PaxArcana

And here's another way to look at it: Would the story materially change, if we swapped the genders of the two primary characters? How about if they were both the same gender, especially if both were men? But, in any case, not one single other word was changed? ... IMO, no. Harris has a serious mental health problem, and has gone off the deep end. It wouldn't matter if Harris was a he or a she. It wouldn't matter if Page was a she or a he. The story would play out exactly the same, IMO. ... And my Demon/Thermal MM Incabulos would still have left Harris, broken and sobbing, on the floor with the full realization of what he'd just done ... and for how little real reason.

I notice you completely ignored my point (b) ...?

... that would be really, really cool ... but might give that MM too much advantage in PvP. Which isn't necessarily a reason to abandon the idea, it's just something that should be kept in mind. :)

-1 (a) it's a Villain arc. It's supposed to be bad-guy stuff. (b) if I'm thinking of the right one .... at the end, it shows itself to be as horrible as we, the not-villainous players, understand it to be. © therefor it's just fine as-is.

My thinking at the time was this: [*] same people who made City of Heroes/Villains; [*] same genre as CoX; [*] at the time, I had been a subscriber to City of Heroes for 40 months, for a total subscription cost of $600; [*] a lifetime subscription, at that time, was priced at $200; [*] even if I only enjoyed CO for half as long as I'd enjoyed CoX to that moment, I'd still be saving a hundred bucks - completely ignoring the extra freebies (esp. costume pieces) I'd be getting. It was sound logic, at the time, IMO.

... and quite possibly melt their PC in the process. EIGHT Masterminds, with all their pets out .... dear gods ... :D :D :D

Shortly after CoV launched, when Villains were finally reaching minimum level to get into the first PvP crossover zone, the players there from Blueside were basically wall-to-wall level 50's (exemplar'd down) sporting all HOs on every power. Even with those HOs functioning at just under 74% of normal efficacy, they were basically unstoppable by level 15-20 Villains SKed up to the zone's level of 25. And they outnumbered the villains 3:2, on top of that. And, Masterminds couldn't contribute for squat, because a bug made MM pets deal only 1hp of damage per attack against a player in PvP. The heroes had pushed right up to the limit of the Arbiter Drone's aggro/attack range. They were so close, they were literally sniping villains as they rez'd in the hospital. No-one could leave the zone, they'd get sniped and demolished on their way to the helicopter. Villains were being literally forced to log off for the entire night because they just couldn't leave. ... I went in with my robotics/FF mastermind. Whose travel power was Teleport ... and I had "Teleport Enemy". I stood next to an Arbiter, and *YOINK* pulled a hero to me. Arbiter hums, ZAP, no more hero. Teleport Enemy recharges, *YOINK*, hum, ZAP no more hero. Teleport Enemy recharges, *YOINK*, hum, ZAP no more hero. Teleport Enemy recharges, *YOINK*, hum, ZAP no more hero. Teleport Enemy recharges, *YOINK*, hum, ZAP no more hero. ... Keep in mind, at that point, being defeated by an Arbiter GAVE FULL DEBT. And these were Level 40, 45, and 50 heroes, so that's a LOT of debt. I Arbiter'd some of them three, five, seven times. Sometimes, in a row. And I was never in LOS long enough to be sniped - I could duck out from behind cover, TAB a target, then duck back ... *YOINK*, hum, ZAP, lather, rinse, repeat. DEAR MOTHER OF GOD the howls, the hate, the piles and piles of "Griefing" complaints sent to the GMs (not that any GM ever said half a syllable to me about it). I kept telling them, "just move back, down the beach. I want you far enough away you can't prevent villains from leaving the zone if they want to. If you're out of range of Teleport Enemy, we're out of range of your snipe attacks." It took over an hour. MILLIONS of debt slathered liberally over so. many. "heroes". But eventually, by god, I out-assholed the lot of them .... AND THEY MOVED BACK. ... Then I got bored, and left. No clue if they STAYED back from the gates. But while I was there, by the Seventy-Thre Lesser Hells, they stayed back. :D :D :D

THIS. Written in mile-high letters of fire, fury, and thunder ... THIS, damnit!!

Yeah. I I won't be buying any lifetimes before games release anymore. I won't be buying any Lifetimes before games celebrate their 1st anniversary, anymore.

A lessoned learned in not getting caught up in game hype. It wasn't hype that convinced me. It was proven track record of a company I had done business with for years. Slight difference. Day One was about two weeks after I made my purchase decision. It was too late by then.

... no, they won't. Back when NCSoft was still running the show, I actually had people in-game complain that my Robotics/FF mastermind "wasn't doing enough", because the little graphic avatar of my character was usually just standing there "watching". Even though I (through my pets) was doing about 55% to 60% of all the team's damage, and a good 30% of all the mitigation, on the entire team. Even though I was taking the effort and time to remain aware of the situation beyond just the current spawn, and several times headed off adds before they could cause problems for the group. Noope; no actual attack animations from my (very toggle-heavy) Mastermind, meant I wasn't contributing. And no DPS meter would ever have proven otherwise. Remember, "toggle heavy". Also remember, "Robotics/Forcefield" I and my Protector Bots were bubbling everyone. I was running AoE defense toggles. I was also running all three toggles from Leadership (so some of "their" DPS was actually MY conribution). But, again: no bright flashy attack animations. So they thought I was leeching. ... Real life examples trump suppositional fantasies like yours.

So very many people - me included - expected CO to wind up being a "City of Heroes II"; to take all of the awesomeness that was CoH and update it (especially graphics) to be newer, shinier, better. I mean, I bought a Lifetime Subscription ($200), on top of a copy of hte game ($50), during the open Beta and before buying a new computer able to properly run the game, based in large part on the strength of CoH: I'd spend some 50 months subscribed to CoX by then, and expected to spend as long on CO, so $250 sounded like an amazing bargain. I actually played for less than 5 months. :'(

Yes.

Bullshit. That last bit, I mean - the "no accusation or implication" one. That's the bullshit, there. Because, if you didn't want to imply things about those of us who do like to make adolescent (or even younger) characters, then why even bring it up? It really just reads as you being a douchebag who assumes everyone else is on the gutter-stinking moral LOW ground.

+1

... and why else do you think 14-year-old me loved it so very much? :D :D :D

OH GODS YES. I was 12 years old when this first came out (in the early 80s). The very notion of superheroes, who were not someone's "kid sidekick", but were MY OWN AGE was mind-blowingly awesome. FYI, for anyone who doesn't know the series: Alex Powers, Gravity manipulation. 12 years old. "Gee" / "G". Julie Powers, Flight. 10 years old. "Lightspeed". Jack Powers, Mass/density manupilation (self). 8 years old. "Mass Master". Katie Powers, Disintegration and Energy Absorption/Projection. 5 years old. "Energizer". They were awesome, they were (or so I felt at the time) written as believable for their stated ages, and I eagerly skipped lunch for a week at a time to have enough money to buy the latest issue. More than that, even: kids inherently grow as characters; who they are changes over time. Usually not into someone unrecognizable, but still, they change and develop as characters. Mercedes Lackey has written a lot of books, with both adult and adolescent protagonists. She's said that the adolescent characters are often easier to write, because change comes naturally to them, whereas adults resist change. And so, sometimes, she had to fight to get events to go the way the story needed, when the protagonists were adults. And, well, there's this simple truism: Superheroes, and superpowers, are adolescent power fantasies by nature. :)

Hold down the ALT key, and on your number pad type 0153: ™

Not always. My First Edition Cavalier would like to discuss the matter with you, at his home .... built of the bones of giants, dragons, and worse creatures. That he killed. Single-handedly. (Okay, okay, the character was seriously OP and munchkin-y .... but I was fourteen years old when Unearthed Arcana came out, so that should not surprise you! :D )

Generally, the only way to tell the difference between a tool, and a weapon, is the bloodstains.

That would be a corrupt texture file. Pull it all out, download the packages again, and re-install.

... if you bring the right gun, you still win ... :D

I remember when the PVP zones first opened up. I remember all the heroes showing up in Bloody Bay - the lowest-level PvP zone - with their HOs, and pushing the battle so close to the villain base, people were getting sniped IN THE HOSPITAL. (Speaking of which, I remember when the villain bases had open-air hospitals. Ugh.) The battle was right up against the gates, barely fifteen or twenty feet beyond the Arbiter Drones' range. Literally, villains couldn't get out of the base to do anything else in the zone. Level 9s with scrounged-up TOs, even SKed up to ... what is it, 12, for Bloody Bay? Well, they can't compete with 50's sporting wall to wall HOs, even EX'd down to the same effective level. That night, I pissed off SO many "Hero" players (quote marks intentional), because I stood my Robotics/FF mastermind next to an Arbiter and kept using "Teleport Other" to haul their butts into obliterate range. Back when Arbiter Drones gave full Debt. OH THE HOWLS. And dozens, literally dozens, of reports/complaints sent to the GMs. To which I calmly and repeatedly said "just move back down to the beach, away from the base, and you won't get Arbiter'd anymore." And nary a GM said half a syllable to me about it, either. But the heroes did move back. After a dozen or more of them got great big piles of debt (some of them, six or eight times apiece!). :D :D :D Good times, good times!! :D :D :D

Please no. For one, it would completely fail to accurately measure the contribution of Defenders and Controllers; Damage Meters don't really account for crowd control nor buff/debuff. It also wouldn't account for team-wide boosts like the Leadership pool. Your Blaster may have done 10x my damage, and that Empathy defender might have healed tons and tons .... but my /ForceField Mastermind likely helped keep both of you on your feet at all, and his leadership toggles might account for as much as 5% to 10% of _everyone's_ damage output. And speaking of Masterminds, my pets' damage is unlikely being counted as MINE, even though really it is. ... In the end, those competitive players would likely want to exclude me from their teams. Even though, back in the NCSoft days, my Robotics/FF Mastermind was by himself the equivalent of another six entire heroes against ordinary enemies, and even most EBs. ... Seriously, had one group claim I was just leeching, because my actual character didn't attack more than 3 or 4 times in a mission. So I challenged them to a deal: they could pick the next fight, and I would sit out - no bubbles, no toggles, no pets. Then, we'd swap - I'd put out my pets and bubbles and toggles, THEY would sit out while I fought alone. I picked a bigger, nastier bunch of enemies than they had .... and was done putting the last of them down in about four-fifths the time the rest of the team took. SO, which of us needs the other more, exactly? I asked, after explaining that while they didn't see any pretty beams and animations happening, I was still VERY active - looking around for situational awareness, prioritizint targets, moving my robots and directing their fire to as many as three different targets at once, etc. ... and, to their credit, the complaints stopped. In that[/] group. Literally, I could have carried that group through the entire mission. Not as FAST as the whole team working together, but, I absolutely could have anyway. And a damage meter would show me in last place, with (if I was very lucky) double-digit damage total across an entire STF ... because "Force Bolt" was his ONLY direct attack power.

For all of the MMOs that have come out of Asia, [...] But the trend is true of more than just Asian MMOs. Look at WoW Vanilla. I started back then, with a Dwarf Hunter and his bear, Muffin. I was in old Loch Modan when I hit level .. 12 or 22, I think. And got a quest to go kill a laundry-list of tenty or so large Ogre/Cyclopes things, in their own valley to one side of that zone. And .... they were all silver-frame Elites! Every single last one of them!! I could, just barely, take one SINGLE enemy down by myself. Then run off to a secluded corner, and rest/eat/drink and feed Muffin. I was, at my best, up to about one kill every 12 minutes. (I quit when I found out that would be the pattern pretty much for the rest of the game at that point. Came back after Wrath, when people I knew who still played said they'd done away with that nonsense.) And that's a Western MMO.