Robotech_Master

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  1. Oddly enough, all the characters I actually play are female, even though I'm a guy. I don't make any secret of it outside the game, but inside the game I'd rather not deal with it. So I'm always careful to keep separation between character and player; when I-the-player have to do something, the character always says "My player has to..." And I'm always careful not to use gender pronouns.

    The problem comes when I'm inviting characters from players I know are male, but forget the characters are female. I invariably refer to them as "he" and get the players mad at me. :P
  2. Anyone who makes any assumptions about someone's real-world life (be it gender, age, sexuality, etc.) based on his or her in-game avatar is just asking for trouble. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog...but nobody knows you're not a dog, either.
  3. Robotech_Master

    Origin: Cheetah

    [ QUOTE ]
    Cheetah, you're a poet. I'm privileged to have you sharing the server with me.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Agreed. Clearly a lot of effort and a lot of feeling went into that story, and I'm glad to have read it.
  4. [ QUOTE ]
    Same here. What's an "Ancillary" Power?

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Well, according to m-w.com

    Main Entry: an·cil·lary
    Pronunciation: 'an(t)-s&-"ler-E, esp British an-'si-l&-rE
    Function: adjective
    1 : SUBORDINATE, SUBSIDIARY (the main factory and its ancillary plants)
    2 : AUXILIARY, SUPPLEMENTARY (the need for ancillary evidence)

    Presumably, thus, it's an AUXILIARY or SUPPLMENTARY power pool. Personally, I would have called it a Tertiary Power Pool, in keeping with Primary and Secondary power sets, but perhaps that would have led to confusion with other power pools. Ancillary fits in reasonably well jus the same, and it's more accurate than "Epic".

    Hardly the first name change to a new feature being introduced; remember how "Tourist" Badges became Exploration Badges?

    Of course, this does kind of depend on that interview having been able to get one thing correct...
  5. [ QUOTE ]
    I've thought about this a bit, and I don't think it's an exploit as much as a shortcut. I mean, someone had to intentionally program the shield to go down to holds, since I don't see how that could happen by "accident" otherwise. It's probably just something the designer thought up to encourage people to bring along controllers.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Maybe. Or it could just be that the game considers the force field to be a "toggle", and when you get mezzed your toggles drop. Maybe restarting the force field "toggle" is tied to the generators respawning...so if the generators never have to respawn, the force field doesn't toggle back on.

    It would be interesting if someone were to knock out the shield using holds, then kill all four generators and see if the shield respawns when the generators do.
  6. [ QUOTE ]
    Unfortunately, with the change to monsters, you will probably only be getting even level XP from defeating the Krackens.

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    The devs have said that the monster change only applies to monsters spawned outside of missions and trials (the Kraken in Perez, Adamastor in Dark Astoria, etc.). The Kraken within the trial should not be affected.
  7. [ QUOTE ]
    Hydra enhancements are also reputed to work if your level is within 5 levels of theirs (rather than the standard 3).

    ...

    Obviously, if you only like one of the bonuses these enhancements provides, you are much better off using a standard +3 SO. These enhancements could make very nice gifts to a level 35 hero who had a well matched power, however.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    I don't know where this rumor of 5 levels got started. I have a 35 Dark/Dark Def, and RJ45 gave her a 40 damage/mez Hydra-Enhancement. And it's red, and it says she can't use it 'til she hits 37.
  8. [ QUOTE ]
    That's about it, so far! I'll update this again when I get issue #8!

    [/ QUOTE ]
    That one should be the one featuring whoever won the bumper sticker contest, right?
  9. Interesting advice. Got me killed the first time I tried it with my dark/dark Defender, but the next time, when I accidentally aggroed a crowd of orange-red Freaks while getting a mission from Merisel in Bricks, it saved my bacon.

    This trick is useful for ambushes that come from getting missions, too, by the way. Every time you get a 5th Column mission in Brickstown, for instance, you'll get an ambush to go with it. Take the mission then pop up on inspirations and by the time you're done, your appointed mobs should have come right up to you.

    I've gone ahead and incorporated this tip (and a link to the thread) into my Comprehensive Guide to Rapid XP Gain & Debt Loss, by the way.
  10. One thing to add...I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but it was the case for me.

    If you are the one who took the Hydra Trial mission from the contact, and you have beat the trial once, the next time you go back to the hydra trial contact to get a mission from her she will immediately offer you the final mission in the arc thereafter--no more "kill 150 Rikti".

    This can be quite convenient for if you want to bang it out a few times for the XP.
  11. [ QUOTE ]
    The xp at the end of the mission--I take it this doesn't happen when you are sidekicked to be in the same range as the other people in the mission, right? Since being an exemplar is a "reverse sidekick," I'd think the intention is to have the xp payoff for a mission to be in the same ballpark as what you get when you're sidekicked--no bonus.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    When you're sidekicked, the end-of-mission XP bonus scales to your own level, just as it does when you're reverse sidekicked. If you're level 10 and sidekicked to a level 21 character so you're effectively level 20, and you do the L21 character's mission, you get XP for a mission that's one level higher than your current level...because the mission you took was one level higher than your effective level at the time you completed it. Thus, you get XP as if you'd just completed a L11 mission unsidekicked.

    It's the same when you exemplar down. If you're level 20 and exemplaring to a level 10 character, but doing the mission of a level 11 character in the party (since exemplaring doesn't have that 1-level-difference I'm throwing in a third party member just so the comparison is similar) you get debt reduction equivalent to XP for a mission that's one level higher than your current level. So, you earn as much debt reduction as you would earn XP for doing a L21 mission unexemplared.

    It's just another application of the risk-reward relationship we've seen mentioned in various threads: you take higher risk, you get higher rewards. Now, granted, it's highly unrealistic for a character to be able to complete a mission 8 levels higher than his current level on his own, or even contribute much to a party going through it unsidekicked. But that's the way the system works.
  12. [ QUOTE ]
    Whooboy. Thanks for the tip, but that sounds basically like a bug, or more accurately an overlooked design flaw. I work in the software industry so I go looking for them, but experienced gamers get a feel for them too. I bet the devs didn't think thsi through completely, having high-level missions getting completed while at lower levels.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Well, it's not so very different from the powerlevelling high-low game, where a lowbie is brought along on a mission much higher level than he, and earns an inordinately large XP bonus at the end. The difference is, here the only person you're 'powerlevelling' is yourself, and you're just 'powerlevelling' the debt off.
  13. I have just found the best method ever for lowering debt using Exemplar.

    It's simple. Get a hunt mission (that is, kill X number of a particular mob)...then Exemplar down to an 8-levels-lower character to do (or at least complete) it (making sure to wait a minute after exemplaring to run the timer out first, of course). (Depending on if the mobs are not actually available at that level, you may need to get a third party member to do the actual killing for the completion.)

    Not only does the end-of-mission reward XP go entirely to reduce debt, but it is scaled up by the number of levels between your exemplared level and the level you were when you got the mission. The amount of debt you can banish just by completing a hunt exemplared is truly phenomenal.
  14. [ QUOTE ]
    Enhancements degrade in some unknown fashion. However, you'll still be more effective than someone at that level. Partially because the enhancements you have are more effective than anything they could have at that level and partially because you'll still have more enhancements than they will. Powers get greyed out. Enhancements on powers do not.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Furthermore, Inspiration slots don't either. So you could be fighting as a L2...but have 15 Inspiration slots. What's more, Inspirations drop as if you were your real level, not your Exemplared level...so you'll be getting a lot of second- and third-magnitude drops even as you fight level 2 Hellions. If you're in a party, you can hand these off to your buddies and be very popular.

    One thing that the guidelet that started this thread might could stand to mention is a section I might call...

    Gack! I've outlevelled my mission! What do I do now?

    We've all been there: we've got three instanced missions in our mission tray (and two of those are storyline missions...beginning of storyline missions) and we do a Task Force (or get powerlevelled, but that's something you do with intent; Task Forces can happen to anyone) and zing, we're suddenly two levels higher than we were when we got the mission. (Or perhaps we just happen to level on one mission when two more are in our list. That happens a lot, too.) Perhaps then we don't want to face those missions we've outlevelled, and before we know it we've gained one more level. We have a lot of blue, green, and gray mobs in our future.

    It used to be we had to just grin and bear it, slog through a boring timewaster of a mission that will give us about three experience points total, and just resolve not to visit that contact again because they'll give us outlevelled missions.

    No longer! Now all we have to do is exemplar down to a lower level--and the missions are fresh and exciting again. What's more, if we've got a bunch of debt to work off, we will find that we can use those outlevelled missions to work it off as if the mobs were at or above our own level. Which do you thinik would work better toward killing debt--half the XP of a green or blue mob, or all the XP of a yellow or orange?

    Of course, teams for such missions have to be set up with the mission level in mind. If you're L30 and exemplaring down to L27 to take on a L29 mission, it would probably be best to add at least one or two L28 or L29 heroes to the team, along with you and the other 27, so those orange mobs don't cream you (or force you to unexemplar, which means reduced debt down the drain).
  15. An addendum to the one about checking your map frequently to know where the exits are...

    10b) ...and so you don't go down an entirely different tunnel fork from the rest of the team and aggro a completely different group from the one everyone else is fighting.
  16. [ QUOTE ]
    I also would like to know about the whole thing with the infector badge. Now can I or can't I get it if I passed it up on the tutorial? And how would I get it?

    [/ QUOTE ]
    If you mean Isolator...you can't. It's a tutorial-only thing.

    For myself, I'm just going to pretend that Isolator doesn't exist. Because, except for people who go through the Tutorial, it doesn't.
  17. Can I suggest organizing your own "mini-fanfests"? Check out the City of Heroes Meetup.com page , sign up, and tell your friends.
  18. [ QUOTE ]
    Well I for one will not be getting this badge. I'm an Australian... no way am I going to suck up to another countries flag just to get a badge.

    Then again our Prime Minister sucks up to your President every day, so why should this be any different.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Indeed. You're only paying an American company money to play a game run on American servers, in an American setting, based on an American concept. Your character is only fighting to protect and keep an American city safe. Why should your character take any pride in the place he's trying to protect? I'm sure he's only being forced into it.

    Whatever. Whether or not you get the badge is nobody's choice but your own. If you want to skip it, then do so, with my blessing (as if you needed it). Heck, it's almost like it was made with people like you in mind, since given the placement of it, it's not even like you could get it by accident. (Unless...hmm, wonder if those people who TP-drop teammates into hordes of mobs could be retrained to TP-drop people onto badges they didn't want...? Nah, probably too much trouble.)

    So what's the point in making a diatribe saying that you're not going to get it? That's like posting that you're unsubscribing, or (on USENET) that you're adding someone to your killfile--there's no point in it except to irritate other people, because it's only something that affects yourself.

    Bah. Hopefully this time CuppaJo will step in before this thread degenerates like the last one did.
  19. [ QUOTE ]
    I am a Canadian, and proud to be so, just as I am sure many US citizens are proud of their country. I don't associate the US flag with any concept of "Freedom" particularly. I don't feel any emotion at all when I see a US flag. So for me associating "Freedom" as a concept and standing beside the US flag is meaningless.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    That's fine. As others have said, you don't have to get the badge if you don't want to. At least it's not a patriot badge anymore. Don't deny those of us who do associate our flag with freedom--or those who are playing characters who do--the chance to enjoy it, though.

    You probably already knew that Americans have a special place in our hearts for our flag. Started way back when the British failed to knock it down during a battle in the Revolutionary War and it moved Francis Scott Key to compose our national anthem. Now there's a whole raft of laws to protect it, there was even movement for a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw flag-burning, and many Americans tend to associate the flag with the freedoms that we won for ourselves and that we've brought to or protected in various other countries over the course of our history. (Even disregarding the last 15 years.) I suppose we're just funny that way.

    This is a game made by Americans. Written by American programmers (I assume--I don't know NCSoft's staff composition, maybe some Canadians & other nationalities worked on it too), played on American servers, set in an American city, based on the American genre of superherodom. You had to have known that before you even signed up for the game. Is it really that much of a shock that it might have some American values associated with it?
  20. [ QUOTE ]
    Intelligent post, I like it. I just want to say, it is possible that this heroine is being considered a patriot of Earth. Which makes things unfair for our demonic/angelic/alien heroes, I know....but you're playing a game made in Earth, set on Earth, produced by Earthicans, I don't know what to tell you! Geez

    [/ QUOTE ]

    I considered that interpretation, but the badge description didn't seem to be taking that tack--and besides, IMO, to be a "patriot of the earth" you'd need for there to be a more cohesive earth (i.e. a world government) for them to be a patriot to. A man cannot serve two masters--let alone the dozens of "masters" there are in all the different countries.
  21. Statesman, the new Patriot badge description just doesn't make sense.

    Sure, the heroine may be a "citizen" of every country in the world, but patriotism doesn't have a whole lot to do with citizenship in a country; it has to do with allegiance to that one country and its set of values, over all others. I have little doubt, for instance, that there are currently citizens of the United States who don't feel particularly patriotic (in the strictest dictionary sense, not the politically-charged election slur sense) toward it. By its very definition, that means that the badge as it currently stands has nothing whatsoever to do with "patriotism."

    I'll grant it's possible to be patriotic to more than one country if their values are particularly closely aligned, especially if you hold dual citizenship. But to be "patriotic" toward all countries on earth at the same time? Including the ones that are currently at war with each other, or are guilty of human rights violations (at the same time as the ones trying to stop those violations)? That truly is a superheroic feat...of schizophrenia.

    You tried to make the badge all-inclusive, but that goes counter to the very idea of patriotism. What you should have done, and what you should do now, is go in another direction: make the badge generic. Just as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is meant to represent all the soldiers in a particular war, make a memorial to all patriotic heroes, of whatever country. Either make the hero someone who died to save her own country--and don't say what country it was, so that everyone who gets the badge can feel sure that it was for his or her own country--or else make it generically symbolic of every hero who's ever fought for his own country. That way, at least, the badge would make some sense yet still be suitably all-inclusive.

    Just my opinion.
  22. [ QUOTE ]
    ya gotta be kidding me! I must be missing something. The only mods I am aware of are the map patch and the looping sounds. These are fixes to major issues that could have been addressed by the creators of the game. The customers fixed it at not cost to the creators and now want to ban us from using them? crazy. At a minimum we are owed a logical explanation.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    The logical explanation's been given already: the patches have been causing a lot of headaches for NCSoft's support division, as people install them, mess up their clients, and then come crying to support about it.

    And the ban isn't from using them (yet), it's just from talking about them on these boards. There are other, non-official places where they can be discussed now.
  23. [ QUOTE ]
    Silent Sentinel
    203 yds NE from the hospital on the north face of the second building lowest ledge (-606, 71, -1889)

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Is it really too much to ask for accurate directional bearings? This badge isn't northeast, it's east-northeast. That is to say, it's more east than north, only a little north of east. I'm not asking for an exact compass bearing down to minutes and seconds, but it would really help to get people going in the right general direction to begin with.

    north-northeast = more north than east
    northeast = right between north and east
    east-northeast = more east than north

    Please be a little more exact and save us badge-grabbers some time, eh?
  24. [ QUOTE ]
    If you make a map, or texture, or sound or anything else of the like to be used with the game, it is a derivative. Additionally, once the game is loaded into memory, the memory space which the game occupies is part of the "software." Since any new files you put in to be loaded by the game would now be occupying the memory space, you have just altered the software.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Actually, IANAL (though even if I were a lawyer, how could I pass up the chance to type ANAL in all caps like that? ), but what makes the maps derivative works is not that they are meant to be used with the game, but that they're based on game content.Thus, they're every bit as much derivative works as CoH fan art or fan fiction. Spend a few moments on Google to look up a copyright faq and check it out.

    Note that, by the letter of the agreement, fan art and fanfic should technically be verboten (as the 5th Column would say) as well. For that matter, so should screen captures for anything but personal, private use.

    But again, IANAL. (Well, maybe a rules lawyer. )
  25. How about in the next version making it so that it either tells you, "Hey, dude, don't use directory names with spaces in them" or else quotates such names in the bind files? I put my finds in F:\Games\City of Heroes\directoryname and after I loaded reset.txt and hit Control F, it told me I gave bind load too many arguments.

    Also...is there any way to make it keep me in mouse look mode ALL THE TIME, not just when running, except when I specifically toggle off? Sometimes I need to look around while I"m standing still, too. And when I turn mouselook on, then run, when I stop running mouselook gets toggled off again! :/