Ravenswing

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I'd still be surprised if it was CPU bound though -- I'd expect a more even degradation then.

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Leif, I'm dissapointed. Most performance curves due to almost anything to do with computers tank at some point, generally catastrophically, and quite often with no sign of degredation until the failure point. It also need not be actually CPU, but physical RAM. Use up all of that and start paging and you get a sudden drop in performance.

The other thing to consider is that the server, as such, is not to blame, but the software on the server is. All it would take is one point in the event chain to be less than optimal and the system as a whole starts messing up at high load. Throwing hardware at this is quite possibly not going to fix the problem. It would require a review of the algorithms used in the software.

I have noticed more lag this weekend than the week before, but I put that entirely down to DXP Weekend. I pity anyone trying to do anything more intensive than levelling normally over the last couple of days, but surely they knew what they were getting into.

I don't think the servers are going to get massively upgraded, personally. Take Hamidon: The original Hamidon raid was farmed, so it was changed to make it harder. Rather than come up with new tactics, the players just got bigger teams to fight Hami until a typical raid was 100 people, which regularly crashed the server the raid was on.

Chosen solution: rewrite Hamidon to need a maximum of 40 players. Personally, I think it was a good choice, and my hat goes off to the people who used to farm old Hami; your tolerance for boredom must be stratospheric.

Anyway, big server upgrades need big money and the CoX players rejected any more paid-for expansions to the game. "We pay our subscriptions and we don't want to pay for anything more," we said (apparently). Well, we get to live with that choice.

Neverwinter Nights had a near unlimited character description 'field' and you could use it to judge whether it was worth roleplaying with the person. If it went over a page, you probably knew all about their character so why roleplay with them. If it went over two pages you could probably just put them on ignore.

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1. Make the ID text box for history ect. atleast 3 times as long

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Practically: people have been asking for this since Adam was in short pants and it hasn't happened, so I doubt it's going to. Extra characters means extra storage requirements on the database servers, and I think NCSoft has chosen to allow you extra character slots reather than bigger description sizes

Ideologically: Having a really long description of your character's looks, personality, and background is nothing more than an ego trip. It discourages roleplaying. I'm a fan of short description fields so I can't agree to this idea.

Cut and Paste would be good though. (Thought that already worked, though.)

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If GG became located at Pocket D, then it could be the primary roleplayer gathering for both sides, making plots easier with heroes AND villains roleplaying together.

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[...snip...]GG has been established pretty much since EU launch, and it's really not going to change. People have suggested it before and nothing has or will,

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Just to correct FFM a little, last time I poked my head into Union before giving up entirely for a year or so, GG had basically died out for the most part. RP had shifted into bases and Pocket D, and I expected that to be the case when I came back last week. I still haven't been back to GG since I'm enjoying the content (and I've had a bit of a disrupted schedule due to visiting relatives), but I'm informed that GG is back up and running. This surprised me, but there you go.

Point is, it hasn't just been suggested that "GG move to PD", it has actually happened to a large extent. It apparently didn't work, and I suspect for the reasons FFM listed. Pocket D may be a logical game environment, and it works for heroes with a slightly dark edge to them, but CoH is based around Golden Age heroes and they would not be seen dead in a bar next to someone who was robbing a bank in Paragon City last week.

(Pocket D seems like a good idea, but it's one of those things Cryptic put in without considering the background they created purely for game mechanics. If they had set the game more around the Iron Age comic period, it would have been far more logical, but they didn't. Hero side missions paint you as a Real Hero, and Real Heroes don't have drinks with Villains. And, yes, Cryptic painted Pocket D as an example of things they were putting in which were useful for Roleplay, but Cryptic never did understand what Roleplay was, even if they said they did.)

I think you'll probably find that your card has another identity as well and you can use that. You don't sound like you really want to bother, but if you do, try calling the card company and asking them which of the options fits their card.

Well, no offence to either of them, but I'll miss Bridger.

Mind you, the GG group invited him out to dinner at one of the Bristol comic-cons and we spent a nice evening chatting and trying really hard not to grill him on future expansion plans. Really nice bloke (and he put up with me here ), and I haven't had a chance to get to know GR at all yet.

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Even villains need a social group, else things like Arachnos etc would not exist.

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Arachnos exists because one man made it and is powerful enough to hold it together by controlling and manipulating those below him.

Traditionally, comic book villains operate alone, or in small groups (often with a single, powerful leader). Groups without one obvious leader often fight among themselves. Villain groups are often far more temporary than hero groups.

The crazy thing is (or was, haven't looked at the figures recently, but this thread is a good indication) that everyone wanted to play a villain before CoV came out. We used to have loads of people annoying the hell out of us at GG pretending to be villains (which we could do nothing about, since they were just heroes with a bad attitude). CoV came out and people ran off to play villains... except they didn't roleplay them because being a villain is no fun if you don't have some good guy to bounce off. Eventually, it became quite apparent that actually playing a villain was not as much fun as first thought and the population on the villain side has always been lower than the hero side.

What people really like roleplaying is anti-heroes, and CoH is really bad at that.

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think the create a power idea is being done on champions online

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No, the only thing you can customise is the special effects. The game is level-based, with pre-defined powers divided into some form of sets.

Don't get your hopes up, I had mine booted to the head.

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Are there any arcs / missions with Luddites in?

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Yes, but they're all 32 page pen & paper tabletop modules with two-colour printed covers and use the original three-booklet D&D rules.

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No, Leif, that's missions for Luddites.

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Incarnete Archetypes have been suggested before many times

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At one point by Cryptic, as I recall. Incarnates were a suggested epic archetype long, long ago. I get the feeling they got shelved in favour of Inventions being the progression mechanism.

I always got the feeling that the only reason the villain epics were introduced was for fairness. They took a way long time to do, I think maybe they aren't terribly popular and got put back and back because of this.

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need to talk to the contact in the steel canyon university library, is just left than right inside the door. i forget the contact name.

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Ah thanks, I was wondering why it was referring me to some bloke in the Uni, I did the inventions tutorial when I9 came out.

As for Aero... yeah, FFM is right, I don't remember that name at all.

Might be in so much today, actually, WoW just reduced the requirements for standard mounts at I have a level 31 Warlock needs a fiery horsey.

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Good to see you back Ravenswing. Hope you enjoy the changes that have been made to the game since you left.

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So far, yes. Still haven't figured out how to get into the Midnight Club, but Orobororborous and Vanguard look kind of neat, and I've started levelling an alt up to see how things have changed in the main levlling process.

Stuff to do, it's all cool.

Cool, and well deserved.

Thanks.

I wander off for a little while (okay, over a year) and Bridger isn't here anymore. Did he get promoted or something?

*waves at GhostRaptor* Hi, by the way.

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City Vault is still being worked on. There are some not-security-related delays with the system; it's not a simple undertaking, and it won't be released until the team feels it's ready to be browsed by thousands of people.

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Bare in mind that the WoW version of this kind of web-integrated thing is still in beta, and it's been active for a couple of years. Given the variance between EU and US servers, I'd guess they may need to have different systems for handling this (which was part of the problem with global chat IIRC).

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The reason I think that this idea differs from 'f' is it overides the vectors involved and use all your potential travel ability to travel directly and as quickly as possible towards a target.

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Which is what pressing 'f' does for SS and Fly. The idea has somekind of utility for Teleport and SJ, for which 'f' doesn't really work, but only really as an easy-mode switch. You can Teleport directly on top of a target (I've done it, it's not that hard) and you can jump onto a target if you're good enough.

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maybe use them to foreshadow the Banished Panteon.

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*waves*

You said it right there. Unless something has been added I haven't found, I still say the BP are the most unfulfilled villain group in the game (hero side anyway). So much potential for high-end content, but they just sit there in one tiny little band of missions and then vanish again.

They aren't supressed until you hit something.
If you need a travel power to get to the next target in a group, you must be doing something wrong.
If you can't wait a few seconds to get to the next group you should probably cut down on your sugar intake.

I... don't get it. Try this.

Target your target.
Activate travel power.
Press the 'f' key.
Deactivate travel power.

Works for Flight and SS, and SJ to some extent. Teleport is another matter anyway.

Absolutely. However...

This may have changed, I haven't been keeping up with this stuff and I did read something about a Secret ID slot in some upcoming patch.

But, the idea of a Secret ID mechanism for CoH was put forward by more people than you can count on the fingers in China way back when CoH first hit Europe (and I've no doubt the US boards had them before that). The official response regarding this was that your character may well have a Secret ID, but that's what they do when you aren't logged on. When you are playing, you are playing a hero (or villain) in hero mode. Obviously, this never satisfied the roleplayers, since it's pretty obviously a cop out based pretty much on Golden Age comics before the secret life of heroes became as important or more than their costumed life.

Generally, a costume slot was allocated to a civilian outfit, or a level 1 alt was created using the hero's civilian name. (And I've now got 4 more slots I can stick on Union to do that with.) IMHO, I'd love a Secret ID mechanism, but I can't see it being added when there is a woraround already available.

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Of course the hero body count would have to be higher than the enemies or it just wouldn't be proper Cthulhu (a la the RPG)

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If it's the RPG we're talking about you should end up mad rather than dead, but same basic concept.

I always thought it was a shame that the Banished Pantheon just sort of fizzled out. It was like someone had a cool idea, but it never got realised.

A motto to live by:

Never argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level, and then beat you with experience.

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RAVEY!! YOUR BACK! Or have you never left and just kept quiet?!?!?

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Neither. I popped back in and then I'll be off again. I may be back in game when I10 comes out. It looks... interesting.

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To address another point when have in game surroundings ever fully effected the RP surroundings?

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Depends though, doesn't it? There will be those who say you need to stick with the 'published' background so that everyone works off the same page, and those who say you can rewrite the backstory as you wish. You can't call either side 'tools' because they don't agree with you, they have as much right to their opinion as you do.

Frankly, that particular can of worms is why I left this place last time.

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The Pits will be closed, who wants to go clubbing in a war zone?

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Anna will be mortified.