Rubberlad

Oy! Respect his authoritay!

Correct. It's a police box - not the TARDIS.

Zwill confirmed that personally for me on the very first day I23 hit beta. But its definitely cool to think they're inspired by the TARDIS.

That said, I know some folks associated with the official Doctor Who franchise (we've connected over the years through various writing opportunities) and they say that although showrunner Steven Moffattis not personally aware of their inclusion in game, its very likely he'd appreciate the clever wink. So I think its fine...

Besides, its been done before (and more blatantly) in Fallout 2...

EDIT: The background images *WERE* fixed/properly resized on my phone with both heads in full view for a split second and then reverted back to the headless version. The forum itself resizes just fine, and the old Statesman/clockwork image always worked fine. Not sure why this background is having issues.

Ditto. The heads are cut off when I view the page on my Droid Galaxy S II.

I can wait, although I was really looking forward to it for next Tuesday.

...which is why you automate the process per regional server so *everyone* gets the same 24hr window of opportunity regardless of country or timezone. We are dealing with IT engineers here, so this shouldn't be rocket science...

Wait, why am I arguing with a squirrel?

Two things:

1) Automate the scheduling process, don't manually operate it.
2) Its advertised as Freebie Friday - not Freebie Friday on Thursday Nights and Friday Morning Coffee Break. People expect the event to be available as advertised. Its not the customer's fault if the advertised timeline doesn't match the actual timeframe.

If they can't manage their own marketing promo, then don't bother doing it.

Ah! That explains it. I logged in a little after 9pm EDT Friday so they must've taken it down already. I'm not able to play during the week due to a hefty workday/commute so the earliest I can get on is Friday nights (and I'm guessing its always gonna be right after they take it down).

There go all my Freebie Fridays! Oh well, I'll live.



... just out of curiosity, what was the freebie this week?

Funny you mention Praetoria because both it and the Rogue Isles have the same discouraging flaws that blue side completely lacks:

1) They both contain a closed-environment system with a singular story to tell (dictator rises to power; player fights to keep dictator in check or possibly overthrow)
2) They both are centered around an exclusive, one-man dictatorship.

Once you overthrow the dictator, the stories for those worlds are over. No reason to go back unless you want to relive the glory of overthrowing the dictator again (via alt or Ouroborous).

As a result, red/gold side gameplay ends when the dictator is overthrown - and the players move on to blue side. Granted, red side is BIGGER and has a more diverse choice of enemies to fight (albeit they're all villains already available on blue side which is a significant design mistake - cause why are you going to fight the same villains in a depressing, slummy environment when you can engage them in a cheery, more upscale, bright and modern setting?).

Praetoria is a dystopean society but design-wise it might as well be a zone in Paragon City. And when the player realizes that, coupled with the fact that Praetoria requires them to make a hard decision at lvl 20 (ie, hero or villain") then what's the point of playing in Praetoria at all if you're only going to be there for only 20 levels?




Blue side works differently:

1) It's an open-environment system with no mainstream story arc
2) There is no one exclusive enemy figure/one-man dictatorship to fight against

As a result, blue side gameplay is a completely open-ended story that the player makes up as they go along - and they never have to leave or end it. Fight Crey, fight Hellions, fight the Cabal, fight whoever you want - its entirely up to you. There's no "one" overarcing story, and society teaches us that heroes *always* have a role to play -- so why should we believe there's an end to the blue side storyline? Villains however always end up in jail... Or do they?! As for the oppressed - well, they are always looking to escape from their oppressor... Or are they?!

Regardless of whether one believes in heroes or villains, the fact remains that only one of these three systems employs open-ended gameplay that keeps the story going forever and that's blue side - which is why blue side is still so very popular with the player base. If the Devs want to reinvigorate the gameplay experience in the Rogue Isles and Praetoria, then they need to topple the current one-man dicatorships that exist (which they're doing) and avoid introducing future one-man dictatorships because they're muting/interfering with the player's personal story as it continually unfolds in CoH.




Me personally, I'd rather see open-environments for all three worlds (Paragon City, Praetoria and the Rogue Isles) with tons of unique, side exclusive enemy groups for the player to engage -- but with certain caveats:

1) Blue side is for PvE/Team XP bonuses with blue side-exclusive drops/craftable items
2) Red side is for PvE/Team Inf bonuses with red side-exclusive drops/craftable items
3) Gold side becomes an open-world PvPvE realm with Team merit/prestige bonuses and gold side-exclusive drops/craftable items

These realms should complement each other and provide an exclusive gameplay experience rather than overlap each other and provide the same or lesser gameplay experience as they do now (which is another reason why most folks always play/stay on blue side; there is absolutely no incentive to go play in those other worlds for achievements and rewards that you can't already get on blue side).



But I digress... Red side rules!

You say that and then I point to chain mail, leather armor and post apocalyptic costume sets that are coming inbound. People love those games and they want to play them and have those amoral experiences HERE.

The other thing to keep in mind is that morality plays work the same in any genre. And Darth Vader should be a singing testament that mainstream audiences can and do love the bad guys.

At this point, I don't think Jack Emmert and Zeb Cook were thinking outside the box when they helped conceptualize the Rogue Isles. There's still time and ways to improve the design for cheap and attract more players (both current and new) to red side - and CoH:F but it does require thinking outside the box...

I don't say that as an insult to the devs who used to work on CoV from conceptual development to final implementation but as a challenge to War Witch and the current team of Devs to be innovative and flip red side in such a way that this old hideout looks new again.

That's sooooo not true. Games like Skyrim, Fallout and more reward the player that's willing to explore their virtual dark side - IF there's good incentive to do so. Red side will definitely draw more players if the reward mechanics become exclusive/more enriching.

I always maintained that red side fails because the design was based on blue side morality (ie. crime doesn't pay). When red side starts rewarding players for being villainous, the whole "players prefer the heroic moral code" will go right out the window. Otherwise its still just a slummy blue side crime-fighting zone (like KR and Skyway) that's not worth exploring.

Understood, and that's very fair. Thank you for considering it.

But again, vBulletin allows for multiple/alternate forum skins. You, as the admin, can choose Option #1 as the default skin but it'd be reaaaaaaaaaaally nice to have Option #2 available as an alternate. My vBulletin site has 4 customized skins to choose from (some folks like text against light background, others like text against a dark background).

Definitely something you guys should think about down the road (ie a hero skin, a villain skin and then a "Current Issue" skin that you can rotate out).