Doctor_Gemini

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Actually Monopoly is quite germane. That aside the point still stands, The players should know what the rules are. If you wanted to limit it to MMOS almost all do not require human judgment in the handing out of rewards.

Currently what we have Is random arbitrary and shows little judgment. Witness the takedown of arcs with farm in the name or description that were anything but. We also have random reaction and ongoing whittling away of MA features.

Judgment in this context is nothing more than arbitrary interpretation, it does no one any good in a game.

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Actually the comparison of Monopoly, and all the other games in your list, are completely out of left field. The reason you have to know the rules of those games is because you, and everyone else playing with you, are the only ones enforcing those rules.

Those games do not allow you to do anything not explicitly stated in the rules unless everyone playing agrees to them.

An MMO like this is more akin to an RPG. You lay down the rules, but, the structure of the game allows players to do things the designer never thought of. On top of that, a segment of players will try to exploit the rules. Those players often create situations where the established rules make no sense.

That is where someone has to make judgment calls. You can't set criteria down in stone for every possible situation. As long as you make the right decisions, you might lose the exploiter (and, as far as I'm concerned, good riddance), but the majority of your players will stay.

The rest is just a general comment, not directed against AF...

I have to say I find this thread hilarious. There's no point in arguing that exploiting the MA is wrong because the people doing it are not going to be convinced, that type always feels justified in anything they do. Look at how most of them put things. It's all about them. What the consequences of their actions may be to others are unimportant.

On the flipside, the people arguing against the exploitative farms do need to differentiate between farming and a farm that gives you 50 levels in 8 hours. There's nothing wrong with farming if that's how that person wants to play. There is a great deal wrong with exploitation, most of which has already been stated in this thread.

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It's against the EULA to use misspellings of dirty words to get around the filter in CoX. CoX is very careful about presenting a clean-cut image of their comic-book based universe. Seriously, the filter is there to keep CoX wholesome. Even children can enjoy CoX the way things are. By going to such lengths to include profanity you threaten to make CoX something dirty. Something that parents will want to keep hidden from their children. CoX should be something everyone can enjoy.

Shame on you.

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This is not a children's game. It's rated T (Teen). The official definition for this rating allows the following:
"Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language."

Now, NCSoft can allow or disallow whatever they like in the game, it's their property after all, but, people who start playing the "protect the children" card need to read the box first.

For what it's worth, I've finally completed Welcome to M.A.G.I. (arc #120957), an alternative first story arc for magic-origin heroes. Of course, anyone can play it, but why are you bothering Azuria for missions if you're not magic origin?

5 missions made for levels 1 to 10. Just don't forget your inspirations in the final mish.

I remember attacking a white-con mob with my controller and managing to kill one before running out of end, having to run out of aggro range, and wait several minutes for end to recover before I could tun in and kill the second one, and then do it again for the third.

fun times...

I can't say I miss the old days, as all the attractive things about the game are still here...although I did get alot of reading done when I was playing back then...

No one can answer that question. Likely even a redname can't. You just have to use common sense, remember the game's rating, and see what happens.

QR

The fact that there are over 21 pages of 5-star arcs, and 7 of 1-star (as of an hour or so ago), shows how pointless the rating system is. Just to find a 5-star mission to play seems to require looking through a couple dozen obvious farms first (a bit of an exaggeration, but, give it another week).

That being said, there is no functional rating system for a game like this. Earning the right to rate is just as gameable as anything else, and it further creates bad feelings for those who don't participate in whatever it is that grants said right.

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Scoop's had about half dozen people or more volunteer to write reviews (I lost count).

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Tell them to get in the thread and write some then! I'd like to see more people doing reviews here. Venture's doing a great job but he's just one person and can only review so many arcs.

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Everyone here does realize that if you just have a little patience the running enemies will come back, right? Use the time to Rest or whatnot until they return. That's what I do. I'm not anxious to follow them to my imminent doom. I realize that I have more patience than most these days, but really, it doesn't take much.



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"...You must learn patience."
"Yeah, yeah, patience, how long does that take?"

That's all well and good, but, I'm not playing a game to sit back and do nothing. This would bother me less if they didn't come back, but you would eventually find them cowering in a corner or having joined another mob somewhere down the line.

As it stands, them running away is both idiotic and annoying. The other night when EVERY SINGLE MOB would have someone run off, and given that I was soloing a defender I could neither generate the damage to stop them, nor afford to have him come back while I was fighting another mob, I was ready to just log off.

If it hadn't been double XP weekend I'd have quit in disgust (the session, not the game). As it was, as soon as I finished the mission I changed toons.

Subjective Feedback

I very much like the merit system as it gives me something to shoot for. However, for me, it has a rather bad drawback as well.

Some necessary background, I play between midnight and 8 AM PST. Finding Task Forces to run during those times has been, in the year I've been back playing, impossible (it's hard enough finding enough character's near your own level just to get a PUG together).

This leaves the only means of gaining merits being Story Arcs. Given the small number of merits available through Story Arcs, it makes it very difficult not to run the same content on every single toon (which, given extreme alt-itis, means alot of toons) unless I simply want to ignore the merit rewards entirely. Running the same content, for me, leads to boredom, which is why farming merits in Orobos is not a viable option, either.

So, from my point of view, I'd like to see story arc rewards increased, or prices of what you can buy with merits severely reduced. Task Forces should still remain the biggest source of merits, I'm not suggesting that any story arc should be worth the same merits/minute as a TF. I'd also like to see stand alone missions, other than radio missions which already lead towards their own reward, be worth 1 merit, so you don't feel like you're completely missing out by running a mission that is not part of a story arc.

Granted, that will make farming for merits easier, but, those who run content solely to gain merits are going to make their merits regardless.

I'll put in a definite 2 million Influence bid, then, just in case you don't get a 5th before January.

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That's close to the idea. I don't really need the money. I do want to slow down their leveling. I didn't feel like figuring out what 5 people to choose. I figured this would be fun. I'll let you guys decide what a level 50 with no effort is worth.

... and I'm an attention oar.

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LMAO...well, I only have those kinds of funds on blueside, but since you included an exchange rate I presume, should I be a chosen recipient, there's some way to transfer influence to infamy?

(Yes, I am redside-knowledge impaired)

oh yeah, your bunny ears are very cute....

Well, villainside I wouldn't pay more than 2 million. Probably not enough to make it worth it to you, I'm sure.

I'd probably bid on heroside, solely to unlock Khelds, 'cause I'd never play the toon. Villainside, though....maybe, not worth as much to me. I'll see what it's worth to others first.

I think, though, you're going to get swatted for this one first. I'm sure the devs won't like level pacts for PLing.

While I think the devs made the right decision in delaying the mission architect until its completely ready, and not delaying the rest of I13 features with it, it has the unfortunate side-effect of making what's been announced for I13 pretty blase to me. Normally I really look forward to a new issue and have a "I want it Now!!! When's it coming out? That's too long to wait!" feeling. Now with I13 it's more of a "hmmm...that's nice. When's it coming out? oh, sometime in the next few months. ok, well, whenever you get around to it is fine." feeling.

While I've no problem with purchasable options, I find $9.99 to be a ridiculously high price for this option. It's a fine price for things you can't get in game, such as character transfers and extra slots. For something that you get every new issue, as many veteran rewards, as recipes (although I've never found one), and that you can run a TF to gain, its a bad price. The whole point of making it purchasable is as much to generate revenue for the company (which is a good thing for the players if you want to keep seeing new content) as it is for providing more options. At 9.99, only a very few players are likely to use it. Make it half that price, and you'd probably triple sales. Make it something like 2.99, and you'd probably see sales go through the roof (and the bottom drop out of the respec recipe market). Given that I've just spent about 150 bucks consolidating my toons from being across every server to only using 5 servers, and yet I'd never pay 9.99 for a respec, I don't think I'm too far off on this.

Given how tough the lag has made the raids I've been in so far (and I've got a pretty high-end system and connection), I don't think what you're describing would work, especially taking place later in the day when even more people are going to be on. What you're describing sounds awesome, but, I don't think it's practical. Personally, I didn't find it easy, but, then again, the no debt thing made me fight to the death then just SS back to the fight from the hospital.

Maybe if I beat enough of them, Rikti will let me be in his show....

I agree that the Perez Park maze is better left unknown, however, its silly not to know where the shops are. This is a city, not some unexplored dungeon. Cities have streets, addresses, and phone books that most shops make sure their addresses are in. It takes away from the idea that this is a city to have to wander through all of Steel Canyon, for instance, to find Cooke's Electronics.

As to the noises, well, until I discovered a mod for it, I stopped playing my dark/dark scrapper at all because the constant, unending Dark Miasma sound effect (even though I turned the thing off whenever I was not using it) literally gave me a headache. As to the suggestion of "well, just turn the sound off then".......right.......I want to play a silent game. Do you think that, if people do not want sound as part of the game environment, that software producers would bother putting sound in with the game? Sounds are helpful in many situations, finding glowies being the most obvious.

My problem is, virtually every game I've played that has forums sponsered by the manufacturer has a modding section. I find it rather ludicrous and arrogant that this game has closed its doors to the modding community. People have different tastes, and no product is going to appeal to all, that's where modding comes into play. Yes, NCSoft has the right to ban their discussion, but, they'ree spitting on their paying customers by doing so.