So, what are your initial impressions of I22?

liking it so far aside some text glitches that seem to be popping up in DA as far as I can tell.

still need to roll a dark control character...

Incarnate XP seems like it could stand to be tweaked some, I cranked up my difficulty to +3/x4 just to make decent progress.

Like.

Finally, something that's pushing the story forward...

Still... The world is becoming so much darker and dangerous... Statesman chose a Hell of a time to die.

Now the fate of the world is in our hands...

God help us all.

Instead of reiterating common quibbles with the new issue, I think I'll just mention the one I have that's relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.

Remember how the Midnight Club was supposed to be a springboard zone that led to other new zones. Seeing as how the Midnighters are the transportation to the new Dark Astoria, why didn't they put those portals, or rather, just a single portal since it's a coop zone, in the frikkin club like Cimmerora has?

We have this odd, out of place portals now in Grandville and Peregrine....

If they aren't ever going to add more portals in the Midnight club, I would suggest moving the one to Cimmerora and putting it in a normal zone on both blue and red side. Why? Because you have to do an extra zoning just to get there for no reason. Slow zoners will thank you. This wouldn't phase me if the Midnight Club had (or was planning to have) their own transit hub so-to-speak.

I dunno why it bugs me, it just does.

After getting home from work last night, it was time to update the client. All went swimmingly and after about five minutes, the 503 Mb download was finished... or so I thought. Because after those five minutes, the launcher downloaded the 503 Mb again. And then it said Error 8.

Okay, not a problem, the nice guys in tech support said that it would work if I disabled the antivirus and ran as admin. So I did. The client downloaded 503 Mb again. And again.

Okay, how about repair? No avail - error 58 and 57 respectively.

Next, I opened the logs. And there it was, my old nemesis, the hash value. See, it was different from what expected. Every time.

Oh well, the night is young, and if this problem appears, it usually fixes itself, somehow, if I'm just persistent enough. I don't have that much to do anyway on a Tuesday night.

One Das Boot later, with intermittent retries, there's a slightly frustrated Shadow Kitty and no I22 anywhere near the client. And the hash value is different every time.

And since Das Boot is like 3:40 long, it's also rather late, so as a last step in the investigation, I decide to try a few more times, but now I take copies of the patch file. Because I have a cunning plan!

When I have a sample of patch files, I start to dig in why the hash value differs. So I take two random files and compare them. Lo and behold, there is a difference. Quite a lot of them. In one or the other, there are 16 byte fragments that differs. On one side, I find XML fragments, references to linux hosts, partial uris and the lot, that differs from the "noice hex values" on the other side. As if someone, somewhere, take a 16 byte long package meant for someone else and shuffles it to me, instead of the package I was supposed to get.

A deep mystery indeed, but at that time it was Wednesday.

Wednesday. New attempt, and a mystery! Who is the strange person that exchanges my packets for someone else's XML snippets? In order to be sure that it isn't me, I grab my old trusty laptop and install CoH on it. That proves a little bit difficult, as somehow the installer will not install the launcher, but fails at the download.

Instead, I get ze big USB memory stick, copies the launcher and the client to it from the stationary, and copies them onto the laptop. And then I try to patch the client there. That doesn't go well. Not surprisingly, really, as the laptop goes through the same router as the stationary, only via a wifi access point next to it. So most of the route is the same. If someone changes my packets somewhere, it could still be someone of me (specifically, the router or the VOIP box).

Easilly checked. I has a smart phone! One that can tether via the mobile network! So still using the laptop, I hook up the smart phone and disables the laptop's wifi, and try again.

...no luck. Patch still failed. But I could copy the patch file from the laptop and compare it to those on the stationary, and lo and behold, my old friend 16 bytes of strange XML fragments from a linux machine.

But now I'm darrned sure that it isn't me. Two tracert later and I find that the paths across the Atlantic don't merge until somewhere in Malmö. The mysterious linux machine is somewhere after that.

Armed with that information, I call my ISP, and they are darned sure it isn't them either, not even after the long scripted checklist that we run through together. And this is in the middle of the night CST (just before lunch here), so I can't chat to NC Soft's helpers either.

So I turn off the smart phone, re-enables the wifi, and just for the heck of it I try again.

And much to my surprise, the laptop completes patching. No errors.

Aha! Intermittent error was just intermittent (although very persistent)!

I don't want to play on the laptop. It's a Compaq 6510b that is slower than a hedgehog in yogurt, so I try again on the stationary. But no success. Error 8.

I find the working patch file on the laptop, copy that to the stationary, and it starts patching. But... there's something fishy with stage2c.pigg, so the update fails and the pigg has to be downloaded again. Aaaaand... fail. Errors 58 and 57.

Frustrated Kitty whips out ze big USB stick again and copies the entire client from the laptop back to the stationary.

And this time, it works. Finally I can log in, and to see the new pretty cossie parts and the new dark evil dark grimdark powers, I start to make a new character and play with the character generator for a bit.

But by then it is time to catch something to eat, so with a big smile brought on by the new pretty Imperial cossie pieces and dark evil darkdark darkness powers, Kitty logs off for the moment.

...and that is my initial impression of I22.

I never caught the mystery packet thief.

It sucks that the update is giving you such annoying problems, Shadow, but this...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty slower than a hedgehog in yogurt

... this made me laugh out loud.

I'll go in order I experienced the new issue.

The New DA: I think it looks neat. The fact I can solo and get a few incarnate drops is nice. New critter groups look fine. Got to the War Walls... wow, pretty cool looking. Then, I got to the Moth Cemetery. Stunning and gross. I loved it. so far, so good.

DD Trial: Easily my new favorite. I am a big fan of BAF. Lam, so-so (I hate the lag of the warehouse). I tried and fell in love with MoM. TPN, I hate. UG is alright. But, DD is just flat out awesome start to finish. It feels epic. Looks awesome. Challenge is present, but not all too hard.

New DA story arcs: If DD Trial didn't win me over, these did. I'm currently on the Dream Doctor story arc, so I've played through several of them now. Without spoiling too much, I'll say that it's nice to see Blue Steel and it's pretty awesome to get to fight the tradition Kraken sea monster. The new maps are very impressive. To top it all off, you get to be +3 in these missions and earn incarnate drops/xp. So awesome!

Now, for what I haven't explored.

Dark Control: Looked at the set and its animations. Looks good bother functionally and aesthetically. I can't say much beyond that since I haven't touched it otherwise.

New low level arc: Haven't played it. No opinion.

BB trial: DFB for 15+? Sounds good to me.

AT buffs: Read the notes. Sounds wonderful.

The new DA looks nice, at least when I'm standing still. Much like the new warehouse maps if I want to move I better be sure to be looking down at the floor, died a few times during super leaps and didn't know (either that I was under attack or defeated) until my computer stopped choking on the graphics.

Done two arcs so far. The +1 EB at the end of #2 wasn't a welcome encounter as it basically stalled progress there for most of the night on my freshly Ramiel unlocked no-purples frankenslotted defender.

Other than that I like the arcs I've done so far. Not going to get started on the glacial incarnate xp or the apparent weighting of the reward tables.

I've been able to read every clue and dialog thus far without getting harrassed by ambushes or other combat in DA.

Knives of Vengence are the most visually exciting group to fight I've seen to date. Dual Pistols + Titan Weapons + Dual Blades + Street Justice all going off at once makes for very frenetic combat.

Flushing out the background of some enemy groups and watching other plot threads advance outside of the DA events is fan-freaking-tastic.

Incarnates make terrible demolition experts.

I'm was disappointed the "powered up to face Incarnate" enemies from other factions were basically the same mobs with the same attacks... then I looked at Staff Melee and Beast Mastery again and didnt mind nearly as much.

Stalker changes are very good, but there's one thing they need to do--make the Assassination Counter an active rather than Autopower. I keep autopowers hidden because you have this insanely long bar of them otherwise, but the AS Counter counts as an autopower instead of counting like StJ's Active counters.

The new portal to DA is...lazy. I see the Midnighters are surrounding the portal--at least drop a CoT/Supergroup base mystic circle slab down on that grass tile. I think the magic portal to the Ward in Talos is also sloppy and lazy looking, too. Frankly I wouldn't have minded if the Midnighters had erected magic wards all over the War Wall entrance in Talos and the old string of code that level-restricted Hazard Zones was reimplemented to bar access to sub-50s. Villains...well, villains always sneak into Paragon through helicopters anyhow. Maybe that would've been the place to have the Mu mystics chanting and cracking open magic portals. Or just enter via the Midnighter's Club.

Love the Solo path, got around 15-20% on Destiny from 0 so far, and with thread to expereince conversion, it's gravy having a nice story and progression too.

Dark Control is quite fun as well, Dark Astoria looks fantastic and no opinion on the mid-level trial...

This is the first Issue in a long while that interests me. I'm very glad to have a solo/small team Incarnate path. DA is suitably creepy, though in a different way. I've run the first arc there, and it was good. Interesting story. Not too long, just enough time to fill a fun play session on a quiet afternoon. I made a little Incarnate progress, which is more than the 'none' I would normally make. The brief solo missions are an interesting way to get backstory, and well-implemented. I normally hate forced solo missions, but these are optional, and so won't disrupt a team experience.

So far, I'm very pleased, and simply glad to have a way to enjoy end game content as a non-raider.

Love the issue so far. Personal Stories are effing great, and I'm actually pretty pumped for what the future holds for CoH, so long as they keep up this caliber of writing and art design.

Especially love all the new maps. Yeah, they're same maps we've been getting for forever, but just redoing the textures like they do really makes them fresh and does a much greater job of making you actually feel like you are where you're supposed to be. For example, turning a typical office into an oriental dojo in Tibet. That was so great. Really hoping we can get these in the AE sometime soon.

I wish they'd keptthe Talos gate to DA open, with some appropriate alterations such as guards etc. The portal in PI is a bit meh.

Eco

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

It's been true with alarming frequency lately that each new issue is the best issue yet, and 22 is no exception. My favorite part aside from the finale of new DA is the revisiting of Cimerora. Novel content executed well, and most importantly there's an emphasis on challenge. Especially the end of Solaris' arc... Come on! That is so freaking cool. You know what I mean.

Sort of as an aside, while making my new dark controller I was struck by just how much really good stuff there is in the costume creator now. Sure it was great at launch but now it's incomparable. A moment's thought led to the realization that that's pretty much the story of the game at this point: you can get to 50 not just by sticking to good, recent content, but having your pick of different avenues of good content. Good job, devs.

I have really enjoyed playing new DA story arcs. I'm glad that I haven't done them on beta, since I would then just rush through them. I like that fog was removed from DA and now the zone look great.
New mid-level missions are ok, but there is so many arcs to do in that level range and leveling is very fast, I don't think I would be doing them much. We still need more 35-50 missions.
New itrail is fun, and if it wouldn't require +3 (or at least +2) it would be nice introduction to trial system.
Unfortunately Drowning in Blood will be used same as DfB, to get to level 50 without leaving Atlas.