Issue 13 Base Q&A

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Could you add a different type of salvage bin for event salvage only, and thereby allow it to hold more? It's a clunky solution, but it might serve as a stopgap if making a single container with differing limits is too hard to do right now.


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I'll try a simpler solution.

Bring back the old salvage storage. It can already store everything. Either add a tab that can store invention salvage, or if that is not possible add a different rack for that. Temporarily, you could even use the same art assets, just give it a different name. I'll move the old salvage racks out of the room with the invention table, the SG members will understand easily which is which.

Ok, I'm in panic mode.... We are moving from a 999 capacity storage unit to a 30?!?!?! Will I be able to convert this stuff before I13 goes live with this change? My SG has over 120 of each piece of Halloween salvage from the last 3 years of ToT events... What will happen to that? (Not that we need anything remotely close to that, but I like hoarding).

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Ok, I'm in panic mode.... We are moving from a 999 capacity storage unit to a 30?!?!?! Will I be able to convert this stuff before I13 goes live with this change? My SG has over 120 of each piece of Halloween salvage from the last 3 years of ToT events... What will happen to that? (Not that we need anything remotely close to that, but I like hoarding).

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It's my understanding that your salvage will be fine, you just can't put anything else into the bin until you take out enough so that it's not overloaded anymore (if you ever do).

EDIT: I don't check the forum for two days and what happens? A base developer gets a redname! Hooray! Welcome to the boards Sunstorm, and don't let the trolls get to you. Most of us are friendly people, it's just been a little trying lately with all these changes and not knowing why or sometimes even what was going to happen. Though it sounds like you've been lurking so you probably know all about it.

It's good to know that we are being heard.

Personally I think the new rent system is great. When they orginally reduced rent so that starting plot sizes had no rent this encouraged numerous players to create personal sg's to store thier enhancements, inspirations, & special salvage. This took a hit on the sg concept of it being a group & took a hit on recruitment.

My fear was that in i13 by changing salvage racks to providing additional invention salvage, the trend of personal bases would explode making it even harder for actual sg's to survive, particularly on smaller servers. The new rent structure adds a price for having a personal sg base, this alone might prevent the trend from growing more rapidly then before. In the end however, I only expect the rent system for i13 to only slightly curve the formation of new personal sg's as the maximum rent can be covered by simply running 1-3 paper missions with a level 30 or higher (very conservative estimate).

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We are moving from a 999 capacity storage unit to a 30?!?!?!

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Correction. We are moving from a max salvage capacity (per rack) of 2,500 pieces to 30. I image that it still holds true that anything in a salvage rack when i13 hits live will still be there. You will just be unable to add to that rack until the rack drops below 30 pieces.

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Bring back the old salvage storage. It can already store everything. Either add a tab that can store invention salvage, or if that is not possible add a different rack for that.

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/signed solves both problems easily

Hello Sunstorm!

It's great to know that Bases are being looked at again, and some changes are being made. The only thing I am iffy on is that you are charging rent on items, instead of plot size. I play on a lot of semi-dormant SG/VG's. Ones with only one or two occasional players. The current system allows for these type of SG's to stick to a small plot and get up a functional base without worrying about rent. Once the base is built (and this takes a while), then you not worry about prestige and focus back on influnce and getting those IO sets. The new system will make these small inactive bases have to worry about rent again.

While we are on the topic, there are two suggestions I would like to make.

1. Introduce recipe storage.
This will allow sg mates to help each other out, and facilitate ease of muling between characters.

2. Make CoV chest emblems available as SG/VG emblems.
I know that CoH/CoV's were different games to start with, and it would have been impossible to intergrate them originally. However, now that the games have been merged, and the content is available to everyone, there is no reason why they should be seperate any more. The only possible hitch I can think of, is the base items that display them, and making sure they fit right. Otherwise it should be a very easy fix.

Thanks for the replies Sunstorm. It's great to have someone that interacts with us with real answers, even if I disagree with some of those answers.

And speaking of which...

I'm sorry, I have the help channel in my main chat tabs, I'm in several global channels and have helped people with really rudimentary questions. I can't recall any confusion ever between base and invention salvage. And any confusion that might be simmering out there below the surface has to be a lot less than (1) racks holding 999/30, (2) The process of converting base salvage into invention salvage (I don't see convert to Rikti Alloy, just convert to brainstorm, what's a brainstorm), (3) the confusion of Merits and Vanguard Merits (and candy canes). And of course (4) let's now have three recipes for everything instead of just one.

I've been describing this replacement as a trainwreck. I'll thank you all for tapping on the brakes by removing rare salvage from the teleporter recipes. But the train is still zipping past the "bridge out" sign. And I'm still looking to three+ very boring hours converting base salvage (presuming nobody manages to steal it first)...and without an explanation that makes sense for the major work that had to be done to make this change, or the work and security risk it imposes on the SG leaders. I understand that we're presumably past the point of no return on this, we're not at the point of "is this a good idea" but "is there a showstopper kill-the-game problem with going forth." So we'll have to live with it. But for the record, in my opinion and the vast majority of people who provided feedback in Ex Libris's thread, it's not a good idea. Which means there's either a reason for it that we aren't being told, or there was insufficient thought about it.

All that said, other than the fact that the trainwreck continues, I'm heartened by the things stated in this thread. The refund and lower price of old items is very welcome, and it's nice to know that other things are taking place. Please, talk to us about the changes that are coming, as early as possible. Nope, I'm not saying that we should dictate them...but we can give a perspective that the devs may not have, and it's a lot easier to take advantage of that perspective while changes are on the whiteboard than when they're in open beta.

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Q. Base Pathing issues, why was pathing changed?

A. The base pathing was never intended to be changed. The fix for it was not simple though, so it took some time for the programming team to get the fix in. We are actively looking at ways to make the pathing system easier for base builders, however, in the future there may be pathing requirements for raiding.

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We've been told that when the pathing rules are put back in that it will be optional to use them or keep the no pathing setup that's currently on test. However, your statement sounds more like the current test setup people are excited about coming to live may be removed in the future for raid pathing's return. Will people that have no intention of base raiding be able to keep the no pathing option or will we once more be forced into having to design around a system we have no use for?

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The bold part - I think that qualifier means, if you want raiding happening, certain rules will apply for pathing.

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I'd just like to post how seriously badly I hope this is the case! But I can't- not without a live rapping band.

And welcome New Dev Guy! May your posting experience be a low flame event..

J/ Dash

If the storage problem is merely all the holiday salvage getting in the way of the other uses, then what if the Vault was expanded to hold one person's worth of Holiday salvage capacity in addition to the Invention? That would shuffle things out of the bins. Since the Vault already has an interface that looks like a personal inventory, will it be easy to expand its capability?

But that all leads to the question: is the problem really the non-IO stuff getting in the way? Is this really about Event salvage? Or is Event salvage just being cited as a specific example, and the problem is the 30 piece limit? IMHO, it's the 30 piece limit since one bin compared to one character is nowhere near as useful as one Enhancer or Insp bin, or an old Salvage bin.

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Ok, I'm in panic mode.... We are moving from a 999 capacity storage unit to a 30?!?!?! Will I be able to convert this stuff before I13 goes live with this change? My SG has over 120 of each piece of Halloween salvage from the last 3 years of ToT events... What will happen to that? (Not that we need anything remotely close to that, but I like hoarding).

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Here is a brown paper bag, sweety, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.... I know I was in the same state of panic when I heard the same thing.

The salvage in the bins you currently have will still be there after i13 goes live. You just can't add anything else to the bins until after the amount in the bin goes below 30. You will still have everything in the bins until you take them out.

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Ok, I'm in panic mode.... We are moving from a 999 capacity storage unit to a 30?!?!?! Will I be able to convert this stuff before I13 goes live with this change? My SG has over 120 of each piece of Halloween salvage from the last 3 years of ToT events... What will happen to that? (Not that we need anything remotely close to that, but I like hoarding).

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Just wanted to point out that this is the general reaction I am expecting to see when this issue goes live. I have not seen nearly enough discussion about the changes to bases to head off such panic, just a few very vaguely worded announcements about base repricing (who could hate base repricing, lower costs are better, no need for anyone to panic, right?)

The few times I have answered questions about I13 changes in the BaseBuildersInc. global channel, there has always been a fair amount of surprise at the elimination of base salvage - and that's from folks savvy enough to subscribe to the dedicated global channel. I think that folks who have not followed the last month of discussions in the Testing or Base Building forums will be in for one very nasty shock.

So I guess my next question for Sunstorm (and Ex, since communication is part of her gig) - Are there plans to announce the upcoming changes prior to Issue 13 going live that might allow folks to plan accordingly? A la some of the discussions Posi and Castle have had with the various mags about PvP changes, etc.? Or even just a more focussed "What's New?" discussion link on the main CoH page?

I am guessing not, given that it very much looks like this is going live the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and if they aren't scheduled now it's probably too late.

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I have not seen nearly enough discussion about the changes to bases to head off such panic, just a few very vaguely worded announcements about base repricing (who could hate base repricing, lower costs are better, no need for anyone to panic, right?)

The few times I have answered questions about I13 changes in the BaseBuildersInc. global channel, there has always been a fair amount of surprise at the elimination of base salvage ... I think that folks who have not followed the last month of discussions in the Testing or Base Building forums will be in for one very nasty shock.


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QFT

I have had several discussions with other SG Leaders, trying to encourage them to come here and read up on the issues. But that is only a small handful of folks, and most of them do not understand the situation fully. There are many, many, many leaders out there that are going to be completely blindsided by this whole thing.

Welcome Sunstorm! Nice to have you with us and I wish you the best with your new assignment.

I have a question I hope you may answer;

1. Are there any plans to allow for coalition members to participate together in base raids? It would give additional meaning to groups being in coalition with one another if they could help each other during a base raid.

Best of luck to you with the new job and I look forward to reading your posts!

Only so much we can do about informing everyone...I've gone in the little newsgroup the Warren runs and given as much info as I've got on the changes, I've answered questions in the Base Builders channel...and one or two other global channels I belong to. What more can we do? Seriously, what other options are open for us to get the info out to the larger playerbase that doesn't go to the forums? City Scoop comes to mind...a link on the program launcher sounds like a great idea to me...but for us, the players, what other things can we personally do to get the word out? I'd love to help stave off a frenzy when I13 comes about (I'm being facetious there of course, we're hardly talking panic in the streets of Paragon and the Isles, still, the more people know...).

Welcome Sunstorm!!

Ah, don't be too scared, we're mostly good folks around here, we're just bombarding you because we had nobody to take potshots at!

I am very very happy to see 2 of my 3 main wishes being answered: to have a Dev assigned to bases, and for not having to tear down my main base to recoup prestige. those are great news!!! As for the 3rd, the whole base salvage to Invention, well, you've seen the other posts.

Personally I like the idea of using 'brainstorms' as the base edit "currency".. how about a mixed approach of what other peoples have suggested - converting all base crafting /empowerment requirements into an X number of "brainstorms".. and convert all base salvage drops into Brainstorms as well.. that reduces the .. ahem.. "confusion" as there is only one item that is ever dropped for base salvage.. kinda like Candy Canes or Merits... still allow those to be stored in Base salvage bins, and use them for empowerment stations... and they can be traded in the market as well, so if an SG finds itself short of them, they can go to the market and buy them.. or run the missions accordingly.

But please, please do not force the market into Base architects.. its really not fair that me, because I like doing the base design and put together the SG, now also have to pay from my own Inf.. in order to extend the base for the group; particularly when, as Impish kat has very nicely proven, there WILL be shortage, no way around it, so prices will go high, no way around it.
It would almost be like asking me to pay for my members' monthly NC accounts...

But, really, we're happy to see you around! Welcome again!

/e SunStorm looks sexier than Jay...

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Prestige Refunds: The programming team has set up a refund system for all base plots, rooms and items. As soon a player loads into a base, that base will automatically refund the Prestige difference.

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Awesome! "I13: City of Happy (Basebuilding) Campers"
You just made a bunch of friends here, 'Thank You So Very Much' is an understatement on this one.

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Teleporter recipes: The Rare salvage requirement on these should be removed in the next patch.

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Very Nice, Plasma Capacitors won't be the new Luck Charms.


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A. Bases were priced in a way that prevented many players from accessing the larger size bases they would like to build.

The goal here was to allow everyone to build larger and more interesting bases on a smaller budget. (I’m really looking forward to seeing all the new base pics!)

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More Awesome, with a side of reality!

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Q. What has been re-priced?

A. Primarily the Plots, Rooms, and many Energy and Control items. Plots received a large reduction in cost, and rooms were significantly reduced. The cost of energy and control items is also reduced, and is now based on the amount of energy and control they provide.

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Me likey, there's still a bit of a 'barrier of entry' getting the first 300-600K, but that can be worked-around to some extent with alts.
*Note* Having a way to invite your own alts into a new or existing SG to access and contribute Prestige to the Base without needing help from people (with an open slot on that server, and the time available, and who are around at odd hrs), would be a very nice "goodie".

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Q. Base salvage, why replace it, and what will happen to it?

A. Base salvage has little value to most players. Since there are a limited number of base items to construct, once those items are built there is little need for any further base salvage.

As a result, base salvage tends to either gather dust on salvage racks, or be a source of confusion with Invention salvage. Base salvage will not be removed though, so anything not converted to Brain Storm tokens will remain in game.

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Sorry, I just don't buy by the confusion thing:

But back in I12 Beta, I DO however - recall a couple of apparently new (Friends & Family-maybe?) players getting their first piece of Base Salvage at the end of one of Kalinda's Missions & being Momentarily "Confused" and then more likely the problem, Majorly Disappointed that they hadn't just gotten a piece of potentially uber-valuable "Lewt" - it seemed they'd obviously heard (somebody), Talking about getting rich of selling "Salvage" - and we're hoping they'd just hit the jackpot at level 5 (or 7?)

Anywho, Removing the salvage conversion in the worktables (when each a table only has a pair of tier 1 , 2 or 3 components it can convert) and making the primary way to Convert Base Salvage into Base Components, = via an Empowerment Station, would've made more sense (IMO) and adding a note somewhere about 'filtering out recipes missing ingredients' would have solved most of the "confusion".

(That and of course... changing the Reward message to be more clear -as everyone has mentioned for a month or so.)

For some Crafted Base Items, this will be kinda nice - like the Tier 2 & 3 Empowerment Stations, they currently call for quite a few Base Components - although its mostly tier 1 stuff. *shrug*


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Q. Salvage Storage Racks, Why only 30 pieces of invention salvage?

A. In short, the market. The market system is designed to have a steady supply of salvage coming in. If large salvage racks were added, it would create a temporary supply problem of unknown duration until the salvage racks filled up.

Since having salvage temporarily dry up would be a big problem for all players, this number was intentionally kept low. Once the impact on the markets as a whole can be measured, we will look at adjusting these numbers again.

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I've heard that "not many people were using Empowerment Stations". I'm not sure how or when that info was garnered/data-mined? Nor just how much/often the people who were using them - did so?

I know some people used them enough - that other people were creating them and selling them for a "tidy bit of Inf" regularly. (I believe these were mostly rich PvP'ers that 'couldn't be bothered to make the components themselves' or wouldn't (they'd rather just pay 10K, 30K, 50k+ for them.)


[u]Aside from that, there are a few things that would/will affect this that don't seem to be taken into account.[u]

First off, (and this is a Biggie), people will no longer be able put in cheap (ore semi-cheap) bids for dozens of stacks 10 Common
Invention Salvage & go "Convert Invention Salvage into Base Salvage" =Components, with them at a 6 to 1 ratio for commons.
And then either resell them on the market or dump them in a 2500 item Bin.
And If they had bought low-level commons that would convert into the most frequent AND commonly used Tech Material, Tech Power, Mystic Element & Mystic Foci - they're (or were) valuable!

Because they were used in nearly everything, (Items & Empowerments) Interestingly & somewhat "confusingly" - The Tier 2 Components were worth a semi-decent amount (but normally less than Tier 1's), and Tier 3's were worth even less (almost worthless by comparison).

Some players would actually buy Base Salvage and (knowing the Conversions pretty well, the common ones by heart)- or that we could set the filter to only show us the conversion options we HAD the salvage for - if working with the more 'Rare' sorts Base Salvage.

All this Converting counted as a craft towards "Fabricator" - that and the fact that lvl 50's running outside of SG mode to make up the Inf difference by grinding for Inf awhile to just buy whatever Base Components they needed for Empowerments rather than getting Base Salvage in SG mode and hassling with converting it.

And this also lead to people buying up common salvage to Convert to Base Components for Empowerment Stations (even if they weren't working on their "Fabricator" Badge, & more costly - to enough people it was simpler & easier to do it this way. And they could say it "helped the Invention Salvage Commons Market" too.

WITHOUT people "Converting Invention Salvage to Base Salvage" there should be significantly more commons on the Market - Even with Empowerment Stations running off Invention Salvage - (it won't be converted at a 6 to 1 ratio first!)


Secondly, having Empowerment Station run on Invention Salvage - doesn't seem to be super "market friendly" really to me...

People will still delete Commons & Uncommons, OR sell them off to their Auto-Doc or a vendor = rather than bother going to put them on the market

Dual builds will increase salvage demand some, as will some of the Base Item Crafting - but the 1 hour Empowerment Buffs are going to eat through Invention Salvage faster than anything.

And it's semi-likely that if we're paying Rent on the Empowerment Stations and they're "less complicated" now their usage should/will in theory Increase, but it'll be at much less than (6 to 1) *X. "X" being the old number of components built with commons - people mostly used Commons at (6 to 1)*X & maybe some Uncommons at (4 to 1) *X, nobody in their right minds used Rares at (2 to 1)*X.


[u]Other factors:[u]
Salvage Rack will eventually fill up - and it'll probably be pretty damn quick, not matter how large you make them or how many we're allowed to place.

Brainstorms are going to add more Common Salvage than people will be able to Store in 30 Item Bins - even 18 of them - and people will likely just get Enhancement Tables, some Inspirations Bins, and 1 or 2 Salvage Racks...

That they'll use to transfer Salvage over to "Storage Mules" - like Lvl 50's they don't play anymore or make a number of small bases on their extra account(s).
IF you keep it at 30 per Bin, Players WILL do this because they'll feel it's necessary!
Not all players of course, but many of them...


Letting Salvage Racks hold an amount of storage players would be happy with - would eliminate/reduce the Muling (logging & relogging) & unhappy players.

If players DON'T FEEL "forced to mule", they likely won't bother to do it. But if they DO, then you oughta know that they're gonna be "pulling out all the stops" when they do it!

Surely, you guys realize this... right??

NOTE - Just to be crystal clear, I'm not saying "players will be forced to mule", I'm saying - they're likely to feel that way with Salvage Bins 'nerfed down' to 30 Items, and they're gonna react accordingly.

Edit: corrected to read 'Auto-Doc', not Robo-Surgeoon
/doh!

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville City of Heroes didn't fail, City of Heroes was killed. If a 747 dropped on your house, you'd say you were killed, not you failed to find a safer dwelling.

If I hadn't informed the leaders of most of the SGs I'm affiliated with, most of them wouldn't have known about the Base Salvage change. This information is not getting out to the people who don't come to the forums regularly. It needs to happen BEFORE i13 goes live or yeah, we're gonna see a bunch of unhappy people trying to use their salvage.

Welcome Sunstorm, glad to have you!

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Personally I think the new rent system is great. When they originally reduced rent so that starting plot sizes had no rent this encouraged numerous players to create personal sg's to store their enhancements, inspirations, & special salvage. This took a hit on the sg concept of it being a group & took a hit on recruitment.

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Yeah, because it's the most desirable way for most people to build a base - rent free, functional, secure storage, not having to share base Editing Permission - (And maybe lose functionality when someone else wants to redecorate, or whatever... No Thanks.)

If they ever find a way for us to have a "personal" base with storage and all the workshop stuff & decorate - then join a "Big Group" SG in addition, sure I'd join one, till then I'm going solo 99% of the time or more.

If I can still have my 'Bat-Cave' all to myself, I'll meet up with people in the 'Hall of Justice' (or wherever) to do stuff from time-to-time, no sweat - it might even be fun?

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My fear was that in i13 by changing salvage racks to providing additional invention salvage, the trend of personal bases would explode making it even harder for actual sg's to survive, particularly on smaller servers. The new rent structure adds a price for having a personal sg base, this alone might prevent the trend from growing more rapidly then before.

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You're funny!
I'm sorry for the snarkyness, but there's no way in the world, I'm sharing a Base I intend to store IO's (and now Salvage) in - unless a RL friend starts playing again (and that ain't likely - afaik they're still off playing WoW with - Capt. Kirk, Mr T. and Ozzy) and I'm not about to let them futz with the Base Editor or my Set IO's right away either.

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In the end however, I only expect the rent system for i13 to only slightly curve the formation of new personal sg's as the maximum rent can be covered by simply running 1-3 paper missions with a level 30 or higher (very conservative estimate).


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Unless they seriously raise the Number of "Storage Items" allowed in a Base, or fix the "theft bug" so that we can drop items into Coalition Storage.
Then, I'm seriously looking at finally breaking down and getting a 2nd account - just so I can have 2 Characters on at the same time to swap - Recipes, Salvage & IO's with.

And have a 2nd Toon to "duo" with... a Support or Buffer-type character with some of the "Ally Only" Powers I don't particularly ENJOY taking most of the time.

And be able to Invite New Alts into a SG, when I roll a new Alt at 3AM, or after I've added a Character slot to a Server, or that kinda thing.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville City of Heroes didn't fail, City of Heroes was killed. If a 747 dropped on your house, you'd say you were killed, not you failed to find a safer dwelling.

I think maybe we've meandered away from the Q&A part of this thread. To which I must admit some culpability.

Moar Questions for our shiney new Redname?

Well hello.

I see very few problems with the up coming changes. I'm concerned about empowerments being even more of a hassle.

I'm also concerned about the IO crafting table will no longer convert invention salvage into something else.

On live 6 Bore Sights have very little value to me. I can either auction them (not worth it), vendor them (not worth it), convert them (a value only due to badging) or just delete the stack. In a very small way base salvage added a value to "worthless" invention salvage. Will the dev team be considering ways for players to burn off stacks of low value invention salvage that doesn't involve trading it in for influence or the delete button?

Perhaps I am missing something, but why would a person NOT want to make their base a secure base for the lower half of the sizes?

I've heard it said that there will be a "base raid flag" at some point in the future. Will that flag be perhaps just the distinction between having a hidden base and a secure base?

My now rent free base will not longer be rent free, this is the stupidest idea ever! I understand, it is a trivial amount of effort to farm the prestige of this amount, but, mine is a solo SG, it took a long time to build up a full base. This is just more hatred of all things solo in this game.

I have bases on four servers,Virtue being my home server. I some times head off to the others. Now the first thing I am going to have to do logging in is trundle off to Atlas and pay rent on the servers that I do not go to often. I like the Idea of more places to pay rent (which I did not have to before). An in base ability to pay rent would be welcomed. Very much so. Very very very much.

I just wanted to pop in to say, "Welcome, Sunstorm!"

This all sounds like good news and I look forward to hearing more from you in the future.

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Items in personal inventory will be placed at the reduced price after the issue goes live. Merry Christmas!


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Can I have your babies?

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