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I restart my Tournaments for pretty much the reasons Twisted mentioned. If the Devs come up with a neat little feature that I simply HAVE to incorporate into the Tournament then I tend to restart to make things "fair and just" among the competitors.
Another reason I restart is when the Tournament begins to be more cloyful than joyful. If I start having to convince myself to play then I know it's time to reconsider my rules system.
As far as introducing more characters; I have rules for that. Gee... what a shock. I divide my tournament into Rounds. Here is what my current round looks like:
1st up- D'Shan Steelclaw
2nd- Choice of team La Vedova di Mafia
3rd- Edie Wyldfire
4th- La Bella Mafia
5th- Choice of team Forge Force
6th- Assisted Afterlife
The "Choice" turns are basically so I can choose which of the two team members I play that day. I did this so I wasn't always REQUIRED to play a certain character. Usually my choice is based on who I am in the mood to play or who would be advantageous for the day it lands on. (ie- A support archetype on a weekend day or a solo-centric on a slower playing day)
My current rules include a new hero and villain team to be introduced every 5th round. So, once I have played through the above list five times I will create four new characters (two heroes and two villains) and add them to the list which will double it to 12 turns during the round rather than 6.
Each addition of teams will increase the amount of time before the NEXT new teams are added so, hopefully, I won't become quickly inundated with a quagmire of too many characters to play.
Characters in the Tournament will have all their stats recorded on the 5th, 10th, etc rounds so as to be compared to new players to determine the Tourney rankings.
See? Not complicated at all... heh. -
What's an Incarnate to me?
Well nigh unattainable. -
So, yesterday during the Ustream broadcast Zwillinger first acknowlegded and semi-comiserated with me for the reset of my latest tournament. He then gave me my marching orders; I was... for reasons he didn't bother to explain... post what my tournament is all about and a description (abridged due to server memory limits) of its current mechanics.
He's either a glutton for punishment or he's the stalker who's been rooting through my garbage lately. (Honestly, I thought it was a raccoon but that Zwillinger's a tricksy one.... then again most hobbits are.)
SO...
For the uninitiated and therefor mentally unscathed among you who are not aware of what the heck I'm talking about... My Tournament is a highly structured and rigidly ruled way of playing the game. I have spreadsheets... hoo boy do I have spreadsheets... that track, dictate and control which character I play, how I play them and when I am allowed to create new characters. The spreadsheets also take all the little data bits (level, defeats, missions completed, enhancements slotted, temp powers, badges, and on and on and on) and apply complicated mathematical equations to them to come up with Measurables in the form of Power, Reputation and Team Work.
I won't get in to the equations... actually I pretty much can't... Though I have restarted my tournament over and over again (requiring the complete deletion of all my characters and their subsequent recreation at 1st level) I tend to keep what works for me while changing what doesn't. So, I literally have no idea what some of the background equations in my spreadsheets do anymore because it's been YEARS since I first stuck 'em in there. Suffice it to say I record the advancement data as my character grows and the spreadsheets are nice enough to do all the math and spit back numbers at me that I ASSUME mean something.
Rather than bore you with all the minutia rules, I'll just tell you what I changed for this last Tournament Reset.
Basically, I got rid of everything that was keeping me from enjoying the game. Anything that seemed more like "work" than "play" was tossed on the scrap heap. The first thing to go was my beloved Traderbots.
Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVED my Traderbots back in the day. I had one per server that did nothing but sit in the Market and buy and sell salvage, always at a profit. Before long I had over a billion influence per Traderbot; which I thought was pretty cool. Unfortunately, it also began to become a major chore. It took an hour JUST to play the Traderbots through and I forced myself to do the TB stuff before I even thought of playing another character.
So, out went the Traderbots. I decided to divide up their ill-gotten booty and give 150 million influence per new player I created until I ran out. When I ran out I would simply recreate the Traderbots and run them and only them until I'd bank rolled some good cash then continue the tournament.
Another problem was creating characters who were clearly support characters on low population servers. Now, before you all jump down my throat about "You can find a team on any server if you just blah blah blah..." I know you can. However, my play time is very rarely during prime time and when you can click on Find with no parameters set and STILL get less than 50 in your list chances are your Defender is going to be lonely.
In addition to this problem was how MANY teams and characters I had playing! I had a team on every flippin' server except for the German and French ones. At least 2 characters per server and I find myself juggling 24 characters with more on the way when every member on a team reached 30th level or higher. Basically, even if I played EVERY day I was still only playing my favorite characters roughly once a month.
Solution: Consolidate all my heroes on Freedom and all my Villains on Virtue. That took care of both my over-population problem and my low population problems. Sa-weet.
The other thing I have done with my latest iteration is brand new and... to my pleasant surprise... a great deal of fun! I have always had two accounts, both to house my Traderbots and also because I hate asking people to invite me to my own danged super group. I finally decided to use the second account in a more active role. Instead of server-wide teams of heroes or villains, I have created two man teams and level pacted them.
So, D'Shan Steelclaw (claws/regen scrapper) is on my first account on Freedom and he is teamed with Edie Wyldfire (fire/devices blaster) on Freedom of my second account. I had been concerned that the slow pace of a single player level pacted would be more drudgery than fun, but it turned out the opposite is true.
For one thing, the slow place allows me to actually run ALL the level appropriate content in a level range without having to miss out. I've played story arcs since restarting that I haven't touched in ages because I always picked the most "profitable" (ie- most reward points, etc). Another thing is what I call the "Birthday" effect.
Nothing is cooler than signing on and immediately seeing your character bounce up two or three levels. I KNOW it's silly but I still giggle like a schoolgirl when I remember running Edie Wyldfire through Outbreak at combat level 10. I've NEVER got the Isolator badge so easily.
So, I deleted over 24 characters, most of which were over 30th level and am now only running 4.
Do I regret it?
No. The game feels new to me again and I'm rediscovering parts of it I'd forgotten were so much fun. I am also, for the first time in my strange CoH career, actively seeking to team and having an absolute blast doing so. (Some of you on Virtue may remember teaming with a Dual Pistols Blaster named Assisted Afterlife in Neutropolis... if you do... thanks for a great play experience!)
So, I have fulfilled my duty to Zwillinger. That's my Tournament in a VERY compacted and abridged nutshell. I could easily fill dozens more pages with useless digital ink explaining the ins and outs and minutia of my Tournament, but let's face it... you don't care and I don't remember most of the detail stuff anymore.
I am sure that some day I shall find myself in front of the Pearly Gates and Saint Peter will look down at me and demand to know what I've accomplished during my time on Earth. I intend to stand tall and proud before him and, with great conviction say:
"Hold on a moment... I have a spreadsheet for that..." -
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Quote:Yeah, yeah, yeah... You can keep your Incarnate goodies (at least until I get a 50 of my own)...I was getting worried about the lack of "servers down" threads
Looking forward to my new incarnate costume in 2 hours
My thermal Mastermind, however, will be VERY glad of the new one-shot shielding powers. -
The longest time listed on my current characters since I last played them?
At the moment?
3 days.
These things happen when you delete and recreate your characters regularly. -
Titan Weapons I'd love to see:
* Railroad Track (single metal beam) with cross tie strapped on it
* Electric Lamp Post where light is flickering off and on
* Oil Lamp Post that bursts flames out its end with every hit (no additional damage, effect only)
* Tree that bursts out leaves in a spray with each hit and the occasional bird or squirrel on the harder attacks
* Clockwork Cog body with a trash can where its head used to be
* Telephone pole section with many, many more hand hold spikes driven into it
* Barber Shop Pole (Still working and spiralling)
* Marble Statue's arm... hand clenched into a fist
* Stone finger off one of the Huge Statues
* Protestor holding a protest sign (okay maybe not... but it would LOOK funny as heck)
* Neon Sign that keeps flickering on and off randomly... the word on the sign is (of course) FREEM
* Log with a Banished Pantheon Mask strapped to the end of it... still glowing and occassionally struggling to get free... could be an unlockable.
* Just the upper part of a tank... hold and swing by the gun barrel... hit them with the shattered remains of the turret
* Clothing store mannequin wearing the same costume as the hero/villain or (if that's too difficult) wearing a generic hero costume complete with cape
* Immense club of ice, stone, crystal, etc -
Very nice. Homey. The video made me feel comfortable and understood for the first time in quite a while.
Out of curiousity... how did you get the music that plays in my head all the time onto an audio track? -
That's it... when the Rednames can do this sort of thing better than me it's time to announce my permanent retirement.
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Yes, once again, I have dragged the handy, dandy, right and randy Translat-O-Tron 5000 out of mothballs and plugged it in to a wall socket. Then, after resetting the circuit breakers, I fed it Positron's latest message to the masses.
Now... I want to reiterate here... this is nothing *I* wrote, Mister Matt Miller... sir... your honor... lordship... this is what the Translat-O-Tron 5000... a machine... not even built or programmed by me... your humble servant... this is what THAT came up with...
Not me. Translat-O-Tron 5000. Swear.
Here it is:
Quote:Yes, thats right! You owe your Freedom to me! The 4th of July is right around the corner send presents!Designing Freedom by Matt Positron Miller
Quote:Over the past several months I have been keeping a secret, and now that it has been revealed to the world, I can finally share that secret with all of you:
Quote:City of Heroes is undergoing a transformation.
Quote:Several times this past year I have been asked in interviews, "Is City of Heroes ever going to go Free to Play?"
Quote:Now, I know as well as you all do that an "I can't comment on that" will be taken as a 'yes' more times than not, so I have been very careful with my answers, and it has been an answer I still stick by today.
Quote:If we were ever to go to this type of business model we will make sure that not only it fits the game, but the game fits the business model.
Quote:Going to the new "Hybrid" business model is not something we have taken lightly.
Quote:When we broke City of Heroes development into Strike Teams, I took on the role of Lead Designer to ensure that all the moving parts were talking to one another and that a consistent vision of how the Hybrid model is going to get applied worked across all the Strike Teams.
Quote:One thing that I was making clear to everyone is that we needed to treat our subscribers, past as well as present, with the respect they deserve.
Quote:I have seen what happens when an MMO decides that it needs "new blood" and doesn't care who they have to lose in order to get it.
Quote:All that does is show your new customers that you have the power to change the rules whenever you feel like it, and the veteran customers left out in the cold become a lobbying force against new people wanting to try your game. That was something we were consciously not doing with City of Heroes Freedom.
Quote:In fact, an impetus of "what more can we give our subscribers?" was the order of the day. We looked at what a subscriber was getting today and added things like exclusive rewards and the entirety of Going Rogue (if they hadn't already purchased it).
Quote:We called our subscribers VIP because to us they are Very Important Persons.
Quote:We built the Paragon Rewards system around giving more and more perks to our subscribers, simply because we feel it is the right thing to do.
Quote:We also looked closely at other games that have adopted similar business models before us and adapted our strategies to avoid some of the more glaring pitfalls we have perceived.
Quote:We closely followed forum threads that complained about "this" and "that" and did everything in our power to ensure that when City of Heroes Freedom launches, players will no longer have those things to complain about.
Quote:Two examples I can give are the new VIP-Only server, where subscribers can play without non-paying players simply because we saw that as an oft-requested feature, and the ability to return as a Free player and create a brand new character, not be forced in reactivating (or worse deleting) old characters that are still on your account.
Quote:Finally we recognized that there are a large number of returning players who have already invested some of their time and money into City of Heroes. We wanted to ensure that those players didn't feel like they were restarting from the ground floor, that their previous time with us was honored and worth something in the larger scheme of things.
Quote:To this end, we modeled the Paragon Rewards program around our current Veteran Rewards program and this enabled us to give returning players perks for their previous time commitment, even if they are coming back as a Free player.
Quote:In addition, we ensured that everything they might have purchased previously, like character slots or Super-boosters, remained on their account, even if they stay as a Free player.
Quote:If you earned it or paid money for it, you can still get it.
Quote:I am very happy with how things have turned out for City of Heroes over the past year.
Quote:The team has never worked harder to bring you awesome content, we have a very solid plan for the future involving lots of cool story-lines and updates, and the team is super excited about what the new business model means to being able to deliver you content above and beyond what we have been doing in the past.
Quote:We've used our own version of Ouroboros and peered into the future, and we have seen that the future is Freedom. -
Thought I would interview a few of the City of Heroes NPCs and get their opinions on the upcoming changes we can expect in Freedom.
* Statesman - Free to play? I don't know... sounds like a lot of pink-o commie stuff to me... what? I thought McCarthyism had a few valid points...
* Ghost Widow - I find I can live with... no pun intended... the changes they have in mind... I have but one small request... they CAN install a fan-boy filter on those joining for free... right? Right?!
* Lord Nemesis - Yes, yes... that plan IS coming along rather nicely, isn't it?
* Captain Mako - Fresh Fish! Fresh Fish! Fresh Fish!
* Emperor Cole - Freedom? No, no... I don't think I can support that... sounds subversive.
* Lanaru the Mad - Chihuahua cheesecake commandos! Cult of the Platypus! Marmalade... for the love of god, MARMALADE!
* Synapse - Time Manipulation you say? Hmmmm.. interesting... I wonder if it could slow down my superspeed a bit...? It could help me with my er... ::glances back over shoulder at a very attractive but frustrated looking woman behind him:: errr... my little personal problem...
* Mender Lazarus - Time Manipulation as a super power? Been there... done that... bought the tee-shirt.
OR....
* Mender Hipster - I was into Time Manipulation before it was main-stream.
* Back Alley Brawler - Wait a second here... I think I see a typo in your copy... yes, I'm sure it's a typo... this whole paragraph right here about Galaxy City... No, I am SURE it's a TYPO... just c'mere within reach of my hands and look a Little CLOSER...
* ForeShadow - Pshh.. like I didn't see THAT coming...
* Citadel - Yet ANOTHER server duplicate of myself and our world? <sighs> Very well... beginning copy and paste of base operating system... again...
* Coyote - Downsized? Reorganization? WHAT reorganization?!
* Hamidon - YeeEEEAAAaaah! Thought you got rid of me didn't you Cole?! Oh yeah, who's your Hami... it's my birthday.... (movie voice) just when you thought it was safe to go back in the First Ward...
* Lord Recluse - Ummm... hello? Anyone remember me... (tap tap... tap tap...) is this thing on?
* War Witch - Great... just great... so one of me is DEAD... the next me is an alcoholic and... if the pictures are to believed... the most recent version of me is dresses like a tramp and apparently hangs around with Medussa... probably getting stoned... (Starts hammering her fist against the 4th wall between herself and the Devs) what the heck did I ever do to YOU guys?!
* Silver Mantis was unable to be reached... actually we haven't been able to track her down since Stamina was made an inherent... .... .... heh. -
Vaguely Irritating People
Virtually Insipid Peons
Vocally Irrepressibly Protesting
Vigorous Intercourse Procreates
Vestigial Inappropriate Prosthetics
Vegetables Including Protein
Velociraptors Increasing Proximity
Vanity In Prada
Volumous Immense (insert Teen Rating breaking "P" word here) -
Quote:I shall respond... but only because you made it into a list and I can't resist my own nature...Two questions:
1) Can Paragon Points buy personalized steelclaw lists?
2) Is every new item added to the store going to skewer your metagame and force a reset.
1) Given that I highly doubt Paragon Points will be transferable between players; no. However I HAVE, in the past, considered starting a "Challenge Me" thread where I will make a ten item silly list of whatever subject the forumites can come up with. I like the challenge of the idea but then I wake up and realize I have neither migraine medication on hand nor a wakizashi with which to commit Seppuku.
2) Yes and no. No... I doubt EVERY item will cause me to reset since I would commit myself to the nearest sanitarium if I were saying "Ohmigawd! My older characters didn't have access to this new Feathered Boa shoulder cape! The tournament is unfair! I must start over!" all the time. On the other hand I can see new powersets or even new archetypes being a problem if I felt they fit already existing characters better than the ones they already possessed. -
* Echelon
* Mammon
* The John's Club
* Easy Marks
* Investor's Club
* Shareholders
* Tax Payers
* Consumer Resorts
* Green Acres
* Red Rope
* The Cred Carpet
* I Know A Guy
* Insider Raiding -
City of Heroes Freedom: Oh my gawd! The Developers have decided to restart THEIR tournament!
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D'Shan Steelclaw: my main and a claws/regen scrapper.
Edie Wyldfire: fire/devices blaster.
Wow, would THAT tournament be fast and easy. -
So those of us who aspire to VIP membership will soon be earning 400 Paragon Points a month which we will be able to apply to a myriad of wonderful and whimsical things. Now, I'm sure we'll be able to purchase Costumes, temp powers, respecs and many other lovely things.
Those are boring, however.
What follows is a list of things you will definitely, uncatagorically NOT be able to purchase using your Paragon Points.
* Developer's home phone numbers.
* The Animated Atlas Statue non-combat pet.
* The full collection of Arch-Villains Gone Wild videos.
* An intimate dinner date with Zwillinger... I was going to say ANY Dev or Mod but I sort of get the feeling a few of our Gamer Gals could talk Beastyle into it.
* The Big Red Ball - some things are just TOO powerful for in-game use.
* A personalized Nemesis Plot. This is because you are already involved in a Nemesis Plot; you're just not aware of it yet.
* The Fusionette locator GPS system; technology just hasn't come far enough yet.
* The Paragon City Bus Travel Power. Yes, I KNOW the joke was too easy... yes, I KNOW I shouldn't have gone there since I've over used the joke too many times as it is...
* You will not be able to use your points to get Steelclaw to not go for the easy, obvious jokes.
* The Sister Psyche/Manticore Honeymoon footage. It's not really worth it anyway... rumor has it the cutscene is only 4 minutes long.
* Captain Mako's "Charlie the Tuna" commercial audition out-takes.
* Special sound effects to help customize your powers. Such as burp sounds for Fire Breath and Admiral Akbar screaming "it's a trap!" for every primary your Traps Defender uses.
* The Dance Gun Temp Power.
* Samuraiko chained to a wall until she makes you a personalized video that you just know will get 4 quadrillion-zillion hits on YouTube.
* Respect. Life. Love. And all those words you sob into your pillow at night when you can't drown the loneliness out anymore all while sinking inevitably into a pit of despair no matter how hard you scrabble and scrape your fingernails bloody against the pit walls your uncaring and distant parents dug for you during the entirety of your so-called "childhood."
* An explanation of that last joke.
* Rhythm; you know who you are.
* The entire Development team showing up at door on Christmas Eve and singing Paragon Parody Christmas Carols.
* A lovely, witty and well-crafted City of Heroes T-Shirt... mass produced and made available to an adoring fan base... .... .... sad, but true... -
Okay so .... seriously... who besides me REALLY hopes we'll be able to run the entire way up the tentacle curled around the building?
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I am "retired" (don't have to work anymore), so I don't really have a schedule for playing... pretty much whenever the urge hits me.
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So today at approximately 11:23 AM EST, I sat down at my computer prepared to run my spines/fire scrapper in furtherance of my tournament when I paused.
This turned out to be a very bad idea.
I had been having trouble lately working up interest in playing CoH because of how huge and clunky the tournament had become. Oh, I love the scoring system and most of my characters but the lack of low level players to team with and the existence of my defenders, controllers and such on low-population servers was a bit of a drag.
So, I started considering how to revitalize the game for myself. An idea occurred to me... a lovely, beautiful... lethally poisonous idea... Why not consolidate all my heroes on Freedom and all my villains on Virtue? The population of those servers would make teaming a bit easier after all. And another, equally deadly, idea came to me... I have two accounts... the second account I had only really been using to sign my "teamed" characters into their respective SG/VGs. Why not have two-man teams? One on each account and that way these Dynamic Duos can compete against one another in a NEW tournament?!
So... through no fault of the Devs at all... I have trash-canned my old tournament and am starting a new one. I am deleting all my characters, including the 42nd level Steelclaw main who was SO close to 50.
>>Sighs<<
And before you ask, no... you can't have my stuff... I'm selling it all on the market and dividing up the proceeds among all my new teams. -
I swear... I don't get some people... a 50 in each AT? Oh come ON!
I will never understand why some people go out of their way to make silly and completely arbitrary rules to make a game harder than it has to be... I mean... do these bizarre goals actually give you some sort of pleasure?!
You people are FREAKS! You're insane and out walking the streets! There should be a place to lock people like us... NO!.. um... you... lock people like YOU up to keep the us normal people safe... I'm gonna (snerk) write my... (muffled laughter) write my congressman! They'll pass a... heh-heee... luh... luh... law to... law to....
BWA HA HA HAAAAA....
heh... Sorry... couldn't resist.
Great accomplishment. I bow in abject homage to someone who can not only create arbitrary goals but actually reach them.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to praying Issue 21 won't cause a Tournament reset. -
Quote:We prefer to call it "Recycling"...* Please turn in all trash collected to Azuria for "storage" in the M.A.G.I. Vault, from which it can be promptly stolen by Villains.
Quote:I say we nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be clean.