DeathSentry

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  1. Agreed, was a nice article. they did mention something about end game content; is there an upcoming patch (assuming its not issue 18) that will address that?
  2. Wondering if there is a way to increase the font size of the text displayed as part of the dialogue assigned to characters in our missions (bosses, allies, hostages, etc).

    I figure since its so hard to get people to play my stories (smile), I've been using WeGame to record my test runs and make movies out of them to upload to Youtube as advertisements.

    However, while YouTube allows you to add annotations I don't want to repeat all of the dialogue already defined in the mission. So, if there was a way to make the actual dialogue larger, then the viewer could just read those vs. annotations.

    Also wondering if the same can be done for the mission startup dialogue associated with the Contact?

    Thanks!
  3. Hmm, for the Grandville one, is that the open one like on the last leg of the STF that has the arachnos ship flyover? I think I will go for city01 though I would love to use the Grandville map as the final one. Also wish we could include maybe like rikti ships. I tried the Rikti EBs but they also stayed close to the ground.

    I remember during issue 17 beta, they had the Abyss map from the hamidon red side, and that had a big crater, but even there, mostly walked along the bottom, etc.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by CelestialStar View Post
    I'm trying discover the name of the AE quest with 30 escaped robots that need to be destroyed, does anyone know it?

    Thankyou in advance!
    Might it be the one in my signature (2nd one: Arc: 378122 "The New World Order - The Apocalypse Sanction")

    Has robots you have to destroy
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade View Post
    So as far as is known it is not possible to duplicate the patrolling Cabal from various croatoa arcs, or the hordes of longbow fliers from those boat missions redside?
    So far I've been unable to... I have had ambushes set to ally when attacking a boss but as you've all stated, once done, thats it. I've put in m specific allies as well who will follow but again, even if I specify all as FRONT, they are still dispersed.

    I guess if nothing else, I'll try an open city map and hopefully give the baddies more opportunity to fly but it doesn't have that same sense of overwhelming odds or of darkening the skies with baddies...
  6. Agreed, it must be an outdoor map, I've used the AE flyer or the big Kronos robot (I think that's his name)
  7. I'm working on an arc (revising an existing one actually) that would involve a scene sort of like Independence Day with Will Smith where a giant alien craft is hovering over the city. In addition, I would have flying critters also to accompany the ship and in general in the mission.

    Is there anyone to bias a critter/npc/monster (e.g. the Arachnos flier) to be airborne primarily vs. always being on the ground unless led by a character its chasing to be airborne? Also, is there a way to have multiple allies show up in the same spot? Again, this vision of you leading a team against a tough invading force; but if the allies are so spread out, it takes away from potential interaction you can depict between the allies, and the allies and the participant.

    Thx!
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by korncob View Post
    First let me start by saying GGGAAAAARRRRHGLAHSKLGHLKJdsf

    Now that that's out of the way, I'm having trouble figuring out where NCsoft is in their stance with AE, and better yet how I'm supposed to actually enjoy this feature.

    The first of my many frustrations is the experience gain, I understand people "exploited", or whatever, to get levels really fast in the past (and continue to do so maybe? who knows) however this should not nerf people trying to do REGULAR missions that have had hours upon hours (possibly days/weeks?) to make wonderful stories and setup everything just perfect, only to have no one play them because, obviously, the experience is far too low to even bother. Not only that, but you get PUNISHED for doing these missions, because the debt you gain from wiping, which you will wipe possibly more than once or twice since this is not a farm, so the mobs are going to have a lot more thought to them than just a melee and ranged attack, you actually end up LOSING experience in most cases.

    Now that that's off my chest, my second frustration has to do with the difficulty of some/most missions. I don't know if this is a design flaw of the creator of the AE, or NCsoft's fault, or because of the settings I set simply being ignored, but most missions are just plain old too difficult to even attempt at lower~mid levels. I was trying one mission today where it was a 1-54 mission that claimed it has bosses in it, whatever. So I figured well it will scale correctly with our levels especially if I set it to +0x1+no+no right? WRONG. The mobs DESTROYED us in about 2 hits each, everyone was level 10~20 which yes, I understand that's low, but that's some terrible scaling, I don't care if it's on purpose or not. There was several other missions we tried with various different settings yet they still seemed to just completely slaughter us within 7 seconds of attacking even with 2 healers, which brings me to my next problem.

    Reforming sucks, I understand you want people to finish missions, but who in the right mind thought this was idea? Someone should have been fired over this decision, there's no possible reason I could think of for forcing people into having to quit their team and remake it just so they can start/tryout another mission, or heck even change the settings because it's too hard/easy! Especially in a system that encourages perfection in crafting together a mission, not being able to try it, say "oops, I gotta change that!" then leave the mission, change a tiny detail very quickly, then republish it etc." is just sacrilegious.

    And above all, whilst NCsoft is too busy nerfing how fast people level they have neglected/caused some serious bugs that even further this frustration that I have experienced today, namely a bug that kicks people from the group randomly and stops people from loading the mission.

    So I'm sorry if I came off as harsh, I'm just frustrated to no end. I have been playing about a week since I took a break for a year and I love what AE was meant for (nothing more fun than banding up with a few other heroes/villains and saving the world from evil scientists and what-have-you :P) it just seems like it's slowly spiraling down and at this point it should just be completely removed from the game in my opinion if it's going to continue down this path.
    I will also point out I am an AE farmer, I love farm missions, today I just decided to again try to take a break and have some fun with AE missions and it just seems like that's close to impossible these days.

    Any tips/point-outs/mistakes that I made feel free to tell me I'm partially curious to see if some of this isn't just me being dumb or doing something totally wrong.
    In terms of the difficulty of the mobs, I usually put in hard/hard for the primary/secondary powers for any critters I make, but if their primary contains some sort of stun/sleep, I then go custom to remove it. Playing a lot of defenders/trollers/blasters, etc, I didn't want them impacted because of no mez resistance.

    Secondly, I usually add allies, regardless of the level so that a player can choose to use the ally optionally to help them get through.

    And finally, for minions, LTs and Bosses, I allow them to be stunned (again, mostly hard/hard to get 100% XP) so in part, I believe it might be the creators of the arcs you are running.

    Personally, I spend most of my time in AE either creating/testing my own arcs or running others; the ability to animate a story is fantastic as well as to experience the creativity of others. So I for one, choose to stay with CoX after 6+ years primarily due to AE.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Avatea View Post
    Watch the first episode of our all-new ViDoc series - "Prelude to Going Rogue." Ghost Falcon, Positron, War Witch and the rest of the development team talk about what's at the heart and soul of the world's most popular super-powered MMO. This is your chance to see exclusive gameplay footage from City of Heroes® Going Rogue™, and learn more about.....lumberjacks?

    See for yourself!
    Like it so much, I made a story arc:

    ================================================== ================
    Prelude to Praetoria - The Calvin Scott story
    Arc #405593
    Morality: Neutral
    Factions: Standard - Devouring Earth, Circle of Thorns,
    Custom: Tyrant/Emperor Cole, Maurauder, Maelstrom
    Praetorian Police Dept (costumes similar to GR pics), Terran Military Authority (Marines), Praetorian Clockwork, Hirogen Mercenaries, Scarpandos (custom DE allies), Civilians
    (resistance fighters)

    Your global/forum name: @DeathSentry
    Difficulty Level: Team or solo given the allies, contains Bosses and an AV (Tyrant) at the end. The minions have enhanced defenses and contain the dual pistol and demon summoning
    powers amongst others. Contains ambushes to fight and to assist
    Recommended Team Size: Can be any size, plenty of patrols though
    Level Range: Minimum: 25-54
    Typical duration: "Medium" - 30 mins (3 missions)

    Arc Synopsis:
    Ripped from the pages of Going Rogue, tells the story of Calvin Scott from his initial days of being a supporter of the Emperor, to becoming the leader of the resistance.
    You are brought in to initially assist Cole against his fight with DEs which stemmed from a plot by the Circle of Thorns. You'll work with Sgt Latimore to help infiltrate the growing resistance movement with another spy, SongStress. In your final mission, you will try to storm Cole's stronghold with the help of the Terran Military Authority and some other resistance fighters along with Calvin Scott himself, now transformed into a fully-fledged leader.
    But Cole has tricks up his sleeves and is not about to go down easily. You'll also try to get to the bottom of the plot between the Devouring Earth, Circle of Thorns, and, from going rogue, Praetor Tillman who has taken over the body of Aurora Borealis.

    WARNING: May contain arch-villains, extreme minions, custom bosses

    Mission One: March of the Devouring Earth - Bridge over Troubled Waters (uses the new Striga bridge map)
    Mission Two: Enter the Rebellion - Ambiguous Circumstances
    Mission Three: Long Live the Emperor - The Emperor has no clothes (uses Mayor Marchand's new office map.. downside, sometimes enemy critters don't spawn where they should..sometimes)

    All feedback is welcome.
  10. And they need to bring in the Abyss map used for hamidon on redside.. i thought they mentioned they would include it in beta but not sure why it never made it to production
  11. So it appears that all buildings have the reflective characteristic like the AE building does today in CoX so thats cool. Do you think it would be possible to add some more costume customization or is that constrained by the graphic engine. In particular, I played CO for a little while, and the ability to have a shoulder mounted weapon or chest mounted (must admit, they really emulated off war machine/iron man well with these implements..smile) but it would add to the level of competitivness we can bring to the table, especially with DCUO on the way.

    Also, with their structure, you can activate multiple weapons at the same time (e.g. shoulder cannon with laser gloves); didn't know if that was also a constraint.

    Looking forward to GR and to population growth as a result!!
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer View Post
    Everything is going to be alright!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGYYRr6DOSo
    LOL! that video is hilarious!!!! I sure hope that guy was kidding otherwise, I'm gonna get my toon to guard my door at night!
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by GreenFIame View Post
    Well alot of Players either got bored and left for another MMo, I am Sure once Going rogue Comes, it's give our players more content to return form other MMo and back to us.
    This is in agreement with another blog I found today:
    "It’s The <blank>, Stupid!

    So, what’s driving the decline? Some have said it is the economy and that is likely a motivator, but it’s a poor reason. If you have an entertainment budget, $15 a month for something that can grant numerous hours of entertainment is fantastic value… assuming you are playing those hours. Outside of the repeated Valentine’s Day Event, Q1 2010 held no unique content for existing CoH/V players.

    Goro from Mortal Kombat.

    Goro may just end up suing me for name infringement.

    The development focus of CoH/V is currently on the Going Rogue expansion. In my opinion, the marketing and communications around GoRo has been awful if they are looking to attract new or returning players to it. The Overview page makes GoRo seem pretty bland and is missing information that the devs have announced on the official forums (e.g. the other new powersets of Kinetic Melee and Electric Control). With launch expected in July, there isn’t that much time to get in front of players and get them interested.

    Even the current players I speak to appear to be adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach to GoRo, because although new powersets and features like side switching and Incarnates sound interesting, there isn’t that much information available on specifics. People seem most excited about Praetoria, but even information about how the gray-side is going to interact / intersect with existing blue-side and redside-systems is thin on the ground.

    There are also factors like increasing competition in the MMO space, especially among free-to-play titles, that can draw players away. However, in my opinion, the key reason behind the decline is that existing CoH/V players are being given little reason to stay (at least during that Q1 2010 period)."

    So to me, even from the beginning 6+ years ago, marketing hasn't been the high point of CoX. I do remember seeing ads in comic books (thats how I got started) but you don't even see those at all. I know its a different budget et al, but you see WoW commercials all the time (mr t., mohawk, etc), and while its not a fair comparison, is there anything Paragon can do to get the word out more?
  14. Read my mind, was thinking the same thing, wold be great!
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Westley View Post
    You've GOT to be kidding me. WTF.... that bird is the most awesome thing I've seen this month.
    OMG, I know I'm late to the game here but that bird was awesome!!! Can mimic a chainsaw??!! WTF!!!!
  16. DeathSentry

    Just came back.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Truehoax View Post
    So I'm one of the many who want to play the game and overall I never have problems with content/gameplay. Ive taken about 7 brakes from the game since it came out and the thing that makes me loose interest is the lack of a direct social community. I know there are groups who play in a very social aspect but all the SG I've found over the years are about 4 members with 6 alts each. Since I want to make sure it works out this time I wanted to know if on any server there was a group who was social and active everyday or most days. I'm willing to run any archtype just for content events. I play evenings/nights est. most nights.
    I'm cool with content, AE, farming and pvp.
    I do understand the concern; I would say Freedom is the busiest server and I've found active SGs there. Please give it a try. Let me know how it works out.
  17. So I have a 22' monitor which I run at 1920X1080; if I wanted to run each setting as Ultra (shader quality, occlusion, water, reflections, etc), and given the comments about shaders above, would I need a 5850?

    System specs: HP e925T, 6 GB RAM, Windows 7 (64-bit), gfx card: ATI 4350; am assuming
    its an ATX box.. so if a 5850 were the only card I could use, would it fit? And, from a power supply perspective, can any brand fit in an HP or are there restrictions?

    Personally, if I can use a 57xx, it would be great due to the price difference (plus the fact that I have to buy a power supply), but I want something that won't be taxed even if I have ultrax maxed at a hami raid.
  18. Quick one: so Ultra Mode will provide shadows, and reflexive surfaces.. are those the main features?
  19. I made one called "The New World Order - The Apocalypse Sanction" arc 378122; it has custom enemies and allies but also standard ones (Arachnos, longbow) as well. I'm currently running through it on my level 9 scrapper.. I tried not to make any of the custom enemies with anything other than standard except for bosses where you will have at least 2 allies at boss level along with roving patrols of minions as allies.

    The last boss is an EB but again, the allies are pretty well powered and since at base levels, the EB will be a boss, the two ally bosses could defeat him if necessary; even when he's an EB, there are ambushes of patrols to help. So I tried to make it engaging but not overly hard.
  20. Yeah, I'm looking at a 5000 series also, though will hope that my hp power supply can be easily upgraded (just got the box over Christmas)
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rodion View Post
    I find a good compromise on XP and custom creature toughness is to make the primary be Standard and the secondary be Difficult. This avoids the worst offenders in most power sets (like Build Up), but gives pretty decent XP (87.5%). Some power sets are workable with Difficult for both the primary and secondary. I find it better to make the mobs more durable than to give them more damage so that they don't one-shot players; it's not such a big deal if it takes a shot or two more to put them down.

    About begging people to play them: don't worry about it. If you have fun making the mission, that's all that matters.
    In fact, I recently purchased 5 more slots all with the same trepidations that are brought out here. I was flying back from a business trip and wrote an arc on the plane that I really enjoyed, and i think I got 2 people to play though I constantly broadcast through the channels and the 2 that played gave it 5 stars. So for me, I've begrudgingly accepted the fact that I might get a few to play if any, but its a creative outlet for me so I'll need to take solace in that. Mine also are all custom and I've tried to balance the difficulty by having ally ambushes assist in taking down a boss and trying to keep the enemies and allies balanced. Unfortunately, I've found that I've had to customize the primaries so that non-tanks/scrappers don't get stunned continuously so I know that lowers the xp but it does keep it playable for soloers at low/high levels.

    I am disappointed in how AE has been modified but again, I know its due primarily to the exploits that people were trying. But from an author perspective, if I can just get a few comments about how people enjoyed it then, I guess that will have to do.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by DeathSentry View Post
    Quick question: my monitor will be an HP Pavilion 2159m LCD wide-screen monitor with a recommended resolution (H x V) of: 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz

    So, in Tom's hardware list, it has: a GeForce GTS 250 512MB listed as being good 1920x1200 performance in most games.

    So, given my screen size, would that be sufficient?

    Help? Anyone?
  23. Quick question: my monitor will be an HP Pavilion 2159m LCD wide-screen monitor with a recommended resolution (H x V) of: 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz

    So, in Tom's hardware list, it has: a GeForce GTS 250 512MB listed as being good 1920x1200 performance in most games.

    So, given my screen size, would that be sufficient?
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Human_Being View Post
    If worst came to worst, your "problem" would be for mounting the new power supply in the case. The actual electrical connectors are going to be the same regardless. So if the screw-holes are in the wrong place to mount a new power suppy or such, that can be remedied with someone's dremel tool.




    As discussed further up the thread, you probably shouldn't hold your breath for either ATI or Nvidia to reduce their prices in the next few months. Hopefully supply will loosen up a bit though.

    EDIT: Oh yeah, and those system specs do look solid save for the graphics card. That should be fine.
    Thanks Human, and you are right, I was checking prices again on the cards, they just keep going up.. I read somewhere that NVidia is supposed to come out with new cards in Feb/March, hopefully that will put some pressure on ATI to reduce theirs a bit but then again, with so much function coming out with them, they can keep the supply low knowing the games demand them so we will pay :-( Once my box comes in I'm going to go for the power supply and then, maybe after my tax return comes in... dig deeper and get the card :-( .. and I'll keep up with Toms hardware lol