Devs- Are you too RP-minded?
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2009-05-22 08:34 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Before AE came out there were at least two warnings not to use it as farm grounds. They were ignored.
When AE came out the patch notes and tutorial said not to farm it. This was ignored.
The Devs went "If you can't be trusted not to throw the ball in the house you don't get any balls."
People acted like kids they were disciplined like kids.
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I came back after the AE release.
Heck, I even missed the free 5 year weekend...
But your comment... lol
I understand you're trying to use an analogy, but I think you're a little far off in your description.
I'd draw the comparison like this:
Before AE came out there at least two advertisements for free crack cocaine in the AE missions. But the crack cocaine was not supposed to be used. Just looked at.
When AE came out the patch notes and tutorial said not to use the crack cocaine.
This was ignored.
The Devs went "If you crackheads can't be trusted to leave the crack cocaine alone, then you're banned!"
Gamers acted like gamers.
It was absurd to expect anything else.
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Do I believe any of them have played the game from 1-50 as a normal player without giving in to the urge to use the power at their disposal? Nope. It gets too tedious once you get into the 30s.
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Personally, I find the 30's to be the funnest part of the game (aside from LGTF's at 50). Lots of slots, all your best powers, RWZ, Cimerora... it's where I feel like I've gone from being an "amateur" to a "professional" hero.
Of course, since you believe that part of the game is too grindy, it's likely the devs have never even bothered. They probably throw their hands up in frustration and shout, "how do these fools even play this game! Why, if I cared, I'd do something about it, but I'll just hit this magic button instead and be all ubah."
Oh wait... they play this game on their own time with their own personal accounts, which most likely aren't allowed access to dev tools. Huh.
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NightShift for Life.
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Before AE came out there were at least two warnings not to use it as farm grounds. They were ignored.
When AE came out the patch notes and tutorial said not to farm it. This was ignored.
The Devs went "If you can't be trusted not to throw the ball in the house you don't get any balls."
People acted like kids they were disciplined like kids.
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I came back after the AE release.
Heck, I even missed the free 5 year weekend...
But your comment... lol
I understand you're trying to use an analogy, but I think you're a little far off in your description.
I'd draw the comparison like this:
Before AE came out there at least two advertisements for free crack cocaine in the AE missions. But the crack cocaine was not supposed to be used. Just looked at.
When AE came out the patch notes and tutorial said not to use the crack cocaine.
This was ignored.
The Devs went "If you crackheads can't be trusted to leave the crack cocaine alone, then you're banned!"
Gamers acted like gamers.
It was absurd to expect anything else.
[/ QUOTE ]My version also covers the people who may or may not have been hit with punishment by mistake. It's like when dad tries to hit a kid while driving and hits everyone in the back seat.
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Do I believe any of them have played the game from 1-50 as a normal player without giving in to the urge to use the power at their disposal? Nope. It gets too tedious once you get into the 30s.
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Speak for yourself. I got one character to level 50 THREE TIMES and it wasn't one bit tedious. That's right, same powerset combo and even costume, for 150 levels. And NO powerleveling or farming.
Again, speak for yourself rather than making blanket statements as if they were "facts".
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Of course he thinks it's impossible for a Dev who has access to /setlevel 50 to not use it on every character. After all, if *he* had access to such a command, he'd use it all the time.
Character index
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I just renewed a few days ago after not playing for several months, and then the you(the devs) start releasing all these notes about nerfing AE missions and getting rid of badges, etc. I just ran my first AE mission ever tonight to try it out since getting back. I got a couple of badges for it. The server goes down and I read the forums in the meantime and discover some of the neat new badges I just got are getting removed. This annoyed me and got me thinking about some stuff.
You seem to be catering this game more towards RPers than anyone else. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with RPers, but they seem to be the vocal ones complaining about farming and whatnot. So you are cracking down on farming now. Five years into the game and we still don't have end day content. All the expansion packs are really more geared towards RPers as they are costumes and emotes. They don't add any new playing content. Even your stated goal for MA seems to be more about getting players to write stories. Another aspect of RP.
Let's focus on the players a bit now. Really who cares about farms? It literally does not impact ANYONE. Yet you state you got numerous complaints over the farm AE missions. So what? The game is not more fun the slower it is to level. I'm not sure if this is a concept grasped by everyone on your team yet.
Many of the playerbase just want a game they can pick up and play and move up quickly to try out their nifty new powers. They want new content and not the same repetitious floorplans over and over. None of these requests are new. MA offered this and now you want to nerf it.
Maybe you focus most of your attention to the RP fanbase because their desires are cheaper and easier to implement. But they are also the smaller part of the playerbase. They may very well be sticking this game out until it dies, but is that all you are gunning for?
This isn't a request to keep farming in the game or to nerf RP. I just think you need to focus more on a balance of content for players and RPers. Please stop focusing all your decisions and releases around the RPers of the game. Look at things a bit more from the side of the player. Let's not forget the game in RPG.
PS- I also recommend you all try playing a couple of characters from 1-50 without any dev tricks, just as a normal player, to see how grindy things are. Then go on a couple of farm missions with some friends and see how fun the leveling can be in comparison.
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Speaking as a roleplayer, I agree completly. No, Im not joking, I really do. Im not sure if the develiopers are focused on RP content to the exclusion of other content, but I do generally agree that ther is nothing wrong with farming. Its become somethign of an article of faith with this community that thats its evil. Something we take for granted and never question. The sky is blue; the sun is hot; G0d is good; farming must be stopped. I've got news for you, sports fans, who do you think is supplying the marcket with a lot of those oh-so-fun-to-have high end recipees?
The whole "you're not having fun the right way; we have to force you to play only in the developer-approved kind of teams" is not good. Ive always especially loved that argument about AE and famring in genral. "people ar all farming, I can't find a mission team." So your argument is taht... what? People should be forced to play the kind of content you enjoy so that they will have no choice but to team with you? And /they're/ selfish? And I could just as easilly complain about normal content clogging the airwaves as farming content. Or costume contests for that matter *shudder*
And on a broader note (in theory this thread isn't just about farming) the near-total lack of end-game content after 5 years is a perfectly legitimate gripe to make. "re-roll for the 800th time" is not an acceptable answer to people sitting at the level cap wondering why there's nothing to do. Perhaps people would be less inclinced to PL their way past all that oh-so-sacred 'content' if they hadn't seen it all so often they could quote the dialogue verbatum.
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it doesn't matter if they read it or not.
Post all the "don't eat people" signs you want on the Savannah, lions will still do it- that's their nature.
Players will find efficient reward paths.
If developers don't want them to, it must be coded into the game.
Asking doesn't work, period. It never has, it never will.
Their release of AE was like throwing a deer into the lion cage and then having a screaming fit when it got eaten.
Gamers acting like gamers is predictable and understandable.
All the fault here lies with the devs, the alleged 'adults' who threw a huge fit when their paying customers didn't use a toy they way they wanted them to.
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So because you can't stop people from stealing cars unless you make cars that can be driven by only one person, making it illegal for people to steal cars and punishing them if they get caught is unfair? Because if a person sees a nice car that they don't own, they *have to* get inside and drive it. They can't help it. It's the fault of the car's owner for having such a nice car.
Character index
I like this saying.
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you as well are ignoring the G part of it. Maybe with a little more G we would get some more M, as in Massive.
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carry on.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
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Before AE came out there were at least two warnings not to use it as farm grounds. They were ignored.
When AE came out the patch notes and tutorial said not to farm it. This was ignored.
The Devs went "If you can't be trusted not to throw the ball in the house you don't get any balls."
People acted like kids they were disciplined like kids.
[/ QUOTE ]
I came back after the AE release.
Heck, I even missed the free 5 year weekend...
But your comment... lol
I understand you're trying to use an analogy, but I think you're a little far off in your description.
I'd draw the comparison like this:
Before AE came out there at least two advertisements for free crack cocaine in the AE missions. But the crack cocaine was not supposed to be used. Just looked at.
When AE came out the patch notes and tutorial said not to use the crack cocaine.
This was ignored.
The Devs went "If you crackheads can't be trusted to leave the crack cocaine alone, then you're banned!"
Gamers acted like gamers.
It was absurd to expect anything else.
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Also, this!
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the near-total lack of end-game content after 5 years is a perfectly legitimate gripe to make. "re-roll for the 800th time" is not an acceptable answer to people sitting at the level cap wondering why there's nothing to do.
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Funny, seems to have worked for over 100 thousand people for 5 years now. They must be doing SOMETHING right...
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
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G0d is good
[/ QUOTE ]I disagree
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My thought was more "how is ignoring warnings considered a vindication for doing something dumb?"
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there's a difference between glazing over the safety bit in an owner's manual and sticking your tongue into woodchipper after being told it will do terrible things to your face
i'm of the opinion that this falls into the former category since every warning was either out of the way or accompanied by other text that no one really wanted to read
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Ignorance of the law is not a legal excuse for breaking the law.
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I get a kick out of the stunningly willful suspension of common sense exhibited by many of the recent posters in these threads too.
For example, how ridiculous is someone saying 'they left it in the game and I may have abused it but its their fault!'.
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I just renewed a few days ago after not playing for several months, and then the you(the devs) start releasing all these notes about nerfing AE missions and getting rid of badges, etc. I just ran my first AE mission ever tonight to try it out since getting back. I got a couple of badges for it. The server goes down and I read the forums in the meantime and discover some of the neat new badges I just got are getting removed. This annoyed me and got me thinking about some stuff.
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The badges being removed are the badges that rely on the actions of other players (People were forming rating cartels and purposely griefing others to speed or block progress on the Hall of Fame badge) and the badges that almost required grinding to get. The existence of some of these badges caused people to make missions with 30+ collection objects, etc.
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You seem to be catering this game more towards RPers than anyone else. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with RPers, but they seem to be the vocal ones complaining about farming and whatnot. So you are cracking down on farming now.
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They are cracking down on farming in the AE, not farming in general. Every time I hear somone spout this accusation off, I know that they either did not read or understand Postron's posts.
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Five years into the game and we still don't have end day content.
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Lord Recluse Strike Force? Statesman Task Force? Rikti Mothership Raids? Hamidon Raids? Purple IOs? The new 5th Column SF/TFs coming in Issue 15? You have played the game, right? Because alting is encouraged, the Devs have decided that creating content across all levels is better than concentrating content at the end.
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All the expansion packs are really more geared towards RPers as they are costumes and emotes. They don't add any new playing content.
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The stated goall and promise when they started releasing the booster packs is that they would not have anything necessary to play the game in them. They are intended as fluff, things that you can ignore at your leisure. If you needed one to play a Task Force, for example, wouldn't that hurt your ability to make a team for that Task Force?
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Even your stated goal for MA seems to be more about getting players to write stories. Another aspect of RP.
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You are absolutely correct. The goal of Mission Architect was for players to be able to create their own stories and share them with other players. The secondary goal is to have an alternate leveling path to 50, in roughly the same amount of time with roughly the same amount of rewards.
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Let's focus on the players a bit now. Really who cares about farms? It literally does not impact ANYONE.
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Farming does have an effect on the game. In general, I think most of the effects are good, and a few are bad. I do not do it myself, because I find it boring as all heck. Again, this isn't about farming in general, it is about farming in the Mission Architect.
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Yet you state you got numerous complaints over the farm AE missions. So what?
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Remember the stated purpose of Architect? The whole reason the thing was designed and all those man hours spent (8-10 months of work)? We were told, long before it was released, that the Architect was not to be a farming tool, and that the Devs would not allow it to become one. So, the playerbase took this information, and completely disregarded it. It became difficult to find "real" mission in the Architect. The beginner zones of each server filled with AE farm spam, which led us to our next problem....
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The game is not more fun the slower it is to level. I'm not sure if this is a concept grasped by everyone on your team yet.
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The exploits discovered allowed powerleveling at an unprecedented speed. Because much of this was done without ever leaving the Architect building, often in the beginner zones, a metric tonne of new players were skyrocketed past most of the game, all to reach the endgame. As you have noted previously, the "endgame" is somewhat lacking. These new players will quickly get bored because they completely bypassed everything there is to do in this game in the race to the cap. Even worse, the new players have no idea that this behavior was not normal, as they were spammed into these powerlevel farms from the moment they entered the beginner zones. Veteran players, in their race to get bunches of characters into their 50s, dragged a lot of new players along for the ride.
I honestly have no problem with Vets powerleveling past the parts of the game they have decided they don't like or are too grindy. There used to be places for that, and they were called Peregrine Island and Grandville. If a new player wanted to powerlevel, they needed to go seek it out in order to do so. Not true anymore, now they can do it from almost any zone. We veterans used our newfound powerleveling tools to take new players past the parts we don't like, without giving the new players a chance to form their own opinions about it.
That is how AE farms affected other players.
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Many of the playerbase just want a game they can pick up and play and move up quickly to try out their nifty new powers. They want new content and not the same repetitious floorplans over and over. None of these requests are new. MA offered this and now you want to nerf it.
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New farms is not "new content." Due to the total lackof travel time, leveling is faster through Architect, even without the exploits. All they nerfed were the exploits that went far beyond anything that can be found elsewhere in the game, and none of the "nerfs" have any impact on the player's ability to create and play new content.
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Maybe you focus most of your attention to the RP fanbase because their desires are cheaper and easier to implement. But they are also the smaller part of the playerbase. They may very well be sticking this game out until it dies, but is that all you are gunning for?
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The goal is to keep as many people for as long as possible. Leaving the MA as it was created an "easy mode" for the game. Easy mode is fine for a game you play through a few times and put back on the shelf, but it is terrible for game based on long term subscriptions. Easy mode becomes boring very quickly, and bored people leave.
And how do you know how large the portion of the game that RPs is? We have no real idea how many people are "farmers" or "RPers." The reason why it seems like the group we are part of is larger, and beset by the "evil minority" is that we tend to gravitate towards players with similar playstyles. If most of the people you interact with are farmers, then obviously farmers will seem like the majority.
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This isn't a request to keep farming in the game or to nerf RP. I just think you need to focus more on a balance of content for players and RPers. Please stop focusing all your decisions and releases around the RPers of the game. Look at things a bit more from the side of the player. Let's not forget the game in RPG.
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The great things about RPers is that they appreciate any addition you make to the game. Turnng off XP, which was a boon for farmers and powelevelers? RPers love it because they don't outlevel any stories they want to do with that character. New story arcs? RPers are always looking for those.
And in all honesty, can you show me an MMORPG that doesn't try to support its roleplayers? All of the story and background fluff that went into Rise of the Lich King is directly for the benefit of the RPers in WoW. This goes for every single content expansion of every single MMORPG. I fail to see your point.
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PS- I also recommend you all try playing a couple of characters from 1-50 without any dev tricks, just as a normal player, to see how grindy things are. Then go on a couple of farm missions with some friends and see how fun the leveling can be in comparison.
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If your only goal is leveling, then this is true. If your goal is to play the game, you are cheating yourself by repeating the same content over and over again to the exclusion of all other content.
For me, there is a momentary euphoria that comes with each level ding. The few times I powerleveled, I did not feel this euphoria because I wasn't doing anything to get it. Hours of repetition for a minute of endorphin rush every thirty minutes or so does not equal fun for me. In my opinion, the increased leveling rate does not justify the boredom inherent in the activity.
The Devs do play this game. Just like they are not allowed to have non-Dev forum accounts, they are not allowed to reveal themselves as Devs in the game when not playing one of the signature characters. It is entirely possible that a Dev has done exactly what you suggested (joined a farm team), but you will never know.
New story arcs coming soon (ARC IDs will be aded when I finish the arc):
So, you want to join the Hellions? (level 1-14 Villainous arc)
Sparks & Steel (level 5-20 Heroic arc)
and
So you want to join the Skulls? (level 1-14 Villainous arc)
People were told what the MA was supposed to be used for, and what it was NOT supposed to be used for. Just because you own a chainsaw doesn't mean you're supposed to hack people up with it. It came with rules, the rules were broken, whining ensued, but it doesn't make the rules any less valid, nor the rule-breakers any less guilty.
Most of us CAN use the system by the rules. WHY CAN'T THEY?
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed
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My thought was more "how is ignoring warnings considered a vindication for doing something dumb?"
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there's a difference between glazing over the safety bit in an owner's manual and sticking your tongue into woodchipper after being told it will do terrible things to your face
i'm of the opinion that this falls into the former category since every warning was either out of the way or accompanied by other text that no one really wanted to read
[/ QUOTE ]
Ignorance of the law is not a legal excuse for breaking the law.
[/ QUOTE ]
I get a kick out of the stunningly willful suspension of common sense exhibited by many of the recent posters in these threads too.
For example, how ridiculous is someone saying 'they left it in the game and I may have abused it but its their fault!'.
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Sorry, officer. I guess my reckless driving was caused by my cooking of this bald eagle on my dashboard Hibachi while talking on my cell phone and snorting cocaine off this dead prostitute's stomach. Is there a problem?
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
Arc # 316340 -- "Husk" -- Azuria loses something, a young woman harbors a dark secret, and the fate of the world is in your hands.
The leveling speed wasn't unpresidented Lightfoot. Remember the one exploit where you could rapidly level a whole SG by clicking one person over and over again.
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Sorry, officer. I guess my reckless driving was caused by my cooking of this bald eagle on my dashboard Hibachi while talking on my cell phone and snorting cocaine off this dead prostitute's stomach. Is there a problem?
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Your turn signal's out.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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near-total lack of end-game content after 5 years is a perfectly legitimate gripe to make.
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LOL. I can't take anyone seriously who says something like this.
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Lord Recluse Strike Force? Statesman Task Force? Rikti Mothership Raids? Hamidon Raids? Purple IOs? The new 5th Column SF/TFs coming in Issue 15? You have played the game, right? Because alting is encouraged, the Devs have decided that creating content across all levels is better than concentrating content at the end.
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Its getting better, I grant you, but its still a paltry tithe (YES! I found an excuse to use the phrase "paltry tithe" in a sentance) compared to other MMOs.
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The exploits discovered allowed powerleveling at an unprecedented speed. Because much of this was done without ever leaving the Architect building, often in the beginner zones, a metric tonne of new players were skyrocketed past most of the game, all to reach the endgame. As you have noted previously, the "endgame" is somewhat lacking. These new players will quickly get bored because they completely bypassed everything there is to do in this game in the race to the cap.
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This is actually the only legitimate argumetn I've ever heard amde about PLing (architect style or otherwise) - that getting to the level cap quicker will mean leaving the game quicker, and hurt the game in the long run.
It is a perfectly legitimate concern. Im not sure if it is quite as doomy and gloomy a possibility as some would like to believe, but it is still legitimate. I tend to feel, however that the correct solution is to make more and better end-game content, rather than forcing people to go more slowly through the content they've already done.
It is worth noting, though, just to play my own devil's advocate, that one of the nice things about MA, is that it can effectively fill thise role, at least to an extent, since people can make a theoreticaly infinate variety of high level missions.
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near-total lack of end-game content after 5 years is a perfectly legitimate gripe to make.
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LOL. I can't take anyone seriously who says something like this.
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And yet, somehow, my heart will go on.
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How hard is it to say "take a right after you enter the base and follow the hall to the left...should be the second telepad."
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But I don't have a Telepad down that hall. 
[/ QUOTE ]No one's perfect.
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Too funny. I'm in a solo SG, O-portal means no need for Telepads.
But the other games rely upon end-game content *because there's only a grind from 1 to cap* for those games.
THIS game is not like those. There is content from level one onwards. If you blow past it, that's YOUR loss *general you* and not the devs fault.
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed
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near-total lack of end-game content after 5 years is a perfectly legitimate gripe to make.
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LOL. I can't take anyone seriously who says something like this.
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And yet, somehow, my heart will go on.
[/ QUOTE ]NEAR! FAR! WHevER YOU ARE!
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near-total lack of end-game content after 5 years is a perfectly legitimate gripe to make.
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LOL. I can't take anyone seriously who says something like this.
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And yet, somehow, my heart will go on.
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Awww... ya big ole softie... come here, I'll give ya a hug! 
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near-total lack of end-game content after 5 years is a perfectly legitimate gripe to make.
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LOL. I can't take anyone seriously who says something like this.
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And yet, somehow, my heart will go on.
[/ QUOTE ]NEAR! FAR! WHevER YOU ARE!
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Warning: THE SHIP SANK!!!!!
Defcon 0 - (D4 lvl 50),DJ Shecky Cape Radio
@Shecky
Twitter: @DJ_Shecky, @siliconshecky, @thecaperadio
When you air your dirty laundry out on a clothesline above the street, everyone is allowed to snicker at the skid marks in your underoos. - Lemur_Lad
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And for the record, what the hell is a "Dev Trick"?
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It's like a hat trick, but where you greatly annoy three devs instead.