Lost Ninja

I have Unique Name Fu it seems.

Though I'm a little surprised that there seem to be no other Ellen's on the US side of things.

Only reason I can see to want to join a SG aimed at a certain sexual minority is if you're looking for a 'friend'. I mean its not like you'd try and join a SG full of bigots would you? And the idea of a SG is that you're in a group of friends.

If you want to meet like minded male (or females) you'd be better off looking elsewhere and join any SG, regardless of whether or not it prefers poufs.

Got to ask how you managed to build a small base prior to the EU game being launched?

1)I'm liking the new look/feel.

2)But they're much slower than the old boards for me.

3)I like the picture sigs.

4)But I'd both add an option to turn them off if you want and severely reduce the size of them. 600x64 at most.

5)WYSIWYG editor is great.

6)But the smilies need updating for the different themes, currently those that appear on a dark background have a pale fringe. Also I loath the fact that they are all different colours. Suggestion: Add new smilies customised to the colour of the them... perhaps even customised to be evil/heroic/generic - demon/angel/something else.

7)Can we please have a non-optional flag near the avatar that shows our region? Instantly see if someone is EU or US.

Getting serious withdrawal symptoms... shakes and such.

I like the new look, though I could get bored of States & LR peering over the top at me...

Any of the respecs would be nice.

Would like to try 1st on my new trio, though they are still a little low. Or third with several others.

So

3rd Respec - 44-50 - Rikti - Start in RWZ (I think)
Wednesday evening 7pm (BST)

1)I can bring: Scrapper/Controller x2/Defender depending on what team we get.
2)Possibly depending on what is needed.

1st Respec - 24-33 - Sky Raiders - Start in IP
Friday Evening 7pm BST

1)Grav/Rad @24 (ish)
2)Grav/Rad @24 (ish)
3)Grav/Rad @24 (ish)
4)

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But I stand by the assertion that the storage costs will be non-trivial if every single character (not account) in the game were to get a personal base.

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You can assert what you like; you can assert that there are geese on the Moon. But unless you actually have an argument to support your position, especially when the contrary position does have a strong argument from someone who understands what storage actually costs, you might as _well_ be asserting that there are geese on the Moon.

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Sorry I must have missed your red name.

Because I could have sworn that without actually knowing how much storage you need per/house, knowing how much storage costs means squat. Your argument is 'I know how much storage costs .: I'm right and you're wrong'.

I don't know how much specifically it will take on a per/house basis. But then nor do you. And while it is very interesting to know that I can get a terabyte HDD for 60 quid it doesn't actually change what I'm saying. When the strong argument you think you have revolves around the fact that data is cheap, and you do have a good point. But as neither of us can know how much data we're going to be storing we can't know the final price. Nor whether or not that amount of data is trivial or not.

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Don't worry - the solution is on the way

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Its been on its way for about two years.

Plus it won't mean devs will post more often just that it is easier for them to do so.

I wear spandex as a villain... fetish suits ftw!

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Wrong. If you say that, then i can say 90% o the playerbase has already left because there is CURRENTLY a maximum setting that some of you people out there wo't be able to run.

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When the last graphics update was with CoV people left because it broke their game. I don't know how many it was, but I do know two people who did, personally. So I know it did happen, maybe they were the only two.

I don't think a graphics update is needed, certainly not a major overhaul to appeal to the far fewer people who have amazing machines.

WoW worse graphics more players - Obviously the graphics aren't what people play it for.

CO worse graphics newer game - Cryptic plan on releasing a game that looks ten years old as far as i can tell.

AoC great graphics, shame about the game - By all accounts it looks great yet the game is [censored] and the subs (last I heard) were in free fall.

Empowerment Buffs

You can craft temporary buffs in SG bases if you have the right objects in your base. These objects in turn can be crafted in the base prior to placing them.

I believe you will find that I deleted that post as it came across rather spitefully. But I stand by the assertion that the storage costs will be non-trivial if every single character (not account) in the game were to get a personal base. And I'll leave it at that.

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It seems to me that your advocating more a sort of generic warehouse for all account wide storage (lets leave definitions of "account wide" for now, I think we are agreed "account wide" is over stating it somewhat). You would have a player based extra "cupboard" that would be personal to the player not the players individual toons. You are free to suggest that, but if we have PEAR's as well, it makes more sense for that storage to be somehow included in that, game immersion being fairly important to me.

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That is precisely waht I am suggesting, though I do see it as a proper 'house' for my characters to live in. Yes they would have storage there, there should be no reason why they wouldn't. To then suggest that even though they work together, play together, sleep together and in several cases have the same parents. That storage is completely separate and one cannot loan or give something that another needs. Would to me make the whole point of personal accommodation pointless. And while I can understand that you don't play the game this way, while my suggestion would break the immersion for you. Yours would equally break it for me.

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Otherwise again you are straitjacketing a PEAR in the same way as an sg base. You would have to choose the storage that one toon over all the others needed, and that storage would have to appear in every other toons PEAR whether it was wanted or not, to the same degree or not.[ QUOTE ]

One of the reasons why I don't want a tiny storage allocation. But I think if you do it like this people won't just hoard everything, because if you have say twenty characters using one 'house' there won't be enough storage for all their gear, so some will have to be sold, or at least stored in a more socially acceptable way.

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I think you make a good point there, but I dont think it holds enough water so to speak. Yes, your suggestion here is a nice tidy solution to hoarding, if the player had no alternative. Which they do. They could create their own sg, along with base and storage, something this suggestion was made to avoid in the first place. Each player, can already create their own sg along with base if they require or want to.

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So how would you stop that? Remove all storage from Personal Housing? Either you allow people to have both or make one so limited that only the die hard RPers would even bother.

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Regardless of whether every toon actually has their own sg, which we know they dont, every toon has the abiliy to start one. So whats the difference with a PEAR? If most of my toons had their PEAR and storage, along with the facility to transfer items safely across to other toons, there would not be a need for me to start my own sg, just for some glorified cupboard space. I might still create one, but it would be more likely because I was actually interested in devoting some time in game to building up and bringing together a group of like minded players for the fun stuff supergroups and bases can be used for. There would be no viable reason for solo supergroups, although there's none so queer as folk, so you might still get the odd player, who just wants a solo supergroup because he "just does".

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As long as you see SG bases as glorified cupboard space you won't see the point though. As I have said before I'm in a SG, I created and now I wrested the reins away from an evil usurper I retain sole control over it. I do have quite a bit of storage in there, but most of the base is as it is to give me easy access to the different zones (I have two large teleport rooms), missions (I have an Orubos crystal) and a medibay (some zones are easy to return through the base than the hospital).

If I had access to personal housing, if said housing could be used to transfer between characters then I could use the SG base more as it was intended from the start, for a SG.

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Its very easy now for any player to own their own solo supergroup, with maximum storage. But it doesn't make sense in game. Why would anyone call themselves a seperate name on top of their hero/villain nickname just because they wanted a cupboard? You'd just buy/build somewhere, stick a cupboard in there and get on with it. No need to make a drama out of it. But at the moment, we create a name for a "supegroup" of one toon so that we can create a base, so that we can add a cupboard. Its just not consistent.

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It depends on how you RP your game, and for me a personal SG is personal to my self not a single character or account. Yes each and everyone of my characters could have their own SG, and I could even come up with plots and stories as to why the game never sees their compatriots.

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Again, if you dont want a PEAR for every toon, same as with supergroups and bases, you dont have to have them. But if you do want the functionality of a PEAR with storage, only having supergroup bases as an option is overkill, both as an option to transfer items and store them.

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While that works one way what if you want to share houses? What if it makes total sense to you to have a brother and sister; husband and wife; uncle and nephew live together and share their rewards?

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It comes down in a way to how you plot your characters. Most of my Defiant heroes are close personal friends, they share their equipment, they share everything... including beds in one case.

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Then a supergroup base would make sense for that sort of toon concept. As you said to Evangel earlier ("You have the absolute right to play your alts as you like"), its up to you how you envisage your toons interacting with each other. You already have an option for shared storage. Your toons might very well set up a group together and therefore a base (or comfy shared flat if thats how you want to design it), or not.

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Yet here is what I'm having issue with understanding, I want housing that everyone can use in the way that they want, I don't think having it ona per/character basis is needed or sensible but I can understand where you come from when you say it is. Yes I can make a SG base to perform as my housing, why should I have to? You don't want to have to make singleton bases for your characters because you don't feel it fits them. Why should I be forced to have my characters live alone?

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You advocate only account wide storage, and I understand your reasons for that, but I dont think that will address sufficiently the issues that drive players to create solo sg's along with the handicaps that entails, which was one of the bugbears that started this thread in the first place. I really do think we will have to agree to disagree.

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No actually you miss my point again. I want most of the stuff you have already mentioned. I disagree on the limits of storage, but that is something that the devs would decide anyway. I do think some form of account wide storage should be available even if you don't use it. But I am vehemently opposed to this idea that because there are SG bases that can be used now for non-singletons. Non-singletons don't need a fruity house.

So a compromise. Make the house that you create accessible by all your characters by default. On entry you would get the option to create a new house if the current character had no personal house, they can then create their own house that is separate from the first. But with less in the way of features than a house that belongs to many characters. Much as several people buying a house together with their combined incomes can buy a better house in a better area than those singletons who can only afford a poky little flat.

So those of us who RP their characters as one big happy family can do and those who don't wo0n't be forced into doing so.

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Not even to sell stuff? If so, that's a bit like saying "if you're a nudist, you can keep a lot of tools in your wardrobe". Sure, but it doesn't tell the average Joe much.

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No not even to sell stuff. I have one or two characters per account I use for selling, buying and being repositories for most of my cash. I also tend to do all my crafting on one character too.

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I'm advocating a personal base that would work like an account/side wide house for your characters. So each server/side would have a separate one

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Me, I don't see that it shouldn't cross servers, since the AH does.

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I'm not actually against it, just don't really see a need for it, but that could be because I only play on one server.

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It would be free space, but the facilities could cost influence. Also, you don't earn your first 300,000 prestige of SG base (but see below).

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It's effectively free either way, you don't have to be part of a SG to access it, and you get one regardless of what SG you're in. The fact that it costs cash wasn't what I'm trying to say.

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The data storage requirement is laughably tiny.

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At a generous estimate, the cost of backed-up racked good quality disc in a server facility is ten times the cost of just buying a disc. Right now, a terabyte goes for about 60 quid (no serious effort made to find the cheapest possible). So that 3Mb of backed-up etc storage will cost about 1/5 of a penny.

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Assuming that every current subscriber decides that they want an APPLE for their character, and assuming that each has four servers full of characters (12 per server). Assume that the current subscribers is 30k. Using my figures and I'll restate I don't actually know the size of these things I get about 144,000,000k data storage and the bandwidth to go with it.

In reality while many people would only have one for a single character or only a few, some people who have significantly more characters than 48 would have one for each and push the associated costs up.

Now I'm not saying that this is insurmountable, as I don't honestly know. But I do know that the devs have said in the past that they'd rather not give people more storage for various things due to data storage and bandwidth. So its something to think on. We're more likely to get one ORANGE per account than one TANGERINE per character.

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Now here's the core of the problem. Here, I'm talking only about "could PEARS remove the incentive to have a personal SG that means that few people join other SGs". I realise there are other reasons why PEARS might be interesting.

Right now, a personal SG base can easily store 270 invention salvage items. (I'm going to talk about invention salvage because that's the capacity that is hardest to get - inspiration and enhancement racks are huge by comparison). With work you can increase that to 540, but all you need to get 270 is to borrow a friend for ten minutes, get 12 copies of yourself in the SG, and slap down a workshop and nine storage racks.

But as long as that's true, it doesn't matter how good PEARS are. If PEARS are much worse than a personal SG - say, I have to pay real money for significant storage - I'll just have the personal SG. But if PEARS are as good as a personal SG - and right now that means "can store 270 salvage items for little or no effort" - whoops, I'll have a personal SG _as well_, and we've just doubled everyone's personal storage which is a no-no.

The only way this could be made to work is if SGs gained that 20,000 prestige per member on a per account basis, with multiple alts not counting. I can't see that being a popular decision.

Summary - I don't think PEARS can solve the original problem, that of people using personal SGs and not joining SGs with other players, because personal SGs are just too good, and will stay that good regardless of how good PEARS are.

The only thing I can see that might work is to make PEARS as good as personal SGs - maybe with one or two chrome features like tailor access, but if you have a PEARS then your toons can only count once in an SG for the 15-member prestige awards. So if I've got a personal SG, I can go right on using it (so no cries of NERF DOOM etc); if I prefer a PEARS, I can't get two lots of free storage.

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I agree, at least in part. Two things I think you overlook though. One creating a personal SG, inviting your extra 14 characters (bonus prestige is for first 15 members), bearing in mind if you only have one account you potentially have to have a stranger invite you and your alts into the SG in the first place. True once you've gone to the point its mostly plain sailing. However it is a lot of hassle, it does require some forethought. And two if you are in a personal SG you aren't in a SG with all your friends. Yes you might be able to get round that by coalitioning with them so you get shared chat and ability to use their teleporters until you can afford the prestige to setup your own. But ultimately you're on your own.

A personal space that also includes account wide storage I call it APSTAIAWS it doesn't trip of the tongue quite like Kumquat but hey... Personal housing will do all that, allow you to transfer easily with little or no setup between characters and allow you to remain in your existing SG where you may or may not have the ability to store stuff. And it'll be secure because that lowbie you invited to your SG a week ago can't rip you off.

I don't want it to replace SGs, or SG bases in any way shape nor form. I want it to coexist with them offering something that they don't and allowing them to offer something that APSTAIAWSs don't.

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Okay:

Much of an issue devoted to much better graphics that 90% of the player base can't use. People leave game, game closes...

See a theme here?

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Other side.. it will draw in new subs. Gamers that are playing top mmo's and see City of Heroes as an 5-year old dinosaur.

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TBH I doubt it will, even if they tack on Cyrsis level graphics it is still a five year old game. The increased subbage would be less than if it were a fully realised expansion without a massive graphics overhaul. The only way of doing it so that you increase the subs markedly would be to release a new game eg CoH2. At which point you have to ask did they increase the subs or just split them into those who can afford to run a PC to play CoH2 and those who either don't want to or can't afford the PC.

And just to point out, my PC is quite capable of playing games like Crysis, I'm not against the idea because I wouldn't benefit. I'm against the idea because I genuinely don't see it being the advantage to more than a very few people.

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I think there will be some sort of graphics upgrade soon-ish though.

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I can live with a graphics upgrade, hell I fully expect one with GR. I don't want or see a reason why the graphics should be taken to the next level to please a very small minority of the players who have the best PCs.

I'd much rather the devs work on something that is enjoyable to play and ignore the graphics than spend time on the graphics and ignore the game play. And yes I understand that both can be done at the same time. However the devs should be looking at what gives the greatest bang/buck and work accordingly.

Okay:

Much of an issue devoted to much better graphics that 90% of the player base can't use. People leave game, game closes...

See a theme here?

The in game text is only broadly HTML compatible, it uses similar or identical tags (<br> <font> etc) It is by no means CSS compatible. So to add voice data to each and every text in the game would be a huge undertaking. I doubt it will ever happen.

Uncommon drop recipe that on creation allows all the slots in one power to be opened up and the enhancements added to you tray.

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But the amount you can store in the Auction House is pitiful (18 on my oldest toon i think)

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But those 18 slots can store 180 recipes or 180 salvage or 18 enhancements. If you have a character that doesn't use the AH, I have several, they can be used to store a huge amount of stuff.

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Am i right in thinking that you're advocating only account wide storage in the PEAR? You seem to want extra storage and PEAR's but by your statement above not want extra toon level storage at all...? Just want to be clear. Apologies in advance if again i've misinterpreted.

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I'm advocating a personal base that would work like an account/side wide house for your characters. So each server/side would have a separate one eg all your heroes on defiant would have access to one and the villains on Union another.

Within the house/base/apple/etc you would have some storage that could be used by all the characters that have access to that house to store enhancements, salvage or recipes in limited amounts (but not so limited as to be pointless ).

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I see storage as "purchaseable" in incremental steps for PEARS, and with PEARS being personal to the toon they are created for. Any functionality thats put in them via purchaseable items would not, therefore appear in another toons (hero to hero/ villain to villain) PEAR on your account.

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Apart from storage as I see it above and perhaps access to a SG base I don't think there should be any functionality to personal spaces. As you say you earn that for SG bases, adding it to in effect free space would be counter productive. Perhaps access to the tailor, which bases don't have and would be thematically in keeping with the personal space idea.

I think I would probably make the personal space subject to a booster pack (which would generate funds for the game) but also reduce the amount of data storage that the devs would need because not everyone would buy the booster.

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Otherwise again you are straitjacketing a PEAR in the same way as an sg base. You would have to choose the storage that one toon over all the others needed, and that storage would have to appear in every other toons PEAR whether it was wanted or not, to the same degree or not.

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One of the reasons why I don't want a tiny storage allocation. But I think if you do it like this people won't just hoard everything, because if you have say twenty characters using one 'house' there won't be enough storage for all their gear, so some will have to be sold, or at least stored in a more socially acceptable way.

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Account wide storage should be more of a fascility in transfering rather than storage to me,

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If it is just transfer of items you want from it surely an easier method of doing that would be to implement some sort of mail system similar to WoW, you'd get all the functionality without the additional over heads, plus you can then establish a trading interface bypassing the AH and its associated costs.

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seperate PEAR's makes more sense to me.

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But not for me...

It comes down in a way to how you plot your characters. Most of my Defiant heroes are close personal friends, they share their equipment, they share everything... including beds in one case. They would if given the chance set up a single house for themselves, after all they aren't all going to be there at once so why not? In that context storage that is in the house would be far more sensible to be shared than if each had their own house and couldn't share without their next door neighbour holding onto stuff for them.

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I believe also in Guildwars, that each toon has to specifically buy the "fascility" to store items in the account wide Xunlai chest.

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Its true, quite annoying too.

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For PEAR's, having to save and buy over time the functionality and decorative items within your fave toons PEAR should be something you should enjoy doing seperately with each toon, or not do, if you dont want certain or all toons to have a PEAR. I dont like the idea of buying/creating it once on one toon and its present for all PEARS on ever other toon. The way account wide storage is implemented in Guildwars is good, but its not very exciting, it does the job, but otherwise its one box that sits in the middle of various locations with an agent standing next to it. You pay a minimal amount of money to access it the first time and thats it, its all the same for all toons. I like the idea of being able to go to various and multiple different objects in a PEAR to access different types of storage (bookcases for recipes?). I also like the idea that the storage should be limited per storage object (5 items per table or rack of shelves, for example only!) in the same way that its done for sg base storage, just scaled down slightly. If you want more shelves, boxes, vaults or other storage objects then you should have the freedom to expand your toons personal storage as you see fit. It would feel more realistic and therefore be more immersive, and give a feel of depth to a PEAR, than a generic buy once only item that does everything storage related for every toon on your account as in Guildwars. PEAR's should be as cutomisable as bases, but scaled down in functionality, size and cost so as to reflect the smaller scope of a PEAR compared to an sg.

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I think that such a method of creating a 'house' per character would stop me after the first one. Don't get me wrong I enjoy using the Base editor now, I've done some funky things with what I have, and I'd enjoy doing it with a 'house' but I wouldn't want to have to do it for every character on defiant (some thing like 30 characters just hero side). For storage having lots of small amounts of storage just means you'd never be able to find what you wanted, especially if you have 30 characters each with ten book cases holding five recipes each.

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You can do it, but its going to be very frustrating because its not really good enough as a generic storage medium. Again, i think, but could be wrong, you are in favour of larger account wide storage, whilst i would prefer larger toon level storage fascilities in a PEAR, with the fascility to transfer items to other accounts via a smaller account wide storage medium. Again, if thats the case, we can agree to disagree.

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I think that you want to over complicate the whole issue. IMO Limited storage on an account/server/side basis which allows transferring of items in a limited way between characters on the same account/server/side and is interfaced through a new player owned (rather than collectively owned) base, is an awful lot simpler than increasing personal storage and implementing both housing and some sort of account wide storage.

The devs have already said that they don't want to increase our personal storage as they fear that too many people would hoard stuff and kill the AH. If you increase every characters storage space across the board that would be entirely what you are doing. If however you only increased each characters storage by a tiny amount that on its own is of little use then you don't run that risk. Adding the tiny additions together to make a large collective pool for several characters would then be a sensible option.

The other thing that I think should be thought about is server data storage, the more complicated the solution, in the sense of adding more stuff per character the more data that will have to be stored and transmitted. One house per account might take up 100k of data (no idea how much it really takes) if you then say you have all character slots open on an account they still only take up 100k. If you say that each house is individual to the character with all slots open your looking at 3Mb or more of storage/transfer.

@Thread.

I'm going to wait and see. This is the one Hero MMO I enjoy and while I might dabble in CO, its unlikely so I'll carry on playing CoH until the servers go to the big server farm in the sky.

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Colour customisation doesn't impress me. I want new sets and zones! New character models (I.e why do we all have to have 2 arms and 2 legs, why not a body like the snakes have?)

And new cossie parts.

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Most - maybe even all - of those will be in GR

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Also, I want updated graphics settings.

(No offence to anyone for the next part)

BUUT, I really don't care how bad your pc is. I don't care if 90% of the players are using dinosaurs that can barely render 3D graphics.

The graphics sliders exist for a reason. So people with £2000 computers like me can slide it WAAAAY to the right, and people with £1.99 computers like most of the CoX playerbase can slide it WAAAAY to the left.

I don't care if anyone thinks i'm being selfish, I think it is a reasonable request that the game designers command the art department to work like dogs until there is NEW higher res, and MOAR detailed textures, for every surface and mesh in the game.

That way, people like me can turn the GFX slider even MOAR to the right, and people with £1.99 computers can leave it at the far left.

And no one's game enjoyment is affected negatively =)

And no increased graphics would not cause server lag for anyone, because it's YOUR personal computer that renders the graphics, and therefore your GPU that has to do the work (just incase there was the slim chance someone doesn't know how graphics work)

/rant

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If 90% of the player base left (your figures) due to their PCs being unable to handle the updated graphics the game would close and you'd not have anything to play.

Personally I'd prefer a game that is enjoyable over cutting edge graphics any day.