Lemur Lad

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  1. Lemur Lad

    City Scoop?

    I'm not entirely sure I'm allowed to say what "the plan" is in detail, but chances are, the Scoop won't be back in the form people are used to. Most likely an offsite alternative.

    Surprisingly, the new boards are even more hostile to html than the old ones, in some ways.
  2. Lemur Lad

    City Scoop?

    Folks are working on an alternative, but it's a voluntary effort and real life comes first.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Texarkana View Post
    I'm not missing the point and, frankly, you're one who is making attributions and assumptions, as are those vets who turn around and say it's about "experience".

    As I said, I am not for changing the Vet reward system but I'm open-minded enough to suggest a compromise for those "behind the curve". Currently Vet rewards are attributed based on the following account time:
    ........(1.) The free month of game time included with the game,
    ........(2.) free trial time, and
    ........(3.) payments by credit card or game time card. Payments by credit card or game time card only include the paid time **already incurred, not future time**

    Now, my point *if* there should be a compromise is that they should drop the qualification of paid time "already incurred, not future time". Will that happen? Don't know, don't care. There are a myriad of reasons not related to the game as to why they would not do it including liability to refunding money if they shut down before time was used, wanting to recognize ongoing revenues, or having a carrot to keep people subscribed when they might otherwise take 1 month breaks during issue releases.

    As you state, it is up to the devs and what they think, I agree wholeheartedly. But there are those out there, such as yourself, that think they can spin any sort of answer to justify keeping the vets rewards as-is when you really don't have a clue: pot, meet kettle. I specifically called out the use of the subscription time change because a.) people have argued that basing on subcription time is fair because everyone has to "pay" it and b.) because when it is proposed that the qualifaction be removed, suddenly there are defensive remarks like "it's about game experience" which come off as elitist.
    It's clear you've read the description page and the FAQ for vet rewards, but I find it funny you leave out the key details we're basing what we say on. They specifically denote the difference between time active and time paid, more than once.

    Changing the system to be about time paid does not become more fair in any way shape or form, since it allows those with the biggest wallets to get rewards faster. Plain and simple. As it stands, they all get rewards based on how long they're active with the game, not how much they can pay.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zyphoid View Post
    I dislike the system and turned it off. Mostly because I have seen its abuse on boards where everyone knows each other RL.

    It seems like a system that begs for greifing. Then the Mods are shocked that it is used for that? Seems a bit short sighted to me. If they pulled the original star system, why stick something in place just as bad if not worse?

    I think a karma system would have been better. Where to give negative Karma, you must spend your own karma to do so.

    There are posters I have disliked for years, and still do. I still have not taken the time to give them negative rep. Why bother, what do I gain by being a jerk to some guy/gal I will never meet?

    Being able to turn it off is the only reason I still use these boards. For those who like it and want to use it, more power to you. I am not perfect, and don't want to be harshly judged for my imperfections, so I will refrain from doing it to others.
    Man, that's a tall horse.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Texarkana View Post
    See, this is what I don't get though. If someone pays for 5 years of subtime upfront, they're commiting themselves to the game in the exact same fashion as someone who paid for that time month by month for 5 years. Veterans argue that vet rewards are fair because everyone earns them the exact same way -- by paying for it. So does it really matter if they pay upfront or not? It doesn't really to me.
    You're both missing the point, and attributing thoughts and words to people that aren't there. What counts is not what veterans think and say, but what the Devs think and say.

    The Devs want some kind of metric that guages community participation. They don't want to make that unfair by dictating that people need to be online x hours or days to get rewards, because some people can login for a couple hours a week and still contribute a lot to the community (the guy who runs a player event or sets up a Hami Raid or something, for examples). However they also don't want to dictate that people need to make quality contributions or even play with other people, if they don't want to. It's just being there that counts. Not much of a hurdle to overcome.

    Therefore, they select time the account has been active. Not time the account is going to be active, time it has been active. That makes the assumption that people are logging in and playing at least part of the time the account is active. It has nothing to do with the paying of a sub fee. They just want people to have had the opportunity to be logged in and contributing before they hand over goodies. Not much of a hurdle to overcome.

    They measure being part of the community the best way they can without going overboard on enforcing people to play a certain amount of time.

    What I don't get is why that's so hard to see for some people, and why they consistently think it's a matter of money or that waiting is so onerous that things need to be easier or "more fair"
  6. does the character already have 9999 tickets?
  7. Lemur Lad

    Disappointed

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frosticus View Post
    I'm part of the doom-callers (not so secret) society of players that think GR is going to come with some very major game altercations like diminished returns implemented into the pve side.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Castle View Post
    Going Rogue will not have general case Diminishing Returns applied to PvE. There has been some discussion of enabling DR specifically on Debuffs for certain encounters, but that has largely been discounted at the current time. *IF* those specific encounters prove to be too easy in the Beta process, DR *may* be revisited as a solution but even then, it is unlikely due to the amount of supporting code that would be needed.

    TL;DR 99.9% sure there won't be PvE Diminishing Returns.

    (Thanks for the PM's pointing me to this thread!)
    40 Quatloos on the ringer brought in from the prison planet!

    (seriously though, I would wager Frosticus will try a comeback along the lines of "well DR was just the example I gave, and Castle didn't say he wouldn't have other major nerfs that weren't DR...." yeesh louise)
  8. type /leaveteam, or logout.
  9. Lemur Lad

    Animations

    BaB at one point said (if it was in Closed Beta my apologies if you can't find it) but he said that he can customize an animation, or he can customize a particle effect, but can't do both. That would seem to preclude changing the character model animation and having a color tintable blast attached to it.
  10. I'm in agreement with Arcanaville on this. In the course of game development, it's fairly normal for a team to be downsized once the game is launched. In the case of CoH, that was extended for the first several months because of 40-50 being in the pipeline, and then CoV. However as it became to be know when the original Lord Recluse (Zeb Cook) left, basically his contract was up. Big dev teams are hired to build and launch games, not stay forever and ever. So while the reduction to the 15 was extreme, it doesn't have to "mean" anything.

    Same goes with the buyout. Cryptic and NC had a contract as Publisher/Developer, and eventually time came to renegotiate that. They could have kept going, they could have killed the game, they could have done what they did. I'm sure it was a long involved process that led them to the conclusion that buying out the team and property was the way to go that helped all parties. No need for there to be a badguy.

    However NCSoft's desire to keep things going in this game, as opposed to cutting and running when it came to games like TR and AA, says a lot about their confidence in the property and the team. Investment for a company that takes it seriously means just that, they want to increase the strength of the bonds, and have a very strong interest in future success. While some decisions may seem fickle to players, they're really decisions made with a lot of consideration. Concluding they have a hard and fast "trigger option" that says we're bailing on this game if your expansion doesn't meet these goals, is a pretty ridiculous conclusion when all that is taken into account.
  11. Lemur Lad

    Engine Question

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by thgebull0425 View Post
    I guess what I was talking about are certain powers are not doable because of the engine. Not sure if vehicles is a part of that as well. Correct me if I am wrong, but also being able to further customize costumes and things of that nature cannot be done. I was simply commenting because I have seen references to the current engine not being able to do something. It could be graphical in nature though, and some good points were brought up as well about Devs only releasing something if they can do it right.
    Again, you're not being specific enough when you say "engine" That's not entirely your fault, because sometimes the devs use the term without being specific.

    As I said, the system by which powers are engineered and interact with the world, characters, npcs, etc. is pretty rigid. So are the AI scripting system, the targeting system, and some others.

    On the other hand, the system for generating graphical effects is pretty robust, and has been upgraded several times over the course of the game. This is the graphics engine, and it's not very restricted except by choices the devs make in terms of how much data they want to try to pump through the internet at their user's machines.

    The two things are not necessarily the same.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Eiko-chan View Post
    I still don't get why we need Veteran's Rewards.
    Like most gifts, I don't need them. I do however appreciate every one I get.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nethergoat View Post
    My thinking is "CoV kicked tons of ***, so will GR".

    There isn't any evidence in the track record of our current dev team to support the belief that it's going to suck, tank and sink the franchise.

    Heck, even assuming it does suck and will tank, the franchise will be fine. It's certainly not going to drive players away.

    I'm as critical of the devs as anyone here when they screw something up.
    But anticipating disaster in this situation is just dumb.
    I find myself agreeing more and more with Nethergoat lately. I have no idea what that means for the safety of the free world, but I'm rolling with it.
  14. Lemur Lad

    Engine Question

    To the OP:
    You're mistaking the software engineering behind the powers system, and the graphics engine. They're two different things. They can (and have and will again) do quite a lot to upgrade the graphics. However the database and interdependent systems that control and allow for powers, costume parts, etc are a lot less flexible.

    It's not a car, taking out the engine and putting in a new one doesn't mean what you might think it means.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Westley View Post
    After reading that post about BoB.... if that happened in CoH between two SGs, wouldn't that be considered a form of griefing? To get an "ear" on the inside of a rival SG, convince that "ear" to demote everyone else (this would be before Super Leaders) and then kick them all out of the SG, inviting members of the "opposite" faction in and essentially taking over.

    Wouldn't that be considered griefing here?
    If you look into the history of EVE, as others have said, rules are a lot more fast and loose. There's a strong case to be made the BoB got where it was in the first place through stuff that is truly unethical (direct developer aid). Therefore it's not really beyond the pale to use whatever means to negate those unfairly gained advantages.

    Espionage is not particularly unethical per se. It's a tool, and people who use it cleverly can get ahead. Same as people who can organize well or people who can fight well.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Slashman View Post
    I thought BOB was the most well-known and infamous alliance group...
    You clearly missed the news that BoB is dead. Besides, they're not an alliance that was indicative of the phenomenon I was pointing to for the games numbers jumping upwards by leaps and bounds. I was specifically referring to groups that joined the game en masse because of their Out of Game connections.

    Even still, Goonswarm is the top of the heap now, for all intents and purposes, though not much is happening in terms of warfare until the next expansion makes radical changes to the Sovereignty mechanics.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Slashman View Post
    Care to explain to me what it was that EVE did that caused it to go from under 19K subscribers 2 months after launch to close to 3 times our number now(if not more), and to continue to grow? We started out much larger and with significantly more backing and funding. CCP self published and self marketed their game and then made it a huge success. Was that an accident? Were they just 'lucky'?

    Simple. They started marketing outside of Iceland.
    They also have on their side a very robust corporation/alliance system (think supergroups/coalitions) that allows for easy transfers of large populations of roving gamers with out of game affiliations. Most well known is Goonswarm, a group that formed in EVE from their association on the somethingawful.com forums.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. NoPants View Post
    I thought Super Speed was capped for tech reasons and fly was capped to balance its maneuverability against super speed vertical limit.
    they both are capped for technical reasons. the more of the 3d environment a character can see, the more work it is, and the more info that has to be pumped to the player wrt spawns in the world, etc. Flying over is a lot more intensive than running past.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. NoPants View Post
    Also I see this whole post is a joke but could someone explain to me the pitfalls of a PvP optional flag the player had control over (not talking about a duel option where you get a pop up request). Only problem I could see is two dinguses fighting it out while on mission...but anyone who does that would probably been the type to over pull for fun anyways.
    The perils of the flag are for everyone else subject to the two yahoos duking it out, or the people who have to shut off Broadcast in King's Row because it now sounds like Siren's Call.

    The problem with a system that lets people fight anywhere is they can and will promptly gravitate to the spot they find most convenient, which is conversely the spot anyone not interested in PvP would find the most inconvenient. In SWG it meant wannabe jedi and bounty hunters pissing off the entertainers in the cantina, or a ton of added lag at the starports because of the running gun battles.

    Short answer: it may be fun for the people doing it, but it rarely is for anyone else.

    PS- such a change does nothing to make finding PvP matches easier. Truth be told it makes it harder. Hard enough finding willing peeps at your playtime when there are only 4 zones for them to be in, letting them wander through 30+ with multiple easy exits for each one would be impossible.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by UnSub View Post
    Arguably Star Wars Galaxy's expansions also didn't help the game to grow, leading to the point where NGE was forced in.
    Considering that for every expansion, the swg dev team visited two or more population crushing changes on the game, I'd argue that with you for a long time. Any positive effects from Jump to Lightspeed or the Wookiee expansion were largely masked by people leaving because of Yet Another Revamp of the Jedi System (tm) or the Combat Upgrade, or any number of other Class nerfs/ poor upgrades.

    NGE wasn't thrown in to try and turn the game around, the devs themselves have admitted it was a shoot from the hip response done largely because they had no clue what their players wanted. It was done almost in a vacuum.
  20. Binds aren't really needed for that hunt. If you head to the area in St Martial, and everything is conning gray to you, simply kill anything that is Boss rank. Family are the only ones near there and picking out the bosses becomes easy.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by White Hot Flash View Post
    The desired results from investing in an expansion for a stable game is to still be a stable game on the other side. Stable games make way more money for a development/producing company than a start-up game.

    If 90% of the current subs buy the expansion (there's always gonna be some that won't, for whatever reason), any new subs the expansion will attract will virtually be icing on the cake. This is not as risky an investment as you're envisioning.
    Hell even if the new expansion reduces normal churn for 6 months to a year, it pretty much pays for itself. The minute someone decides to keep paying until GR comes out, or comes back because of GR, it's "found money" anyone deciding to begin playing because they see GR is an added bonus.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Johnny_Velocity View Post
    And this, more than anything else, argues for the fact that something (maybe GR) needs to increase revenue somehow. I presume those people aren't volunteers. They draw salaries and need expensive things like computers in order to be productive.
    You're presuming that the overhead is automatically more than it was when NCSoft was paying Cryptic under the terms of their contract. If NC was paying them a lot of money, but only part of it was being funneled by Cryptic back into CoH, then sure, overhead is about the same, and costs would have gone up now that they're bigger. However if like me, you think that Cryptic reinvested a pittance back into this game, then there's a very definite economic advantage to taking over the game, moving staff to a new consolidated home, streamlining operations between PS and NC, etc etc etc. That leaves a lot of room for growth without increasing costs appreciably.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Judgement_Dave View Post
    Why makeover PP?

    The hollows has 3 major arcs for levels 5-15 (iirc) - and was punishing on many due to the hazard spawns with a very long trip from the hospital after the inevitable defeats (especially if you'd entered Hollows from Atlas and had a mission at the southern end of the Hollows).

    There's no similar level of content in PP, and, tbh, it gets used a reasonable amount (compared to DA/Boom/SS) and doesn't have too long a trip from any of the surrounding city zone hospitals.

    Boomtown is a pain in the behind to get back to from Steel hospital - but there's very little reason to go there, certainly no major chunks of arcs set in Boom (not that I can recall anyway).

    DA has it's own hospital, but even less reason to go there unless badge hunting.

    I'd say Perez sits well - and not least because there should be a 10-15 level zone with decent sized spawns (the one thing I disliked about the hollows makeover was the reduction in spawn sizes).

    Admittedly Perez could do with a zone arc or two to help explain the history of Perez and the gangs there.. but the same could be said for most of the city zones IMO.
    IF they were to remake PP, I'd much rather see them go forward with the "more zone events" that they hinted at in HeroCon, instead of arc and instanced content. I think a cycling back and forth battle between the Hellions and Skulls, with players helping the PPD hold crucial spots would be fun. Heck, even let Rogues and Vigilantes (if not Villains themselves) work to Help one or the other gangs (on the logic that someone with questionable morals wouldn't be opposed to helping one bad guy knock out the other, or be in it for the money).

    The middle areas of the zone could either remain close to what they are now, or be changed to a kind of Clockwork versus Hydra battle of competing infestations, culminating in the spawning of the Clockwork King himself, or the Kraken. It would be neat to see Recluse's Victory tech applied such that things got Junky or Slimy depending on who was ahead.

    No real need for Missions and Arcs in that case, just an homage to the old school outdoor street sweeping days, with a twist.

    Ideally though, if somewhere is going to get revamped, it ought to be a higher level area like the Abandoned Sewers. I think it would make a great PvE competition zone (not direct PvP). Villains work to smuggle Arachnos Supplies under the city, and when they earn enough credit they can access a revamped Sewer Trial. Heroes work to bolster the Longbow or Hero Corps or PPD forces that are tasked with trying to stop them. Not only could the existing spawns largely remain, there could be choke points and ambush spots (think the emplaced robot miniguns blocking the tunnel in Aliens, or Longbow pouring out side doors as you go by, or all the Iris Doors in a Junction slam shut and a bunch of Longbow Spec Ops all uncloak at once, like that spawn in St Martial).

    As for the actual topic of this thread? I have no real comment on largely baseless speculation. I think it's much more productive to spit out ideas for making the game better than it is to look for cracks that signify doom. Sure NCSoft has cancelled a lot of games. By and large, those games were losers that had been unable to turn around poor launches within 12-24 months. Trying to apply those rules to a game that's been profitable for the company for 5+ years is specious at best.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Catwhoorg View Post
    Costume combinations is ridiculously high, tens if not hundreds of millions.
    More if you count colours.

    AT (prim and sec only)
    Blaster 9x6 = 54
    Controller 7x9 = 63
    Defender 10x9 = 90
    Scrapper 9x8 = 72
    Tank 8x10 = 80
    Kheldian = 2
    Heroside AT = 361

    Brute 10x9 = 90
    Corr 9x10 =90
    Dom 6x7 = 42
    MM 5x8 = 40
    Stalker 9x7 = 63
    VEAT = 2
    Villainside AT = 327

    MM obvious get demon summoning in GR.
    Doms really need more variety as well
    with regard to the Doms comment, I'll say that they tend to get quality over quantity. They really focused on picking the better options for doms from the get go, and the only really poorly performing sets would be Gravity and Energy Assault, and that's only in comparison to the others.

    Besides, Doms will be getting Electricity Control almost certainly.
  25. I will chime in with the people saying that it's been there since Inventions were added, if not very soon after.