TonyV

I just don't like it when people insist that 100% of the game must cater to their play style. 97% of this game is soloable, but that's not good enough, is it? No, it must be 100%, no less, or else the game is so crappy, either it is going down the tubes or I'm going to ragequit. Screw all the hard work the devs have put into it in the past, screw all of the 97% that does cater to my play style, screw all those throngs of players lining up in the WST contact zones who are delighted with the update, screw the possibility (arguably likelihood) that there will be a way to solo it in the near- to medium-term future.

No, forget all that. Because I'm so incredibly petty that I can't spend a couple of hours out of the hundreds or thousands I play tolerating other people, or because of some weird line in the sand on some misguided principle based on some questionable at best perception of some "slippery slope" we're going down, I'm going to get all worked up because there's one reward in the game I want that I can't get 100% my way.

Now, don't get me wrong. Despite the ad hominem attacks on me, if you want to state your opinion that you don't like the WST idea, by gummy, go for it. I've actually heard and pondered the rational arguments in this thread, and I've come to the conclusion that they're simply not convincing to me for reasons I've already stated. If the devs provided some alternate way to get the reward, I really don't care, more power to them. However, if they don't, I'm fine with that, too, and I think anyone raging over such a decision, resorting to irrational demands and meaningless threats to leave is being extremely arrogant and childish.

For the more rational people out there, I will say this yet again. I have seen the exact "I can't get rewards/play style" arguments here applied to other rewards. It almost invariably arises when discussing how one must enter a PvP zone to get Shivans, nukes, and one of the Rogue Isles history badges. I've also seen it applied by badge hunters who don't want to do task forces.

Sometimes, I even empathize with those people. I don't like PvP. Still, I frequently venture into the PvP zones to get the rewards. Sometimes, I get my butt repeatedly handed to me, and that's not fun at all. Nevertheless, it's part of the game, it's not how I have to spend the majority of my time, so it's no big deal. (And believe me, getting those Warburg nukes can take me as long or longer than a WST task force!) And even though I don't like PvP, I've even played in some Arena matches now and then anyway, usually during some player-run event, just because once in a blue moon I'm in a funky "what the hell" kind of mood to do something different.

So please, to the QQers posting here, enough of the melodrama. The devs aren't out to persecute you. The game isn't going to die in the near future because of this. The vast majority of people love it, or at worst, are indifferent to it. Matt and Melissa aren't losing any sleep at your threat to quit. If you really are as miserable as you say you are, that's too bad, but I don't have any sympathy. It's a state of mind that you are choosing to be in, not the horrible injustice you're perceiving.

Now if you'll excuse me, this thread is officially boring now. I'm going to go do something more productive because these posts have gotten very silly.

Wow, so 25% of the player base has such a debilitating social disability that they can't (note: not don't want to) participate in task forces?

Methinks the datamining might come up with a different stat, especially since I see people lining up to do these WSTs.

Huge congrats on this release, Diellan! He has really put a lot of time and effort into developing and testing this, and what makes it even more amazing is how quickly he has taken this project and completely owned it. Seriously pro work, Diellan, definitely top-notch.

I'm thankful for Sekoia. I don't know that I've ever seen him actually post on these forums, but he's a prolific editor-turned-administrator of the Paragon Wiki-turned-administrator of the Titan Network. Now, he's a full-fledged co-administrator, with full root access to the server, domain names, and everything. The intention was to have a backup in case I ever got hit by a proverbial bus (or a real one, for that matter), and I've come to trust him implicitly.

For the past few weeks, I did get hit by a proverbial... I dunno... Yugo, I guess. I had surgery myself on January 19, and I'm still spending most of my time recovering and not working on the Titan Network. Sekoia has really stepped up in his administration effort while I've been sidelined and is doing a damn fine job, probably better than I do myself. Aside from normal back-end PITA stuff, he's also been working on a long-overdue revamping of City Info Tracker to account for recent issues and to catch up with Sentinel in capability.

In short, the guy rocks. Hard. I used to be a little worried about what would become of the sites were I ever to be gone. Now, I'm not so much because they'd be in good hands, that's a proven certainty. At this point, I'm just really excited that my recovery is going well enough that hopefully I'll be back in the full swing of things within a few more weeks and that together, we'll be working on bringing a new era of coolness at the Titan Network to you all.

I know that GuyPerfect, Diellan, and DeProgrammer have been working on some sexy stuff with Sentinel and Mids, but if you get a chance, drop a note on our forums sometime and throw a "Thanks!" Sekoia's way also. He's been rocking things behind the scenes for years now, he's been doing so with quiet competence, and he's as much or more an integral part of our team as any more publicly visible member of our development team is.

Well, let's see. Personally, I'm not much into badge-hunting, it's just not my play style. Therefore:

• Devs, provide me an alternative to getting the Atlas Medallion. It's not fair that all those other badge-hunting people get a 5% bonus to their maximum endurance for something that doesn't suit my play style.
• Devs, provide me an alternative to getting the Eye of the Magus power. It's not fair that all those other badge-hunting people get a power that can provide 30% resistance and 50% defense for something that doesn't suit my play style.
• Devs, provide me an alternative to getting the Crey CBX-9 Pistol. It's not fair that all those other badge-hunting people get a power that can cause damage and slow enemies for something that doesn't suit my play style.
• Devs, provide me an alternative to getting the Freedom Phalanx Reserve auto-power. It's not fair that all those other badge-hunting people get a 10% bonus to their maximum health for something that doesn't suit my play style.
• Devs, provide me an alternative to getting the Vanguard Medal. It's not fair that all those other badge-hunting people get a power that can boost status resistance for something that doesn't suit my play style.

While we're at it, since I hate teams so much also...

• Devs, provide me an alternative way to get those epaulets costume item. I have to do not one, not two, not three, four, five, or six, but seven task forces to get them. That is so unfair, and doesn't suit my play style!
• Devs, ZOMG, those seven task forces also give a 5% boost in health! This doesn't suit my play style either, so needless to say, you'll have to give me some other way to earn that, too.
• Devs, I want some earned respecs without having to team with people, so looks like alternatives for the respec trials is in order.
• Devs, come to think of it, I guess I really do want all of those task force badges after all, so please design new solo challenges so that I can get them without having to team up with anyone.
• Devs, this whole "need a hero/need a villain" concept behind the Spring Fling event to get a badge is outrageous. Obviously, that's got to go too, because it doesn't suit my play style at all!
• Devs, next winter, I want to be able to get all of the badges and candy canes for defeating Lord Winter without a team, so please redesign that.
• Devs, I really want a pretty supergroup base, but since playing in a supergroup isn't my style either, you really need to do away with prestige and just give us open access to everything.

Oh, and spending money isn't my play style, so...

• Devs, it's unfair that people have to pay for that Jump Jet power. You really need to give us all of the stuff in the GvE edition for free. Paying money doesn't suit my play style!
• Devs, it's unfair that people have to pay for the mission teleporter. You really need to give us all of the stuff in the Architect edition for free. Paying money doesn't suit my play style!
• Devs, it's unfair that people have to pay for all of the bonus pack costumes and emotes. You really need to give us all of the stuff in those packs for free. Paying money doesn't... Aw, you know!

While we're at it...

• Devs, I don't like doing Rikti ship raids. Provide some way for me to get the unlockable Vanguard Bow, plzkthx.
• Devs, farming Fake Nemeses doesn't suit my play style, so provide some way for me to get the Nemesis Rifle customizations, plzkthx.
• Devs, the whole crafting system doesn't suit my play style, but I want the convenience of the portable workbench. Please provide alternate, plzkthx.
• ...

Come to think of it, playing the game at all really crimps my play style, so please figure out ways to give me all of this without doing anything.

Thanks!
--TonyV

P.S. Or else I'll quit, waaah!

Wow, I have seen so many of these arguments so many times over so many things. "I can't get such-and-such badge without teaming, no fair!" "I can't get so-en-so temp power without teaming, no fair!" "I can't get thingama-accolade without going into a PvP zone, and it's just SO unfair!!!"

No one ever promised you that you would be able to participate in 100% of the game's content exactly when you want and how you want. As has been pointed out, this is an MMORPG. It strikes me as the height of insanity to expect everything--EVERYthing!--to be accessible to everyone without ever needing to interact with another person in an MMORPG. It's practically the same thing as expecting to beat an FPS without ever pulling a trigger--it's part of the core gameplay!

Can you play the game without ever teaming? Sure. There are probably people out there who can beat Halo without ever shooting anything. But I don't see people clamoring for more "hand-to-hand gameplay," giving the developers hell and threatening to cancel accounts or return games because it doesn't suit their weird style of play.

Similarly, I think it's more than a bit arrogant to insist that everything the developers release must also cater to a style of play that is antithetical to what makes an MMORPG fun.

If you really are so antisocial that you cannot stand playing with other people for the duration of a task force now and then, then I hate to break it to you, but boy, did you ever pick the wrong genre of game to get wrapped up in. I suggest venturing out of your comfort zone a little and giving the MM aspect of the game a shot. Worst-case scenario, you hate it. Well, suck it up and do it anyway. In my opinion, it's pretty stupid to forego playing a game you like 97% of just because you hate that other 3% so much.

If you just can't get past it, though, then I really am sorry that the game doesn't suit your style of play. Still, it's not like the devs snuck a genre change on you under the radar--the game has always been marketed from day one as an MMORPG. Please stop trying to make the devs and other players feel like crap because you came here unreasonably expecting something else.

Last, but not least, for everyone who threatens, "I'm canceling my subscription!" ponder this. That's the surest way to get the devs to ignore you completely. After all, if you're gone, why the hell should anyone care what you think? If I were the devs, I'd wish you well and continue to focus on making the game better for the people who are left. And if you're so quick to leave because I created multi-player content for an MMORPG, I sure wouldn't lose any sleep over it. I'm not saying you can't disagree, but this whole "I'm leaving!" threat is completely meaningless. First of all, I don't believe you; I think you're just being petty and needlessly threatening. Second of all, even if you do leave, I'm convinced that you would have anyway over some other stupid quibble, and like I said, now that you're gone, your opinions are completely irrelevant.

Seriously. Yeesh.

We do have a daily maintenance window from 10:00 - 11:00 UTC (5:00am - 6:00am US Eastern). During that window, we do a complete backup of the live databases. We kill the web services during the backups so that the system can complete them quickly and without interference from queries running continuously. We picked that time frame due to it being the slowest time of day according to monitored use of the sites.

The particular outage during the OP's message was actually due to an attempt to modify a table to improve performance. It ended up taking more resources than we thought, and caused the SQL service to gum up for a while. Sekoia was on top of it and killed the job and restarted the service quickly to restore the functionality of the sites.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and if anyone ever has any questions or problems with the sites being down, feel free to e-mail me at tonyv@cohtitan.com, which I check several times a day.

I would actually recommend against saying anything in the global channels.

The problem is that I can almost guarantee you that for every one person thinking, "Cool! RV AV badges!" there will be two thinking, "Cool! Easy pickin's for PVP recipes and badges!" Sad but true. You will almost invariably draw more people who don't give one whit about your badges and will actively kill your team over and over, actively preventing you from getting them. And because it's a PVP zone, there's not a damn thing you can do about it except give up and try some other time.

Keep your "broadcast" audience at a bare minimum. I'd suggest even limiting it to only sending /tells to individuals until you get eight people and avoiding mass broadcasts altogether.

Hey, can one of the moderators please unsticky this so that it doesn't show up at the top of the thread list?

On a personal note, I have something extraordinary to be thankful for today. Only a handful of people know this, but since September, I have been suffering from a severely herniated disc in my back. Upon further testing, it was discovered that I also had a large bone spur pushing on the nerve root from the other side as well, and that the herniated disc was severely degenerated.

Wednesday, I had a three-hour surgery to correct the situation. My L5-S1 disc was removed and the bones fused, and the bone spur was removed. Yesterday, the physical therapist got me out of the bed, and for the first time in over four and a half months, I was able to walk without pain shooting out into my right hip and down my leg. Also, my right foot had regained sensation from a dull numbness I've felt in it for around the past three weeks.

Today, I was discharged from the hospital with three bottles of medication, a few pieces of equipment to help me during recovery, and a regimen of exercises I need to be doing to help the surgery site recover to 100% capacity.

The doctor told me after the surgery that the nerve root was "beet red; it was angry." (Nerves are supposed to be more-or-less white.) But today, the prognosis is good, and he expects a very favorable recovery.

I know all of this isn't game-related, except that I'll probably be out of the City for a couple of weeks during the remainder of my initial recovery, and I'll be only marginally involved in working on Titan Network/Paragon Wiki stuff (which is fine, since the brunt of our projects are being driven by some other developers at the moment).

Still, I just thought I'd share what I'm extremely appreciative for this Friday evening. I have an awesome family and awesome friends who help look out for me and take care of me when I needed it most. I have what must be the smartest doctor in the world working what might as well be called a medical miracle on my back to get me walking again. I just spent two and a half days at a hospital with an awesome competent and unbelievably nice staff.

Because of all of this, I hope to be able to stay in the City for quite a while longer!

Probably not. If I'm not mistaken, at least some of the music that shipped originally with the game was acquired from a source that licenses music to anyone willing to pay for royalties. I've heard the theme music in a commercial before, and now and then, I catch it on shows like TMZ during segments, likely licensing it from the same source.

I don't know how much of the City of Heroes music is/was composed exclusively for the game. Maybe they should consider getting some new original music to replace the older music.

Heh, I'll probably go with "homeworld." Whether technically true or not, it's accurate enough to distinguish it from other things. It's not a name that will be publicly seen; it's the name that will be used for a couple of database tables and that will be referred to inside Php code. I mainly wanted something relatively obvious for people who may eventually maintain the code, and so that I'll know instantly what it is when I'm coding it myself.

So I'm working on a little project, and I need a good word to describe the property of where a character starts out, whether it's so-called primal earth (i.e. Rogue Isles or Paragon City) or Praetoria.

For example, the word I'm using to describe whether a person is a hero, vigilante, rogue, or villain is "alignment." "Origin" kind of works, except for the glaring fact that it's already taken for something else and using it would make things hideously confusing.

Any suggestions or ideas?