Marsquake

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.

Wait, flight is still stigmatized in this game?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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...

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.

Crysis

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...

Welcome back GEL, stay awhile.