Tal_N

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Great vid. Too bad you guys didnt record us on Test yesterday.

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I have to say the fights were mainly a melee furball since powers were on a 10 second delay and they were saying they were recharged when infact they weren't. Several times I found Impale said someone was out of range when it looked like they were at pointblank.

Fury effects almost all powers, even the Warburg nukes and PPPs.

I have to agree, can we have a different animation for the dark melee Assassin strike. There's just something unimpressive an animation which looks like someone is squatting over a bucket with constipation.

What makes me laugh is that the devs intended these to be utilities for small SGs, yet the costs for making these buffs amount to more salvage than 4 players can gather at once. Seems like alot of teamwork to give a single person a mildly decent buff.

Frankly I think that the domination boost should be lowered by 50% and have the standard attacks boosted in damage to compensate. The domination bonus of increased duration, mag and endurance refill is enough without making it the sole way for a dominator to deal damage. Give it a minor damage boost rather than a major one and tip the scales for the more attacks.

What I find interesting is that these buffs are limited duration right? And the devs claim that travelpowers are not a requirement to play the game (statesman said he has a char without anything but sprint). So tell me, what is the point of anyone without a travel power using an empowerment station, then using the teleporter to go into a hazard zone (terra volta for example) and then needing to run to the far end of independance port. The trip alone will take around 10 minutes so by the time they get to their mission they get only 5 minutes worth of benefit.

God forbid someone wants to get to PI in time for thier mission, taking the route from their base (entering from AP) then out into Dark Astoria, crossing Talos Island to the PI ferry and then making it to the portal corp building.

All of these buffs and not a single temporary travel power....
City of Heroes. You WILL take a travel power... or else.

OK... now can we see the devs adding the nighborhood invasions they mentioned in beta since the world can be dynamically changed with this new technology?

I'm surprized to hear that City of Legends (or whatever) won't be seen until next year but its great to know that the poll everyone took part in is influencing the next retail expansion. I did hear you guys didn't want to do another full retail game so expansions did seem like a better idea. I do hope that the Arctic zone is what won the poll however it does seem that the Rikti homeworld was the major contendor and would be a nice topic for the expansion and the on-going story.

Glad to see the devs are now focussing on true content rather than features. Issue 8 sounds like it'll be a real boon to the series and I can't wait for the veteran rewards as it gives me a reason to dust off Tal-N after all this time and send him into the fray again.

So essentially MMs with bodyguards are vulnerable to AoE damage if the AoE hits them AND their henchmen but gain lots of additional protection against single target damage.

So much for MMs having their pets ignored in PvP now

I seriously think the devs should elaborate a little more on why it was nerf'd. From what I can see it appears that Hurricane was infact operating outside of what it was intended to do and was simply highlighted by PvP. Assuming it was altered for PvE due to PvP issues isn't a fair assumption since the devs are not in the habit of lying and said this wouldn't happen if they could help it.

As such I suspect the change was because Storm Control is a (de)buff set and having an AoE control power was outside of its normal purpose. You have to admit, the -range, knockback and -acc was secondary to the repel itself. So in sense, the debuff aspect was taking a back seat to the control aspect.

That simply seems wrong for a debuff powerset. I don't think the power has been made less valuable at all, its simply changed purpose. I have two stormies and one is going to benefit alot from this change, it used to be annoying being unable to use Ice Slick with Hurricane as it would instantly force them off of the ice. Now its possible to benefit from the -acc debuff and keep them on the ice for longer as well.

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PvE repel is exactly the same strength as before. Yes, it ticks more slowly, which is a double edged sword -- it costs you less endurance to maintain, but it's not quite as good defensively.

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Last time I checked Hurricane didn't draw additional endurance for repelling foes. It was different from the likes of Whirlwind and the kinetics Repel power in that sense as those actually do knockback not repel.

So the endurance cost is not lowered due to the less frequent pulses.

Sounds fairer though, afterall the ability also has a knockback effect so in PvP and PvE its offering some decent crowd control. Too bad it can't be used for herding enemies into a corner now though but on the plus side its actually improved the synergy with Ice Control on my ice/stormie since it can be used and won't instantly force enemies outside of the other AoE powers effective them.

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Awry can you tell us what power the woman surrounded by strands of light (last picture down) is using? I'm hoping it's one of Ghost Widows... basically I'm wondering how different the power animations are from their base power... I like swirly light but not so much the shadow and darkness that comes with the dark powers.

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Thats Soul Storm, its identical to what you saw in the E3 CoV trailer where you saw Synapse do a Leeroy.

I did notice that choices are less varied than the heroes. Alot less varied since this is essentially around 6-8 powers from each patron simply rearranged. It is nice to see that villains get a pet though reguardless of the AT.

Its a complaint about something which is working as intended, castle isn't glossing over anything. Manticore is supposed to be a master archer so the ability to hit you almost reguardless of anything is fine especially since he's an AV and they all have unique attributes.

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15 minutes is the time we are going to the Training Room with. If it turns out that that's not enough time for you to Empowerment Buff, get to the mission, and get you through the tough fight, then it will be increased.

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Ok Posi, potential problem here which to me stands out by a glaring mile but you devs appear to have missed.

Statesman has said the game can be played fine without any travelpowers, if the empowerment stations only provide a 15 minute buff then any kind of non-travelpowered hero will spend most of that buff time travelling on foot. Especially in Paragon City where the teleporters only take you to hazard zones.

Have you tried running from one end of Independance Port to the other. It takes around 10 minutes, if you then imagine trying to navigate Terra Volta it takes almost another 10 minutes as well.

Unless travel powers are to become an inherant part of every character then these buffs will not be valuable to all of the player base. Furthermore, its again enforcing the fact that players need to spend 2 powerslots for an ability which is almost mandatory to enjoy the game and certain features within.

What would you prefer? Having Paragon City defended by the legions of Lanaruu? Or Malta?

Frankly though I think this is actually a worthless rumor, Longbow is a special devision intended to moniter the Rouge Isles, chances are this new department of the PCPD with the trenchcoat cops and the new prototype police-drones will be defending Paragon City.

I'm pretty certain this isn't the case. I've been hit behind buildings before now and I know for a fact that it doesn't do a range check like snipes do.

The fact is that this project destiny is tied to the temporal annomaly within the Rouge Isles which Recluse is using. The CoX universe appears to have an odd twist to how time operates, while the future is in flux it seems that any changes done to the future timeline echo back and influence the chance of it happening. If you imagine time as a river with flow going in one direction then its fair to say that anything happening upstream will change things downstream. In this example, downstream is the future, upstream is either the present or the past.

So drop a stone in the water upstream and it creates waves and currents both where it is dropped but also downstream. A larger stone creates bigger waves and makes larger changes in the waves and currents downstream. Like time, history has both minor and major events which have very small or very large effects on the rest of history. However when you drop a large stone a river water ripples and currents may favor being passed downstream but large enough stones cause ripples and currents to be changed upsteam from where it was dropped. Obviously the natural currents will fight against these ripples diminishing their effet and forcing the bulk of the influence downstream but if you keep dropping one large stone after another over and over it'll create enough disturbance to overcome the natural flow of the river causing changes further upstream.

The CoX timeline appears similar, Recluse's Victory is a critical location in time with far reaching effects on the entire world. Since it is in flux it needs to be maintained and the longer its controlled and the more the villains dominate the greater the chance it's 'ripples' will start to effect the past and cause destiny to lead to this future timeline here Recluse rules the world.

Now Dr Aeon and Deviner Moras appear tied to this future timeline. Moras talks of 'the fall of the tower' which appears to have thrown him all over time. He talks of time losing all meaning and how the future, the past and the present being blurred. It sounds like something disaterous happened which may have infact caused the temporal annomally which in itself is a tear in time. Most likely cause by the 'fall' of this 'tower. Odds are this tear will happen within Dr Aeon's lifetime and thus may lead to a paradox as the tear already exists. Perhaps this 'tower' is a means for Recluse to control the tear, but it malfunctioned and unwravelled time from that point on but caused the tear to appear in the past. Creating the inevitable chicken and the egg situation.

We've already seen a dimention can be torn appear, as shown by the Shadow Shard. Perhaps what Aeon fears is this 'tower' he helpped to create which is totally messed up reality in the future so he went to the past to stop it from being developed. Moras does infact appear to be a casualty of this disaster as his mind and his body apparently exists outside of time.

Either way, the future (past, present?) of CoX looks very interesting if they finally get the story moving at a decent pace.

I dunno, I feel that Arachnos is a better name for the origanisation. SPIDER just doesn't have the same ring to it for a large worldwide crimminal organisation. Its as cringeworthy as SHIELD and HYDRA from the Marvel universes.

SPIDER could still exist if it's an operation codename thats part of Project Destiny.

Not so much a case of misprint but more of a total confusion thing.

If you ever do the Cult of the Shaper arc you'll notice that it seems they sometimes refer to Calystix as both a man and a woman. I had a long debate with a team once who were doing the final battle in my arc, only to be totally dumbstruck when I looked at his/her bio to see that Caly does actually get referred to as a she in the info but looks like a man.

Very confusing.

What makes me laugh is that:

(a) This game was envisioned by a group of 40yr olds who are addicted to comic books.

(b) Created by folks who spent more time in further education rather than 'getting a life' and who spend their days staring at C++ and maths books.

(c) Maintained and operated by people who spend their days sitting in front of a PC then probably go home and relax on.. a PC.

Then as you said its played by people who love comic books, superheroes and spend their lesuire time infront of a PC. So at what point here doesn't the term 'dork' or 'geek' come to mind?

The world has changed folks, dorks and geeks are now the biggest money earners while the guys who dropped out of school to get a job, hang out down the bar with their mates and sit around watching the superbowl aren't earning more than a basic wage. Its scary though, people like Castle here make more money in 6 months than most couples would earn together when working a fulltime job in a year.

Respect the geek, for he hath the mooonayyy!

Gilgamesh is on TR? Wow, I was interested before. Now I'm definently going to be paying close attention!

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Recluse's Victory in Issue 7 is a level 45 to 50 PvP Zone.

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I see, so the fact is that the zone will be impossible to use when the new patch is launched since it will take a week or two for the first villains to reach level 45. Thats very dumb I must say considering the other zones overlap, new content that heroes can get practice within before the first villain even sets foot inside. Especially since temp powers are involved.

Isn't this kinda like giving all the heroes free access to the warburg nukes only in a heroes vs villain zone? Great, so the heroes get all the perks weeks before villains trickle in.

I thought that this kind of thing was a feature, since there was talk of having random spawn-in points to deter base camping.