Tealeaf

Also running on vista, with no obvious problems.

You could also go into whatever your channel's global channel is for badges/taskforces and the like and try to start one. Maybe you could be the first!

I've added the fire/kin tag to your post, as I have with several others. If you click on it, you'll see many posts that pose a similar question. Perhaps you can gain even more insight from some of these.

I think that the NPC's are given a bit of a break in terms of how they react to stuns to compensate for the fact they all are high school drop outs and dumb as dirt. AI just can't match real human intelligence, so the devs compensate by buffing them a bit, to give people some measure of challenge when dealing with them.

Where is the right place to do that, just out of curiousity? Not that I would or anything.

Glad to hear it! Played her last night duoing with Mr. Tealeaf, and got her up to almost nine. Took Superspeed at 8 just to get the travel power out of the way. Still having loads of fun with her, and it's good to hear that others have fun with this class up to 50!

Definately thinking about taking the medicene pool first, when I can work it in, rather than fighting.

So, I built my fire energy/energy blaster last night, and got her up to 7 without AE or sewers, all solo play, on difficulty setting 1. So far she's fun and seems fairly easy to solo, but then, most lowbies are. I'm thinking I might enjoy using both melee and distance attacks.

Right now my basic attack chain is to use build up if it up, smack something with energy punch and follow up with power thrust, and if it is still alive shoot it with power blast. If I have a group I try to knock them all off their feet with energy torrent, then use the above attack chain on individuals. I also have all the vet attacks, and use them if I have any holes in my attack chain.

This might all change as I get my later powers, of course. Right now I'm looking to go with the pool powers of speed for hasten and Superspeed, fitness for stamina, and thinking of going with fighting for tough and weave and Medicene for Aid Self. I'm not married to the idea of last two, just thinging about it.

I have mid's, but not really looking to do any serious number crunching, just discovering how she plays as she picks up various powers as they become available. So, in the long run, how viable is energy/energy for solo play? I'm not looking to make any serious coin with her, just have fun tossing stuff around.

You have to be level 20 to do the missions that will unlock the cape. Since trial accounts can only level to 14, people on them will not be able to access capes.

One more reason to go to a full paid account!

The migration to the new forum software has give users a few new toys to play with. My personal favorite new feature is the ability to add tags to any forum post. While often used as joke or to be silly, when used correctly they can make it easier for people to find information on any particular subject.

Tags? Where?

Tags are found between the new reply button and quick reply box. Alternately, look at the blue and white tag icon at the far right of the thread title in the thread list. If the thread has tags already and thus the icon, you can see which tags it has by hovering the mouse over the icon.

What are tags?

Tags are basically links that forum users can add to a post, that will bring up other posts that have the same tag when that tag word is chosen. The starter of a thread can add five, while other users can add two each. If you click on the word "tags" at the bottom of the thread page you are viewing, you'll see a Word Cloud, showing the 70 most used tags, weighted by usage. At the advanced search page you'll see a different word cloud showing the 70 most searched for tags. You can search for specific tags from either page. You can add, remove, or edit your own tags by going to the "edit tags" link at the far right of the bottom of the thread page. Tags must between 3 and 25 characters.

Are tags useful?

Yes and no, but mostly depends. Since anyone can add any tag anytime they feel like it (I assume the usual forum rules against crude language still apply), many people choose to add silly or unhelpful tags. They are anonymous; there is no way to tell who added any particular tag. Thus, they are a convenient way to leave a little jab at the starter of thread, without having any fear of reprisal (though if you violate forum rules with a particular tag I would guess that a Mod could conceivably banniate you for it). These tags aren't particularly useful, nor are they meant to be. My belief is that these tags don't do any harm, unless a particular post gathers so many of them that any useful tags get lost in the crowd.

Other tags can be very useful, however. Say you start a post about your new illusion radiation controller, then check back in a while to see if you've gotten any replies. You see a new ill/rad tag has been added by someone. If you click on that, you'll see a list of other posts on the same subject, some of which might give you better insights on how you might play or build your character. Or you might stumble across a useful post about slotting enhancements. If the thread has useful tags you can find posts in a similar vein, without having to hope you strike gold by using the search feature.

Tags are exactly as useful as the forum community chooses them to be.

So, are they useful?

There are plenty of people of there posting useless tags, and there always will be as long as this feature is present and unmoderated. There are others who make a point of systematically adding helpful tags. It's difficult to judge which group is making a bigger impact in the adding of tags, but certainly, some tags as being used right now are useful.

So, what makes a particular tag useful?

Simply, the likelihood that it will help people find other posts that have some connection to the post they are added too. You could come up with the best tag ever, but if it is only attached to one or two posts, then the chances of being particularly useful are slim. Vanity posts, where you use your or someone else's username might make you feel good, but aren't likely to get many clicks except for from your fans. Non sequitur tags might be funny, but aren't going to be useful in terms of organizing posts.

Useful tags are ones that can recognizably connect related posts, and that are in relatively wide use.

How do I make useful tags?

A very useful feature of the tag field is that when you type more then three characters, a list of all tags that also start with that string will float below your cursor. Adding characters will narrow the list, making it easier to see if the concept you are going for is already in use.

If the tag you want to use isn't already in use, go head and add it. What makes any particular tag is subjective, of course, but there a few things I try to keep in mind when I create tags.

When I'm adding a new tag I try to pick one that is descriptive without being too general or redundant. The tag "City of Heroes" isn't going to be enough to narrow down searches, while a tag like "question" or "guide" going to be very broad. I also try to keep the tags fairly neat. To me the tag "ill/rad" is just as useful as "ill/rad build", and the word "build" here doesn't seem to me to add much.

I also try to avoid using too many abbreviations. "DB/SR" might make perfect sense in the title of a post in the scrapper's forum, but it's meaning might not be immediately apparent to everyone reading, say, Player questions. I try to flesh out my tags to the point they can simply be read rather than deciphered. My tag for the example above is "dual blades/super reflex", which is just under the 25 character limit.

I truly do believe that the benefits from useful tags far outweigh any negatives from the use of the not so useful ones. I hope that this guide has helped to making this even more true.

Just a final thought on the subject; any post about tags is going to generate a boatload of them, mostly of the silly variety. Just because this guide is probably going to end up with many fluff tags doesn't change my opinion of the overall usefulness of this feature.

Enjoy and good tagging to all!

May I offer the point of view that that animated avatar might not be as cool as you think? Sure, it might look nifty sitting there all on its lonesome, but next to your post it can be distracting as all get out. They really irritate me, and I often skip over reading posts, especially longer ones, if their animated gif is is on the verge of giving me a seizure.

Just something to consider.

Of course I'm not going to try to talk you out of anything, but but it's not like there's any need to get competitive about obtaining the "Forum Tagger" badge. Though now that I think on it, it might be sorta cool to be able to tell somehow who tagged what how.

Snakebit: So noted. In fact, that one might even be more useful than The Little Black Book. I'm going to have to start wishing extra hard.

Well, if you want to learn the secret handshake, I think you have to post a screenie of your billion along with you in the shot wearing a monocle and tophat, doing the teabag /em.

But I could be wrong, I'm only a pathetic multi-millionaire.

I'm with you, AnotherDeadHero! Together, we will make a difference!

*Charges off into the sunset*

This issue is full of win. Now my husband and mine low level heroes and villians will be able to group with one another! I have a feeling that this is going to make finding a group or TF much easier when there are limited numbers of people on, say at 3am when I'm usually on.

Loving the email change too. I think that if the RMT'er start using paid accounts to send advertising /tells, they'll risk losing them since we can report those accounts as spammers. With the paid accounts now identifiable, they are now bannable. I'm not seeing a downside here.

I didn't even know that the search page also had a word cloud, and that it was different from the one I knew about. Pretty cool, at least by my rather relaxed standards.

Oh, I have no doubt that the majority of tags are useless, and thus will it will always be. But while right now this post has gathered some silly ones already, it has "forums" (which I added), and "tag utility", which I didn't. If someone is reading this thread and wants to find more like it, they can probably figure out pretty quickly which ones might be useful to them to that end.

Maybe I'm an optimist. But I do think that if even a few people make a real effort to add tags in such a way that it will help people find posts that relate to the one they are reading, they will overall be helpful. But, I've been known to be overly optimistic before.

Getting used to new software can be a headache, but by and large I like the new forums better than the old ones. One thing I really like about them is that we have the the ability to use tags. The starter of a thread can add five, while other users can add two each. If you click on the word "tags" at the bottom of the thread page you are viewing, you'll see a Word Cloud, showing the 70 most used tags, weighted by usage.

Ok, I'm sort of a forums geek and find this to be severly nifty. But can it actually be useful? Right now, according to the cloud, "i like pie" is the most used tag. I know that I'll never, ever be one of the cool kids, and I am cool with that, but this tag doesn't mean much of anything to me. Others make more sense to me. For example, I can see why someone might what to see all the "cheese with your whine?" or "fire/kin" threads.

So, what do you all think? Are any of you using the tags feature when you're looking for threads on a particular topic? Do you think that a few tags will be used consistently enough to be useful to the community in general? I've started adding tags to posts to help catagorize them, but I wondering if I'm really doing anyone a service or not by doing so.

Worth it? It's a free power that comes from not cancelling the game. The only way to not get it is to unsubscribe. It's free (assuming you are are paying to play the game, not just get nifty vet awards).

There are several vet awards I never use. Many of costume pieces, free and reduced tailor sessions, the base items, even the pets are things I don't usually use. The base teleporter, on the other hand, is a power I frequently use with all of my characters.

It has happened to me before. I waited a hour or so, typed /respec again, and it worked fine. Perhaps it something along the lines of the "Transaction failed, consignment shop too busy" (paraphrased due to my bad memory) error I see once in a while.

Forum posts now have tags? How do we add them to posts? Or maybe the mods have to do it, since I very much doubt that the OP would have picked those ones. It's just a new, interesting feature.

News to me. I've always clicked like a banshee on crack (cause that's how I roll) and never had any problem at all, till last night when I crashed out 3 times. So you guys are sure I can't blame the latest patch? Maybe I ought to kick my CPU around thel living room a few times after all.