Did you know... The unofficial history thread
By
0zymandous,
Posted on: 2006-03-23 01:22 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Guys, don't derail this wonderful thread with arguments.
The Ace badge awarded by visiting the statue of a hero in the Rikti Crash Site changed from when it was originally implemented. Before, it explained that the statue was of the hero Corsair who fought in WWII. Now, it says that it is of the hero Mustang instead.
The reason behind this may be that they changed it during their fued with Marvel over copyrights. Corsair is the name of Cyclops's father, the captain of the Starjammers.
This is also the reason why Bastion was changed to Citadel. Bastion was the name of a robot from the future, designed after the Nimrod robots from Days of Future Past.
Did you know that there are and have been Super Groups designed around single character classes...
A feature in this game that has not been talked about in this thread has been super teams. By this I mean teams or SGs built around ATs/Builds so that their powers complement one another well.
A few notable examples I know of are Buffer Overrun from Freedom, an all Radiation Emissions SG, Pinball Wizards from Freedom, an all Kinetics SG, and Tank Mages from Protector, a mix of Kinetics, FF, and Sonic defenders. Other superteams I've heard of revolve around all-troller teams, all assault rifle teams, all mastermind teams, etc.
Teaming with these synergistic SGs is usually very different than teaming with normal SGs or PUGs, as roles are very complementary. Also, players on these teams almost universally, in my experience, have the leadership power pool, and these toons often find themselves poorly equipped to play with PUGs, usually as a result of kin and rad based team members never taking Stamina, and so always having end problems on PUGs. Also, synergistic teams tend to fight very quickly, and can do some pretty impressive feats, such as dropping AVs in seconds.
Another distinguishing characteristic of super team based SGs is that they are generational, in that once the first group of players hits 50, the SG pretty much dies away, as most players would rather branch out into other toons than player the same mold again, and so it is very hard to maintain active membership once the SG matures.
As new releases come and go, there are often attempts to find the next "perfect team", and super teams reflect the interests of groups of friends to find a new experience within the game.
Before Arachnos was revealed, its operations were carried out by a small organization known as SPIDER (Second Phase Infiltration to Destroy Empires' Resistance). SPIDER was never seen by any hero, only mentioned in passing by contacts and villains. I believe the first time you hear about them is from Indigo. Later, when the Council took over the 5th Column, on Striga Island you heard about SPIDER attacks against the Council, one of which took imbued Maestro with the sonic powers he now has.
The 5th Columb, the Council, and SPIDER were all once the same organization, Arachnos. That organization disbanded and Requiem used Hitler for his resources to create the temporary organization of the 5th Column, while the real power bided its time, the Council and their leader The Center. Meanwhile, Arachnos had plans of its own to build back its lost resources and once again become a truly threatening organization.
SPIDER was "retconned" into Arachnos by Manticore, thus for practicality's sake, most just assume that SPIDER had done its job paving the way for Arachnos to rise as a nation on the Rogue Isles.
Do you remember the Teleporting Trolls?
At one time, when going through the caves searching for Atta and his Bodyguards, the troll minnions and bodyguards would dissappear, only to reappear in the center of the map, waiting for you to come back through.
Back during COV's beta, the round Arachnos portals would only allow 1 person at a time through. When a character clicked the portal, it would open, and the next person would ahve to wait for the door to close before they could enter.
This led to groups of characters all standing around rapidly left-clicking on portals trying in vain to get into their mission.
Well its at last nice to see you back JZ. The Forum Cartel almost had you there did'nt they?
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This is significant because almost all nerfs since I2 are due to either PLing or to PvPing.
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Just because you say so doesn't make it true.
It's downright false.
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I'm sure I made several, if not many, mistakes in my post. But please correct them rather than just refuting them without any support.
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So I'm not allowed to say you're absolutely wrong because I didn't have anything supporting my argument, which was in response to your totally false comment that didn't have anything supporting it either? That's a heckuva double standard.
I can say confidently that changes directly related to powerleveling have made up at the very very most a whole 10% of changes made to the game. And a nice portion of those changes are actually fairly recent. Unless you're going to claim that things like the Burn changes and AoE caps are meant to be directly in response to PLing, instead of their intended target of herding, which isn't the same thing.
As for PVP, the only patch that featured a significant number of changes related to PVP was the Issue that introduced it. Issue 4. And all of those changes were restricted to PVP play. Everything else was minor tweaks, if not buffs.
But in the end, the best summary I can give as to why your statement is false: You're scapegoating. Let's blame PLing and PVP for all our nerfing woes. Obviously there's simply no possible way that something negatively changed was because of something other than those two hot button issues!
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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Hey, Pan. :-)
I know that Rikki Tikki Tavi was the name of a mongoose in a Kipling story, but there was also a totally unrelated poem, which might be what you are thinking of....it was some kind of story about:
Ricki Ticki Tambo
No so rambo
Everybody bushkey
Kickemup pompom
Fell in the well.
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I loved that book as a kid. I have a copy right here.
Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo
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Well, that certainly makes my skewered memory seem much more sane.
Anyway,
Did you know...
That there used to be a bug of an emote called /em paladinawaken that caused some pretty interesting things to happen.
That /em burp works even though no dev has ever mentioned it (a hidden emote, if you will.).
That there was a rumor of a stuffed Rikti Monkey being made for the CoH store, but it has never materialized. 
did you know.....
that there were far fewer costume options a long time ago?
that you could put to seperate patterns on pants?
that rikti monkeys at lvl 50 used to give 31 prestiege?
that there was a glitch that could get you billions of prestiege?
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So I'm not allowed to say you're absolutely wrong because I didn't have anything supporting my argument, which was in response to your totally false comment that didn't have anything supporting it either? That's a heckuva double standard.
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Umm
As I read it, nearly his entire post provided support for his opinion. And it was a very long post. Just saying that his claim was unsupported doesnt make it true!
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I can say confidently that changes directly related to powerleveling have made up at the very very most a whole 10% of changes made to the game. And a nice portion of those changes are actually fairly recent. Unless you're going to claim that things like the Burn changes and AoE caps are meant to be directly in response to PLing, instead of their intended target of herding, which isn't the same thing.
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Strictly and pedantically speaking herding may not be the same thing as PLing. However, the vast majority of PLing strategies REQUIRED herding to accomplish. This was true in the past, and is true still. I have always believed the herding nerfs were made to cut down on PLing. And I am far from alone. Without the herding nerfs, none of the anti-PLing nerfs and mission changes would have mattered much at all. So Id definitely say that theres a connection between herding and PLing.
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As for PVP, the only patch that featured a significant number of changes related to PVP was the Issue that introduced it. Issue 4. And all of those changes were restricted to PVP play. Everything else was minor tweaks, if not buffs.
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The i5 nerfs were NOT minor tweaks by any stretch! And neither was ED (our happy between issues nerf gift). These nerfs continued and refined the devs desire to bring damage output and defenses for all characters closer together. While the devs have stated that their intent was to balance the game so that future content could be more easily designed, a great many felt (and still feel) that the nerfs were in fact because of the impending release of CoV and the PvP zones therein. Even if you accept that the balancing was really for future content like the devs said, a great deal of this future content to date has been PvP zones. Indeed aside from a couple of base items and costume parts, what new content will heroes get in i7? A new lvl 50 PvP zone. 
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But in the end, the best summary I can give as to why your statement is false: You're scapegoating. Let's blame PLing and PVP for all our nerfing woes. Obviously there's simply no possible way that something negatively changed was because of something other than those two hot button issues!
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And I would say that in the end, the best summary I can give as to why your arguments are false: You ended your post with an unjustified and sarcastic personal attack.
Seriously, I dont see where your animosity comes from.
"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
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The i5 nerfs were NOT minor tweaks by any stretch! And neither was ED (our happy between issues nerf gift). These nerfs continued and refined the devs desire to bring damage output and defenses for all characters closer together. While the devs have stated that their intent was to balance the game so that future content could be more easily designed, a great many felt (and still feel) that the nerfs were in fact because of the impending release of CoV and the PvP zones therein. Even if you accept that the balancing was really for future content like the devs said, a great deal of this future content to date has been PvP zones. Indeed aside from a couple of base items and costume parts, what new content will heroes get in i7? A new lvl 50 PvP zone.
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AFAIK, the Devs never claimed that ED was in response to balancing future content. It was in response to balancing the current content/gameplay, period.
And, since I was talking strictly about PVP, I personally don't see sweeping changes like GDR and ED as having anything to do with PVP directly. If it's applied to both, there must have been problems in at least PVE, PVP sometimes. PVE concerns can change PVE, but PVP concerns can't change PVE, evidently. Though my memory could be faulty.
As for where my bitter animosity comes from...hardened time on these very boards. I really don't react well to unfounded blanket statements like "Almost all nerfs after I2 were made because of PVP or PLing."
I'm like a librarian. I like keeping information in check. In this case, the idea of whether or not almost all of the nerfs since I2 have been due to PVP and PLing is either false or unknown. If I had the time or the energy, I would in fact poke through every patch note since I2, and see how the nerfs tally up. Though, as I originally posted, offhandedly, I think I would remember if there were an abundance of nerfs related to PVP or PLing. (Considering PVP has been around for half, if not less, of CoH's lifespan, I seriously doubt it's true.)
On the flipside, it's very well an unknown because the Devs have never outright stated their reasoning on every single change. For all you or I know, every single change or no change at all since I2 was made with PVP and PLing in mind.
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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The i5 nerfs were NOT minor tweaks by any stretch! And neither was ED (our happy between issues nerf gift). These nerfs continued and refined the devs desire to bring damage output and defenses for all characters closer together. While the devs have stated that their intent was to balance the game so that future content could be more easily designed, a great many felt (and still feel) that the nerfs were in fact because of the impending release of CoV and the PvP zones therein. Even if you accept that the balancing was really for future content like the devs said, a great deal of this future content to date has been PvP zones. Indeed aside from a couple of base items and costume parts, what new content will heroes get in i7? A new lvl 50 PvP zone.
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AFAIK, the Devs never claimed that ED was in response to balancing future content. It was in response to balancing the current content/gameplay, period.
And, since I was talking strictly about PVP, I personally don't see sweeping changes like GDR and ED as having anything to do with PVP directly. If it's applied to both, there must have been problems in at least PVE, PVP sometimes. PVE concerns can change PVE, but PVP concerns can't change PVE, evidently. Though my memory could be faulty.
As for where my bitter animosity comes from...hardened time on these very boards. I really don't react well to unfounded blanket statements like "Almost all nerfs after I2 were made because of PVP or PLing."
I'm like a librarian. I like keeping information in check. In this case, the idea of whether or not almost all of the nerfs since I2 have been due to PVP and PLing is either false or unknown. If I had the time or the energy, I would in fact poke through every patch note since I2, and see how the nerfs tally up. Though, as I originally posted, offhandedly, I think I would remember if there were an abundance of nerfs related to PVP or PLing. (Considering PVP has been around for half, if not less, of CoH's lifespan, I seriously doubt it's true.)
On the flipside, it's very well an unknown because the Devs have never outright stated their reasoning on every single change. For all you or I know, every single change or no change at all since I2 was made with PVP and PLing in mind.
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STOP IT, ALL OF YOU! Go to your room and think about the wonderful thread you all ruined with your constant bickering!
Your tearing us apart!
Please continue with the meaningful history 
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AFAIK, the Devs never claimed that ED was in response to balancing future content. It was in response to balancing the current content/gameplay, period.
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Then you are uninformed.
Statesman himself responded to the hue and cry of the i5 nerfs and ED. He stated that without these changes, future content would be very difficult to develop because some players would breeze through it and others would find it extremely difficult. Whether or not one believes this is another topic.
And just saying period at the end of a statement does not automatically make it true.
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I'm like a librarian. I like keeping information in check.
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Did I read that right? Librarians like to keep information in check? If thats true then every librarian Ive ever met was incompetent, because they just let anybody have access to their information!
Bizarre.
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In this case, the idea of whether or not almost all of the nerfs since I2 have been due to PVP and PLing is either false or unknown.
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Logical fallacy known as a False Dilemma.
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I think I would remember if there were an abundance of nerfs related to PVP or PLing. (Considering PVP has been around for half, if not less, of CoH's lifespan, I seriously doubt it's true.)
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Again, you are misinformed.
PvP has been part of this game since its conception. CoV was planned for from the beginning, and PvP is a major part of and selling point for CoV. CoV was announced before I started playing, and Ive been here since before i1. Just because the arenas didnt exist from Day One in CoH, that does not mean that PvP was not around. Someone had to program the PvP environments. Someone had to consider how powers would interact. The whiteboards in the devs offices were covered in PvP issues looong before PvP went live. To believe that the repeated nerfs to regen had nothing to do with future PvP issues would be naive in the extreme.
But really, this discussion doesnt belong here. This is (was) a nice thread where people reminisced and commented on things that were in the game long ago. BlazingImp posted a long, thoughtful, and well researched summary of past game PLing schemes. Several of them even I didnt know about. I dont know why you had to jump all over his [censored] for it. That was rude of you, and I think that you owe him an apology.
"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
ok...lets try again...
DID YOU KNOW (with emphasis)...
It used to be you didn't have to be teamed with another hero in order to Sidekick them? You also had to manually un-sidekick or you would remain sidekicked to that other hero even after you both logged out.
JD
@Flower Power / @Buffer Flower
who are we to interrupt this rather one sided argument that is quickly derailing this rather fun thread?!?!?!?!?
As for me, I'm just wondering which Dev Ian (or "Sarah" as it looks like he would like to be called) really is.
Did you know that if a post is modsmacked, all replies to that post go with it?
Did you know that personal arguments with another poster are best kept to PMs?
Did you know that the boards used to allow you to give 'star ratings' to other posters until it was abused and used to grief sensitive posters?
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
Did you know...
The entances/exits to the Hazard Zones used to have their original names engraved above the giant doors. For instance, the 'Boomtown' gate had Baumton above it, "Faultline" was had Overbrook, etc.
This was changed a couple issues back to listing the in game name on the blue plaque beside the doors. I miss the old signs
Did you know...
There used to be some nearly impossible to find mission doors due to a navigation bug? One such door was underneath a basketball court in the SW corner of Brickstown (/loc of 367.2 -30.6 2280.1, if you'd like to check it out). The bug was that for some reason, perhaps because it was located below some minimum terrain threshhold, it produced no beacon to follow in your navigation window, and by guesstimating using your map, it lead you to an empty basketball court. Only by noticing the narrow, fenced-in ramp adjacent to the court could you find the mission. Occasionally, you could find several toons just meandering about this basketball court unable to find their mission . I'm pretty sure this was fixed (or that door is no longer used, perhaps), although I can't recall the specifics of how or when.
After making fun of Synapse in various posts, Shane Hensley aka Captain Mako, played Synapse during the CoV end of beta event, Statesman's Strike.
(Ask a Dev is one) "I hear Synapse is fun to throw around."
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
Did you know....
Regarding the basketball court bug above, one of the devs (I believe it was Positron), contacted the support team to report it as a bug, as he couldn't find the mission door either until the support team showed him where it was. He apparently felt like a right idiot, but praised the support teams professionalism.
Lusca and the Ghost ship were not in the game at release. They were added in (I think) issue 2.
manofmanychars is, unfortunately, still wrong on inherent powers. Keldians got theirs in I3, as he said, but scrappers got criticals even earlier. 
Kinetics was originaly regarded as the red-headed step child of the defender primaries? The set hasn't really changed any, but people didn't realise that kinetics tended to contribute to a teams offence more than it's defence. Many teams with a kin\** on board just thought they were having a "good day", despite having a "gimped healer".
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But really, this discussion doesnt belong here. This is (was) a nice thread where people reminisced and commented on things that were in the game long ago. BlazingImp posted a long, thoughtful, and well researched summary of past game PLing schemes. Several of them even I didnt know about. I dont know why you had to jump all over his [censored] for it. That was rude of you, and I think that you owe him an apology.
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Actually, I didn't really care about his posting of old PLing schemes, as that was a secondary post after his first, in fact. I was responding entirely to that single broad statement in his original post, which I still refuse to believe could possibly be true.
However, I really don't care about the argument at this point, since it's obvious you won't be persuaded, and my points have been made one way or another. (I'll point out that the concept is entirely unknown, and as such, it all comes down to conjecture, regardless of which direction you go.)
The librarian bit is the idea that a librarian keeps his or her books in check, IE, they're not falling apart, they're not missing, they're in order, etc. I thought it was the clearest possible simile I could use. Otherwise I'd be a...maid of information? Eh. See what I mean?
Oh, and I am in fact a she.
*ahem*
Did you know... The Talos -> Dark Astoria gate still retains the original signage?
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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Lusca and the Ghost ship were not in the game at release. They were added in (I think) issue 2.
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They, along with the Paladin, were added in Issue 3.
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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Did you know...
The entances/exits to the Hazard Zones used to have their original names engraved above the giant doors. For instance, the 'Boomtown' gate had Baumton above it, "Faultline" was had Overbrook, etc.
This was changed a couple issues back to listing the in game name on the blue plaque beside the doors. I miss the old signs
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I'm pretty sure I saw Terra Volta's name stenciled in over the giant door, yesterday
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Consequently, you shouldn't be surprised when a lot of people reflect on the past and remember what their favorite toon used to be like with a sense of longing, and so they want to capture that in this thread. That's partialy what this trhead is here for, after all.
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Apparently, that's primarily what this thread is here for.