Marsquake

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  1. Marsquake

    Favorites List

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GrinningSpade View Post
    Let me add another one I consider a must.
    ID: 1444
    Author: Days
    Morality: Heroic
    Title: Twisted Tongues
    What happens when you mix the Freaks up with an English Professor? One of the best arcs ever. English to put Americans to shame, Freaks to arrest for the xp minded, a touch of Drama plus a nice humorous plot to boot. If you havent played this one. Highly recommended.
    Tried this one and didn't find much special about it. Basically all freaks throughout. The idea of understanding their speech patterns is initially cute. Then it lost me when the contact called me an idiot for destroying a destructable object. "Should have just turned of the device..." um, yeah. Then no clear objectives in the last mission. "Just do something, but what..." This one became tedious.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MrSuzi View Post
    Im sorry but a tank without smashing lethal is pretty messed up. I made a suggestion as politely as I could, he decided to not take my advice and picked Hurdle. I chuckled, but I also did not stop teaming with him! I think he still needed a bit of help.
    Then I commend you for trying to help. What I'm saying is that I don't like the tendency to mock from those who would rather condescend than teach or suggest improvements.
  3. Checked my thesaurus for tags for this thread. Things like disdainful, scornful, patronizing came up.

    I would suggest that we teach those who make what some consider laughable decisions. Unless you consider derision part of your entertaiment.

    As a side note, one of the best and most knowledgeable players I've teamed w/ made a petless MM once. Didn't work out so well, but it was his choice. Some of you would freak out using CO's more open ended system.

    I guess it bugs me when some of us mock other players like this. That attitude has been around since the beginning. Oh, you didn't take mud pots? Bad stoner, no team for you! Sheesh! We need to lay off.
  4. Wait, flight is still stigmatized in this game?
  5. Marsquake

    Favorites List

    In terms of numbers both hero and villain sides combined only have about 800 missions. Last count I heard of playable AE missions was over 20,000, and that was some time back. Not sure of the current number.

    So the pure numbers can be overwhelming. It's why a better search system is imperative, including access to favorites or recommended lists, as has been said before. Not sure how likely that is w/ the devs preoccupied w/ the ramp up to GR.
  6. Marsquake

    Can MA be saved?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan View Post
    It's a shame that the reporting system doesn't work. If it did, they'd not need to nerf the storytellers.
    I know you mean reporting farms, but the offensive content reports also seem to get ignored.

    My gf reported one that had custom martial arts characters saying very crude things about women and what they'd like to do to women. As far as I know, that one's still up.

    I gave up flagging anything a while ago, as it seems nobody's minding the store.
  7. Marsquake

    Can MA be saved?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lazarus View Post
    It's a suitable metaphor and how I feel about it as well. If nobody is playing the arc, then it makes it feel like a waste to have spent so much time writing and testing it in the first place.
    One of the devs expressed that about their own content. I forget the name and
    don't think he's still here, but his avatar was Nosferatu. He was in charge of zone design and was complaining about players just flying/hopping/speeding past all the detail he'd built in.
  8. Marsquake

    Can MA be saved?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wrong_Number View Post
    I have played many 100's of arcs and I can only think of a few that came close to actual copyright infringement and none of those had many plays. It really is a non-issue.
    There were some very blatant ones. I remember a Star Trek one that had you boarding the Enterprise (tech map) to save Spock and others of the crew. Wasn't disguised at all. Cryptic's STO would have an issue w/ that one.

    There was another w/ amazingly good version of the Terminators, also called such.

    Not sure if either are around anymore though.
    But we'll get "fan fiction" like that from time to time.
  9. Marsquake

    Can MA be saved?

    Agreed. The devs dug a ditch for AE. As has happened before w/ other issues, they overcorrect for perceived problems.

    Maybe this is not an isolated tendency. See the massive oversteering in Champions since launch.

    I truly don't see why more measured responses aren't implemented. It is after all all vitual, read imaginary, activity. As such when players are having fun, devs should accomodate and encourage it. What does it cost them to do so? It's just code. None of it's real. Whenever they take away something, it makes me think of a kid who says "It's my ball and I make the rules, so there."

    In this case we were allowed to share the ball. Guess we had too much fun w/ it.
  10. Marsquake

    Can MA be saved?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aliana Blue View Post
    And no, I'm not paying for the privilege of whitewashing the fence some more. It's fun enough if it's free, but that's as far as it goes.
    Brilliant reference!

    And unless I'm misremembering, wasn't there a check option in the AE UI that allowed you to check the arcs you've already run and remove them from searches? Before the newest version of the UI I didn't have to look at all those DC's after I ran then. The same limited static list got very old.
  11. I thought the second episode was better than part 1. Maybe cause it wasn't written by series creator Tim Kring. He seems to have written himself into a rut. Same story pattern for last several seasons: save the world from a foreseen future catastrophe.

    Hopefull the storytelling will open up a bit this season. The new MacGuffin is a magnetic compass that only responds to superpowers. Ray Park (Darth Maul) plays an interesting dual blade wielder. Could be interesting.
  12. Marsquake

    Can MA be saved?

    Just a quick snapshot of subjective response to the current state of the game:

    The launch of CO and Aion have drawn off players. In my case I16 hasn't been a substantial draw. I'm not into cosmetic changes, so the prettifying of powers... eh.
    The one thing I was looking forward to was granite changes, which didn't happen in this issue. So while I'm currently playing those other games, we'll be back for GR.

    The reward reductions in AE are unfortunate. Tickets made up for the economic imbalances in the market. It was too laborious to get multiple tens of millions or merits to get the good stuff. Drop rates shoulda been adjusted a long time ago to remove or lessen the "junk" ones hardly anyone uses. I coudl go for weeks or months of regular play w/out a single good drop. Then a single player would get 2 of them in the same tf. I'm not an expert on the drop system, it just feels borked.

    As far as negative reviews driving off people, I think the majority of players who used AE never looked at these forums. It's debatable even when someone like Venture went after an arc he hated. The Green Brew uproar certainly didn't prevent it going over 1k plays. Although it probably discouraged the author from publishing again.

    Personally, I disliked a certain Axis based arc. My sustained comments had no effect on the author or number of plays.

    As has been said Dev's choices are merely tokens. They ceased actively promoting any good arcs almost as soon as AE went live. Some are less accomplished than many quality arcs since then.

    As far as farming, I enjoyed the challenge of having a crowd of lieuts or bosses and having to concentrate on survivability. It was a challenge I rarely got in the regular game. I suspect the whiners simply couldn't run such missions.

    I'd love to see actual sub numbers, pre AE, during early excitement, and recent numbers. There's lil chance of that, but from what I saw in game, CoX was drawing players from other MMOs who loved the concept. Those players have soince dried up, probably gone back to their original games or the new shineys, CO and Aion.

    Another opportunity lost to expand this game beyond a niche.

    I'm starting to wonder if the long term prospects of this game do depend on keeping it viable in a niche market. Us harcore players will never leave til they turn off the lights, no matter what the devs do.

    AE was an opportunity to expand beyond the base. I've met people in game that bought the AE edition, since gone, who felt cheated once the nerfs started coming down. "Bait and switch" they said.

    With these current changes it looks like the devs are driving player's back to the regular game. And if you make AE content, you're strongly encouraged to make it reflect regular/standard fare. Creativity in the form of custom characters/critters is being actively discouraged.

    The net effect? Players have vastly added to the 800 or so regular missions in game. In just a few short months, players did what devs should've been doing all along, add story content. Ironically they are increasingly avoided.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Melanie View Post
    Sadly no... the 2 hour season preimere of House is on at the same time, gonna watch that. ^_^
    That's what DVRs are for.
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tinkerbel View Post
    ...although i will say a stratigically placed post or two on the "other hero" MMO boards atm would prolly be the best advert one could do ;D.
    I've done that, especially when I mention how much better melee combat is here.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Melanie View Post
    Bwahahaha on my kin I have SB a bright neon green and ID hot pink, interesting mix when buffed on players.

    And just for Jom my ice/cold corr gives hot pink ice shields ^_^
    Lol, I think my gf was planning to do this to me. Frickin' granite encased in pink ice. Nooooooooooooooo.... Nooooooooooooooo....

    Fellas, careful not to make your SOs mad, cause they'll take revenge.
  16. I still doubt that there's any serious effort to uncover good arcs. Besides the rearguard action to combat farming, the devs have switched gears to working on the Rogue expansion. So there will be xp and ticket nerfs coming in I16, which will further shrink the part of the playerbase that was so excited when AE was shiny and new.

    For myself and others, AE refreshed the game for awhile. Now it's become tiresome again. Some players will see I16 as more than just cosmetic. Fairly or unfairly, I bailed on the idea when I found out granite armor can't be colored. A tier 9 signature power for that set...

    What's funny is how many recognizable names we're seeing in CO.
    Also funny is that I can shrink baddies w/ a reducing ray and "stomp" on 'em. And even though it was a bug, a growth formula temp turned me into the size of a house. Or flying while carrying a truck above my head, then flinging it at a baddie...
    Part of it is the novelty, but the sense of fun is there and, lately, not here.
  17. My guess was that the chance of getting a DC was improved by how close to canon you wrote, and especially improved if you tried to explain the backstory of AE.
    In other words, there's a bit of self-serving promotion going on, not necessarily a reward for creativity.
  18. Marsquake

    LBx has moved!

    Just curious what will happen to Lbx once ppl transfer to LB. Can you mods dissolve the channel or will the ppl left be a buncha wild Ronin?
  19. Surprising that Liberty's red numbers are so high. I would've expected to see that on Freedom. That explains some of the odd client behavior we're seeing. Too bad it costs so much to move toons. For that money I could get a lifetime subscription for a certain other game...
  20. Aion is pretty, but so far seems like a clone of other fantasy games. And they think flight (limited by a timer) is an innovation. We've had that for 5 years here. Weird claim on their part, esp. since it's an NCsoft game.

    I wish Champs looked better. There's no problem w/ wanting to look like comics. But they went too far w/ the nostalgia. Comics have come a long way since the Marvel 60s they seem to be imitating.

    It does represent a fresh start though. Just look at how clogged these boards have become w/ arguments about drop rates, invention IOs, the market and AE. It's become tiresome. Like spinning your wheels in mud.

    Maybe a break til Going Rogue would help.
  21. Marsquake

    3 Word Story

    During one day at the height of summer, six glittering starships appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly everything went dark. It was the curse of the evil monkey that eats cottoncandy!

    The people all fled in terror at the sight of the sticky-fingered monkey. It hurled large chunks of cotton candy at the innocent Omegatron Zeta Warbot, "Koo Koo Katchoo", who, caught unprepared, pulled up his iron underpants, and ran screaming into a brick wall.

    Then the monkey laughed and said, "where's my punchline?" A man named Alfredo von Wigglestein appeared and said, "I think, therefore...
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by LostHalo View Post
    I assume you mean to say that he's just boring. Reichsman has no place being called either of the descriptors you cite.
    Yes, exactly right. He's the opposite of fun.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Venture_NA View Post
    Right, that's why none of my arcs have allies.

    Oh wait, they do.

    I do not object to the presence of allies. What I object to is a) the use of allies to justify "Nintendo Hard" gameplay, and/or b) the use of the author's own characters as powerful (Boss or higher) allies. Unsurprisingly, these two offenses tend to be fellow travelers.
    Good thing you haven't run into the Nintendo Hard arcs w/out allies.
    I played one about Ragnarok where Thor was always near the entrance. He was a mace/elec armor EB on extreme. Killed my brute, that could stand toe to toe w/ AVs, 5 or 6 times. He was draining end and would hit buildup before his big attacks.

    The author said "Dude, he's supposed to be tough, he's a "god". I tried to tell 'im its no fun to bang into a wall repeatedly. Then he said there were 5 or 6 more "gods" later, and that's just the first mission.

    There's a difference between challenging and insanely difficult.
    Then there's Reichsman...
  24. Marsquake

    Peeking in..

    Welcome back GEL, stay awhile.