Texas Justice

I'm not sure how much of it is a limitation of the forum software, how much of it is a limitation of the Seattle web team's capabilities and how much of it is a limitation of the NCSoft billing system.

The NCSoft billing/accounts system only recognizes 2 types of accounts, VIP or Free (applies to Free and Premium). To recognize a third type would require work to change the billing/accounts system. We already have people locked out of their accounts due to the changes to the billing system last week that split Aion and Lineage II accounts into a different system. How long would it take them to get this implemented and working correctly just to add a third type of account?

The web team tied our forum login (and therefore, forum access levels) to our game accounts and since part of that linkage includes the billing system, both would need some serious work to allow recognizing multiple types of accounts.

From what I'm told by some forum admins on other sites that use vBulletin, adding another level of logged in permissions is doable in vBulletin and restricting the access to sections based on those permissions is doable as well, although it can be a bit involved to initially set up. It may or may not require updating to a newer version of vBulletin, something the OCR team is already trying for (and has been for some time from some things that have been said). It may also require the purchase of some specific vBulletin add-ins and people learning how to correctly configure them (oops, that's the Seattle web team again, good luck). The first obstacle would still be recoding the NCSoft billing system to recognize a third type of account.

Since that is something that would have to be set up by the Seattle web team, I'm not sure if A) they'd agree to something like that or B) if they could successfully configure it without fouling more things up. This is the same team that decided that users couldn't be logged in to the forums for more than 8 hours and in setting that up they've fouled up the cookies so that they expire or delete if you close the browser, sometimes expire or delete if you hit the Back button, randomly still log you out for no apparent reason and other problems.

As for tying it to a Reward Tier, I'm not sure if the Paragon Rewards system has a way to tie a Reward Token or a Reward Tier to anything on the forums. As it is currently configured it only applies to things in the game itself. There likely would be quite a bit of work needed on the system to be able to interface with the forum software, and again, that would require more work from the Seattle web team and I've lost trust in their abilities to get things right. It would likely also require more work by PlaySpan (the people that developed the Market interface).

All in all, I really don't see them doing something like this because it would require quite a bit of work in several areas, most of them not under direct control of Paragon Studios (Billing being under NCSoft Austin, forum software being under the Seattle web team and the store interface requiring more work from PlaySpan). It would also be quite a bit of work for very little tangible benefit and would also require more work from the Paragon Studios staff for increased moderation of those forum sections. I frankly don't see that happening.


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That being said:

If they ever do find a way to allow the Rewards system to interact with the forum software then you still have need for a UI system to allow the user to select which forum sections to apply it to as well as configuration from the Seattle web team to implement those selections.

And as others have pointed out, what about people that run mulitple AT's? What about those that operate actively on multiple servers and need to participate in that servers forum section?

If they were ever to implement something like this I'd recommend opening the following with a fairly high level Reward Tier (I'd rather it be a Tier fill requirement than a Token unlock simply to keep from losing current Token slotting, but either would work):

News, Events & Announcement Discussion
Archetypes and Powers (yes, the entire section, no limitations to a specific AT)
Servers (yes, the entire section)



If they could ever work something like this out, which would require a huge amount of work as it is, I'd say put one of the unlocks at Tier 6, one at Tier 7 and one at Tier 8 (either a specific section at a specific Tier or a choice of one of those sections at each Tier).

In addition maybe add a Token unlock for 1 forum section in For Fun OR 1 forum section in Player Help in Tier 9. Some would have to make a choice between say CHVC and Market & Inventions sections, but as part of the reasoning behind limited forum access was due to the need for increased moderation I could see them limiting it to a choice of one specific forum section for a Tier 9 token.

It was just a thought, especially since I'd been presented with new information I didn't have before (you blocking Meta redirects).

Good luck on the password capitalization.

Snow Globe - Is it possible that you blocking all of these meta redirects could be affecting your being able to log in to and access your Master Account?

Is it possible that there is a meta redirect taking place during the authentication process that your settings are specifically prohibiting?

Since part of what they did was to split the Aion and Lineage II off to a different authentication and billing system (using the email address now instead of the account username) they could be doing meta redirects at that point to direct traffic from one generic login page to different sites based on the credentials supplied.

In other words, your overly restrictive settings may be causing the problems you are experiencing.

75%

From the way they (again) answered questions about the Sorcery pool, I don't expect that to be available in I24.

Well, you apparently haven't paid much attention to their Facebook page then.

Take a look at the screenshots below:



That shows a post on their Facebook page on July 11 announcing Tweet Code Thursdays. That was posted on Wednesday at the same time as they posted the announcement to the CoH Forums and to Twitter. The posting in the News section on the CoH website is dated July 10, but I didn't see it until the 11th, so it may have been prepared on the 10th but as a hidden article until the 11th.

and:



That shows a posting on their Facebook page on Friday announcing that they would only be doing one Freedom Friday session but that you could get prizes on Twitter in the meantime. Since them doing it on Friday was a last minute decision (due to the extended maintenance to the PlayNC site going longer than planned) I don't see how they could have announced it any sooner.

It sure looks to me like they used Facebook to promote it.

Your post was just being disingenuous in trying to claim otherwise when ANYONE could plainly see it on their Facebook page.

Seeing the information on the Facebook page doesn't even require having a Facebook account or being logged in to Facebook.

To comment on their Facebook page you have to have a Facebook account, but you don't have to have one simply to read what is posted there.

If they don't have Invention access they won't get the drops for Inventions.

So that argument doesn't hold water.

Found it finally on the Twitter Help pages.


So, for DM's it's 250/day.

And since you can only send a DM to someone that Follows you, they can't create an alt account to send the DM's from without having to get people to follow THAT account as well just on the off chance they hit the daily limits.

I'm not sure that the people that originally designed the database system took into account that names might have to be Generic'd. That seemed to be a bit of an afterthought that they came across during Beta or shortly before Beta, but long after they'd designed the database.

Yeah, stupid decision, but many things were in the early days just from lack of foresight and experience.

It's been quite a while since I've run the mission that gives the Freakshow Disguise in the Chameleon Suit, but I know it was in the game before the Arachnos disguise. That one also disables Stealth related powers.

I'm thinking it was there at launch or shortly after launch, which was well before the Faultline revamp.

I keep thinking there was another one as well but can't seem to find it on ParagonWiki.

Even if you only play on one server, that's either 36 or 48 characters possibly getting the extra trays.

If you only have a max of 36 slots per server, that comes out to 44.44444444444 points per character.

If you have the max of 48 slots per server that comes out to 33.333333333 points per character.

That's for one additional tray.

You may not have all of the slots in use or even purchased, but if you buy the enhancement increase now and use or purchase slots later those character get the extra trays then.

Still quite reasonable when you look at it that way.