How long will the exploits go on?

Because forging ahead with a major game system nobody would play would've been a fantastic idea and wise use of limited resources?

Uh...no.

Point.

Okay, so if I've got the math right... after you've played for six and a half years (assuming that you were subscribed for all of that time), the Devs have decided that you're entitled to 2.5 levels worth of double xp (as well as the regularly scheduled 2xp weekends), per character. That's it. I suggest you spend them wisely.

I'm gonna have to agree with you here. The low levels do nothing for me except make me wanna log out. So I will continue to skip them on 99% of the characters I do them with.

And I will do it in the most efficient way possible. The fact that other people don't like it won't change what I do. Regardless of who those other people are.

Now if somebody doesn't like that they have two options:

1. Get over it.

2. Get pissed and complain.

I highly suggest the first option because the second option means nothing to me. So to those of you that get pissed and complain, keep doing it. Or don't. Your feelings aren't really relevant to me.

You realize that the same argument can be made when people get pissed off that the devs put a stop to whatever the current EOTM is. (exploit of the month)

Just pointing that is works for both sides of the discussion.

I completely agree. People that get pissed about the EOTM getting closed should get over it too.

You can't fool us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Munki. We know what EOTM actually means.

ELVIS ON THE MOON

IMO, I would add that it may not just be the content; it could also be redside's overall infrastructure compared to blueside. More linear, less acreage; less opportunity. Also, there's the general feeling of map sameness; the variety just isn't as plentiful.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

November 30, 2010.

It's dead.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

strongly disagree. Blue side is a homogenous mush in comparison.

Yes, but many of my plans involve using Techbot Alpha as bait while I escape.

Progression through redside usually consists of:

MI>PO>Cap>SI/Nerva>Grandville while sharing the same PvP and co-op Zones with blue side... and thats it.

Blueside has a choice of two starting points, sewers, sole access to 'privileged' zones and hazard zones (at least 24 diverse, open world, maps to progress through)

Praetoria is just as bad as redside (if not worse... so far) but I'm kinda looking at that as just an oversized co-op zone as it applies to this thread-jacked portion of this conversation.

Okay, when was the last time you were in Boomtown, Perez Park, Dark Astoria, Crey's Folly, Eden, the Hive, or the Shadow Shard for any reason OTHER than hunting some enemy group you need for a badge or aura mission?

Sure, you get sent to one of those zones for a mission occasionally, but those are random location missions that could appear in ANY zone, making their appearance in one of those zones pure coincidence. There is nothing to actually DO in any of those zones. No story arcs, no task force, no contacts, stores or anything else the rest of the zones have.

They are wide open areas that, as far as I can tell, have no legitimate reason to even exist. There are TFs in the Shadow Shard, but how often does anyone run them these days? There's the Hamidon raid in the Hive, but that is pretty rare nowadays as well, except for the 2 or 3 servers that raid it weekly.

Red side has fewer zones, that much is true. But at least red side actually USES the zones they have available, as opposed to blue side where you will frequently find yourself to be the only person in any of the aforementioned zones for hours at a time.

I actually made a new global friend the other day because I saw him in Boomtown, and it was the first time I'd seen another player in Boomtown in at LEAST 8 months.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Why those zones exist:

Back when CoH was under development, many MMO players engaged in broad "hunts" that were just mindless slaughter-- no story, no quest, just large teams sweeping enemy after enemy. Since the groups in the regular zones were solo-friendly sizes, the hazard zones were meant for that kind of large-team "hunt" behavior. They were never intended to be anything else... and they were actually kinda popular early on.

For several reasons post-launch, the devs added more incentive to go into the instanced missions. These essentially killed the street-sweeping, as your team could get better reward taking instanced missions and encountering foes that were properly scaled to your level and size, so there seemed little reason to make these for CoV.

I'd still have liked at least a few places for large teams to run crazy, but I can understand why they instead opted away from those.


-------------------------
Comparing CoH, CoV, and GR:

Yes, COV and GR have fewer zones, but they also have multiple contacts within those zones, giving parallel (but similar) tracks through higher-quality zones. "Heroes" has more zones, but can't compare with the detail and nuance in those starting zones.

Even then, leveling is so fast that few people exhaust even half the contacts in Port Oaks and Cap Au Diable, and between SI, Nerva, and St Martial, you usually barely need one half of those three zones' content to reach Grandville access.

That's even ignoring the unlockable content and mini-games (most people never even realize there's an unlockable in Port Oakes until after they outlevel her).

Going Rogue has essentially four subfaction tracks that, if you spend any amount of time on the zone events, can take you very close to level 20 without overlap. You can go further, though, and switch between the tracks or choose to betray sides to make the mission objectives vary, giving even more replayability.

All that makes any "zone count" argument a bit laughable....

Point is, all they have to do is add content to remedy that situation and I'm sure it's far easier to add content than it is to add zones (or zones +content). And I'm sure the core blue-side areas USE a similar amount of content as the core red-side areas (if not more). Even if you remove some of the outlier zones (like the Hive and the Shard), you still have the Sewers and the Hazard zones (both which get substantial play... even if only at the lower levels) and subsequently, an alternative route of progression that is not available redside.

And yeah, when I do play blueside; I do a lot of Boss hunting in the Hollows and in Perez.

Anyhow, the topic I was addressing was the apparent move FROM redside TO blueside. Personally, until the UI upgrade, I couldn't stand playing blueside because of being required to do cross-zone runs for a single contact and just getting lost trying to figure out the level appropriate geography. Now that I can better find my way around... I too tend to play there a bit more to break my redside monotony.

Also, to add to the original intent of my statement... movement may be happening because that's where much of the playerbase was to begin with, making it easier to find social based activities (teaming, active SGs, Taskforces, costume contests, farms, etc)

The problem is, though, that redside never caught on with the numbers necessary to justify a LOT of exclusive content development. When you look at subscriber login hours and see where they're playing, you try to give content that they can use.

Yes, that would create a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy--- if CoV didn't already get disproportionately more time than CoH, in relation to its playerbase. All co-ops are equal access for each side, virtually all the recent issues had equal number of arcs between the two sides, and even the same number of tips per faction were added, so CoV's getting the same developer resources as CoH, despite a much smaller playerbase.

There's still plenty of content that can be added to CoV. Part of the problem with the current over-arching story in CoV, though, is that it NEEDS some things introduced in the beginning (the "destined ones" and to a lesser extent, the hints to the snakes") and that NEEDS to be resolved at the end. In between, though, there's plenty that can be enriched even without adding new content (the "tier 2" contacts in Port Oakes and Cap Au Diable that are often outleveled without ever being visited could be added to the "tier 1" options, for example)

I understand why the zones exist, even though I wasn't here for the heyday of people hunting in them. The point I was making is that when you compare the numbers of zones between CoH and CoV you have to take into account the fact that there are huge areas of CoH that sit completely empty 99% of the time.

And how many other people are in those zones when you are doing so? I'd be willing to bet the number is less than 5 for the Hollows, and closer to 0 in Perez.

Boomtown gets no love. The newer players I've run into lately don't even know there's a GM that spawns in there. I'm sure poor Babbage suffers from nearly terminal loneliness because no one even cares he's there anymore, same for Adamastor. I ran a Kahn a while back with a player who gushed about how cool the second mission was, because he'd never been in Boomtown before then, and he playing his third level 50 at the time.

CoH has more zones, but it kind of evens out because half of those zones sit completely unused the vast majority of the time, while CoV makes better use of it's available space.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

There's a GM that spawns in Boomtown?

Babbage spawns there, but people mostly seem to just fight him when he spawns in Skyway City near the end of the Synapse TF.

In the event that this is not a sarcastic post, yes.

Babbage.

On the off-chance you're serious, yes, Babbage spawns there. But the zone is a wasteland, almost nobody goes there unless badge hunting or for a few avoidable lowbie missions, so they only meet Babbage in the Synapse TF.

To be fair, though, people just don't seem to go to hazard zones for monsters anymore. Kraken spawned in Perez? Jurassik up in Crey's Folly? WTF is Adamastor? Nobody cares. Can't get even get teams for Lusca, and a few weeks ago I saw three copies of the Clockwork Paladin hanging out together in KR.

*sigh* Dammit, and I'm fresh out of Geritol.