LunaWisp

Frankly I gave up bothering about badges some time ago. The devs have moved the goalpoats so many times - making badges inaccessible after some people have already got them for instance - that the whole idea is pretty pointless.

What amazes me though is that the devs seem to be admitting they hadn't seen any of this coming. Do they not actually play the game with real life ordinary players?

Love to see those old games still selling. Be nice if they went back even further. Still trying to get hold of a copy of the original Dungeon Master and Elite (played them on my Atari ST) that actually work on a modern windozy PC. Elite was a long drawn out slog without those cheats though...and who on earth was Sara?

LOL Welcome back.

I thought about leaving too but after trying LOTRO for a fortnight, I found that it's just as frustrating to play as CoX so I decided I might as well stay here having already put over four years into it...

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British companies can be just as idiotic (if you're in London, no matter how incompetent, you're indispensable key staff: work in a regional office, even in Brum or Manchester, and you're a redshirt)

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True though you need to qualify the London bit, management staff in the headquarter buildings in London are indispensible, normal staff get moved out of London or are simply dispensed with because the place is so expensive.

How do I know? I used to work for a major telecomms company which has shed tens of thousands of jobs in the last few years and still hasn't stopped. Talking to ex-colleagues though, it seems that the largest percentage of people going are the disillusioned but experienced engineering staff rather than the multiple layers of management that contribute to the problems - a bit short sighted but suited me - I escaped at just the right time

As far as NC goes, guess we'll just have to wait and see. They know more about their decision than we do, maybe that's where they expect to get the largest number of customers in the future. People (usually accountants) are paid to make these decisions then they move on leaving others to sort out the mess. I can't change their decisions...I, therefore, refuse to be concerned about them...

I like Carnies and Nemesis more than any other groups.

Really dislike Knives of Artemis with their caltrop spam and CoT with their quicksand spam.

All academic at the moment since the DBserver is inaccessible yet again. If they're hoping to keep customers this ain't the way to do it. Another vet award tomorrow - could be the last one at this rate...

I preferred the game pre-ED. To be fair though, that's probably at least partly because it was shiny and new to me back then. It was hard to get around and everything was a challenge until you got to higher levels. Now, even without the MA, it's so easy to gain those levels. Every toon can travel from about level 5 with the sort of speed and safety that we had to wait for level 14 to be able to do before. Hollows has been 'made safe' and the advent of the IO system and auction house has turned a simple 'bash the villian and sell' game into a simple farming game.

So, I guess it would be back to the basics for me. Get rid of some of the glitz and glamour. I don't like the system of having to upgrade performance items every few levels. In my book, once a power has been gained it should level up with the player so I'd dump the entire system of enhancements and revert back to a more 'normal' system for an MMO.

It shouldn't be so easy to ge around at lower levels. There has to be a challenge and although speeding or flying around is nice to do, it means you have a gane where the only challenge is the mission itself. Getting to and from the mission has become a short time wasting experience.

At the end of the day, this game lacks the depth of some other MMO's which may not be a bad thing for the more casual player but the devs seem to be trying to add that depth by giving us more of the same.

Having said all that, I don't know what the answer is. CoX is a good game, for me at least, over four years testifies to that but it gets old pretty fast because apart from a few different mobs, you're doing exactly the same at level 50 as you were doing at level 1.

Lots of interesting ideas but after playing many MMO's, it seems to me that in the end, an exploit is a player choosing to play the game in any way not envisaged by the developers. Since it's their game and we just pay to play it, I suppose they can do what they like. I just wish they'd put more thought into the way they implement things - not having a go at CoX here because it's one of the best for this sort of thing but the anti-exploit code on some games is intrusive to a ridiculous degree. I'd hate to see lots of that sort of thing appearing here here.

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I still have the last stage to speak to a non-existent NPC

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Who's the npc?

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From the I14 patch notes:

# NCsoft reserves the right to ban any missions that contain any exploits that provide unintended statistical advantages. Players and/or “authors” that advertise exploitable missions through our forums, in-game chat system or through the Mission Architect system may be banned from the Mission Architect System or may have their game account closed.

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Ah, fair enough. Somehow I missed that! Lets hope they getb a move on then because all this MA farming is destroying the game as I knew it for new players especially.

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Well first thing I heard Posi say when I logged into test was:

04-28-2009 17:38:37 [Local] Positron: We'll be dealing with the farmers, harshly.

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Hmm, interesting. How do they intend to do that then? has the EULA changed since I started playing? I don't remember it mentioning farming...

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It's not that surprising that many of the leavers are old-timer veterans. The game's just not new and shiny for them anymore, they've done all there is to do (discounting the MA), and there's not much that can be done about that other than providing a brand new game.

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That pretty much sums it up for me. I'm peeking over fences to see if the grass really is greener over there. Was really hoping for something new on CoX to keep me here because I still think it's a great game, just getting a bit old and stale for me now - what we got was the MA which I personally think has been a disaster. It was nowhere near ready for release and is getting close to wrecking the game for new players...still, I'm sure they know what they are doing.......

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Teeny tiny problem... EU servers can't handle double the load.

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They can't handle the current load when there's any sort of 'event' running!

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all the drama here

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Strangely enough, the only 'drama' has come from those trying to put down the people who felt they wanted to say a public goodbye to their friends here.

Personally I think the game still has a lot to offer new players. There's a lot of fun to be had seeing all those mobs for the first time and getting a decent travel power that lets you speed about faster than any other game I've come across. But...once you've seen it all and done it all dozens of times, what is there to look forward to when you log on?

People come and go all the time in games of this type. For every veteran that leaves, someone will replace them and some of those might last long enough to gain a bunch of vet badges then when they eventually decide to leave someone who's been here five minutes will have a go at them too. Some things never change...

There are very few follow-on missions that you don't actually have to physically accept. I'd be very surprised if you have three arcs running with follow-on missions. Just try auto-completing the mission you really really don't want to do (if it'll let you) and complete the others, they shouldn't take too long.

If you join a team you can do their misions to have some fun and get back into the game and either do your missions at the same time (most teams are willing to do the odd out-levelled mission as long as you don't take the mickey with it) or just solo them later.

CoX has kept me (relatively) happy for over four years, the longest any other MMO has managed so far is about four months so there is something special about the game...but...the problem I have, like a lot of other people who have been here a long time, is that I know every nook and cranny on the heroes side and every rock and web on the villians side. There's just nothing I haven't already done a dozen times and I really need something new.

I did say I wasn't going to bother looking into other MMO's but I decided to download a free trial for LOTRO. I won't want to be running two subs so we'll just have to see which way it goes. The one I know so well or pastures new. I'll know in a couple of weeks...

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awww threw toys out the pram did we cos something isnt being done to make things better for you

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If you have nothing worthwhile to say then it would be better to say nothing..

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until I'm finally allowed into group content?

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You completely lost me there. Nothing is stopping you joining a team or creating one. Not trying to be funny or anything but you'll have to be a bit more descriptive here if you have a real problem because what you've said so far doesn't make a lot of sense.

Bye! Good luck with pastures new... I may well be following you all out...

[edited, don't want to hijack the thread!]

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Weren't "I'm leaving"-threads forbidden by the forum rules at some point?

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No, only those having a long rant at the game or the devs...or both...

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Now we're able to get some of the hardest badges in the game so easilly - indeed, before we've even leveled up for the first time, can I please have all of the Veteran Badges with my 5th Anniv. Badge? You know, if they're just been given away like this lot.

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To be honest though, the whole badges thing was negated when they decided that after a number of people had been lucky enough to get some badges that they weren't supposed to have, they moved the goalpoats to prevent anyone else getting them. That meant it was suddenly impossible to catch the lucky few in badge counts...and lets face it, apart from bragging rights, the badges themselves have no significance.

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Except a large percentage of our veterans spend 90% of there time moaning about things that's hardly going to attract new plays.

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You'll find the same thing on any forum for any other game. People who have been playing a game for a long time yearn for something new and they hope it'll appear on the game they like the most - otherwise they wouldn't still be here. It's dangerous to take veterans for granted though...

I'm trying to be optimistic but I'm pretty bored with it all to be honest. I've tried the usual routine of having a break when I get that feeling but each time I've come back, the time spent playing before getting bored again has been shorter than the last time. Looks like the dreaded real life is calling me

You can't please everybody all the time. I've had some feedback on an arc I published, some were giving useful advice, another said it was great while another said it was a pile of garbage. Overall, the MA has been a bit of a letdown for me. I can't be bothered with all the aggravation via tells (who's stupid idea was that???) and I've unpublished all three. I'm going back to normal missions...when I can be bothered to come back on again, got better things to do at the moment.

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