bluedarky

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I wouldn't know about Wow - never looked at it.

And I work ing marketing - specifically in the online space and I didn't see jack about WoW - so it can't have been that "massive"

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Take it you don't watch much tv then, they've employed I think 8 stars from Mr T to MiniMe to talk about playing WoW in a series of tv ads.

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If, just an "if" mind, "if" there wasn't an issue with player numbers in the EU - why would there be plans for a marketing campaign?

I mean - that game has run for 4 years with the need for one. So why now?

Could it be that the Dev want to see more players in the game, or just that they want more money?

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Why has WoW just ran a massive ad campaign? Surely they shouldn't have a problem with player numbers.

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That is the point of this thread - we NEED either a server transfer service or a server merge.

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You might, I don't. See ya.

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As i said - thats the point! Those of us who want out can't get out.

This is a request thread - please can we have a server transfer tool.

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Errr no, As NC are legally required to separate the servers in the first place it seems highly unlikley

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Errr - so what about the transfer of toons from the US to EU?

That happened. Therefore the reverse should also be possible.

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That was to support people who live in the EU and were forced originally to purchase the US game to transfer the characters they created to the new EU servers rather than lose customers when they realised they'd lost hrs of playtime.

There's no incentive or reason for them to offer the opposite.

Not to mention that people had to purchase a EU account as well to use the transfer, they didn't have an EU account automatically made for them.

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/signed

Send me on the way to get me away from you lot. If you refuse to see that there is something wrong then I am better off away from you.

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OK, bye bye

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That is the point of this thread - we NEED either a server transfer service or a server merge.

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Point in fact, if the EU numbers were low enough to justify a server merge then it would either be in the pipeline and up on the announcement threads and the updater, or already been done.

It hasn't.

One question, do you have exact figures including people on hide for any consectutive period of time?

I'm not talking logging on and checking at 1pm every day for a week, I'm talking average numbers and hours played over a period of 3 months.

Your answer - No, you don't.

NCSoft EU do have those numbers, those numbers tell NCSoft EU that a server merge is not needed, nor is a transfer to the US.

Querto Ergo Sum - It's not neccessary, it's not needed, and you are wasting time demanding it.

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Pure assuption and guess work.

Only the Devs have the figures. And they aren't sharing them.

We can only go by what we can see - and some of us see a decline in acutal players logged into the game. Fact.

We don't see the figures - Fact. Fact - you're assuming. Assumptions lead to poor choices, and are not a good place to make your stand from.

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The same works against you though, you base it on what u see in game however.

I base mine on what we've been told by the rednames and what I see in game.

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bluedarky, is your avatar Electabuzz from Pokémon?

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No, it's a creature I created in Spore which I've just realised looks like a 4 armed Elecbuzz.

It should be on my spore profile if u have the game.

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/signed

Send me on the way to get me away from you lot. If you refuse to see that there is something wrong then I am better off away from you.

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OK, bye bye

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That is the point of this thread - we NEED either a server transfer service or a server merge.

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Point in fact, if the EU numbers were low enough to justify a server merge then it would either be in the pipeline and up on the announcement threads and the updater, or already been done.

It hasn't.

One question, do you have exact figures including people on hide for any consectutive period of time?

I'm not talking logging on and checking at 1pm every day for a week, I'm talking average numbers and hours played over a period of 3 months.

Your answer - No, you don't.

NCSoft EU do have those numbers, those numbers tell NCSoft EU that a server merge is not needed, nor is a transfer to the US.

Querto Ergo Sum - It's not neccessary, it's not needed, and you are wasting time demanding it.

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Please look at this thread

http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/showfl...e=0#Post1197417

and this thread

http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/showfl...;gonew=1#UNREAD


Edit: Please do not change the title.

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I see no real problems, the first thread has ended amicably with promises from both GR and K about the future including a promise of more advertising for the game, and I doubt that's simply more magazine ads,

and believe it or not, for a split continent game CoH EU actually has quite a high population and subscriptions are increasing.

And don't mention the bandwagon that is WoW, on any statistical sheet worth viewing it's written off as an anomaly.

Chapter 4 - Armies of Trouble

Madam Victim and LOCA arrived at City Hall quickly, as LOCA had predicted on the way Nemesis had concentrated his forces into a frontal ground assault, allowing the pair of them to climb on top of City Hall and look over the battlefield.

“No heroes,” commented Madam Victim, “Exactly as he planned, starting the assaults on the other two areas first took too many heroes away from here.”

“He's leaving as little as possible to chance,” replied LOCA, “We can't risk a frontal assault, you might kill me in the confusion.”

“There's 500 tactical geniuses down there,” replied Madam Victim, “We can't fight every single one.”

“There isn't 500,” replied LOCA, “Nemesis's genius hardly counts as tactical.”

“LOCA,” warned Madam Victim, she looked back and sighed, “He must have planned this months or years in advance, he had everything ready for your AI, once he subverted it he copied straight into 500 waiting bodies.”

A shriek went up from the crowds of civilians.

“They're attacking civilians?” asked Madam Victim almost standing up.

“No,” replied LOCA blandly, “Ex boyfriend alert Mel.”

“Oh no,” groaned Madam Victim. She'd only ever had one so called boyfriend, an idiot who she'd met on a blind date that Marioko had set up. She'd ditched him that night, he'd gone around telling everyone that she'd dumped him because “he was to much for her”, at least until Stephan had sued his butt for slander.

And now he was out over the soon to be battlefield, about to announce his presence to the LOCAs and Nemesis, the sunlight gleamed off his white shiny costume and she knew, just knew he'd have that famous smile on his face and announce he had been the 4th most popular hero amongst the public last year.

“Chances of his survival?” she asked the one free LOCA.

“8.4%,” she replied.

“And if we intervene?”

“That is if we intervene,” replied LOCA, “It actually reaches negative amounts if we don't.”

“How can it reach negative amounts?” asked Madam Victim.

“He'll keep coming back,” replied LOCA.

“Not even he'd be stupid enough...” she trailed off remembering her date with him, “We'd best stop him, best shot is just after they've all fired to make them think he's at the hospital.”

LOCA moved into a ready position and waited for the inevitable.

White Thunder, Paragon City's fourth most popular hero, flew above the incoming mass of Nemesis robots whilst listening happily to the excited shrieks of the teenage girls, he always caused a fuss when he arrived, he brushed back his perfectly styled hair with a short flick of his hand and prepared his speech.

“Halt evildoers!” he yelled at top volume, they actually stopped, no villain had done that before, now they were holding their glowing blue arms up to him and then something grabbed him from behind and dragged him away as they fired.

LOCA dumped the dazed idiot on the roof and waited whilst Madam Victim checked that the army had been fooled with baited breath. She watched as one of the front ones walked to Nemesis.

“Master,” it said, “I don't...”

“Enough,” replied Nemesis, “Continue the assault.”

The automaton moved back into it's spot and Madam Victim let out a breath. She turned back to LOCA and White Thunder.

“We got away with it for now,” she commented, “Luckily he assumes all the heroes are defending Steel Canyon and Hero Corps, and that if I hadn't joined him I'd be dead.”

“You would've been if you didn't have that override,” LOCA replied, “I calculated your survival against me at 1.29% for Nemesis.”

“That's pretty low,” replied Madam Victim getting as close to the edge as she dared.

“Why didn't you take the override into account?” asked White Thunder starting to come from his daze.

“Because in my infinite wisdom I decided not to allow her to know about the overrides at all,” replied Madam Victim, “It just so happened to save my life.”

“I know you,” commented White Thunder, “I know you, you're Marioko's owner, where'd she disappear to earlier, I couldn't finish my mission because she vanished.”

Madam Victim span on the spot, stalked over to White Thunder and jabbed him in the chest as he climbed to his feet so hard he fell straight back down.

“First of all,” she snapped, “It's Temperature Sprite to you, secondly, she is her own person and not owned by anyone, and thirdly, why she vanished earlier was to complete the very mission she lives for, if she'd failed she'd be dead!”

“Don't be ridiculous,” he scoffed, “Magical creatures like her can't seriously be allowed to walk around freely.”

“You know something,” replied Madam Victim, “The only reason you're allowed to keep your license is because you're so popular.”

“How dare you...” started White Thunder, Madam Victim removed her visor and LOCA backed away.

“Shut up you useless idiot!” snapped Madam Victim, “If you want to be useful, the stand over there and don't move unless I tell you!”

White Thunder stood stock still, no one spoke to him like that, and especially not a woman! He went to move towards Madam Victim but LOCA pulled him back, he looked at the automaton as though seeing it for the first time.

“Hey!” he yelled, “You have one of the Nemesis Automatons under your control.”

“Her name is LOCA,” replied Madam Victim, “Unbelievably she does belong to me and is in fact my AI.”

“But the body is Nemesis build,” pointed out White Thunder.

“What of it?” asked Madam Victim still looking out over the LOCA army.

“Well Nemesis builds all of a series exactly the same right,” he replied, “If I can find a weakness in this one, then it will be in all the others.”

Madam Victim looked up, she turned, placed her visor back on and gaped at White Thunder.

“I can't believe I'm going to say this,” she said, “But you are a genius!”

“I can't believe it's taken you so long to notice,” replied White Thunder running his hand through his hair.

“Percy shut up,” said Madam Victim, “LOCA if you please.”

She held out her hand towards LOCA who pulled a notepad and pen from a compartment in her leg and handed it to Madam Victim who began to scribble furiously.

Again I'd recomend http://Fanfiction.net, it's free and baring forum software is probably the best one around for free.

If your interested in publishing original fiction then http://Fictionpress.com is fanfiction.net's sister site for original works. (I.e. Work based in a world you created.)

If you need any help contact me either here via PM as Bluedarky, or on either site as Bluedarkyugi.

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I have bio on some of my alts. But every alt has a bio in my mind, one day I'll get down and write them all.

The problem is I'm too lazy

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Almost the same, even if I create a character simply to start with my brother or friend I find myself thinking up the beginnings of a backstory.

Becke Kinsley is probably the prime example of this as I found myself writing her backstory on my laptop, whilst creating the character on my pc.

I find this discussion interesting but would like to remake my point from earlier that we don't know anything about what happened yet.

After all, 2 years ago we Knew the Rikti had invaded us, whilst the Rikti Knew that the Phalanx had caused widespread devastation in their world.

Now we know that it was a Nemesis Plot to start a transdimensional war.

Today we know that Blue Steel beat the Clockwork King to the brink of death...

In the words of Lord Havelock Vetinari,

What will we know tomorrow?

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And if we can do things/ create missions that are superior to the type that we currently recieve, then why the heck arent the devs serving them up to us already?

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Because most of the tools we're being given to allow us to make these superior missions have only recently been availible to the devs.

Stuff like branching missions, the newer maps like the office to Rikti Lab and other features.

Posi has even said that some of the tools we'll be getting were only availible as recently as I12 so they've had little chance to play with them.

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This is where the attitude problem lies

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Yeah well in my world the Joker would be very, very dead. Notice how my world is better off than yours. About a four figure kill count better off.

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But would you rather be in a world where you think life is good and the Joker is alive, or be in a world where life is pants and the Joker is dead?

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One where I'm alive, he's dead, and he's buried under 200 tons of whatever I can get on top of him to make sure.

To kill the Joker you need to bludgeon in his head repeatedly, then bury him under a rock, and make sure it's a big rock.

Can't anyone spot the answer?

ITS ALL A NEMESIS PLOT!

Actually being serious here, who's word have we got that it was actually Blue Steel who beat up the Clockwork King?

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So, even if everyone in your SG group gives you five stars on an Arc, you still have the other hundred thousand plus players to balance it out.

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Hooo boy, where to start.

I've published short stories on sites with rating systems, and none of them work. First of all, few people rate. Getting one vote for every 100 view is typical. On the sites where voting is rewarded or mandatory, most people just give the same rating to all stories. (Or they'll give whatever rating is closest to the story's current rating.)

Now, that's the issue of getting valid votes. The second issue is to get views. People use the rating system to select what to read (or which missions to run). This means that stories with a high rating will attract more votes, while stories with a low rating will get very few.

Thirdly, there's going to be a lot of missions, so any particular mission is going to have a practically neglible chance of getting votes from people who choose mission at random, or without regard to the rating.

Taken together, this means that a poor mission with 40 immediate supergroup votes of 5 stars is going to stay at 3+ forever -- it will, slowly, attract votes of 1 or 2, but with a block of 40 5s it's going to take a long time before its rating has sunk below 4. (It'll take 14 votes of straight ones to bring it down below 4 -- but in reality a mission, no matter how bad, won't attract nothing but 1s.)

A really good mission, without any votes from friends, who happen to get a couple of unlucky votes of 3 to begin with, will never climb to the top. It just won't attract enough views, and with that votes, to do so.

(And this doesn't even take into account people gaming the system by systematically giving low rates to storys that compete with their own or to people they don't like.)

"Wisdom of the crowd" rating systems doesn't work online, at least not on their own.

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I feel the need to requote this bit,

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Players are rewarded for playing, creating and rating Arcs.

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Emphasis mine.

Although I agree with you, rating systems rarely work without incentive to rate properly.

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Oh, and I also had the grave misfortune to play Star Wars: Galaxies for a while (at the recommendation of my brother-in-law.) I'm still in therapy for that... :P

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And I had just finished therapy for it.

My therapist loves the fact that I'm on these forums at times.

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One of our goals is to put the ability to take an existing Enemy Boss, and change their costume to one you design. Since those powers and AI have all been pre-programmed this can be done without involving ringing Castle up at 2am to debug the AI on the guy in your custom mission. While this is a stretch goal for launch, we want to get this ability into your hands as soon as possible.


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That'll do Positron.

Will we also get access to enemy costume pieces for this though?

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mmm, what about your veteran rank as title?

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Sure, i wanna have Eternal at a title!

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*Considers Neko being an eternal evil.*

In that event I'd begin evacuating the universe.

I'm going to have fun either way, I already have three story arcs ready to go, written various times to allow for limitations on the system.

I'm having fun fun fun.

Happy Birthday Stasis.

Use petition instead of a bug report, bug reports are simply sent on to the dev team, petitions will recieve a response from a GM either in game or via email.

These are stored in the folder with your username, screenshots are stored in the screenshots folder.

This is something I stumbled across as I searched though my old writings and thought I'd share.

Why?

Bluedarky stood on the roof of his apartment building watching the city below, he wasn't watching for anything in particular, just watching, watching the new inexperienced heroes attempt to arrest Skulls and Hellions, watching the citizens of Paragon City go about their business, just watching the little piece of the world that he helped to keep safe.

The door behind him slammed shut, he ignored it for the time being, the building had at least on registered hero on every floor so the chances of a member of a known villain group using the stairs to get to the top was non – existent. The one thing an off duty hero hates is being disturbed by few minions running up the stairs.

“Umm,” came the voice, so quiet that he almost didn't hear it, “Stephen.”

“What is it Amanda?” he replied turning around, Amanda had been sent by Sister Psych for street training, she'd taught Amanda everything she knew about her powers and then realised that Amanda was nowhere near ready to fight alone on the streets, and so she sent the psychic dependant girl to Bluedarky, one of the few heroes in the city who blocked psychic intrusions on a subconscious level to train her for the streets, and how to get on with people she knew nothing about.

“We busted Doctor Vahzilok last week right,” started Amanda nervously.

“He's broken out again,” he replied.

“Uh-uh,” replied Amanda a little shocked, “Shouldn't we do something about it?”

“We're off duty,” replied Bluedarky, “Besides, some other heroes will get him.”

“A true hero is never off duty,” replied Amanda, “You said that on the day I started working with you.”

“Believe it or not Amanda, for some people heroing is just a way to pay the bills. Besides, even Statesman needs a break every now and then.”

“But what's it all for?” asked Amanda, “If they break out why do we bother putting them away?”

“For the same reason they break out,” he replied, “We hope this time may be different.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That one time, when Vahzilok is arrested, instead of breaking out and continuing his experiments illegally, he'll start to share his methods with the rest of the world, he may require fresh parts, but what about people who are going to die anyway, someone who's suffered irreparable brain damage but the rest of the organs work fine, the person will die faster, but Vahzilok can use his methods to use their organs to save four other people.”

“How can you be so callous, how can you preach to me about that, that person could have recovered the next day and you talk about killing them for their organs. And you avoided answering my question, why should we bother?”

“Come here,” replied Bluedarky, he pointed to an old woman walking down the street with her groceries, “Scan her mind, just a surface scan, not deep.”

“It's Mrs. Grover, two floors down,” replied Amanda.

“Is she scared?”

“No.”

“It's quite a distance for her between where she is and the door, a Hellion could jump out of any of those alleys she has to pass. Are you sure she isn't scared?”

“She's not,” replied Amanda confused, “Because she knows you're watching.”

“We owe a lot to old Laurie,” replied Bluedarky, “She was a hero herself back in the day, and although most people don't know it, we heroes do.

“She leaves the building three times a week, Tuesdays to pick up her pension, Thursdays for Bingo and Saturdays for her shopping. And every time there's a hero posted on every street who makes sure she gets there and back safely, if she has an unplanned trip she knocks on a heroes door and they escort her to her destination and back.”

“How can one little old woman affect the city?”

“Little old woman,” laughed Bluedarky, “She's a genius, IQ of 256, a little forgetful in her old age but can still get the secrets out of any technology she's given, Nemesis has made four attempts to grab her in the past three months.”

“So your actions in looking after a little old lady,” replied Amanda, “Could stop this city from falling into Nemesis's hands, get real, you're just looking after a old woman who can't fend for herself.”

“Every action has ramifications,” replied Bluedarky, “Don't believe me if you can't, but don't forget that fact, I know Sister Psych would've rammed that into your head. Now if you'll excuse me, Mrs. Grover seems to have forgotten her keys.”

He walked off leaving Amanda alone on the roof, she turned back and leaned over the wall looking down at Mrs. Grover, she watched as Bluedarky opened the door and let her in, he'd probably nipped into his apartment to pick up Mrs. Grover's spare set of keys and leapt down the rest of the way. She wondered if the small actions of the heroes who lived in the building made a real difference to the city and looked out over the cityscape to the War Walls. And she remembered a tale her mother told her, from before she was born.

Her mother had grown up in Eastgate, it hadn't been a bad area, it had been a beautiful neighbourhood, and even had it's own personal hero, Stephan's grandfather, the original Bluedarky. He'd died in the Hollowing, it happening before the hospital network was in place meant there had been no hope. And after she'd attended his funeral her mother had told her why it was important she'd went.

Stephan's grandfather had been a hands on hero, he did everything the neighbourhood required, from beating the local gangs from the neighbourhood, to rescuing little girls cats from trees. He knew the locations of those too old to leave the house and did their shopping, and he knew everyone by name. He'd made no secret of his identity and as he gre older he simply kept an eye on the kids at play and taught self defence to anyone willing to learn on Tuesdays. All in all her mother had thought him a big joke until the day she wandered out of the neighbourhood alone.

She was set on by a bunch of Trolls, they were about to have their way with her when he'd arrived, the Troll's were the stronger, at least physically, but their brains were wired thanks to the Superdyne and Bluedarky used this to his advantage, using the Judo skills he taught he was able to turn the trolls strength against them. Within ten minutes, six were unconscious and the other three had fled, and he was on the phone to David Wincot arranging pickup for the unconscious ones.

After David's team had arrived he'd taken her back home, on the way he told her about how her mother and found him worried sick about her, about how she'd left the neighbourhood without telling anyone and that she may be in danger. It was the first and last time she'd see him in action, a week later, she moved to Atlas Park.

Amanda reflected on her mothers story, if Stephan's Grandfather hadn't got there just then, then there was a chance she wouldn't have been born, and in that case there was a chance that the villains she had helped to put away would have been on the streets for longer and caused more people misery.

The door behind opened and Stephan came back through.

“You remember the day we first met?” asked Amanda.

He walked over to her. “Six years ago,” he replied.

“I've only known you for six months,” replied Amanda going to hit him, he held up a huge arm and blocked her punch effortlessly.

“I'm serious,” he replied, “It was down there,” he pointed to a alleyway near to Atlas Plaza, “A group of Hellions started on you and me and my mates got rid of them.”

“That wasn't you,” replied Amanda.

“Sure it was, I wasn't wearing my trademark trenchcoat but I give you my word it was me.”

“They were heroes.”

“Not then,” he replied, “Of course, things have changed now..”

“Your actions back then nearly made me who I am today,” she replied a little shocked, “I wanted to thank the heroes who saved me and when I discovered my powers, it was like I'd waited for this moment my entire live. I could pay them back by helping to protect the city.”

She looked up a Stephan who was staring at the spot and stuck back in memory lane.

“What happened to your friends?” she asked.

“Almost every hero has a push that makes them into who they are,” he replied, “That's all you need to know for now.”

He turned and walked off the roof, leaving Amanda alone.

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think I win. been asked to not use melee powers on my Fire/EM blaster. :P

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Nope, I win, I was asked to take the aggro off another player,


The teams second tank.

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Just a thought, maybe been already mentioned in this thread some where . The missions we build i take it will be avalible only to EU players, and will the US ones be US players only. Or will it be like a main mission server for both clients of the game. So as all can share and play each others missions ?


Or will the devs pick the best ones and post them as downloads in further patches ??

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I mentioned that on the Announcement thread about I13 - I was wondering if they'll be tied to a server, like if you make a arc on Defiant, will it only be open to Defaint players?
I think the "Devs Choice" missions would probably be open to all servers though.

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I really hope it wont be like this but can understand if it is. Be nice to have some form of interaction with players on other servers regardless of our location.
I know the mission log will almost certainly be overloaded in the first few weeks, but i personally cannot wait to try out other peoples hidden gems

Also i have so many ideas for complex story arcs

The only thing about cimerora is THAT enemy group thats there to help them, we'v defeated their leader so what else is there to do? Unless they start going on about the incarnates/nictus/coming storm into more detail (which for story progression sake i hope they do).

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IIRC, the Devs have already stated that created missions will be similar to the Consignment Houses and Black Markets in that they will be shared across all servers.