Doctor Roswell

Wow, these are some pretty serious discounts.

All on stuff I either already own or don't need, so I won't be partaking personally, but still... very nice.

"This sucks."

"No it doesn't."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I was allowed to have an opinion."

You are. And so is everyone else.

They're pretty common on Virtue. Daytime hours seem to be a little lighter (and generally don't run as smoothly in my experience) and more BAF/Lam/Keyes-heavy, but it's rare that finding a trial is impossible. Once people start getting off from work and school, things pick up pretty sharply from there, both in frequency and variety, and there are a few people who run some (really really good) trials into the wee hours of the morning and beyond.

We're "signing" the imaginary petition for the feature/proposal. It's an expression of agreement, approval or support without actually having anything to add, any concerns to address, or anything really to say besides "I agree."

Technically, I'm pretty sure one-word posts are against forum rules, but that's sometimes overlooked here in the suggestions forum since "I agree but have nothing else to add" is actually useful information. Even so, people usually try to go for "/signed -- and also something else."

Also, if I remember right, you don't have to successfully complete the bank job/mayhem mission to unlock your first regular contact -- you can succeed, fail, or turn it down, and the broker will still introduce you to someone.

Another week of Paragon working on making sure all the truly new stuff is actually done and ready instead of pushing it out the door unfinished. I'd rather see a few weeks of "new but not really new" stuff like this than another "we've got a deadline to meet -- get it on the market NOW!" debacle like what happened with the Imperial Dynasty set.

That said, nothing for me this week. Still eagerly awaiting the Retro Sci-Fi pack!

Also, are Super Packs 2 even on Beta yet?

Unsigned, especially with regard to blueside/goldside Arachnos. Because they're Arachnos.

Virtue used to form trials in RWZ (Pocket D is... not not safe there), but now it's typically Dark Astoria, near Gabriel and all the other amenities. I also occasionally catch people forming them in Cimerora for some reason.

Bill, Toast and Khasei are right; setting the difficulty or picking the mission or kicking a problem player aren't special perks or rewards of leadership, they're responsibilities that come with it. Someone has to do these jobs, so a player steps up to the plate to make sure they get done.

Literally dictating how other players' powers work isn't just abuse of power, it's a power leaders shouldn't have in the first place. Unless, again, you'd like to give team leaders the ability to toggle on or off my fire tank's damage aura or my stalker's Hide.

It's one thing to tell everyone in a Keyes trial not to fly during the Anti-Matter fight. It's another entirely to have a button you can press to ground the other players yourself.

Greenwich Mean Time

It's a big world out there, kids. Freebie Friday runs all day Friday "Universal Time," not "your time."

Basically, for trial order, check your LFG tab -- the incarnate trials are listed in order, with earlier ones at the bottom and later ones at the top. Generally, you want to do earlier ones first, as they ramp up in difficulty from there.

I've found that a good rule of thumb is to stick to BAF, Lambda, and maybe Keyes until you earn your first level shift, then add Underground and TPN to the mix as a +1. Once you've hit +2, MoM and Dilemma Diabolique are doable. Of course, that's just a guideline -- depending on the specific league going through the trial, un-shifted (or under-shifted) characters can often survive later trials without much trouble. My mastermind went through a half-dozen successful Diabolique Master runs at only +1 because we had a decent number of +2 and +3 folks and a skilled leader.

Most incarnate trials are fairly short as "raids" go -- a half-hour or a little longer, not counting the time it takes to form up the league -- with Underground being the exception. That one tends to take an hour at minimum, usually more. But the reward table at the end is better.

Well, this seems pretty conclusive; I must have just missed the "second wave" of restorations, both in terms of knowing it happened at all and in terms of actually having it restored. Guess I'll get in touch with customer service.

Thanks, everyone.

A search turned up nothing since October, so:

Remember the Wisps aura? It was the "incentive" to switch over to the new NCsoft Launcher back before that became the default method of launching the game. Anybody who used it during a certain time period unlocked access to the new aura, including me.

Then, a while later, Wisps disappeared (which is kind of poetic, I suppose). Apparently some problem with the new costume editor or something. We were promised it would be back at some point.

Later on (I think not long after Freedom), I remember reading something here about how it was back. Then something a few days later about how only some of the people who should have it back actually did for some reason, with an assurance that everyone would have it back in the next few weeks or "in an upcoming patch" or whatever. I never got it back.

I asked about it during the Freedom Friday Q&A on Facebook a month or so ago, and was told that someone would "look into it." Today, I asked again, and was told "I thought the issue had been resolved, but perhaps not. I'll look into it!"

The thing is, I don't expect anyone at Paragon to send me a Facebook message personally to follow up on what this looking-into turns up. For that kind of thing, these here forums are the best tool. Therefore, I ask:

1. Does anybody have their Wisps aura back? Is the situation it still what I'm remembering, with some significant portion of people having access and some also-significant portion not having access? Or am I remembering wrong, and nobody has it back yet at all? (Though at this point "not yet" will be looking more and more like "not ever.")
2. Does EVERYBODY have their Wisps aura back except me? If that's the case, obviously the problem is a mix-up regarding my account specifically and I'll need to contact customer service.
3. Any devs reading this, what did "looking into it" reveal?

This week's free thing was too much free for not enough thing. I demand the either the return of my free or significantly more thing immediately.

I also love the idea that making a new character is just doing the same content over and over... not like the sheer overwhelming variety of playing a single 50 in incarnate trials every night.

I currently have forty characters, by the way. Eleven of them are level 50, nine of those are +3, and four of those are "fully IO'ed" -- a tank, a controller, a mastermind and a defender, all of whom perform very well even with an unfocused altaholic lunatic who never learned to play them properly (me) behind the keyboard. Three of them solo hero tips at at least +2/x6 with no trouble.

Despite all that, I made not one but two brand-new level 1's last night. And I enjoyed every minute of it.

Kind of like how you'll never learn the subtleties of spelling, grammar and syntax by repeating the third grade over and over and over. Got it.

Eh.

I'd be more interested without the "panther" part; maybe 5% of my characters have any business transforming into an animal (and even then it's a bit of a reach conceptually), and I actually like to see the costumes I design. If this didn't replace my character model, I'd probably grab it. As-is, I'll just keep using Ninja Run + Sprint + stealth IO like I've been doing.

Beast Run being on sale is tempting, at least. I'm not sure it's worth it since I've already got Ninja Run, but I'll at least think about it.

Hey, Memphis_Bill! Don't you have something for this, what with it coming up like once a week or so?

Oh, wait, here it is, and it looks like some of it's even come true!