about how much enhancements will really matter in the game, but this ignorance doesn't seem to hold me back any. I've got no Stamina or Hasten on this character either, but I've got energy attacks galore, and I never seem to need to stop in the middle of a battle. Snipe, couple blasts here and there, then I break out Charged Brawl, Energy Torrent, and Power Burst when they get close. I learn to let others aggro, but if I have to pull with a snipe, I learn to back way the heck up immediately. Different tactics for different archetypes are creeping into my head just from playing different types.
By this point I have had a couple good ideas for new characters, so I end up with 16 characters total, spread across ten servers. I thought I was done at 12, but either a name or a costume design sneaks into my head and I just have to go to the character creation engine. I make an Elec/Energy blaster called Tesla's Produgy, and load him into the tutorial. A female character is there, and I ask her how I look. I've got a really bright green costume. She tells me, "Really... green." I tell her I wanted to stand out, and she laughs and tells me I've succeeded.
Most characters I work to level 7-11 before I go back to Ultra Meltdown and Martial Master. In honor of my best friend in real life who works in a certain section of the hospital, I have my Empathy/Radiation Blast ColonRectal Man, a name that will not survive one of the purges that occurs shortly after Marvel's lawsuit (it couldn't survive the offensive/vulgar guideline evidently). But if you see CRM on Freedom server, check his biography. CRM is still really ColonRectal Man...
Balthraz is my attempt at role-playing. He is a fire tank, from Hell, literally. He did something good once (accidentally, he swears), and got kicked out of Hell. He was then cursed by good mystics to only do good deeds if he wants to go home. The miserable brute has no choice but to go around arresting people he would usually be tempting into evil. I walk around King's Row, eager to team, to show off my battle cry ("Arrrgggh!" or something like that), complain "Balthraz can't jump!" and so on. Many of them are noobs, and I constantly have to break character just to give them advice to keep them alive. I note mentally that I may not be able to get away with pure role playing until I hit 15 or so, when I won't have to answer this many basic questions. I'm experienced enough at this point to tell that even though this is my first MMORG, I've mastered enough things that I can spot a newbie just as easy as anyone else. One of my teammates runs up the side of the freeway and successfully jumps onto the pavement on top. Balthraz has been trying this maneuver all night without success. He does it flawlessly, and I type in, "Balthraz can jump!" My teammate is rofl at this point, and I have been playing just long enough to finally pick up on the lingo and know what that actually means. By the end of the evening, it is time to part ways, and Balthraz tells his friends that they are "not so bad for puny mortals. You may live!"
At this point I'm playing whichever character the mood has me in for the night, a veritable smorgasbord of options. This will present a minor problem soon, as I realize I won't be able to hold on to all the friends I'm making on each server; every time I play two or three other alts, the old friends will pass me by. If I really want to hang with people, I'm going to have to pick one and stick with it.
I also desperately want just one more button at the store next to the Sell' button for enhancements. I go to the message boards for the first time, to suggest a Sell All' button right next to it. Surely it can't be that hard? We still don't have it. Talk about saving ten seconds times four trips a night to the store times the collective time of 10,000 players... We still don't have the option today. I hold onto hope, regardless. I believe that if I persevere, one day we will have a Sell All option. I have to be optimistic. I am a hero, after all.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
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Hover is so incredibly boring, I ignore it totally.
[/ QUOTE ]
Oh sure, you say that now, but wait until some of the big boys later on come charging at you with a huge fist, claw, or scythe. Blasters often use hover to stay out of an opponent's melee range. 
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I never can hit spit when I activate it anyway. I know nothing about coding, but in my suspicious mind, I suspect the accuracy penalty from Flight has also somehow crept over into Hover, and my mind is tainted against it permanently.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have no clue how to slot properly. My blaster has one enhancement of each in his Power Blast, one accuracy, one endurance reduction, one recharge, one damage, and one range extension. I'm still ignorant about how much enhancements will really matter in the game, but this ignorance doesn't seem to hold me back any.
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Mmm, these two statements might have something to do with one another. Blasters these days typically slot all of their attacks with one ACC enhancement and fill out the rest with DMG enhancements (or all DMG, if they're a */Devices Blaster with Targeting Drone like myself.) You will really start to be able to tell the difference once you start slotting with SOs. My Sniper Blast on my Eng/Dev can consistently one-shot a minion of even level, six-slotted with one ACC SO and five DMG SOs (or even a +1 minion if they have enough negative resistance to energy damage) or two-shot them with a Power Bolt/Power Blast combo with both attacks slotted the same way.
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Also, I tend to think how much it would suck if a villain could fly and I couldn't reach him
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Two words: Lead Shockers. And that's just the start.
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I've got no Stamina or Hasten on this character either, but I've got energy attacks galore, and I never seem to need to stop in the middle of a battle.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is probably due to the End Reduction and Recharge enhancements in all of your powers. Just a tip based on personal experience, though: The faster you take out villains, the less damage they get to do to you.
You can build your character any way you want, I'm just sayin'. 
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
Outside the Journal Commentary
Oh trust me, I know these things now. But in writing my experience, I want to portray things I learn in a "chronologically faithful" way. Later on, for example, I might grouse about how I can't get a certain badge because my scrapper can't fly, and a certain villain does nothing but fly. So my entries will not display my current knowledge, but instead recount what I knew, when I knew it, as I played. MM is at lvl 43 now, and UM is 23, but at the time of writing thus far, they're both about lvl 14.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
[ QUOTE ]
Outside the Journal Commentary
Oh trust me, I know these things now. But in writing my experience, I want to portray things I learn in a "chronologically faithful" way. Later on, for example, I might grouse about how I can't get a certain badge because my scrapper can't fly, and a certain villain does nothing but fly. So my entries will not display my current knowledge, but instead recount what I knew, when I knew it, as I played. MM is at lvl 43 now, and UM is 23, but at the time of writing thus far, they're both about lvl 14.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ohhhhh.
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
Entry 5
Hollows debuts! Everybody and their dog is over there. I have a great night with my Spines/Regen scrapper, Slice N' Dice, in the Hollows. I level up a couple times, and I find yet again that I'm playing with a bunch of people on their first or second character. Naturally, as always seems to happen, however this group started, I am now the leader. Only one or two people drop off as we add one or two others. We hang out for an entire evening, rocking through missions, hardly any deaths, me making sure everyone levels at least once, shouting out who's going to be next, and celebrating when the last one of us cycles a level up. I have a super group already under Martial Master, my main character that I want to experience everything, but these guys are all begging me, literally, to start an sg. I start tossing out names until we have a couple cool choices. At one point I clue them in that I'm keeping tabs on all health, and if one of them goes red, that's when I always do a Spine Burst, which seems to be excellent at pulling aggro away from everyone and onto me immediately. As team leader, I feel responsible for their welfare. I don't tell them that last part, because I don't want them to take advantage, but if anyone falls in battle, it's going to be me as the team leader before them. My sidekick has to leave, this is the one who blurted out that this was the best team he had ever been in when I told him about my Spine Burst tactic. He'd been around the game for months, but no team leader had ever looked out for him like that before. He makes me promise to look him up tomorrow night to invite him. "You better invite me to the sg!" he warns. We're down to me and the two guys who originally started the evening together. I'm at City Hall, and I have created The Underground Legion, with my two trusty lieutenants. Everybody is all rah-rah, and I decide to stick with Slice N' Dice for a while to finally have the sg experience. Over the next few nights, one of the guys quits without warning, and the others are never on. Within two weeks, cold harsh reality has reared it's ugly head, and I realize that despite their good intentions, there is actual dedication that comes with an sg, and they couldn't or wouldn't really do it. I'm not really bummed, I can use the sg name on another server if people want me to start up another one in the future. But I hang up slice for now, deciding that if I'm going to stick with one consistently for a while, it really should be Martial Master after all.
This brief encounter with people so liberal with their praise has also given me a revelation into teaming and why I like this game so much. Everyone was having so much fun together, all "You guys rock!" and "I'll team with you anytime!" that I got a really good feel for the combination chatting/fighting teams that are the most fun experience of the game. What's more, all of the compliments to me personally made me realize that just as in real life, when you're good at something and people appreciate it, and appreciate you, it really makes you feel good. I begin to understand why my friend has played EverCrack for so long. He's got a good group of friends who depend on him, who know he's awesome in his role, and he likes that they can depend on him. In my real life, some of the best moments I feel are when you develop a sense of competent comradery with coworkers. You've done a great job, and everybody pats you on the back for it. This may be only a game, and the accomplishment doesn't mean nearly as much, but it's still a ton of fun, and the feelings are similar.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
I wish you good luck with your SG. They can be alot of fun, but they can also be pretty high maintance. Keeping a good number of members is key. If you fall below a threshold, then you're players will feel that the "Place is empty!" when they log on, and end up leaving for a more active one.
I'm not saying this will happen to yours, of course. You might be a natural at making this sort of thing work, and your SG might flourish. But just in case, try not to be too disapointed if it turns out to be a bit hard to get going and stay active than you thought it might be.
I'm Tealeaf, and I approve of this message.
See [URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=2134817#post2134817"]Useful Tagging for the good of the Forum[/URL], my guide to tags.
Your comments about teaming and leadership especially struck a chord with me - you could basically be describing Crimson Archon's whole career, especially that weird knack for ending up as team leader.
I also like reading about your learning process as you progress through the game, both for nostalgia value (it really mirrors my own experiences) and because you really seem to have come at the game with the correct attitude: to enjoy yourself, to immerse yourself in the world and the gameplay with a sense of fun and humor rather than to sit outside coldly crunching numbers and bitterly resenting any time not spent making optimum xp gain.
At its best, the game really does foster a sense of camaraderie and even heroism (how many of us have made desperate last stands to save our teammates from certain doom?) and your posts remind me of that aspect, which is one that doesn't often get discussed on the forums.
-Guardian-
Crimson Archon - 50 bs/inv scrapper
-Protector-
The Stain - 40 dark/dark corruptor
Astro-Avenger - 47 ss/inv tanker
The Scarlet Spectre - 26 ill/storm controller
Ouch. Martial Arts and Super reflexes, quite possibily one of the hardest builds to enjoy because of the major endurance problems with it. Glad to see it hasn't detered you though.
Entry 6
Martial Master is prowling around Boomtown these days. He has teamed up with Atomic Eve before, and she send him a tell as soon as I'm logged on. She invites me to a team, and says the invite will come from a confused monkey. I ask her if she's sure she should be referring to her team leader that way, but when the invite pops up, his NAME is Confused Monkey! I can already tell I'm going to like this team...
There's a high-level tank slumming with us, and we tear through everything like tissue paper. A couple of us stop in the middle of a massive fight to toss out jokes. We're really superfluous at the moment. Everyone's doing the lol bit between me and another player. The high-level tank eventually has to leave, and we start a boomtown grind. It's the fun kind, with four to five of us, and a few level up along the way. Boomtown is a great place, and I hope they develop more missions that call for you to go to this place. It would be neat if in the future, they add a "purple" zone to the green, yellow, and red sections of each place. They have room on the map to do it, maybe it could be a portal entry hazard zone, if necessary. Or just an extra section of the map, so the lower-levels will know from the section color that they should be extra-careful when walking through it. Both Boomtown and Faultline have a lot of potential. I flew Ultra Meltdown all over Faultline, finding some really great scenery and settings, but no missions ever call for us to go there. I can imagine a threat against the dam that calls for a mission. Maybe the devs will revise the zones in the future, I think there's room to "grow" them a little.
Whenever a scantily-clad female joins us and starts flirting, Eve plays the part of jealous girlfriend with me. She's really good at it too, but the private tells clue me in that she's just role playing, which is great, considering my one bad experience earlier. A couple weeks slater, Atomic Eve invites me again. I lead a few missions, and when the group is down to five of us, we realize the players who have stuck around are both the best at playing and the most fun to be around, besides. We don't leave the warehouse at the end of our mission. Instead, Atomic Eve yells out, "Hide and Seek!" This is a first for me, but we quit the team so our beacons don't give us away on the map, and one of us is "it," while the others go hide. I'm looking for one teammate, and I actually can't see him. I mean, I can see his name, and I have found him, but I still can't see his character. Confused Monkey comes over and starts hopping up and down on the guy's name. He reveals he uses this trick with the emotes, where he sits, and then he rotates his character into the wall! We all think that's rad-cool, and make jokes about whether it will work that way if we try to hide from the bad guys.
Monkey has to log off, so it's down to three of us, and we start a game of Simon Says, only it's Martial Master Says instead, natch. I go through the emotes, making them dance and hold up cards and belch at my whim. I catch them both with a jump command: "Ah ah! I didn't say Martial master says!' Two demerits!" Eve starts pouting, "I knew you were going to do that!" I don't know how many hours we spent in that one warehouse goofing off, but I wasn't thinking about leveling up, or dps, or xp gain, or any of that. It was just plain fun.
I recount the night's activities to a couple coworkers the next days, regaling them about how I played virtual hide and seek, and making a dance club. I can see how the future might be with these virtual environments. We can already take digital pictures of ourselves in real life and upload them to the net. How long before people are turning those pictures into character "skins" and downloading them into CoH and other MMORGs? I can see a day when people spend most of their free time on the computer, just hanging out with their virtual friends, and not even needing an excuse like CoH or Everquest to do it.
A few nights later, at the close of a mission, everyone is joking around, and someone makes a comment about a part of his anatomy. I laugh and say "Me too!" Atomic Eve says, "Me too! Err..." Awkward silence. Everyone screams out "Man-gina!' and laughs. Funny thing is, it may very well have been a guy behind the character who got embarrassed. To this day, I haven't seen the Atomic Eve character online since. Which is too bad, because most people don't have hang-ups about that, and she or he was an excellent player as well. This develops into a trend, actually, with a lot of the people on my friend's list disappearing for months at a time, as real life takes over for people, or they have gone to make alts. The only one I spot on occasion is Confused Monkey. As I progress, I have to start ditching cool people for people who I see online more often, since teaming has become more fun for me and sometimes even mandatory for a few missions), specifically due to hanging out with chars like Atomic Eve and Confused Monkey.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Entry 7
Completing a Task Force (TF) is a real bear. I have Murphy's Law striking each time. Either the team disintegrates as we get close to finishing, or the server drops. One time, Ultra Meltdown is flying to help take out the Clockwork King, and at 2:00 a.m. my time, I have a power failure. The power failure fries my computer temporarily, so I can't just log back on. Grr. Ultra does the Positron TF, and Martial Master is able to do the rest. I mainly just want to experience everything the game has to offer at least once. The server drops are one of the most irritating things, but those were mostly happening when they introduced the Hollows. There was one mission that had villains you couldn't see inside the stairs. Only area of effect or TP Foe could get to them. I think I must have helped do that mission a dozen times. By the time I got around to doing it with my alts, only one alt had to do that, and that was my regen spines, Slice N' Dice, and he made short work of them.
I have finally convinced my best friend to play the game! He was reluctant, because when he gets into a game, he goes all in. I set him up on my computer, help him pick a name, and he decides he likes it after all. I have underestimated this. He wastes no time in getting the game for himself, re-rolling his character, choosing a new name - Red Haven - and tweaking his costume a little bit. I drag out all four of my alts on Freedom to run along with him, bringing out each char closest in level to his, and teaming up whenever possible. It's great! Then we come to the biggest problem I have had to date. I use Exemplar to help him do Positron's TF, but the team has to quit before the final mission. It's 3 a.m., we all have to work, and everyone logs off. Exemplar is still relatively new, so I get the idea one second too late. Red has already logged off, I have lost my Exemplar, and am booted from the TF. I go through four rounds with CoH support, getting through their canned responses, but it's always the same. They can't help me, and I've lost seven hours with still no badge to show for Positron. My buddy feels really bad, but I tell him it's not his fault. I didn't even think of it until everyone was logging, and there was no real announcement about that particular problem. Maybe when they introduce Flashback (which I think is a fantabulous idea), I'll go back to Positron. Or maybe the devs will agree with everyone on the boards, and they will link the TF feature to the NPC that gives the TF. Some of these changes don't really seem that hard, but I'm not on the inside, so I have no clue where their attention is focused. But I do think if they had one person focused on the small things, they could definitely improve our quality of play. Things life TF Exemplar, and a Sell All button, would save us time and frustration, and we would still put in that time playing, but it would be more fun for us, and the devs would spend less time answering the same old "Why was I kicked" questions on the TFs.
I am soooooo slow in the game! I'm at level 18, and I just took Hasten. Red Haven already beats me everywhere with Super Jump (and gloats about it, of course). At level 16, I think I took Swift, so I take Super Speed at 20, and then Hurdle at 22 and Stamina at 24. Talk about a whole new game! Stamina removes almost all my problems with END. Even with one slot, I notice a massive difference. I even use Leadership a time or two, but it doesn't really do much for me. I'm kicking myself mentally for taking so long to get a travel power. A mental note ensures that when I go back to my alts, I will take a travel power as soon as it opens up in the pools, every time. I love the new powers. Even Hurdle makes a slight noticeable difference that helps me out in Skyway City. They have since decreased the animation time of Storm Kick as well, so that's working much better. I'm very happy with S Speed and Stamina both.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Just wanted to bump this thread since it's such a good one. Later!
Entry 8
Ultra Meltdown gets invited to the Sister Psyche Task Force, but there's a twist. My friend lets me know that the group is only doing the first mission: it's a quick hop over to Talos to arrest so many Warriors or CoT or something. There is a big mission xp bonus, then the team leader dissolves the TF. Everyone goes back to IP, restarts the mission, and hops the tram to Talos again, ad infinitum. I don't know the term for it yet, but it turns out they are 'farming' the mission. I go through a couple sessions of it before I fully understand the concept, and it feels wrong. The friend who invited me is pretty cool, though, so I hang out with the team for three or four more.
One small problem is they are only going after one villain type, so when there are two types involved, I am blasting away, but the rest of the group has moved on without a word, aimed at getting just the specific villain type. This is above my level, so a red con gets through to me and knocks me out. I'm a little frustrated, because I'm used to being in groups where we back each other up; this is more like a look-out-for-yourself grabfest. I notice if I stay any longer, I'm going to outlevel another task force, so I take my goodbyes, even though my friend is urging me to stay for what is basically easy xp. My philosophy is definitely different, at least at this point. I want to experience the content, even if it duplicates the content I go through with my scrapper. The experience is different, because I have to approach the missions in an entirely different manner if I'm using my blaster, especially if I want to solo (which is still what I'm doing, primarily). So I take my bows, and by the time one of my characters has gotten to that TF naturally, the devs have already changed the parameters, so the first mission always takes you to Boomtown, instead. Ergo, no more farming. No problem for me.
I have totally underestimated Red Haven. He is having so much fun, he is on the game constantly. I give up playing my alts and go back to Martial Master, who is at about level 21. I know Red will catch up soon, so it's time to finally focus full-time on one character. By the time I get to 24, he has just passed me and hit 25! He is enjoying the heck out of the game. I'm playing more often as well, out of necessity. I think I officially become a power gamer for a short time. I also call in sick to work one day, because I got to bed only two hours ago, and my stomach is killing me. One other time, I go in late, and it's due to staying up playing. That's pretty much all it takes to make me backpedal. I can't get obsessed about the game, and as an adult with responsibilities, there is no way I'm going to sacrifice my life for this. It's turning out to be too much like showing up for work! I ease up on the hours playing and let Red Haven pull ahead. I still play more often than I used to, but I make sure it's not going to interfere with my work schedule ever again.
Super Speed is almost as cool as Flying. I love being able to get around so much faster. Stamina is taking some of the bite out of the MA/SR END crunch as well, so I feel my character is really starting to develop, to come into its own. My defeats are very rare now, and a couple times, I am genuinely surprised when I get knocked out. I was at the debt cap at a lower level though, so working off an occasional defeat is not a big deal to me. What really makes a difference, though, is the respec.
Oh, thank you forever for the respec, devs! I shed Assault like it's a dirty streetwalker, and ditch Warrior's Challenge as well. The MA Scrapper Taunt was always different from the other Taunts anyway. Mine duplicated Challenge from the Presence Power Pool, while the others all duplicated Provoke. I had just taken Focused Senses, and found it less than impressive, so that immediately goes out the window. This gives me the opportunity to take up Recall Friend (RF) and Teleport, and play around with them, as well as do an overhaul on all of my slots. I feel almost like a brand new character when I'm done, and I use RF constantly. I even use it to try to help Red Haven complete the Cavern of Transcendence mission just so he can get the badge, but he takes too long to find the final obelisk, and the server crashes. Grrr...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
I too want to say, great thread
-jg
---
Jeremy Gaffney
VP Product Development, NCsoft
The chronicles of tpull begin here. I invite anyone who has questions regarding my experiences in the game to ask away. Each entry will give my perspective as it was, and reflect things I have learned, and my overall opinions as I grow from a novice MMORG player to a relative veteran regarding this particular game environment. I will listen to all feedback, whether you want to see entries on a faster basis than my normal "rythym," or you want me to be quiet and go away. Hopefully, you will enjoy my story and maybe even take away some things. I won't sugar-coat, exaggerate, or hide mistakes I made. My goal is to share my experience, and the fun I am having with this new hobby.
The beginning is this: I am a comic book fan, and my best friend was addicted to EverCrack. I stayed away from every online game, playing only vs. The computer for things like Starcraft, Warcraft, etc. I resisted Star Wars, and all others. For I knew a super-hero MMORG was in the works, and that was going to be my new hobby. I have a real life, so I have to pick and choose.
I had a few conceptions based on watching Everquest. I didn't like managing all the loot, and I didn't like having to camp for hours to get a big raid going (got this just from watching my buddy). With all the phone calls and real life stuff I was getting, a pause button was essential to me. Also, I have this annoying knack for extreme loyalty, so I usually try to be a loner, so I don't have to duck out of encounters and leave my group-mates hanging. So naturally, I choose a scrapper first, after reading a few pages of the rule book.
I toss the manual aside. (Yeah, yeah, but I'm an American, and I learn by doing)
I fall in love with the character creation engine and all the choices with which it presents me. I have always related to characters like Captain America and Batman. They are not super, but they can hold their own among the capes. So I end up choosing a magical scrapper with "believable" powers, that is Martial Arts and Super Reflexes. I finish my costume, and to this day I still like it. Time to enter the tutorial, as Martial Master!
I'm used to things like Starcraft, and Warcraft was just getting into using individuals and powers, really. I couldn't get far on Freedom Force, because I had trouble coordinating four distinct individuals, all of which had different powers, and I quit in (mild) disgust. These controls for CoH were keyboard-based, and I learn quickly. Exiting the tutorial, I am impressed with the graphics, and the wide variety of powers, and the maps. I'm happy as a pig in mud. I level up to level 6 the first night, and manage to quit, since I am still grounded in real life, and know I have to get to bed at a manageable hour. I'm sure that will change...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp