Psyte

I wouldn't mind some "color" skills - non-combat (or mission) orientated stuff. When I played paper'n'dice rpgs, I like having characters that had hobbies and such; it just added a nice bit of depth to the stats. Of course, I'm one of those players that has bio's for 95% of my toons, too.

I'd like to see more details on the skills system in the future, although (from the descriptions) I don't see a particular use for it as of yet (I'm fine with the game as is). More customization options would be nice, however, as long as they optionally (my favorite word here) deepen my gaming experience. But I would be against anything that would required (say, a mission that required a demolitions expert)... but a detective "skill" that offered more clues (translation: more story details) would be cool. Or a librarian/researcher/conspiracy nut that kept a record of all enemies fought ("Hey - what can Council Meatgrinders do?" "Glad you asked..."). Hell - having a cook, chemist or alchemist would be cool (renames insps, changes graphic to a pizza, Chemical X, potion). All trivial things, mind you, but could add a little extra personality (my Ninja MM, Shokutsu Sakai, is a gourmet fiend!).

Jack - True. But then, you can have a base raid with a consenting SG at any time, too.

One of my biggest worries is that the crafting/buffing suggestion referrenced will lead to people not getting onto teams if they don't have it.

"Welcome to the team GenericHero234!"

"Hey. Let's get bad guys!"

"Oh, do you have xyz buffing item?"

"Uhm. No."

"How about abc buffing item?"

"Uhm. No."

*kick GenericHero234*

Haves and have nots, optional and "optional." To these things do I fret.

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Ummm... Crafting is alive an well in CoH and CoV. What do you think all that salvage and the worktables in bases are for?

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One could argue that, but is there an associated skill to it? Can a level 1 player make something just as easily as a level 50?

(Prestige cost +Salvalge Components + Facilities + Recipe) - Risk of failure due to lack of proficiency = Giving somebody stuff to make something for you

If you entered a skill into the equation, either its a yes/no proposition ("I can't make that.") like a Traps or Devices power, items will have varying levels of quality due to creator's level ("Well, of course it isn't that great, the player who made it was only level xy."), or it becomes a gamble ("Well, I've got a 75% chance of successfully making that item -but I'll lose all my stuff if I fail").

The first thing is the problem "at what point can somebody make something?" The you run into balancing and later rebalancing issues ("Well, we brought this out in Issue X, tweaked it in Issue Y, and changed everything in Issue Z."). And we all know how much the forum-going player base likes changes they percieve as a nerf.

Secondly, if quality made depends on player's level, then that will make stuff from lower level players undisirable (players will want as good as they can get, so why settle?).

Thirdly, if the crafting system is like WoW's for example (where there is a skill, and skill prerequisites to make an item), that would require stats to be shown, which devs seems to have an aversion to showing (and I'm fine with that - I don't want this to be a numbers game). Also, it doesn't follow the SG/recipe model, which puts all the risk/grind in obtaining salvage, not actual creation.

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How about having skills that provide these qualities to teams (especially in the wake of ED):

(snip suggestions @ 5% each)

None of these would break the dynamice of the game if stacked on a team of 8 and will encourage both teaming and linduce a level of the "old" hero vibe that we all felt prior to ED.

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Okay - if they implemented that, then what real incentive is there to the Items of Power? A bunch of people who run together all the time could just have these instead?

As COH/COV stands (and I *liked* crafting in WoW), I don't want to see anything that is supposed to be seen as optional be turned into (by the players) as a mandatory. I like the salvage/SG system as is, because you don't have to particiapate in it, and if you do (regardless of actual level of interest) it's done passively (unless you're higher level and gunning for prestige). Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't most of the non-pvp items for SG's offer the players items of convenience rather than an actual, PVE advantage?

While the idea of crafting and whotnot has its appeals in other games, it's not something I want to see in COH/COV. All the things I can see crafting can be bought by contacts or stores (insp's and enhancements) around town or as goodies for doing certain missions (temp powers). If we can make those, then why bother with the missions? And quite frankly, I doubt the player base, if given a taste of making these things, will settle for making inferior versions of things...

Quite frankly, I like the fact I know that I can look at most any toon at my level and know that I'm (in theory) on equal footing. And that when I hit level 50 (with the exception of players with HO's) I'm just as uber as everyone else. My accomplishment is not diminished because I didn't spend 100+ hours to find/make the best items, enhancements, etc., as opposed to my friends who play WoW. I dislike comments like "the game really starts at level 60," and the fact they do raid upon raid upon raid to get the rarest items so they can, hopefully, make themselves level 60++ (to use COH terms ). If crafting can come up with better stuff than can be bought/dropped, then that, to me, takes away from that "equality." Those with a source for those items (lets face it - crafters will not equally populate all servers, nor will they be equally be represented across all levels or ATs) will have a leg up on those without. And I don't want the broadcast channel clogged up with "Salvage please" or "Free item buffing for skill" or "Will join SG for workbench."

If you want crafting, sorry, I don't think its a good idea. And you don't want a half-baked implementation thats going to creak and crack through 2-4 issues before its "right." And no matter what how the Devs do, they're not going to get it "right" because whatever they bring in won't be able to compare with the more mature crafting/economy systems out there, which is where expectations are going to be at, because they can't/won't want to release that majorly changes the flavor of the current COH/COV gaming experience.

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If you have a valid code to activate your account, do you really need the receipt?

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Well, to help with "me too" syndrome as mentioned, but also to make sure the game was actually purchased. You know how things *dissapear* at stores.

Oh, no GW, Gamestop.

Got my helmet, yay, but don't get my cape because I can't enter my serial code yet. Darn.

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I find it shocking and offensive that Jack Emmert has time to post about this but does not have time to address the issue of ED which is obviously the most pressing thing on the playerbase colective mind now. Way to through up some more smokescreen, Mr. Emmert. Now care to explain how ED is going to improve our gameplay?

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In his defense: I'm sorry, but there's no way for him to comment on ED to *EVERYBODY'S* satisfaction in a short little post like the one made for this announcement (5-10 minutes of typing basic numerical facts, tops). What you want would require an actual dialogue, a going back and forth between people, and that would consume considerably more of everybody's time, and probably won't resolve all that much at this point anyhow. It'll be okay - honest. We'll learn how to cope with ED, it will (I've no doubt) get changed after a while, and things will continue. I'm not saying it'll be easy or you'll necessarily like it (lord knows I've heard enough "I'm quitting - ED sux" posts), but that's pretty much it for now.

Well, I like the idea for super-reflexes (I've been wanting to make a scrapper again for a while). And if people like me are able to do their job (Empaths, people with Heal, who buff, etc), you should be relatively okay. Heck, this makes my job a little bit easier - have you ever had to heal in a fight where everything is going south very quickly? Ever had to repeatedly press your heal-aura and heal-other binded keys because you couldn't keep up with the damage output (yes, I know it'll fire off as soon as it's available - it's a nervous twitch)? Yes, I know that SR won't be as strong as before, but WE'RE ALL taking a cut across the board due to enhancements as well (and yes, I know, some much worse than others). At least this will help SR users out some.

Thanks for the announcement, Jack. I'm still going to be playing COH after ED, and I'm still looking forward to COV when it comes out (preordered the Collector's version). And I'll withhold judgement on ED until a week or two after the finalized update (ED and all) goes live...

And I've been told that PVP isn't that popular in COH to begin with. I'm not sure how much of an impact the PVP areas are going to be for me. I'm not overly interested, and I've been challenged to PVP maybe once in the past 2-3 months playing.

Now, I've met some creeeeeeepy players ("Hey babes...three of you, three of us, coincidence? I think not...") far more often. If I could PVP crush those fools, well....maybe that would be cool

All of this glorious angst.

Just my 2cents:

I think the role of a patch and expansion doesn't have to be as black and white as some people have made it. Since it's all code that can be downloaded anyhow, why not roll the two in together? We are paying for it, after all. Maybe not through direct purchases, but through our subscription. We get some new stuff periodically, they get to make needed changes/fixes, and everybody's relatively content (in theory, of course). Plus, better electronic distrobution of the stuff than physically - no headaches trying to get retailers to carry it, stolen merhandise, bad disks, etc. Much more efficient, I think (look at Valve and the other companies who are doing/eyeing electronic game distribution).

As for CoV and CoH - different games that can expand on each other! Wonderful! If any of you guys ever played, say, Card Fighter's Clash, SvC: Match of the Millenium, King of Fighters R1 or R2 on the Neo Geo Pocket and had a Dreamcast, you knew what the link cable was for - to connect your Neo Pocket to the Dreamcast so the game in the Pocket could communicate with the game in the Dreamcast (CvS, King of Fighters), unlocking new stuff for both. I believe that the Gamecube and the Gameboy Advance has similar setups (Zelda's, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, etc). Two seperate games (on seperate platforms) enhancing each other. I like that idea a lot. The only reason different games can't normally function together is they're not made to.

I'm very glad Blizzard didn't make WoW: Alliance and WoW: Horde versions for us to buy, because I think they could've very easily, as all it would've required would've been some sort of arbituary seperation between the two. Now, the difference between WoW and COH/COV on this point is WoW had the two major divisions to start with (ie, made to have both at launch). COV and it's content is new (better than new, not finished!), and while maybe dreamed of during COH's development, simply wasn't there. Although I would've like to have seen a sharing between the two (both factions, same server), that probably would've been a nasty bit of work to do. And unless you renamed the servers, as mentioned earlier, I can't see myself playing COV on "Guardian." Also, again, mentioned earlier, Blizzard with it's, what, 3+million subscribers plus Starcraft/Warcraft/Diablo money and clout can pull stuff off that Cryptic/NCSoft simply can't at this point. I'm sure server capacity is one of them (although they really need to instance Ironforge, I think, like Atlas does sometimes).

Hopefully, however, COV and COH will let you know which servers are counterparts to each other.

COV and COH are two distinct products which can interact and enhance each other. Wonderful. But since they're seperate MMO's, I think Cryptic and NCSoft are more than justified in imposing an additional charge. But since COV benefits fairly directly (I'm assuming) from COH's development work, I would hope the additional cost will be, well, considerate. Also, by keeping everything on seperate servers, hopefully they'll be able to provide a nice, uniformly pleasant service to us. If your server can lag under COH's weight, imagine the weight of COH and COV together!

$0-$5, therefore, is perfectly acceptable to me.

I hope it works out for both games. As far as I can see/have read, WoW, COH and GW are pretty much considered the heralds of the next generation of MMO, each for different reasons (although GW doesn't refer to itself as an MMO). I'm hoping Cryptic has considered (I'm sure they have) how many overlapping/converted customers COV will have from COH. If I can get two good games for the same price (or up to $5) as one, I'll be quite pleased.

I can hardly wait until all the rumors are either transformed into facts or debunked. I can hardly wait until I5 (hurry up!) for COH. And I can hardly wait to make the evil version of my main character!

Thanks for the primer - it answered a lot of my questions. So I can ramble/meander instead of asking stuff ^_^