Judgement_Dave

Positron's haiku odd
Forum speculation grows
Red herrings abound



EDIT: Don't try Haiku after several pints... maybe I should have dropped the 'odd'

EDIT: Yup - I'm dropping the 'odd':

Positron's haiku
Forum speculation grows
Red herrings abound

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It could equally mean the rest of the powerset proliferations...

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Although a respec (as Lupin allows - being the CoV Wolfe-analog) wouldn't let you repick powersets.

The haiku appears to apply equally to AT proliferation as powerset proliferation.. but surely going rogue is too much to hope for so soon.....

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I'm sure the main reason the Devs used bits of Shadow Shard terrain tilesets for Ouroborous is the same reason they used it for outside Pocket D - because it was the easiest way to show you're in another dimension with the minimum amount of extra artist time required.

I wouldn't speculate too much beyond that, tbh - for starters we don't know enough about Pocket D or Ouroborous from in-game lore - or about the Shadow Shard for that matter.

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^this^

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All fine - but I never saw the tileset being questioned.

Whatever tileset is used it is possibly less significant than other common factors, e.g. the roughly hexagonal design.

As far as I can see, showing that we're in another dimension by taking an existing zone fragment and making the sky lime green would have been a lot easier than designing a new zone using a particular tileset.

PS - When we have little or no real facts is the perfect time to speculate... if we already have the answers then there remains no room for speculation.

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As for the Pillars of Ice and Flame… There’s a quote somewhere (don’t ask me where, I can’t recall right now) that says that if you show technology to a primitive culture, they’ll regard it as being magic.

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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Clarks third Law.

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Well aware of the quote. But it still doesn't discount the possibility of a true non-technological magic existing... in comic-land anyway.

So the question of whether or not the crystals have a technological foundation can still remain.

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The shards are too big for it to be after-ouro.

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Isn't the time of Ouroboros uncertain? Ouroboros may be outside of the time of the rest of the game - as may the shards come to think of it. And what value are we taking for Hubble's constant...

Something else occurred to me:

* Do we know what the crystals/pillars of fire and ice really are? WHether they are magical/technological etc..?

* Isn't the being in the Chantry encased in ice (or similar) at one point? (Trying not to be more specific so as not to spoil...) This would mean that both the Ouroboros Citadel and the Chantry are seen with giant crystal structures at their centres...


I started this thread just being curious if the similarity of zone design had been questioned before... I'm beginning to convince myself that there might actually be something in this. Bet the Zapruder footage makes it all clear.

I'm already sensing that Gilmore's pirate question may be the one to get asked whilst the others are passed by.

Still doesn't mean it'll get an answer past 'Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, me hearties'.




Shame as the Dev posting question always leads to a couple of shows in the EU so that some illusion of parity can be maintained.

PPS - Both the shards and Ouroboros also seem to like their waterfalls - again just aesthetics or something more?

And if there is a connection: Are the shards the war-torn, half-destroyed version? To me: it's always felt somewhat like an asteroid field or a floating field of debris.

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If the City Vault is the website features about our toons, I'd like to know about that as well

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That's the one - I think that the last we heard was that it had been delayed due to some sort of security issue.

But since then I've not seen any word of it being dropped or progressing towards completion/launch.

************************************************** *****************
May be spoilers if you're very, very new to the game
or just waking up from a year-long coma...
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So I haven't seen this mused upon before - so it's probably nothing - but is it just coincidence that Ouroboros bears quite a resemblance to the Chantry.

In so much as:

* Both seem to be made up of rocks floating in a void (obviously)
* Both have a central, obviously-artificial structure (the mender's citadel and the Chantry itself) surrounded by 6 floating islands.

It's this repetition of 6 floating rocks around a central artificial structure that gets me... it seems a little unlikely to be accidental unless it happens that a roughly hexagonal layout is particularly subconciously pleasing...

Ok - The Chantry seems a lot bigger than Ouroboros... but I blame Hubble's constant or something. Maybe those pesky midnighters...

Am I having a slight neural blip or do they look cunningly similar?


PS - I reckon that the shadow shards are going to see some love/attention at some point (they're a massively underused resource, easier to use them than write off the design investment) and them thar menders have this idea about coming storms and seeing some I13+ action...

PPS - Only just considering that the Coming Storm has any connection to the storm elementals and Storm Palace. WOuld seem too obvious a connection, but you never know. That's probably been looked at by someone, but my search-fu is weaker than my wil to play a little... ho hum

So what future development is planned?









Actually like to know if they're still planning the City Vault - if so, any ETA?

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The pacing of issues lately has reminded me that we used to have each issue in 4 months and that was brought to us until the end of 2007 that way. I12 in 2008 came within 6 months after last issue. I also understand that the more issues come out probably means more waiting as new stuff is implemented to enhance what was previously done but from what i saw it lacked content and customization and still took that amount of time.

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I don't recall seeing a dev post about the timing, but I'd imagine that the organisational and geographical changes probably added a fair bit of non-development-time to the time between I11 and I12.

I'd also guess it likely that recruiting/restructuring and training will have had an impact on I12 and will for 13 and possibly 14.

Bum... PM Cynic asking if they could remove the Striga spoilers only to find them being quoted... I always try to avoid spoilers for that TF as it really is a great one, such a shame to spoil it for Hess virgins.

Guess that Striga wins mega points for the TFs and being (iirc) the first well written & coherent zone blueside. Though I've always been a fan of Croatoa - must be the ex-goth matched with zone arcs and another great, small TF.

Redside I'd have to join the praise for ST Ms casino area - still waiting for Grissom to pop up there. I actually quite like Nerva but for the fact that it really is too darn big with far too many missions at the northern extremities.

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It will also not work, if you have a +stealth IO in another pool/travel power, as I found out.

On my tanker I had +stealth (Celerity IIRC) in a run power, and it wouldn't accept a +stealth (Unbounded Leap) power in superjump aswell. Took me ages to figure that one out.

[/ QUOTE ]yep tou were right I have a stealth in run will change that around

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DO you want to do that though..?

JD is a teleporter and I've always found the celerity +stealth in teleport self unstealths momentarily when you tp... i.e. even though the 1st tp sets up stealth (for 2min iirc) immediately teleporting again results in the stealth dropping whilst the power activates. This can be seen both visually and in the PvE/PvP Stealth combat attributes.. oh and in the way that mobs aggro having now spotted you.

Not sure if that's a bug or WAI, but if it's WAI it's darn stupid to do that in a travel power that needs constant reactivation to use as a travel power...

WAI or not, I'd think twice about swapping a stealth in sprint (or in CJ/SJ/SS/Fly/Hover) for stealth in teleport self.

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Not right, the TF recipe pool is dependant of your level, so if you're level 50 and do any TF you'll get always a 50 recipe at the end, same with the recipes that you can get when completing a mission.


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AFAIK:

You'll get a TF recipe (Pool C iirc) based upon your level (possibly modified by reputation).

But:

Some IO sets have a maximum level below 50 and if the recipe chosen has a maximum below that which you'd usually receive then you only receive the maximum level.

Reputations above the easiest add effective levels to the recipe received.

e.g. Cacophony is a TF recipe set (pool C iirc) but is only available at levels 10-30. Any character completing a TF and randomly getting a recipe from Cacophony would receive a level 30 recipe if:

* They are level 30+ on the easiest 2 reps (heroic/tenacious in CoH, villainous/malicious in CoV )
* They are level 29+ on the next 2 reps (rugged/unyielding, vicious/ruthless - modify +1 level)
* They are level 28+ on the hardest rep (invincible, relentless - both modify +2 levels)

I think I got them right...

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More EU centric advertising, for example?

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There seems to be more - the Daily Mail competition for example?

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That a misthought for Daily Mirror or is there another UK daily running a CoX competition?

And if the Mail is running one is the question:

In Paragon City you play a spandex-clad hero battling:

A) Evil.
B) Villains.
C) An influx of Eastern Europeans intent on causing a housing market crash.

I heard a rumour that they did merge the servers on the long Monday/Wednesday maintenance periods - but to avoid a panic they're keeping us seperate from each other on the one server.

Known issue.

In announcements

Handed: Right.
Mouse: Inverted.
Right Hand: Mouse - as whatever default buttons are - I only really use the mouse for turning/camera positioning and occasional target selection.
I also use the right hand for the numeric keypad (which I have bound to my 2nd power tray).

Left Hand:
WS - fore/back
AD - strafe
Q - have set as kheldian enemy targetting on virtually all hero characters
number keys - tray 1
F-keys - default unless I wanted a bigger warcry or Ready! which gets bound.

Either hand tends to use the square brackets keys, which are both usually bound to something or other - often with shift and alt variations. Usually the closing square bracket is target announcement (e.g. say I see $target!) and the others vary a bit.

Tanks usually have a special taunt bind on the left square bracket, where characters with pbAoE buffs often get a call to gather for the buff (usually with target announcement moving to shift+closing square, and the closing bracket alone being something to say after the pbAoE buff).

I tend to use toggle binds (i.e. a bind loading in a new bind file as well as doing something useful) a fair bit to stop binds being too stale - but I still have to set up several characters with them.

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I was browsing the US forums, as I'm wont to do, when I came across this post from Ghost Falcon.

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Actually, the two free slots that were launched with the Character Slot service / Issue 12 *will* end at some point in the future.

If you have not claimed or assigned those slots to a server, then after the window closes, you won't get those two free slots.

This was noted in the Issue 12 Release Notes.

We have not yet announced when the window for claiming the two free character slots will end, but we will give advance notice prior to ending it.


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Source

So, for the 2 slots granted with i12 (not the Veteran ones), you should use them before they close the window. What we don't know yet, is how long that window will be open for, or whether the system uses the free slots before the veteran or purchased ones.

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Maybe the patch notes were wrong in this regard as ours stated:
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For a limited time, all accounts that log into the Live Servers will receive 2 free Character Slots. This is for a *Limited* time only.


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Source

Which is partly why I made sure I logged in on all 3 of my accounts on I12 launch day - as the patch notes state that you receive 2 free slots when you log in your account. It does not state that there is a time limit upon assigning the 2 slots that you have been awarded for logging in within the time limit.

AFAIK We were not told that we need to assign slots within a time limit at I12 launch (and most definitely not in the EU release notes).

To me, it looks like Ghost Falcon is wrong when they state This was noted in the Issue 12 Release Notes and it would be very good to get some clarification upon this.

I'm sure that if the patch notes were incorrect or too ambiguous that NC will grant us a decent amount of time (from the time of clarification) to assign slots.

Surely the 2 I12 launch slots get assigned before vets rewards... the only possible effect of doing Vets before I12 launch slots would be to annoy some vets who end up missing out on the I12 launch slots by virtue of being long-standing customers. NC wouldn't do that... would they?

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Surely some sort of story along the lines of infiltrating arachnos and being a 5th columnist could be devised that would provide reason to do a lot of the existing arachnos content but with a covert agenda.

[/ QUOTE ]You've read my Brute's Bio?

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I don't think I have - I don't usually bother reading Brute's bios as they aren't usually the most literate of authors - more likely to smash a pen than write something interesting.

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However I'm not sure the in game totals are updated correctly or very often. My wife and I hunted Founders one night for 4 hours each killing about half the targets, she was on the list I wasn't and when we checked the next day on "yesterdays" kills still no sign of me. Could be a bug, could be cos we teamed, might make the 8 man team pointless though


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Certainly about 2 years ago they were pretty darn appalling - suspecting they weren't very good I kept an eye on them sometimes when doing the hunt badges. It was quite common that I'd solo the best part of a 100 or so of mob X in a single zone and the highest entry on the days chart was about 20 or 30-odd with my character not placing.

I also did some testing with hunting at different times in case it was some time phasing difference (e.g. if the server ran a day from 04:00 GMT then anything between midnight and 4am for UK residents would show up in the apparently wrong day).

Think it was about then that I stopped bothering to ever look at the terminals...


I guess it's maybe not that big an issue as long as people take part in the spirit of the Olympics... and considering that this is being done as free entertainment by another player it'd be petty to moan if the terminals wrongly represented your score.

BTW - the games look a darn fine offering - I'm hoping to get some time free to participate in some.

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I would like to see an alternative to teh arachnos story for bad guys

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So would a lot of people. However the arachnos/destined one storyline is so closely intergrated into CoV that creating an alternative would besically mean recreating the whole of CoV with new zones and storylines, not just the starting zones. And realistically, that is never going to happen.

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Surely some sort of story along the lines of infiltrating arachnos and being a 5th columnist could be devised that would provide reason to do a lot of the existing arachnos content but with a covert agenda. Sure it'd be a cheap solution, but throw in the odd (could the branching code the devs are playing with be used?) extra mission or contact with your handlers and I'm sure it could work.

Whether it's worth the devs doing? Different issue, but probably not...

Quite a nicely thought out suggestion from the OP though.

Not actually as keen on tankers as some ATs - I tend to build tankers rather than scrankers and if I don't play for a while I worry that I'll not hold team aggro and so I don't play for a while longer... Shame as I really enjoy them when I do get around to teaming with them.

Though I also think that two tanks that actually tank is usually one too many... and with all my alts I'll usually swap toons if that happens.

So I currently have:
stone/stone - at 43
ice/ice and fire/fire both nearly 20

ill/emp & fire/kin in 40s
mind/storm, grav/kin & earth/rad at about 20
and a young (lvl8) plant/therm

NRG/NRG - 1st character and 2nd 50 (JD)
fire/fire
ice/NRG

I really must try some more blasters - think that I'm a bit light on them because I play so many defenders and so get chance to see the sets.