AE-ing....dead or alive?

That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange aeons even death may die

Beautiful sarcasm Frosticus, beautiful. Well played.

How can you kill that which has no life?

AE isn't dead. The art of typography is.

And you killed it. You killed it with your bare hands and stomped on its corpse, then ate it piece by piece.

I had assumed Frosticus was being sarcastic, stunning to me, that perhaps he was not.

I find Level 1, is often the most fun you can have in any game. Certainly, in old table tops, level 1 was the most "dangerous" and "exciting" adventures of all, because of the fragility of your character. Entire campaigns are sometimes sculpted keeping characters at level 1, because the mortality that is ever-present at that level.

My beef with *some* power gamers is their alleged love and claim of "skill", when in fact, they go out of their way to experience the safest and least-challenging content of all. In COH in particular, power-leveling is not only devoid of skill, it is devoid of risk or challenge. Making really, the whole thing just an exercise of "push button to make noise and character go whirrr", the kind of game an infant plays.

So as a result, power-leveling in a boss farm, in my mind, is therefore akin to this:

http://www.pixietoyhire.co.nz/images...exersaucer.jpg

Not that role players don't deserve their fair share of mockery - they do - all gaming culture does, but power gamers and PvP players are especially fun to mock, because they are so utterly convinced they have "mad skilz", when in fact, they are the exact lemmings gaming companies love to cultivate because they are so easily appeased with "phat lewt". Easy customers, easy revenue, so easily led down whatever garden path the gaming company wants them to wander...all for 15 dollars a month of course.

It's a riddle WOW figured out a long time ago, and now caters to the power-gaming lemming almost exclusively.

Role players, get stuck with games like (shudder) Eve Online. No fair!

Still, if you'd like me to mock role players with equal volume, I can gladly do so.

I regret to inform folks that it's not just farmers who've dropped MA (if they've dropped MA). The changes (nerfs) to custom critters turned off a lot of the architects as well. Y'know, the players the feature was targeted at.

I don't know. I've just begun to really discover AE. It's a little more limited than I initially preferred, but there's ample opportunity to tell an interesting story.

I just got my first 50 a few weeks ago. And not that I've explored every facet of the original game yet, by any stretch (only 150 badges...), but I've begun to consider what the future of my character means in the form of experiencing content. I've heard that this game is a bit light on end-game stuff (though I'm dying to make a run in the Shadow Shard at some point...) But as of right now, for me, there's little point in "growing" my character in all of these ultimate ways. Example: running Task Forces and farms in order to get purple recipes, loot, and what-not in order to enhance my powers by single-digit percentages. That's not fun to me.

What *is* fun is experiencing story. And City of Heroes has a surprising amount of lore to get into. I mean, most of my single-player purchases will ride on whether or not the story of a game is good. And it's usually a deal-breaker if the story is blah. AE not only gives me the chance to craft my own -- 'cause let's face it, "I can do better!" >_> But I get a real kick out of experiencing the creative sides of my fellow peers. I've always thought from the beginning, that was the point of AE. To proliferate creativity.

I mean, for the first time, I was able to bring some of my character concepts truly to life and express it in missions I can actively participate in. That's awesome. And that's why AE will never really be dead to me so long as this game is active.

I think the only issue I had with AE was how much of the creative content was locked away when I started. I'll fully admit to joining a total of two boss farms just so I can have my canvas fully open and leave me to my maximum creative potential.

I truly believe one of the most inane beliefs gamers carry with them, is video games require "skill". It is true by the strictest terms I guess, but really the whole concept is a stretch. Amusement isn't a skill. Riding a roller coaster isn't a skill.

These games are a lark, a pastime, a simple distraction for relaxation and escape. They involve less skill than reading a book. If it is a "skill" it ranks somewhere in between holding a spoon and peeing straight.

The idea that power-gamers spend a great deal of their hobby, with the mathematics of the game to optimize their experience is a lie. Especially, in this game, which lets face it, is one of the easiest MMOs to min-max.

Really, if you want games of legitimate skill, there's a bevy to choose from, far, far, far more robust than COH. COH is a lark, a whimsical game of comic books, of pew-pew, laser beams and goth chicks with large breasts and pale white skin. It is pop. It is sugary-coated nonsense. I love it, but less face it, this game is a breezy, cheesy little distraction to our lives: nothing more. At least I hope that's what it is to the rest of you. It surely is all it is ever intended to be.

Be honest, seriously just be honest about what we are talking about: what the vast majority of power gamers do, is simply repeat patterns, established by others, that have no risk, no thrill and almost no skill required to complete. They repeat these patterns endlessly until something better comes along.

None of this would be bothersome to me, except that coupled with it, is this ridiculous notion that this very safe, low-risk, style of play is somehow a legitimate challenge and that the more you repeat these dull patterns, the better player you are.

As if there is such a thing, as a "better" player in these games. Really, the measurements for "better" or "worse" in games are not really there. It's like saying I am better at watching NFL football on Sunday than you are.

Let's call it what is really power gaming is: easy pickings for people who loathe challenge, and confuse gaining experience with "points". They make the false assumption this is the entire point of the game. So much so, they sacrifice almost all the thrills the game can provide to achieve more points.

All power to them, and to each their own. But because I get to express my opinion about it just as equally as the throngs of Freedom who habitually mock roleplay, I find it laughable.

Sure my opinion is subjective, and it is not indicative of everyone else's point of view. But come on - power gaming in COH is dry stuff, by anyone's standards. The fact a giant square zone, with no geography, plenty of open space, well-spaced mobs of one specific archetype, bludgeoned to death with nary any risk, skill, thrill, or tactic is purely an act of acquistion nothing more.

What's so laughable about all that to me, is what you acquire is nothing, but the exclusive right to pay another 15 dollars next month to continue the pattern. XP is the measurement of nothing but time. You can choose to spend that time in challenging, entertaining and/or creative ways, but power gamers loathe all those things. They simply crave the points. they essentially state that gaining 1000 points an hour doing something boring - is better than gaining 500 points an hour doing something challenging. It's classic addictive/obsessive personality, text book cases really, and in my book, that doesn't deserve applause.

The reason why role players are far more enjoyable to me, is they focus almost exclusively on actual entertainment, leaving the simplistic "point system" that a grade school student can master, as as a secondary diversion. They learned long ago, an MMO rewards time, obsession and subscription dollars - not really skill.

Even the oldest stewards of our hobby wrote in their books, that the game was diminished when the only focus of the game was power. Monty Haul campaigns have always been mocked in this hobby of ours. And farming is Monty Haul at its worst. Plain and simple.

Mockery of that style of play, is as old as the jokes of role players showing up to the gaming tables in capes, or saying everything with words such as "thou and thine" as often as possible. And I support mockery of role players too. Gaming should never take itself seriously. It does after all, revolve around playing games, often rather childish games. There's nothing wrong with that, but its nothing to boast about either. There's a certain whimsy and tradition amongst gamers of mocking our games and mocking how much we delight in them. I cherish that aspect of gaming. It's part of our culture.

If we're going to try and go all politically correct about boss farming, and worry about the fragile egos of nerds playing a super hero game, then, I worry a little. It may have finally come to believe its own BS, and stopped realizing, that these games are a joke. A fun, entertaining joke, but there's nothing to envy from one gamer to another.

Your Pac Man high score doesn't impress me. It impresses noone. It usually means you wasted your lunch hour, nothing more.

So, to answer the original question.. I don't think it's dead, I just think it's changed a lil. Determined people on both sides will still eventually figure out how to make AE fulfil whatever needs it is they have.

Now, to adress a slightly different part of the discussion.. I don't think powergaming and roleplaying are mutually exclusive. "OH DEAR LORD" you may say "SPEAK NOT THY BLASPHEMOUS WORDS, YON NOOB". But really, they don't necessarily have to be. So when you're insulting powergamers, you're likely insulting some fellow roleplayers. And when you're insulting roleplayers, the same goes for insulting fellow powergamers.

Personally I consider myself a roleplayer. I'm still fairly new-ish so I'm not as deeply entrenched in the roleplay community as I aim to be, but part of that is likely due to the fact that games like AoC kind of scarred my mind when it comes to getting involved in MMO RP communities, anyone who's played Wiccana probly knows what I'm talkin' about!

Anyhow, my first character I played fully AEless for about my first two or three weeks on blueside. I then made a villain, and while about level 5 or so one of the people I was pugging with randomly said they were going to powerlevel the group (all about levels 3-5). Most people said "Cool" whereas I just thought "How the hell do you do that in this game?". Thought it, of course, because I didn't want to sound like the ultra noob that I was.

Anyhow, longish story relatively shorter, we went to the AE I leveled faster than I even knew was possible, and got into the whole AE thing to see how deep that rabit hole went. Yada, yada, yada, I was level 50 in like 3-4 days.

This might lead you to think I'm in the powergamer camp, but really I'm not. Whatever changes happened to the AE don't really bother me at all. In fact I'm kind of glad. As tempting as it was to level up a bunch of chars to 50, I doubt I could have. After doing it that quickly once I kind of got bored with it. Sure I might use it to get new characters high enough to get a travel power and whatnot, but not much more besides that. You can only kill so many freaks and mad slammers before it just gets repetitive as all hell.

The main point of this redundantly long post that I'm trying to make is.. Some roleplayers powergame, some powergamers roleplay, so the two groups whining at eachother like children really doesn't accomplish a great deal. We all play the same game, pay the same amount for it, and try to get from it whatever manner of entertainment we prefer. As far as I know there's no right or wrong in any aspect of that, and if you don't like someone's playstyle you can simply.. Not play with them, or use ignore.

Personally I think recognising the mechanics of your character in roleplay might help relieve the level 10 (or any level, for that matter) godmoders a bit, but that's a whole 'nother topic right there