Judgement_Dave

So this tells us that:
* they're still working on bringing back the 5th/Axis on a secret moonbase where the troops ride dinosaurs armed with frikkin' laserbeams
* Positron created dual build so that he could try to take on AVs in melee with 10-slotted brawl

Nice find, PRAF

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Wouldn't mind Stirga as it's a zone i don't normally make use of.

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Striga sounds good as:
* wedding ring temp
* unlock Hess TF
* get us the slayer and silver bullet badges (for Atlas Medallion)

All good stuff

Just a shame that the contacts tend to give 3 or 4 of the missions out in random order, so makes it harder to share mission completion and get the arc finished for all.

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Doesn't take too long, surely?

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About a minute per character - 30 seconds login/select/load and 30 seconds logout - so takes me nearly 2 hrs to check all of them. TNT helps, but day job completion % and a few other tidbits would be a massive QoL boost for me.

I often end up wasting 10 minutes checking a few alts before deciding which to play purely because of the amount of useful info not shown at character select (or in TNT).

/signed

Great fun again! I know that the xp curve was jiggled, but I'm still impressed at 22 levels in about 7 hrs at 'normal' xp (no patrol xp/PL/dxp).

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Next time, Faultline, sunday 6 pm.

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Any ideas where/what we'll be hitting after Faultline?

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Feel free to solo cossie and/or cape mission.

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Four of us teamed for these at the end of last nights session - took slightly over no time at all, even allowing for the talkies in the cape mission.

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We should be lvl 50 before Double XP weekend methink!

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Very, very possibly!

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Can't comment on any of the speculation

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Can't, or don't want to?

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Big update wont be CoH2, just will be a brand new forums. [censored] 'invalid form' or timeout stuff we got now..


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So putting the last 2 posts together it's obvious that GR can't - he keeps trying to but the forum keeps telling him it's an invalid form he's submitting.

Well that was great fun - especially as I only noticed the last call for the team going out at just gone 18:00 (UK) and so instead of grabbing a TF on Union it was a quick dash to build an alt before you'd all started!

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If someone could be so kind as to put an update of what level the teams at so when i do get on i can play catch up.

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Hope you get your gfx card sorted - the team pretty much all made it to 15 (I think Mr Burns was at 14 when he logged a little before the rest of us).

And I believe that the plan is to try for the next session on Thursday - though I guess that's open to discussion when Sing posts details.

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I'll try that... but I am also receiving broken tells too. That means _if I'm lucky_ that I might get the last letter of a name with no message.

example - you write:

Floating Fat Man: Hi

I receive:

n


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I'd consider that lucky if you consistently get the last part of the name - I seem to get random substrings from the name... e.g if I was sent your example (Floating Fat Man sending 'hi') I could see any of the following:

Tell: g Fa
Tell: oat
Tell: loati

And I don't know if I'm being a supern00b but /r hasn't seemed to work as I thought it did (or at all) a couple of times that I've tried it.

QR

A sequel would be the perfect time to address servers: whether or not it's single server I think the important thing is to avoid a continental split of lists of accessible servers. i.e. have several servers and mark some as US and some as 'rest of world' but make sure that any player can access any server.

I'd guess that many current EU CoX players would propbably join the US server list if starting today with the current CoH1 server setup.


On a level boost:
Sure many current players would be happy, but would that bring in new players? Would it bring back old players (for more than just a month to blitz through the new content)? Would it need some serious reworking and retconning of the existing game?

My personal guess is that a level increase loses out in estimated cost:benefit compared to CoH2 or just more level 50 content (possibly involving some form of power enhancement that doesn't involve dinging 51..)

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That was going to be the hero launch pad for the cancelled expansion pack with the Moon zone. It's shown on the map that came with CoV.

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Indeed the structure is the hero launch pad for what is believed to be a moon/space zone (with the villains one just south of the arena in PO iirc).

AFAIK we (the players) supposed that it may have been the cancelled expansion, but we've never been told that the moon/space zone has been cancelled have we?

PRAF - Just trying to clarify as I think you're reply can be read as if both the expansion and the zone were cancelled - afaik the zone may still be coming (maybe in a storm).

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are the any Tf or SF's what give loads of these? i am lvl 38 and only have 43 of them so far and i have been trying to do all my arcs i come accross.
I read on forums how some people have over 1000 of these.


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Best way to get merits quickly is to just play arcs/TFs, have fun and forget about the merits.. they'll come fastest if you aren't watching them.

BTW - why the great rush for merits? Long term, 43 merits from arcs is better than the eventually-useless DOs/SOs that you would have got pre-I13. And back then all you could have done to get the rewards was farm TFs/INF - which are both still possible options.

Not trying to be funny here, but I really think that you're in a better position than pre-I13 and can't imagine why you need merits quick unless it's just envy of the 1000-merit posters.

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A successful patent claim against NCSoft has no direct bearing on any future claims for the same patent towards any other defendants. If they intend to sue Blizzard eventually, it makes no sense not to sue them today.

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But presumably, if successful, moving against NC could help raise funds for any future claim against Blizzard.

Even without precedent in patent rulings, it might help them judge if they could win a case against Blizzard or if it'd be a complete non-starter. i.e. if they couldn't even win vs NC then they wouldn't have a cat in hells chance vs Blizzard.

I'll chip in towards airfare to the US for IM if someone wants to let their homeland security know about his pro-terrorism stance.

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What do we think guys'n gals?

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I think that whether it's grounded in unpublished info or just on pure speculation it ain't bad for a 5 year old game to be getting in the list of '5 MMOs to watch out for in 2009' - suggests that either the journalist is completely wrong (and just trying to make up an x-thousand words article) or that the devs must be doing something right.

No contacts in DA, unless they sneaked in in I13.

It's a tad misleading to compare it to Perez though - Perez is a hive of activity compared to DA!

Nearly forgot - see where the old, jolly, rotund guy in the sky is on his global travels here (at noradsanta).



I mean Santa - not FFM.

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Christmas meal isn't too hard if you do all the prep ahead of time and don't try and charge through it.

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It's even easier if you scrap the turkey and co and have a Christmas fondue! Can't beat hot cheese and wine - prepared in about 30min or so and can be fine for vegetarians.


Merry Christmas everyone!

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Anybody actually care? This is bait

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For the last time will you - oh different topic... Darn - I'm stuck on this hook now!


Pretty much as said: as forums go, the EU is a nice cosy home where people are generally pretty friendly and helpful and you soon get used to the eccentrics (or insane madmen as the non-UK parts of the EU know them).

The US has a massive collection of +1 and IBTL posters that really don't help the signal to noise ratio. And the sheer speed at which threads can grow in the US means that it often seems that virtually no-one reads more than 2 posts in a thread before adding their 2 cents, and usually re-covering old ground and often arguing on a position that devs/mods have already stated is untrue.

Having the devs and a handful of players who seem to know the stats as well as the devs really doesn't even begin to balance out losing the EU community and mods.

Now if we could just kidnap the devs and the handful of knowledgeable US posters...

Have a good 'un

Wondering if the trouble with logging in to tabula rasa is related...

EDIT: think it was... couldn't access character select in TR for about 15min - came back at the same time people reported CoX back... the EU servers based in the same place?

If the powers that be decided to give the EU boards an equal dev presence as the US boards I'd expect it to be the last we saw of devs posting anywhere...

It'd be nice, but heck - the devs could end up spending far too much time to even just scan the boards.

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Thank you for supplying the statistical values required to prove my point.

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I've got to pop out with last minute shopping... but when I get back I'll be happy to check how frankenslotting and simple set slotting compare to SOs and CIOs. Remembering that any enhancement that you'd normally triple slot with SOs is going to lose a fair bit of effectiveness on the 3rd SO due to ED.

Come to think of it, if it hasn't been pruned, there was a couple of threads in the early days of the inventions board reporting upon a US player's numerical analysis of various invention slottings... may be worth looking at if it's still there

iirc That means that even with CIOs the difference between 3x lvl 30/35 CIOs isn't that much compared to old 3 x +3 SO slotting... mix in set bonuses (which defy ED) or better use of slots (as frankenslotting/set slotting can achieve the sameresults in fewer slots than SO slotting) and you can have a noticeably superior build at low/mid 30s...

Of course, new players may not appreciate the power of inventions.. but then, not all long time players fully appreiate them either!



Note - that last line is a general comment and not a dig - I don't know if you fully appreciate IOs or not. I don't really know if I fully appreciate them... though I suspect that, much like myself, you would happily argue that black is white if the mood took you for an interesting argument/discussion.

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I'd fully agree it was the player's own fault if it was due to hacks. I'd agree if it was purely because of using 3rd party add-ons or support utilities. Maybe even if it was just because people plan builds in decent character designers.

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We were talking about people's ability to slot out a build at early levels by transfering Inf from their high level characters. That requires the player to choose to do that. If they then find the game easy because they have chosen to circumvent the normal progression mechanism, that's their fault.

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True - although if we look at the preceding comments you'll notice that you brought low levels into this. I originally merely stated that SIO bonuses can make a difference, and you questioned that at low levels... I suggested twinking as a way for it to play at low levels (partly as it was quick and I already tend to be too verbose ):

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In a similar manner the set bonuses may be small, but SIO bonuses can make a fair old difference.

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At level 50, yeah. You can afford to fully set up all your toons from level 5 up can you?


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Many longtime players could equip their lowbies quite well if they decided to transfer INF from their higher characters.

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As I lay out in the post you quote, it is possible to use SIOs with a new character, but it may take some luck to do so.

btw - note that I originally talk about SIOs not CIOs. That is why I feel my low/mid 30 builds attained naturally can have a reasonable edge over SIOs. It doesn't take much by way of ED-ignoring set bonuses to have what I think is a noticeable effect...

Note that it's my perceptions - I don't run herostats or smilar, so I don't collect hard stats on performance increase... makes it harder to argue the case, but where would be the fun in turning my gaming passtime into a statistical data-gathering excercise???

So.. what's Craig Charles like in RL?

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Many longtime players could equip their lowbies quite well if they decided to transfer INF from their higher characters.

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Which the game does not encourage. So, you're saying that long time players (note, not newbies) can do something the game doesn't really support to make life easier for themselves. The choose to do this, but that means the game is too easy.

I realise that modern society says the individual is never at fault, but... please!


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Modern society may take that view. I don't.

I'd fully agree it was the player's own fault if it was due to hacks. I'd agree if it was purely because of using 3rd party add-ons or support utilities. Maybe even if it was just because people plan builds in decent character designers.

I don't think that that is the case though. Some characters/teams will find the hardest difficulty too easy just because they play the game and use the systems the devs have coded. That isn't really the players fault is it?

And it is actually the case that many low level characters can do the same if they become lucky with drops and get the one that's worth millions (or at least could pre-I13, not entirely certain post-I13).

I've very seldom* transferred INF to low characters, I prefer to see how they play/level naturally. But even then, it's usually early to mid 30s when I have a build with pretty decent IO slotting - i.e it's not something you need to wait til 50 for. Of course, if you only consider purple IOs to be decent then your view will be different on this... but I don't think that's your view.

So: newbies can equip well with luck. Old timers with a transfer. And the rest may have to wait until early/mid 30s... not exactly making it hard to get kitted out with decent IO, are they?

btw - quite right that it isn't too hard to get kitted out with IOs, else the time invested in developing IOs would have been wasted. But at the same time if it's too easy to get a good IO build then the game suffers as it starts to feel too easy without being able to up the difficulty of the opposition.

And please note that a lot of people saying it's too easy (both here and previously in suggestions threads iirc) are asking for additional options to allow them increase difficulty.

I don't recall seeing many (possibly any) that ask for an across-the-board difficulty increase - so the difficulty for newbies and characters that didn't want higher difficulty wouldn't be affected.

I can't really see the damage/problem caused by allowing players to ramp up the difficulty if it's to their choosing. Of course, enforcing increased difficulty on players is a different kettle of fish.



* I did for my TF Omega challenge character to get a stealth IO by lvl 14

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In a similar manner the set bonuses may be small, but SIO bonuses can make a fair old difference.

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At level 50, yeah. You can afford to fully set up all your toons from level 5 up can you?


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Many longtime players could equip their lowbies quite well if they decided to transfer INF from their higher characters.

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Or at the very least, for some players it can quickly start to feel too easy

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Thank you for agreeing with me.

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At least in part.

It's the old 80/20 rule. 80% perception and player experience earnt through time which I think we agree on; but there's still 20% the game actually being easier - which we may diagree on or you're keeping quieter on that score...

I do find it a slight problem even if it's only peoples perceptions though. Many people will start to lose interest in a game if they perceive it to be too easy. Not trying to subvert this thread to doom, but providing greater flexibility over difficulty to allow experienced teams to still feel that the game is challenging probably wouldn't be dev time wasted*.

And if the problem is real but restricted to experienced players that can still cause issues: so it's still just as difficult for TO'd newbies - but what happens when they team with 3 or 4 exemped 50s who blast through the mobs like a hot knife through I-can't-believe-it's-not-Nemesis?

Doesn't that risk making it seem too easy to the newbie as the experienced players take the strain?

And this type of thing certainly happens - at least I've seen it several times, eve if it was just on low level TFs...



* I say 'probably' as it obviously would be wasted devtime if it took 10 years of 100% effort to implement.. I'm guessing that it wouldn't be quite so difficult though...