Samuel_Tow

Well, no, but that's cheating a bit since each animal head is its own separate category. They don't really have "options" beyond that. We also don't have mechanical hoods, come to think of it, and now I'm thinking that might not be a bad idea.

Still, I think mechanical tails are about as long time coming as non-mechanical arms for Robotic Arms. Seriously, what do I have to do to get Foreshadows arms?

This is my belief, as well. It's utterly shocking to me how almost no game I can think of has anything even remotely close to the diversity we enjoy here. I've played a LOT of F2P MMOs out there since those became a thing, and it always catches me by surprise when I go to make a character and realise there really are only five characters in that game. Oh, sure, there are five "classes," but there are no further choices in that class beyond... Well, class. A warrior is a warrior is a warrior. You can sometimes pick different weapons to fight with, but this rarely makes a difference, and some games (say, Tera) actually limit a "class" to using only one type of weapon.

Here, I play all of four "classes" - Scrappers, Stalkers, Brutes and Masterminds. I've repeated a character point-for-point only once so far (I have two SS/Inv Brutes), but beyond that, I have easily 60 characters from those four classes and none of those have the same powers or the same build. It just seems to me that breaking a class into two or three subsections and then giving a handful of options per subsection leads to a lot of variety without having to make a lot of classes, yet so few games actually do that.

Slight Incarnate spoilers incoming, so read at your own initiative:

Ascenants are beings who have transformed into essentially Wells themselves, but unlike the Well of the Furies can actually use their own power without having to work through agents. These are creatures with essentially no cap to their power, who don't answer to destiny or the laws of physics, that sort of thing. It's essentially someone who has transcended the well and found a source of infinite power within himself. And it's what Incarnates should always have been.

This solves the horrible mess of a plot that is the Well of the Furies in pretty much all aspects. We're no longer forced to ally ourselves and seek the favour of a clearly malevolent, controlling, scheming entity, so we're not "servants" any more. We're not painted as stealing someone else's power and thus changing the origin of all our characters' powers to the same thing, since now it's our own infinite potential that's at play. And finally, the story FINALLY turns around to be about us, rather than we just being swap-names in someone else's story *coughdarrinwadecough* Sorry, my throat's kind of dry.

Basically, not only do I LOVE the concept of Ascendants, but knowing that this is where the Well of the Furies storyline is going makes me like that, too. This is a double victory since it introduces a great story and turns around a crappy one to where it's pretty good, too. This is an author's saving throw if ever I've seen one, and it's actually quite impressive.

Now we just have to actually see it play out, as opposed to just hearing about it, but hey - the idea alone is worth it.

This kind of line of thinking bothers me, since it suggests a level of character power I frankly don't see in anything short of a Mastermind on a good day. Most of what I fight is minions and lieutenants and plenty of my characters have trouble with those. What kind of power level are we shooting for here, exactly?

Do you realise that, as of right now, tails are the ONLY costume category that we don't have mechanical options for? We have mechanical hats, mechanical hairs, mechanical arms and legs, mechanical heads, but all our tails are animal. Can we please have one that's robotic, too?

Your definitions of "Incarnated" seem a bit demanding. By that definition, I have not a single one, despite having I think three or four characters with something in their Alpha slot.

Moreover, I really, REALLY hope we don't go down the traditional MMO path of end game power creep, where all the new stuff shows up on top of the old stuff where you have to have the old stuff to even participate and where you can only participate in the new stuff and nothing else if you want to make progress. This is a game that the development team can never win.

I really, REALLY liked CoH's old "end game," where new "end game" content just showed up as more stuff for level 50s to do without necessarily stringing them along a never-ending but rather very linear path. I didn't have to have defeated the Hamidon in order to run the Statesman TF, nor did I have to have beaten Terra to attempt the Hamidon. We were given choice in what to do and pretty much anyone who was over 45 could participate in all of it and contribute meaningfully.

The last thing I want to see is a constantly sliding fake level cap, basically.

I'd extend this to Ice, Earth, Spines, Bio Armour and Storm, actually.

It's kind of the perfect storm of circumstances, really. It has the "edge" of First Ward but the closure of ye olde content. It has the fleshed-out characters of newer storytelling, but without the annoying quirks. It's an ostensibly dark story that still manages to stay positive for the most part. I can't really fault it on any fundamental level. I can pick minor complaints, sure, but those aren't important, plus I can do that with everything.

The funny thing is I don't actually mind most of the REALLY old stuff. I find that what the writers have reached recently is pretty much the perfect balance between the old and the new. I actually tried playing through First Ward with Nuclear Toast the other day, and the result is my head got overloaded. There's something to read and something to respond to nearly all the time in that zone, so I was trying to pay attention to the story AND banter with NT and the result is I got a headache. Contrast this with, say, Dark Astoria, which has both a pretty good story with a lot to read AND a lot of uninterrupted action.

Additionally, I'm also rarely affected by mediocre content. If it's just "eh," I don't really care one way or the other. It's when it's really good or REALLY bad that I have to stop and try to figure out WHY this is like that. I know you're referring to the older zones and contacts, but they're more or less mediocre, with some good stories if you know where to look. I can't muster up the will to rage about them, and there's really not much that's remarkable about their stories. Most of what REALLY bugs me is fairly new, roughly I17-I18 in age.

Of course not. But there are still positive ways to deal with this, essentially coming down to explaining that, despite what the trailer says, this isn't a true F2P game but a hybrid one that ought to still be treated like a subscription game. Give people the relevant information and then simply ask them to make a choice if this is a game they want to stick with. I've said it before under these circumstances - leaving the game is not something that should be shameful and not something that needs to be justified. If people want to leave, then the best we can realistically do is see them off. Sure, if someone's being aggressive and going with a "This game sucks!" attitude, let 'em leave.

My point, however, is that we need to be VERY careful about who we smite. For as good as our community is, we're also far too quick to lash out at people with legitimate complaints just because we don't have them. Remember the whole "performance boosters" debacle? Yeah, almost instantly we resorted to the "If you have a problem with this, there's something wrong with your head." argument against people who did nothing more than try to explain why it was they had a problem in the first place. We have a tendency to dismiss people's problems we don't have and then blame people for having those problems in the first place. Sucks to be you. If only you played the game my way and enjoyed what I enjoy, you wouldn't have a problem!

I don't know why the marketing side of this game attracts the bulk of these arguments, but it's pretty much a fact at this point that whenever someone rises a complaint on a marketing subject, that person will be demonised and the problem blamed back on him. We don't need to do this. A lot of the time the problem is with the game's marketing strategy itself, but even when it isn't, telling someone he's not welcome really helps no-one. Again, someone feeling he should be getting more for free isn't somehow insulting the game or being childish or selfish or arrogant. That's the value he puts on his money and on the game itself. That's fine - City of Heroes isn't good value for time and money for this person. It can't be for everyone. Simply let that person leave. He wasn't going to stay around anyway, and browbeating him on the way out makes him hate the game AND the community.

I'm already there. Aside from Incarnates (be still my beating heart) and maybe the Architect, there's really nothing that my VIP subscription earns me but discounts. I don't have to pay for certain things, I get Paragon Points as a stipend, which is effectively a discount on future purchases, I get free stuff from my Paragon Rewards programme, but really... What do I get as a VIP that's not just the ability to pay less? What, that I couldn't purchase as a Premium player, just for more money?

I bring this up when it comes to clear money-syphoning schemes like Super Packs and Performance Boosters. Zwillinger himself said that consumables weren't selling well and Marketing were looking for a way to get us to buy more of them. Here's my problem - why are they even trying to get "us" to buy consumables? "We" are VIP subscribers that already pay for a consumable every month. That's what the VIP subscription is. Why are marketing schemes repeatedly targeted at VIP players? Why is Marketing continuously trying to squeeze more money out of VIP players?

Again, it's not the money that bothers me here. I can afford it. It's the attitude and the treatment which I find insufficiently good. As a VIP subscriber, I would pay to circumvent the random lottery that is the Super Packs in much the same way as I'd pay to disable ads on a site. I would pay money to be treated as an actual VIP, rather than the target of marketing spam. I would pay money to be excluded from all drives to sell me things I don't really need. To me, better treatment and the ability to skip the annoying crap Marketing comes up with to trick people out of their money is what a VIP subscription should be all about.

I can afford the expenses, but what AM I getting as a VIP that can't be described as "the ability to spend less money?" Because I'd actually like to spend more money if that would get Marketing out of my hair for good.

*edit*
Funny thing is, I'm one of those people who mocked Paragon Studios/NCNC/Cryptic Studios Marketing for sitting on their hands and doing nothing to promote the game. However, when I said that, I didn't mean that they should promote the game TO ME. I've already bought it. I own City of Heroes, City of Villains, Going Rogue, the DVD Collectors' Edition (thanks, NT!) and almost every Booster Pack that came put. I've bought the game and I'm subscribing to it. What more do you want from me? Why not go bug potential new customers and get THEM to buy it instead of trying to get even more money out of me?

I don't know what strip clubs you go to that have tentacle people, but I would like to find out.

They ARE big fat skin-coloured boots. "Bare feet" are just one texture option for Flat Boots

Here's the funny thing - we already have a perfectly serviceable bare foot model in this game - Zombie Feet. Ignore the missing chunks of flesh on the calves for a moment, those don't have to be there, and just look at the shape of the actual feet below the ankle. They're perfect bare feet. All we need to them is actual human skin that matches to bare upper legs and we're golden. We've had those for so many years, but we could never really use them because the Zombie skin texture just doesn't fit with anything but a zombie, or maybe a wrinkled old person.

We also have at least two other boot types that look pretty much like bare feet with socks on them - ExoProto and Stealth. Seriously, check them out. They look like skintight socks and you can even see the ankle bones through them. Those, too, would make for good bare feet with just a texture swap.

Requests for better bare feet are hardly unjustified and doing that should hardly be a huge investment.

Um... We already have webbed hands and webbed feet. I'd love to have hands and feet that WEREN'T

That doesn't really address the suggestion, though, which is to add the two smaller Titans that make up the Zeus as enemies in the Malta Group. They'd literally be large silver Hercules Titans, and I'm just fine with that. Tag them as elite bosses and have them show up from time to time.

Quite possibly. I don't have a very good view of comic books, but the characters I do know seem to have names that, while descriptive, aren't exactly metaphors for their direct powers. Superman, for instance, is pretty generic but he's old so we can skip that one. Batman, similarly, has the theme of a bat, but not the powers of a bat. Marvel's Cyclops has a name which refers to his eyes, not necessarily to his powers. Wolverine, similarly, has the fighting style of a wolverine but not necessarily the powers of one. Gambit's name has nothing at all to do with his powers, which are "make things explode, nor do Rogue's powers have much to do with her name. We have Bishop - a mutant able to absorb and redirect energy, who's named after a religious rank. We have Shard, who I don't even know what her powers are.

Sure, we have people like Spider-Man who has the powers of a spider, Magneto who has the powers of magnetism, Storm who has control over storms and so forth. But for every Cyborg and Beastboy we have a Raven and Robin, is what I'm saying. It's why I don't have a good idea of how common the names are. Are they more common in this game?

That's not entirely true. We had many discussions about the limiting nature of the Free Trial when that became limited in the first place, and I was of the same opinion then - I get why Trial players have to see a limited version of the game both to sell it to them and to prevent them from being disruptive, but I still considered it bad taste to treat them like pests. The bottom line is you don't entice people to subscribe to a game by treating them badly and saying "If you pay, I'll stop abusing you!" I mean you could, but I don't imagine it'd work very often. I've paid much more for ostensibly free games that have the approach of "That's awesome, isn't it? You can have even more if you pay!"

My point is you need to let a Free player have fun in the game for free in order to convince him that this game is worth sticking around in. Because it's fun. We, as the community, don't control pricing or development priorities, obviously, but the least we can do is lash out at people unsatisfied with the pricing model less. If I never see another poster talk about "entitlement" and "spoiled brats" again, I will be very happy.