Shadow_Kitty

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
not fighting

[/ QUOTE ][ QUOTE ]
more fun

[/ QUOTE ]Huh. Standing around and staring at the ceiling isn't really fun.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sometimes it beats pressing 3-6-7-8-1-4-2-3-4-2-3-5-ad nauseam, especially if you always see the same mobs in the same corridors, knowing that you could skip that button mashing and get a sandwich while the resident ghoster, eh, ghosts.

You can also be radical and chat with your team mates in the short wait until the ghoster is done ghosting. If you get bored of that, then either your ghoster svcks, or your team members are incredibly boring: Either way, you better reform the team.

Finally, you can be even more radical, roll a ghoster ans try ghosting for yourself.

Case in point: while reading your post and thinking of how to answer it, I was button mashing my attack chains pretty much on auto. I think that's telling of how fun laborious "defeat all" missions really are. Had someone been ghosting, I'd had a nice chat with my friends, and had I done the ghosting, I'd been concentrating on that. Either way, my mind would have been in the game, not here on the board.

All in my humble opinion, of course. If you enjoy your play-style, I'm not saying that you're wrong. I just don't agree.

Ghosting is not skipping content. Ghosting is skipping the non-content you don't need to deal with.

For me, the content is the mission objectives. If the mission objectives state "defeat Gronk", the content of that mission is Gronk, not his gazillion randomly-places minions. Those minions are fillers in my opinion.

Mind you, they can be fun to defeat, or useful to defeat, and I can take great pleasure in defeating them, but they're not content.

And as has already been stated, ghosting powers are there for a reason. They're there to be used. If anything should be called "skipping content", then it should be not using your powers to the full extent of their abilities.

Additionally, not using ghosting powers simplifies the game to a Korean grinder where only DPS and mob handling matters. Stealth powers add another layer of strategy - not fighting when you don't have to.

So I'm all for ghosting, especially when it's more fun to ghost than not to.

...so why don't I disconnect several times every single night? And why don't I go out of sync every single night? Why do my power buttons work every single night?

Sure, I've been complaining a lot about bugs and disconnects, but... not for quite a while now.

If it was just the software, I'd have the same trouble as you. I don't. So it's not just the software.

I think that depends a lot on your friends. I really don't have any trouble finding someone to team on on Defiant; on Union, nobody seemed to bother. Of course, the teaming on Defiant comes mostly from friends and SG mates, while I'm kinda stuck to PuGs on Union.

Real numbers aside, that leaves the impression that Union is about as populated as a desert. It is, of course, just an illusion, but that matters very little as it all comes down to this: I'm bored on Union.

Silly Math is a Japanese schoolgirl scrapper, whose opinions about tests are clearly visible.

Qute is a Q3 and Linux geek who was gifted with the power to pull out weapons out of thin air/pocket dimension/hammer space when lightning struck her DSL modem. She also fused with the model, which she does not complain about as it is not as much pizza and chocolate in the model as in herself.

So in the words of Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation, we get rewarded for not playing the game?

Old favourite of mine: chainsaw scrapper! With all the Vazhilok and Zombie masterminds and upcoming Halloween, you've got to have chainsaws!

1. Gut wrench, a simple stab forward. Moderate damage, medium recharge

2. Bush trim, two short diagonal sweeps. Low damage, short recharge.

3. Hedge cutter, a swift sweep in neck level. Cone, Low damage, long recharge, with a possibility of high damage if critical.

4. Heart mover, a slightly higher thrust aimed for where the heart used to be before it rotted away. High damage, long recharge

5. Revving up. By revving up the chainsaw's engine, you scare the living daylights out of them. Seriously, would you attack someone with a chainsaw? Cone, Fear, no damage, moderate recharge

6. Zombie split, a cut upwards from the groin area. Extreme damage, long recharge, toon -def while animation runs

7. Come get some! A challenging glance, a witty word, and a rev with the chainsaw; do you really need more to make the enemy upset? Taunt, no damage, quick recharge.

8. Clear the underbrush, a low sweep all around. Moderate damage, very long recharge, PBAoE melee range, knockback, -def

9. Hail to the King, toon jumps up in the air and cleaves a zombie on the way down. High damage, long recharge, -def, knockback, stun, -res(physical)

10. Out of gas, a wild flurry all around you. PBAoE melee, extreme damage, high accuracy, very long recharge, knockback, stun, drains all end from player.

...I could settle for a chainsaw custom weapon for bladed toons if this is impossible.

I started with Earth&Beyond, and loved it! It was... waow. Beautiful, poetic, mysterious... and of course a dissappointment revenue-wise. So of course it was shut down.

Next up was ROSE Online. Pretty korean grind with cool hats. I still miss the hats.

I tried WoW for exactly two weeks. Hated the art direction, so I couldn't get into the game. I tried it later with two new weeks. The art direction still made me puke, but I persevered, and discovered that everyone looked the same. Then I gave up.

About that time, I got into City of Heroes. I'm still here, which says a lot.

LOTRO: tried that too. There was a bug that made the textures flicker, which gave me headaches. Not only that, my minstrel apparently played so much worse than Sid Vicious that the orcs' brains imploded. The very silliness of it killed every Tolkien feeling there were - besides, it was still just a WoW with sindarin/quenya names on everything except hobbits and player characters.

I installed RF Online one day. That's it.

I hoped that D&D Online would be it. It was not. It was just groups on short quests.

Lesee... did I forget anyone? Oh, yes: Seed. It was kind of a euro-comic Metal Hurlant without the sex and gore. It wasn't my thing.

I hoped that EVE Online would be what Earth&Beyond was. It wasn't. "Excel in space" is actually the best description I've ever heard. And I hated not being able to leave the spaceship. I identify with humans, not spaceships, so there wasn't any role to play.

For much the same reason, Space Cowboy didn't get me either. Besides, it was more of an multiplayer arcade space shooter than an MMO, so... no.

...which reminds me of the third massive multiplayer game that I actually enjoyed playing: Pang-Ya. But again, there's no RPG in it. Just golf.

The Echelon has a SG costume theme. It's not mandatory, and while some can't be a**ed and others have too strongly themed toons to wotk in the SG costume, some want to show their supergroup, especially in the big events like mothership raids.

I run a dual display system on XP with a 8800GT for one display and a FX5200 for the other. The only trouble I have is that if I focus on almost any program on the secondary display while zoning, CoH fires off a couple of random keys when CoH gets focus again.

You could try this trick. Maybe that will help.

Storm Kitty lives with Plasmarch and their two kittens, judging from the comic in a big mansion not too far away from a zoo. I'd say the suburbs somewhere.

Shadow Kitty lives in Grandville, standing right behind Ghost Widow to do her bidding. She's known as Widow Kitty these days.

Sturmvogel lives in the Echelon base. It's either that or the Spandau prison.

Fimbulwinter lives in the Presidential suite on Rogue Islands, after the defeat of Lord Recluse in the general election. The chances of her winning it was summarized as "slightly less than a snowball in hell", and she kinda took that personal.

Silly Math lives in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan, but regularly flies to Paragon to cosplay, eh, do heroics. Her appartment costs a fortune.

Unn the Thrown-At lives in Valhalla, Asgard. She's just in Paragon at the Allfather's bidding to gather intelligence before Ragnarök.

Space Girl is completely lost. Her rocketship was eaten by a giant squid in Independence Port, so now she can't go home to Yana Yana.

Little White Lies is in Hell. Literally speaking. And she loves it! She's a little devil, after all. She pops up in Rogue Islands every Monday to spread mischief and villainy.

There are also some black textures on Ghost Widow's tower in Mercy.

RAID 0 is very good for systems that need to use more data than you have RAM for, with very high data rates. If you need a fast workspace or swap area, use RAID 0.

RAID 0 is lousy for long term storage or system files. Do not use it for those purposes.

---


You may consider a solid state drive as an alternative. They're generally a lot faster than spinning media (edit: for reading; writing speed is generally similar or lower), although they cost a lot more.

If you have an OS that supports it, you may also consider a hybrid drive (ie a hard drive with a non-volatile RAM cache/buffer). Not all OSes support hybrid drives though.

I didn't notice this until now, but..

Woo! Great work!

It was probably related to the rainstorm (and yes, with wind speeds averaging 25 m/s, it ought to be). The issue was gone on Tuesday.

I like Bredbandsbolaget. They give me a 100/10 mbit connection.

Do you have the same ISP as well?

Did anybody else have connection troubles Monday evening? I've had a most frustrating evening with an hour going just to try to log on, then playing for fifteen minutes, then thrown out and then try to logon again. Here's what typically happens:

<ul type="square">[*](21:12) (login attempt)[*](21:13) Error message: The game client was unable to connect to the login server. This may be due to a local network issue such as a firewall block, or may be because the login server is down for maintenance. Please check your network settings and try again, or check http://www.cityofheroes.com/servers/index.html for current server status.[*](21:13) (login attempt)[*](21:14) Error message: The game client was unable to connect to the login server. This may be due to a local network issue such as a firewall block, or may be because the login server is down for maintenance. Please check your network settings and try again, or check http://www.cityofheroes.com/servers/index.html for current server status.[*](21:14) (login attempt) [*](21:15) Error message: The game client was unable to connect to the login server. This may be due to a local network issue such as a firewall block, or may be because the login server is down for maintenance. Please check your network settings and try again, or check http://www.cityofheroes.com/servers/index.html for current server status.[*](21:15) (successful login - selected Defiant)[*](21:15) Error message: Can't connect to DBserver[*](21:16) (successful login - selected Defiant)[*](21:17) (selected toon Storm Kitty)[*](21:19) Error message: You must fill out the account and password fields to log in to your account! (note that it was filled in when I got to select my toon)[*](21:19) Error message: This account is already currently logged in.[/list]
After that, the cycle repeats itself more or less the same way. If I finally got logged on, it didn't take more than half a mission or maybe an entire mission before I lost connection to the mapserver, and had to start all over again.

I have a theory that it might be because we have a severe rainstorm over Sweden right now, and something related to that disrupts the traffic. So I'm a bit curious of the rest of you: is there anyone else having these symptoms? If so, what's your ISP and general geographic area?

Here's me:
Bredbandsbolaget/Telenor
Sweden
Västra Götaland

Where's you?

From I12 and on, there seems to be a lot of missing textures. These are the ones that I have found:

<ul type="square">[*]In Grandville, a lot of surface areas on buildings are black. [*]In the Longbow base map, quad howitzers are invisible. So are other objects, like the generators.[*]The same map: the cylindrical doors double doors are just white.[*]Arachnos base maps: a lot of boxes har a diagonal black area on the side.[/list]
I have tried to verify the files in case my map files were corrupted, but that didn't fix the problem.

I had that problem when I first installed CoH. In my case, the problem was that the motherboard drivers including the chipset was not installed correctly. That was Windows XP SP2 on an MSI Platinum SLI motherboard with nForce 4 chipset.

Good point.

It could be remedied by having Longbow or signature heroes spawn on the map as heroes as well to stop the villains. That way the villains have to worry about something else, and it could also be used to balance the event. If more villains enter the zone, then more signature heroes spawn too to keep things balanced.

The opposite could also be used: if too many heroes enter the zone, then some signature villains could spawn too. But considering the heroes/villains ratio I don't think this would be a problem very often. But it still would be nice with an self-balancing system.

This game needs giant monsters. And not just any giant monsters, but giant monsters that stomp!

So here's an idea: by doing a particular mission, a monster zone is spawned. It should be hard to spawn, maybe as the end of a strike force or even task force, much like Lady Grey task force spawns a Rikti counterstrike. Once spawned, the rewards should be high, so that people want to join, but not so hight that it's a farm thing.

The monster zone is a bit like the mayhem missions, but with four distinct differences:

1) It has a giant monster in it.
2) Everything, including buildings, is stompable.
3) It's randomly generated (heck, as we need new code to stomp buildings anyway, we might as well generate the map too).
4) Villains and heroes may enter that zone.

It should be easy to get to the monster zone. Any base teleporter, train, helicopter and ferry should work as an entry to the monster zone. It should be announced much like the monster events, so that everyone is aware of the impending doom!

The monster's objective is something on the map. It could be a warehouse full och tech stuff (for a Paladin), a graveyard full of dead people (Adamastor), a supertanker (Lusca) or just a place to nest (general Zilla thing). The monster zone ends when the monster reaches its objective, or if the monster is defeated.

The objective of the heroes is, of course, to stop the monster. The objective of the villains is to help the monster reaching its objective. Secondary objectives for villains are to cause as much destruction as possible, either by causing destruction themselves or by stopping the heroes stopping the monster. For heroes, secondary objectives are to prevent mindless destruction.

The monster reacts to things happening around it. If heroes cause a lot of damage if it goes one way, the monster could take another way, preferably through a building. But it's always trying to reach its objective.

The rewards are for the monster-related stuff only. Heroes get XP and/or inf for hurting the monster (awarded per team hit), or defeating the mobs that it spawns. Villains get XP and/or inf for stuff that the monster, the spawned mobs or themselves stomp. Heroes gets a massive bonus when the monster is defeated, villains gets a massive bonus if the monster reaches its objective. There are no rewards for PvP defeats. It only helps the monster or stops the villains from helping the monster.

Being defeated in PvP yields no debt either. Being defeated by mobs or monster does, however. If you're defeated, there's a spawn point on the map as per safeguards, so that you can get back into action.

The idea is that it should be furious, it should be fun, heroes should feel heroic and villains should feel villainous, and above all, Paragon City gets stomped!

On LRSF or STF, preferably on the last mission, and if possible when defeating Statesman/Recluse and thus completing the task force.

[ QUOTE ]
How do you use self tp to cure it? I have it on a tank but can't tp when twilighted.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can often - not always - TP to a position that's in range and in line of sight of the point where you entered the map. That's where the server thinks you are, so the TP has to be a correct TP from that point.

Some of you may have read these devastating news. As a tribute to and in memory of Mighty, I did this:

&gt;&gt;&gt; Clicky &lt;&lt;&lt;

Plasmarch updated the page, and included Callista's "Faerie Tales" too!