Ironik

That was the hoot! Tricks were just as good as Treats -- maybe better!

There are photos in the Screenshot forum. (I think I got Negative Ion in one.)

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Do I need to remind you of the debacle that was Daikatana? THAT is an example of how badly overhyping a game can be.

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Ah Daikatana. May Romero burn in hell.

Of course, the master if hype (with a capital Hype) has to be Derek Smart.

BattleCruiser 3000AD can join Romero.

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I would point out that the hype on Daikatana came not from Romero but from the marketers and a couple of overzealous underlings. The "John Romero will pwn you!" ad debacle wasn't from him, but he took the heat from it because it kind of felt true. (As anyone who's heard Romero scream, "Suck it!" during a Quake deathmatch can attest.)

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I agree with both Godling and Rippar.

I like a challenge but the bosses and number of boss 'guards' are too tough for the level of mission. Just tonight I died four times trying to do the Eel mission. In this mission two of the 'roamer' groups had two healing shockers in it with hurricane going... in other words they would disorient me or knock me down and heal everyone I hurt.. including the other shocker. What happened twice? Well, I get stunned and they all unload on me killing me before I can even use one power. Tactics? Their aggro was all connected. I pulled one that wandered far from their group but on the first punch, they all came running at me. Apparently only a controller can separate them but I'm not going to waste my limited online play waiting for a controller to happen by who wants to help me.

From reading this and doing the missions, the Hollows are apparently for groups who already know how to play.. ie powergamer alts who meet together often enough to know each others styles because there's no way new players would know their powers that well. Clarification: I'm a newish player and I'm still trying to learn what the different powers do.

I disagree with making the Outcasts boring like Skulls or Hellions. Let them keep their elemental powers but, like mentioned, tone their damage down and/or tone down their chance to hit with Hurricane, thunderpunch, etc.... errr.. I'm mainly talking about the bosses and lt.'s. The rest are just fine.

It just seems more like luck to try to get through the misison. By luck I mean if you're lucky enough not to get stunned, disoriented, held, or knocked down. Once you're down, get ready to click the go to hospital button.

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I can see your point here. A supergroup friend of mine and I took our freshly-dinged level 6 MA/Regen scrappers into the Hollows after a couple warm-up missions to get the hang of our new abilities. Like most of our SG, we've been playing together since beta, so we're pretty comfortable knowing what the other will do. One thing we discovered pretty quickly was that fights went much better if we both attacked the same guy. This is different from before and, in my opinion, an improvement since it makes the game more challenging.

However, in some encounters, our success was entirely dependent upon luck. We were concentrating entirely on Outcasts, although some groups were mixed with Trolls. A couple of groups were no problem and we polished them off fairly easily. In a couple of fights we fell victim to chain stuns (specifically earthquake) and died. Not much you can do while flopping around like a fish and eight guys are beating on you. Although we knew this going in, two scrappers aren't an ideal combo for dealing with the groups in the Hollows, and when we go back we'll be taking ranged back-up. But debt at that level is a mere pittance, so I consider it a lesson well worth paying for.

Inspirations play a much greater role post-Issue 2, but at level 6 you quickly run out and when stunned you can't use the ones you have. Once I hit level 7, I'll have to put the 2 slots into Hasten for recharge enhancers, then swap out my recharge/accuracy enhancements in my attacks and put in damage. This will make my personal game more difficult, as I am going to be continually broke.

Before Issue 2 I would just slot whatever drops I got and wait to buy anything until I hit 13, when level 15 DOs became available. That's changed, and probably for the better, but I'll have to wait and see. I don't think toning the Hollows villains down is really necessary for the wandering groups, since Perez is a good alternative. Definitely look at the door missions, though, since they seem to be randomly difficult.

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Actually your first trip to the Hollows is at level 5. Your second contact tells you to talk to the officer. Once you talk to him you can leave and as of recent patches he is now right by the entrance surrounded by drones AND they lowered the levels of the mobs near the entrance.

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That's nice to know. It was kind of (read: extremely) annoying to be forced (all contacts gave the same mission) at level 5 to go to the Hollows and get creamed by level 14 Trolls standing between the entrance and the contact. Haven't been back since.

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I'd like to see you able to do three things with missions:

1) complete them, as we do now.
2) discard them, so they are gone for good.
3) postpone them, give them back to the contact with a "I'll get back to you on that"

Also, while I'm thinking of it, I know you can fail missions, like the cape one, but what I would like to see, is missions with a split storyline.

Say for example, you get to a point where you can save the girl or go chasing after the bad guy (choice of missions) but can't do both as the same time.

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I like that. Or perhaps "pursue Villain A or Villain B" so you won't feel bad about leaving a victim in the lurch. Whichever bad guy you chase gives you an entriely different set of missions, so that when you roll another character you can choose to chase the other guy, opening up new content for you. Enhances replayability.

Excellent points, well thought-out and presented.

The only thing I would add is that every once in a while a player should be forced to go into a zone/do a mission type he hates. Not all the time, just now and again. You don't appreciate the good stuff if you don't have bad stuff to compare it to.

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Also, Raimi Arcade is named after Sam Raimi, creator of the Evil Dead series.

Dialogue references:
Nemesis Automotons saying "I need those TPS reports" (Office Space)

Copper Dragon saying "You must defeat Copper Dragon to stand a chance" and "Attack me if you dare, I will crush you" (Street Fighter II)

The Family saying "Let me introduce you to my little friend" (Scarface)

Warriors training, saying "Be like water" (Bruce Lee)

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Also:

"I don't want to kill you and you don't want to be dead." Danny Glover in Silverado.

"Come out and plaaaay." David Patrick Kelly in The Warriors. (Double joke, heh.)

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another one(although totally obvious)is the "around the bendis" badge,as in brian michael bendis,writer of powers,daredevil,ultimate spider man and about a bajillion other comics...
anyhoo,very cool-I'd like to go through the badges and see if there are anymore references to comics!

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Perez Park must just tickle you pink, then. It does me.

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Man, this is so gonna turn things into "Six Degrees from kevin Bacon" at some point.

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I think you meant "Six Degrees of super Statesman."

(Note: Some time after the Kevin Bacon game, there was a version called "Six Degrees of Arnold Schwarzenegger." This was wrong on many levels, but the first and foremost is because "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" keeps the scansion and rhymes with "Six Degrees of Separation," which is where it comes from. "Super Statesman" does, too. [/anal retentive mode])

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Well no lets look at this from a hero's point of view....lets say abandoning a mission comes with a penalty, either influence or xp for ... "loss of courageousness" or something...just to balance it out and prevent folks from quitting missions for bad reasons....I'm sure a group of folks stuck because of some baddies fell into a stairwell and you can't kill them cos no one on your team has AoE would be more than willing to take a slight hit to move past or get out of the mish...but may not be so likely to do so just because the conditions are... adverse

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This is quite a good idea, and with the addition of badges, a very doable one. Make it unpleasant to abandon a mission by seriously dinging the progress to a badge (and add negative bars to a badge if you haven't progressed toward it at all). So if you finish a mission that will result in gaining X amount toward the badge, have abandonning the mission result is getting 3X removed from the progress bar.

We'll still be able to abandon the missions, but the routine practice would be discouraged.

Agreed. This has been very high on my wishlist for months; I just got tired of posting about it.

I want to be able to dump missions that are:

1) In a Hazard Zone I can't get into for 2 or 3 levels, which is a significant amount of time when you need 150-200K to level. (Or at least a warning about this so you can choose a different mission from a different contact.)

2) Timed when I didn't want them to be. Not always a problem via contacts, since they either tell you outright or the hint is broad enough, but have had a large number of timed missions that pop up as soon as you finish the previous one in your story arc. (Alternatively, have the timer run only for gametime rather than real time, because sometimes I just don't have the ability to do three or four missions in a row.)

3) Bugged missions. This is a biggie. Tired of carryong around missions I can't complete.

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In a sense, it is a game community, as we are all playing it. If you are working on a job and your coworkers were stealing money it may not affect your ability to do your job or even your paycheck, but it would probably make you feel uncomfortable.

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I think your analogy is a bit flawed, in that there's no top-down recognition (salary, positon, etc.) here for all your hard work. I'm not getting paid to do this -- exactly the opposite. I'm paying to be entertained, and my playing the game doesn't affect the game's performance at all (maybe; more on this in a moment). We're not in competition with each other here for the most 'ub3r' character. We're here to have fun.

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The kiosks, badges and such are now putting us in competition with each other to some small degree.

I wonder how the kiosks will come into play here. Are defeats/heals/etc. shared by sidekicks and teams? If a person stands their toon in IP and has a string of friends/greedheads/gullible fools powerlevelling it, will that toon then become the #1 character in that zone? Since the stats last a bit, that toon could remain on the board for quite some time. Anyone who checks that board will see that The Lazy Dorkman (Team Powerleveller) looks like an uber-hero, but the reality would be completely different. Anyone know if that's what would happen?

OOC : Wicked awesome, Stu.

That's awesome -- we love those Six Flags commercials!