Sardan

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In a 5 weeks you'll have your "month offline badge"

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Too long. That is the issue. That you disagree is not a....

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Big frickin' deal.

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I think the majority of early complaints on this were indeed from people who thought they'd have to log off for 30 consecutive days. If that was the case, they'd have a legitimate beef. Or if the number was really huge, like 2 years, I could see folks being annoyed. I would object too!

From the time it takes you after character creation, how long does it take to earn Portal Jockey? How about Task Force Commander or Field Crafter? There are many examples of current badges that can't be earned very quickly.

Anyway, you clearly understand how the mechanism works, and you're certainly entitled to express your disagreement but I don't agree with you.

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I don't like the idea of being rewarded for NOT playing the game. 30 days offline to earn these badges is a ridiculous time sink.

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You, and most others complaining about this, are completely missing how this will work. It's cumulative time, measured in seconds. So if you play a character every day for 4 hours a day, you're still racking up 20 hours off offline time PER DAY. So you get 83% credit for a day offline for every calendar day that goes by. How is this so worthy of angst? In 5 weeks you'll have your "month offline badge" for a character you play constantly. Big frickin' deal.

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Leveling Pact: This... sounds pretty interesting. I'm really not sure if I'm excited or wary. Being able to "give" half the XP you earn to another character, be they on- or off-line? Whoa.
I wonder though: If I play a level 50, does my Level Pact partner get zero XP (since 50s don't earn any XP), does my partner get the level 49 XP rates or does my partner get XP according to his own level?

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In a leveling pact, when you start it you're forced to have exactly the same XP as whoever you're in the pact with. So you'll both ding 50 at *exactly* the same time.

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I wonder if sales from the booster packs will expedite the release of I13? if so and if they will have Zig tilesets in the mission creator; I'd feel inclined to purchase the cyborg pack.

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Given how (apparently) close they are to trying to wrap up the feature set in i13, I can't envision them adding anything this late in the process unless they have relationships with contractors that are a) already familiar with their code/tools from previous work and are b) available right now. I mean, if I was a few weeks away from finishing a major project and someone said "hey, we made some money so I can afford to give you a programmer for 3 weeks," I wouldn't know what to do with him that would result in anything nontrivial. That's just not enough time for someone to climb the learning curve and do anything significant.

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It may just be that I deal with Remote Control programs all day at work, but I am not that impressed. You can do the same thing with any Windows Mobile based device, or even VNC from a Linux box. Probably a client for Palm too, VNC is very portable over platforms.

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I'm not very impressed with you being unimpressed. It's not very impressive that you work with Remote programs all day either. But that could just be because I sit on the forums all day long at work and see many worthless post that never needed to be made.

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I'd have to agree the tone of his post left a lot to be desired, but he's making a reasonable point that this isn't inherently some magic iPhone goodness. This can be done with any device that can run VNC (which is a ton) that has decent resolution and connectivity. That said, *I* still think it's pretty nifty.

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What I don't like is that it's up to the discretion of the mods. I don't think anyone would have a problem if all profanity was removed. The problems with some of the rules is that it allows for gray area.

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There will always be a grey area when it comes to any forum moderation. I moderated my company's forums for a few years, and it was often a difficult task since frequently people make a valid point then go on to baaaarely squeak over the line expressing their feelings about something, and they go from disagreeing with a fellow user or company rep to insulting them. And no profanity was involved. So it comes down to using judgement. It doesn't help that the person whose post gets mod'd always has a feeling of righteous indignation at the mod's actions.

I've read a lot of terms of use for various forums over the years, and I don't see anything unreasonable or abnormal in the ones being discussed.

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So when is this power proliferation suppossed to take place? when does it take effect?...

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It's a major part of Issue 12, which isn't even in beta yet, so it's a minimum of a few weeks away.

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I would agree with this. At some point, people are just not going to come back. Their names should be freed up eventually. While a poster above said 15 months should be the cutoff for your name going back to the pool regardless of level, I think that is a bit too soon. I would support sometime over 2 years inactive losing you the right to squat on your level 50's name, and possibly even their space in the database. It may sound harsh, but how many really come back after a 2 year hiatus?

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You'd be surprised. I know I've gone back on "nostalgia trips" to my other MMO's on occasion. A great many people aren't long-term community members, but they like to come back when enough changes have made the game fresh again.

Any game that puts barriers to the returning player cuts off a revenue source. You decide how much you're willing to alienate and weigh it againt the benefits of such a system.

In this case, 6 levels is the balance they came up with... and it appears to have been researched and discussed with considerably more forethought, planning, and access to information, than any of the suggestions offered here.

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That's fine. I'll qualify the position above a little further. If you haven't logged in in 2 years, the chances are very low that you will ever come back. This game gives at least a couple of free pass periods per year to inactive former players to come back and check it out. If you didn't come back during several chances for free just to have a look around at the old stomping grounds, what is the likelihood that you will come back at all? At some point, shouldn't the developers stop acting like the jilted lover and stop carrying the torch?

My defense of the idea of adjusting this policy is not for personal use, at least not right now, since I am approaching half full on my account and have sworn off making alts for the time being to concentrate on the characters that I have. I just tend to see those unused character names as wasteful. I know that not everyone feels that way, but I'd like to clarify my position on this matter. I've only had problems getting names that were fairly obvious, but I would think that a fairly obvious name on an account that hasn't even been touched for free in 2 years should be returned to the pool for others to use, regardless of the level of that character.

I know that there are people like this. Pretty much the entirety of my original SG was like this. They left early in 2005 and have not been back at all for the past 2 years. I still play the character that was in that SG regularly, and haven't heard a peep from any of them. If they were still at all interested in this game and their characters, one would think they would have taken the opportunity to log them on at no cost to themselves at least once.

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Very well said. I proposed the same 2 year cutoff in another post (not having read yours) so needless to say I agree with you. The real thing that motivates me in the case of long dormant accounts is that you just KNOW a lot of the coolest names were snapped up early on. It aggravates me to think they're reserved by folks never coming back.

First, mea culpa that I haven't read this entire thread. But here's my two inf. Ex Libris said:

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The number of names that will be freed up will be substantial, if we need to adjust this policy we can do so as long as we grant 30 days notice. So if it is deemed at a later date that more names need to be made available we can do that.

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This new policy is a step in the right direction. That said, I'd like you to consider adjusting it: in addition to the new 90 day policy, if an account has been inactive over 2 years then ALL its character names regardless of level should be switched to unreserved. While it's common for people to return to the game after an absence of up to a year or so, I think it's perfectly reasonable to unreserve names at the 2 year mark. If you've been gone 2 years, it's highly likely you're not coming back, and if you do you have no right to complain that a name has been unreserved in your prolonged absence, even if it was an uber lvl 50. Just 'cause you got a character to 50 doesn't give you a right to take that name off the table for all eternity if you don't remain a paying customer.

The reason I think this is an important policy is that I'd bet that there were many people that played in the first year after launch that chose classic names, but they've been gone for over 2 years and will never return. Over time, this pool of folks will inevitably grow larger just through natural attrition.

I love the idea of new content. New missions/TFs would be great, but even better would be new tilesets or just new floorplans using existing graphics assets. I'm soooo sick of knowing the exact layouts of mission floorplans.

You know, if you talk with a venture capitalist nowadays who invest in software, what they all get excited about are businesses with user created content. Look at sites like Youtube, Digg, Flixster, heck even Dogster (don't laugh, it's highly profitable!). All of them have a TINY staff because their content is entirely user-created. The appeal is obvious.

But there's no way Cryptic could do a user created content initiative for free, or even on the cheap; at the very minimum they'd need 1-2 FTEs entirely dedicated to managing submissions and overseeing the testing/feedback/approval process. They'd need new software tools built that would allow submissions of complicated collections of data assets via the web, and they'd need to spend money and time creating tools that could be used by motivated modders (forget casual users); I know in my company there is a huge difference between the polish of internal tools vs. tools we release to customers. More money and resources would have to be spent to create a system that allows player submitted content to be moved inexpensively and rapidly to the test server, an automated system created to inform test users of what's new/changed, a method for them to give feedback, etc. etc. Realistically, this type of initiative would have to take place instead of a normal Issue (or two), in terms of total money/time/planning required. It can't just be thrown in on top of everything else. Complicating it is the fact that dev resources would be from Cryptic but the ongoing facilitators would be NCsoft, so now you have two companies that have to buy in on it and pony up the dough.

However, even with all those caveats I'd be all for it! Imagine a game where your Police Scanner missions were wildly diverse because they were player submissions, and where at least one new TF and one major story arc is added every month. Heck, after a while we'd have to have TFs being retired due to the sheer number of them; what a refreshing embarrassment of riches that'd be! Plus it'd add an entirely new aspect of the game for veteran players: make sure to award accolade badges for players who get their submissions to the live servers and you'll have folks knocking themselves out to create good stuff.

Realistically I don't know if Cryptic will ever attempt any of this. It's hard and costly and risky to move from centrally created content to user created content. They have a ton of stuff in the pipeline, so even if they wanted to go full speed on this, it's probably a minimum of 12-18 months out. Still, as Cryptic has shown by releasing their animation rig, they're a very creative bunch who're not afraid to test new ideas.

Ultimately, I think it's just a matter of time before some MMO figures out a slick way to work in user created content, and it'll be a seismic shift because no old-school type of game will be able to keep pace.

I'd hate to see Vengeance turned into an interruptible power, because when you most need it is in the midst of a huge fight that's going bad. It would have the unintended side effect of really gimping a power that's meant to turn the tide of a desperate situation.

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Glad to hear it, Castle.

Now get to nerfing Shivans.

This is all in prep for reworking the LRSF so that it becomes more in line with the difficulty of the STF, right?

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I hope Shivans aren't gutted. They're the only thing that have allowed several of my squishier characters to solo EBs. I'd like to see the LRSF reworked as much as the next guy, but given that some of my favorite characters are on Guardian which is pretty much a ghost town at the unusual hours I sometimes play, I want to continue to be able to rely on my trusty Shivs.

Frankly, if the LRSF was changed I think we'd see a reduction in the number of Shivans/Nukes there simply because so many teams wouldn't feel they were a prerequisite that's necessary to beat the SF. Folks just want to play the game, and I think most folks would gladly skip the prep time if they could. I guess what I'm saying is I'd love to see them change the LRSF and datamine to see if Shivans were a continuing issue before changing them.

The pessimist in me expects that we'll see the worst possible combo: a Shivan nerf with no change to the LRSF. I hope I'm wrong.

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When you do put the new tech in to prevent vengence from stacking can you also redesign the LRSF on the villian side so any half way decent combination of villian archtypes can do it instead of relying on shivans + nukes + vengence stacking.

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/Signed.

I admit I haven't read all 5 jillion messages in this thread, but here's a bona-fide costume bug that needs fixing: I have two characters with shoulder capes. On both of them, when I zone, there seems to be a random chance that the cape will be incorrectly rendered as a short normal cape rather than a shoulder cape. Zoning again usually solves the problem.

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It's the nature of the internet, unfortunately. Anonymity + audience ... well, you know the rest.

There's just something about the 'net that makes people quick to abandon reason and common sense, and to take things a lot more personally than they really should if it means they can argue and complain more.

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Agreed. Oh, and compounding the problem is that most of the folks doing the complaining and have never been responsible for a large scale project. Once you have to build something yourself, you start learning about the challenges of limited resources, schedules, QA, trying to balance the needs of existing customers with the desire to expand the user base, the "fun" of getting a huge and complex piece of software to do new tricks it was never architected for, etc., etc. It's a tough job, and the devs show a remarkable amount of self-control in their posts to these boards.

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Seriously, would making it so that you could only use Shivans, Nukes and Mechs in the PvP zones ruin your PvE game?

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Ruin it? No, certainly not. But I must say that Shivans have made my PvE life *MUCH* more enjoyable. I play at odd hours sometimes, and I do things like leave my character in a mission while I go AFK for an extended period of time. In that situation I must solo, since I'd never be that rude to a team.

I don't use Shivans constantly, but they come in extremely handy for Elite Bosses. Many folks get annoyed at the bragging of soloing AVs, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that not all of us are running min-max'd characters that can solo EB's easily, forget about AVs! For some of my characters, having a Shivan means the difference between being able to take down an EB vs. lots of debt.

I can't speak to nukes since I never get them, but I sincerely hope they don't alter Shivans.

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Rise From the Grave!!

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He necroposted. The original question was from August '04.

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Other really excellent ideas have been offered that would have been easy to create, but have also been ignored.

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I would not presume that any of our ideas are "easy". One thing I've learned from being a coder, most of the time you can't really tell how difficult something is until you know the legacy code.

I would not assume the devs are ignoring us. This is all a complex cost/benefit analysis. Remember, most of the game is not bases, so significant effort put into bases is benefiting a minority of the game. For example, if the choice comes down to adding some features to bases or making missions more dynamic, I'd choose the mission upgrades without question.

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Bolded by me. Most of the game may not be bases but Mr. Emmert did say that they spent more time on developing bases than on any other feature of the game.

Where does cost/benefit fit into that equation?

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I don't fault them for this. Sometimes as a software developer you have to be willing to step out and take a risk to do something that'll really set you apart. It seems they hoped that bases would become something very noteworthy and unusual in CoX. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The big question now is should they a) chalk it up as a failure and devote resources in safer ways to make the game better, or b) risk throwing good money after bad and spend more time enhancing bases further. Very difficult decision.

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As for bases (this is for anyone reading this post) in the main SG I belong to there is one "base monkey" to build and decorate and he's done a damned good job of it. However, I have no input.

We're told not to create certain things at the worktables because they don't need it or whatever. Or told to create certain things that they do need. I still have no clue how worktables work since I don't have the freedom to just play around with them.

We're discouraged from adding personal items. I think because only the owner can delete them. I may be wrong there, but that's the impression I got. The leaders don't want a bunch of crap all over, and I can't blame them, because they can't get rid of it. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to place something only to have a leader delete it.

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A point well made. Jack's comparison of bases to costumes is wildly off because I control my costume. I help pay for my base, yet none of it is my creation.

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Bases mean nothing to me. Going there instead of the ER means I have to rest or wait for my HP and End. to fill up. If I want to buy inspirations all they sell is the lowest tier heal and end. isnpirations. I can get those from contacts and have more selection.

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Yup. A complete and utter "swing and a miss" in the value-add department. I actually get penalized for using my base as a place to rez or buy insps.

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I can never keep track of which teleporters go where and always have to click on them to see which is which, so it's just easier to go where I'm going the way I always have before bases came in.

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Good lord this drives me INSANE. PLEASE, how hard would it be to label the teleporters?! This is another negative. If I take the the CoV ferry, I get a clear list of all destinations. Using the base TP function, I blunder from pad to pad looking for the right one. Poor implementation that could be fixed fairly easily, IMO.

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CoP isn't working, so no IoPs or raiding.

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And that's a big deal. IoPs would at least give me some direct benefit as an individual.

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Other than meeting there before teaming up, what purpose do bases serve me? None, really. I lived without them before they came in, I can live without them if they took them out.

Personally, I'd have had more enjoyment from an apartment. Maybe no one could enter it and see it, but at least *I* built and decorated it. That's more than I'm getting from bases at the moment, and it's sad, considering how much work, and time, the devs put into them.

Edited to add, and if there were no bases, I'd have a hell of a lot more infamy on my villain than I do atm. That's another thing I dislike about bases, the exchange rate of inf/prestige, and getting no inf. at all after a certain level. That's not any way to get me to like bases.

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That's one of my biggest gripes. In terms of game mechanics, a fundamental principal of CoX is that you start off with very few resources,and as you level up you are able to purchase more; more powers, more slots, better enhancements, costumes, capes, auras. You're rewarded for progressing through the game. Infamy generation in SG mode is the only example I can think of in the game that works completely counter to everything else. As I level up I get less and less infamy, which now pits my personal needs against the needs of my SG. This sucks. For me right now it's a no-brainer because the base provides me with exactly zero benefits. The devs should eliminate the entire mechanism of declining inf generation.

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“What happened was players hated it. It’s the most underused facet of the game. It received almost no coverage in the press. And there’s nothing like it in any other MMP.” Emmert’s hypothesis is that “people don’t like contributing money to a group to express individuality. ... At its heart, these MMPs are individual game experiences in front of a computer terminal.”

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What about individual apartments? That'd be personal. Or even individual player rooms in your SG base, that only YOU can decorate.

Also, if you want people to contribute to the group, don't make that contribution suck away something your character needs, like Influence.

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Bingo. Jack's comments are an example of a common syndrome I see among software developers (myself included); they confuse a lukewarm reception of a poor implementation with rejection of the underlying concept. The *concept* of customizable lairs is totally cool, but the implementation thus far has been flawed.

I have many alts and they all belong to SGs, but none of them are SG leaders, so my total experience with the base building tools is roughly zero. How can Jack expect the entire player population to be excited about the base building tools when only 5% (my guess) of the population ever gets to use them?

I also completely dislike the way that the prestige vs. inf tradeoff has been implemented. I understand that Jack didn't want prestige generation to be like inf; if it was, then lowbies wouldn't be able to get into elite SGs, since that would actually hurt the SG's ability to generate inf. But if you just have prestige generated on a flat scale regardless of level, then problem solved. But the current system with declining inf generation means that for over half my character's career (in terms of hours played), I am not contributing to my SG. A bad design choice, IMO; I don't see what benefit it brings in terms of game mechanics. Scarcity is an important concept; it's the reason we level up characters: to get MORE inf, MORE powers, MORE slots. The notion of leveling up and essentially going backwards (as inf generation in SG mode does now) is nonsensical.

And while using base teleporters is occasionally beneficial in CoV (I can see how they'd have more value in CoH), there's nothing really amazing about bases right now in terms of non-leader benefits. I think if they really do a great job with Items of Power, that might start to turn the tide, to make non-leaders really start to care about bases. I'm not talking about the TFs needed to get the IoPs (although that sounds fun) nor the PvP that's apparently required to keep them (not sure how I feel about that); no, just the fact that having SOMETHING in your base that's providing the members of the SG a direct benefit, even a minor buff, is a step in the right direction. Or, how about this one: give me the ability to teleport INTO my base from anywhere, it can be a Pocket D type long interruptible animation. That would be a significant improvement over any other type of travel and result in very enthusiastic usage by all.

I know the devs don't want to sink more time and effort into a personal lair system. But I for one would totally dig it if they just give me a small non-raidable plot, the same base-building tools and let me build a place to hang out for free. Heck, charge me inf rather than prestige for items I put in there (but please no rent, thank you). Let me put in personal storage lockers where I can put SOs, insps, and inf. (No, I'm not a fan of the storage in SG bases; one of the SGs to which I belong had their enhancement storage cleared out by a couple of folks that then quit the SG). Let me put in a trophy case that would simply display my badges! Let me put in "costume mannequins" that show all of my characters costumes. People spend big bucks on costumes, I know that'd be popular. And the trophy case and costume dummies wouldn't take a big investment in new artwork.

I think with some willingness to look at this with fresh eyes, bases could be much more exciting to players, both in an SG/combat sense and in a personal lair sense.

Overall Kinetics rocks, and I would be fine with no changes. That said, if I was king for a day, I'd make the duration of Increase Density equal that of Speed Boost, and I'd make Repel into a true repel power rather than knockdown. Per the suggestion above, I would love to see Inertial Reduction give knockdown/knockback resistance. I would love to see these changes, but not at the cost of any nerfs to offset the new goodness, however.

The problem with Transfusion/Transference/Fulcrum Shift not working if the target dies is well known. The devs have acknowledged it's a problem with the game engine, but apparently it's a design shortcoming, not a simple bug fix. So while this would be FAR AND AWAY my biggest desire to see fixed, I'm not holding my breath. My guess is it won't ever change, sadly.

AB had the disorient removed ages ago. Serious necroposting.

Trekain, your contact guide is AWESOME. But a correction: you list the Bad Luck badge as being awarded in Hard Luck's "Get the Unlucky Artifact" mish, but it's actually awarded via Hard Luck's "Steal Artifact from Tavaris" mish.

I haven't read the plaques in question, but I assume you're referring to lorem ipsum?

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Just a curious question, let's say I completed this Recluse SF at 6pm on the 20th and received my Recluse reward, then decided I wanted to do another just to get my hands on a 2nd quick HO since I loved the first so much. Can I start my next Relcuse SF at 8pm the 20th but wait to finish it up the last mission at 6:09 pm on the 21st to insure that I get my HO? or do I have to wait 24 hours before even starting the next Recluse SF to insure my reward?

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I wondered the same thing. Given my schedule, it'll be extremely unusual for me to even have a big enough block of time to even attempt to tackle this SF, but given a rare vacation day I might want to do it twice. It'd be good to know what the exact rules are.
And there really ought to be some type of in-game indication of when you're in the "prohibited zone." I'd be furious if I invested 3-4 (or more) hours then didn't get my SHO. Oh, and while I'm putting together a wish-list, consider me /signed for getting to pick the SHO rather than getting a random drop.

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I don't think all you people actually know how difficult this SF really is. You're going to have people failing more often then passing. Consider how often a Hami raid fails compared to this. Then consider if you need help in a Hami raid you can always bring more people. You're stuck with your 8 person team in this SF. If you didn't bring what is needed you're out of luck.

The only reason my team walked through this so easily is because we have almost the perfect setup played by highly skilled players coordinating our efforts almost perfectly. And we still had a hard time. I really doubt that most teams will be that good; let alone bring the right powersets.

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Also, you were all coordinating verbally, right? Via Ventrillo or Teamspeak? Seems like having a PuG attempt this will be even that much harder voice-less.