Greycat

So, you didn't read it. Good to know.

I happen to be on a PB right now. Level 5. Nothing slotted. Out of curiosity, I decided to see what sort of threat these were versus what I was thinking of. Me, vs an even con Skull quantum gunner. (Obviously fighting something higher will do more, but as a baseline here...) Solo, so no inherent boosts. All my energy resist comes from an unslotted Incandescence, which you have to have by default. 11.25%. Initially I had a defense booster - cheap mitigation - which brought me up to 18....something percent. (Maybe 18.5.) It took 12 shots, of which 2 or 3 missed, to get me into the red. Mind you, I'm just *standing* here waiting for him to shoot me. (My only other mitigation? Unslotted essence boost on auto, so there is a heal there.) Now, by this time the gunner would be dead - I have more attacks than him, and with the defense booster keeping me from getting knocked down there's no way even with the RNG hating me that he'd get that many shots off with me fighting back. So I dropped the booster. It *and* the survival amplifier. (for the +max HP.) Stunned twice... for about half a second. Out of six shots which got me down into the red. Sound awful? (This one was the only test where he actually *hit* me six times in a row.) Well, in the time for him to take two shots, I managed to cycle through *my* attacks and kill him. And I only have Gleaming Bolt and Blast, with one prestige enhancement each in them. And then essence boost kicked in and gave me a nice heal. So, *cheap* boosters (especially if you get them at level 1 or 2) seriously cut down any sort of threat. Even ignoring them, though... like I said, unslotted level 5 doing nothing but standing there and it still took multiple shots to get me down into the red... and I killed him off in a few seconds with two basic attacks, not even counting P2W (which the KB from Nemesis staff would prevent him attacking for even longer.) Doing things like... basic inspiration usage and slotting *something* would cut it down even more. (Next mission - with my boosters back - a +1 Q gunner hit me twice... for about 10% total before he died.) So. Threat? Sure. "Very real threat?" Ehhhhhh... The stun just doesn't last long, about long enough to notice it says "stunned" before it drops. A Skull boss with a hold is a bigger threat, frankly.

Every once in a while, we get a "Bring back prestige" thread - new or necro'd. The reason tends to boil down to "I want a big number to show how cool my SG is." (There are occasional add ons to it to "earn" things for SGs, but (A) I don't like that idea and (B) we don't need another currency, quite frankly.) The thing is, that number is meaningless. The "Top 100 SGs?" Shows how much prestige was made of converted INF when that was active. And that doesn't tell you a blasted thing. It could be a really active SG. Or it could be someone AFK farming 24/7. You can't tell. And, back in the day (when Prestige was free below... what, 20, 25, and needed for base building,) having SGs just invite people, then kick them out once the prestige earnings dropped (since it'd cut into your INF) wasn't unheard of... and not the sort of behaviour I'd think should be encouraged. SGs themselves are ... mostly fine. I think the ranking system needs to be more fine-grained and to have permissions revisited, useless ones tossed out, etc. I'm not touching that here, though. Final opening note. This would be fairly extensive and revamping several things - touching on SG creation and description as well as ranking. I don't expect this to really be implemented because it *would* be a lot of work. I'd like to see some of it (like some changes in the listings to make them useful,) but overall this is mostly - eh, a thought experiment, a wish list, a "way to give something more useful than the old prestige to rank an SG." First, the SG finder / top 100 window. Yes, the one that cuts off descriptions. And names. This hot mess, if I remember to put the screenshot in. You can resize it, somewhat, vertically. You can't resize it horizontally. It cuts off long SG names, currently just alphabatizes them, and you can't read longish descriptions. (Though you can hover over.) It is, in short, useless. You get three columns - Name (can be resized slightly,) Prestige (can't be resized,) and Description (can be slightly resized.) You can search by SG name, but only SG name. And that's ... *it.* How entirely useless is that? This window needs love. This window needs options. (And those options are going to tie into SG creation and the description window.) First, make it resizeable. Wider, move the corners, the works. Second, make the columns completley resizeable - and selectable. We're going to have more options here. Third, put some options that the SG can select (and the user can sort by.) The name should be clickable to go to an info page for more information on the searcher side. (Can be disabled by the SG.) The user can search by, and the SG can enable/disable/designate: - Visible/Invisible. Obviously not a search option, but if the SG absolutely doesn't want to be listed, they should have the option. - Open/Closed. Are they taking anyone, or not taking requests to join? - Flags for RP, PVP, "Setting" (things like, say, parks, city streets - things that aren't really SGs, but places to meet or RP or whatnot.) - Maybe public/private. (For instance, I wouldn't want my 'alt container' listed, but my RP SG, absolutely.) - Base passcode! Both listing it, having it visible, and possibly choices to "Visible public/coalition/SG only." - Contact - Defaults to whoever has the big red star, can be "all leaders" or specific rank (or some sort of flag in the SG) as well. - Description - expandable, also shows te whole thing on hovering over (current one does this for the description but not name.) - Remove "top 100 supergroups" and just make it a search window. The search window For this, sure, you can search by name if you want. But it should also use those flags. Want a SG that PVPs? Select the PVP flag. Searching for a nice out of the way park or a forgotten temple deep in the jungle for a setting? Use the setting flag, and so forth. And then if you want to rank them? Let's make that useful. Now, yes, these still have some issues and/or can be skewed a bit, but I think a lot of the skewing would actually even out a bit... plus having the rest of the information available should help the searcher decide. A lot of this should be activity based. Let's say you want to see actual membership. Some ratio of "Characters / Accounts / On in *time period* (set to,say, week, last 30 days, last 90 days, last 6 mo) - if you want a busy SG, one guy with 30 alts in an SG with two other people who don't show up, well, that's not really "active." Maybe a "stability" or "growth" ranking - number of characters and/or accounts added or lost over some time period. If you see it stable, it's probably pretty established. Growing - or losing a bunch of people - could influence your decision. How about activities. Time active in PVP zones and arena for how many accounts over time. Does it seem to run WSTs, raids, etc. frequently or not. These would be a little tougher, both to come up with and to track. Why would these be useful or better than prestige? Prestige, as I've said before, counts nothing but INF (or alternative-to-inf.) One guy farming with SG mode on (another issue with prestige...) can make a SG a lot of prestige, but that doesn't tell you how good or bad of a fit the SG is... or even how busy it is. Having some searchable parameters - both simple on off flags (PVP on/off, RP on/off) and seeing some sort of activity indicator (is it PVP because the leader likes to but nobody else does? It wouldn't show that much activity, then) would be far more useful - and if you put your parameters in and tell it to show you the "top 10/20/50/100" that match your parameters... Well, now you have something actually useful to you. Plus we have an SG search window that's actually helpful and descriptive (and a passcode phonebook that doesn't require someone to know to put it on a forum or wiki, AND lets members see it!) Like I said. A lot of work, on a lot of different areas. Much of this would be simple flags, and I'm reasonably sure is information that can be looked up now (so no new tracking systems really needed.) And no, I don't actually expect this to be implemented... Though I'd certainly like a more useful SG search window, if nothing else.

I don't like prestige, period. I don't like the current implementation (granted, disabled) where it's basically just an INF counter. It doesn't show how active an SG is (past the first few members,) and one person AFK farming can inflate the number - in other words, it's meaningless. If there were any sort of "Non user defined SG rating system" ... well, it'd have to be a number of systems, frankly. Something showing membership, activities, etc. that would be sifted, folded, spindled and mutilated into some sort of ranking. ... actually, this may need to be a separate post, because what I'm thinking of could get complicated.

If you click the "I" up on the nav bar next to the mission objectives, you'll see the contact dialog, actually. That said, I think SuggestorK's more on point - dumping it in the team channel would be the wrong place for it, but having a channel for it (or having it show up if in your souveniers, or an "assisted souveniers" or something) would be nice.

I'd say this would have to be on a case by case basis. For instance, some of the ones you use (early on) to "test against" the clockwork? They're prototypes, makes sense they may not be quite as accurate - or damaging, given their design assumptions. Something like the Lost Curing Wand? Absolutely drop the recharge on that. You get no XP for the Lost you cure, and sitting there waiting for it to recharge is nothing but wasting time getting the mission over with.

"Does it count if it's the deli downstairs?" - Cat. "The burrito place up the hill from the Warehouse. They are fast, and make very good food... I am so used to calling it the burrito place, I need to find the name again." - Ishku

Well, BBotE is tied specifically to gadzul oil. Was supposed to be a backstory for a full Epic AT (which would be the BBotE.) Personally I'd like to see that line developed into more, even though we'd likely not get an EAT out of it - just a nice, solid "in the shadows" group and series of arcs, though the TF would still be an interesting introduction to them or something.

I suspect it'd be harder than you think. I *don't* think those are static images. Why? Do this experiment. Find a character with two noticably different looks. (Or just roll one and make two really different looks - free tailoring before level 10 after all.) Go look at your personal info (ID used to do this.) You'll see one look. Change costumes - look again. You'll see it changes to match. I don't think what you see for NPCs is static, but grabbing the image the same way. Which lets things like AE use the NPCs we make - it'd be the same back end. (When we had the old "hero ID cards," it did the same thing.)

I've yet to have anyone complain about getting one, on sale or off. There are still plenty of folks who don't even realize they exist.

Funny thing is, I *have* the map open by default. Upper left corner. I just didn't *look* at it. 🙂

Not looking at it from a market standpoint, but from a "fun" standpoint... making these (or an alternate these) account bound would be horrible. While I pick up (and open!) quite a few, I also love dropping them on people at costume contests, middle of MSRs (or as part of a dropship bounty) and the like... which means they'd have to be tradeable.

Cranial flatulance on my part. Went from memory... to the wrong side of the pond, since there hasn't really been a reason to go in there for years :)

Not sure. I just tried to get in with a hero, and got a "you cannot enter." Maybe a side effect of winter, then? *shrugs*

1. This is not "back on live." This is homecoming. 2. Fort Trident/The Crucible has nothing in it. There's really nothing special to it. There's no longer a vendor you turn hero/villain merits in to for things like recipes. That was removed. (Heck, Fort Trident was removed. Just had to go doublecheck my memory - took a level 50 hero, went to go into it, "you cannot enter.") 3. No, you do not get hero or villain merits for doing a morality mission any more. You get 40 merits, even for hero or villain. If the HCWiki says this - which is a copy of PWiki, for updating - then someone hasn't updated the entry. I'll give you before and after shots of a hero running "One good spider," a Hero-alignment mission. You'll notice no hero merits awarded - just 40 regular reward merits, like any other alignment. This is *literally* as of a few minutes before posting this.

Power pools were already "loosened up." You no longer have to take Hover or Air Superiority to get Fly, for instance, and get THAT pick earlier. It's already stupidly easy to make ridiculously overpowered, overprotected, perma-everything'd characters. It doesn't need to be any easier. MIght as well ask for your T1 to be a button that kills everything short of AVs/GMs in one press for 1000 yards around you. AVs and GMs would take two presses.

I'm ... not sure what you're seeing. Old information, maybe, from when they were earned (I don't even recall how right off the top of my head) to turn in for stuff at the Cauldron and Fort... whatever. Now, thy're just holders for 50 reward merits at a time. You don't earn them. You go to a merit vendor and pick "Convert." Doesn't care what your alignment is. (See image. Character is, was, and always has been pure blue. Option to convert to and from is there - and just did one of each for this shot.)

Still think this is just a gorgeous environment, generally bare though it is...

Uhhhhh.... no. Just ... no.

Well. "Altaholic" does not mean "No or few 50s." Going to start with - I made a bit of a guide back on live. The Altaholic's guide to getting to 50. You may get some ideas there. Short form for me, currently, would be one or more of these - - I like the character as a *character.* - RP keeps me playing one or two characters consistently. (Finally have Cat Grey over VL100.) - I have "projects" like "One of each x to 50." - And sometimes it's just something that clicks. They're not the only things, but they've been the most helpful.

I'm going to point you at the HC wiki, with *the game's definition of a story arc.* Since I'm talking about the game. I'm obviously using the game's definition. So. For instance. Praetoria has an overarching storyline the player goes through. That story *line* is made up of several story *arcs.* Does that clarify things?

There's ... a few ways to answer that. Originally it kind of felt like "making your way," eventually getting to the point where you're rescuing Statesman (and no, Posi doesn't have that same impact.) It wasn't really a single, guided storyline, more like a theme. There are plenty of sub-arcs, both in groups and in ... problems (Supradyne, for instance, which goes through several levels as well as various clues from plaques and such. Such as, did you know in a *very* small percentage of users, they can see across dimensions? Also drives them insane.) There are - let's call them "story zones," such as the Hollows, Faultline, Striga and Croatoa, with most everything self contained. And there are Epic ATs, which are called Epic because they are tied to a specific, 1-50 storyline - for Kheldians, the Kheldian war, for VEATs... something destined one something something blah. Those are probably the only things that *do* have a storyline going 1-50. THough it's more a dive into a specific facet of the story, rather than "the game's" 1-50 arc. The game, of course, has its own history - but also due to the nature of it being an MMO, time gets kind of wibbly-wobbly, too. *shrug* Praetoria... sort of does, though it's more your choices than "this is the story of praetoria." TLDR version? Other MMOs have "This is the game storyline, and you are a participant." COH is more "This is your storyline, and the game is the medium to tell it. Choose which way you want to go."

OK, not a screenshot, but I just ran across these and had to share. Old Origin titles... title bars? Title graphics?

We decorated the office with AOL disks at one place I worked... both the floppies *and* CDs.

WHy shouldn't Reggie be? He works out frequently. (That said, sizes in this game are ... questionable at best, as far as scale. There are times I think things were just slapped in... like som eof the SG tables that not only can you not sit in, but that would make the most massive character look like a 3 year old sitting at the grownups table.)