FloatingFatMan

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I know I don't know the way these Domain(s) are build up. It is a lot of guessing. No info is released. But these are educated guesses. The forum fact I know as we had test server crashes before and that resulted in both websites (us and eu) going down. Also.. you need to make a new forum account when you want to post on the US forums. Showing that they use seperate databases.


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The forums are absolutely NOT hosted on the same machine as the test server. They're on the same IP range, as they're both located in Austin, but they're NOT the same machine; their IP addresses are different.

More than likely, it was a router in Austin that crashed, taking down everything. There's just no way they'd run a game server, even a test one, on the same machine as a live forum.

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It's the rubbish links to the German datacentre. WoW is hosted elsewhere.

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oh.. I was under the impression they where in the same server parc. Where are they hosted?

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They're all over the place.

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Would like the bio to be a tiny bit bigger but not too big. Maybe when the vault goes live (if ever ) they'll let us add more bio to them on the website?

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Now THAT would be an excellent solution. Though the vault will mainly pull data from your characters entry in the database, it'd be far easier to link it to a new table for additional info you add yourself.

Of course... That's IF we ever see the blessed thing! It's nearly a year late!

Oh I dunno... If you buy a TV in Dixons one week, and a week later it's £50 less, do you expect a refund? I think we should count ourselves lucky there's ANY kind of refund!

(( I lol'ed! You made me get funny looks from my programmers! Although... They usually give me funny looks anyway... ))

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Of course it is doable if they consider it a very good QoL thing.

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Oh very doable. But I'm reminded of our db admins face when he was told the client wanted to alter their table schema's a bit... He cried.

And THEN I told him they wanted to change the primary keys too... Oooh, that was mean of me!

Define "decent".

You know... This could actually be made to work.

How about something like this...


Deathrace 2008!

Set in the contested zone of Warburg, you and your fellow challengers must run the gamut of Warburg, throwing down against heroes and villains alike in the race to be the FIRST to launch the missile.

Anything goes in this knock down, drag out tournament, even cheating! But be warned; if you're caught, you'll face public ridicule from your fellow players AND every single other player in the zone WILL target you for instant execution!

So, come one, come all! If you think you're HARD enough!


*cough* Ahem. So yeah... A death race set in the free for all PvP zone. Have death squads roaming the area to kill any racers they see. Have the racer in a distinctive costume so everyone knows who they are. First one to launch the missile wins the prize, and cheating IS allowed; but if you're caught at it (like launching the missile WAY before you should be able too), all the death squads WILL target you, and the race continues?

Could be massive fun... would be total mayhem.

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Weird. What database are they using which is limited to 1024 chars?

I thought Ravens objection was more down to the fact he doesn't like being able to know a characters backstory from just "looking" at them, that it was a roleplaying one.

As a total non-roleplayer and someone who gets bored easily I like reading bios, even the rip-off emo ones, whilest waiting for people to gather at mission entrances so I'm all for this.

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Didn't say database, I said field. It depends entirely on what type of field they're storing the data in, to be honest; as well as what database server they use. In either case, it was said many many many moons ago that the limitation was down to field size. No db admin liked to mess with db schema's if they don't HAVE too.

It's the rubbish links to the German datacentre. WoW is hosted elsewhere.

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ehh.. *network admin cap on* A list like this is made up of ip-adresses.. even the name of the server can be taken from the original eu location. Logging in there just is a shortcut. No data transfer of any kind from the account. Even the account merge can be done without data transfer to US.


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Technically Liz, that's quite correct; Legally however, it really really isn't. If we want to connect to a US server, then the US servers MUST have access to our accounts, and therefore our personal data, and that's where the data protection laws come in to play. Same applies to the US players accessing EU servers. THAT is where the legal issues arise, and THAT is why a shared server list is very unlikely to ever happen.

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Even if all this is true.. Keeping the compagnies as two seperate ones will in the long run not help us any... All our accounts are by one compagny.. not two.. We pay to the same compagny. Who holds our accounts. Or am I wrong here?

the account is on secure.plaync.com not on secure.plaync.co.uk

the account is global, the payment is global...

I dont care where they are located, I pay with Credit Card and they get my money


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Your account is with NCSoft Europe; a separate legal entity to NCSoft, NCSoft West, or any other branch of NCSoft. NCEU is now under the control of NCWest, this is true; but your account is covered under European law, not US law. Yes our accounts are with one company, but it's not the US one.

This is the difficulty people fail to understand. The problems are NOT insurmountable, but they're complex and expensive to overcome. So expensive that it WOULD be cheaper to just give us US accounts and copy our characters over should they ever need to.

Sure you can get a US account, but that then comes under the US data protection laws, not the EU ones. Our accounts come under the EU ones, which are not directly compatible with the US ones, and vice versa of course.

To open all servers to all players, they would require whole new accounts coming under ONE legislation. Then there is the problem of physical server locations. If our personal data is stored on a computer physically located in Germany (as is the case), then no matter what they try to do, EU data protection laws will always apply. They would have to transfer our data to US held servers, and if they do THAT, they may as well just close the EU servers down and give us US accounts as it would be FAR cheaper.

So sorry, but "merging the server lists" is actually more complex than just shunting us to the US game.

*sigh*

You know, just because the US and EU branches are now being managed under NCWest, that still doesn't mean that the legal issues preventing sharing of data between the EU and US have gone away...

Until NC themselves actually say they've resolved the legal problems, which are quite complex and expensive to sort out, even merging the server lists is NOT possible. It requires the sharing of personal data which is protected under EU data protection laws, and these differ wildly from US ones.

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Not signed. And I'm not explaining why, I'v done so so often that it's boring.

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I'll step up and explain why, to save poor Birdy's stress levels.

The reason is a technical limitation on database field size. There's only so much data you can store within a field, and the character bio is just about at that limit.

Now sure, they COULD add a second field for more, and split the data over two, but if there's ONE thing programmers really really REALLY hate doing, it's changing the database schema of a live product. That way lies a LOT of headaches and a potential loss of live data if a mistake is made.

NOT something they'd do just on a players whim.

Best option, if you have a long bio, it to summarise it in that field and then provide a link to a webpage with the full bio.

That works too.

Plus, the claws are a cat thing. We ALL know how vicious cats can be.

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Problem here - besides the more in-depth stuff mentioned by Khorak - is that all Peacebringer powers are energy based. If Ellie's claws being made of energy is enough to let them cut impervium, then her beam attacks will similarly punch straight through any target, no?


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As Dante said, Peacebringers are described as "masters of energy", so it wouldn't be any great stretch of the imagination for them to be able to vary the effect their attacks have. In fact, I can even DO that to some extent with IO's and their procs.

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'purely' theoretical example.
Say a certain well known RPer wrote a piece of fiction where her male peace bringer character has its way with another slightly lesser known player's main male power suited blaster, including tentacles and crying like a little girl.

If the entire community decided that this was cannon, and became common knowledge, and that player B's denial was purely IC denial of something he was (understandably) ashamed of, would it then become "player cannon"?

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If player B had granted OOC consent for this, then I'd say yes; it would become player canon. If they'd NOT given OOC consent, then it's just a godmod, and particularly nasty one at that.

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6 Months: Greek Alphabet
What can I say this is horrible, I have never see any1 use it before and frankly how many people create Greek themed characters.


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To you and me perhaps; but they were massively popular in the US.

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Idea: Logos. Put logos for NCSoft, City of Heroes, City of Villians, other NCSoft games, etc etc. This would be a lot cooler.


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No thanks. Breaks the 4th wall pretty badly. Almost as bad as the stupid comic book cover base items.

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27 Months: Anime-style tech armor
To be frank compare it to real Anime-style tech armor and you get nothing like it. It is just too boring and not unique enough.


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The "Tech Sleek", or "anime" armour is quite nice. They just need to not call it "anime" armour...

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39 Months: Boxing Set
Useless. I can't see a use for a boxing set and at 39 months there should be more adventureous rewards.


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Gotta agree, it's kinda lame, but...

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Idea: Astronaut set. Imagine it as a real astronaut costume, without the NASA logos and everything. I know I'd use it.


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So is this TBH. I'd rather have something more comic book like to be honest. Perhaps selectable travel power animations for magic carpets and rocket packs etc.

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45 Months: NOTHING
Well they should've put something in instead of nothing. Now that we have the opportunity let's suggest something else.


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Yeah, that was highly lame...

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Idea: Mystic Outfit. Similar to CoT costume. All the Magic originers would be happy.


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Robes aren't possible with the current game engine.

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54 Months: Another power not previously selected
It was obvious that the devs were out of ideas. That throws the whole idea of 'PERMAMENT' labelled on the earlier ones.

Idea: Hand of Power - Superior DMG, Chance for Hold, Meele Attack

Does exactly what says above. Some may say its overpowered but to stay 4 yrs and a half you really deserve this.


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Not bad I guess; but no vet reward will have anything remotely like superior damage though. That's NOT what vet rewards are about.

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As for your Nictus, I think I can understand why you got flak. Nictus are exclusively CoX canon and as such have a defined history (written or unwritten). Rewriting said history is never a popular decision.

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Perhaps, but I had an out as well. I stately quite clearly that though he claimed he was the first, all knowledge of his experiments and even his existence was wiped from the minds of his fellow beings by some mysterious "others", and they imprisoned him for screwing with the balance of things.

When the procedure was rediscovered millennia later, it wasn't quite the same procedure as he used. I still got flak for it though.

Ah well... I was a newbie RPer at the time, and I got rid of him a LOOOONG time ago.

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Now, my character is a little bit cheeky in that respect because I have him as the founder of the first bloodline. He is the first vampire, but he is not the ancestor of all vampires, so think I'm ok an that one.


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You might want to watch that. I created a character ages ago who was meant to be the first of the Nictus, and CERTAIN people tore me a new one over it! *glares* I used pretty much the same as you did; he was the first nictus, but he wasn't the ancestor to all nictus. That didn't stop the righteous though!

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she does chew on Freakshow arms tho FFM ..P

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Don't remind me! She went through GALLONS of mouthwash and god knows how much floss after that!

She NEVER uses her claws against people. She's not a murderer!! When she DOES kill, it's when she has no other choice. She saves her claws for fighting machines and monsters.

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Of course, there's absolutely no reason that Ellie is: superstrong, supersensitive, has claws that can carve very big holes in any thing she wants... other than that you didn't want her as anything other than the most powerful entity you could think of.

No, Ellie's just a powerful kheldian... while all the other kheldians get by on being, well, kheldians.

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Ellie's claws are a psychomorphic projection of the claws her cat side remembers having, manifesting as pure Kheldian energy. Energy tends to trump the densest of matter, so it passes between and disrupts molecular bonds much like Talsorian weapons apparently do. Note, she's had these LONG before Impervium or Talsorian weapons entered the game. That doesn't mean she can cut through ANY thickness though... They're only 3 inches long, and a sufficient thickness of impervium WILL stop them (I figure maybe 2 cm tops). Her cell in the Zig was a foot thick wall of impervium.

I could go through all her different weaknesses on here, but I'm not just going to TELL people how to take her out.. Her extra senses are obvious, the countermeasures should be equally so. The point is though, that yes, of course she's powerful. We ALL want our characters to be powerful, yes? So I fell into what many of us want to do. At least I've tried to balance that with appropriate weaknesses. There are a LOT of chars out there in RP land with NO weaknesses.

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Plus you can -really- screw Ellie over with LOUD NOISES. As I so love doing.


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Well, with super-hearing comes super-sensitivity to sonic effects. Sonic weapons make mincemeat of her.

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FFM and SG still play their characters as pretty much gods.


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Speaking for myself only, but I disagree. Sure Ellie is powerful, I list her as one of the more powerful Peacebringers in the city, but that's merely transferring game mechanics over to RP. She IS powerful, and has a very effective build. She very rarely faceplants anymore when missioning because I've spent a lot of time tweaking her, and she can even go toe to toe with an AV and survive.

Sure, her backstory contains something that can push her to extremes at times, such as her "little problem" right now, but that has a specific cause, and a specific solution; but she's by no means a god. A god character implies little or no weaknesses, and Ellie has plenty of them. Some more debilitating than others, and one which could be downright hilarious amongst the right players.

So no, I disagree that Ellie is a godlike character. Overpowered, I WILL agree on, hence the additional weaknesses to counterbalance her additional strengths.