Garielle

Honestly? I wouldn't do anything at all. I'm not saying that it is perfect. I'm not even saying that I like it at all. What I am saying is that just because I may or may not like some piece of content doesn't mean it needs to be changed. Others do like it, just as it is. So let them have it, and I will just go find some other content that I enjoy more.

What am I reading? You mean like right this second? Well, I am reading the forums for this really great MMO called CoH. Specifically, a thread about... huh? Oh... you mean what book(s) am I reading?

Well, at the moment, I am once again re-reading the entire Chronicles of Amber series. All 10 books in one volume.

Personally, I think it's high time that someone try to put together a well-done MMO in the Cyberpunk genre, but not holding my breath on that.

I have to say, CNN's coverage of this was amusing. The banner of the bottom of the screen read, "MASSIVE 5.8 EARTHQUAKE NEAR DC". I saw that and went, "Huh?" Near DC? It's closer to both Richmond and Charlottesville than it is to DC. They make it sound like it struck on the White House lawn or something.
Morons.

I understand the frustration, but the Incarnate trials are intentionally designed to be far more challenging than anything we have seen previously. If you could avoid most of it by merely softcapping S/L or even M/R/A, then it wouldn't really be all that challenging, would it?

First gut reaction, no I wouldn't. Some of the powersets can already have different "skins" applied through power customization for free. Are you talking about adding more of the customization options as purchasable items?

One thing to keep in mind. Two of the mechanics you mention: the dialog NPCs inside of missions as well as fights where the opponent stops fighting and you talk to them are both relatively new mechanics to the game as a whole. Neither of these existed in CoH at all, even the content designed by the developers themselves, until Going Rogue came out.

It is possible that these are things that may be added to Mission Architect at some point. I am reminded of the loading screen tip "You can't do that in Mission Architect...yet". At the same time, the popularity of the Mission Architect System as an actual storytelling tool is much smaller than I imagine they hoped for. The vast majority of those who have used AE have used it mainly for creating missions which could be easily farmed for maximum reward.

I created a few storyarcs myself, but lost interest because very few people actually play through real "stories" in the AE. Sad, but true. Wonderful tool, and very well implemented by the developers, but (ab)used very poorly by the player base.

Given the lack of interest in the system for its intended purpose, I don't know if they will devote a lot of resources to introducing new mechanics to the system. Yes, they have continued to add maps as well as NPC groups as they add them to the game, but that is much different than taking the time to code in mechanics.

Still, I know that the OCR team has been making an effort to breath some life back into the "Devs Choice" program, so it's not outside the realm of possibility if they see a change to how the system is used, and see an increased interest in using it as it was originally intended.

When I hear people mention things like "balancing the market", I cringe. Personally, if I were going to do anything at all to the market, there is only one thing I would do. If an item is posted for an amount lower than what a vendor pays for it, the item just automatically sells, on the spot, for the vendor payout amount. This would eliminate stuff being bought for 10 inf that a vendor pays 1000 inf for.

How is that gonna lower prices? It won't. But then again, that's not what the change would be aiming to do.

When they announced that they were going to stop issuing trial accounts on the 17th, I made the prediction that Freedom would be launching on the 31st. With the announcement that Boosters will be retired on the 30th, I feel even MORE strongly about this.

Yes, I know they typically announce an issue launch a week or two ahead of time, but, in this case, it would be counterproductive for them to do it. If you are a new customer, trying to decide whether or not to buy the game or a current customer trying to decide whether to renew your subscription, the knowledge that the game is going to be free in a week may push you to decide NOT to make the purchase.

Similarly, if you are looking at a particularly appealing costume part or power that is part of a booster pack, and that is all you want, it may push you to just wait until Freedom when you can buy just that one piece you want. Yes, I know it's cheaper to buy the booster pack, but that is only really true if you want everything in the pack, and not just one or two items.

Soooo.... I am once again predicting that Freedom will hit the live servers on the 30th or 31st.

I actually made it to this and can't thank Turgenev enough for taking the time to do it. It was very helpful and informative. To anyone out there who has struggled with Keyes, I highly recommend you try to attend one of these when he does another one. Well worth the time.

Actually, Virginia is pretty much a disaster zone. In the US, the West Coast gets earthquakes and wild fires, the south gets flooding, the midwest gets tornados, the south east gets hurricanes. In Central Virginia, we get all of the above, but usually on a smaller scale.

While I would love to see flying pets in the game, I don't expect to see any in the near future. If they wanted to introduce flying pets, they could have already done this. Adding wings to the Demons would have enabled them to fly. Also, simply having jets on the robots would have given them the power of flight. Heck, the Assault Bot DOES have jets in his feet, and he STILL can't fly. Does this tell you anything?

I expect one of the reasons for this is the difficulty in getting them to behave with the limited (non-existent?) pet AI in the game. Have you ever gone into a room with your pets and have them hop up to the balcony or walkway above you, without warning, pulling additional aggro you neither anticipated NOR wanted? Can you imagine how much worse this might get if the pets could actually FLY? No? Picture pets flying to any level of the dreaded "layer cake" cave room in some of the CoT cave maps. How about flying pets in that huge multi-layer Arachnos room that shows up in some of the mid-to-high level Arachnos maps? Do you really WANT your pets flying all of the place?

The problem is, people look at something like this and say, "just give them flight". That's easy for us, as players, to say when we can't see the underlying systems and can't really grasp how poorly that would really work.