My First Thoughts on Reichsman Strikeforce
By
7thCynic,
Posted on: 2009-06-29 18:01 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Maybe they'll listen to beta testers for once.
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Lol yeah...
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And you know what? They HAVE! Imagine that...
While it's nice to hear from Horatio, his letter leaves me with a question. He admits that rather than wait until it was ready, they instead rushed out a flawed product to meet a timeline without informing the playerbase that what they were experiencing was still under development and repair, and he doesn't apologize for it.
How is this an appropriate customer service model?
Lots of alts, mostly on Virtue
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While it's nice to hear from Horatio, his letter leaves me with a question. He admits that rather than wait until it was ready, they instead rushed out a flawed product to meet a timeline without informing the playerbase that what they were experiencing was still under development and repair, and he doesn't apologize for it.
How is this an appropriate customer service model?
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You must be new to the video game industry.
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenth ur-
nuk!
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While it's nice to hear from Horatio, his letter leaves me with a question. He admits that rather than wait until it was ready, they instead rushed out a flawed product to meet a timeline without informing the playerbase that what they were experiencing was still under development and repair, and he doesn't apologize for it.
How is this an appropriate customer service model?
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You must be new to the video game industry.
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Typical forumite snark. I think he has a point. The SF/TF *was* rushed. The MM power is bugged as admitted by Castle himself.
When did the video game industry get a pass for sloppy work? I like this game, but don't excuse sloppiness by implying such standards are acceptable fare.
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Why does redside become forced to have very specialized teams, while blueside can bring whatever
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Just FYI, did the blue-side TF last night on a small team of four, the minimum the TF allows. We are all veterans of the game, one of whom has been playing since BEFORE general release. We're no strangers to the game, nor the TFs/Trials.
The team consisted of a broadsword/regen scrapper, invulnerability/super strength tank, mind/empathy controller, and sonic/sonic defender.
Everything up to Reichsman in the last mission was a breeze. Steamrollered, with occsional speed bumps. Schadenfreude was an enjoyable fight, and all of the "villains" leading up to him ("Sardonic" made me laugh). We were playing on Tenacious and didn't really notice. I turned it down before the last mission, though.
We could not dent Reichsman.
"I think he took some damage!"
"Really?"
"Oh, it's gone now."
We never got more than 2% damage off of him for 30 minutes straight. We couldn't even get him to the point where he'd release an AV.
We were perfectly safe, though. We could have pounded at him until the cows came home and still not dented him sufficiently to move things forward. Between the sonic shields and debuffs and the /empath buffing whenever available and occasionally healing when a squishy one of us got desperate and close enough to try a melee epic power (to no effect), it would have been an hours-long stalemate into the wee late night.
We brought "whatever" and couldn't finish the TF.
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Maybe they'll listen to beta testers for once.
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Lol yeah...
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And you know what? They HAVE! Imagine that...
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Yeah they listened so well when people told them repeatedly all the problems with MA...
Be realistic here. By the time it goes to beta, it's pretty much a done deal unless Arcanaville shows them a game breaking bug.
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While it's nice to hear from Horatio, his letter leaves me with a question. He admits that rather than wait until it was ready, they instead rushed out a flawed product to meet a timeline without informing the playerbase that what they were experiencing was still under development and repair, and he doesn't apologize for it.
How is this an appropriate customer service model?
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You must be new to the video game industry.
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Typical forumite snark. I think he has a point. The SF/TF *was* rushed. The MM power is bugged as admitted by Castle himself.
When did the video game industry get a pass for sloppy work? I like this game, but don't excuse sloppiness by implying such standards are acceptable fare.
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Actually, no, his reply was true. As an MMO, EVERYTHING in the game is under a constant state of development and repair. Content is usually rushed and comes out buggy because the player base throws a fit when it doesn't come out fast enough for them. Or in this case they wanted to do something neat for the anniversary. I know, who do they think they are?
Also, they apparently already had a fix in place. There was just a problem and an old build had to get uploaded to the server,s which likely couldn't have been prevented even if they did keep it on test longer.
Okay, now that I've run both versions of the TF, I can weigh in on my opinion.
This should be expected, but my post contains spoilers.
[u]Hero[u]
This one is straight forward, easy, and pretty quick (58 mins). There are no hidden mission objectives, there are map waypoints for the outdoor maps (sans the glowy hunt), and you get your temp powers before the last fight allowing you to put them in a convenient place ahead of time. Reichsman himself wasn't an issue, and our team was pretty light on debuffs (Kin Def, FF Def, Emp Def, Storm Controller, 2 Blasters, 1 Scrapper, 1 Tank).
Of the team, six of us had never done it before, and it was still a very smooth run. The last fight was actually a little anti-climatic, but that team was stacked defensively. I'll have to run it a few more times before I get a 'true' feel for it.
[u]Villain[u]
This one isn't as refined as the hero one and plays a bit choppier, but it feels a lot more epic. Things that made it less streamlined:
* Hostage in the second mission glitched for ~5-10 mins due to team stealth powers. (The rest of the team went ahead as I tried to acquire the NPC. I had no stealth powers. Also, somehow the objective completed before I was able to get the NPC to the object, no idea how.)
* The outdoor missions objectives weren't clear on what we should do. Is it a clear all? Specific mob? Random? I honestly don't know.
* Finding / escorting the patrons is clunky and not fluid.
* Temp powers being granted at the same time as Reichsman spawned was a little annoying. (I was trying to find mine in my power list while performing other duties.)
* Bugged MM power. Also, the Corruptor temp is disappointing. Unlike the other ATs that are useful by themselves, the tornadoes only really function when used in conjunction with something else. (I'd say the Dominator version is second worst; the hold is great without any conditions, but it's still just a pause button.)
* Temp powers being tied to AT may or may not be a bad thing - I'll have to run it more often to see how it plays out.
That said, there were a lot of things I did like:
* Reichsman's entrance was pretty epic, and the following blackout felt like something right out of a comic book. Awesome!
* The final fight is also very unique compared to the hero version. The endless ambushes kept the pressure / adrenaline up throughout the fight. There was always something to do, no simple "mash your attack chain" here, no sir!
* The temp powers, despite the fact I ragged on them above, were just fun to see. An entire army of 5th being completely shut down by a Dominator or wiped off the map by a Stalker? The tornadoes also looked neat and worked adequately coupled with my EM Pulse.
In the end, the TF took ~2 hours with 19 deaths
[u]Final Thoughts[u]
Right now, the hero version is a much smoother run. I like the fact that things have a much more logical flow to them without as much "what are we supposed to do here?" The villain side was a much more unique and epic experience, but there are blemishes on it that dampen the fun factor a bit. If the villain version gets some additional polish on it, I think it will be the better of the two.
As mentioned above, I've only done each once, so my view is pretty narrow at this point. They're also both new, so it's likely the runs will speed up as people get more acquainted with them.
I have yet to run the SF (and given the amount of venom expressed in this thread on that subject, I think I'll wait a bit for it...), but I ran the TF for the first time tonight and was fairly disappointed.
Once you got to Tina Macintyre, it things went all right, if for no other reason than you never had to deal with Dr. Kahn again in a serious fashion. The first half of this TF reminded me largely of Harry Potter 7, where, after having spent the first 6 books building this world and a mythology to go along with it, Rowling suddenly decides to toss in something completely random but nonetheless ridiculously important to final success (i.e. the deathly hallows).
The concept is good: Reichsman has escaped and plotting the conquest of this dimension in the name of a trans-dimensional Reich. The heros stumble on this while responding to a robbery under City Hall. All well and good (aside from the lame names and dialogue of the EBs/AVs in mish 1).
The problems come when first, there is no proper segue between mish 1 and mish 2 (a detail that could be easily corrected with the inclusion of a 'find out what they want' clicky objective that could provide an appropriate clue that the 5th Column will be invading Boomtown in the near future). As I say, it feels like it's jumping from one thing to the next with no attention to continuity.
Once actually in Boomtown, the good doctor says the Freedom Phalanx will be coming to fight the threat as well, and it'd be nice if they did show up. Secondly, and more irritating yet, given how hyped the return of Reichsman was in the run-up to this issue, one would think a cutscene when he shows up, featuring him being remarkably bad-a**, would be appropriate and even obligatory, just in time for him to wail on the Freedom Phalanx and take Statesman hostage using the accumulated power of the other Marcus Coles he's already collected. That would be a far better motivator to find out what Reichsman's up to that he'd want to kidnap Statesman rather than simply hang him from the highest tree.
After that point, the missions themselves are largely controlled by Tina Macintyre who has at least a different voice (if not a different writer) than does Dr. Kahn, and the entire storyline gets much better and more interesting in a hurry. I do have one final problem with the storyline, that being that there is little or no warning that you'll be fighting not just one AV in the last mish, but five. Just mentioning that, say, Countess Crey was seen leaving her mansion with guards dressed suspiciously like Nazis and hasn't been seen since, would be helpful in that regard.
So far as I'm concerned, Dr. Kahn is the largest problem with the TF. His dialogue is stilted, boring, pedantic, and useless, being largely a repetition of information the players already have and instructions to board this train or that to go stop some other completely random set of villains (the sheer number of 'board train, go here' mishes also annoys me). All in all, the TF is at serious risk of being little better than a series of single mishes tied together by nothing more than the continuity of the team, similar to a lot of the lvl 1-10 contacts blueside.
I certainly understand the difficulties that people are having with the SF, and no one will ever accuse me of calling three hours beating on a human punching bag to no effect 'fun'. But broken powers and ridiculous health and regen are something that can be fixed by fiddling the numbers for a while. The RTF may be the new KTF (which I doubt, by the way), but it will never be anything worth playing in my opinion until they fix the construction of the story itself. And that is a far more serious problem than needing to fiddle the numbers, so far as I am concerned.
Given how blessedly little else is in this issue and how much they hyped the Reichsman TF/SF, you'd think they'd have taken the time to get it right, both with the technical bugs redside and the storyline bugs blueside. It's quite depressing that they didn't, and given their performance in recent history, I can't say I expect better of them in the future, which is a wonderful way to kill this game.
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Yeah they listened so well when people told them repeatedly all the problems with MA...
Be realistic here. By the time it goes to beta, it's pretty much a done deal unless Arcanaville shows them a game breaking bug.
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While one side insists that the devs never listen to us, and the other insists that they listen to us all the time, the truth is somewhere in between.
The real question should be: Do the devs listen to us often enough, and about the right things?
Sure, when a bunch of people post on the forums that they want an insta-50 button the devs should ignore that request. And when people post (in the normal or beta forums) that X-Y-Z huge game mechanic change must be put in place, and the devs know that they're down to a 2 week window to go live, then maybe that request should be ignored as well.
But there have been times when the devs have listened to us when we really wanted a big game mechanic change (i.e. delaying the MA), and then ignored us when the change we wanted was minor and really shouldn't add any time at all to the go live time of an issue. Like fixing a spelling error, or changing the phrasing of a sentence, or having storage hold 50 pieces of salvage instead of 30. So the real problem (IMHO) is that when the devs listen to us and when they don't appears to be completely random. Now I'm certain that is not the actual case, but since we players are operating out here in front of the curtain we can't see what's going on behind the scenes. And since we're generally not told why a decision was made it causes it to appear random.
People generally don't like and become frustrated with events that are completely random. We've even gone so far as to invent a word that does nothing but describe people in a disparaging manner that act the way devs actions appear to us. That word is: capricious. I would even go so far as to say that many people post on the forums (and certainly in the testing forums) because they'd like to think that there is a chance that they can in some way influence the decisions made by the developers.
With the exception of Arcanaville (whom most of us have no hope of imitating) the devs have shown us that they do not care about the opinion of any single customer. Which is fine, you have 100k+ customers then why should you care about the opinion of just one of them? Especially when that one customer is nutting up on your forum about something silly every other week. But then completely out of the blue one single customer posts; "It'd sure be nice if we could see how long our characters have been logged out for in the character selection screen", and a dev immediately posts in response; "Done." (Yes, this actually happened)
So IMHO the real problem is that dev response to the things that we ask for on the forum appears to be capricious and random. I believe that's where a lot of the frustration is coming from, on both sides.
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While it's nice to hear from Horatio, his letter leaves me with a question. He admits that rather than wait until it was ready, they instead rushed out a flawed product to meet a timeline without informing the playerbase that what they were experiencing was still under development and repair, and he doesn't apologize for it.
How is this an appropriate customer service model?
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You must be new to the video game industry.
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Typical forumite snark. I think he has a point. The SF/TF *was* rushed. The MM power is bugged as admitted by Castle himself.
When did the video game industry get a pass for sloppy work? I like this game, but don't excuse sloppiness by implying such standards are acceptable fare.
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Actually, no, his reply was true. As an MMO, EVERYTHING in the game is under a constant state of development and repair. Content is usually rushed and comes out buggy because the player base throws a fit when it doesn't come out fast enough for them. Or in this case they wanted to do something neat for the anniversary. I know, who do they think they are?
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There's a difference between the game being under constant developement and needing tweaks and the devs deliberately putting out something they knew was broken. If you pick up a car from the dealer with three wheels and they tell you they have a plan to put the last wheel on in a week or so, but they really wanted to make the delivery deadline, is this ok with you? It shouldn't be, but apparently your standards are lower because the dealer tried and that's enough.
Lots of alts, mostly on Virtue
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Secondly, and more irritating yet, given how hyped the return of Reichsman was in the run-up to this issue, one would think a cutscene when he shows up, featuring him being remarkably bad-a**, would be appropriate and even obligatory, just in time for him to wail on the Freedom Phalanx and take Statesman hostage using the accumulated power of the other Marcus Coles he's already collected.
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NO!!!
Devs, please remove cutscenes from LGTF, ITF, STF and RSF.
I hate seening the same cutscene hundreds times... kkthxbai
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While it's nice to hear from Horatio, his letter leaves me with a question. He admits that rather than wait until it was ready, they instead rushed out a flawed product to meet a timeline without informing the playerbase that what they were experiencing was still under development and repair, and he doesn't apologize for it.
How is this an appropriate customer service model?
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You must be new to the video game industry.
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Typical forumite snark. I think he has a point. The SF/TF *was* rushed. The MM power is bugged as admitted by Castle himself.
When did the video game industry get a pass for sloppy work? I like this game, but don't excuse sloppiness by implying such standards are acceptable fare.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, no, his reply was true. As an MMO, EVERYTHING in the game is under a constant state of development and repair. Content is usually rushed and comes out buggy because the player base throws a fit when it doesn't come out fast enough for them. Or in this case they wanted to do something neat for the anniversary. I know, who do they think they are?
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There's a difference between the game being under constant developement and needing tweaks and the devs deliberately putting out something they knew was broken.
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Also, they apparently already had a fix in place. There was just a problem and an old build had to get uploaded to the server,s which likely couldn't have been prevented even if they did keep it on test longer.
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Your analogy doesn't apply. They didn't "know" it was broken, they already had it fixed internally.
It has nothing to do with my standards, I just happen to actually understand what that quote means and I realize that some things can't be avoided. There are much better things to complain about than a few bugs that don't even keep the fight from being beatable, like the story issues.
Im not a fanboi by a long shot but i do understand time tables of development. Somethings will be released buggy because to stay on track postponing the release of an issue over 1 power will screw up their entire schedule. To get a patch out it has to go through internal testing for a bit then test sever then live if all goes well. We have been told countless times that it can take a few days to a week to get a patch out.
They can release an issue with 1 power for 1 SF not working while the rest of it is pretty bug free. (maybe cuz this issue is so tiny but hey this isnt a discussion about that) Should we wait to release an issue a month because one power is being a [censored] to code properly. Or should the broken power be put in there and released and be fixed while the time table of post issue 15 patches are released? Obviously issue 15 wouldn't be out yet because the one power is not fixed on test. It maybe a problem fixing the power that when it works its used causes a memory leak in the game or blows up your computer. I for one dont agree with all the devs decisions but not jaded enough yet to actually think castle is too lazy to fix the power if it could take him a snap of his fingers and do it in 1 minute.
I have been on, and I have heard of other teams that have finished this TF red side with out the broken power, but then again I do believe not any group of people should get together and be able to finish any random TF, that is stupid some things should require planning and a good well built team, this game is already too easy.
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Those running the asylum don't owe the patients an explanation for anything 
Given the average quality of suggestions on these forums, we are all very lucky that the devs don't listen to us very often.
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Those running the asylum don't owe the patients an explanation for anything
Given the average quality of suggestions on these forums, we are all very lucky that the devs don't listen to us very often.
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but they do owe the relatives an explaination of everything
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When did the video game industry get a pass for sloppy work? I like this game, but don't excuse sloppiness by implying such standards are acceptable fare.
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(shrug) Why should ANY software company be held to a higher standard a big name like Microsoft? Most software is like this. ESPECIALLY software where there is a built-in, routine updating process. If you know you can fix something next week, and force all users to update on your schedule, what's the hurry to fix it now?
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
Do 5th Column HAVE AUTO HIT?
I run in mid 40s on my stalker for Positional Defense.
Even eating 3 Shields, The 5th Constantly hit me., This bogus BS
JJ
I delete more 50s, then you'll ever have.
http://www.pandora.com/people/jjdemon
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Try the Hero side version. It'll be the new speed Katie within hours.
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supposing you always have a cold or a rad handy
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
So, did we get a patch this week to fix it, or are we screwed over the weekend to?
Willpower has more passive regen than Regen does. Who thought that was a good idea?
Can we get a fix for Energy Melee instead of more new sets?
You ARE screwed over the weekend
Mastermind Power Still DOES NOT work.
It still only rewards 20 Merits
JJ
I delete more 50s, then you'll ever have.
http://www.pandora.com/people/jjdemon
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Try the Hero side version. It'll be the new speed Katie within hours.
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Katie? Maybe.
Speed? Right up to the Reichsman fight(s).
Ran it, on Invincible, today and thumped Reichsman both times. 2 hours, 43 minutes. Fully 75 of which was just beating down Reichsman.
AND WE HAD FOUR BLASTERS plus pets! If I hadn't been nearly unhittable, I'd have been a smear on the wall and all 6-7 of my squishies would have been in deep dookie.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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While it's nice to hear from Horatio, his letter leaves me with a question. He admits that rather than wait until it was ready, they instead rushed out a flawed product to meet a timeline without informing the playerbase that what they were experiencing was still under development and repair, and he doesn't apologize for it.
How is this an appropriate customer service model?
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You must be new to the video game industry.
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Typical forumite snark. I think he has a point. The SF/TF *was* rushed. The MM power is bugged as admitted by Castle himself.
When did the video game industry get a pass for sloppy work? I like this game, but don't excuse sloppiness by implying such standards are acceptable fare.
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I thinm it was about the time people bought Morrowind/Oblivion/Fallout 3 and raved it was "teh best gaem evar"
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
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Try the Hero side version. It'll be the new speed Katie within hours.
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Katie? Maybe.
Speed? Right up to the Reichsman fight(s).
Ran it, on Invincible, today and thumped Reichsman both times. 2 hours, 43 minutes. Fully 75 of which was just beating down Reichsman.
AND WE HAD FOUR BLASTERS plus pets! If I hadn't been nearly unhittable, I'd have been a smear on the wall and all 6-7 of my squishies would have been in deep dookie.
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We did it in 29 minutes on Heroic without tank. Reichsman went down, while 3 more AVs remained.
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But the holes in this story are so big it'd be like if Superman suddenly forgot who Lois Lane even was and then got down on one knee and proposed to Perry White.
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Knowing Silver-age Superman... That's probably the story on a couple of comics in the 60ies...
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This is the cover to the issue after Superman proposes to Perry
Go Team Venture!