Judgement_Dave

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Maiden Justice, as we know, is Lord Recluse's sister, who married Statesman and is the mother and grandmother of Miss and Ms Liberty. (Also, is Ms. Liberty Megan Duncan or Jessica Cole? After all, why would she have the same surname as her grandfather, unless Miss Liberty married someone also named Cole. No jokes about Tyrant/Dominatrix, please. Her name comes up as Jessica in the City of heroes comic.)

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Ouroboros is bound to have a time-travelling answer to this...

Can't recall if Ms Liberty's real name is public knowledge - if so it could make sense to keep with Cole for the purposes of a publicly recognised dynasty.

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"By the way... my sister sends her regards."


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Always taken that as a dig at States and acknowledgement of MJ#s death. Telling this to States could be seen as a verbal attack to psyche him out (sort of immortal survivor-guilt?) and the CoX world has enough mystics that contact the dead... I'm sure it wouldn't do States' equilibrium any good to even imagine that his beloved is not in a state of rest but being hassled by LR and his cronies.

It's possibly even a veiled threat - 'my people have been in touch with MJ, we can still get at her so back off for her sake'. I find it helps this scenario to imagine LR sicking the cenobites/LAment configuration on her at this point... Even whilst dead she's not necessarily beyond suffering.

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Laziness yes, but 5 minutes does seem too long.

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The past 2 halloweens there's already been a large number of people who seem to door-click and run, avoiding any trick spawns that may appear. I'd have thought that a 10-second personal timer on consecutive door clicks coupled with a 5min personal door-reclick timer just encourages people to click a door and move on quickly...

i.e. if I'm reading it right then I can see the timers promoting the annoying click & run approach (which doesn't really strike me as in the spirit the event's intended).

The personal timer drop to 10 seconds is welcome, but raising the personal-door-reclick timer past about a minute strikes me as not good.

Other than that - great news! Now where did I leave my chainsaw and necronomicon?

The front page announcement says (with my emphasis):
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Once a player purchases a Respec they must then visit a Respec Contact in-game to use it, in the same manner as the in-game obtainable respecs are done. The Respec Contacts include: Jack Wolf in Galaxy City and Arbiter Lupin in Nerva.


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source

Am I missing something?

The respec contacts include Wolfe* & Lupin? Include?

I thought that they are the only two contacts for using non-freespec respecs. Is this just odd (or future-proof) phrasing or is it maybe because additional respec contacts are already planned to be introduced?







* btw GR - The front page says the CoH contact is Jack Wolf.. pretty darn sure that it's Jack Wolfe (with a trailing 'E').

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Ok this is odd, since taking the picture last night and today Respecs seem to have disappeared from the Store.

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GR mentioned it a few pages back.

It wasn't meant to be on the list last night. It was accidentally put up early. It's been taken off it again until the official announcement (which I think he said would be later today - or did I imagine that bit?)

I fully support this.

If people manage to use all their respecs/freespecs/vetspecs, even go to specsavers just to get one pair free and still keep making stupid mistakes that need such urgent repair that they need to buy a respec now rather than play the game until they've earnt enough INF to buy one at the CH then I fully support their ability to pay for it. I'm sure that Darwinism will see these people dying out in a couple of million years or so...


And btw, Alphane, what style of dance does the devil prefer? I can't imagine cloven hooves as being very good for tango or waltz.



[Addendum]: I've always been sure that a repeatable respec is needed given the manner of inventions (and the fact that enhancements can't be unslotted outside of a respec). Pretty sure that anyone building up a new character-build involving expensive IOs could probably raise the INF to get a CH respec pretty quickly.

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It is not delayed due to security reasons. It's delayed because it simply isn't ready yet and is a complex feature to put together. At this stage, all I can say is that it will be released when it's ready and not before.

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I'm worried that it's not good enough yet...
If we launch this people will laugh at us and call us n00bs...
It's too complex - we'll never get it good enough...
What if we can't do it...

It's actually insecurity issues stopping it from launching.

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However, that won't be just like the other origins, it will have special advantages and drawbacks.

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Ever since they introduced Nemesis Staff and Blackwand as permatemp vets rewards the origins haven't been quite equal.

True that incarnate looks like it may well be an origin surpassing the existing ones for impact/complexity (maybe like comparing EATs to other ATs?), but it's worth remembering that not all current origins are truly equal.

The preceding invention suggestions reminded me of this:

An option (at the crafting tables) to hide the non-memorised versions of recipes that we have memorised, defaulting to on.

There's been a few times I've accidentally crafted a recipe I had picked up rather than the one I had memorised, which costs more to craft and consumes the recipe. Why on earth would I want to use a proper, consumable recipe if I've already memorised it??

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On the other hand, the line that distinguishes science-fiction and Fantasy is very thin and, on occasions, subjective. I say without shadow of doubt that the original Star Wars saga is more of a typical Fantasy story that a science-fiction one.


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I can see where sci-fi (science and technology origins) and fantasy (magic and natural origins) fit into CoX and comics, but can anyone point me to a modern comic that involves mutants??

You can't , see - mutant origin doesn't belong anywhere near a superpowered MMO.



And the line between sci-fi and fantasy is more often subjective than suggested by a mere 'on occasions'. Heck I've read good sci-fi that involved space-dragons before. Star Wars was based on mythology.

It's no great surprise since both magic and hi-tech are just different ways for authors to explain the impossible or unlikely being made possible. And there's only so many basic plots in the world and myth put a fantasy spin on them long before what we'd recognise as sci-fi was created.

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The leveling curve - it's ridiculously easy to get to Level 50 these days, so badly, that you outlevel content. What's the point in having content if you just outlevel it?

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Agreed. I dont know why they did this. I know there were bumps but still I don't see how they gain if we hit 50 to quickly.


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When they did it I thought that the only reason to do it would be if they were developing a lot of very highlevel content (i.e. really designed for 50s) or doing something new with unlockables (like the VEATs).

The devs had said before that only a small percentage of players had a 50 (nearly 2 years ago it was something like 10% +/-5% iirc). If that was still the case then highlevel content may be seen by many as inefficient to develop, as only 10% of people would see it. It becomes more efficient if the xp curve and debt are altered so that there are more 50s, and developing more lvl 50 content also starts to answer the question "where's the end game?" that can be seen by some as a negative point for CoX.

Personally can understand them doing this, but I never thought it took tooooo long to get to 50 whereas now the levels race by. Outlevelling content is far too easy now and debt is pretty much blink and it's gone (though I still found PuGs at the weekend with people who moaned about 'dept' like it was a portent of armagedon).

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So what's the point of betting if you don't actually increase the money you bet?

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You're usually betting against other players and can increase your INF by winning the INF that the others bet. But the amount of money in the game doesn't increase as your winnings are offset equally by someone elses losses.

The only time you don't see a movement (gain/loss) in your INF is if you are playing both sides - which you'd really only try to do if you were trying to play the system (i.e. exploit some loophole).

This is what you were trying to do with your examples of match fixing, but the system described by TG doesn't provide the loophole that you thought it would. i.e. your problem with this is that you wrongly think it can be exploited (for effectively free INF) when ythe system is designed so that it cannot be.

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you would make no money that way... only the money from the loosing betters would come to you, so the total net gain would be 0 under TG's set up, if no one bet on the loss there woudl be no money to win... there is no bookie offering odds.

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Ok, they split half betting on me, half on my opponent

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In TGs system, the only money shared by the winning gamblers is the pot of money built up by the gamblers. No extra money mysteriously enters the system.

E.g. 3 people bet on a fight between A & B.
X bets 10 INF on A
Y bets 20 INF on B
Z bets 100 INF on B

The total bet is 130 INF.
If A wins then X gets all the 130 (as they were the only gambler to bet on A).
If B wins then Y and Z share the 130 INF.

Heck the betting system could possibly even take a small cut for processing the betting (similar to WW/BM) and act as a minor INF sink...



Can't recall if TGs example covered the split of winnings. Obviously my dodgy example would be slightly unfair if the 130 INF wasn't split by the proportion of INF gambled (Y:Z gets a 20:100 split of the 130). Maybe thats where the slight INF sink could work... let the pot be split proportionally between winning gamblers with any fractions rounded down (and effectively being eaten by the system).

Either that or just do bets of a fixed size per match...

Maybe the offline rewards are an attempt to put positive spin on the Maestro card problem...

Don't worry if you use Maestro - your characters are earning uber offline rewards because you can't pay to get online.

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Also, as you all already know, we will never ask you for your passwords or secret question/answer.

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Surely the very purpose of the secrets question is that you will ask us for the answer to it?

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Not sure quite how they use the secret question/answer challenge, but an automated online system asking for the answer isn't quite the same as asking for the answer in an email.

It's perfectly possible that NC staff never ask for the answer. It's also possible that they do it like my bank does with telephone password whereby they give you the question and then ask for two or three characters chosen (at random) from the answer.

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* Phone number Daytime: +44 999

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Lol - Though if that does contact the UK emergency services then I'm sure you'd never be irresponsible and send that as a response for phone number just in case some phishing numpties pump the damn thing through an autodialler on one of their other dubious scams...

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Doesn't Xp stop when there's an un Exemped higher lvl on a mish for a given cool down already making this exploit less workable.

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Good point - I forgot that. doh.

Though if an exemped character unexemps is the xp-stop applied instantly or is there a few seconds grace?

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Who was the chap talking to Romulus before he got his Super Zoanoid Form with silver trimming and personal purple fluffie entourage?

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Yikies - you mean you think it may be Lord Nemenictusis?!?!

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...the dings were coming thick and fast. Too thick and fast. There was NO WAY we could have coordinated sufficiently for me to get the buff from each other character in turn, simply because the levelling was happening too quickly, and the team was moving too fast.

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But remove the dxp, or play with a different team, or a different sized team or a slightly different level range and it could easily be possible to chain exemped levelling buffs.

Not sure that that's a big problem, but it is a sort of exploit in so much as the exemped character could gain free levelling buffs through manipulation of the system. A bigger problem would no doubt come when some players try to play the system this way and end up spending half an hour trying to assemble the perfect team to allow perma-buffing (i.e. a fairly even spread of progress across the level)...

Seen similar behaviour happen before where a team hangs around for 20min because the leader is trying to assemble his idea of the perfect team to maximise xp, not realising that just playing and having fun for 20 min would have gained much more xp and stopped the team getting bored.

Not bad except I wonder about the level range...

The sewers can be used for fast levelling at the lower levels, which makes me think that either:

* Soloers and very small groups may be killed before they get to missions.
* By killing mobs en route, larger groups may have outlevelled many of the missions before they even get to the mission proper.

Now if there was a sewer level range between the normal sewers and the abandoned sewers (maybe the not-abandoned-but-not-many-people-seem-to-visit sewers) then this would fit better. Or if the lower ranges (for missions) were bumped up slightly.

This reads terribly as I'm not wanting to include spoilers...

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I wonder if they'll ever make lower level Nemesis Army mobs, now that he sems to be emerging as a much more powerful and important enemy?
Rikti start at around 5-6 (technically ), but Nemesis soldiers aren't seen until much later.

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Possibly... but if he is as he seems to be then I'd be let down at him having troops that are low level. He's got a serious shot at whatever he wants and seems to know what he's doing. Only appearing at high level fits for me.

I'd rather see an offshoot of Malta appear at lower levels - something as low level as normal SAS/SEALS etc


hmmm.. on second thoughts, I could imagine some lightweight Jaeger-like devices cropping up occasionally (scouting?) but wouldn't see them as leading to a full Nemesis force (for reasons given above).

I guess that 'here be spoilers' if you don't actually know who Nemesis is (and sadly not the warlock from 2000AD).


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Yeah, everything's a nemesis plot. Then again, another quote goes 'Not everything is a Nemesis plot'

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The biggest achievement from Nemesis is making us believe that not everything is a Nemesis plot

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I wouldn't say that. His steam-powered suit is so much more impressive than coming up with anagrams and trying to look crafty.

I say 'trying' as I think his plots may not be cunning misdirections as much as they are the incoherent fumblings of a senile 200 year old Prussian. He doesn't actually have plans within plans within plots all covered in a huge dollop of Machievellian subterfuge and intrigue, he just starts doing one plot then has a kip and when he wakes up he can't remember what he was doing and so starts doing something else. Luckily the nurses keep track of his meds and make sure he normally gets to the bathroom in time (have you ever wondered why his suit is so big and steams???)

Nemesis may have lost his marbles, but he does still have his own teeth - as he delights in telling anyone who will listen.

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why would that give lvl50s incentive to play?

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Isn't it not so much that it would give lvl50s an incentive to play as it would give them some form of incentive to exemp, as people tend to feel a bit happier at getting something for nothing (the levelling buffs).

It used to be that an incentive to exemping existed in the ability to clear debt quickly, but xp curve smoothing and debt-reduction means that you've normally cleared all vestiges of debt in far less time than it'd take you to find a lowbie team to join. IIRC Exemping still gives better INF/prestige returns, but that's easy to forget especially when people who want INF can usually find a farm quick enough and prestige isn't earnt by people who need their purple IO sets.

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Obviously limits would have to be put in place to ensure that this cannot be abused (one thing that springs to mind is that the buffs should only kick in if the Combat Level increases by one, and one only, to prevent people exemping down, unexemping, and suddenly getting huge buffs, ditto with leaving PvP zones, TFs, Ourobouros mishes, etc).


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I do think that some similar buff for 50s would be a good idea - if nothing else is planned have a virtual xp counter that triggers every x million xp.

But I think your idea has a possible weakness... imagine a team with 7 level 10s (at various points of progress through the level) and a lvl 50 exemped to the character closest to dinging lvl 11. This character dings 11 and they and the 50 both get buffs. The 50 now swaps to the lvl10 which is due to ding next. Character dings 11, and they and the 50 get buffed. The 50 swaps to the next level 10 due to ding 11 and so on...

At low levels or with dxp weekends it may be possible to keep an exemped character on almost perma-buff. At least, iirc, this wouldn't happen in PvP zones due to the auto-level shenanigans, but even in PvE it could be seen as an exploit that unfairly tips the risk-reward scales.

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also, the only manifestation of Zeus on earth is Statesman...

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Doesn't need to stay that way... and we don't need the Well of Furies to create incarnates.

With incarnates we're dealing with heroes/villains gaining the powers of gods and the funny thing about gods is that they can do pretty much anything. In fact it's pretty fair to say that their power is godlike.

If Zeus suddenly decides that anyone who eats a strawberry on the 3rd Thursday of June will become an incarnate who exactly is going to argue with him???

Better to stick close to established canon for game continuity, but gods provide an ultimate 'a wizard did it' excuse for any events.


OK - by definition the power of a god isn't godlike it's godly...

OK2 - I guess it's possible that Hera or any of the other entities of the Greek pantheon might argue with the big Zee over the strawberry thing... but hey it was meant to be rhetorical.

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* Last week's announcement about CoH/V merge/unification seems (to me) to be the slow start of I13 (pre-I13) announcements.


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Sorry, slightly derailing here, but did I miss something ? (It happens a lot these days )


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CoH and CoV merge