Dispari

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Second, the boss changes apparently went in. So in Butterfly Effect, the AV now gets Total Focus. Meaning he can one-shot so many characters. I'm already getting complaints. In preparation to these changes, I added allies to the other two arcs in the series, but as it's a dev choice, it's locked.

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Right now I think I'm going to end up turning everything I have down to standard. I'll make a post later to compare just how much this patch changed all my units. After I do that, I'm not going to touch MA stuff until i15.

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And anyone who thinks Shield Charge is a problem [for stalkers], I'll refer them to the Tier 9 in Electric Melee.

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My only problem with that argument is that electric melee is a primary set and shields are a secondary set. My guess is they would take out shield charge for hide, but I could be wrong. I'm not against shield stalkers, just I agree that the set would need a decent amount of tweeking to be proliferated.

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They'd probably take out Against All Odds. Would be silly for Stalkers to have a taunt aura.

Am I weird for actually liking this movie? I know there's always a barrier between "diehard fan of the original comic" and "regular schmoe who only has a passing knowledge of the universe." I was never real big into X-men so I don't know how many unfaithful or contradictory moments there were. As a general action flick, I thought it was pretty enjoyable.

Oh, small update. Got another donation, so next CC will be sponsored by the Dissociation VG, courtesy of Schreodinger's Cat.

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WHERRRREEEE

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Sorry I didn't reply in time. Had lots of in-game stuff to do. =)

To answer you, it's in the same place every week: Cap au Diable, on the steps of the university.

Now, onto today's contest.

Today was BY FAR the biggest we've had. Prizes were:
First place: 5m (one for each, male and female)
Second place: 2.5m
Third place: 1m
Runners up: 500k (4 total, 2 male and 2 female)
Super extra special prize: 1m (3 of those, see below)

Everyone who showed up. We had enough people show up that we actually filled Cap 1. I had people send me frantic tells that Cap 1 was full and they couldn't get in. I'd consider that a monumental success. I had two helper judges this time, Black Helix (@The Godchild) and Saul Grister (@LastSon, back for reactivation week).

There was also a "rival" CC after mine giving away 250m in prizes. Some drama in the broadcast about "upstaging" but it doesn't bother me for one important reason: I'm doing CCs so they become more common redside, which rival CCs accomplish. On that note, I raised 232,030,000 today for upcoming CCs. If you'd like to donate as a person or a VG (and advertise/recruit after the CC - you'll also get an advert from me in the announcements) let me know, here or in game at @Dispari!

Onto winners, here were our runner-ups for males:
Darkcaster Spaedling
Pandemonium Prince

Third place:
Mug Shot Billy

Second place:
Hauptmann Amerikan

First place:
Live - Wire

Female winners:

Runners up:
Descolada
Ms Peanut

Third place:
Chaos Ex Machina

Second place:
Lady Jaguara

First place:
Mystic Gunslinger

We also awarded 1m each to this trio of cuties:
The Starfire Triplets

Thanks a bunch to everyone who came, and especially to those who donated. Like I said above, if you'd like to donate as a singular person or even as a VG representative (it's a good publicity stunt), let me know here or in game (@Dispari). See you all next week!

Today's CC starts in an hour. Will be giving out 5/2.5/1 prizes for both male and female (so at least 3 winners of each). Be there or be square!

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Now, onto the next subject: What should be the minimums for each powerset at each rank?

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Probably the old Standard, with a few small tweaks? Some examples I can think of:

* Stone and SS both have high damage attacks in addition to Hurl/Hurl Boulder (which are high damage attacks). Just the first two attacks plus Hurl would be fine.

* Cobra Strike should be taken off Martial Arts. Every single minion having a stun is kind of nuts. Add in enemies who also have SS, Stone, and Energy Melee and stuns run rampant.

* Buckshot off AR. It already gets Burst and Slug, and even lieutenants with guns up until like 20 only have one attack, while a custom minion would have three, including an AoE. Sheesh!

For each attack set, the minimums should probably be 2-3 attacks, nothing extreme, maybe one high damage attack like Bone Smasher or Haymaker, but nothing crazy.

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Actually I don't think a single enemy outside of the MA has any kind of build up power.

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A few do, although the only ones that come to mind off the top of my head are red-side (I'm thinking of Silver Mantis in particular). Its extremely rare, though.

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As far as I know, Silver Mantis is the only unit that has BU or Aim. She's of course an AV. Since MA though, I've seen lots of lieutenants with BU that can make my head spin.

Black Scorpion also uses Rage. He's an AV too of course. Can't think of anything else that uses such powers though.

*kicks thread*

We won:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post13411167

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If I was in charge of anything related to concept, Brutes and Tanks wouldn't have Dual Blades.

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Good thing you aren't in charge then.

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I know.

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You're missing my point. Why is it only brought up SOMETIMES to deny a proliferation when there are so many examples of existing powers that would seem to break those same rules?

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Can't say I know. I can only imagine it's because there's more than one person working on things (possibly even different people than there were originally) and sometimes the person who's doing stuff at the time doesn't care about concept or has other priorities over concept. If I was in charge of anything related to concept, Brutes and Tanks wouldn't have Dual Blades.

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meh he said the same thing in 10 difrent ways

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To be fair, I was asked the same question 10 different ways.

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Yeah. You did say the same thing, but all the interviewers asked the same questions so I don't know what else you could've done.

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Someone earlier mentioned a Super Strength/Dual Blades critter. How would that work?

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With the patch it would be pretty monsterous. On the LOWEST difficulty as a boss, they'd have:

Jab
Punch
Haymaker
Knockout Blow
Hurl
Nimble Slash
Power Slice
Ablating Strike
Throwing Knives
Vengeful Slice
Sweeping Strike

So, 11 attacks total, 2 being ranged, several that are high damage or more.

As Laz said earlier, we would prefer the ability to start from a baseline minimum and just be able to add on top, BUT, if we're stuck with the tiers system, we need more tiers. In the interests of covering all bases, here's a proposal for a system that doubles the tiers.

This would involve each setting having a "utility" option. So the ranks would be Standard, Standard (Utility), Hard, Hard (Utility), Extreme, and Extreme (Utility). The idea would be to give critters different roles with the powers available. One could make a weak minion that has some debuff/mez/self protect powers, or a high damage enemy that doesn't have any special abilities. Let me give some examples.

Super Strength (Standard)
Jab
Punch
Hurl

Super Strength (Standard Utility)
Jab
Punch
Hurl
Handclap

Super Strength (Hard)
Jab
Punch
Haymaker
Hurl

Super Strength (Hard Utility)
Jab
Punch
Haymaker
Hurl
Handclap

Super Strength (Extreme)
Jab
Punch
Haymaker
Knockout Blow
Hurl
Footstomp

Super Strength (Extreme Utility)
Jab
Punch
Haymaker
Knockout Blow
Hurl
Rage
Footstomp
Handclap

Another example:

Martial Arts (Standard)
Thunder Kick
Storm Kick
Shuriken

Martial Arts (Standard Utility)
Thunder Kick
Storm Kick
Shuriken
Cobra Strike

Martial Arts (Hard)
Thunder Kick
Storm Kick
Shuriken
Crane Kick

Martial Arts (Hard Utility)
Thunder Kick
Storm Kick
Shuriken
Crane Kick
Cobra Strike
Crippling Axe Kick

Martial Arts (Extreme)
Thunder Kick
Storm Kick
Shuriken
Crane Kick
Eagles Claw
Dragon's Tail

Martial Arts (Extreme Utility)
Thunder Kick
Storm Kick
Shuriken
Crane Kick
Eagles Claw
Cobra Strike
Focus Chi
Crippling Axe Kick
Dragon's Tail

A defense set:

Willpower (Standard)
High Pain Tolerance
Mind Over Body
Fast Healing
Heightened Senses

Willpower (Standard Utility)
High Pain Tolerance
Mind Over Body
Fast Healing
Heightened Senses
Quick Recovery

Willpower (Hard)
High Pain Tolerance
Mind Over Body
Fast Healing
Heightened Senses
Rise to the Challenge

Willpower (Hard Utility)
High Pain Tolerance
Mind Over Body
Fast Healing
Heightened Senses
Rise to the Challenge
Quick Recovery
Indomitable Will

Willpower (Extreme)
High Pain Tolerance
Mind Over Body
Fast Healing
Heightened Senses
Rise to the Challenge
Strength of Will

Willpower (Extreme Utility)
High Pain Tolerance
Mind Over Body
Fast Healing
Heightened Senses
Rise to the Challenge
Quick Recovery
Indomitable Will
Resurgence
Strength of Will

Dark Armor (Standard)
Dark Embrace
Murky Cloud

Dark Armor (Standard Utility)
Dark Embrace
Murky Cloud
Cloak of Darkness

Dark Armor (Hard)
Dark Embrace
Murky Cloud
Death Shroud

Dark Armor (Hard Utility)
Dark Embrace
Murky Cloud
Death Shroud
Cloak of Darkness
Obsidian Shield

Dark Armor (Extreme)
Dark Embrace
Murky Cloud
Death Shroud
Dark Regeneration

Dark Armor (Extreme Utility)
Dark Embrace
Murky Cloud
Death Shroud
Dark Regeneration
Cloak of Darkness
Oppressive Gloom
Obsidian Shield
Soul Transfer

Buff/Debuff:

Dark Miasma (Standard)
Tar Patch

Dark Miasma (Standard Utility)
Darkest Night
Tar Patch

Dark Miasma (Hard)
Petrifying Gaze
Tar Patch
Fearsome Stare

Dark Miasma (Hard Utility)
Darkest Night
Petrifying Gaze
Shadowfall
Tar Patch
Fearsome Stare

Dark Miasma (Extreme)
Petrifying Gaze
Twilight Grasp
Tar Patch
Fearsome Stare
Dark Servant

Dark Miasma (Extreme Utility)
Darkest Night
Petrifying Gaze
Twilight Grasp
Shadowfall
Tar Patch
Fearsome Stare
Dark Servant

Empathy (Standard)
Heal Other

Empathy (Standard Utility)
Heal Other
Clear Mind

Empathy (Hard)
Heal Other
Healing Aura

Empathy (Hard Utility)
Heal Other
Healing Aura
Fortitude
Clear Mind

Empathy (Extreme)
Heal Other
Healing Aura
Recovery Aura

Empathy (Extreme Utility)
Heal Other
Healing Aura
Fortitude
Recovery Aura
Clear Mind

Keep in mind I made these in like... 20 minutes, so may not be up to everyone's standards. But it would give a lot more flexibility compared to what the proposed change is going to give. I still believe letting us pick individual powers starting from a defined minimum would be the best solution, though.

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If they make the custom critters even harder, then low level characters may not be able to handle it.

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Especially if Super Strength Bosses start getting Knockout Blow at level 8 as a Standard Attack.

[/ QUOTE ]Not even "at level 8"...critters don't have level-gated powers. They have them, or they don't, so a level 1 boss would have KOB.

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Interesting, because I have never seen my Mind/Thorns Boss, who is Hard/Extreme, use any level 35 or 38 attacks from Thorn Assault when limited to level 33 and I know that she has them available.

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The AI is just dumb. I had a level 20 AV on extreme Plant summon Audrey but never use Carrion Creepers. And up until a recent patch my Stone Melee/Earth Armor units weren't using any toggles.

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The Standard/Hard/Extreme metaphor only works for things like conventional attacks.

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The really big problem I see with the new proposal is it makes no sense as far as standard/hard/extreme goes. Even on top of what you're saying, the "conventional attacks" are a jumbled mess.

Minions lost high damage attacks... and gained extreme damage AoEs like Full Auto. Minions can't get Blazing Arrow anymore, but can get Rain of Arrows? Yeah, it's technically "extreme," but makes no sense. Why can't they get high damage attacks anymore?

Bosses are terrible. They all have at least 5 attacks, and worst of all they START with tier 9s. That means "easy" is "has the strongest attack in the entire set." Broadsword and Katana are off the wall. They have the two strongest attacks on easy mode. The "progression" of many of the sets makes no sense. Super Strength is the worst. It starts with the strongest attacks in the entire set. It starts off with two high damage attacks and an extreme. Next, on hard mode, it gains a power to add +80% damage all the time and an AoE. Then, for some unfathomable reason, on extreme it just gains Hand Clap. What's extreme about that?

I'd be down if the new system was making improvements, but the new version makes less sense than the old one did. Standard doesn't mean standard. Standard means "arbitrary system with tons of attacks and we decided all bosses should have tier 9s on the easiest difficulty for some reason." Beyond that it just seems random powers were picked. The progression is awful, even before you have to factor in the powers you mentioned, especially annoying ones like Energy Drain.

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Why is "concept" brought up only for certain cases of proliferation and given a complete bypass for others?

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Because devs like concept and have made changes based on it. This is why villains don't have Empathy and heroes don't have Poison.

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It'll keep bosses from running away because they have no attacks that they can use?

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I doubt it. I'm completely convinced there's some AI bug with custom units. Super Strength enemies still run away from my widow. In fact, Dark Blast/Fire Blast AVs run from my widow. In fact, AVs that I can recreate to be identical to existing AVs will run from my widow, while the original will not.

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It's becoming increasingly obvious that the only solution that will be remotely close to palatable to everyone is to define a minimum standard set of powers and allow everything else to be freely picked.

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This. This. This. A thousand times this.

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I made Trolls with Martial Arts and Energy Melee, who will now have wildly out of character powers that I can't get rid of. I would GLADLY trade these in to give them pistols, guns, or Hurl/Hurl Boulder. In fact, I would GLADLY give them MORE ranged attacks that are MORE powerful, as long as I could pick which ones to make sure they still make sense. Concept means a lot to me. This patch is KILLING my concepts.

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I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your general problem; I'm still firming up my thoughts on the various changes. However, in your specific case, why not use /Super Strength? It sounds like it'd be a lot more troll-like than /Energy Melee anyway, and with Hurl as an actual ranged power they may be less likely to use Shuriken from their Martial Arts/.

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I have an entire faction of Trolls, including:

Minions:
Martial Arts/Assault Rifle
Thugs/Stone Melee
Super Strength/War Mace

Lieutenants:
Martial Arts/Willpower
Stone Melee/Earth Armor
Super Strength/Invuln

Bosses:
Super Strength/Invuln
Energy Melee/Willpower

EBs:
Energy Melee/Invuln

AVs:
Energy Melee/Shield Defense
Super Strength/Willpower

If I got rid of EM and MA to replace with SS, I'd end up with a pretty crappy and very repetitive gang, at which point it'd almost be pointless to even be using custom units.

I'm all for the ranged powers being added, but give us options. I'd gladly give all those ones that lack ranged attacks guns, rubble to throw, or Hurl-like powers. But the stuff they're adding is really out of character and I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

Wow. Looking over that list there's only one change I really approve of and that's moving Detention Field to Extreme.

All custom units are now MUCH harder than they were before. They were already really tough, especially for low level characters. This change is going to make lieutenants and bosses way more difficult. Before, I did both on hard/hard. Now, even if I put them on standard/standard they're going to be HARDER. Seriously! ALL bosses have 5-6 attacks minimum? Including tier 9s?

Please, please, PLEASE, for the hundredth time, revisit the power selection process. Set a minimum (old standard, with a few small twewaks like the Detention Field thing) and a maximum (old extreme), and let the players select which powers they want to ADD on top of the MINIMUM. This will have ZERO EFFECT on farmers/exploiters because they still get the minimum now. But people who actually care about this stuff can pick and say, yes I want Foot Stomp but not Rage and not Knockout Blow. Yes I want Strength of Will but not Resurgence.

PLEASE listen to the players on this. This is a VERY BAD change, on par with the proposed epic changes. This change is giving the players LESS control over the powers that units have and making them WAY harder.

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I want my Ninjitsu Scrapper damnit!

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Since it looks like Stalkers will probably never get Shields, I have a feeling Ninjitsu will end up staying unique to them as some sort of compensation.

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I dunno. Shields just don't match sneaky ninja types. I wouldn't expect them to give Ninjitsu to Tanks, but it could suit Scrappers just fine.

It's not like the "this is my unique set!" thing has held up very well. Doms lost all their unique primaries when Controllers stole Plant Control. Stalkers stole Elec, Blasters got Psi. There's not many unique sets left.

I want a Nin Scrapper!

Let me start off by saying I'm definitely not a fan of this patch. Neither for difficulty, logical, or conceptual reasons.

Difficulty:

First of all, they've changed all the powers to be HARDER. This is a really bad idea. To give an example, I got to play with a friend who is back for reactivation weekend. I was showing him all the stuff I made. I've made and tweaked a lot of units. All of them are designed to not be overly hard. No control sets, no wild debuff sets (rad), nothing higher than standard difficulty. Still, we (as level 20s) were having a very difficult time dealing with them. When we got auto-SKed to 30 to fight some Crey, they were NO THREAT WHATSOEVER. Yet this patch threatens to make things even HARDER. Minions will get more dangerous skills and any units on Hard will be crazy to deal with.

Hard is now, well, extreme. And extreme is "ludicrous." The decision to give all sets BU/Aim at hard is one I can't support. Those powers nearly triple the damage output of units. Even NOW I have issues with units who have BU because it makes them so terribly dangerous. If I could, I'd make it so none of my units below AV have BU, but right now I have lieutenants, bosses, and EBs with it. This patch will only make it MORE common.

Logic:

Logically, I can't get behind the new power choices. Why do minions get tier 9s? I already discussed and heard lots of conversations about why we don't have minions with powers like Full Auto -- because they do way too much damage thanks to player damage scales. And now they get them? What happened? People are going to try to recreate units like Family and Council guys who have FA and end up making units who can obliterate Scrappers and Tanks.

And logically, it makes no sense that they've taken away high damage powers to give them extreme powers. It makes no sense that minions should get access to a bunch of AoE powers. It makes no sense that minions should get tier 9s and nukes!

Concept:

Conceptually, I don't like the new ranged attack choices. I don't know the mechanics obviously, but I was hoping for a third required "pool" for melee critters so we could pick a ranged attack. Baked in choices are pretty bad, especially when it's a dev-decided power pick. I don't like shuriken for Martial Arts, nor do I even like Energy Blast for Energy Melee. I'm going to have to SERIOUSLY consider what to do with my Troll arc. I just don't like the idea of Trolls throwing shurikens or Energy Blasts.

I made Trolls with Martial Arts and Energy Melee, who will now have wildly out of character powers that I can't get rid of. I would GLADLY trade these in to give them pistols, guns, or Hurl/Hurl Boulder. In fact, I would GLADLY give them MORE ranged attacks that are MORE powerful, as long as I could pick which ones to make sure they still make sense. Concept means a lot to me. This patch is KILLING my concepts.

Ignoring the fact that this will mean melee units now have even more attacks (and are thus now harder)... Would it make sense for Crey Vigilants to have energy blasts? What about Back Alley Brawler? Are all martial artists ninjas who carry around throwing stars? I seriously hope the devs reconsider this and give us some leeway in picking exactly what ranged attacks our units get.

As far as this patch overall, this is going to change:

* At least 5 Troll units in my arc. I can maybe deal with the shurikens (grudgingly), but I have 3 units that use Energy Melee which will now be throwing energy blasts. This is WILDLY out of character. If I get rid of the MA and EM users, I'm basically just stuck with regular Trolls and there's almost no point in even having customs. If I can't find some kind of compromise, I may just abandon the story.

* Several units in an angel arc I made, most especially the cherubs I made who were supposed to have Blazing Arrow. Rain of Arrows would be way too absurd for a minion, and dialing them back isn't something I really want to do. I wanted them to be a special minion who's harder than the other minions but not lieutenant level. At this point I'll have to just make them be regular minions.

* Some enemies in another arc I made where the lieutenants were War Mace. Now they have Build Up? Ugh, they were hard enough already!

The only thing I can really support about this is the changes to Trick Arrow (which are positive) and the IDEA of giving ranged attacks to melee sets... Unfortunately the implementation from my POV was really bad.

So, it's Wednesday. I'm planning the next one for Friday night at 9:00 PM CST. I do different times to catch people who might miss out.

As Recon mentioned, 20m was donated. Right now we're looking into doing two different 5/2.5/1s, one for male and one for female costumes. So feel free to stop on by!

Today's results!

Everyone who showed up.

We had a good showing today. And we had too many good costumes to pick just 3. So we had two runner ups.

1st: 5m
2nd: 2.5m
3rd: 1m
Runner ups: 500k (two were picked)

Runner up 1: Cheranne. Good mix of costume parts for a rather unique look. I see Valkyrie, Magic, winter, salvage wings, and a couple more parts in there.

Runner up 2: Novarift. Great outfit, and great use of colors. It's a good evil outfit, and you don't see purple on guys very often. Sort of reminds me of a Void Hunter, in a good way. =)

Third place: Discard. Hard to see in the pic but he had a spade on his chest. Great outfit. One of the only good uses of the 50/50 mask I've seen.

Second place: Antistate. Evil Statesman... meets Mexican wrestler! I like the horns especially, but it's a great take on Statesman with enough extra flair to be unique.

First place: Generic Crab AT. I said before that I'd give him first place, and I did! He has a hilariously good outfit. Just see for yourself!

Good showing this time. Getting a lot of positive in-game feedback. Hopefully we'll be able to do this more. Right now my goal is to do it again next Friday. Maybe a little earlier if possible.

I refuse to let this thread die, even if it's just me updating it with results.

CC today at 10:00 CST. That's a little over an hour from now. Everyone's welcome to come and participate. Let me know before we start if you want to contribute anything to the winnings.

Prizes will be 5/2.5/1 unless something else comes up.

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Well... that's making me really disappointed. I would have liked to know that before I touched that costume. Now it completely ruins my costume.
Jeez, I hate when they do that and remove stuff. Especially when it's something I've paid for and now it doesn't work anymore. That's total [censored], sorry for the language.

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There were several announcements about it on the forums and in the game.