Journal of a first-time MMORG player
By
187nut,
Posted on: 2005-01-20 01:10 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
[ QUOTE ]
It took me forever to realize that I should be submitting spelling and grammar collections not through their regular support choices, but by hitting the File Bug Report.
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Wouldn't mention it if it wasn't for the irony, but did you mean "corrections" here?
I suppose you could be submitting collections of corrections, though....
You see? It's certainly a good thing I admitted my own penchant for misspelling, or I'd have even more egg on my face! 
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
I'm a big stickler for spelling in things too, especially if its something that is meant to be a finished product. I don't notice it too much in game, mainly because I don't read things, that's right, I don't read any mission boxes except to know what the mission entails (timed, kill, door). And yes, I know this could be misconstrued by many to mean I'm missing content, but to each his own, I've been here since Beta and I just love being a superhero without all the silly story.
It does, however, drive me crazy when I see it in online articles at cnn or something. I send a lot of emails like that.
Kudos to you though for all the spelling corrections, you're helping make the game better.
Thanks! We've gotten to the point where I started writing my adventures as I played them, or shortly after. I can post more often now, as much of the initial writing of my thoughts is already done. So,
Entry 27
If I can earn one bubble of xp a day, I can make level 50 in sixty days. I figure I'll have to "make up bubbles" on weekends for those days when I just don't have the time to log on. It seems to be working fine. I finally found more than one 40+ hero looking for a team at one time, so I click on everybody at the appropriate level in rapid succession, and let them know we're hunting AVs. I finally clear Anti-Matter and Madame of Mystery! Talk about carrying missions around with you forever! Anti-Matter one-shots me near the end, so I get to take a dirt nap right in front of him as my team finishes him off. I should have taken a snapshot of that... I click on the Mission Complete and appear back in the Portal building, where half a dozen other heroes are loitering. I step out... and fall flat on my face, as I'm still knocked out. Plop! Priceless.
I die once going after Madame of Mystery as well, but it was my mistake. Only one of my other teammates was in the mission, ahead of me, and she starts using censored language. I run in a jump into a pile of villains, trying to give her room. She yells, "Run, Martial Master!" See, she was a new addition to the team, and I hadn't noticed that she has Phase shift. Gah! Too late, I'm caught in an Eagle's Claw animation, and I'm dead before I complete it.
I log on the next night and immediately get an invite to farm wolves. I've never done it before, so I agree, just to do it once. I've never agreed to farm anything before, not even to try to get a badge. Turns out I am to be used as a bridge, just stand around and collect xp. Oh wow, is it boring. My attempt to strike up witty conversation among the five others present is met with stone-cold silence. Even the crickets have abandoned me. I'm guessing for the most part, they are AFK. Is this what happens when you are a newbie who cares only about getting to 50? When you have just one more alt to pl? The lowest level person levels, and nobody even bothers to say grats. There is no conversation, there is no intellectual discussion, there is only the wind. I try to be nice and hold my tongue, and just be a good neighbor and help these people with their stuff for a little bit.
I've gained one bubble at level 44. How much longer am I supposed to do this? I'm a scrapper! Since when in any strange, alternate universe even, is a scrapper supposed to stand around and do nothing? The leader, a tank, says rest, and someone teleports everyone back to Peregrine Island. I take that opportunity to bail, thanking the tank for the xp (only one bar max, thank heaven), and wish them a good night. Nobody says a word. I think I'd rather go through the level 10-20 grind a dozen more times than do that again. Oh wow is that sort of thing not for me, I had no idea. I don't think I've ever felt less like a superhero in my life. I don't have a major problem with these guys doing it, I can certainly understand wanting to avoid a grind for yet another alt, and I can also understand wanting to get your friends closer to your level, so you can play together more often. But it is just plain not my style.
It's been a lot of missions and no sign of the Circle of Thorns. Ten levels is a lot to go without a good source of enhancements. I'm wondering if each archetype goes through this dry spell at a certain stage of the game. I've heard that Science enhancement drops are relatively scarce compared to others. I have a ton of influence, so it's not that big a concern. But just when I'm feeling nostalgic and "missing" the CoT, Tina Macintyre gives me a CoT mission! Save 12 hostages in a humongous Oranbegan map. No, I'm not rusty at tackling these at all... Okay, I am rusty. But it's still fun! As complicated as they can be to navigate, they are some of the best tile sets in the game, in my opinion.
I'm starting to really like the idea of letting us plan and design our own missions. Even if it's simple, there are times when I simply have to log on and play, but I have 30 minutes or less. I get a two-hour timed mission, or something that's close to that. It's not so bad anymore, because they've gotten better at identifying those ahead of time, but if I could select a mission type (save hostages, find blinkies, etc.), a map setting, a villain option, and a difficulty level, I could pop in and have some fun for 15 minutes, but avoid the lag-filled street sweeping. I hope we can do that in the future. The people who genuinely want to solo alone forever can go /hide and do these types of missions endlessly to their heart's content. No more whining about making the whole game more solo-friendly, and maybe reduced pleas to power-level, even.
In the meantime, I have found only two players on the boards who have taken Crippling Axe Kick, and none in the game itself. I would love to have a different power that either increases the chances of a Critical Hit, or ensures the next hit will be a Crit (although there is no guarantee you would actually land the blow). I have no idea how long the recharge time should be, maybe similar to Focus Chi, but it strikes me as a "fun" power, while CAK is just gathering dust. Is it too much to hope the devs might actually revisit the power sets some day? It would be neat to have them present us with choices after datamining to find the five fewest-taken powers, and solicit us for replacement power ideas. The old powers could be thrown into some miscellaneous power pool section, so the rare players who love them could still take them. I am increasingly open to ideas of improving the game from a fun aspect, especially ones that involve the opinions of the players themselves. This is a marked contrast to the old way of buying and playing games. Granted, you could always change the rules of any board game and have house rules, but the prospect of a continually-changing game environment where players can have a voice heard like this is a relatively new development, and my impression is that the CoH Devs are more responsive to the community of heroes than other games. It may be because we're a smaller segment of the gaming population, which is fine with me. It does leave me wondering why CoH is so far down on the subscription numbers by comparison, and if it's because of the child-stigma that is to this day still associated with the super-hero genre. I hope the CoH sales department finds a way to increase sales of the game, because I want this game to be around forever, to have a chance to grow, and to have more teammates available when I need a team! Which is more like a "want" than a "need," but I am continually growing more towards group play than solo play, like a line on a graph pointed diagonally upwards.
P.S. Present Day: Diamond Cut is angry that this post has fallen to "only" four stars. Somebody please help fix this, he's already close to going postal, being without a computer, not able to play the game for more than a week. I don't want him testing out his Scrapper moves on me in real life. In real life, I'm like a squishy Controller...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Unfortunately, once you get rated with anything less than 4 stars, it's impossible to get 5. It appears that the boards use an average system for rating and always truncate the decimal, even if the decimal is a .9!
Oh well, 4 stars ain't bad 
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
Gasp! Does that mean they've nerfed the board rating system? Please Devs fix this immediately! More important than anything else!
Actually, that's fine, 4 happens to be my favorite number.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Entry 28
A Carnie mission now. Those clown girls are so freaking cute, I think I have a collective crush on them. I'd rather take them out for a drink than hit them. I better not tell my girlfriend that, women can get jealous over the weirdest things sometimes. I've got a ton of green respites, so I stop using Elude, and switch to Focused Fighting. Then I stop using FF. I'm on Unyielding, going up against yellow- and orange-conning bad guys, and not even breaking a sweat. I frown for a second, thinking something's wrong. Then I realize my character is high enough, and I know how to handle myself, that I have slightly improved my skills, even as I thought there was no room for improvement. I'm back to tossing in the use of Cobra Strike each time, but it's like riding a bike, and it lets me use another game animation, rather than the same old attacks. Ah, Cobra Strike, old friend, welcome back!
One other weird thing I haven't mentioned yet. When people are looking for a team, often they don't really want to team after all. I always start with the LFG menu first, and often when I send a private tell to someone who isn't LFG, they join anyway. But this time, for example, someone was invited, he was LFG, but when I say we're doing a timed Board Train mission, he quits the group. Maybe he was about to quit and didn't have the time? Maybe he was hoping for a pl or a farming mission? I don't know, but if I turn on the LFG menu, you can bet I'm looking for people around my level who want to do missions or task forces, or even grind in a fun place (man, that sounds kinky).
It's a timed mish, so I go do it myself. Rikti! The CoH people have changed things a bit, so instead of rescuing all the hostages and adjusting the portal devices, you complete the mission with an either/or. So I adjust all the portals with over an hour to spare, and bum around looking for the hostages anyway. I do this for several reasons. One is that on occasion, I'll get lucky and have a group of a dozen Rikti surrounding me, and there is nothing more beautiful than watching a dozen aliens get thrown on their butts because of a Dragon's Tail kick. Also, if I rescue a hostage, I might get a clue which will give me more flavor text and story background, which I don't want to miss. My alts can skip it next time, but my main char needs to see as much as he can. There's a glitch in the system, and I have a red-conning Rikti Chief Mentalist following me around. Whenever I don't have Elude up, I get pelted for a couple hundred points. I'm assuming he's red, but he might be orange, because I can't actually see him. I've had this glitch before, but it's usually all or nothing. Either every villain is invisible, and I have to run outside and reset the mission, or I can see them all. I pour on the super speed and lose him, wondering if I'm in long enough, maybe it will correct itself. I also stay because I get plenty of inspirations and enhancements, and I can fight Rikti in my sleep now. I still have to pay attention, but I know how to take them down. I start a personal race to see how many groups I can take out before Elude wears off and my toggles drop. And last but not least, there are Monkeys in the mission, and I can never pass up an opportunity to spank the monkeys. I may have shared too much information at this point.
One thing that would be useful is a "Back Tab" feature. I have my g' key configured to follow the nearest enemy, but often I want to tab through all the bad guys until I get to the toughest, and target him. Too often, I Tab him, and accidentally Tab once more. Is there a way to go backwards in the Tabbing order? That would be very useful.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
re: back-tabbing
I think that Shift-Tab will back-tab. Or at least I seem to remember it working like that...
Ya it's shift-tab, or I guess whatever you have set up as your "next bad guy" button. Also works for the "next friendly" bind options. I think...
And since I haven't said it in a while, keep up the good work TPull, this is a nice distraction from all the nastiness of the boards around new issue time. 
Thanks guys. I'm gonna have to play around with that tonight. I don't like to hit Shift+, but I'm running out of free keys!
PvP already seems to be bringing out some passion doesn't it? Hopefully most of it will get ironed out on Test. I'm too busy playing my blaster right now to go on Test, but all the ruckus about SR has made me curious to see how my main character might perform, since I only have one HO. (That's right, only one HO for me! I'm a one-HO man!)
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Entry 29
There seem to be plateaus in the game. For instance, I hit level 45, and it is like there is a qualitative difference in the "upgrade" of my ability to fight, versus, say training up from 42 to 43 or 43 to 44. As weird as it is to believe, the missions that have been set on Unyielding (since they introduced the slider) now seem almost as easy as the original default indoor missions I was sleep-walking through in the beginning. I didn't even add in enhancements to the three new slots that I earned right away. I used to have to run Elude constantly, and now I only run it about half the time. I even took Practiced Brawler off auto-fire, since I usually end up with one Resolve or Break Free available when I need it. Plus, my defenses are so high, most of those attacks don't even connect. The few times I've been thrown on the ground from Knockback are actually less than the interruptions that PB gave me when I had it on auto! These are just a few of the mild changes that I'm taking note of as I progress. Auto-fire PB was very useful for the longest time, but in this stage, it is actually less useful.
For level 45, I have put one slot for Defense into Agile, a second Recharge into Focus Chi, and a sixth Recharge into Conserve Power. I was going to leave that at 5, but since I have a toggle-drop Elude thing going on, CP is the perfect balance to it. In intense fighting situations, when Elude wears off, I can punch CP quickly, hit Elude again if I need to, and keep on fighting.
Cobra Strike has also come back in a big way. It is turning out to be useful against Rularru bosses, and against virtually everyone else, now that I am not running Elude so much. It used to be the attack I would lead off with every time, against Mages, Tsoo Sorcerors, etc. Then it hardly seemed worth the time to have it. Now it's saved my butt against the Rularru a number of times. I've also started a little game of always making sure I have at least one blank Inspiration slot, so I can maximize my use of them.
I'm doing a Council mission, and I have to find 9 crates. I run through an air circulation type place just to get rid of the black on the map, and one of the crates is there, as well as a desk with intelligence that gives me the alternate mission completion, with one crate left I no longer need to find. I don't know how the Devs have programmed this, but they're sneaky! Sometimes these are a pain to find, but you start to develop a sixth sense after a while. I'm certainly not going to break any records for the time it takes to level a character, because I tend to stop and write some of the journal as I go now, when I'm solo. I also tend to explore most of the map, beat every villain I can find whether the mission is a complete all' or not, and various other small things that eat up the time, like my Inspiration game. I may go faster with my alts later, but I am still having a blast experiencing as much as I can.
My tendency to stop and type can be interesting as well. I exit the Council mission, and am typing as I hear my character get ambushed by a couple Council members. Fun! Excuse me while I take care of them...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
[ QUOTE ]
I exit the Council mission, and am typing as I hear my character get ambushed by a couple Council members. Fun! Excuse me while I take care of them...
[/ QUOTE ]
Gotta love ambushes 
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
What's bad, Major_T, is when I think I'm safe, and I have accepted a new mission, and I stop to type. I go back to the game, and I'm face-down! Gah! Writing is so hazardous to your health after all. I proved all my teachers wrong!
Entry 30
It's been five days since I've been able to log on, so if I want to make my one-bubble-a-day goal, I've got to make up some time tonight! Rikti missions always give a lot of xp, so I enjoy them. The red-conning Chief Soldiers sometimes can hit me for substantial amounts of damage, which make it more of a risk to me than usual. Once, a Mentalist gets me before I can click on Practiced Brawler, and he chain holds me. Wow, this hasn't happened in over six months! My defenses are good enough that they whittle me down to about 10 hit points, no joke, until the chain sleeps wear off and I hit PB, then Elude, then about three heal inspirations! Then I kick their butts, natch. I find it hilarious that an unconscious super hero can be asleep on his feet, yet still dodge attacks from half a dozen enemies. Talk about giving you an ego complex...
This mission has Rikti Magus in it, and I find one of them dancing with an Advanced Drone! Seems like some civilizations have just as many confusions about their - shall we call it orientation? - as we do. Very amusing. I wish I had a way to record a video of it, the Rikti can really cut a rug. Maybe when I get a new computer.
On my way to sell, there are a couple of guys with health in the red being chased by a purple Warhulk. I ask the highest level one, a 47 blaster, if he needs help, and he actually stops to ask what I am before he accepts. But he says sure, and I hit Elude and polish off the Warhulk quickly. I run into less of that on the streets nowadays, but whenever I see it, I think of Spider-Man swinging by on his webs, and noticing another hero in trouble. Sometimes, a little tune goes off in my head, "Here I come, to save the daaay..."
So Crey's Folly is a Nemesis mission, but something hits me for the very first time, even though I have the Fake badge already: doesn't the Nemesis Staff look like a big electronic lollipop? I know I can't be the first person to make the observation, but this was the first time I actually slowed down to observe it closely. With Elude on, I actually have time to stop and smell the roses, so to speak. I've got a new trick to get to Crey's Folly now that we have Striga Isle. If I'm coming right out of Peregrine Island, I'll head into Striga, since it's so close, turn right around and exit Striga to Independence Port. The tram is close there, and I hop it to Brickstown.
I actually get knocked out by a chain-held Rikti attack, and figure I better put my PB back on auto-fire again. The mission completion xp alone gets me out of debt, since it is the completion of a story line. Then I get to the end of the Council/Nemesis storyline, and come face-to-face with Nosferatu. It's a stalemate, as he can't hurt me much, but he regenerates too fast for me to take him out. He casts Tenebrous Tentacles on me, but with my Practiced Brawler, I can actually run away still. It looks kind of cool, but I'm taking damage! I look for a team, but there's only one level 47 guy lft. It usually ends up this way, and I send tells to others near our level who aren't LFT, and explain what's up. The people are so cool, I have six join me to come help me out. When they get to the mish, I teleport them to the elevator right below Nosferatu, and it takes some of them a while to arrive. By the time I teleport the last one there and go up, four of them are already whomping on Nosferatu. He falls down before I even get there, with two of our team still down below. I joke-complain about not even getting a hit in that time, to a couple of laughs. I manage to thank them for the help just a second before the team disintegrates and they all quit. I appreciate the help with the AV, but it seems like nobody wants to hang and do missions anymore.
Something weird happens on the next mission. I run and jump at a Zeus-class Titan, and I stay in the air. It's like I'm standing on an invisible platform. I take a couple of screen shots, just because it looks so interesting. I fill in five bubbles tonight, and level to 46. I level inside a mission, which is how I try to plan it each time. When I was doing the cape mission, I forget if it was with MM or with Ultra Meltdown, I kept failing, whether I had someone with me or not. But when I went in solo, and leveled up while in it, it was suddenly much easier! Enough for me to save the time capsule before all the villains pounded it into mush again, anyway. So ever since, if I notice I'm getting close, I head for an indoor mission. When it hits, huzzah!
Since I'm in King's Row, I head over to Blue Steel to train up. I love the music for that part of the neighborhood, and I like the grandiose design of the steps leading up to him. (It could be because the Paragon City Police Department is right there too, but I doubt it). The coin behind him says "Birthplace of Tomorrow, 1823." I train up and put a slot in Dodge, and two slots in Focus Chi, so I can add a couple of to-hit buffs. I had it that way once before a Respec, and it really made a difference. I try to run one more mission, but a Rikti Mentalist freezes me a split second before my PB goes off, and four others send me to the hospital. Before I log... jello!
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
That was a good one TPull. Now I know what I am facing as I knock on the door to level 42.
A little suggestion for your writing times, if you stick Elude on Auto-Fire, you might have a better chance of being standing when you come back.
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A little suggestion for your writing times, if you stick Elude on Auto-Fire, you might have a better chance of being standing when you come back.
[/ QUOTE ]
But... that would require a little planning and thought. I don't do that sort of thing! I will just start doing what all aspiring writers do, and hang out by the train, talking out loud to myself...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Here's a longer post than usual, someone let me know if it's too long to read in one sitting. I'm posting more often now, so hopefully those of you who are always impatient for the next segment are a little more satiated (stop calling my house at night asking for the next installment!).
Entry 31
The next mission for Martial Master takes place in a Carnie dance club. It's so cool I hang out for a while after the mission is complete! Hmm, I could have used some dance partners on this one. I haven't upgraded enhancements in a while, so I head to the store to experiment. Usually I just plug things in, but this time, I take my time. I learn a new thing - you can combine similar enhancements in the top tray. Granted, I think it tells you that you can somewhere on the screen, but who stops to read these days anyway?
Nemesis himself kicks my butt with my current build, so I head back to the store and forget the experiments, I go all-out on enhancements. Next time I try him on, things will be different! I also try a neat trick that's just pain fun. I have five damage enhancements in my Enhancement Inventory tray, and I click on one from my Eagles Claw. It comes down into the addition bar. Next, I click on a Damage Enhancement from the Inventory tray, but I don't click Combine!' Instead, I click on the next Damage Enhancement in my Inventory Tray, and the next, and the next. It makes a funny sound (the normal sound it makes when loading into the addition slot, but interrupted by the beginning of another), while all the red enhancements are marching up and down from the addition bar to the Enhancement tray, back and forth, reminiscent of a Marx Brothers movie! The previous Enhancement goes back to its place on the enhancement Inventory tray automatically, and I make my Enhancements dance! When I get it going fast enough, it sounds like crickets chirping. I don't know if I have described this well enough, but I was like a cat playing with yarn all of a sudden. I can't wait to try it with a full tray of ten enhancements next.
I can't find anyone looking for a group, so I log off for the evening.
The next time I can play, I immediately I send a request asking for anyone near level 46, if they want to take on the Nemesis AV. I get a tell from Fire Shot, who tells me he loves my thread on the message boards. I'm famous! But not famous enough to attract any takers for the AV (Fire Shot was a little too far down in level at the time, I'm assuming). I run off for Perez Park instead, to take out Knight Blue 1-0.
This has been the biggest problem in the game, really. I need a team to clear the mission, but it doesn't do me much good to find a bunch of lower-level heroes, and that's all that shows up on my screen. Often, I resort to sending polite tells to others; their LFG button is not on, but many of them understand the help needed with AVs, and half the time people will stop and help you out for one mission. No luck tonight. I just hope I don't have to carry this one around as long as I carried Madame of Mystery and Anti-Matter. I've finally grown to enjoy teaming as much as - if not more than - solo play, but there's no one available to team. It happens a ton. I'm not sure if people are just isolating themselves at the upper levels to "who you know," or if there are simply not enough people on the servers during the time of day when I play. I'm hoping when I go back to my alts I can hook each one of them up with an sg that has two or three people who play fairly constantly. I'm not a power gamer by any means, but I usually play two or three times a week, and my regular Friends list for MM is dark more often than lit up with the blue showing somebody's online.
In the mission, I teleport over to a Sapper and launch an attack. It looks really cool as I hit him with an Eagles Claw and then a Crane Kick, because I'm still floating, due to the temporary hover effect from a TP. I even end up one level lower as the hover effect wears off. Elude isn't being used as much, but I usually kick it on when I get near a Sapper. Irritating little buggers. My next mission from Crimson talks about Nemesis meeting with Malta, and some of Nemesis' soldiers thinking he is dead. That would have been a lot more fun if I could have found a team to take out Nemesis in my other mission first. I would have had personal intel that the bad guys didn't know for a change, and it wouldn't have come to me from my contacts.
The next night, I find someone near my level, but he's tired of debt, so he doesn't want to do an AV. He quits immediately. I'm guessing he's had some bad experiences, because half the time I don't die on AV missions. It's Saturday night, a medium load on Freedom server, so I put out my request again. No bites at all. I think I can safely say that there is a problem getting teams together. Considering most of the other MMORGs out there seem geared towards team play, I have enjoyed this opportunity the most, since I need the ability to casual play. I will never be a power gamer, and for four nights in a row, I've been on the lookout for teaming opportunities (yeah, I'm on four nights in a row, but for a very small amount of time! So I'm not a power gamer. I'm not!). But carrying a mission around for weeks at a time, with no people willing to help out, as I did for Anti-Matter and M. of Mystery, leads me to believe that we need a re-working of the team seek function. Maybe a separate menu area that serves as an in-game bulletin board, so that people who want to team, but don't want to do kora or wolf-farming missions will know ahead of time what type of group they are joining. I know I could easily set up a "Team Needed" each time, listing an AV mish, plus other missions for after. Other players would be able to find task forces and respec trial allies. As it is, I am left with a little frustration, just hoping to find a team someday in the next couple weeks. I decide to test how long it takes to find a team. I put on my Team Seek at 9:20 p.m., waiting to see how long until somebody bites. A red-conning level 48 Nemesis Colonel whittles my health down while I'm tackling his minions, so I actually punch Elude up... and I nail him in one shot form a Critical Hit Eagles Claw. Go figure. And shouldn't "Eagles" have an apostrophe in it? Shouldn't it be "Eagle's Claw?" Or is my attack imitating multiple eagles somehow?
I do some grinding in PI for a while, and it's pleasant. I've got an arrest 50 Carnie mission, but I keep running across orange and red Fake Nemesis and gunslingers, and it's hard to pass them up. A blue-conning Ring Mistress disappears before I can get there in one of the area "respawns" that seems to happen quite a bit, I'm not sure about the frequency of it. They are replaced by about 8 grey Rikti. Ptheh! While running around, I jump into the middle of a bunch of garbage cans and get stuck. I have to teleport to get out of the garbage. Sigh. The interesting ways of this game are simultaneously weird and amusing. I finish the mission in a leisurely fashion, then immediately go back to the contact. Another arrest 50 mission. Gah! Another tromp around PI, back to the contact, it's almost 11:00 p.m., and... another arrest 50 Carnies! PI gets more and more crowded, but not a single team invite. I check the find Team button a couple more times, no luck. My next mission gives me a purple Nemesis and a purple Malta, who send me to the hospital. Now I have two missions I need help to finish. I log out about 12:45 a.m., without having a team the whole night.
Sunday night, I log on around 6:30 p.m., figuring maybe a different time will yield better results. I don't know if that's the case, but I hit jackpot! Two friends, SoupNazi and Lady Quasar are both online. Midnight Rambler sends me a tell from nowhere, saying he likes the thread I write, so he gets an invite, natch. Sir Jabin gets an invite from the LFT menu, and someone else asks for me to invite Nocturnia. Hot dog! We go after Nemesis again, and what a difference it makes! Nothing slows us down, we've got two people who can Nova, and the mission is over so fast I'm dizzy.
We are joined by others, Ms. Moxie and AmaDlogi, and go on to tackle another mission. It's an old one, too easy for us, so Lady Quasar goes out to change it to Invincible. Gah! We have a few deaths this time. We start mixing up a couple strategies, with SoupNazi pulling sometimes, other times I grab aggro to give cover for a Nova. Fun! I teleport through an awkward doorway and start taking on a small mob, and I catch Midnight Rambler out of the corner of my eye, wading into another group. It has a purple boss, and he's down in seconds! Poor guy, he's MA/SR like me, but he's doing a toggle build, no Elude. SoupNazi can't believe it, one of his first questions is why he doesn't have Elude. Midnight Rambler may get it on Respec. After the times he got taken out and I didn't, he might have already done it. But everybody played well. There were a couple times I got to experience what I read off the boards from other SR scrappers, as I'm plugging away, and realize I'm actually the only one left standing, and everyone else is telling me to run away before it's too late. Sometimes it was a Warhulk exploding, others it was from a boss out of our sight drawing aggro on one of us. This has been the first time in a while I've been on a full team of eight, and it was a blast. Most of us log out for dinner after three missions.
I'm enjoying MM's adventures so much I can't stay away. I log back on after dinner, with a load of laundry in the washer and one in the dryer. SoupNazi is (still?) on! I decide to go solo for a little while, since we did such a big team-up earlier. I take on the Carnies, watching with glee as my Crane Kick sends one of them flying off the stairs. That never gets old! I try to only do that when I'm solo, though (some people don't like the Knockback effect on teams). Another one tries to run away and jump down to freedom, but I know better than to auto-follow. I use my Super Speed to get ahead of her just as she jumps, and I Storm Kick her into unconsciousness. I'm just congratulating myself on my superior skills, when I mis-time my jump and get stuck in-between two chairs...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Actually, if you log into Test and check out the /search function, you'll see that there's been a few improvements. When you do a search, there's options for "looking for missions," "looking for arena," "looking for task force," etc. You can also set a search comment, so when your name comes up on a search it could say "Need to take down Nemesis AV!" or "PLZ PL MEH!" or "No, I will not be your bridge" next to it. Perhaps not exactly what you had in mind, but it's still a welcome improvement.
Great thread, by the way, as if you didn't have enough people telling you that
Outside of Journal Commentary
Hey HexEnder, any writer will tell you that praise never gets old! Just ask VickiVee (makes up for the thousands of rejection notices we always get when submitting our work). We need continual positive reinforcement to keep our self-esteem from crumbling! Some wanna-be writers, like me, actually never submit work to be published in a professional environment, because they are not sure they can handle the amount of rejection that comes with the job. It's sort of like being the shy guy who loses out in the bar, because the guy who's a dog is willing to ask a hundred chicks if she'll make out with him, and he's perfectly content to keep going after being told no 99 times, and even slapped in the face more than once. The shy guy is not going to be able to work up enough nerve to ask more than once or twice before he goes away, dejected, convinced he will never succeed. (I think I may have just inadvertantly written that to be a successful writer, you need to be a dog and willing to sleep with anybody...)
Keep in mind that these are ideas I wrote down months back; I am not revising them as I go, I am presenting my story as it happened. So my thoughts are "dated" thoughts that represent what I was thinking at the time, and will not normally mention current events. In the case of the search feature, I've posted suggestions in other places on the boards about this idea before, but I've seen it mirrored by several others, so it's not like I can take any special credit for its implementation. Logging into the Test Server though, you have living proof that the Devs do indeed read the boards and take into account our ideas, and listen to the suggestons of players on how to improve the game. It's also highly possible that they were already examinig the search feature and how to improve it on their own, but I suspect they designed it and turned it loose, and it was comments on the boards over time that got them to thinking about it again. Just as someone else should always "proof" your work for spelling errors, because as the originator you love your work and may not see the errors, game developers can fall into the trap of designing something good and not examining it further, not realizing or noticing that it could actually be great, unless someone else steps in to point out a new possiblity to them.
I think I may have written down in a later account my observation of that search feature when I took one of my characters onto the test server, but that's several posts away still. Keep reading! And keep showering me with praise, my ego is not big enough yet. I can still fit my head through the double entry doors at work...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Entry 32
The next Carnie mission has me boarding a train to save six people, and the first two look like twin bald men. One of them talks about how his parents made him angry and he felt all this rage... the guy looks 42! I'm prancing around without Elude, wondering if the game is broke. I stop to check my mission slider level - yup, still on unyielding. Do I need to put it one notch higher now? I'm still relatively lousy at finding things on a map, so these board train missions have me clearing almost the whole map before I can find the sixth hostage. I get overconfident from all of this easy stuff, and ignore my health when it gets low. Dirt nap! Serves me right, how hard can it be to pop a stupid green Respite anyway? This is actually part of the SR scrapper mentality, and it fits me well, since I'm from Las Vegas. We COULD pop a Respite... but let's see what the percentages say on whether we get hit again or not, shall we? I can't tell you how many times I could have saved myself with an inspiration, but I kept on going, just to see how good my reflexes were. I probably won't tempt fate like this with any other character, but hey, that's what Super Reflexes are there for in the first place! And the occasional death keeps me humble, too. I may flirt like crazy, but at least I don't run around boasting about how uber I am. If I haven't gotten knocked out in two levels, though, there's a danger of that, so I was about due, by my way of thinking.
As a matter of fact, I am so bad with this, I decide to use my one Awaken to come up for air, even though there are two Carnies left, and one of them has not moved from where she has been standing, feet spread apart right above me (ah, the view...). I wake up disoriented, hit the S' button to stumble awkwardly backward, and take my chances as the two Carnies sometimes hit me, but more often miss. Then I hit Hasten, Conserve Power, and Elude, and kick their tails in three seconds. Now that's a super hero!
The final citizen is also a bald man like the other five before him, and he is the last place on the map (I know they're always in the last place you look, because after you find them, you're not looking anymore, but this was literally the last place left on the map!).
SoupNazi is still online, it's like he never logs! We end up in the same place at the same time, and Soup asks if there's room for him. Considering there are no other teammates, sure! We get a Banished Pantheon mission. I'm groaning about all the time I wasted in Dark Astoria working on the spirit badge, afraid we'd never get more missions involving them again. Soup knows his way around the game, so I defer to him, and he teaches me how to herd. I'd read about tanks herding, and thought you needed a good Taunt, but Soup says I can do it with SR. Who says an old dog can't learn new tricks? He's a Defender with Kinetics, and Siphon Power and Speed Boost alone make us virtually invincible. We clean the clock of every zombie, skeleton, spirit, what have you, and make it look easy. If this keeps up, I'm definitely going to have to move up my mission difficulty slider, because we are literally too good at this together. It's after 2:00 a.m., and I absolutely have to log! Lemme check... yup, the game is still addictive!
I finally get a wolf mission! It's all yellows, no orange-conning wolves at all. No friends online, nobody looking for a team, so I go do a famed wolf mission solo. Bwah-ha-hah! It's kind of easy, but the wolves are fun to look at, and their howls and belches are great. I get xp as I exit the mission, and just happen to level up to 47 while the screen is taking me from the mission to a Portal room. I miss the animation
I take Focused Accuracy (FA) and test it out, and since I detest missing, it seems this power is tailor-made for me. I'm not sure if I'll take out the Accuracy Enhancements from my attacks or not. I get an invite from someone who needs help with Anti-Matter, so I get SoupNazi, and we go hand him his butt. He actually commits suicide in front of us, which puzzles me for a second, because I've never seen that before. Next, I get another timed wolf mission, and the four of us tear it up, splitting into groups of two, it's so easy. That's it, I go change my settings to Invincible!
I take a Malta mission next, jump into a group of nine red Maltas, I have Focused Accuracy and Focus Chi on, go into an Eagles Claw, and... miss! Ah well, so FA isn't perfect!
I'm hunting Maltas, but I stop to see if I can take out a level 49 Fake Nemesis without Elude on. It works, but I chase a Colonel near a group of Possessed Scientists. I drop the Colonel, whose Vengeance affects the scientists, and when I run at them, they perma-hold me. I'm dead meat before I can activate either Practiced Brawler or Elude. Guess I shouldn't have charged in on them after all. A group takes them down while I'm napping, because I stopped to accept a group invite. The team that took out the scientists also invites me. I haven't had Team Seek on all night, but I've got invites coming out my ears now! Must be the magic level 47.
I reach the location of the team, and one of the members isn't there yet. "What are you doing?" He asks. "Taking out the Nemesis AV." I chime in, "Actually, I'm just standing around right now, dancing to imaginary music." Any excuse to drag out the emotes! We take out a level 50 "Nemesis?" with very little problem. Then, I gotta log for dinner.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Special MMORG Commentary
I have never done a rant before, and I think to have a complete MMORG experience, I should be at least try it once. So here goes:
/ranton
One thing I have noticed about my experience is that the message boards themselves have become a large part of the experience, and not just because of the journal itself. You basically get an experience out of whatever you put in, so the more and better things you do on the boards, the better your experience will be, and it might even spillover into your enjoyment of the game. My original plans were to only comment on the game itself, and confine my comments to that aspect of my experience, but I have found that the boards are related, and worthy of mention. One thing in particular grabbed my attention, when Issue 4 was being tested. Statesman came out and declared that a bug disabled the damage combat modifiers in one of their testing branches, throwing everything out of whack. Board members caught the mistake from a posted video capture, and notified the Devs. The Devs checked, realized the players were right and there was a bug, and Statesman immediately issued an apology for the slip-up and thanked the community, and put a hold on changes until he was sure they had them right. This is the right and responsible thing to do in real life, in every workplace, in every situation. One, if you're wrong, admit it and move on. Two, if something is not working right, check it and recheck it until you are confident that it is a good product. Nobody is happy when a mistake is made, but we should be very happy they fixed it. I know when somebody messes up my day, I'm going to have much more respect if they make things right with me. Too many people will shrug and walk away or actually make things worse.
So imagine my surprise to see people posting that the Devs screwed everything up, that they don't know their own game, and criticizing them left and right. The thing is, they came right out and admitted they weren't playing the same game because of the bugged data. Let me say this: if I have son and he makes a mistake, am I going to respect him for coming to me and allow him to set things right, or am I going to lord it over him that he was wrong, when he already knows it? With that attitude, all I would guarantee is that my son covers up his mistakes and never talks to me about anything important ever again. People are human and they make mistakes. I've been to a KFC, and they told me they were out of original recipe chicken. I've worked at a theatre where the assistant manager forgot to order enough popcorn or soda, and I had to tell people we didn't have Coke, and we didn't have popcorn!?! Thankfully, not at the same time. It happens. As unbelievable as it seems. I've seen far worse, for less excuse. I've given a parking validation stub to a parking attendant so I wouldn't have to pay an extra parking fee, and he tried to charge me anyway, until I pointed out it was marked properly, he just had to turn it over and look at it. His entire purpose in life, is entire reason for being paid, was sitting there and looking for the mark, and he missed even that. People mess up. When I do it, I apologize and blame it on my mind by saying, "Sorry, I just had a brain fart." I've even messed up on simple things, and people have been incredulous that I missed it, partly because I'm usually pretty good at that sort of thing. Sometimes everyone misses the same thing. It's not right to yell at them for that. Are you perfect?
I suspect the main source for this poor behavior is impatience with getting an update to the game. An upgrade that the company includes with your subscription and does not charge you for, as other game companies often do. This is short-sighted. In a choice between having their pie now and having it be rotten, they instead are told they will be given fresh pie in a couple more days, and they throw a tantrum. The mistake only got to the Test Server, and didn't even make it as far as the Training Room. Sometimes the best things in the world happen because of a mistake. In this case, the best thing happened for the CoH gaming community that tested the changes, and kept alert in an interaction with the Devs. The players were able to point out a bug that the Devs had missed. Do you have any idea how huge that is? Any idea how much more willing everyone on the Dev team will be to listen to the next person who chimes in and says, "Hey, I've tested this and something doesn't seem right..."? They are going to share more information with us in the future, and listen to us, their customers, which is exactly how a prospering company is supposed to behave. We are practically guaranteed to have a greater say in the development of this game we love, and have earned the respect and appreciation of the company, and when was the last time you saw that kind of attitude from Microsoft or IBM, or a politician, or even your own parents, maybe?
To those that say you were presented with a rosy picture of constant updates that work perfectly and you are upset that you are not getting that... I'm new to this entire environment, but I'm old enough to know things never turn out that way in any environment, especially with a new product. Optimistic people always present you with their dreams and what they want and hope to have happen, but you're the one who decides if you're going to be pissed if reality turns out different from your expectations. Life is much happier when you simply accept that reality will not always conform to what you expect, and if you accept what comes your way without artificially adding a negative emotion to the event, everything will be better and happier for all involved, including yourself.
I'm not a mindless brown-noser fanboy who thinks the Devs are infallible. I'm someone who thinks people were working with skewed data, which skewed the discussion, which should not be a source of anger when the truth was finally revealed. I'm someone who thinks if you can't screw up in a test environment specifically designed for the purpose of testing things out, where in the world can you screw up? I'm someone who enjoys the game, looks forward to the expansions when they actually come out, does other things with my time if I feel the game is not where I want it to be to keep playing currently, and infinitely prefers for something to be done right the first time than to be handed a pile of crap. This mistake was spotted and fixed, and was not handed to us live, or even on Test. The vast majority of the community, from what I have seen, feels the same way, and my request for others to take it easy and try not to be so upset is restricted to a very small number, and I am happy about that. I am actually proud to be a part of this community, something I did not expect to happen. I appreciate the honesty of people who admit when they are wrong, and I am grateful for people who clean up after their own mess, as I already handle enough crap in my life. I thank you for this game, I thank you for your constant hard work, I forgive your for your mistakes, I hope people will be gracious enough to forgive me for mine, and I thank the community here for their fellowship.
/rantoff
We now return you to your regularly scheduled journal.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Wish I could give you 5 more stars, tpull. Bravo. Perfect.
Certain people on this board need to read this and take it to heart, and then get off their high horse.
Usually a lurker but let me say that that was very wonderfully said. Too many ppl just love to point accusatory fingers at one another. Now let's see more of MM's escapades
Nice post, Tpull. All rants should be like this.
Entry 26
It took me forever to realize that I should be submitting spelling and grammar collections not through their regular support choices, but by hitting the File Bug Report. I've submitted so many, I got discouraged and quit for a while. But I think of all the younger people who might be playing, and I really think good spelling and grammar is so essential everywhere you go in real life, I just can't ignore it. Really, I've lost count of how many times people were impressed by the simple ability to read, write, and speak in a clear and correct fashion. I felt full of sadistic glee when I spotted a typo in Marvel's revised complaint against CoH. Here they have lawyers getting paid millions per year. These attorneys are at home on the toilet, charging $175 an hour, saying, "Hey, while I was doing Number 2, I was thinking about their case!" and charging Marvel for billing time. They can't even file a legal document without running a spell check or a grammar check! Embarrassing...
I'm not perfect either, and I may misspell something as I write here (I always mess up the word "misspell" the first time I type it, for example), but it is not mentioned enough how vital the ability to communicate well serves people. So I dedicate myself to reading every flavor text, both because I love a good story (and hope they give me one), and because I want to help them correct any errors. My hands are full, because I find a spelling error approximately every fifth or sixth text box. I'll find out if they have corrected them when I switch to an alt and go through them again. Plus, I have to check the new zones like Striga Isle for the first time. If CoH has a text editor, he or she really fell down on this job in a major way. One of Tina Macintyre's missions has two errors in a row, one text box after the other (during a timed mish, natch, so I gotta spend my time typing instead of going to the rescue. Ah, what the hey, I never run out of time anyway) I know it's a game, but come on, how many times can you mix up "its" and "it's?" I consider it my act of charity to the devs, and I wish I could earn a badge for submitting the most bug reports helping them out with spelling and grammar.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp