SilverAgeFan

First off, thanks for checking back in Tunnel Rat. The potential for a dual aura system sounds great. If you guys move in this direction, please consider proliferating the right fist/left fist exclusive auras to all existing auras. And also then consider the use of duplicate auras so a player could conceivable make a character with blue fire on one fist and green fire on the other fist.

Second, finally started badging some Baby New Year missions on some newer characters this year. A while back you had mentioned more environmental and weather effects coming into the game via fx. Y'all done real good with the subtle update to the BNY map with the intermittent snow and fog. Very effective, if subtle.

I'll throw mine in the hat:

Rubric, my robot from a distant future with a nuclear powered core. TW/Elec scrapper. All his secondary armor powers are the same neon green as the glowing pulse on his chest jewel. That chest jewel gets its heartbeat from the beastly rage aura set to chest. The think tank eliminates the breath part of the aura (I think it's normally on for the chest setting, IIRC). And it has a really nice green "thump-thump" rhythm like a heart beat.

If we ever get the dual auras system Tunnel Rat has alluded to in her posts, he'll also likely get the seismic path aura turned on as well.

One more bug to add to the pile. Finally decided to buy the gunslinger pack after NS's damage control a few weeks back and on good faith that change will come.

Anyways, went to reproduce this outfit:



And ran into two strange bugs.

First, I could see Fedora piece in the costume creator. Then when I approved the costume changes, this character came out bald as a pool ball. (The Tri Corner Hat model is live atm.) Went back into the CC to correct this and saw that the Fedora was still selected. Selected a different hat then returned to the Fedora only to find it bald.

Then when I went to reproduce those shoes I found they now look like the female version of the sneakers instead with colorable socks and monochrome sneakers.

How did all this stuff get broken today?

Logged out in frustration. Done for now till we get some bug fixes.

A Tri Corner Hat can be found on the live character creator under hats for Huge characters, maybe others. This time the model and texture are visible. Store link leads to a null page.

Edit: Just checked at a surgeon. Hat is available on other models. Very short hair for male models. Pageboy hair for females. Two color hat. Hair is a multiple of the two colors. Red & blue hat = purple hair.

Well after that CTD, I'm now finding myself crashing with every single character I try to load. Does not seem to matter what alignment, level or zone they were logged out in. Bummer way to start the holiday event.

Edit: After trying everything else--checking drivers, doing a repair on the client, etc.--a full system refresh seems to have done the trick. Odd. But this lockout followed right on the heels of that crash to desktop.

Some nasty bugs happening today with the holiday event publish:

• Seeing many reports of power trays being cleared out on characters being awarded the two login powers. This did not happen on any of my old characters, as they all have used their free powers in years previous. But it has me reticent to log in any of my younger characters for fear of this PITA bug. One player found himself entirely unable to even drag any of his powers back to his power trays upon experiencing this bug and had to quit our league and wait for a GM.
  
• Candy Canes awarded from completion of LW Holiday Trial going missing upon exiting trial. Several people in the trials I was running had this happen today.
  
• Crash to desktop upon earning awards and completing LW Holiday Trial for first time on a character. Already had this happen to me once. Saw it happen to several others today as well.

Hope an emergency quick patch is coming ASAP on these. They are show stopping if not game breaking at the moment.

Several reports of this on triumph. It seems to be connected to characters who are getting the temporary powers--Holiday Cheer and the other one--awarded upon login.

Was just thinking about these again this morning. Does this mean we can take a 20 mil. inf. purple recipe, say something from the Fortunata Hypnosis set, and keep spinning the wheel at the cost of 1 token a spin with a decent chance of getting something like a piece of the Hectacomb set which ballparks around 500-600m a recipe at times? If so, hot damn.

And if so, please consider including these in the card packs. I think I just found a consumable I'd be happy to get.

Thanks Zombie Man. I did that .jpg search and found where they are getting put.

Looks like somewhere along the way, the new changed its default install path. I still have relic files from previous installs, including old screens, at x86 -> City of Heroes. But the new launcher installs to x86 -> NCSoft -> City of Heroes. The old address with old info, like saved costumes and screens, etc. was throwing me.

So I was simply missing seeing that new path.

Had a blast running on a team of 4 or 5 Titan Weapon wielders today. Did some silly stuff, including an old school sweep of Hydra in Perez today.

My addition to the team:

Rubric, my atomic powered robot from some distant future.

Using Win 7. Used to be able to take screenshots in game until I did a full reinstall several months back.

I'm using a mac keyboard that has no print screen key, so I remap my screenshot key to an unused one. This is what I did prior to the deinstall/reinstall.

Now when I press my remapped key, I get a brief pause like the game is taking a shot but then when I go to the x86 -> City of Heroes -> screenshots folder there are no new screens.

Anyone with Win 7 and or CoX knowledge out there got ideas as to what might be happening?

I can take screenshots using the snipping tool, but that doesn't permit "heat of battle" sort of screens.

Thanks.

I personally enjoyed Noble Savage's cooperative design experiment for the now forthcoming Sci-Fi costume pack. Despite many of my experiences with design by committee, it felt like people were forceful and opinionated enough in that thread that the end result of ideas weren't completely watered down but rather had some of the benefits, IMO, of distributed processing--you know, the stuff that transforms dumb little ants into intelligent hives.

I'm starting this thread as a recasting of that collective design experiment and aiming it at a hypothetical power set: Plants for Defenders, Corruptors and Controllers. I do realize that at the end of the day, this could be considered a suggestion thread. And though ultimately it may result in a formal suggestion (which I'll be happy to write up and submit in that section of the forum when we reach that point), I personally am just as interested in the lively back and forth of such a design process. I am also interested in what it reveals about how different players approach the game as did much of the costume design experiment thread.

Before you jump in with your ideas, please see the suggested guidelines below. Rednames, feel free to participate under a standing disclaimer that all redname posts contributing to the design process are entirely here for fun and in no way are any indication of future design choices or priorities of Paragon Studios.

Suggested Formatting For Individual Powers:

Please feel free to quote this or someone else's usage of this formatting and fill in the blanks:

Tier X Suggested Power Name: Brief aesthetic description of power including fx and animation. Brief notes regarding gameplay effects of power and any special notes.

A Few Things To Consider While Helping Design This Hypothetical Set:

• We have one plant set already. How should a second powerset further flesh out plants as a manifestation of superpowers? Remember that with this set as a secondary, Controllers could now be built as pure-plant characters. Visually and gameplay-wise, how do you see these sets combining and interacting. Also keep in mind all the various combinations that would be possible for Defenders and Corruptors. i.e. Plant/Fire, Plant/Pistols, Plant/Ice Blast, etc.
  
• What are some combinations of gameplay options that don't exist yet? Let's try and fashion a set that is a unique combination of the existing options already set out for Defender primary and Corruptor & Controller secondary sets: shield powers, eminators, targeted area of effect, point blank area of effect, ranged cone area of effect, pets, etc. Keep all the options in mind as well as all the various effects possible: confuse, placate, stun, immobilize, sleep, debuff or buff of resistance, damage, defense, accuracy, regen and recovery. Should this set be a grab bag of the above? Or focused on things we don't yet have in combination? Again, how would this mesh on a Plant/Plant 'troller?
  
• I personally am of the mind that most any combination of powers, including primary and secondary effects, could be balanced via the numbers. But some of you reading and hopefully participating have more of a numbers based handle on the game. To that end, when reading other's ideas or your own for this set, do you see any combinations that may be overpowered? Just like with the costume design experiment, though I'd love to see ideas flow freely here, let's try and do this experiment with an eye towards the truly possible not just pie in the sky. And trimming back ideas is part of that process IMO. This would also be the place to bring up PvP issues, if any, that those who more thoroughly understand PvP in CoX than I do, may readily recognize with our hypothetical set as it takes shape.

I already have a few ideas for some powers and an overall aesthetic direction in my own mind, but rather than taint the water, I'd like to first read what comes to mind from a few other forumites before putting those out there. So please contribute ideas both in general in terms of look and feel and in specific in terms of individual powers. And though I will put my ideas in the pot eventually, do others reading think I should try and step back and moderate this as Noble Savage did in the other thread? i.e. Being there to type up summaries every so often of "where we stand" as a round table with "official" (official for the thread) lists of possible powers and alternates we are debating? Similarly, I could speak up every so often to keep us on subject if we stray too far. Consensus based design can be tricky.

Oh and one last thing: our powerset will need a name! Throw those ideas out if any come to mind.

Okay, so please stay polite, keep it fun and let 'er rip.

I'm surprised not to see a thread on the first page filled with oohs and aahs about tomorrow Dec. 6. Did the Titan Weapon Pack #1 harsh too many mellows?

C'mon people lets whoop it up like it's Titan-'99!

(Still trying to think up a concept myself. May be part Optimus Prime, part Dr Doom. Or something different entirely...)

To be fair, the new arcs, blue and redside do cement a more firm heroic and villainous roles IMO than some of the old origin based starting content.

But, that being said I did at one point originally want to pick arcs around an enemy group and go all the way through the world. My daemoness dealing with CoT, my big bruiser of a hero dealing with clockwork. Granted this was in the first few weeks of release. And experience curves and limited content REALLY got in the way of this plan.

But lately, I've started revisiting AE... and no, not for the pictures. I read it for the stories. Honest.

I've thought about jumping back into the AE and doing some new arcs for silver age style vigilante's. You know, like the stories in Daredevil and what not.

I wonder if the AE, despite its problems, couldn't fill in some of the content gaps a little more.

(And to the OP, I share your angst about the angst-inducing post-apocalyptic arcs of First Ward. They are very well done. Just too far afield from spandex heroes for my tastes.)