Snow Globe

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It is not completely regardless of activity. The toon has to have logged in within the 15 day timeframe that the demotion is set to. If it were set to 45 days, then it would be the toon with the highest seniority having logged on within 45 days.

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Did you miss or not read my post above? You know, where I told people that characters and accounts that had [u]not logged in for over half a year[u] getting promoted over active characters?

So I still stand behind the "next join date" idea.

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I am just trying to help clarify how it does work now, so that there is no confusion as to what exactly needs changing.

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You too are not explaining the above post. Care to try again?

*edit to make post less hostile.

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If the rule of seniority holds, the star should pass to one of the other toons/player with the highest seniority (earliest join date) that has logged in within the 15 day timeframe.

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At a guess I would say that the next highest seniority, regardless of activity, will get promoted.

If what I am thinking is correct, the only basis for promotion is the "join date", not who is logging on, or even if their account is active.

MadScientist:
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the current setup is pretty useless to everyone involved.

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Yes.

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Like i said, what happened to my groups might be outdated as you said. I'm not lying when i say how the promotions worked but that was over a year ago. Something in the system may have changed since then. /bug it is the best thing i would say to do right now seeing, as at least for 3 groups ive been in, its worked the way I said, so it at least WAS working properly, something might have messed up, not even tying in with the SG vault stuff.

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The promotions NEVER worked the way you decribed. They have NEVER prioritized higher ranking. It has always been the next person to log on who gets promoted.

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If it were the next person to log on, that would not explain the hero group I described above. When people with inactive accounts (in one case 9 months of inactivity) got promoted ahead of people actively on, it breaks your pattern.

It appears to be based on "Join date" in at least 2 group changes I've been involved with.

* This appears to be one spot where a Red Name could comment and tell us exactly what is the trigger for promotion.

By quiting, I meant the game, not the group. They set their account inactive, and forgot to promote someone to take their place.

You didn't pay attention to the commentary for leaders 3-5. The game promoted people who were not active for MONTHS over those active during the whole time. The game literally promote solely on join date for my group, otherwise the current leader who was rank 4 would not be promoted over the rank 2s and rank 3s. It could have been a rank 5.

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From the sound of your posts, it seems more of an issue of what they were doing with SGs when everyones time got reset, and they added 150 spots to the SG.

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Only the last 2 promotions, not the ones before.

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And as for before the SG reset It still seemed like it was the next highest rank that was getting promoted.

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It might have just been that the next highest rank was the next ones to join the group. Did this cross your mind?

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Like i said when it did it the way my experiences happened, it happened just like i said, but it was still over a year ago so something in the coding may have changed that we don't know of or might have been overlooked.

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Another group (villains this time): about 6 months after CoV launched, demoted the top rank character due to inactivity. All the ranks had active characters in them except the top rank. Guess who got promoted? A bottom ranked character. Sorry, your recollection is wrong.

And you are still ignoring Steele_Magnolia's post too:
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No kidding. I just lost an SG of 1 1/2 years in the building and nearly 4 mil in prestige to a 3rd rank. Somehow ended up with the SG, the base editor decided to skip over four 2nd rank officers to give it to her. And it's hidey-ho, off we go into the sunset because support says it's our fault for recruiting her.

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Not just me, and not how you describe.

Yes, it was bugged multiple times. In my hero group.

It is not always the "next person to log on" or "the next highest rank."

Quite frankly, your info is a year out of date and only a recollection. In fact, the current issues in this thread actually mentions the promotion as being arbitrary. So it isn't only me.
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The auto-promotion system is seen as a bit to arbitrary. A lowest rank can too easily gain sole control of a whole group. Can the system prioritize higher ranks?

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That post was edited August 30th, 2007. Well before the City Vault glitch.

Given that statement and when it was made, I'll have to say that you are not posting current or accurate information.

I wish the forums preserved the player questions section, as I would have been able to post links to the question coming up time and again since the autodemotion was put in place.

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Yes, there is no rhyme nor explainable reason as to how the game picks the next leader.

The main hero group I belong to has gone without a person in the top rank for 7 months while the game selected the next by recruited date. In other groups I've heard the selection is by the next person to log into the game.

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Actually, there is. It goes through several different things to decide whos the next leader. First it see's who is the next highest rank. Then It checks for who was the last person to log in of the next highest rank. If there is still a tie between SG members at that point i believe it checks for who joined the SG first.

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This is [u]flat out wrong[u]. You have [u]no idea[u] what you are talking about. I do. Besides being in opposition to Steele Magnolia's post, it flies in the face of my groups experience.

For my example top rank (Leader)=1, bottom rank=5.

Character 1:
June 2007 - First Rank 1 quits. * See below.

Character 2:
July 2007 - The Second Rank 1 quits. * See below.

Character 3:
August 2007 - One of the Rank 2s gets promoted, except he's been absent over 3 months. His time is reset when it happens. His account was inactive (not paid) at the time of the promotion to Rank 1, and has not been reactivated.

Character 4:
October 2007 - Another Rank 2 gets promoted, but he has not been active in over 10 months.

Character 5:
November 2007 - Third Rank 2 gets promoted, but not been active in a year.
Nearing the Autodemotion date in early December, the setting up of the City Vault resets the "last on time" preventing autodemotion. (Character 3's and 4's last on gets reset as well).

Character 3:
Jan 2008 - Gets repromoted for a few days (assumed glitch thanks to next entry).

Character 6:
Two days after Character 3, Character 6 who is Rank 4 gets promoted.

All this bypassing 10 characters at Rank 2 who were logging in at least monthly, some several times a week.

Characters 1 & 2 created the SG. Characters 3-6 were promoted in order of join date, not rank (proved with the Rank 4 getting promoted over the ranks 2-3s that were active throughout).

I've read other stories that have the next person logging on getting promoted despite higher ranked active characters having a newer join date as well.

* By quits I mean closes their account, and not logging on again, not quitting the group.
((edits in yellow))

Yes, that is exactly what happen both to her group and to my group. On the other hand, the person in my group has already made up his mind to pass the leadership to one of the de-facto leaders of the group. (Yes, I'm one of the people that will be shortly promoted.)

Yes, there is no rhyme nor explainable reason as to how the game picks the next leader.

The main hero group I belong to has gone without a person in the top rank for 7 months while the game selected the next by recruited date. In other groups I've heard the selection is by the next person to log into the game.

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Oh wow really? Hmm. Alcohol makes me forget things sometimes...

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It was in the October 12th Issue.

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A comic I did for Rowr and Jute; http://drunkfu.deviantart.com/art/He...ssion-64693339

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I seem to remember actually using this one in the Scoop in the past.

Besides, nerfing Regen is not really newsworthy as it is what normally happens... or so the joke goes.

The top ten lists are supposed to be satire, not anything "planned".

Direct Coalition access to base storage is a significantly greater risk than a single group member. With group members you can kick them, with coalition members you can't.

Secondly, there would likely be no "fine control" over this function. In other words, you would likely not be able to set permissions for different groups. Given the developers previous actions: it would be "allow coalitions storage access yes/no", not by group (individual coalition group), but by category (all coalitions or none).

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its all worthless in they end, if they dont start making the game fun again, its been worthless for 5 expansions at least, time to focus on making the game fun guys!

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Can you donate your stuff to a non-RMT newbie when you leave?

I am having plenty of fun. I am sorry if you are not. If you are not having fun, why are you spending real money on entertainment you don't like?

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To be more specific, advancement by what I mean is character skills. People are free to have a different opinion.

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Including the Developers. The skill system was shot down long ago, and it is likely never to happen in this game. Can you donate your stuff to a non-RMT newbie when you leave?

For everyone's information:

We are working on some behind the scenes things, including a change in how articles are submitted at the moment.

Some real life events have prevented a few staff from contributing. They should be back as soon as they are able.

Ask Athy has been a long time absent because our readers have not been sending Athy questions. Please everyone, try to submit questions to both Athy and LiquidX!

The puzzle submissions have dried up as well. Sadly some have seen the rejection of a specific puzzle (either by the Editors or by the Community Reps) as a rejection of themselves.

Edit: this new discussion should go into the Issue 31 discussion thread.

Hey, I can't be blamed for that! Cool!

Personal reaction:
Real numbers will be great.
I can't wait for the vault.
Double XP weekend will be useful for some agonizingly slow levelling alts I have.

Downside:
No mention of any upcoming invasion events.

Actually there have been reports that the challenge badges do not work with the low-level Kheldian arcs.

I average 3-4 tells a night (2 hours), and have characters wil 3-8 in game e-mails when I log into them. Some of those characters I log into multiple times a week, some have been absent for months. This is across all the servers. Every single one of them.

I use an out of game macro program to /ignore_spammer the /tells. I just delete the emails because there is no way (and no point) to /ignore_spammer.

/ignore_spammer only targets that character and does NOT ignore the account. So, even if I ignore one of the characters 5 minutes later I am getting another tell from the same account.

I've given up on /petitions because I would not be able to actually PLAY THE GAME if I petitioned every instance of this. It is getting out of hand.

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When did that happen? I'm aware of the devs making balance changes, but I'm not aware of them ever just making a change because it "made sense". In fact, we argue on these boards all the time for things that "make sense" but the devs don't change the rules to accommodate that.

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Several times some agreed with, some not. Most of the changes happened without patch notes.

"Making sense" of course is only in the developer's minds in some cases. Cases to point out: Slayer and Silver Bullet were doubled (silently), Illusionist went from 200 to 500 (again silently, except for that prima guide), Believer was reduced because of a bug that prevented Sally from spawning when she should (it was one of the few changes that DID have a patch note), BP masks in the Portal Corp missions not counting, the original PVP mission badges. I could go on.

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The arguments seem to boil down to: 1) That's too long and 2) it encourages exploits like afk farming.

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Or that combined they are impossible to achieve through play during the expected lifetime of the game.

These exact arguments were made with the mentoring badges when they were introduced. They were changed (again, no patch note). The mentoring badges (as released) might have actually taken less time than to get than the empath badge through play. 3,000 hours mentoring was considered to be far too long to actually achieve.

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Just checked again and it still hasn't awarded the badge/power for having Yin's. I remembered to /bug it this time.

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Not a bug. Penelope's arc has nothing to do with Time Travel. It's Doc Delilah's "The Buried Past" along with Agent G's arc that unlock the badge and power.

Confirmed since I just went through Faultline on my DB/WP the other day. The badge plinged as soon as I called in the last mission to the Doc.

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Same here.

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Just a curiosity question here... Did anyone know that if you are exemplared or side kicked and someone gives you Holiday Cheer you will not receive the mystery gift? I found this out by way of support when I was given 2 presents on a side kicked def and got no mystery gift. I contacted support thinking it was bugged and they went in checked logs and granted the gifts and dropped me an email letting me know that if you are SK'd or EX'd you will not get them. Thought I'd save a few people some head scratching and frustration with this.

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This was known last year, and I totally forgot myself until it happened to me.

Interesting ideas.

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That's just about the dumbest system I've ever seen.

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C'mon, I'm sure you've been around enough to see dumber systems in this game alone.