Psyte

Well, since you asked for it!

i19: I'm wishing that it wasn't Labor Day as there might be some rednames or official postings. Of course, then I'd be at work instead of leisurely sipping diet coke right after getting out of bed. Getting more tip missions makes me happy, I'm interested in what the Alpha content lore will be, and I'm very curious about the Task Force itself.

Mission Maps update: If there's any one thing I want to know "what does that mean?" its that!

The little tidbits on the Q&A are nice, even if I didn't hear what I wanted to hear on some subjects.

"Casual paths and new features" is something I always want to hear about since I'm primarily a long-time, casual player due to time and time-zones.

More alternate animations? I do hope its for ranged attack as well as melee ones.

Praetorian EATs? I'm surprised that hasn't devoured this thread in speculation. I figure/hope there'll be two at least - either along Loyalist and Resistance lines or Responsibility/Warden and Power/Crusader ones. I wonder if there'll be 1-50 content for them or not.

Updating old costume bits sounds great, but I'm hoping it doesn't move the bottom end of system requirements up. I wish they'd update the system requirements listed on the website - those are incredibly old and I'm not sure they're necessarily realistic for acceptable performance anymore (512m of RAM, really?).

The idea of the War Walls coming down is nothing new, but seeing them drop would be nice. I do like the Vista stuff they do in Praetoria...

The simple fact that Cross server teaming exists on a priority list makes me happy. No idea how it'd be done, mind you, but if it can be done with large scale events (Hamidon, RWZ, trials) and other things (costume contests/social events, PVP events, etc) I think this would be great. A hybrid style where we have the advantages of serverless play (play with anyone, anytime) and having servers (RP server, PVP server, busy server, quiet server, etc) would be nice. This might cause certain games (ahem) to create a minimum number of shards/instances with those designations, and add more of that type as one is filled.

Power pool stuff - expanding selection and customization - is good to hear, but the "not what I wanted to hear" category of stuff. Ah well!

Further use of Ouroboros for exploring canon is something I think a good number of people would love to see. I think its a highly underused part of the game when it comes to not only story telling but presenting challenges, trials, even task forces. What if you could, for instance, do a trial where you replay a pivotal event in COH's history? Or face some great enemy, stopping them from ever leaving their mark on Paragon or the Rogue Isles? That's to say nothing of the potential it has for telling stories of Praetoria's past!

Figuring that 75% of the current players bought Going Rogue makes me happy. I'm sure that'll go up in time. Of course, I wonder how many folks are simply only playing the non-Praetorian content? One player friend of mine is utter stuck doing tip missions and the like - he loves them to death and on chat says, "Man, I need to make a Praetorian!"

Well, I think the dev team was much bigger than 15 people back when he was in charge. Now, when Cryptic shifted focus to Marvel Universe Online...

Well, I've seen a good number of posts here and other forums by folks wanting to know if COH will ever get a graphics overhaul. Some people expressed disappointment that Ultra Mode was a new gloss of paint rather than all the graphics (and the graphics engine) being redone from the ground up to take advantage of multi-core CPU's and current video cards so that COH would look as good as a PS3 or 360 game.

Very seriously - there are people who want more eye-candy, consider it important, and think it should be a priority even if it means that players on the bottom end of things currently couldn't play anymore. Its just assumed those folks will upgrade their hardware to keep playing or "oh well."

I'm not saying everyone who wants better graphics is like that, but there are folks that go that far (or don't think about the consequences). I would love for COH to have a significantly upgraded engine and all that myself, but I'd rather see them do other things that will get more mileage (systems, content, etc) than just a graphics upgrade. If they can do small upgrades, hey, more power too them. Besides, if better detailing with hands and hand animation can get us hand-claws (ala Sabertooth and others), I'm for it

What is the point of the APPs, anyhow? Why were they introduced? Just curious. They're nice perks to me - either I take'em or I don't.

The problem is, of course, getting everyone to agree they did something right - and 100% right at that - is going to be next to impossible, especially for a change like Defiance got.

"Its overpowered!"

"Its underpowered!"

"Its just right!"

"You forgot something!"

"That's not the real problem!"

"You should've done this instead!"

"That's stupid! They should've done this instead!"

So on and so forth. And of course, how the change works in the long run, never mind how it interacts with individual players, play styles, etc., isn't something that can always be easily be seen or determined anyhow. A particular buff or nerf might do significant for me specifically, after all. Or it could wreck (in reality or merely perception) everything I've tried to work to up until that point.

And of course, all developers have their own internal dialog we're not privy to - some might be for one thing, others for another, others for yet something else. Yet eventually one will get picked out, even if its not what everyone truly wanted. Likewise, there maybe be other considerations too - security, performance, etc. I know enough folks that got their MMO accounts hacked and cleared out to be thankful its not such a quick and easy process here! As much as I dislike them, I'm also glad that the trial accounts have their limitations to blunt what RMT/spam-jerks can do.

I've not seen a MMO get "it right, 100%, and never anything less" - not a single one. Its start off, adjust, continue, adjust, continue adjust. Its constant and ongoing process. Businesses have to do this. Creative folks do this over the course of the careers. Athletes do this. While I'm sure you can list things that expectations work well with as a one-time event, it doesn't work for everything (and getting "it right" really needs some sort of objective standard of measure otherwise its impossible to say if you did or not).

And, honestly, if you can get it right, 100% and never anything less each and every time, you might be setting your sights too low. If you're not failing, you're not pushing yourself.

edit: And if you can't see how it could've been done better in retrospect, you might not be looking close enough. You do the best you can do with what you've got, what you're limited to, etc., and learn for the next time.

Same number of slots having to be spread across more powers. You'll definitely need to think and prioritize your power selections and slot allocations, particularly if you want to chase set bonuses.

Federal Express booster pack

Nothing yet.

I think the fact we'll get three more powers but no more slots *might* be enough to keep things the same. We might be kids in a candy shop when it comes to possibilities, but we've only got so much to spend, you know?

Were any of them slated to be exemplarable? I know the Alpha wasn't, but there's still 10 more planned...

I personally have come to dislike (real) beta testing and loath alpha testing. As such, I would like to thank you for participating in those activities because I won't go near'em anymore for the exact reasons they're needed (bug squashing, stability issues, etc).

Have the devs released any information on how people slot? I know virtually all my characters have 1 or 2 in Swift, 3 in Health and at least 3 in Stamina with Common IO's being used. Only my favorite characters have Performance Shifter, with my main having one of those special Health procs...

Well, on the flip side, using IO's you can get more enhancement per power than you actually have slots. It'll make slotting for Set IO's more challenging if you're doing that, but if you're not chasing sets I think it'll be doable.

Well, no telling just now. As pointed out - full MMO sequels don't have a terribly good track record at the moment, so a full sequel doesn't seem to be a good use of money. Especially with NCSoft having its share of failed games.

http://www.mmocrunch.com/2008/04/30/...mmorpgs-death/
COH is making money. COH2 might not, and could harm COH's ability to make money. Worth noting that Asheron's Call 2 failed as well!

In all honesty - even half the money and resources it would take to make a City of Heroes sequel could make City of Heroes a LOT better without splitting the player base, or blocking off players due to higher system requirements, etc.

I was actually rather happy that Ultra Mode wasn't gated behind Going Rogue. Which, while not content exactly, is still a nice upgrade.

Of course, it should've, OBVIOUSLY had been so, or a $10 booster pack

I keeed, I keeed

I've got a LONG list of things that I would pay for, so don't joke about that. Some of us would pay to get our pet projects put up on "top priority" list.

Well, yeah - I think that's pretty consistent with past performance

I'm preparing for the "worst" - I use 3 of the 4 Fitness powers, each usually getting 2-4 slots (love procs). Having 3 new powers but no additional slots means if I get anything that I want more than one enhancement slot I need to get a bit more creative. For my high level characters? That means Hamindon Enhancements look a wee bit more interesting than they did before and could selectively replace some of my high-level Common IO's. My set IO's are usually all at level 25 for exemplaring purposes, so... eeek.

Can I approach this from a different angle? While we don't know the specifics of how this will be implemented (and those are subject to change anyhow), by making it so Fitness no longer a "requirement" (either in reality or perception) I think this will actually allow for greater freedom and diversity in character building. From what I remember of Champions Online and understand about DC Universe Online, COH's character building could use the additional flexibility that freeing up those power choices (but not necessarily power slots) will bring.

Now, I wish there were additional power pools to go with this, but even then there will still be 9 regular power pools plus the APPs/PPPs and the rest of your primary/secondary. The PP's, APP's and PPP's have their own prerequisites for the higher-tiered powers on top of that. So you still have to consider your build; which powers to take, when to take them, when to slot them, etc. I don't think its going to be that much easier - its certainly not like they're giving us the I Win button.

This has the potential to help all players, new and old, while freeing us to be more creative when making our characters. There's no argument that this will make things easier. But at the same time, not all players min/max. I run with players who will take powers based on looks or "fun value" for them, even though they know its a non-optimal choice. One of COH's strengths is that there's a wide range of playable builds - the focus isn't strictly on the most optimized things out there.

Certainly, I'm already wondering what powers to add to my favorite character once I no longer have to deal with Stamina. Of course, I don't know how my slotting will be affected - having three more powers means I have to figure out how to split slots between those new powers and (I'm assuming) my new Inherent Fitness. That's going to be hard, especially since I don't want to lose the Set IO bonuses I worked so hard for!

I think it'll work out.

It would, but at the same time DCUO is coming out sooner, not later. I'd rather see them hit with all these preemptively, you know?

Heh - if you're buying, sure

Well, lets be honest - there are some things that would ideally be available at creation: travel powers, capes and auras. The fact that they're not just shows an aged part of the game. I can understand keeping them as carrots for advancement, but I do hope they've talked a few times about changing that, especially in light of competition (regardless of your opinion of said competition).

*ow*

Watch where you point those things!

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There are a number of people with that theory (or something similar). I know for me I'm looking more at it as City of Heroes: Volume 2 (so beta-i19 would be Volume 1). NCSoft has promoted Aion 2.0, so its not unheard of.

Its all in the presentation of opinion and facts.

And sorry - we can get defensive/snarky too. I know I took offense to the "dumbing down" comment, which was immature of me. Of course, I also figure if someone wants to play a complex, crunchy game then COH would never appeal to them in the first place.