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If they can make things right, I hope all you righteously indignant complainers come back here and give them a hearty "thanks"...but I have my doubts you will.

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Sometimes the amount of boot licking here simply amazes me. So they had a problem that caused many of their customers to lose items and influence, and when (and IF) they fix it we are supposed to thank them heartily while they offer no apology of any sort for the error in the first place? This is like me accidentally tripping and jabbing you with my elbow, giving you a black eye. Are you supposed to be "grateful" that I toss you an ice pack without so much as an "I am sorry"?

Oh I don't know, having an error which required a rollback which left lots of people missing their influence and items that they are trying to restore?

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For those of you who are just tuning in, we want to recap an important moment in the history of Paragon City – the Great Consignment House Heist!

You see, today Wentworth’s Fine Consignments, the excellent new buying and selling service that recently went into service across Paragon City, came to a grinding halt and apparently some customer’s items went missing! Police officials are very suspicious of Villainous activities, given that underground sources indicate there were no similar problems with the shady Black Markets on the Rogue Isles. Those same officials are currently investigating and cataloging all missing influence, inspirations, enhancements, recipes and salvage and planning on making a full reimbursement, courtesy of Wentworth’s insurance agency.



Ok, all role play aside, if you haven’t seen the announcement thread, you can see some of the blow by blow there. I thought I would recap it for any new folks who were tuning in.

The issue only affected the Hero side Consignment Markets – no Villains were affected.

A problem with the back end Auction server that supports the in game Consignment Markets became apparent shortly after our morning update on May 9th. The problem was not related to the update except that it showed up after the servers spun up.

We brought down the Auction Server and investigated. Roughly 5 hours later we brought the Auction Server back up. In order to correct the problem, we had to revert back to a save from 10 PM Central on May 8th. Again, this only affected the Hero side Consignments. Now, we do have a number of safeguards and more frequent saves. Unfortunately, as things typically work out in complicated systems, several things came together to give us trouble. That led to the relatively long time frame of the roll back. We are always very concerned with data integrity and these issues will be corrected to give us better back ups in the future.

As a result of this roll back to an earlier save, Heroes who had used the Consignment Market after that time may have a variety of issues – from duped items to lost items. To correct this, we are planning on reinserting the lost items from the transaction logs into player’s inventories. This includes any lost influence, inspirations, enhancements, salvage and recipes. At the time of this writing we are still testing this, but are confident enough that we can pull it off that I’m giving you advance notice of it.

One thing to keep in mind with this reimbursement plan is that characters have a hard limit of 10 enhancements. If you have a character that engaged in a number of enhancement transactions, you would be well advised to keep that character’s enhancement inventory clear. We will be giving as much advance notice as possible as to when the reimbursement process will take place.

So, that’s the Great Consignment Heist of May 8th as it stands at this moment. Our sincere thanks to everyone for their understanding and patience with this incident. Please know that we are putting in additional safeguards to ensure that such a problem does not arise again. Please keep an eye on the Announcement Forum for further details as they unfold!

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Maybe I need glasses, but I did not see the word "sorry" appearing even once on this post, or any of the half dozen announcements pertaining to the screw up. To all the people who have lost stuff and are inconvenienced, isn't an apology the professional thing to include right next to your promise to fix the errors?

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Well, to put it more simply: it takes longer to write a book than to read it.

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THANK YOU for putting that up.

Now to take the next logical step, most authors write in the themes they like, such as sci fi, or young adult, or true crime, or biographical. These are all categories that you see in bookstores.

If an author uses the excuse that readers can read faster than he can write, and in the hopes of getting a broader range of readers he mixes sci fi, young adult, true crime and biographical into a single book, do you think that book will sell well?

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So the <a href="/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=8071178&an=0&amp ;page=0#Post8071178" target="_blank">announcement</a> here details the last group of servers we hit on our spontaneous "It's Pay Day" Friday events.

Guardian, Triumph and Liberty pictures can be seen here at w00tradio.net

We wish to thank DJ Jester and DJ Genna from w00tradio for helping us to document and celebrate some of our Freaky Friday costumes.

We hope everyone who was able to participate in this activity had fun, and if we missed you this time, we might see you next time.

Ex Libris

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Positive things, I applaud it whole heartedly.

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Does the temp power for Dr Aeon stick around after the TF? If so, for how long?

PvP?

Awesome potential.

Craptastic implementation.

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Yep. And why didn't people believe the Devs when they said that ED would diversify things?

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Because it didn't, and still doesn't?

Oh yeah, seeing twenty heroes all standing around bidding and selling things is real heroic and "diversified"...not.

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Umm, that would be ALL of the single target holds that Controllers have access to in their primaries. So, wth is this about Blind having a damage component other holds do not?....


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As have been correctly pointed out by a couple hours, it should have say "AoE holds" instead of just "holds". The thing being that aoe holds don't have a damage components, and cannot be efficiently slotted with 6 HO's, so 3 HOs + 3 SO's was not a good comparison with 6 IOs'.

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My understanding is that getting enhancement effects that are not intended or not in an enhancement's description is considered an exploit. Is that not correct?

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If it is an exploit, the devs certainly hasn't said anything about it. I just know that that is how it works now. Its their codes, I didn't write the stuff for Ribo. I just use them lol.

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Are you saying that it's better than the other hold sets, or that hold sets are better than other set types?

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Nah that's not what I'm saying. There was a post last week about the fact that few IO Hold sets actually have 3 SO's worth of Holds, which is needless to say one of the most important things for Holds. Your example is one of those few examples that fit, but many others do not. In fact, many others have inflated unnecessary or undesireable buffs, like 3 x end reduce. I mean, people don't normally slot 3 end reducer SOs in their attacks, but that type of stuff is common in the IO sets.

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My analysis admittedly ignores availability. But it's also worth noting that characters can start assembling sets long before they can start accumulating HOs.

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Anyone can get their first HO immediate at level 45 after a single raid. A person would be hard put to be able to collect that entire set you named at level 45, don't you think? Unless you are talking about twinking by another character or having a sugar daddy.

Ummm you are comparing 6 IO's to 3 HO's + 3 SO's. There is no doubt in my mind that the 6 IO's would come out ahead. A more accurate test would be to compare 6 IO's to 6 HOs.

Using Blind from my ill troller as an example, I would put in :

2 Endos (Acc/Mez)
1 Perox (Dam/Mez) [or you can use another Endo in its place, the total would be identical]
1 Cent (Dam/Range)
1 Ribo (Dam Res/End reduce) [This HO will enhance Blind's damage - the reason for it is for another discussion, but rest assure that it will buff both the damage and reduce endurance]
1 plain old recharge SO, which I plan to replace with a plain old recharge Common IO.

Now do the math, and you will see that the numbers are vastly superior to both IO sets :

Acc : 76%
Mez : 97.2%
Dam : 97.2%
Rng : 16% (normalized to schedule A, 26.5% for totaling purposes) [note: actually this number should be 23% before normalization, but I'll use your number so we are comparing the same thing]
End : 38.3%
Rchrg : 38.3% (42.x% with a plain IO but not counting this here)

Total : 373.5% (3 HO's + 3 SO's = 286.%, your first example = 318.2%, your second exmaple = 307.6%) This number is about 10 points less if your HO's are white when you are at level 50, still far better than all other examples.

Finally, Blind has a damage component while other holds do not. At the same time, Essence of the Curate is one of the "better" sets, while MANY other IO sets have garbage buffs that are either useless, undesirable or have a retarded inflated component (such as End Reduce). Your ideal case and my ideal case both pretty much ignored most of the other, much more common situations. However, on that basis alone, the numbers show clearly which way is superior. 5 HO's and 1 plain old SO beat the best combination of IO set that one can come up with.


ps : As an additional benefit, with the exception of that single Ribo, everything else combined (2 endos, 1 perox, 1 cent, 1 recharge SO) sure will be 10 times easier to get than having to find/farm/bid the recipes and salvage, plus the 3 million influence (maybe more?) that you'll need to put everything together. Heck, there are a few perox's and a whole mess of centrioles sitting in one of my sg's storage right now.

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Wrong. A pledge to fix something means that they can be held to account. Admitting that something is broken means you're taking responsibility for it. That's a lot more potentially damaging in terms of lost credibility than simply waving it off.

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I can't think of how Cryptic was held accountable at all for the broken base raids, IoP, CoP, base kick, some of these were advertised features that are still broken 17 months since people paid for it.

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Instead everytime I see that quote I wonder, "Would we have a Flashback System, if it had been started on TWO YEARS ago when I first read the idea?"


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Fair enough. And if they had started it 2 years ago and it got implemented, what wouldn't we have that we currently have?

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PvP

Gladly sacrifice THAT.

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The solution with the least effort on the devs part that solves the problem for 50s is to just award the Pool B drop to everyone on the team.


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Actually there is an even easier solution. Just have ONE drop table. Everything draws from that. Problem ended.

Nice list and good work. I also echo the other poster is saying that I feel your rarity is kinda out of whack.

My feeling is that perhaps 1/3, or maybe more, of all hami drops are Centrioles. There is without a single doubt in my mind that the devs had made the least desireable HO also the most common. I actually emailed and spoken with a "senior GM" and they CLAIMED that all HOs have an equal chance of dropping. Clearly, either that senior GM was clueless, or it was a blatant lie.

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Please don't listen to anyone saying the story arc rewards are a bad idea. I love the idea of better rewards for more story arcs. Now, I do understand that there's some L50s that already have done the arcs - but why not just make those recipes also drop from high level AVs and/or task forces? Then 50s can get them one way, and up-and-coming toons can do the story arcs.

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I'm not sure why this concept is so hard to grasp... People can do AVs and TFs all they want, Story Arcs are UNREPEATABLE. If we are forced into having a random chance of getting a reward, drawing something random from a pool of limited, unrepeatable, out-levellable, one time story arcs is not acceptable to most people.

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I would be extremely surprised if the non-repeatable nature of story arcs was not the foundation for the idea of Pool B in the first place.

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I'm not disagreeing with you, because I think although few people have said it, this is indeed the case. Look at the retarded spawn rate of Jack during Halloween, or how stupidly difficult it is to get a Snowball or even a Rock. There is apparently a camp of devs which seems to harbor the belief that harder/more frustrating/LONGER = better or more fun. Its the same misguided design philosophy that led to the cost of the base plot, or the cost of some empowerment recipes, or the ridiculous difficulty in finding something as straight forward as a Level 53 End Mod SO.

Again I have to check the questions that the devs have not bothered to answer :

Why is there a NEED for 4 pools? Why not 3? Heck, why not just 1?
Why are they even contemplating tying rewards to one-time, non repeatable acts in the game?
Why is rarer/harder = better/more fun?

The OP is a troll.

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It's like I said, we are looking into other options that keeps the mechanic of the four pool system. Our intention is to not make people feel "gimped" for previously completing all their story arcs.

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Doc, care to tell us why you guys are so fixated at this magic number of "4"? Why STRONG ARM people into doing story arcs, or trials, or TF, when not everyone's playing style is the same.

WHY NOT have a single pool that every defeat can draw from?

Why do you guys seem to think that harder/rarer = better or more fun?

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Ruin it? No, certainly not. But I must say that Shivans have made my PvE life *MUCH* more enjoyable.

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While I technically agree with that statement above, I do not believe that it is a testimony of the benefit of Shivans, but instead of the borked design with the regen rates of AVs and GMs. One has but to try fighting an even con Diabolique AV without a Rad or Kin to realize that the sheer frustration does not equal "fun".

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I can completely understand why a lot of people hate pvp and are afraid to go get badges in pvp zones, but this huge gank fest they fear is a figment of their imagination...

I play on Freedom, the busiest server, I love to pvp, but I have not seen this huge gank fest anti-pvpers are so terrified of.

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I have never seen Canada, but I'm reasonably sure it exists...maybe. I have witnessed and personally experienced the said gank fest, its existence is never in doubt.

Quote from the clip

"We are what we pretend to be..."

I hope to be able to master imps soon so I can PWN the world.

/em boggles

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Hence, any attempt to link violence with new inventions, is ultimately illogical.

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Off-topic: Throw in the clause about how new inventions can increase the effectiveness of violence (it's hard to compare a flint axe with a rocket-propelled grenade), and I'd agree.

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Yes, it was a bit off topic, and if I may say so kinda irrelevant to this particular discussion.

If a person poses an argument to support a particular point of view, just because a second person attempts to insert other "requirements", relevant or not, into the pre-stated conditions, it does not suddenly invalid the original argument. This is like someone saying "I am sweating, so I think today is too hot.", then have someone else comes along and declares "If you also throw in 'sweating causes your body to lose salt' then I'll agree."

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There has been a lot of talk about video games causing violence by people like Jack Thompson. Some people agree with his views and some people do not...I for one do not. Personal opinions aside, a documentary is being made called "Moral Combat" talking about the gaming industry's effect on society. Penny Arcade listed this link . Within this trailer they have a few screenshots of Statesman, as well as shots from other games. I'm not trying to start a flamewar about video game violence, but what I do ask is this: Do you think the CoX universe really falls under the same category as the rest of the games shown in 'Moral Combat'? Is there really a reason to put a game like ours under fire? Hope this makes sense, and thanks for reading my early morning rambling.

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Violence existed way before the advent of video game, TV,and movies. In fact, society as a whole is much more civilized than 2000 years ago, or during the Dark Ages, or even 1950s. Hence, any attempt to link violence with new inventions, is ultimately illogical.

Having said that, I do think that violence on TV and video games can DESENSITIZE a person to violence. But it certainly does not cause or promote violence.

Do we know if we will get a free respec with i8?

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Don't believe us? Do some data mining after 2 weeks and see how many people are ACTUALLY using the buffs, then do post your enlightening results to show us whether we are wrong or you are.

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I am very curious about what the actual numbers on use of these buffs are. I can't justify the expenditure of salvage for a marginal buff (I would barely even consider making a side trip to the base for a small 15 minute buff if it was free), and although I haven't followed this thread in detail, I don't know of anyone actually using empowerment buffs regularly.

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Don't hold your breath my friend. I woudln't be surprised if they are unwilling to release such information. It would show that they wasted their time and resources on features that people are unwilling to use. Oh if you are reading this Positron, prove me wrong and show us just how "popular" these fabulous buffs are.

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Multiple empowerment stations will stack the buffs that are offered (by design). If we made the buffs as good as players "expect" right out the gate, they'd be WAY too good when stacked.

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Let me get this straight. You actually expect people to waste multiple high-end components to stack something that is already useless? If one buff is a bad deal, what makes you think people would be willing to stack 10? Please do pull your head out of your rear and admit that the recipes, just like base rent, base item costs,etc are fundamentally broken and poorly designed. Don't believe us? Do some data mining after 2 weeks and see how many people are ACTUALLY using the buffs, then do post your enlightening results to show us whether we are wrong or you are.