Sardan

The reason this works is that macros that chain together multiple commands execute the commands in sequence in right to left order but as soon as one successfully executes it stops. I use this technique for toggle-heavy characters. You bind a whole bunch of toggleon commands to a single key. You then start tapping that key repeatedly. It turns on your toggles starting with the rightmost one in the list because once that's on it'll skip it the next time you tap the key. Soooo handy.

EDIT: Interestingly it doesn't follow the same logic with toggleoff commands. Just tapping my toggle off key turns all my toggles off with one key tap.

Hey, works for me as long as he makes the trains run on time.

I find it reprehensible that you keep a pile of body parts stockpiled just so that you can throw them confetti-like into the air to celebrate. What are you, some kind of Vahz operative? Sick.

I had the same reaction when I first saw the concept art for Praetorea in the theatrical trailer (at the 1 minute mark). If the actual zone ends up looking like the art in that trailer, Paragon City will look like a slum in comparison.

It was interesting to listen to the audio of the devs when they were in character as Praetorean citizens at Herocon. They made the point that there are LOTS of admirable aspects of Praetorea, and that Cole's mistrust/fear of Primal Earth is quite justifiable. His world has no dodgy nuke states like North Korea or Pakistan.

I really love when bad guys do what they do out of what they perceive as good motives rather than just being total nutjobs. I don't know how many of you read the web comic Girl Genius (I know Castle does!), but one of the great characters in there is the fascistic ruler of Europe, who is very much like Cole in that he is ruthless because he believes it's necessary for the greater good.

Oh. Heh.

This guy is just the right level of demented. Cracks me up every time.

Haha, yeah, that's why now I always put in disclaimers whenever I bring up the survey and Universal Enhancement Slots. That was my post BaBs was responding to and quoting there.

Moving hair would be good. But wouldn't moving hair be more complex than a moving cape, if it were to look at all realistic? Yes, it's smaller but presumably it'd have a lot of flex points. And here's what BaBs posted on adding capes:

So either it's way simpler and less taxing on the graphic system to implement moving hair than I'm supposing, or expecting moving hair is unrealistic.

I expect you're going to be 100% disappointed. In the Q&A part of one of the Herocon panel discussions, the devs were very specifically asked about a Shard revamp. The devs made it very clear in the Herocon panel discussion that since it's almost as much work to completely revamp an old zone as to create a new one, they'd much rather create a new one. It's a little frustrating that they seem to never discuss things like shortening the Shard TFs without embedding that in the context of completely redoing the whole zone. What they seem to have firmly in their minds is that either the Shard remains completely untouched or gets a Faultline-like revamp. Nothing in between.

So unless War Witch takes things in a very new direction (and given that they've been working GR for over a year it'd have a disastrous schedule impact to do a 90 degree turn), I don't expect any changes to the Shard at all for GR.

I'll be happy if the new end game is so incredibly fun and, yes, time consuming that it makes us agonize over how we're going to run all our 50s through it all. To me, that's the very definition of "win". It took me 5 years to get all these 50s. If it takes me more years to get them all maxed out and the process is just as fun and rewarding as it was getting to 50, then that's a great "problem" to be burdened with!

First, let me say I know that ultimately debating about an end game that we literally know nothing about is pointless. But hey, it's entertaining so here I go!

The traditional definition of level 50 content in this game is "stuff that any level 50 can do". We know that anything an IO'd team can do, an SO'd team of competent players can also do. Set bonuses or elite purple IOs are not required.

But given that Positron specifically said at Comicon that a key part of GR will be a way to make 50s more powerful, I think that will necessarily create an entirely new class of content. Here's why:

We know from the old '08 marketing survey that Universal Enhancement Slots were summarized as a way to give your character the equivalent strength/effectiveness of a hypothetical level 60, but without raising the level cap. Now August '08 was a long time ago, and they may have a completely different mechanism in mind for GR, but the key part is to realize the design philosophy behind using a phrase like "hypothetical level 60." That means they intend for the new mechanism to convey seriously meaningful buffs, not trivial buffs that would be impossible for a player to notice in action.

That leads inescapably to the idea of there being new, harder, content that is aimed squarely at players climbing the UES slotting ladder, plus new end game content specifically designed for fully "leveled up" characters.

We don't expect level 40 characters to be able to do anything a level 50 can do. If there is truly meaningful character empowerment/progression as part of GR, I wouldn't expect someone who hasn't begun that process to be able to do the same tasks a fully geared up character could. To put it another way, if GR moved the level cap to 60, people wouldn't say stuff like "I shouldn't be required to level up to 60. My existing 50s should be able to tackle all the new content." Well, GR is adding a new way to progress characters, albeit without bumping the level cap.

But before people doomcry, having a new harder level of content doesn't automatically turn the COH endgame into a WOW-clone. In CoH you can earn the finest loot from soloing, either directly or with merits or purchased from the market. I would expect that this philosophy will be part of COHs new end game too. Yes there will surely be TFs and probably raids, but it would be shocking to me if pure solo characters couldn't get the same rewards by merits or the market. Posi knows the concept of large scale raids as a mandatory means of character progression is antithetical to CoH's gameplay. There's no way he'll design a system where a soloer or small team can't get to the new cap, however that's ultimately defined.

EDIT:
What would be in keeping with current COH design philosophy is if there's an "easy mode" way to slot up the UES's that's equivalent to SOs. That'd be the bare minimum you'd need to tackle all the new end game content. Then there'd be the next level that was nicer but not hugely so, equivalent to getting IO set bonuses. Then finally there will be an elite level of slotting that only the most hardcore players bother to go after, equivalent to purples. That'd put you at the top of the pyramid of character effectiveness but there wouldn't be any content designed to require this level of uber gear.

Sure, any TF is interesting the first time because it's novel. Which is completely beside the point I was making. There are some TFs that players enjoy 100x more than others. My hope was that the devs are studying that to really understand why, and use those lessons in crafting new TFs. They shouldn't be aiming at new TFs that are interesting but not worth repeating; they should be aiming for replayability.

One factor for me, besides avoiding the boredom of "the big bag o' hit points" is time. Part of what makes the LGTF and ITF so fun is that they can be done in under 2 hours by the average team. The ITF is clearly only part of a larger story. I'd love it if they came out with a sequel roughly the same size that advanced the story. That way you could go through an epic story in bite-sized chunks.

AMEN! I really hope they have long meetings and talk through why people flock to some TFs and avoid others. The game had a great track record with newly added TFs until it came to Kahn.

Holy crap, you've gotta do it. BEST. CONTACT. EVER. Just make sure to not let a team rush you. Every interaction with TV gives you a wall of text, but honestly it's well worth reading.

Oh, and gratz on your new position, Television!

Ah that's a tidbit I'd been missing. I knew that Paragon Studios has been steadily ramping up staff and I assumed that they were at or above the staff level that created COV.

Heh, my favorite brute is named Mister Smashtastic

*sputter*

Fire without Blaze?

No.

Ever seen this video before? When I read the interview, I pictured that video, but with Steve Balmer shouting "Content, content, content, content!" instead.