SwellGuy

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On the question of grinding, isn't that just a simple fact of playing the same game over and over again?

Granted, I'm new to the MMO scene (six month vet reward by the end of the weekend), but essentially each instance is the same, no?

Enter the combat area. Fight baddies. Get some rewards. Repeat.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but isn't grinding kinda the point of any conventional MMO?


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That depends. If you view every enemy as the same and every character you make as the same, then yes.

If you see variety in the opponents you choose to go up against as well as make a variety of characters it is far less grindy feeling.

Throw in teaming with different people and you get more mix.

I don't think it is the same to have a stalker go up against Malta as a tanker against Circle of Thorns but if you state it generically as you did then every computer game could be summed up as:

Turn on computer. Play games. Shut down computer.

Every TV show:

Turn on TV. Sit and watch. Turn off TV.

Every meal:

Sit down. Eat stuff. Poop.

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I thought it was the cloning chambers and Crey letting them out...

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I blamed the lawyers and then that time when none were spawning in Galaxy I figured the lawyers were on vacation. Or no one was running the missions to rescue them from Devouring Earth and Circle of Thorns.

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Wealth decay is the devil.

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Don't open any 401K statements you might get in the mail.

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That wasn't decay.

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Explorer.

I'm an explorer/soloer type.

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This is a perfect description.

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5. I mention grindy and EQ gets brought up. Why not compare this to the Atari E.T. game while you are at it? This game IS grindy. And while maybe not the grindiest of all time, it is worse than say WoW. (oh noes I said the "W" word)


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It is not grindy. If it is grindy to you then you are doing it wrong.

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LMAO

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I also recommend you all try playing a couple of characters from 1-50 without any dev tricks, just as a normal player, to see how grindy things are.

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LMAOROTF@ false presumptions!

Seriously... hilarious stuff.

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Very. My first 50 (a scrapper) took 481 hours. My first blaster took me 599. I just got my first dom to 50 in 175 hours soloing all the way.

With exp smoothing and partrol xp and other enhancements, the grind is gone.

Not to mention "erodes over time" was similar to the 60 day market policy the devs removed.

I hate rent because I have to travel to Port Oakes and AP/GC to pay. We should be able to pay it in any city zone.

Pretty much every Monday and Friday from 8-10 where they do server maintenance.

The primary reason I separated 2 and 3 is because you can choose by not keeping your inventory slots cleared or by malefactoring/exemplaring low enough and because I excluded the market from the consideration. I meant NPC vendor by vendor them.

Selling at the markets always brings me inf from someone else and I was only looking at the times when inf is simply created from nothingness. But selling to an NPC creates new inf just as defeating the enemy had.

But I did want to keep #3 generic enough to include buying level 40 sleep recipes for 11 inf at a market and NPC vendoring them for thousands.

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*Facepalm* I'd forgotten the memorized/respec trick.


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The funny thing is I am trying to grasp (as it relates to the markets) is whether there is any difference between the following actions:
1) (no longer available) memorize and respec to create new inf
2) defeat enemies and get inf
3) defeat enemies and get drops or tickets to turn into drops and then vendor them

All 3 actions do simply create inf that did not exist before. It was always an amusing thought when I would play DnD or EQ and realize the drops (including the money) were essentially coming from nothing. In real life we have finite resources but in the game the system will just keep making more enemies with stuff including money in the form of inf here and gold/plat/silver in EQ.

In real life when you quit or get banned your assets still exist for others to use but in the game it is gone unless you return later.

So, I wonder how the creation of wealth from nothingness in games like ours impact economic theories beyond the obvious supply and demand issues.

<QR>

Just got it a couple days ago and I finally rolled up a new character and took my travel power at level 6. Loving it.

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Unless I'm totally confused and Toons are creating Influence some other way.

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Not currently but 2 years ago for a few months...

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New players don't have veteran badges.

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Here's an interesting data point - how many people have accounts started several years apart? This is not a claim one way or the other, it's an actual question that might bring more meaning to the discussion. Personally, I never remember to check badges at all out of sheer forgetfulness.

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1st was 60 months yesterday.
2nd will be 33 months next week on Friday (29th).
3rd was 21 months on May 1.

But I think people use vet badges in the opposite direction. If you have none or few and play like a newbie people figure you are new (if they look) and cut you slack. If you have many vet badges (if they look) and ask where the train is you're probably going to get heckled.

Of course if you've been around long enough and you know you don't know everything, you ask anyway and don't care who heckles you.

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To Nethergoat though:
your first argument, no you didn't want it. You wanted the money you were going to make off of it.


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So if someone buys it and crafts it to make inf...?

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If you buy it to craft it to make inf, yes, you didn't want it either, but at least you're selling it to a player, taking his/her money, losing 10% of it, and not creating money out of thin air. You're actually improving the economy that way, which is why I approve of marketeering, and marketeer myself.

edit: I feel like I should expand on my previous point. It's perfectly fine to want something for the sole reason of selling it to someone else for a profit, as long as that it's beneficial to the economy. That's capitalism. When you're selling an item to someone(the vendor) which pays you a price that has no regard for the market value of the item, the money they use comes out of thin air, and your item dissapears into obscurity and isn't used by its consumer, that's bad for the economy.

That'd be like selling your car to a guy(who has a money printer) for $100, no matter what condition its in, so he can throw it in the ocean.

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No, it isn't.

It's like selling your car in the newspaper to the best offer and you only ask for a minimum of $1 and the person buys it from you for $1 and sells it to a junk dealer for $90.

Your point is as ridiculous as saying I have to sell my recipe and salvage drops on the market and cannot vendor them as I choose.

The sellers who sell their drops for below the vendor prices made their choice for whatever reason. If someone else wants it, they can outbid you for it.

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To Nethergoat though:
your first argument, no you didn't want it. You wanted the money you were going to make off of it.


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So if someone buys it and crafts it to make inf...?

Of course now I am going to go make my first energy melee/willpower brute...

Both are fine choices with their pluses and minuses so a lot of which will be better for you depends on your playstyle however if you want to be desired by groups I don't think stalkers fit that defition. They may not be hated by groups any more but brutes are definitely more in demand.

If you do choose to go the stalker route, I would agree with Fulmens that Energy Melee is the easier/better primary and Ninjitsu or Super Reflexes are excellent secondaries.

Brutes are endurance hogs if you run their damage auras. I don't really enjoy my brutes until the low 20s when I can get them stamina and SOs or level 25 or higher IOs. I love my fire/fire and stone/stone but they do eat the end bar. I would suggest /willpower for a brute secondary and avoid dual blades primary so you don't need to concentrate on the combinations. Energy melee for brutes, as with stalkers, has the nice benefit of a lot of disorient from the attacks which helps survivability.

So, my recomendation of what to try would be energy melee/willpower brute.

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Then there are others that think market manipulation is bs. Doesn't feel real heroic to sell something for 100x the actual cost just because you can.

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too bad the buyer sets the price.


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What? Are you certain? I mean I know I listed it for 12,345 and I got 350,000 (less fees) but certainly I forced the buyers to pay that amount according to the perverted view of the market haters.

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Nethergoat was half right.

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I think I could have fun with a question like "if a tree falls and no one hears it does it make a sound" by asking:

If an item is listed and no one buys it, was there ever a seller?

My recollection was more along the lines they would not proliferate powers on two issues in a row when people were trying to guess what they were going to proliferate in the next issue.

But I do recall some people thinking that meant they would proliferate every other issue and I think Castle said that was not the case either.

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Then there are others that think market manipulation is bs. Doesn't feel real heroic to sell something for 100x the actual cost just because you can.

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too bad the buyer sets the price.


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What? Are you certain? I mean I know I listed it for 12,345 and I got 350,000 (less fees) but certainly I forced the buyers to pay that amount according to the perverted view of the market haters.

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the only flaw i see in your statements is that the market hasn't been around for 5 yrs. it was introduced in i9 or i10 if i remember correctly.

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i9 on May 1, 2007. Ah, what a wonderful day that was for me.

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Holidays/events => 251 characters across the 3 accounts

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THREE ACCOUNTS?!!! *facepalms*

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There is very little on television and even less at the movie theaters I want to watch so I need a lot of variety of characters to play by powersets, levels, ATs, etc.

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Who else finds the 'better get the badge' logon-race a little, er, tedious?

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Holidays/events => 251 characters across the 3 accounts

Today's 5-year on one of those accounts will mean 148 of those 251, eventually. There really isn't a time constraint for the veteran reward badges because the characters can wait until I get to them.

So when we have a race, like the Anniversary badge this month, it is very tedious. But on the other hand, it is our choice to make all of these characters and pursue those badges on them.

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Some just play dress-up and the combat is really a form of theater for their characters.

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Thanks! I never really could put a handle on my play-style, but that's pretty much it in a nutshell!

I often wonder if I'm the only one that talks to NPCs and fires off my battle-cry when I'm soloing. OK, I'm sick I need help...

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You're not. Well not the only one who does those things, I mean. I am not going to comment on your health...

So who's who in the picture? Unless it is a secret.