Greycat

... appropos of nothing... I seem to recall either late in the game's life or maybe one of the AMAs, one of the devs mentioned we never did do Hami the way they intended. Did they ever say just how they intended for it to go?

Finish the arcs, you'll have one more which will lead you to a portal - pay attention to who's there to see you off, it does change. That portal should ask if you're going to be a hero or villain and drop you on the appropriate side.

One word. Swordchucks.

Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. There would be no farming. Oh, that's cute. As my empaths who were flooded with tells on hitting the early 40s in the early days would tell you, there would *definitely* be farming. The only thing that would change would be people complaining about "all these stupid lowbies in PI begging for battlemaiden/council/other mission farms" instead. And level-locking AE to 50+ would have killed it. My SGs used it for storytelling. Not everyone was 50, and it was used on the way up for relevant plot points.

I ... honestly don't remember having double stamina. Unless that got patched out later, since I still had characters *with* original-stamina on a build (didn't want to redo them) when it shut down.

Ehhh... I'd say they were "sort of" correct. I've joined teams - granted, many were SG teams - where the person still had it in *test* mode. So no AE tickets *or* regular rewards.

Remember when you were young? You shone line the sun. Shine on, you crazy diamond. ... Remember "Death express" being a legit thing - the "original" fast travel from the Hollows (or sewers) back to Atlas to train? Remember the devs introducing Defiance 1.0? "Tell them not to heal you so you do more damage!" ... no.

I ... really am not a fan of the current "in combat insta-snipe." Yes, yes, "snipes are usable in combat without being interrupted, etc, etc." I'd still love to either have them the old way (attached to ToHit) or just - have the ability to turn them off entirely. I've used snipes since I started playing. Long cast for more damage? Works for me. Now, though, if I'm in combat, if I'm setting something up, or something else even considers attacking me, the snipe goes "instant" and damage drops, even though I don't want it to. Example. Running the first SSA on a Dark/Dark corruptor. I'd like to hit the temple leader (for instance) with HT to stun him, then snipe. Except as soon as I hit HT, it goes instant and cuts my damage, so if I want to use it, I've got to wait for it to turn off. I've had it flash on and off as I go through a zone because things target me, even if I never see or get hit with an attack. I've had it flash on just seemingly at random. It's thoroughly annoying. So, yeah. I'd like the choice to just completely kill it. Give me the option of having my snipes back the way they were. If I'm in combat, I've got *all my other attacks.* (And yes, I've successfully used original long-snipes in combat, frequently.)

So, just did a raid. Interesting. In zone: No tether. Attacked Hami - Tether. Flew out of Hami, while raid is still going on - tether. Hami dead - no tether.

I honestly don't remember that at all.

Don't get Neverwinter NIghts - an excellent RPG - and Neverwinter - an MMO - confused. Neverwinter is... eh... ok... ish. Or was many years ago. NWN is something you should really experience.

You should have seen the Repeat Offenders on live. Green Machine (all Empathy, or "turning defenders into Regen blasters.") all rad, storm, etc. I have seen callouts for all-support, all *specific AT* and the like. Back on live, there were illusion controllers that all had the "same" name... which I was told again recently, and have promptly forgotten. Illusion ... something. (mixing uppercase i and lowercase L, o and 0, etc. to get the "same" name.) There's always the supposed all-mastermind MSR...

No reason to conserve anything. Use the Sands of Mu temp power. It's not affected by the crash. Line up, let loose. Maybe a second or two of still being debuffed.

If it's *local,* there's no way anyone here can retrieve it. Completely depends on your backups, checking the recycle bin, etc. I don't know what would delete it, unless your antivirus had a moment and thought it needed to go.

Was it *published* or just local still? ... and are you *sure* about that? 🙂 (Yes, I've seen this be the cause of many "missing arcs." That or working from the autosave instead of the file you thought you saved it as... AE's kind of bad at indicating these things.)

I was trying to think who did this. Yeah, there are still badge tours on occasion. As far as the old Hollows? Well... all I can say is people loved my Warshade. Recall friend at low level? Yep... You know. I should get on a lowbie and see if I can remember how to run to Julius without cutting through Death Valley. Of course, stuff doesn't do a late-spawn in to instakill you, either.

This *really is* why they're dead. Pre-13, the zones - yes, even on servers other than Freedom, I was typically on Pinnacle or VIctory - were reasonably busy. After that.. well, some people gave it a shot, but part of why i13 killed it is that it became very casual unfriendly. Yeah, I know, "wut, PVP casual friendly?" Yeah. Sure, you couldn't compete particularly well against PVP-focused builds and there were definitely FOTMs (just like in ... pretty much any other aspect of the game where people want to compete - best pylon times, best AV soloers, etc.) But you could bring your character in and... well.. *know what their powers would do.* And have some idea of what the enemy would be able to do. Imagine if you went from Steel Canyon to Independence Port and suddenly you did less damage. Your tank's status protection turned into status resistance - meaning you would be held. You try to heal yourself furiously only to have each successive heal do less good, and so forth. You wouldn't be very fond of going to IP. Lusca would probably be hunted less, etc. That's part of what happened to PVP, at least in zone. The rest of it moved to teams in the arena, from what I could see. Yes, there were lowbie matches and such, but in general? It turned into a different game. Which is a shame. Zone PVP was a lot of fun. I have some good memories there - teaching people the hard way that you can't really TP Foe an Energy brute (and chuckling at being called a stalker. It's funny how many people won't believe you.) Playing spoiler with controls when I saw someone being hunted. MA/Regen Stalker vs MA/REgen Scrapper - the fight that was never going to end. (we called it a draw.) My Corruptor - yes, PVE build - one other and a dom holding Siren's for a good half hour until we got overwhelmed by numbers. We have plenty of "I wish the game were harder" threads. These were interesting and fun challenges, seeing what my build at that time could do versus enemies who could actually (but ... didn't, as often as they should have) plan, strategize and do the unexpected.

I'm not sure what all does it. I was thinking some sort of environmental change, thus testing the halloween vs non halloween "skies" of the zones. Next hami raid I have to remember to pop out of the blob and see if I still see it - I want to say I do when chasing hami buds. But I can't swear to it.

So, it seems in most zones the Kheldian "Nova tether" is long gone. (If you don't know what I mean, it's a ... beam... that just stretches off to some unknown point when you're in Nova form, PB or WS.) However, I've started noticing it again - but only in very specific times. Today, it was during a Dilemma Diabolique trial, and a Hami raid. Going into Eden outside of a raid and going into nova just now though, even with attacking something... no tether. So, not sure what's happening to *cause* it exactly, but... it's still there, sometimes. Obviously not something major, it doesn't affect gameplay at all, just graphical weirdness. (I'd also tried a zone with and without "supernatural events" going on... didn't see it there.)

I would actually be fine with making getting the things noticably harder in the PVE zone. As long as they're otherwise the same (no incarnate powers working in PVE-Bloody Bay, for instance, as you're exemped to 25.) Otherwise it's just cheesy and *even less* risk. You could spawn 20 shivans around a meteor that takes even longer to gather, but if you're a 50+ Incarnate, they're just flat out not even close to the same threat, even "invasion-coded." (Mind you, I think the current exemp rules made Siren's Call much less fun, since it joins the T9-fest of the other zones with allowing powers up to 35, but that's a whole different conversation.) And please stop using the word "griefing" as a synonym for (risk of) PVP in a PVP zone. It is not the same. You throw that out *far* too casually.

Ehhhh.... that seems a touch... *wrong* to me. Basically rewarding you for players actually dying. I know it's not how you *meant* it, but...

"Forced" is a common argument. People are "forced" to go in to get things totally unneccessary. "Things I want" are not the same as "things I need." Also, players defeating other players in a zone designed for players to fight other players is not griefing. It *is* part of the risk of getting those badges and other rewards. Now, if you read what I said, a PVE flavored zone would have "same but different' badges, so there's no "tax." But as far as nukes, summons, shivans? Yes, those *should* be far less powerful if obtained in a PVE zone. Less risk = less reward. You bring up the scientists, as an example. Yes, their AI is awful. But in a pure PVE zone, it's nothing but an annoyance. You can casually walk back and get them. In a PVP zone, the risk is that someone engages and defeats you, *then* steals the scientist, meaning you have to start over again on that one. Why should someone get the same reward (same, full strength nuke) for less risk? You're not doing or risking the same thing. You're doing something optional that's similar but easier.

I'm not sure it would save any time. Even just considering *live* changes, there were a lot of changes from 2004. Add to that the launcher points to different servers... it's probably better to just download the launcher and let it obtain the newest relevant files.

... and then there are powersets with status protection and how *that* changes in PVP.

Whether you got the PVP or PVE zone badges, you would have the same number of badges. If you went to the PVP zone for the badge after getting the PVE badge, the badge would change. (Or not. I'd even give the option of picking which one to keep, if someone liked it as a title.) You would not be able to get both PVP and PVE badges "combined" (if zone A has 5 and zone A-PVE has 5, and you go to both to collect them all, you end up with 5.) Edit: As far as if it would give merits for exploring both? I'd say yes, just for the time taken, but it's not a big deal to me either way.