Winterminal

Quoted for Shakespeare! (QFS?)

But I also agree with the sentiment. If I were at Tier 9, in all honesty, I probably would have dropped down to Premium at this point, at least for the time being. As it is though, I would lose out on far too much by dropping to Premium now, and will remain VIP.

Either way, I still enjoy this game enough to say, "Here until the servers shut down."

Ghost Falcon's post in last week's content update topic.

That leads me to believe that this week will be something Halloween-oriented. Except that the event has less than two days left. Then again, the Halloween costume bundle will be here for nearly 3 weeks more, so who knows?

I have only experienced this once, where my first choice of name was available. And I agree, it is fantastic.

This. If I want to see my costume change, I'll just type it out. It takes about 2 seconds longer, and I never have to worry about missing the emote. Though Zombie Man's suggestion is the best for dealing with the actual window.

Consider this request seconded by yours truly.

Though, to deviate from my usual optimism, I do not think we'll get it. Considering that the Devs are doing all they can to encourage the play of Incarnate Trials, I do not see them removing an exclusive incentive.

I think you misunderstood, then again, I phrased it poorly. I did not mean "me, the player" I meant "me, the character, as opposed to other characters." That being the case, I'd venture to say that we agree here. Like you, I prefer my characters to be awesome in their own right, which is why I am not a huge fan of the current Incarnate Trials: the same bad guys that I was able to solo before Incarnate abilities (in Maria Jenkins' arc) are now requiring 8 to 24 people to defeat. And let's not even talk about Maelstrom in the TPN...

And no, I did not think you were contesting the MMO design model, more just stating the obvious for anyone else reading, for evidence purposes.

Let the record show that Samuel_Tow wants to be Barney Stinson


As for the OP, I agree to a point. By the time my character hits 50, he/she should be feeling damn powerful, and even more so if I choose to invest in IO Sets and the Incarnate System. And I agree that "powerful" should be in relation to what can be conquered. I feel, as you say, "awesome" when I am running through Maria Jenkins' arc solo and defeating all of the Praetorian AVs. And no matter where I am in the city, if I am flying through and see one of those NPC civilian chat bubbles pop up, calling for help, I will quickly detour and dispatch the villains because I play this game to be a hero of the city/world. Because being able to don a kick-*** outfit, fly through rows of skyscrapers, and wield superhuman abilities to save the world is enough for me.

However, that is not enough to keep the majority of the playerbase around, nor is simply "being awesome." Sure, everyone playing this game is doing so because, on some level, they love the genre and/or want to be a superhero (or villain...) themselves. But what keeps them around is the challenge; the fact that there is always something to be achieved, whether it is a badge, a power, an enhancement, or something else entirely. If a player could log into the game for the first time and immediately contend with Archvillains, they would probably play the game until they defeated all of the archvillains in multiple ways, and then would grow bored with it because there was little left to achieve, to offer them a challenge. If everyone was content with being able to conquer everything easily, the Devs would never have to design another piece of content; players would be content to run around and one-shot everything in Atlas Park.

The fact is that this is a game, and in order to keep people interested, the highest degree of difficulty has to be just above what we as a player can easily achieve. We can graze it, hit with certain outlier scenarios/characters, but never achieve it on a global scale. Impossible obstacles are just frustrating. But obstacles that are simply improbable are the most enthralling things for humans, especially gamers. For gamers playing an MMO, there needs to be a large multi-player aspect to it, since that is the foundation of the industry.

In summary, I feel most powerful when soloing my blasters, because I know it is me who is accomplishing all of the tasks, and therefore achieving the most. For that reason, I thoroughly hope that a viable small-teams method of Incarnate progression is in the not-too-distant future. But I think we should continue to expect the Devs to design content for large groups first (but not only) because that is where the highest amount of challenge lies.