Smurch

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(what else did you think I needed a napkin for)

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Barbeque.



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footlong meatball sub with jalapenos?



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More than a napkin, you'll need an antacid

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Smurch.

In the REAL WORLD A Superhero, licensed to arrest villains would be put in prison for killing hundreds a day.

In the REAL WORLD a protest would rise against someone using the bodies of loved ones to fight crime.

In the REAL WORLD a lot of what's been suggested wouldn't be acceptable, even if it -was- possible.

Hence why I'm objectively right for ever and ever. If you're going to attack me as a person, by all means stop posting.


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In the REAL WORLD there ARE NO SUPERBEINGS and if you don't think that would radically change society's perspective on alot of topics, you're kidding yourself.

If you honestly believe that your view of black-and-white morality is objectively correct "forever and ever" then you really need to take a step back and realize that the definitions of right and wrong have been changed many times throughout history in just one culture, and there are cultural differences as well.

And for the record in our culture there are time when it is generally agreed that killing is NOT immoral or evil, times when using the bodies of dead loved ones to save lives IS acceptable, and that perhaps the primary reason why none of what is suggested in this thread would be accepted in the real world is because it's NOT possible. We don't live in a world where magic powers are real, where giant robots exist, where people shoot x-rays from their eyes, where extra-dimensional aliens invaded our planet, where another dimension is in the process of invading ours, or where people actually can summon up the dead to have them fight crime (or commit crimes) because if we DID live in such a world I think we'd be very different as a society.

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There's also, like I said, the fact that currently there's a dimension that threatens to overtake our very universe (not just our planet) and that these same Necromancers/Villains are willing to fight on our side. It's like the united states. People cheered when Japan surrendered but had the U.S. drop a nuke on a country that just threatened us there'd be a huge outcry. People's opinions on what's right or wrong change depending how great a threat is to them.

With the threat of another dimension conquering our own many people who would be against such villains being given licenses may quietly accept it. In time their concepts could be changed forever if they help thwart the conquest. As I said earlier, that's the expansions theme, the line between good/evil has been blurred because of this massive threat. What used to be considered morally wrong is just viewed as questionable. What was once questionable is now accepted.

It was this chaos that paved way to Necromancers getting licenses. Kheldians not watched so closely and peace bringers straying towards the path of darkness to use their prejudice. Warshades having the opportunity to switch back to nictus either from greed or fear of the over zealous peacebringers. Citizens that would normally cry out in protest are now sitting quietly not wanting to be invaded.

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And honestly the door has already been opened by Vanguard accepting villains into it's ranks. How many "evil" people can now be seen on the evening news "heroically" fighting the "alien menace" in the RWZ? Legally, Vanguard changed the status of those people, at least as far as international law is concerned. It also may have started to influence the masses as well.

The camel's nose is already in the tent where the villain/hero divide is becoming fuzzy.

And lest we forget there are ample examples in comics of heroes becoming villains and vice versa. This is nothing new.

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But yes. In a game with hundreds of roleplayers, thousands even, you have to create some sort of -global- setting. And within that global setting it's up to the roleplayers to keep things going in a logical progression.

-Rachel-

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The problem is that you're assuming everyone sees the divide between "right and wrong" and "hero and villain" or even "hero and anti-hero" the same as you do (or that they SHOULD see it the same as you do since you're Obviously and Objectively Right(tm).) Which may not be the case.

I'm not going to get hung up on the kill or not arguement, because I think it's a red herring.

However, I have seen you pontificate a great deal in this thread about what is Right and Wrong and Good and Evil as if these were objective and rigid concepts with a clearly defined line and your interpretation of them are objectively correct.

Obviously not everyone agrees with you on where that line should be drawn, not in the real world and not in a fictional comic book world where there are people with superpowers, and that doesn't make them poor roleplayers just because their interpretations of why their Necromancer Mastermind can, in fact, be a hero doesn't jive with your personal view on morality.

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I like having my own imagination.
So like... I can RP anything I want.

I just made a zombie MM that has magical rainbow skittles that like honey and will be in Atlas park someday soon.

Muah Ha

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You still here?

Shoo!

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I just want to know where this reply came in from.

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She was replying to me.

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Alright, Mindy. That's enough questions.

-Rachel-

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But not nearly enough answers.

Your statements are made like platitudes of "this is how thou shalt RP thine hero/villain/rogue and no other ways are acceptable" as if there is some kind of law of the land about how RP should/should not be done in CoX. Requiring that everyone else submit to your understanding of the hero/villain divide and what that actually means, and conform from an RP perspective in order to make you happy, will do more to damage your credibility as an RPer than someone playing a good-guy Necro MM.

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And then what happens? You lose any kind of credibility as a roleplayer

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With whom?
And then what happens?

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Your RP becomes pointless

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To whom?

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Being EVIL doesn't feel evil if everyone treats you as a Hero.

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So when Lex Luthor becomes Mayor of Metropolis, or President of the United States, that means he's really a lousy roleplayer?

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Then that's different. Basically, my original post was mostly in response to all the posts I've seen on the forums that say "Going Rogue makes no sense! There's no way a Zombie Mastermind, Kheldian, or (insert AT here) could be good/evil. My point was that depending how you roleplay anything can be.

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Yup.

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I also don't think villains are going to get the hero level up badges. Just their own. I could be wrong.

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I think it's a mistake to assume that badges carry with them any kind of actual in-game meaning. They're just meta-game gimmies/rewards. They don't have an objective reality in the game world itself. You can choose to RP that they do, but really they're a metagame reward more than anything (or do you really think that standing on the roof of Aeon University will make everyone know you as an Egghead?).

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But when you play an Anti-Hero and play it as a straight hero you break Verisimilitude.

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And then what happens?

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Someone roleplaying as Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks you in the head.

Twice if you double-post.

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Wasn't a double post. Was the same response to TWO SEPARATE POSTS. (really!)

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But when you play an Anti-Hero and play it as a straight hero you break Verisimilitude.

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And then what happens?

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And whether a soul can heal or not damaging it is damaging someone's eternal essence... And that's just plain wrong! =-P

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Guess you better get on all those Dark Blast defenders with Life Drain. Best round em up and tell them all that they're all just plain wrong :P

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But if you want to ROLEPLAY killing: Fine! But roleplay the consequences, too. Or you're breaking versimilitude.

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And then what happens?

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But note the difference, between just going up to a criminal and slicing away, than going up to them, telling them to stop, then they try to kill you.

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"Pick up the gun."

"I don't wanna pick it up, Mister, you'll shoot me."

"Pick up the gun."

"Mister, I don't want no trouble. I just came downtown here to get some hard rock candy for my kids, some gingham for my wife. I don't even know what gingham is, but she goes through about ten rolls a week of that stuff. I ain't looking for no trouble, Mister."

"Pick up the gun."

(He picks it up. Three shots ring out.)

"You all saw him - he had a gun."

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If you RP your Zombie mastermind as having zombies that still have the spirits they had in life, being redeemed in death: That's not a true Zombie. YOu're skirting the borders on undead, which can be accepted by a community.

But meat puppets made from the flesh of loved ones is no different than Vahzilok's toys.

Mind + Soul = Undead with redemption

Mindless + Soulless = Meat Puppet.

-Rachel-

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But we know that the zombies in the MM Necromancy set DO have souls and are not souless puppets. Otherwise, the Soul Extraction power wouldn't exist.

"Soul Extraction: You can extract the soul from one of your defeated undead henchmen and summon its spectral essence to do your bidding."

The descriptions on the extracted souls describe them as being "torn for their bodies".

So since officially speaking MM Zombies have souls, then they mitigate all your concerns about zombie summoning heroes, right? Good. Glad that's settled.

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Oh btw >,< a fix that works for some arcs that won't start -

Ie: not all of them that won't start are actually invalidated - though some certainly are -

Start an arc that does work, then drop it, then start the one you wanted. If it's invalidated it still won't go; but there seems to be a bug I run across now and then that won't start arcs that I know are working.

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I have noticed this bug as well. I usually switch to test one of my in development arcs, then back to the arc I want to run. It often times will work.

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Problem is that you still can't read the Mission Debriefings, which often have a lot of information as well.

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When I am team leader, I copy/paste the debreif into team chat. The text is selectable.

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It's also not available until you enter the mission. So you have to wait for the leader to read, and then they have to wait for everybody else to read.

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It's available as soon as the leader accepts the mission. I read the briefing before I go into the mission when I am on a team.

July 5th 1998

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Isn't profit measured by income - overheads? Overheads can change in time. I'm not saying there's hard proof one way or another, but it's entirely feasible given how small the team for CoX got, overheads might have gotten to be teeny-tiny by comparison to before.

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Yep, you're talking about TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).

Generally, things like bandwidth and server hardware tend to go down in cost over time, further depreciation of that hardware reduces tax liabilities. Launching a new game is probably when it is at it's most expensive. It takes probably several years just to reach a break even point from that initial investment. But once that investment has been recouped, then if operational costs are kept low enough, profitability is much easier to maintain that it would have been at launch.

This is why there's some old MMOs that were once big but have a fraction of their former playerbase but are still running out there: the cost of ownership of those aging titles is low enough that even the small revenues they bring in are still a + column for the company overall.

CoX is now a mature title with a fairly decent sized player base even after all these years. NCSoft's investment in the game means that it must not only be profitable, but it must be profitable enough to justify investment (which will increase costs initially in hopes of driving down TCO later).

It's therefore probably safe to assume that CoX is still very profitable and very cost-effective for NCSoft and their new investments are justified by that profitability. To presume otherwise is to assume we know more about their business than NCsoft does, and that is presumptuous in extremis.

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.... wait'll you meet Romulus and his Pet Nicti Recluse and his henchpeople are so many small, purring kittens compared to that Triad of Terror.

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Are you talking about the ITF? Because I've run it several times with several different characters in several very different teams, and each time Romulus hasn't been really that tough. Time consuming, yes. Unbelievably difficult, no.

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But I'd say at large, you're looking at far more villains who'd gladly toss away lives to achieve a goal,

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Based on what, exactly?

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I can't see a hero doing that, not in any but the most extreme of circumstances. Like - against Hro'Dotz? I could see that.

Stopping a relatively small scale Crey plot? I can't see it.

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The great thing is, as a player, you decide when to use that power. So you can certainly use it only in situations that you think are appropriate, RP-wise. Or even skip it entirely. It never struck me as anything but an "oh sh!" power anyways.

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We use Shivians as heroes and they got dead people floating in them. They are event vulnerable to undead focused attack.

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Everyone who uses Shivans will now be forced to become a villain. It's obviously an evil act.

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Um, they could be the bodies of former purse snatchers (or any criminal) that are trying to redeem their souls and work their way out of hell.

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Offering the damned a chance at redemption sounds like a pretty heroic thing to do.

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Fun thing: I think Hero MMs have far more reason to give their pets individualistic names than Villain MMs. Villain MMs, to me, strike me as the sort to toss hordes at their opponents until they drop. Any losses are just expected casualties.

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Depends on the type of villain. Not all villains are insane madmen who execute their own minions for putting too much sugar in their coffee. That's a very one-dimensional view of villainy.

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A Heroic MM probably goes out of their way to safeguard their pets

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A villain may too.

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The one power I'm questioning (and I admit, I have not used this power; I'm going off the description) is Traps/Detonator.

I think they'll need to replace that one or something if a MM goes Hero; because I cannot see blowing up your pets (other than Bots/Zombies of course) for a hero.

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What if the pet is doing is willingly knowing the risks, but believing it worth it. And since you can "resummon" it's safe to assume that pet just had a quick trip via the medical reclimator and is now ready to come back to service.