IanTheM1

I think you know where I stand on the matter as well, so allow me to play the part of Memphis Bill and be flabbergasted that we've agreed on something.

I do honestly fear that based on the decisions made over the years that Paragon Studios just doesn't get how and why people use their character creator or any other given element of the game for that matter. It's as if they're content that the character creator is popular, but uninterested in why it's popular and with whom.

I could easily be wrong, but it's one of only a few possible explanations as to why they keep making what appear to be the same mistakes over and over again.

From my perspective, it's pretty much the same "creation versus accomplishment" argument that's been ongoing for years now. Except in the case of the Invention parts, any possible feeling of accomplishment was stripped from them when the drop rate was increased to appease the folks who were most likely to use them. And even when they were somewhat rare, the randomness of the drops (both the drop itself, and the likelihood that you at all cared about Fairy Wings or any other particular part) probably made them less appealing to an accomplishment-oriented player.

Now that the market on them has since completely collapsed (not that there even was a very large one before the drop rate increase) and it's become pathetically easy to cherry pick the part(s) you want off the market, it really would be a good idea to just remove them from the drop pool and add all of the pieces to the costume creator for free.

Perhaps I didn't make it plainly clear: They should make GMs fun and rewarding. Both. Not just one or the other.

1) You need the resources and Inf to craft the piece in the first place. Yeah, yeah, just send everything via email. The point is that it's still a hoop to jump through.

2) You have to craft the pieces before you can wear them, and there's nowhere to do so in the starting zones. It's not a long walk to the Steel Canyon university or the Port Oakes abandoned lab, but both paths are filled with enemies that can easily kill a level 1, in Port Oakes moreso than Steel. And in Praetoria, the wonky layout of Imperial City means the journey is slightly safer, but longer.

3) The invention parts are completely inaccessible to Free/Premium players. How intentional this is, I don't know, but it feels weird and petty.

4) The invention parts were honestly kind of a dumb idea to begin with.


So no, it's not hard to use the invention pieces post-character creation. It's just horribly user-unfriendly and a largely pointless design decision in the first place.

While the rewards definitely need to be better, I feel that encouraging GM fights simply by handing out more carrots is a bad idea.

CoH has been steadily moving away from the bland "everyone gangs up on the AV and punches them for fifteen minutes until they win" design. GMs (and other zone events) should get the same treatment. In short, content should be fun as well as rewarding.

I took a shot at revamping some GMs and zone events over in this thread, though I got distracted and never finished my goal of redesigning all of them. Every single revamp I did cook up begins with new dynamic elements and ends with better and more unique rewards, though.

This is such an exemplary, if ludicrously hyperbolic, slippery slope fallacy, that I'd be tempted to have it framed and then exhibited.

This is a perfectly reasonable and logical way to handle basic game functions that are currently being hyper-guarded due to the "threat" of RMT spam. The OP makes no reference to game content or anything of the sort, just tells, SG membership, and global chat access.

On the contrary, anything that means that the game stops judging free players guilty until proven innocent is likely a good thing. As the OP says, the longer you can retain free players, the longer the chances of them becoming invested in the game and buying something.

Right now the game is making it painstakingly hard for free players to interact with the community at large, which is terrible for retention.

Weird. My eyes must've been playing tricks on me. I distinctly remember seeing the Mutant gloves somewhere on someone. Concerns lifted. Bring on the Rularuu stuff then.

This assumes that the costume parts are the only rewards.


I will once again express my extreme displeasure at being forced into grinding event missions just to unlock things on multiple characters. Considering how often posts about wanting ways to circumvent pointless grinding for costume parts come up, I'm really irritated that there's never been any kind of redname response about it. Whatever happened to that old "giving the players what they want" schtick?

The devs may be hesitant to offer a free in-game method of unlocking a costume piece that is 80% identical to a paid one. On the other hand, I as a consumer would feel a bit cheated at paying a mark-up for the those gloves when I already own the Mutant Pack, essentially paying just for the Rularuu eyeball.

Now to break things down:

And as I also said, how they handled Lore pets was problematic, and continues to be to some degree. It never should've been spirits, but that was the only logical way to have the Praetorian pets they started with. Mind you, this is conjecture, but it's the more palatable option over them just not knowing how to integrate story and mechanics in a way that doesn't upend player concepts.

Taken one way, this is essentially saying "My character concept is that they can't be an Incarnate, therefore they can't be an Incarnate!". I've seen a few posts here and there that did basically boil down to that.

However, I'd have to wonder how this purely natural human ever got to level 50 in the first place, since a purely natural human would've been shot to death by the first Hellions they saw after stepping out into Atlas Park. Let's keep in mind that by the time you've hit 50, your "purely natural" character has also kung-fu'd giant robots, dodged magical spells, and crossed the dimensional barrier like it was a jump-rope, among many other very unnatural things.

This also gets tangled up in the oft-debated meaning of Origins, assuming that's what you're talking about when you say Natural. Without getting into it too much, a Natural character has merely gotten their start (or the start of their powers) through some natural process, such as weight training or just an inherent quality of their species (Peacebringers are Natural). As said above, this doesn't stop them from reaching unnatural heights of skill or power.

On top of all of that, I don't discredit the lore based on the faults of the mechanics. The lack of physical Judgement powers is a real flaw. But, in terms of story, there's no difference between an Incarnate with just the Alpha slot and one teeming with wild and wacky powers. In other words, Incarnates are not defined by their ability to call down huge bolts of lightning or summon ghosts of robots, they are simply defined as individuals who have taken their power beyond the normal threshold using the favor of the Well.

And there's really nothing stopping you from picking and choosing what Incarnate powers suit your concept. If I had a pure martial artist who has no reason to call in elemental forces, I would simply skip Judgement entirely. This does get a bit ugly with Incarnate Shifts, but you can always just create the power for the Shift and just otherwise ignore it, and again, I'm not willing to conflate lore with flawed mechanics.

I'm working off of all of the mentions of the Well I can recall, such as the Web of Arachnos novel. But if we want to stick with in-game material, here are the choice bits from Mender Ramiel's arc:

Interestingly, these statements echo the original given origin of Statesman, which was that he had unlocked some sort of inner power through Eastern secrets. Yes, he still could fly then too. This was eventually retconned, but prior to that we had a pure natural character who could do unnatural things. Additionally, Web of Arachnos implies that the Well pushed Statesman and Recluse to the peak of human potential (vastly increased senses, intelligence, and absolute perfect fitness) as its first step, before States could fly or Recluse grew his spider arms. But back to in-game stuffs..

Implying multiple methods of gaining Incarnate power. Probably referencing the slow versus fast paths, but could be read to be deeper than that.

This is clunkily written, but it points towards the idea that the Incarnate path can change to suit any origin. You're not necessarily gaining "Super Duper Magic Well Tonic", but gaining new insight into things you never knew or understood before.

While this is referring to a magical sword, and what was a Fast Path Incarnation, I just want to point out that this is showing that the Well's power can be infused into objects in addition to other forms.

Again, there's more than one way to become an Incarnate.

The artifact alters in response to your character.

Multiple sources, multiple wells, multiple paths.

And so on.

I don't really see anything there that pins it all on magic in the traditional sense. Really what I think it comes down to is if you personally lump mysticism, myth, the unknown, and a talking omnipotence wholly under the label of "Magic". But with all of the wiggle room that I think they intentionally left in, the Well could just as easily be an ancient alien consciousness, or a megalithic AI running on the computer that is the multiverse, or any other oddity. In fact, all of the intentional obtuseness implies that maybe the Well is supposed to be frustratingly outside the scope of our characters' knowledge, that it is something simply too vast and powerful to be fully understood in anything other than small chunks.

I guess what I'm saying is, in so many words, is that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and vice versa.

Altering the Hover or Fly animation to show a standing posture is yet another technical hurdle. That's the real backbone of the problem, this isn't an option that can simply exist as a cleverly animated costume piece. It's can only either be a locked down power like Hover Board, or a properly open customization option backed up by a staggering amount of animation work.

Assuming your character was maintaining the neutral standing stance, then no, there technically wouldn't be any additional work to do on the animations, AFAIK. I suppose it might also be possible to replicate how Prestige Power Slide works and return the character to the neutral stance while not in motion.

There's still the question of feasibility and aesthetics though. I'm not entirely convinced it would look very natural.

I would think it would have more to do with the fact that having one character be the leader of two separate groups, the Vanguard and Dawn Patrol, would just be weird and confusing than anything else.

All of the useful, non-hint information about her is gleaned from the comics, some dev posts (or Manticore lore posts, I miss those so much), and as said earlier a calendar claiming her date of birth. Really the only big thing of note is that she's essentially immortal by way of stealing life force. Nothing else, such as on the morality of that act, is ever explored of it. Maybe that's why she's so secretive though.

This stance is a pet peeve of mine, because lots of folks on the forums here talk about how Incarnates = magic or that Incarnate status overrides your original origin or somesuch. Maybe they do simply have legitimate dislike of the concept, but it often sounds like they've misinterpreted the real heart of the Well (or at least to me they have, or maybe I just have a nice-sounding misinterpretation myself) and all of its interconnected elements (Pandora's Box in Web of Arachnos, the "power grid" that connects all powers in power proliferation, etc.).

Also, despite its potential universality, the Well may not be 100% compatible with every single possible character concept. But then, the game as a whole isn't either.

If the Well really needs a one-word origin summary, the closest thing might be "Cosmic". But even that implies the wrong thing to me. The Well might best be described as a slice of Fate, one solely concerning the interplay of power and morality.

It's the inspiration that allowed the perfect android to be built. The genetic miracle that results in a mutant being able to shoot fire out of his hands. The happy accident that made that burst of a radiation turn her into X-Ray Lass rather than killing her. It's the willpower and drive that allows the martial artist to punch holes in solid rock. It's the faith and control that allows the sorcerer to summon spirits.

Instead of being some bog-standard divine intervention, it's simply an underlying force that is fuel for all five origins. Besides, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And vice versa.

Now, you may feel like this cheapens a character's origins, and I can't entirely blame you. But it's not a hard thing to ignore, since it mainly only comes up in Incarnate content and the occasional gentle nudge here and there. To me though, it's like getting mad at quantum physics. The Well is just a function of the universe, albeit apparently sentient and recently(?) gone crazy.

And even I dislike parts of the story surrounding it. Like the aforementioned sentient and crazy part. It dawns on me that maybe this what they're going for - what was once an inherent universal law is now picking and choosing who gets the goodies in some insane meritocracy. It would be also neat to see competing Wells of power, that all operate under different rules.

In another case, Lore pets felt like a case of them writing themselves into a corner, needing to justify how one could summon and control things that should normally be uncontrollable by players, like Seers, and thus was born the "spirits from the Well" angle. Perhaps it was a case of them desiring flash (cool pets!) over substance (more primal, abstract pets like some of the few we have now, which would also unfortunately overlap with Controller pets).

But the short of it is, I think the Well is not simply magic nor does it muck up the existing five origins, instead it enhances them to new levels. Possibly even to dangerous new levels.

*cough* Not to go off on a tangent or anything. Maybe I should start a fresh thread about this...

Unless I'm forgetting from beta (and possible red name posts along these lines), it does use a slightly altered stance, which would require rebuilding the entire animation library for it. Not to mention how goofy melee attacks probably would look, especially anything with kicks.

Though I'm sure balance is another reason for it.

Well, TF2 doesn't have a singleplayer component (I'm not going to count bots), and I could easily see an overzealous person wrongly classifying it as an MMO. Really I was just disagreeing with rian_frostdrake's choice of terms. I do believe the distinction should be singleplayer/multiplayer games on one side and MMOs on the other in this regard.

Prototype not so much, but Infamous does have some neat parallels, to the point where a friend of mine jokingly calls it "My Character: The Game". Funnily enough though, despite him enjoying both Infamous 1 and 2 quite a bit, both of his CoH accounts are still active and payed for. (Both of mine too, for that matter.)

That said, outside of those few similarities, it is of course a completely different kind of game, which is the bigger issue.

If that was true for all customers all the time, the MMO industry would literally cease to exist. From what I've heard and seen, customers like to be treated with some modicum of respect. How loyal or disloyal they act also generally depends on the market you're looking at.

Banning all video game talk, after allowing it for a number of years, hurt the community and probably did far more damage than any mention of a competing product ever would.

This would be a fine and dandy compromise and I would not be against it. Though I wouldn't go with the distinction between "MMO" and "singleplayer", as where does that leave non-MMO multiplayer games?

Spoilers plox? I'm drawing a complete blank. Is whatever this is in the blue or redside arc? Or both?

Edit: If you mean Mr. H, that's one hell of an obtuse clue, and some of the dialog in the mission does explain it, sort of.

All bets on this. To be perfectly frank, this rule implies that NCSoft either considers its own products inferior and that they require absurd levels of "protection" or simply considers its customers to become flaky, gullible, or otherwise disloyal at the mere mention of other video games, of any genre, platform, or price tag. Or maybe a little of both.

Keep in mind that we're allowed "limited discussion" about any game with the NCSoft logo stamped on the box. But only those. Apparently, as long as you're being swayed by word of mouth into playing Lineage II or Aion, it's a-okay.

I'm honestly surprised to hear we can talk about tabletop games.

I like the villainside one because it's a nice easy XP boost at level 12. I utterly despise most of the dialog though. I'm not usually one to get my hackles up about redside treating villains like schmucks, but Origin of Power (and later the actual Midnighter arc for that matter) does quite badly.

Once I get enough free Paragon Point saved up, or I'm able to stop boycotting the Paragon Store and just buy some more, I'll get started on more VEAT arcs in some new AE slots. (Actually, that would be pretty hilariously awesome if someone paid me the arc slots to do it. Not that I have that much personal confidence in my writing that someone would. )

I actually don't hate the whole "all powers are connected" concept, because it's the same kind of broad universal constructs I tend to sprinkle into my own stories and it is backed up by existing canon, both Web of Arachnos and the Incarnate System. But I do hate the fact that Statesman is inexplicably giving a clunky speech on it (instead of Dr. Brainstorm himself or even Positron), and that it's ultimately a stale reference to the Issue the mission came out in rather than anything fun or interesting.