Schismatrix

No problem. i happened to be passing by, saw the question, and thought "Hey, i actually know the answer to this one."

When i saw the thread title i initially was thinking that the forums smelled bad.
My mistake.

As an apology here's a one-liner with a smiley:
You're either a hero or a soulless robot monster that is going to hell

Yes. And yes.

*cough*

Pretty much this.
About the only pvp i see anymore is in RV or the arena, and even that has become rare. Champion still has groups actively promoting pvp and offering training for newbies, but it's one of the few places i see this. Even then it's fairly hard to find people in any zones unless an event or concerted effort to recruit people through channels is going on. Outside of those efforts i rarely see any pvp chatter aside from groups of friends farming for pvp IOs in the arena.

Never a serious a pvper i used to enjoy bouncing around the zones on one of my admittedly less than optimal Defenders or my PB. Well, i guess my PB is still somewhat fun, but only really in comparison. Arcanaville posted a month or two back about changes to the system that she thinks would improve the pvp experience, but while they sound good in theory i've little reason to think we'll see anything happen. Still, i hope one day the Devs at least consider updating things.

It could happen. (Even if it probably won't.)

i've had good luck with going into the appropriate server forum and asking. So far it's worked every single time.

Hells yeah! Now that would be an issue to hype.

The thing is that beyond conditions of very high server load in specific areas (mothership raids and some ITF missions being an obvious examples) or when the server is near peak capacity, i personally see little effect from server load. Your first, and many subsequent posts, certainly spent far more time going on about server load than anything to do with your specific system. What i and several others were trying to point out is that your assertions about how server status/load and population correspond were somewhat, erm, inaccurate. (i'm trying to characterize your posts in the best possible light, please play along.)

Now i'm not going to say that boomboxes have no effect on server load; after all, it does have to track the player's status and pass along the bits to tell your client he's boomboxing, but that's near enough the same as doing nothing in terms of load. i'd expect that it has almost no detectable effect compared to the character standing there idle.

You certainly appeared to be claiming that activities that are almost entirely handled client side were a significant source of server load, not just for your personal client. The two are not even vaguely equivalent.

Moving on...

Specifically for that announcement? Approximately zero.
Although i generally check those sections a couple times a day. More if the Devs have been posting frequently.

So, wait, does this apply to the real world as well? For example, if there's always been a Kroger's on the corner by your house as long as you've lived in the neighborhood it means it's always been that way forever and ever? Anyone who insists there was a locally owned pharmacy on the corner several years before you moved in is just lying to you?

*hypersonic facepalm*
So how often did you read the plaques in early 2005 or so? (i don't recall the exact time period offhand.)

You also see the 5th Column in the streets now.

References to the 5th Column were gradually added back to the game, and you probably don't remember that for a while there were no references at all to the 5th Column to be found anywhere on the game. As i recall they were even removed from the list of villain groups on the main website as well.

They were effectively retconned back into the game just as they were retconned out for a while. Which admittedly is very true to the meta-narrative of a superhero game.

Incidentally, the post you just quoted even mentions that the 5th Column was added back into the game. You must be hard of thinking if you can't comprehend that if the Devs could completely remove a group from the game they could also add them back into it later. However, putting the 5th Column back into the game's lore didn't happen all at once. IIRC there was a period of about a year after the initial removal where there was not a single reference to the group by name in the game.

Now, about the i20 hype...

Right, but your comments about boomboxing seemed to be in reference to server lag and the load indicators. Boomboxing and other emotes are probably some of the things that contribute the least to server load.

i would expect 100 people standing around Atlas Park boomboxing to add less to server load than 50 people fighting Rikti on the Mothership.

Well...
Although i've found that among most of my in game friends it works exactly the same anywhere in the game. Praetoria, Rogue Isles, Paragon City, Cimerora...

Uh, completely rewriting all the text in game, including the historical plaques scattered around the city, to remove every single reference to a villain group, often replacing them with a vague reference to an unnamed enemy group, is "storyline development"? Really? While the Devs did some time later say that the total removal of all references to the 5th Column everywhere in the game was the result of an overzealous intern or something, i would still say that retcon (retroactive continuity aka rewriting the past) describes what happened far better than "storyline development".

Yeah, that's all in the past now, but to me someone trying to claim rewriting the game's text to expunge all mention of an enemy group is storyline development is someone who is living in a river in Egypt.

Seriously. Requiring a signed NDA isn't what i'd usually consider "hype". The premise doesn't quite make less than no sense, but saying requiring a signed NDA=hype is, well, odd.

i suspect it's because they were/are trying out a bunch of new systems and content. i wouldn't be surprised if there was stuff tested that may be showing up for several more issues. Also, like a number of others noted, if a system doesn't work or requires being massively scaled back and/or reworked then it's preferable to either not publicize it until it's ready or quietly scrap it.

To me hype is the stuff that's announced on the boards, in interviews with media outlets, and at places like PAX. Yes, having stricter confidentiality requirements makes people more interested in what's being hidden, but that isn't really hype from what i understand the word to mean.

Yeah.
Looks like i missed some entertaining levels of density.
Hey, i've been massively busy the last several weeks, and may be so for another month or so between work being overloaded and my own projects. (Which reminds me i need to update some of my online stuff when i find the time and inclination.)

Anyway, things that are handled primarily at the client end of things have minimal impact on server load. So boomboxing, wearing capes, and spamming emotes have very little impact on the server load even if they slow down your client.

Stuff that requires the server to make a lot of calculations contributes more to server load. AoE buffs and debuffs, critter AI, movement, and attacks add a lot of server load compared to someone standing in Atlas Park spamming "Hey! Listen!"

Anyway that's the basic gist.

Uh, you have read at least a few of his posts, right?
i mean it's good advice and all, but it seems like it's also equivalent to telling a snow man to tap dance on the sun.
Not. Going. To. Happen.
Still, it was a really good suggestion.

When in danger,
or in doubt,
run in circles,
scream and shout.

i think coordination would be the major issue. Most attacks, even interruptible ones, apply their effect within a single server tick, so all the TP Foes would have to be applied at the same time. i suspect it would be like trying to stack knockback on a resistant enemy and would be difficult at best.

Yep.

Which raises the opposite problem if you actually wanted to teleport the teammate and get his target instead.