Dr_Mechano

The GMs (halloween or otherwise) are definitely spawning while the banner event is still in effect....

...had the Arachnos flier decide to make a landing nearly ontop of one of the banners in Grandville...that was a bit of a surprise to say the least.

Ooh another question, this time more EUcentric.

With Going Rogue are we going to see the server lists merged because there's very little reason now (no EU only support, no EU only moderators, no EU only maintenance times, hell the only thing NCsoft has in the EU is the servers and a marketting department) to keep the server lists seperate at all.

Agreed, CoH/CoV does need it's own 'Operation Unholy Rage' ala EVE online.

They really should just up and merge the server list...infact I think this 'global maintenance' trial is probably the first step in that, when they see the game survives on one global maintenance a week (WoW servers survive on one maintenance a week...not sure why it wouldn't work here) they'll probably begin merging the server lists.

My question is.

Will badges affect dialogue with regards your past exploits on the other side?

Lets say I take my villain heroside, will Statesman have extra dialogue because I smacked around him and the rest of the Freedom Phalanx on the Lord Recluse Strike force and the same when going from heroside to villainside.

got my bots/traps MM from 8 to 29.

Quite proud of that

There's other unavailable weapons.

The main one I wanted was the Nemesis crank turned minigun they have like the one in his pic.

Would kill to get that minigun on an AR user.

Greetings simpleton, you are through to Doctor Mechano's voicemail, if you are inquiring about scientific experiments, a Cap Au University mad scientist work experience placement or require the building of killer robots, please leave a message after the maniacal laughter...MUWAHAHAAHA

Hmm personally I reckon CoX could do with it's own kind of 'cataclysm' style storyline to shake things up. By that I mean something which really shakes up the entire enviroment (just as Cataclysm is reworking the original lands of Azeroth).

Lord Recluse and Statesman missing or presumed dead (nobody stays dead in comicbook land, lets face it), the Lord Recluse Strike Force and Statesman Taskforce moved to Oroborous (so they're still available just not directly ingame). Heroes are thrown into panic now that they're big hitter has gone. Storylines dealing with the 'search for Statesman'. The taskforce commander taskforces are reworked and additional new player content is opened up.

Meanwhile in the Isles it's complete chaos as the Arbiters have lost their power and the four different Patron factions are duking it out over who is going to be the boss of the Isles (with Dr Aeon trying to get one up on all of them like any good mad scientist, opening up a new Patron Pool). The four patrons are nolonger just there to unlock the Patron Power Pools but there to actually represent four warring factions (of course they'd nolonger be in the same room and the main tower in Grandville would be in ruins).

Villains would carve out some semblence of power all their own with Arachnos in dissary (alternate anti-Arachnos levelling path where the villain players are using the chaos to further their own ends) or they can try to keep the Isles in some semblence of order.

Along with this the timeline is advanced. Boomtown now has some semblence of rebuilding like Faultline with the further reaches of the Zone held by the 5th Column duking it out with the Council for example.

Just throwing ideas out there really, a lot of content would need to be reworked but that's the whole idea of a 'cataclysm' style expansion...

...probably more work than it's worth mind you...

From what I can fathom of the unreleased gadget set for stalkers, it had.

Hide: Cloaking device.
Smashing/Lethal resistance: Kevlar Body Armor.
Standard mez resistance for melee character: Delta wave scrambler.
Negative/Energy resistance: Power Shield.
Fire/Cold resistance: Enviro shield.
Self heal: Meds.
Large defensive or resistance buff: Chameleon suit.

Looks like it would essentially be 'fire armour' for stalkers unless it was not resistance but typed defence...which makes it all the stranger.

With Stalkers low resistance caps probably wouldn't be that great but it doesn't give up any defence for offence like fire armour does...

Ah people...

Use the old fashion method to make people equal, set them all on fire...

Probably not the best stance to take but it does deal with people rather well, everyone is equal when they're on fire.

Trust me, I did scientific studies, I took one from each possible nationality, sexual orientation and gender...set each one of my test subjects on fire (using the exact same amount of petrol with matches that were of a same length and the same phospher[sic] to wood ratio).

Each one of them burned nicely, though there were variances in the language used and the pitch of voice between genders and nationalities, as well as among the various age groups but they did all scream, "oh <profanity or blasphemy here> I'm on <profanity or blasphemy here> fire!"

People, they all burn the same...

Now tasting the same, that's a different matter, not all well cooked people taste the same...

<<this mildly disturbing and partially nonsensical post was bought to you by the Mad Scientist Union, where we bring the world together to rule it or just want to watch it burn through our scientific experiments of giant creatures, killer robots or other doomsday devices, thanks for your time>>

Hmm even replacing them with NPC models brings up the problems of what do the upgrades look like.

I mean for Tier Vahzilok Zombie NPCs there's easy upgrade options, going from normal Cadaver to Abomination to Emblamed Abomination...

But Tier 2 and 3, with Tier 3 probably being an Ediolon...where to you show upgrades on them...and what would Tier 2 be?

Hmm mind you...could just use different coloured Auras to signify the upgrades.

Hmm perhaps this is something that could be tossed to the new art hires for something to work on as a side project...

...unless they're being kept locked in a room and forced to work on nothing but the next Issue or Going Rogue.

In which case, back to work you!

Hmm it is quite interesting.

My 'non-combat pets' thread which garnered a reasonable amount of support and took me freaking ages to create because it grew to a large amount of non-combat pets all with their names, ingame critter type, how they were earned and a decent chunk of text (a Paragraph) of description. There was one for every single Taskforce and Strikeforce in the game.

Avatea liked the idea and actually had it sent to the devs on her weekly 'look at this suggestion from the Europeans' bullet points she would send them and told me that they might look at it, they might not but to not expect a response unless it was something they all got really psyched about and wanted to include in the game.

Sadly I didn't get a response on that one...I AM tempted to repost it but it would take me an hour just to type everything out again...

Agreed on the theory that the revenue just wasn't there to support the adverts.

Was interesting to see the adverts progress, the first one was, in my opinion, awful it didn't fit the setting at all and the fact the promised 'texturing' wasn't applied to the adds which meant even the ads in the Rogue Isles looked pristine and nice (the worst offender was going into those post apocalyptic maps and finding a pristine yet half buried Nike Jetter billboard)

As they went on, texturing got applied to make them look like posters, rather than just crappy looking Jpeg files pasted over an ingame space and the ones in the Rogue Isles were dirtied up (the apocalyptic ones suitably treated as well).

Then it just stopped with no explanation...

Europe got one round of ads before it was discontinued (for Babylon AD, a predictable and tad crappy sci-fi movie starrin Vin 'my careers gone down hill a bit' Diesel).

Combined with the backlash from a decent segment of the community at the time for even daring to have ads in the game, despite the fact you could turn them off, probably didn't help causes as well as the fact that they're background, people don't stop and look at them, you fly/speed/jump past them, meaning that the adverts were largely ignored.

Overall, even with these factors, it was definetly a lack of revenue and the ads just not being the kind of thing an MMO audience would even buy which killed off the Ads.

Edit: Here's a screenshot of the only European Ad.

I honestly don't think you 'could' defeat all the big name threats.

The only reason the 'Conference of evil' didn't even get past the initial meeting was because Nemesis was his usual idiotic self, if he'd have kept his ego in check there might have been something which could be born from that meeting...

Admittedly there is a major flaw in the conference of evil plan, villains don't generally get along well...let alone villain organisations, each one is out for the biggest share.

Villains are rarely unified, which is what seperates them from heroes. Heroes will band together and team up to defeat a problem greater than their own skills can, Villains will go it alone and try to take out the threat on their lonesome due to them wanting all the glory and evil recognition.

Arachnos and The Council are the 'rule the world types' and meglomaniacs never get along well with sharing, especially when Arachnos is a splinter group of the Council, old rivalries die hard.

Freakshow and the Carnival of Shadows are the 'watch the world burn' type group, they're both out to have destructive fun and either steal souls or loot, pillage, burn and generally cause havok. They make great pawns when you point them in a direction and let them go but they're not really awesome allies as they're far too whimsical and unpredictable to be relied on.

Malta (with the help of the Knives of Artemis) seek to control super powered beings, they're not going to get along well with ANY group and at most will make use of them as pawns.

Circle of Thorns...well...they're not likely to ally with anyone due to their old 'we're really millenia old spirits stealing bodies and practicing arcane arts...' schtick. They want to return to their former glory as world rulers and don't want anyone to stand in their way, hero or villain.

It's interesting that up until level 30 all the gangs are interconnected. Skulls, Trolls and the Family are all linked through the sale and use of Superadine while the competing cartel is formed from the Hellions, Outcasts, Warriors and Tsoo all deal with Rage and mystical artifacts (do NOT mix Rage and Superadine...the effects are unpleasant to say the least).

Past level 30 the threats seem...more fragmented with no real connection to each other.

Of course there's two evils you can't really defeat...Radio and Television, the two fight but neither can really wipe out the other despite the actions each one takes (Radio doesn't stop existing because you've beaten up an Stereo that attacks with Sonic blasts, that's just a manifestation the same way TV wouldn't stop if you blew up a television that attacked with Illusions).

How do you defeat villains like that? They are pervasive, ever present and somewhat malign entities that exist just beyond the fringes of human conception whose insiduous tentacles have spread far enough that if some righteous hero tried to ban television the general public would call him nuts and being force to give up their television for 'the greater good' comes across as if they're trying to supress freedom...

There simply is no way to defeat 'all evil' even if the villains we defeated were permenatly killed off....you're left with threats that are far more subtle and secretive but slowly working to use people in a war between them because they can't be killed off...an unending battle between the Radio waves and the Satellite beams that nobody could stop until 'The Internet' decides it's time to show those old timers that they're not needed in the modern world...then it becomes a three way battle...

I'm personally curious of the logistics involved in adding the European servers to the US server list.

Hmmm I know you can summon 'The Troyinator' by saying his name three times, which dev do we need to summon in order to get a 'yay' 'nay' or 'possibly'?

American censors seem to be very against anything that is 'sexual' but kind of blaise about violence and gore. The American version of Age of Conan had the nipples removed from the semi-naked female demon pet and her backside covered up.

The Germans are the reverse and kind of blaise about the sexual but very against blood and violence, so the big, really gorey fatality moves your character occasional pulls off (such as the curb stomp head squish) had the blood removed and some were taken out altogether (such as the curb stomp).

The rest of the world had a completely uncensored version which had a female succubus pet in just booties complete with nipples and the over the top fatalities.

Hmm even a server list merger is probably seen by the devs as a second to last resort for when the EU servers become unviable which may be the problem (the last resort being the old EU to US transfer and then shutting them down completely).

Still, as I've said here and elsewhere, I'm all for it but I doubt this will gain any momentum any time soon.