Techbot Alpha

I love you handily ignore my point about how limited a toolset we get, compared to the massive toolbox the Devs have.

AE is in dire need of the new tech being added to it.

My work here is complete

Aurgh, damnit Z-Man! It's bad enough when GG does it! But you too?!

See my sig >_< Courtesy of yoruself.



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What, with the AE that is currently broken on so many levels, censors common, everday words, and has about 60% LESS tools than the Devs have at their disposal?

Give me their damn toolset and I'll make arcs for FREE, ANYTHING to get rid of some of the dross that's still in game. And that's not even mentioning the railroading in Graves.

And in this, the new 'Tutorial', as much use for teaching anything as a chocolate on Mars, fails spec-bloody-tacularly.

I don't feel like a Hero or Villain. I feel utterly bloody useless.

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Let's elaborate on this a little, shall we?

Old Hero Tutorial; Outbreak had you learning the ropes and helping the science teams contain and then deal with the Outbreak of...uh...Outbreak Virus. Since one of Villain sides early missions has the villain deliver some of this stuff to Paragon City, it make perfect sense for this event to happen over and over. New strains of virus, new cures made by the Heroes and allies.

You learned how to move, talk to contacts, attack stuff, what different enemy cons meant, how to use inspirations and how to combine enhancements. You also learned about instances, clickies and a little about Allies/rescue.

And you felt quite heroic. You went toe-toe to with mobs of Infected, rescued a fellow Hero and found the cure to the virus strain. Sure, it was a bit old and clunky, but it did the job.

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Old Villain Tutorial; Zig Break Out. What better way to start off as a Villain than tearing your way out of the top security prison in the City in a storm of bullets, fire and meta-powered awesome? You leaned about clickies, different contacts, enemy cons and attacks, enhancements and inspirations, before doing instanced missions.

You were the real deal. Arachnos was there for important Metas, and YOU were on the list of big bads. This whole shebang was, in part, for you. You beat up everything in your way. You helped blow up the comms tower; YOU made the escape possible.
Up yours, authority!

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So, what do we have in the New Tutorial?

Well, you learn to move, sure. You learn to attack. You DON'T learn anything about conning. You get nothing about instances, glowies, new contacts, inspirations OR Enhancements. You don't even fight all that much. And there's Sis P and BaBs, one shotting everything and being all awesome and heroic...wow, I feel greeeatyeahno.

The end 'Boss' is the most lacklustre, uninspiring affair ever. There is NO threat, ever. Vanguards jets do more damage than I do! This thing can't even hit me! And how, HOW, exactly are the Shivans meant to be blocking the teleport system? Cosmic Plotonium Rays, hmm?

'But the new tutorial arcs teach you all this!'
Yeah? They teach you how to level up after you have had to level up four times already? Everything they 'teach' comes AFTER the times you've needed them! That's not a tutorial! That entirely negates the ENTIRE POINT of a tutorial!


I mean, my gods, I never EVER thought I would say this...as anyone who ever read any of my posts re: Revamping the old tutorials will know, and my feedback in Beta...but strewth, I miss the old tutorials! There, I said. Divided by zero.
Because the new tutorial doesn't make me feel 'super' at all, except in the context of super-fluous.

^ Agreed. We've had a lot of new shiny, yes, some of it very awesome.

But I'd be happy if they took a break from 'New Shiny' zones to fix some of the damn old ones, and finish half done jobs.

Well, yes...but you can't do *anything* CoH related if the servers are down anyway
Whereas if the servers are up but global/email is down, that's just frustrating, especially when Vet awards used to be fully claimable at all times (so long as the game servers were up, obviously)

^ This, /signed

And, guess what? If the damn email server goes down, like it did in Beta, then you can't claim ANYTHING. Which is [Censored] ¬¬

Take your throw-back spelling elsewhere. WE were here first. And it's still called ENGLISH!

^ THIS, a thousand damn times.

Costumes HAVE no significance except for looking good. This is not WoW; there are no booties of +2 splodging, no Beanie Hats of +4 goofery or Stabby sticks of +2.67 Poke.
A costume piece is only as good as the costume it is part of and the character its used on. I've seen amazing costumes that use nothing but spandex and a few add ons, and then some with hugely ornate armour that suits them to the ground.

And the Devs seem to be increasingly locked into this damn stupid 'You have to be this cool to wear this cool piece!' mentality that is NOT befitting of a game like CityOf

Agreed. Given the player-base in the US *will* be bigger, it makes sense to do it when it effects them least.
However, IF there is a patch ready and it can go at a time that isn't too bad for BOTH groups, then it should be done then.

But hey-oh

So it's ok to sit on their backsides all day, every day, playing games?

Right now that's a little rich coming from me, but doing a degree does tend to leave you somewhat dead-beat in your free time, so I have some excuse.

When I was younger (god that line makes me sound old...) I was *very* active. Outside, climbing trees, running around like a little nutter, going to the local pool to swim and such.
Why do people think this generation, in both the UK and US, are simply damn fat? A lot of them, anyway. Because parents just plonk them down in front of TV or games 'because it's easier'.

Parents should have to take a damn written exam, not just the practical...Then we might not have a generation of antisocial little ingrates...
Get orf mah lawn!

If purely money was the aim, why not simply make it a booster pack? That way MORE people would have been tempted to drop money on it instantly, and more new people would as well when Freedom proper goes live.

Rather than 'charging' a stupidly high price if one doesn't have high enough Vet rank. Which puts me in mind of the miniature company Games Workshops current business mode; charging obscenely high prices that the die-hards will pay, rather than lowering the prices back to the old, reasonable ones and enticing many, MANY more new players to buy stuff. I....utterly fail to see how the latter will not be more profitable, in both short AND long terms.

However, you have just highlighted the massive difference between the other game you mention and CoH.

City of Heroes STARTED (nearly) with an EU presence. They made the decision "We will have the EU in here too." There was an EU team, events, all that.

And then it died. For a very long time, EU players went from being equals to US players, as it should be, to being practically ignored by support and devs alike. We had no events (we still barely do, the only one I know of was player organised), no competitions, no acknowledgement whatsoever.

And, had it ONLY been a US game (like the Russian one you mention), then yes, we would have had to suck it up. Because, you know, it would always have been that way.

But it was not a US only game. Do you see the difference there?

Thankfully, the current Dev and Community team have gone a long way to repairing that damage. Zwill, Second and Beastyle showing up in PD, on the live servers no less (A big deal. The Devs might as well not have existed for us given the times they ever showed up compared to the US servers [i.e. never]), Avatea being an absolute dear every time she's been around (and fixing things like griefers in Pocket D) and the EU finally getting in on contests and the like.


The EU group are as big a part of the community as the US side, maybe not numerically, but certainly with nearly as much impact. We've been here from nearly Day 1 (ok, maybe day 2, heh), unlike your example. And we pay our subs the same as anyone, which in turn means equal treatment. It's really that simple.

Edit: I realise Issue 4 isn't exactly 'Day 1'. However, the EU crowd have still been around for 17/21 Issues. That's still well over half.

I guess my point is; had the game never had EU servers, EU dedicated stuff and suchnot, then so be it. It'd be the same other games with similar models. But that choice was made, and so should be honoured. For the most part, these days, it is, which is good. And necessary maintenance is still necessary, don't get me wrong.

Agreed...