Did you know... The unofficial history thread
By
0zymandous,
Posted on: 2006-03-23 01:22 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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There you go, Saber. Fixed it for you! 
(It's a reference to when Sabercat met the devs at a Frye's store one time and posted the pics. Between that and the excellent dev tracker of his from beta, lots of jokes came out of it.)
Did you know that the devs' posts were originally tracked by a separate program designed by Sabercat and the results had their own separate thread in the pre-beta and CoH beta forums? (Just trying to keep the post on-topic.)
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lol, thanks TK!
Well, this must be a "Certified Old School Thread" now. Poison and I posted back-to-back and somebody brought up the DevTracker! 
Here's a good one:
Did you know....
that one of the Devs has a website containing a bunch of stuff including a blog and a webcam from his office at Cryptic?
(No, I won't tell you who it is or give out the URL so don't bother PMing me. Yes, I realize that means my "Did you know" can't be confirmed. No, I don't care. I don't want the poor guy spammed with "Hey, fix this bug!" blog comments! 
)
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Ooh! Along these same lines..
Did you know..
...that despite what people say or ask, the devs actually do play the live version of the game on the servers?
...that (at least the one I know of, if not knowing personally) some PvP and while being good, aren't the uberness?
...that there's a big possibility that issues 1-6 were a test run for the game to see how it'd do in it's primary market of Asia?
...that now that the game's in Asia, unless it absolutely bombs there, there's no way the game's going anywhere?
...that in the CoV beta, you used to be able to abuse the newly designed Gladiator matches for insane xp, as they were giving out xp as if you were killing the gladiators? As in.. lvl 49 mobs, including enhancement and insp drops?
...that the devs took awhile to fix this, most likely due to a combination of creating the fix and that as a result of the bug, they ended up with more people being able to test the higher level content in CoV?
...that the greatest bug ever in the CoV beta was a toon ending up zoning in or something and ending up 500 feet tall?
...that Smartfilter (at least at my job) will block you access to the City of Villains site, but not the City of Heroes site?
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...that the greatest bug ever in the CoV beta was a toon ending up zoning in or something and ending up 500 feet tall?
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The second best bug ever was a villain changing sides in the middle of a base raid and attacking his former friends, who subsequently lost.
Did you know
...that there was a bug in beta where you could use Burn while being phase shifted.
...That if you look on the inside cover of the CoH box you will see a gravity controller in a blue and brown costume. Her name is Controller Grav and she was my beta character. I play her to this day with the same costume (yes she had it washed). (( I don't know if others pictured are PC's or not would be cool to find out though))
...That during Beta Dimension Shift used to be a phase ally power. It was later changed into a phase enemy power but did not have an immobilization. It was later changed again to include an immobilization during release. At the end beta it was often called Dim Shaft. 
I'm really sorry I called it that turned out to be one of my favorite powers come release.
...that one of the things testers were asked to test was the ability to greif each other. Recall Friend and Fold space were used to drop a team below a map. Wormhole and TP were used to drop a mob off the map preventing kill all or kill boss missions from being completed. Dim Shift was used on the tank to cause a team wipe... And many more creative things were thought up. Was one of the most enjoyable beta test weeks. Much better then the "We just added boomtown so spend a week in there and let us know what you think" I still know the place like the back of my hand.
...That hardly anyone ever took the Fitness pool. Most just wanted to fly, teleport, run or jump.
...That the first round beta testers had to actually mail or fax in our NDA's. Electronic agreements via NDA's were added when the website was upgraded.
...That during beta we had a mission completion survey in which we would rate the mission and add what we liked/disliked about it. Was very cool.
....That in beta hunt missions sent you to specific locations and in those locations the mobs you were meant to hunt could not be found.
...That blasters were played so much after their secondaries were altered the devs asked the beta people to spread out our AT's as some were getting ignored.
...That missions didn't have difficulty levels and that bosses use to appear at the end of almost every mission.
...That a PvP switch did exist because the dev had turned it on at an office christmas party and controllers owned everyone. I remember I think it was Statesmen that commented about that.
There was once a time when Break Free inspirations didn't exist. All you could get to protect you from holds, sleeps and stuns were 'Discipline' inspirations, which you had to take before a fight. They wouldn't break a mez effect once it had already taken hold.
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There was once a time when Break Free inspirations didn't exist. All you could get to protect you from holds, sleeps and stuns were 'Discipline' inspirations, which you had to take before a fight. They wouldn't break a mez effect once it had already taken hold.
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It should be noted that these lasted longer than Break Frees . When you cash in 1000 Bounty in Siren's Call, you can buy a second tier Discpline Inspiration, called a Strength of Will, which gives about two minutes of mez protection. This is probably a bug though.
Heroes
Dysmal
Lumynous
Sam Steele
Pluck
Wile
Slagheap
Pressure Wave
Rhiannon Bel
Verified
Stellaric
Syd Mallorn
Villains
Jotunheim Skald
Saer Maen
Jen Corbae
Illuminance
Venator Arawn
Taiga Dryad
Tarranos
Did you know...?
The first appearance of the Fir Bolg (i.e., those pumpkin-headed villains in Croatoa) was during the Halloween Event. The giant monster Eochai the Pumpkin King, would randomly spawn in certain zones, and he would generate little Fir Bolg minions.
Did you know...?
During the Halloween event players could also play a "trick or treat" minigame. By clicking on nearly any door, heroes would receive either a "treat" (usually an inspiration) or a "trick" (a wave of special villains -- witches, werewolves, ghosts, vampires, or pumpkins). Players could earn badges by defeating a number of the special "trick" villains (except for pumpkins).
Did you know...?
At the end of the Winter Lord event, all large bodies of water in Paragon city were frozen over so that heroes could slide on them. This effect lasted about a week or two.
Did you know...?
The high frequency of Winter Lord spawns during the Winter event led to the phenomenon of "Winter Lord Babies" -- newbies who leveled up so fast from the XP off Winter Lords that they lacked basic game knowledge and had no idea how to effectively play their characters at such high levels. (Seriously, I had a lvl 23 ask me how to send a tell.)
Did you know...?
You know those little "flavor blurbs" you see upon entering a mission for the first time? For example: "You can tell from the scorch marks on the wall that the Hellions have been here." At first, those blurbs didn't exist. They were added later as a means of lessening the feeling of repetition players felt when doing missions. (Take a few moments and think what it would be like without them. It's quite a difference.)
Did you know...?
Used to be that the Circle of Thorns didn't have any "vanilla melee" minions, which made the CoT pretty tough for low-level heroes to deal with, as the best a new hero could hope for was Thorn Wielders and Archers. The Guardians were added later as a way to lessen the CoT's relative uberness.
Did you know...?
Corruptors in CoV were originally called Destroyers.
Did you know...?
At first, Tanker attacks did not possess any inherent AoE taunt ability. Tankers instead were forced to take Provoke for AoE taunts. This changed when the devs added the so-called "Punchvoke" ability to all Tankers, which was later more properly named "Gauntlet".
Did you know...?
Scrappers and Tankers both used to have the same single-target taunt power, called "Taunt". When the Tanker primary power became an AoE taunt rather than a single-target taunt, the Scrapper taunt power was renamed "Confront" to avoid confusion.
Did you know...?
Used to be, players who took the Teleport power had to be pretty quick on the draw to avoid taking damage from falling, as originally Teleport had no "grace period" for hovering in the air. It was strictly "pop & drop".
Did you know...?
Originally, most Dark Armor toggles wouldn't stack, which often meant that DA Scrappers would have to, depending on their present enemies, determine which Armor aura would be most useful and go into battle with that toggle alone switched on.
Did you know...?
The Blaster inherent ability "Defiance" was originally called "Desperation", but the name was changed due to player complaints that "desperation" didn't sound very heroic.
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Did you know...?
Originally, most Dark Armor toggles wouldn't stack, which often meant that DA Scrappers would have to, depending on their present enemies, determine which Armor aura would be most useful and go into battle with that toggle alone switched on.
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Neither did temp invulnerability and unyielding, formerly known as unyielding stance. This required the tank to get within melee range of foes, then switch to US. If the baddies ran away (or were pushed aside by pedestrians!) you couldn't attack as you were firmly rooted in place. You had to decide whether to switch back to TI and wait for US to recycle or to sit and hope the baddie would move back into melee range.
Also, for those unaware, capes were not part of the game in beta or at release. They first came around in issue 2. Auras too -- but they were in issue 3.
Did you know this about CoV?
-Corrupters not only used to be called Destroyers, but also Enforcers. I wouldn't have been surprised that there were more names for them on the dev side of things.
-Scourge used to be an automatic critical after a certain health point (25%, IIRC). This made it almost useless on minions and Lts., so it was changed.
-Domination used to be that the lower an enemy's health was, the better your holds were. I liked that version.
Did you know this about CoH?
-The leader of the Sky Raiders is an AV named Dural. He was rumored to have existed in beta, and was in one of the trailers/videos, but there have been no reports of his existence besides that.
-The list of Tsoo bosses is the longest in the game, and some may no longer exist (and I know of nobody that has seen all of them, I have only just seen their names). They are: Dragon Fly (we all know these guys), Iron Hands (I saw a couple in Steel), Bronze Leopard (same with this one), Swift Steel (Talos is where I find these), Ice Wind (never seen one), Midnight (I think I saw this in a mission once), Death Moon (never seen him), Lightning Blade (I've seen one, but I forget where), Fire Dagger (Fire Lion is one of these, IIRC), Lost Son (I fought one random one in a mission), Death's Head (I think I saw one... maybe), Viridian Fear (dumb name, never seen one), Copper Serpent (never seen one), Far Fire (haven't met this one, either), Crescent (these guys have Grav and MA, so I'm glad to have never seen one), Herald (think Yellow Ink Man as a boss, never met one, though), and Sky Fall (Storm Summoning with a bow and katana, never seen one of these, either). All of the Tsoo had Superleap except Enforcers, but as far as I know, only Green Ink Men have it now.
-Badges didn't used to exist.
-Neither did Coyote.
-NPC teammates and escorts were from I5.
-The entrance to the Rikti Crash Site was around, but locked, in early development, according to Prima.
-Yeah, all this stuff can be found in the old Prima guide.
-Countess Crey uses the power, Boxing, as her melee attack. That just strikes me funny.
-AT inherent powers started in I5, but Defenders had to wait for theirs.
I'll see if I can dig up some more later.
[B]The Once and Future Official Minister of Awesome[/B]
[I]And don't you forget it.[/I]
[URL="http://paragonunleashed.proboards.com/index.cgi"][IMG]http://gamefacelive.com/bre/joker.png[/IMG][/URL]
Did you know, that on the day of one of the patch releases( I think issue 2) Babbage spawned inside of City hall on Pinnacle server.
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-The list of Tsoo bosses is the longest in the game, and some may no longer exist (and I know of nobody that has seen all of them, I have only just seen their names). They are: Dragon Fly (we all know these guys), Iron Hands (I saw a couple in Steel), Bronze Leopard (same with this one), Swift Steel (Talos is where I find these), Ice Wind (never seen one), Midnight (I think I saw this in a mission once), Death Moon (never seen him), Lightning Blade (I've seen one, but I forget where), Fire Dagger (Fire Lion is one of these, IIRC), Lost Son (I fought one random one in a mission), Death's Head (I think I saw one... maybe), Viridian Fear (dumb name, never seen one), Copper Serpent (never seen one), Far Fire (haven't met this one, either), Crescent (these guys have Grav and MA, so I'm glad to have never seen one), Herald (think Yellow Ink Man as a boss, never met one, though), and Sky Fall (Storm Summoning with a bow and katana, never seen one of these, either). All of the Tsoo had Superleap except Enforcers, but as far as I know, only Green Ink Men have it now.
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i've seen all of these guys in game, so yes thier all in game and now you know of someone who has seen them all.
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Resistance is the Mez Resistance that AVs get. Statesman, During the end-of-CoV-beta event, also had a Statesman power pool that contained, if I remember correctly, Charged Bolts, Lightning Bolt, Ball Lightning, and Thunderous Blast. In addition, War Witch had a power, I can't remember what it was called, but it made her randomly phase shift while still being able to attack, like Carnie Illusionists and Diabolique. She had it because she's dead. (When I first found out War Witch was one of the heroes there at the raid, I immediately thought of the Space Mutiny episode of MST3K, and said to myself, "Boy, it sure was nice of them to let that dead girl come along to the raid.")
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"Look alive, Debbie!"
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That Provoke from the Presence Pool was pretty much universally required of tanks, while Taunt was single-target and reviled as a useless power?
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Actually, Taunt was very useful in situations that required a pull. I was just starting to get really good at it when it was changed to an AoE. Provoke pretty much filled the role of aggro management that Taunt improved upon after the change.
And, keeping more on topic, Dark Servant used to have Fearsome Stare in its arsenal. Since scared mobs used to run, this was frustrating, so the ability was replaced with Petrifying Gaze.
(I got beaten to the punch on the stuff I was writing up about the Halloween event.)
The Players' Guide to the Cities
I've seen all of the Tsoo bosses at some point. Got screenies of most of them. You can usually find a random smattering of them in the tunnel that leads from the Striga ferry up to the Arena in Talos.
Death Moon
Death's Head
Far Fire
Fire Dagger
Herald
Lightning Blade
Lost Son
Copper Serpent
Bronze Leopard
Terrible Wind (named boss - not sure, but probably a Lost Son from a different angle)
Viridian Fear
The Players' Guide to the Cities
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AND did you know that these Rularuu were hideously broken?
The giant eyeballs would chain-mez anyone foolish enough to come near them, while the brutes would pound them into quivering red stains. They were so outrageously overpowered that a medium size group conning green could easily slay most solo heroes. If you wanted to kill Rularuu, you had to go find grey-conning mobs that gave zero or nearly zero xp (and yet were a pain to kill).
After this became apparent, almost everyone just left them the hell alone. So Paragon City's second Alien Invasion event consisted of a bunch of bored aliens standing (or floating) around in groups throughout the zones while the Brave Defenders of Paragon just swung in wide circles around them while on their way to things that might actually give then XP. 
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Untrue! Many of us went looking for the portals in the lower level areas just to keep the new folks safe.
An organized team could take on a normal portal of even cons. They could only chain mez one person and heck, that's what clear mind is for
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Did you know
That at one time the public school system taught something called reading comprehension?
So, for example, when I post something about how a SOLO hero would get chain-mezzed and beat into the dust by green-con Rularuu, an old-timer like myself (who attended public school in the late 70s early 80s) would automatically assume that I was talking about a SOLO hero. But someone coming out of the American public school system more recently will apparently just assume that the phrase SOLO hero refers to heroes in organized teams!
Freaky, huh?
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
Did you know that at one time certain board members decried the addition of asian costume elements as the certain downfall of the game?
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Did you know that at one time certain board members decried the addition of asian costume elements as the certain downfall of the game?
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NO! DOOOOOOMMMM!!!!
Did you know..
..at one point, way before beta, there was a time when people didn't cry doom at the smallest of developer posts? I wasn't there, but I can imagine.. ..or hope.
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Did you know..
..at one point, way before beta, there was a time when people didn't cry doom at the smallest of developer posts? I wasn't there, but I can imagine.. ..or hope.
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Yep.... and then the Big Bang happened... since then, nothing but DOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM at every single change to anything. 
Did you know...
The boards Pre-Beta had many inteligent people who didn't fly off the handle over blattently over powered things? Yup, back then the boards were civil and close knit.
The Tsoo definitely have the coolest bosses.
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-The list of Tsoo bosses is the longest in the game, and some may no longer exist (and I know of nobody that has seen all of them, I have only just seen their names). They are: Dragon Fly (we all know these guys), Iron Hands (I saw a couple in Steel), Bronze Leopard (same with this one), Swift Steel (Talos is where I find these), Ice Wind (never seen one), Midnight (I think I saw this in a mission once), Death Moon (never seen him), Lightning Blade (I've seen one, but I forget where), Fire Dagger (Fire Lion is one of these, IIRC), Lost Son (I fought one random one in a mission), Death's Head (I think I saw one... maybe), Viridian Fear (dumb name, never seen one), Copper Serpent (never seen one), Far Fire (haven't met this one, either), Crescent (these guys have Grav and MA, so I'm glad to have never seen one), Herald (think Yellow Ink Man as a boss, never met one, though), and Sky Fall (Storm Summoning with a bow and katana, never seen one of these, either). All of the Tsoo had Superleap except Enforcers, but as far as I know, only Green Ink Men have it now.
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From what I've seen, all Tsoo bosses will spawn in Siren's Call. One of the hotspots has a couple Tsoo Boss-spawns, so you can see these guys pretty regularly in the course of gameplay. Check it out. I'm almost positive I've seen Death Moons, Lost Sons, Far Fires, and Heralds there.
Also, if you did fight your way through the invading Rularuu, they had a ultimate weapon...
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-The list of Tsoo bosses is the longest in the game, and some may no longer exist (and I know of nobody that has seen all of them, I have only just seen their names). They are: Dragon Fly (we all know these guys), Iron Hands (I saw a couple in Steel), Bronze Leopard (same with this one), Swift Steel (Talos is where I find these), Ice Wind (never seen one), Midnight (I think I saw this in a mission once), Death Moon (never seen him), Lightning Blade (I've seen one, but I forget where), Fire Dagger (Fire Lion is one of these, IIRC), Lost Son (I fought one random one in a mission), Death's Head (I think I saw one... maybe), Viridian Fear (dumb name, never seen one), Copper Serpent (never seen one), Far Fire (haven't met this one, either), Crescent (these guys have Grav and MA, so I'm glad to have never seen one), Herald (think Yellow Ink Man as a boss, never met one, though), and Sky Fall (Storm Summoning with a bow and katana, never seen one of these, either). All of the Tsoo had Superleap except Enforcers, but as far as I know, only Green Ink Men have it now.
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i've seen all of these guys in game, so yes thier all in game and now you know of someone who has seen them all.
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Make that two.
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that both the Cabal and Coven were offensive to Witches,
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Hahaha, I remember that. In fact, I remember exactly what I said in one of those threads! It was started by a guy who was a Wiccan and claimed to be a witch.
"This is a bit silly. I mean, come on. You're offended by a video game?
And now, to satisfy my incredibly immature sense of humour...
HAHAHAA YOU CALL YOURSELF A WITCH AND YOU'RE A GUY! WITCHES ARE CHICKS!!1!! LOLOLOLOLOLO!!1"
I still stick by my immature statement.
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Did you know this about CoH?
-The leader of the Sky Raiders is an AV named Dural. He was rumored to have existed in beta, and was in one of the trailers/videos, but there have been no reports of his existence besides that.
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Actually, his name is Duray, and while he isn't seen in City of Heroes, he is at the end of a strike force in City of Villains.
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
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-The list of Tsoo bosses is the longest in the game, and some may no longer exist (and I know of nobody that has seen all of them, I have only just seen their names). They are: Dragon Fly (we all know these guys), Iron Hands (I saw a couple in Steel), Bronze Leopard (same with this one), Swift Steel (Talos is where I find these), Ice Wind (never seen one), Midnight (I think I saw this in a mission once), Death Moon (never seen him), Lightning Blade (I've seen one, but I forget where), Fire Dagger (Fire Lion is one of these, IIRC), Lost Son (I fought one random one in a mission), Death's Head (I think I saw one... maybe), Viridian Fear (dumb name, never seen one), Copper Serpent (never seen one), Far Fire (haven't met this one, either), Crescent (these guys have Grav and MA, so I'm glad to have never seen one), Herald (think Yellow Ink Man as a boss, never met one, though), and Sky Fall (Storm Summoning with a bow and katana, never seen one of these, either). All of the Tsoo had Superleap except Enforcers, but as far as I know, only Green Ink Men have it now.
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Having played the mid-teens to mid-twenties over a dozen times I can say that I have in fact faced every single one of those bosses at one time or another.
Did you know...The Universities in Steel Canyon and Founder's Falls were originally meant to be used as part of the SSOCS (Super Secret Out of Combat System), a way to get XP without fighting. However, this Skills system was never able to be properly implemented in a fun way, so it was placed on the back burner until more important matters could be taken care of or a fresh new way to do it could be thought up.
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...Faultline was at one time "The" place to level.
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The only time I have EVER seen many peeps in Faultline post beta was with the WL invasion which leads too.....
Did you know..... that the WL gave monster level xp and was used as a quick powerleveling tool for almost a month back in 04-05. It was easy to gain up to 10 levels within a matter of hours. It was commonplace to see level 30 "newbs" running around asking where to train for months afterwards. The PuGs were so bad after this WL invasion that many people stopped running PuGs alltogether.