RemianenI

I've never seen this, personally. I've rerolled a character from one account to the other (delete on acct 1 after loading the saved costume and sitting at the ID card stage with the new character on acct 2) and after typing in the character's name to confirm deletion, hit Enter and confirmed tutorial entry within about 10 seconds total. Less actually, since all I had to do was alt-tab and click.

I'd venture a guess and say as soon as you type that character's name into the box to confirm deletion, that name is freed up. Just a guess though.

EDIT: Lemme try it again now....lot can change in 6 months.

You're wrong.

I have taken Kalinda on every villain I've created save one (and that villain was created way back in the days when ONLY Kalinda could give you the cape/aura mission...so you'd have to do her newbie arc before you could get to the cape mission if you chose Burke). It seems randomly assigned upon first entering PO. However, of the 8 villains I've created most recently, all of them have gotten Mikey (which suits me fine because I too hate Drea due to location). Also, every villain I have save one has chosen the same contact after HT (not Angel Lopez, the other one that's right by the locker - Jimmy Dortz?).

My vote's for 'it's random'.

"Grind" in common MMO parlance is that which you have to do to get to the part you want to be at. If you want to "raid" in most MMOs, you have to grind to max (or near max) level. Your level 4 Hunter isn't going to be spending any time in the Mines....until you "grind" out a ton of levels. Yes, there are people who like to tiptoe through the tulips and "enjoy the journey" with no destination in mind, but there are many folks who are more goal oriented and thus, focus on the goal. I can only say that because here, I'm part of the former group whereas everywhere else, I'm a dyed in the wool, hardcore powergamer (I just don't see the point in doing that here). Heck, just the fact that you're enamored with an area in LOTRO that you spend, what, 5 hours in (unless you're willfully slowing your character's progress), tells me you're in the former group. Note: I'm not passing judgment (as I said, I'm in the same boat here but the polar opposite in the other MMOs I play) but it could shed some light on the difference in approach. You're right about all the stuff that might need looking into but powerset proliferation has zero appeal to a person looking to mint their first (or just another) 50.

I'm guessing the OP has a character in the 40s and wants to "finish it off" by getting it to 50. Blueside, PI missions with the level/spawn size jacked up could work (depending on AT and capability). Tina McIntyre (low 40s) and Unai Kemen (mid to high 40s) are good contacts. Redside, TV missions are good under the same conditions (TV is unlocked by grabbing the 'Master of the Airwaves' exploration badge in Grandville near the top of the Arachnos tower) or if you're low 40s, the missions from the Rikti inside the Arachnos tower (Ambassador something or other) would work. Grinding outdoors is mainly for farming, in my view (and not even then).

Actually that's not entirely true. Real numbers wouldn't be very helpful if the powers descriptions themselves are wrong. If Nova said it did fire damage with a chance to hold, would the numbers for the power help at all knowing the power does no such thing? I think it's telling that six months post-release, CO is still doing power and advantage description corrections. But I don't think it's right to blame Jack for that. I think you should blame Jack for hiring a failed lead designer/"creative director" just because he wrote instruction manuals at Blizzard years ago.

That's not to say Jack isn't a clueless wonder though. I'm going to remember this quote, from his very fingers, forever. From "Launching Champions Online" here:

So, lemme get this straight. You're supposed to be the head honcho for a studio that considers itself a major player in the MMO genre and you didn't know UI is extremely important? Any player could've told you that. Oh wait, yeah, Jack doesn't listen to players. My bad. But does that mean he never appreciated the work people like pohsyb did here? And honestly, if Bill Roper made Champions better than Jack could imagine, his imagination is extremely limited and I would've hated to see the product it would've produced. Then again, this is the same person who felt Nintendo games from the FIRST Game Boy generation were the height of creative and fun gameplay.

*shrug* That becomes a moot concern if they allow your prepaid time to count for vet reward grants. For example, my two accounts are paid up til late 2011 (annual re-up in July plus the promotional deal with the added months) but I can't get those vet rewards until those specific months have passed. Typically for MMOs, upfront money is good (which is the primary reason for pre-release 'lifetime' and long term subscription deals and even post-release, in the case of LOTRO and SOE's stable of games) so why not reward that investment with the reward program for....long term investment? Granted, due to responsibilities in other games and a far more conservative personal finance philosophy (read: ragequit over purple patch & "I'm not paying for more than one MMO at a time"), I only have 51 (or 54, I forget) months accrued to this point. But, I've paid up far further than many (and I'd easily ante up for two more years, right now, even though this isn't my primary MMO) so is my investment less than that of a month-to-month subscriber (who can leave at any time for any reason and produce no further revenue)?

I think if vet rewards truly rewarded paid time (and not past paid time as it exists now), the whole "I'll never be able to get that" issue could be largely mitigated (though not eliminated since they cap how far in the future you can prepay).

This.

There are some still out there, if you do a search using the typical term. But by and large, the last thing a person would want is a ton of plays and rates that may show up prominently on a datamining pass.

But the 'make your own' advice is spot on.

Actually Sam, EQ had a bank and a (player driven) market from the moment it released. "Selling everything on me at torch 1" in East Commons was common. But players complained about having to constantly be present to conduct commerce so SOE in their infinite wisdom (that's sarcasm btw) brought out the Bazaar, which allowed for AFK selling.

Arcanaville described what I failed to get across (which wasn't unexpected). However, you can't blame me or him or her for how the MMO space has turned out. When new games come out with innovative features (might not be news to you but the game you're playing now fits the clone stereotype except for a handful of innovations), they often either fail outright or become so niche as to be barely worth noticing. So you really expect people to invest $25 million plus to create a game that could be an outright failure, just because it's innovative? If that's the case, why not put up the cash yourself?

I think there are many people who have totally unrealistic expectations and those people will always be disappointed. Your idealism counts for squat when it comes time to pitch a game for funding. No one's putting their money behind a 'well, maybe' proposition. Wait, let me qualify that. There aren't many people who are going to put that kind of money behind a 'maybe' prospect.

I understand your frustration, believe me. But eventually, I got my head out of the clouds and realized that this is no longer about games per se. It's business. There probably isn't a MMO that's going to get the kind of time and attention to grow from NOTHING to something like EVE Online did. I don't think we'll see another game weather the most disastrous launch in genre history and still bounce back and be moderately successful for the time (like Anarchy Online). It's business. It's also why I support games whose features interest me with more than mere words (which are meaningless). No one's going to support innovation if innovation is not rewarded. That's not personal, it's business. Talk to these or any other MMO devs. You'll see that they have tons of ideas that are new and different but that they're shackled by what? You guessed it, business.

Here's a question for you, Sam and I'm not being cute or sarcastic or anything.

Describe your perfect MMO. Go into as much detail as you can muster. I'm genuinely curious about what that kind of game would be like.

I have an idea that my perfect game would be lucky to draw 50k subs.

It was always my understanding that it doesn't always apply to the law as it is written, but also at the law as it is interpreted. Traditions fall under the 'rebelling against' thing too. In Paragon City, Statesman's approach to crimefighting (a dogma taken on by his granddaughter) could be considered 'tradition' or 'unspoken law', which is why Manticore is often portrayed as a maverick (see Longbow vs Wyvern).

All of my heroes are chaotic good. All of my villains are chaotic neutral. As a person, I probably identify with neutral good though I'm probably seen as chaotic good. I rebel against any and everyone who feels they have the right to tell me what I should think or believe (which occurs in reality). I don't believe many things people hold as 'truisms'. So while I may be neutral good, I probably lean more toward chaos.

heh I've bought the jetpack booster several times already. It wasn't always possible for me to get my level 1-10s to Grandville or the Shadow Shard to buy a travel power (or just PL them to 14 for their own).

I'm with DumpleBerry though. I have all the booster/item packs (on both accounts) and would get any others just to have them. I don't immediately think of things to do with new costume pieces but if I get an idea, I don't want to be restricted (especially when it's not necessary). But then, I'm an old EQ1 player and it wasn't uncommon for me (as well as a few other guild members or officers) to pony up for new expansions for guildmates who may not have been able to afford them at release. Being a week or two behind when an expansion releases can really negatively affect your play experience (and force your guildmates who were there at expansion launch to then go back to help you get up to speed).

Aura Familia has a point though. There will always be critics. I got blasted by my own mother when I bought my X-Men Children of the Atom game ("A full size video game? REALLY?"), even though she knows how I am. If I want it, I get it, end of story. Other people's opinions matter little to me. A $10 purchase here doesn't even render a thought in my mind (other than "Gimme"). I bought the Ninja pack (twice) before I even looked at the features of it.

This.

I have several of my characters immortalized and hanging on the walls of my house and office (the sig has a few examples). Besides the 'for profit' thing, I think most developers see this kind of thing as free advertising (especially in the case of fan videos and such), unless it's being used in a way that doesn't reflect well on the property.

But it's a shame NC hasn't chosen to leverage this to promote the game. The big company does, with a full line of merchandise for their brand and players (but that may be why they're so big). It's a revenue stream that doubles as advertising.

Even better, what would s/he have done in the same situation? Typically, a designer doing something in their free time is not mandated by their employer. If it was, it wouldn't be, y'know, free time?

I'm sure HotFlash would prefer them hanging out at espn.com or posting inane remarks on Twitter rather than experimenting with things that might help advance their careers.

It's like the programmer in EQ1 who came up with the formula to do away with the hybrid xp penalty. Legend (as in, the accounts of his co-workers, not him) has it that he got the idea one night and when he came in to work, tried it out and lo and behold, it worked (until Luclin when that formula turned the former xp penalty into an xp bonus with the alternate advancement system). Nobody told him to find a solution (the company line was 'It's embedded too deep in the code to change') but they were perfectly happy to run with it once a solution was presented to them. People playing "pure" classes howled about how much of a waste it was and how 'overpowered' a hybrid would be without a penalty (admittedly, I was one of the howlers) but the fact remained that the solution was "free" as far as the company was concerned (besides formulating the test plan for QA).

So kudos to the person who came up with Walk. While it's not something I'd use regularly, it makes me hopeful that some other difficult features that are often requested can be done in a similar fashion.

It's the first or second (door) mission of the arc, if I remember correctly. Marrowsnap is at the door (first mob group you encounter) and Marrow Drinker is a bit further in.

Fail. Sorry. PvP in this game being 'redeemable' is the same as Walk being upgradeable. The difference would be, walk was developed largely during the developer's free/down time while PvP has been focused on more than once (it's actually had resources devoted to it) and still fails. Also, how many times have they tried to get the Cathedral of Pain to work? Does walk work one way in some zones but differently in others? Gee, I wonder what that applies to and how that's turned out.

Basically, multiple failures in one older area of gameplay that has required changes to multiple other systems are generally regarded as bigger failures than a new feature that actually appeals to a section of the playerbase without modification.

Uh, are you asserting that 'normal women' don't ever walk like that? I saw that very walk in my living room two weeks before I went to Bermuda on business. Granted, there was more twist and sway in the hips (I am so weak ) but it was very similar otherwise.

Bottom line is, if you don't like it, fine. If I don't like it, that's good too. There are folks who do and the devs can't center their efforts on placating you (or me or him or her), they have to go by communities moreso than individuals. We've seen it well over a hundred times already (trenchcoats, wings, costume pieces as loot, costume pieces as loot are 'too rare' so made more common, villain epic archetypes, powerset proliferation, new powersets in general, etc etc). Get a strong enough coalition behind you (or create a loud enough din) and attention will be paid.

*shrug* I don't see it as a flaw necessarily. Just like I don't think there needs to be big bold letters on my Motrin bottle telling me not to take more than the recommended dosage. If a person can't be arsed to log in to the game to check to see if they have the features attached to a booster or item pack, I don't feel any sympathy that they bought something they already had.

Many supermarket receipts have heavily truncated entries that aren't always understandable. Would I feel upset if I bought two of a particular item because I didn't know I had bought the first one already? No, because I should've checked my bag(s) first. Does that mean supermarket receipts need to print the exact name (including flavor/variety information) on receipts? I don't think so. Would it be nice? Sure!

Bottom line is, I don't tend to immediately think any mistakes I make are someone else's fault. If I had paid attention or done the necessary checking, neither case would've happened. And while the former has never happened to me, the latter happens at least once a month so it's not like I'm immune to it. My immediate reaction is "I should probably pay closer attention", not "you need to print better receipts".

Sam, you're taking this to extremes. Those features you mention are the MMO equivalent of 'standard equipment'. It's like power steering in a car, people won't buy it if it doesn't have it. If you have no crafting, that kills a large part of the non-combat activities side of the equation. With no auction house (or similar mechanic), you miss out on the interactions that occur between players in a trade environment. An efficient mail system supports the trade aspect but it's not required (CoX doesn't have one). Those features were highlighted by CrimeCraft's devs because for people who know nothing about the game (which would be most of the prospective audience, honestly), that's one of the first questions they tend to ask. Many times, people assume that every MMO is going to have these "MMO standards" but not all of them actually do. But those features have become expected by the audience over the years because of their utility and usefulness. In the US (God, especially in New York City), if someone went to buy a car and the salesman said, "We only have manual transmission models", that salesman would choke on the dust of that prospective customer leaving.

Present day CoX has all those things (except an efficient mail system). The focus is always going to be on combat from a design perspective (unless the game is designed to be firmly niche, ala A Tale in the Desert) and if it's not, it leads to disaster (right Horizons....errr Istaria?). So the main questions are often: what's there to do besides combat...and (nowadays) what's there to do at max level. The former is asked up front, the latter often leads the second tier of questions (and is often answered with the cryptic "More details on that will be released closer to beta (or launch)".

By your own admission, you haven't really played any MMOs besides this one so perhaps these points didn't initially occur to you. Speaking as someone who has played at least 80 hours in every MMO released in North America since May of 2000, it comes with the territory. As years go by, some things become defacto standard features in MMOs. An MMO that launches in this day and age with forced teaming and little to no solo content, will die on the vine (or be so niche, it might as well have). Thus, solo content has become standard in MMOs today. That's how the genre advances. So games without these expected standards, don't tend to do very well.

An MMO is exactly what the dictionary definition states. Whether it's what you or I or he or she thinks is irrelevant because our opinions reflect our experiences and preferences, which aren't facts. There are some people who think a game can't be an MMO if it doesn't have PvP as its focus (understandably, that's the opinion of most of my corp in EVE). Others might say a game without an endgame isn't an MMO. None of that is factual. Also what's kinda funny is that your initial question is 'What makes an MMO?' and then you later ask "Shouldn't there be more to an MMORPG?" Which question do you want answered? They're not the same thing, after all. Going back to the car thing, your first question is like "What makes a car?" and the second question is "Shouldn't there be more to a midsize family sedan?". The terms are only interchangeable to people who don't know better (that there are many different types of MMOs outside of the RPG subcategory).

I concur.

Unbelievable! For five years (FIVE YEARS! Since this game left closed beta) people have been clamoring for more. More powers, more costume options, more diversity. And then we get people like this joker saying we need LESS costume options and power diversity.

OP, how long have you been playing this game? Do you even remember when we didn't have trench coats or wings or Samurai or specialized boots (rocket/piston) or even inventions? Heck, using inventions as an example, there are people like you who think we shouldn't have even gotten those! And really, what the hell do you care? Those ninja pieces will likely pay for themselves (booster pack aint free like the powersets you're clamoring for would likely be). So let those of us who like having more options (of ALL kinds) pay for those options while people like you stand around and wait to get what you want for free.

Or, you can actually pick up a freakin' comic book and count the number of major characters who are powered and those who are not. Also, spend a couple minutes to find out how many of the powered ones are trained in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat (right Kitty Pride?). Oh, you might also take a gander at how many of those powered characters use things like body armor (tech) and power boosters (science). But I guess we don't need any more of that stuff either since it's not 'super powered'. I bet dual pistols is really gonna get you foaming at the mouth, despite the fact that it's been constantly requested since....well, release as I recall (though the requests got more insistent when Thugs was rolled out in what, issue 7?).

I would never complain about more options, especially if those options are released as optional content (read: booster or item packs). You don't like 'em, fine, but since they actually have a chance of producing recoup money to pay for themselves, you've got zero reason to whine about it.

Let's repeat this again, since apparently some folks aren't reading the thread.

The Valkyrie pack was not a booster pack. It was an enticement to get existing subscribers (who weren't playing on Macs and thus would have no reason to buy a new box) to buy in for some extraneous features in the package. If you were a subscriber prior to the Mac edition coming out, you would have zero reason to buy in to that. The Valkyrie set and mission teleporter were available for purchase separate from the Mac box it was tied to. Otherwise, if you wanted these features, you would've had to buy an entirely new "box" (good for one new account) just to get these two things you wanted.

You can't count it as a booster pack because it's flat out not a booster pack. Look here. It is illustrated that there are three categories used for these things: Super Booster (Cyborg, Super Science, Martial Arts, Magic), Mini Booster (the 30-day jetpack), and Item Packs (basically the non-content extras thrown into boxed editions). If you're a CoX subscriber on a PC, you probably don't need a Mac-centric copy of the game. But you might want the little pieces that were added to it that you can use. Thus, the item pack.

Remember when the Good vs Evil box was launched? If you already had both City of Heroes and City of Villains, would you really want to pay $30 more for Justice/Sinister/a non-accolade badge and a Pocket D port? Most people wouldn't so they released those goodies as, not a 'booster pack', an 'item pack' (because that's all that was in it was a few items). It seems like they use the distinction to adhere to an convention that might allow potential customers to tell them apart (but which is obviously failing to some degree).

They do, yes.

I wouldn't be against more disclosure in the account page, though it wouldn't help me at all (I have everything already, and will continue to have everything). But without that disclosure and/or detail, you have to exercise your gray matter before making the purchase. Especially if the dollar amount of said purchase represents an amount that is dear to you.

Maniacs were given a confuse effect, weren't they?

Good luck with that. Considering how overly broad and subjective #1 is and the razor's edge you have to tread to make #2 perfectly balanced (if it's not perfectly balanced, it's not true), it's easier said than done.

Uh yeah, that sounds like a great idea. So I guess in your view, NORMAL people have piss poor time management skills. Yet another "You play more than me so you're not NORMAL" post. I don't tend to play 8+ hours a day but I can easily hit that average. Slow day at work, holes in my schedule, I can play during the day. Plus, I don't tend to grip my pillow for a quarter of every day so that opens up even more time. Penalizing people for playing a game, is such a horrible business model, it'll never see the light of day, thankfully.