Tal_N

Screenshot here!

Little Sprout - Justice server

This is actually my wife's character which I think is quite nice, she's got serveral which are good but I figured I'd enter her main character and see how it goes.

****Updated with higher resolution images****

A side view with her looking over the lake

A closer frontal

E3 and all of the travelling is enough to put alot of strain on anyone, however Jack did mention that he'd been having some other personal problems which were causing him stress. Probably his wife or whatever getting annoyed at him spending so much time travelling for business, but that can't really be helped.

Either way, Jack's had a very tiring couple of months so its no surprize he's looking a little weary.

If you folks want some detailed information on the new Croatoa zone (which is indeed that new unmarked place on the map where the green line has an extention to) then check out this website called the 5th Column Newsreel.

They have screenies of the new zone with an upcoming video as well. A complete handdrawn map of the zone with details on the names of the various zones. The site also gives details on the new firefighting missions as well as the new Troll raves in Skyway City.

A little research of mine has revealed that there is a phonamon known as the Black Stream, it is infact a strong undersea current which extends from Taiwan up past Japan. There are four others in the world it seems part of the major currents that cause the rise and fall in sea temperatures.

With that in mind I strongly suspect that the Blood of the Blackstream is linked to the Coralax, if there are four undersea races that rule over parts of the world then maybe a conflict has arisen which threatens to alter the world climate because the currents would become out of balance. Maybe the Winter Lord event was caused by something going wrong with the streams near Paragon City and the change of the sea's tides has also forced the Lusca to take harbor in Independance Port.

The Coralax and the Blood of the Black Stream might be very similar in concept to the Peacebringers and the Warshades. Namely two different but similar ATs that fight on the same side.

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The Arena's are not fun b/c its kill the squishy, thats all base raids will end up being too.. if its a click the glowie to win situation someone will phase shift, run to it unphase, click it as he gets ganked by those guarding it and it'll be all over.

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I get the feeling that you've already made your mind up and aren't going to listen to reason. But here it goes anyway....

First of all a baseraid isn't won by who killed the most of the other team. Thats not it at all. Its won by who captured the IoP within the timelimit of the raid. Phase shifting through and clicking on a glowie won't happen because they are protected by a forcefield that needs to be smashed down. That means more than one person needs to be there and tangible in order to bring it down.

The clicky is normal so being interupped by damage will stop you from capturing it.

That means tactics are needed by both sides, the defenders need to build up a solid defence to protect the IoP and frankly they have the easiest time compared to the raiders since the defenders can respawn within the base if they have hospital facilities. The raiders need to break apart that defences so its more than just 'kill the squishie' because it'll be possible for a single tanker to guard the IoP and simply hit anyone who tries to click on it. Thus tactics are essential as is teamwork.

Secondly. The bases can have automated defences and NPCs, that means battles are different than the arena from that side as well.

I have to disagree, they're exploring new avenues rather than recycling tried and tested methods. I praise them for trying to find new ways for PvP to work rather than kick them because they're trying to innovate.

They certainly have the knowledge and I'm curious how you came to that rather ridgid conlusion about their abilities?

***this is the anti-hijack police. Please step away from the topic, you have 30 seconds to comply or we WILL be forced to use lethal force***

Since the appointment system is going in I must say, on behalf of everyone who doesn't want the raid system to be something folks chuckle about because its so out of character, please make the 'appointment' to be as thickly covered in fictional sidedressing as possible.

Maybe a computer virus that is detected within the bases supercomputer that will lower the defences at 5pm the next day. Or some mystical allignments which will happen at 7.30pm tomorrow that you heard some villain group is going to take advantage of to raid your base.

Please, please, please don't make it a blatent 'we will raid your base on X day at Y time' type message that is sent to the SG leader or whatever.

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I'm not saying the whole idea is doomed, what I am saying is that there will need to be an incredible incentive to want to keep the items in your base to make it worth the hassle, that of course will then lead to other problems, if the item gives you something really cool then it will also give an unfair advantage over people who dislike and do not want to participate in PvP

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Well the devs have stated that all rewards gained from PvP will only be of benefit in PvP. What they will be doing is making certain content only available for those who PvP, that includes PvE missions set in PvP zones which are completely opitional. Remember that the devs need to draw people into PvP who won't normally try it so no matter how you cut it the people who don't want to do PvP will be missing some significant PvE content. That content is of course optional but the lure has to be there to make heroes vs villain PvP appealing enough to justify the effort going into that part of the game.

I'm not an avid PvPer, I do however enjoy it when theres the opitunity and its well balanced. If the devs decide to go the route whereby someone can defeat me just because they're 3 levels higher than my character then my interest in PvP will drop significantly. But if they implement a system whereby a player's skills are more important than the level then my interest in PvP will increase significantly.

As it stands though, I'm on the fence. The PvP element in CoV seems like a big chunk of the game and if its designed to appeal only to hardcore PvPers and not casual pvp players then I can see it flopping as baddly as the arena.

I think a 6 hour warning would be enough to be honest, rather than have something like a 24 hour notice of attack whereby the whole feeling of this being a 'raid' rather than a staged event is lost.

To be franky I don't see a problem with unannounced raid since the difference between a good supergroup and a bad supergroup is one which is able to effectively defend their bases. We now have coalition chat which means the best connected SGs will ALWAYS have people around to defend a base.

But since alot of people feel that this might turn base defending into a 'job' then clearly another option should be explored. Something that is a compromise between the spontanious and planned. Thats why I suggest a 6 hour warning which is done in such a way that it doesn't seem like an appointment and does have a sense of urgency.

Since a base raid starts with a portal opening into the base from a hostile location it would make sense that thebase defences would detect abnormal energy signitures which would altert the SG to a raid in progress. The portal effect would start small and grow more and more obvious within the base to add tension to the who raid and make it a little more cinematic. A 6 hour building up window would be an ideal solution as it allows the SG members online to organise a defence. This again means that there is a difference between a bad and a good SG, a really well organised group would have a website and forum which allows them to get out notification to people who are outside the game.

I'd say that this would be a nice compromise to ensure a decent showing at the base while also making it seem like a hostile attempt on the base rather than something done by appointment. If you start getting into 8 or even 10 hour notification then a base raid just doesn't feel urgent enough.

Frankly I'd like to see a maximum of 3 hours notification but some might still say thats too short to organise a defence.

Every other MMO has base raids and such without the need for this appointment booking system. Even SWG had the solution of bases only being vulnerable during a 3 hour window each day at the same time which is kept secret and could be altered by placing the base again.

All I'm saying is that there are far better and less silly solutions than notifying the enemy that your going to attack at a certain time.

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If you choose to, you can take part in base raids. Other people will need to send you a notification that they intend to raid at a certain time. We want base raids to be an event, and that requires people to be there. If your group doesn’t show, then it isn’t much of an event; we have to make Supergroups somewhat responsible for themselves.

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This is taken from an interview with Lord Recluse. Frankly this has got to be the single most stupid thing I have ever heard of when it comes to the classic Good Vs Evil battles that are supposed to be the cornerstone of CoV.

The fact you need to give notification of the raid in advance is a total break with the atmosphere of the game. The factyou also give a rough time is also totally insane.

I'm not going to argue what happened in comics, I'm gonna argue this based on the fiction within the world that Cryptic is trying to create. Take a look at the CoV video, its no wonder that Statesman and co got their butts handed to them. They needed to book an appointment with Lord Recluse before they arrived! Thats why everyone was sitting around that table at the start messing with a game of Battleship. (which incidently Mako is the king at)

Now I don't mind the fact that there should be people at the baseraid to make it fun, but booking an appointment is one of the sillest solutions to avoiding a no-show from the people defending the base I have ever heard. A better solution is that once the base is under attack every member of the SG should received an alarm signal that its under attack. The base should also have automated defences to provide a challange.

Take a look at the CoV video, there were guards there to help defend the place so heroes and villains should be able to man their bases with NPCs.

Yes, base raids without players is less fun than taking down a base with only NPCs. But lets not throw fiction to the wind here after the devs have spend so long trying to keep the gameworld realistic to the fiction they have created.

I'd love to get Guildwars but my wife is comes from a relgious background and frankly its annoying that every fantasy games degenerates into involving demons and undead which she is very much against. It would be nice to have an fantasy MMO that just stuck to dragons, monsters and goblins.

Thanks for the heart attack! I was expecting there to be some kind of issue we should expect with Windows XP and the new Issue 5 when it comes out when I saw the title of this.

Just want to say that the Fallen Isles won't have a prison since they're run by Lord Recluse and its full of criminnals. If and when they come near to Paragon City then I'd expect defeated villains to straight to prison and need to pay bail or something.

I would prefer if it did have an icon since it allows people to decide if they want to attack and take the risk of hitting themselves or others.

Apparently the fliers that were given out at the convention were saying a March release. Frankly I can't see it getting much sooner than that. I expect it'll be on the TC before the end of this month though and spend 2-3 weeks in playtesting.

Ever used confusion on an exploding enemy? Now thats hilarious

The questions were filtered by the guys at Stratics, I got talking to one of them prior to the chat which is partly why I got my question in first. It seems that the guy I was speaking to had never even played CoH in the first place so its no surprize that the questions chosen by them are so utterly useless most of the time. Afterall, the people choosing filtering them don't know what the devs or the players are talking about.

Ouch. Martial Arts and Super reflexes, quite possibily one of the hardest builds to enjoy because of the major endurance problems with it. Glad to see it hasn't detered you though.

Its great to see the devs with good customer service skills, but like someone said. I hope its not something which will burn them out and they'll just cut back on doing it. However if the lead designer encourages talking with the community then I'd say its a good sign for us all.

SWG used to do it but then stopped. A year later almost all of the development team has now been fired and all new staff has been brought in. Things like bugs that existed snce beta are only now being fixed but things seemed to be on the up... especially communication with the fans.

Portal technology has been around for years, it was possible even back when half-life was was starting to get more heavily modified. The technology was widely used with Half-Life2 as well where a polygon surface essentially behaved like the viewport for a camera and basically rendered things in the world twice. Once for the world itself and once for what the viewport was displaying.

I'm sure given time its something the CoH engine could be adapted to do especially since it would promote a more social aspect to the arena because players physically gather around one another to watch the match.

If it randomly switches between matches in progress then that might be ideal for encouraging other players to get involved. Naturally one switch when the players inside are in combat, the last thing you want is to just see someone running down a street.

I dont see why they just can't have a giant TV screen that shows selected matches in progress. Naturally you could have dozens of matches going on so why doesn't every instance of these matches have its own lobby with its own Gigant-O-Vision?

That would seem alot more immersive than taking control over a spydrone. Just have the camera follow certain hereos at certain times, only have it focus on heroes that are in combat.