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Now I hear you guys... you all seem to dislike the Story Arc aspect of this system.
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Actually I totally hate the idea of Pools B, C, and D.
Honestly, making a level 50 have to go find people with story arcs from level 10-15 etc or redo the horrible 8 hour Positron TF or one of those multi day SS TFs is pretty crappy.
This really comes off as more of creating a time-sink for lvl 50 characters rather than real, interesting, high-end content.
And for those of us with 30+ souvenirs in our bag from Story arcs we've previously done, can't the system auto reward a component to us? What about those with the TF/Trial badges? Obviouusly the system knows we've completed those at least once (since it checks at least the basic TFs for Task Force Commander) can't we be auto-awarded those?
We'll be spending plenty of time fighting mobs as it is, there's no reason to make us trudge through a long, annoying TF again. At least not to get our first pieces...If we wanna go do it again then cool but those of us that can only bare to do the Hero-side TFs once (or however many times til we got badges) we shouldn't HAVE to do them again to get a piece for doing them...
My god especially not Shadow Shard TFs which on more than one occasion you guys have even noted they were a bit extreme in length...
The Hero-side TFs just aren't as fun as villain SFs and are usually twice as long. That doesn't help this any, maybe if we were told hero TFs were getting updated in I9 this wouldn't be an issue...
That still leaves story arcs, something we no longer have access to in many cases since we've out-leveled them...How about opening all the story arcs to us? Make it so we can't out level them and can fight grays if we so choose. I'm cleaning out a couple story arcs now that I never knew I had and they're gray clockwork to my lvl 50...and I'm loving it. I actually feel super now...
Just to lob a quick bomb to the Devs. Remember not every player reads the Forums and even less post. Just a quick reality check put in the mail to ya.
Dark Equalizer
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We'll be spending plenty of time fighting mobs as it is, there's no reason to make us trudge through a long, annoying TF again. At least not to get our first pieces...If we wanna go do it again then cool but those of us that can only bare to do the Hero-side TFs once (or however many times til we got badges) we shouldn't HAVE to do them again to get a piece for doing them...
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I hate to play DEV-il's advocate, but that's the reason they put in the auction houses: so you don't have to run the TFs/Trials to get what you want.
That may not be what you want to hear as a response, but until someone convinces the Devs that Wentworth's isn't working their answer will be "You don't have to run the Trial, you can go buy one from Wentworth's!"
Only once I9 hits live and it becomes apparent that no one is giving up their rare recipes will any other solution be implemented.
/Cynicism
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Now I hear you guys... you all seem to dislike the Story Arc aspect of this system.
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Actually I totally hate the idea of Pools B, C, and D.
Honestly, making a level 50 have to go find people with story arcs from level 10-15 etc or redo the horrible 8 hour Positron TF or one of those multi day SS TFs is pretty crappy.
This really comes off as more of creating a time-sink for lvl 50 characters rather than real, interesting, high-end content.
And for those of us with 30+ souvenirs in our bag from Story arcs we've previously done, can't the system auto reward a component to us? What about those with the TF/Trial badges? Obviouusly the system knows we've completed those at least once (since it checks at least the basic TFs for Task Force Commander) can't we be auto-awarded those?
We'll be spending plenty of time fighting mobs as it is, there's no reason to make us trudge through a long, annoying TF again. At least not to get our first pieces...If we wanna go do it again then cool but those of us that can only bare to do the Hero-side TFs once (or however many times til we got badges) we shouldn't HAVE to do them again to get a piece for doing them...
My god especially not Shadow Shard TFs which on more than one occasion you guys have even noted they were a bit extreme in length...
The Hero-side TFs just aren't as fun as villain SFs and are usually twice as long. That doesn't help this any, maybe if we were told hero TFs were getting updated in I9 this wouldn't be an issue...
That still leaves story arcs, something we no longer have access to in many cases since we've out-leveled them...How about opening all the story arcs to us? Make it so we can't out level them and can fight grays if we so choose. I'm cleaning out a couple story arcs now that I never knew I had and they're gray clockwork to my lvl 50...and I'm loving it. I actually feel super now...
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Pool A: Defeats. Any enemy rewards from this. AVs, GMs, Minions and EBs. There is no distinction, all reward the salvage and recipes, a Vast majority of things will come from here. Anyone can go fight anything over and over, no worry about anyone being restricted from collecting.
Pool B: The most contested. Recipes awarded from Story Arcs. Non-Repeatable, hard to find sometimes, easily out-leveled, never encouraged to be experienced all at once. I understand the Devs idea behind this in theory, but in Practice, at least for the first 6 months or more we're going to see an underwhelming amount of this Kind of Salvage. Hero side running my contacts I can honestly say Ive completed the most Arcs about level 35+. Thats because everything I can outlevel relatively quickly. Villain side is better with nearly everyone having an Arc, or a Mini-Arc (Which hasnt been said to reward Salvage) but why create a disparity like that between both sides?
Pools C & D: TFs and Trials. Im lumping them together because they are similar. Some people hate this idea because the investment of time, claiming some TFs take upwards of 8 hours. The real truth is that Heroes and Villains have Access to some fairly quick TFs and Trials. The LRSF with a proper team can run it in under an Hour. The Katie Hannon Task Force is easily completed under an Hour. The Eden Trial hero Side has been completed in 10 Minutes with an Optimal Team (No, Im not kidding my Server had a Race and they burned the entire TF in 10 Minutes). Villain respec can also be completed in relatively short time. Sure some people wont have this ability to sit for TFs or organize them so often for Salvage or Recipes, but they are an infinitly repeatable content that anyone can do one in or beyond level range.
The Biggest offender here is the Story Arcs. While this is supposedly the rarest pool it has the very bad drawback that no one can repeat it. Flashback doesnt help people who did most of their Arcs and honestly I dont see it as the solution. There should be some other Minor way of accumulating these Recipes that doesnt overly impact the Story Arc method so you can reap massive amounts of pieces, but still can be repeated so eventually you can always get what you need for your level 50.
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The Eden Trial hero Side has been completed in 10 Minutes with an Optimal Team (No, Im not kidding my Server had a Race and they burned the entire TF in 10 Minutes).
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LOL. The only way I can even imagine that would be possible is if everyone on the team already had Ambrosia inspirations in their trays.
Getting enough Ambrosia drops, if no one has them, takes more than 10 minutes, heh.
A few rads debuffing the walls, monsters and Titan and, yeah, if you already have the inspirations, I can see it in 10 minutes.
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Pool A: Defeats. Any enemy rewards from this. AVs, GMs, Minions and EBs. There is no distinction, all reward the salvage and recipes, a Vast majority of things will come from here. Anyone can go fight anything over and over, no worry about anyone being restricted from collecting.
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Giant Monsters and AV's don't drop recipes. This is stated to discourage farming of them. They do drop salvage though.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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Only once I9 hits live and it becomes apparent that no one is giving up their rare recipes will any other solution be implemented.
/Cynicism
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As best as I can tell, I think this will happen too. The economy is going to be getting flooded with influence, yet no one is going to be selling. I think the devs are going to need to stock wentworths with some rares as an influence sink.
Guys, the devs could do something brilliantly simple:
Reward recipes retroactively based on already completed TFs'/Story Arcs.
After all, they have this data already stored in their system from the souveniers we have stored.
I like Pool B. I love that the current plan for Pools rewards various styles of play. I love some rewards being restricted to non-farmable content. The only thing that would make me like Pool B more is retroactive rewards.
People might think I am a crazy dev loving elitist masochist, but I truly do like the 4 Pool plan. I wont even be likely to ever utilize Auction Houses. I almost never run TFs or trials. I have not run a single villain SF aside from 1 time through the RSF. I hunt down and run arcs. I only run mayhem/safeguard material in order to find more arcs. TY Devs for rewarding my style of play.
People might want to reconsider complaints about 50s not being capable or rerunning level 1-25 content. It is unlikely a level 50 would utilize a level 15 recipe considering the %enhancement. It is more likely that established 50s would place this material on low level alts. The devs have not been very encouraging of 50s bank rolling lowbies in the past. I don't see that changing.
That is only a partial solution.
That still leaves out people who would have done more Story Arcs if they had known they were mission out on rare loot; including people who helped others who did story arcs rather than their own.
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!
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Only once I9 hits live and it becomes apparent that no one is giving up their rare recipes will any other solution be implemented.
/Cynicism
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As best as I can tell, I think this will happen too. The economy is going to be getting flooded with influence, yet no one is going to be selling. I think the devs are going to need to stock wentworths with some rares as an influence sink.
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QFE
"The cure for cowardice is not more whimpering and cringing, but to bare your teeth." Fr. Pontefescue
"The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses." ~ Utah Phillips
Remember Greg McKendry
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That is only a partial solution.
That still leaves out people who would have done more Story Arcs if they had known they were mission out on rare loot; including people who helped others who did story arcs rather than their own.
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Could also allow for dropping if you take other peoples story arcs while exemp'd down. Could even up the drop rate in such cases.
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That is only a partial solution.
That still leaves out people who would have done more Story Arcs if they had known they were mission out on rare loot; including people who helped others who did story arcs rather than their own.
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Could also allow for dropping if you take other peoples story arcs while exemp'd down. Could even up the drop rate in such cases.
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You don't get it.
Pool B only drops at the "story arc completed" award stage - which /only/ drops for the story arc holder.
Pool B is not for mobs in story arcs.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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Honestly, making a level 50 have to go find people with story arcs from level 10-15 etc or redo the horrible 8 hour Positron TF or one of those multi day SS TFs is pretty crappy.
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8 hours? Ouch, last time I did it it was about 2.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
Another factor in TFs is that there's the time to do it... and there's the time to start it. I've never had a team-assembly period of less than 30 minutes for a pick-up group task force or trial. It gets wearying, and is part of why I just plain gave up on doing them. So a chance, even a moderately small one, to get drops outside of their standard pools would be appreciated from that standpoint.
I don't mean to offend anyone, but you have to do content of x type to get the rewards inherent in doing content of x type.
If you pay $15 per month to do nothing but costume contests under the Atlas Globe, you are not going to get rewarded for defeating foes, completing missions, doing task forces, story arcs, or Trials.
...oh wait, never mind, you will, because those things are given out as prizes.
Never mind, carry on. 
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!
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Pool A: Defeats. Any enemy rewards from this. AVs, GMs, Minions and EBs. There is no distinction, all reward the salvage and recipes, a Vast majority of things will come from here. Anyone can go fight anything over and over, no worry about anyone being restricted from collecting.
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Giant Monsters and AV's don't drop recipes. This is stated to discourage farming of them. They do drop salvage though.
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Sorry, was just going from the top of my head 
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The Eden Trial hero Side has been completed in 10 Minutes with an Optimal Team (No, Im not kidding my Server had a Race and they burned the entire TF in 10 Minutes).
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LOL. The only way I can even imagine that would be possible is if everyone on the team already had Ambrosia inspirations in their trays.
Getting enough Ambrosia drops, if no one has them, takes more than 10 minutes, heh.
A few rads debuffing the walls, monsters and Titan and, yeah, if you already have the inspirations, I can see it in 10 minutes.
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Yea they had leftover Ambrosia. We have a Bin full of them in one of my SGs, doesnt take too much to get some 
My Team which didnt bother to bring prior ambrosia cleared 2 bridges, got enough to defeat the titan in 30 seconds, took us 20 minutes total.
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I hate to play DEV-il's advocate, but that's the reason they put in the auction houses: so you don't have to run the TFs/Trials to get what you want.
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Yeah instead powergamers and people of the appropriate level can just make 10 million inf a pop on those things instead. Basically jacking up the prices to bone the high level people that just don't want to go through the TFs again...
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Pools C & D: TFs and Trials. Im lumping them together because they are similar. Some people hate this idea because the investment of time, claiming some TFs take upwards of 8 hours. The real truth is that Heroes and Villains have Access to some fairly quick TFs and Trials. The LRSF with a proper team can run it in under an Hour.
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Well of course trials aren't the issue. LRSF...I've never heard of that being run in under 2-3 hours by anyone except the powerest of powergamers. Of course most TFs can be run in 3-5 hours maybe quicker if you spend 1-2 hours getting the "right" group and then none of them leave and no brakes are taken. I would like to know what the Shadow Shard TFs give none of those is faster than what? 7-8 hours? The longest averaging 9+ hours in length.
And it's not just speed its quality. I can run the villain SFs over and over. They're well designed, interesting and usually doable with a team of 4-6 people within 3-4 hours or less...
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The Eden Trial hero Side has been completed in 10 Minutes with an Optimal Team (No, Im not kidding my Server had a Race and they burned the entire TF in 10 Minutes). Villain respec can also be completed in relatively short time.
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I don't think I'm a casual gamer by any means nor are my teammates but we aren't powergamers either. The times your listing are powergamer times if I HAVE to go through these I want them to be fun and not just grinding for a reward...fact being most hero TFs are grinds...at least after the first time. Some villain SFs I've run 3+ times and still find fun.
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People might want to reconsider complaints about 50s not being capable or rerunning level 1-25 content. It is unlikely a level 50 would utilize a level 15 recipe considering the %enhancement. It is more likely that established 50s would place this material on low level alts. The devs have not been very encouraging of 50s bank rolling lowbies in the past. I don't see that changing.
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You make a good point. And Story arcs don't award costume piece recipes right? Because if they do that totally voids your argument but if they don't your argument is valid and I am proven wrong.
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I hate to play DEV-il's advocate, but that's the reason they put in the auction houses: so you don't have to run the TFs/Trials to get what you want.
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Yeah instead powergamers and people of the appropriate level can just make 10 million inf a pop on those things instead. Basically jacking up the prices to bone the high level people that just don't want to go through the TFs again...
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Until the wells run dry anyway. What will they then do with all that influence though?
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Pools C & D: TFs and Trials. Im lumping them together because they are similar. Some people hate this idea because the investment of time, claiming some TFs take upwards of 8 hours. The real truth is that Heroes and Villains have Access to some fairly quick TFs and Trials. The LRSF with a proper team can run it in under an Hour.
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Well of course trials aren't the issue. LRSF...I've never heard of that being run in under 2-3 hours by anyone except the powerest of powergamers. Of course most TFs can be run in 3-5 hours maybe quicker if you spend 1-2 hours getting the "right" group and then none of them leave and no brakes are taken. I would like to know what the Shadow Shard TFs give none of those is faster than what? 7-8 hours? The longest averaging 9+ hours in length.
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Fair enough, Ive never run the LRSF merely heard of SG teams completeing it relatively quickly. And if youre running Shard TFs for Salvage you might be in the wrong area.
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And it's not just speed its quality. I can run the villain SFs over and over. They're well designed, interesting and usually doable with a team of 4-6 people within 3-4 hours or less...
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For first playthrough? Sure. For collecting Salvage? For the Badge? For Anything other than XP? Im not worried about quality. They all become a grind and I just try to finish them as fast as possible.
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The Eden Trial hero Side has been completed in 10 Minutes with an Optimal Team (No, Im not kidding my Server had a Race and they burned the entire TF in 10 Minutes). Villain respec can also be completed in relatively short time.
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I don't think I'm a casual gamer by any means nor are my teammates but we aren't powergamers either. The times your listing are powergamer times if I HAVE to go through these I want them to be fun and not just grinding for a reward...fact being most hero TFs are grinds...at least after the first time. Some villain SFs I've run 3+ times and still find fun.
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I did say an optimal team. And youre right, TFs are a grind Hero Side, although Ive honestly ran the Eden Trial about 40 Times and the Katie Hannon TF about 50 or More. On Various Characters of course but my point is these are the fastest Trials/TFs in the game to accumulate the salvage. If I want Quality? I might do another TF. If I want my Salvage? Im gonna Zerg the Eden trial in 20 Minutes. Power gamers or not a decent team can perform the trial relatively quickly.
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You make a good point. And Story arcs don't award costume piece recipes right? Because if they do that totally voids your argument but if they don't your argument is valid and I am proven wrong.
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No, I believe a red name stated that all costume pieces and such are awarded by defeating enemies and not specfically Story Arcs
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People might want to reconsider complaints about 50s not being capable or rerunning level 1-25 content. It is unlikely a level 50 would utilize a level 15 recipe considering the %enhancement. It is more likely that established 50s would place this material on low level alts. The devs have not been very encouraging of 50s bank rolling lowbies in the past. I don't see that changing.
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People might want to reconsider wether or not some 31+ characters might want to use a 10-30 SET, irrespective of having the most Uber bonusses possible for IOs ... BECAUSE OF THE SET BONUSSES, and some of the not-percentage-based enhancements available.
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Pool A: Defeats. Any enemy rewards from this. AVs, GMs, Minions and EBs. There is no distinction, all reward the salvage and recipes, a Vast majority of things will come from here. Anyone can go fight anything over and over, no worry about anyone being restricted from collecting.
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Giant Monsters and AV's don't drop recipes. This is stated to discourage farming of them. They do drop salvage though.
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Sorry, was just going from the top of my head
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Actually, I only heard them say Giant Monsters won't drop recipies. Nothing about AVs not dropping them.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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Actually, I only heard them say Giant Monsters won't drop recipies. Nothing about AVs not dropping them.
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Actually Brainstorm said this in the very first post of this thread.
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* No specific anything is tied to doing anything specific. This means that completing ANY story arc in the level 20 to 25 range can get you a random rare recipe from Pool B. Defeating ANY entity (no matter if its a minion or a boss) can get you a random recipe from Pool A. This is done this way to ensure a more even distribution of recipes from that Pool. If defeating Archvillains always dropped a Rare, then someone would pull the old "farming AV" trick and suddenly that Rare is more common than Generic Damage Enhancements.
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It sounds from that like AV's probably won't drop rares. Hm, I suppose they have a reasonable chance of droping a normal recipe though. Maybe.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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I actually wanted to go with Drops II: Drops Harder
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*sniff sniff*
Hmm. A faint odor of a positronic suit, there. Must be my imagination.
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No way, I would have gone with Drops II: Attack of the Drops.
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With all the questions and concerns this is what gets more answers by the devs.
Sorry I sound a bit jaded, but there are alot of people asking alot of very good questions and no real answers coming about other than sidestepping the quesitions.
That and I am still needing a responce to some IM's that were sent to every red name on the board.