Tweets of the PAX Panel

What is the point of the APPs, anyhow? Why were they introduced? Just curious. They're nice perks to me - either I take'em or I don't.

You must be a dev.

Issue 1 introduced levels 41-50. People's reaction was "Yeah, and? What new powers can I take in those extra 10 levels?" Issue 2 answered that question by giving us Epic Powerpools, officially renamed "Ancillary" Powerpools, because "what's so epic about those?"

The reason we were given Epics was so there was something new to take in the 40s.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Well, for my part, I never thought you were doomcrying, and I respected your argument. I know it probably didn't come off like it (what with the "you'll get over it" tripe), but that is a valid concern. How SERIOUS it is is a matter of perspective, but I can respect that it is, in fact, a valid concern nonetheless.

It's certain other posts that bugged me.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Luckily, Jack took the half-assery with him when he left

True, but a lot of players seem to not take that NDA seriously. Some think its not even enforceable. Most believe the worst that could happen is they could get banned, maybe. The terms of the closed beta NDAs have always lacked the rigor of an actual contractual NDA.

There would be absolutely no question about the intent or enforceability of an actual signed contractual NDA the player had to physically sign and send to NCSoft. Because an actual nondisclosure agreement is essentially a contract between the two parties, violating an NDA is a breach of contract that theoretically exposes the violator to almost unlimited liability. Its not the same thing as violating the EULA.

It might just be a more elaborate electronic acknowledgement of the NDA rather than the informal one in all the other closed betas. Or if they are really serious about it, it might be a "download this and sign it and send it back to us" kind of thing. It depends on how seriously they intend to protect the integrity of the I20 beta.

If the current endurance useage system isn't a 'bad' thing, then getting stamina wouldn't be so popular. Popular as in almost everyone feels they NEED to take it. That's why the devs are making it an inherent.

And I'm not suggesting removing the endurance aspect of the game, it's a good mechanic. I like the fact I have to manage my endurance. BUT from lvl 1-20, it's simply ridiculously frustrating to run out of endurance at the end of pretty much every fight, and having to constantly rest between spawns, and it's even worse due to the fact rest is not always up. First of all, this is far more prominent on melee toons, especially when their survival depends upon running toggles on top of attacking. Secondly, you say it is intended to stop players from using 'everything they have' 'too often', but in the early levels you don't have all that much to begin with, and you need to pretty much use everything you have to win fights.

And on top of that, due to not having much in terms of powers, slotting and enhancements, there's not much you can even do to manage it, other than resting in between spawns, or flat out waiting for end to come back because rest is recharging. That's an excessive 'endurance management mechanic', and that's a big reason why so many hate the level 1-20 grind to stamina, and thats why the vast majority of toons created have stamina in their builds, me included. The only way to really 'manage' your endurance at low levels is to move reaaaaallllly slooooowly, and constantly rest or wait between spawns (or have specialized toon on the team like a kin) - that's not fostering skill, that fostering bordom and frustration.

And finally, this change is not eliminating the endurance management mechanic at all. Players with stamina still run out of endurance. Fully slotted level fifties still run out of endurance. IO'd out toons still run out of endurance. Endurance will still need to be managed, it will just lower the ridiculously difficult level it's at now - especially for the level 1-20 'grind'. And on top of that builds will be more diverse with three new power choice opportunities.

In terms of whether this change is good or bad, clearly on it's own you're seeing almost a unanimously positive reaction, because most people don't consider constantly having to rest or wait before moving on as 'fun'. If your idea of 'fun' is clicking rest every time it is up and watching your toon take a knee, I can assure you that you are in the vast minority. On the plus side, even with this change you can still click rest any time you want...

Ugh, I shoulda just quoted this and typed 'agreed' rather than posting my rant, lol.

orly? so there was pvp news at pax and they just forgot to mention it in this thread? thats good for a moment i thought the devs were just going to curl it under the rug like they have been for the past 5 issues.

So you, like, brush your teeth with monomaniacal rigor, and eat your cereal with every muscle tensed?

Sweet!


I'm far from being a dev fanboy but I do believe in credit where it's due.
The issue here isn't so much dev performance as a bad case of inflated expectations.

There's no way they'll actually have mailed in NDA signatures, that's just absurd on a colossal level. It will simply be an electronic signature rather than the normal "signing in means you agree to abide by the NDA" method. Electronic signature is much quicker and doesn't involve sorting masses of snail mail. I don't see how so many jumped to the conclusion that it would be an actual physical signature.

I'm personally curious about how the ability to only mail one item and some inf per mail message is somehow worse than it was before we got the ability to mail things to globals at all.

I mean if the only one item and inf per message is somehow us paying for the ability to mail stuff. It just doesn't make much sense to me.

Edit: Wow, I somehow missed that new page after I got back from lunch. I thought the number of extra replies that popped up after I refreshed seemed a bit on the anemic side.

Actually, if you read the tweets, they ARE looking into animated hands and faces...

geeze...some people...

I've been in betas with physical signatures required. We got them as an email attachment were allowed to return them by fax, but we had to print them out and sign them. I don't really see that as so absurd.

We actually went over this in a thread where people were posting wating to get into loyalty beta. PS has never "made us sign an NDA" not even a digital one. All they've done in every beta previous is ASK NICELY that people respect a list of terms we've all come to call "the NDA" if you broke it, and they found out, you were removed from Beta, and barred from future betas at their discretion.

For "Real" Betas. (Microsoft Products, the Japanese PS2-based Beta of FFXI I was in, many game-launch betas especially by SOE). You either electronically sign a legal document, or in the case of the "Japanese PS2-Beta" I had a physical document of serveral pages mailed to me in a fed ex mailer, I read through it, signed and dated it, then mailed it back to Sony, it also delt with how I would return the hardware at the end of the period, etc. etc.

When you sign a true "signed NDA" of those natures, either physically or electronically, you can actually be sued by the company for breach of contract and things of that nature. Doesn't mean they WILL, but they CAN. So no, we've never "signed" an NDA since i9, the first "Closed Beta".

I've heard/been told that the original CoV Beta had a signed NDA in some form, as did, probably the original CoH Beta. Personally I'm surprised we didn't sign one for the GR Beta, but given the nature of the loyalty rewards program and all that confusion, I suspect it was "more trouble than it was worth". So either stuff in i20 is SO big they want extra security, or they've just tired of the leaks and things they've had in the past, and have decided to move to a "real" beta model, and require signed NDAs from then on. One or the other.

Short answer: Yeah, it's very different, and no, we've never signed one before.

Well, it's been requested on and off by quite a few people, and they might have discovered some way of doing ti that they hadn't thought about before, so it might now have moved from "wouldn't it be nice if..." to "let's see if we can make this work" - but that doesn't mean it's on any kind of priority list or anything.

*has nightmares of CoH NGE*

Don't even joke about this.

The reason some of us "jumped" to the conclusion is because an "electronic signature" means nothing more than clicking I Agree on the EULA screen in the launcher. Why mention it being signed if it isn't physically signed.

You obviously didn't read the earlier parts of the thread with "TamakiRevolution"'s posts then. There've been about 3-5 people doomcrying, and 1-2 supposedly /ragequitting over it. Not talking about you, just that there are people calling DOOOOOM same as always.

You know, I'm curious here. Does the fact that I'm generally happy with the game and for the most part pleased with additions to the game make me a fanboy or just the target audience?

I mean, obviously the game has its flaws, and they don't always add the stuff I'd love for them to, but what they do give me tends not to suck and is generally free.

The party pack's still too freaking expensive though.

" sob, sob...Cry, Cry "

I was going to say "the other true part of the post was "bitter PvPers don't realize they're bitter". But I don't have to, this post proves that for me.

My standard response to this stuff is "This game has PvP in it?" Of course I know it does, I've even done it on occasion, but the running joke is, CoX does not have PvP. The sooner the hardcore PvPers accept that, and either find something else to like about the game, or find a new game, the sooner we can all get on to important issues, like animated hair, and more RP emotes. :P

That's not actually true. As I said before, I signed one for the FFXI Japanese PS2 beta. Also, they could ask you to fax it back, or scan it in and upload/mail it somewhere as well, in this day and age, I find that more likely. But Microsoft makes you sign and send back paper for every major beta they do, so it's certainly possible.