Greycat

Heh. I got that, new, for... what was it, $70 or $90 at launch. Some time later, I ran across them (and the COH collectors edition, which gave you the special cape) for $5 a shot at Big Lots. Picked them up to get the game time and give the codes for the special "stuff" for my friends (like the in game arachnos cape, etc.) I think I have two (unsealed) boxes around in storage still.

Pfft. EIther I have perfect stealth or I'm the only one who doesn't - I never see anyone else in the zones. 😉 I will add there are sometimes other ways to detect a stalker, if you're *really* paying attention - and in water. Characters still leave ripples. But again... really have to pay attention. Most people don't. I seem to recall the basic stacking was - hide +1 stealth IO +stealth. I *think,* but don't 100% recall, that "grant invisibility" and/or the base item buff would also stack. But those are time limited. (As a side note, I did have people wondering how I could "see" them on occasion on non +per characters. Generally... from standing in the water and being aware of ripples. Stealth doesn't help with that. But most people also don't pay *attention* to things like that.)

Ehhh... Being honest, I'd really be against anything... "boosting" the way you earn badges, whether it's defeat credit, time somewhere or doing something, etc. It just feels really cheap and... "cheaty" for lack of a better word. If you're in a level range, you'll be making those badges as you play through content. If you're above the level range, defeating whatever they are will be fast anyway. They don't really need accelerators, and honestly I'd see it as cheapening the accomplishment for those that *did* do it normally.

You know, I don't know what ever happened to Graver13. I tried to reach out to him for other pieces and never heard back. And taclobanon dropped off the face of the earth for a while.

Here we go. End of COV Beta - beating down on Agent Abbot... Psyche and other heroes/devs coming to fight... and manticore about to have a bad day. Think I still have a photo for the receipt for the collectors box somewhere, too. (I don't recall why we needed that.)

Personal bias on this one - my first 50 on live back in I3/I4 was an elec/elec blaster. I like electric blast. (Remade as an elec/elec sentinel here.) That said, I think it gets penalized for a ... not that helpful secondary effect. Most things are dead before any end drain is useful, a *useful* amount of END is not returned to the user - whether in blaster, defender or corrupter form. Yes, I have drained (or been on teams with enough other elec blast users to drain) GMs and AVs, and keep them down, but that's exceedingly rare. (That said, once Arachnos was introduced, we got to face packs of them in the form of the Mu mystics, and getting end drained at low level and *kept* there is no fun.) Things I love - I'll always be partial to Sparky. Before Defiance 2.0, I liked that it meant I could still fight back if I was held or stunned. So, yeah, still partial to it. It has saved my virtual bacon many times. Love - nuking a group to watch them twitch, fall to their knees, then fall on their faces. 🙂 Love - while I'm not normally into IOs, elec is one that I'll try to grab one specific IO early... a chance to stun, to take advantage of the end mod, and try to put it *at least* in ball lightning, and probably a few other attacks as well. What I'd change? Hmm. It's been suggested to add chaining. I'd probably do that to Voltaic Sentinel. I wouldn't want to do that to everything - I don't want Zapp chaining when I'm trying to pull, for instance. Seeing Elec. attacks build "charges" (so the third one makes the next attack chain) might be an interesting idea. Or put the IO's proc into the set itself and give every attack a chance to stun. And/or make the END drain and END return useful - not as an END cost discount, but an actual return, and/or build a temporary END drain resist. Regardless, I'll always be fond of electric blast.

Eh. Mixed. I don't do uberbuilds or perma-anything, if anything's capped it's because I'm on a fire tank and we're looking at fire resist or otherwise a happy accident. I also don't tend to do exceptionally high difficulties - just not fun to me. I do throw a good bit of RP in, but other than that, "hop on whatever looks interesting and play whatever comes up" covers it pretty well.

I can't say I ever expected them to hit that timeline, not with what's still an essentially volunteer staff. If everyone quit their jobs, got hired on and worked full time... somehow? (which wouldn't happen with that kickstarter money,) then I might think they were taking too long. As far as looks? Given all the "8-bit-look" indie games, I think looks can be... well, overlooked... depending on the underlying game. Somewhat harder sell in this genre, though.

And as an example of how to get people to *quit* playing your game - Diablo III started a new season with a "buff" (I guess.) Which makes an obnoxious constipated whale noise every 3 minutes while firing off useless elemental effects that are triggering migranes in people while (some) fill the screen. Well, maybe not the snowball that rolls so slowly a rooted stone tanker could outrun it. I think I lasted 20 minutes before saying "nope, I'm good for another 6 months or so." (Honestly, I don't actually like the game that much, but it's there for that urge to play that hits about every 3-4 months. Usually lasts a week at most.)

There is (was?) hero activity elsewhere - it's part of Hero Corps backstory, for starters, and I'm fairly sure other groups are mentioned as well. Even just ignoring player decisions about where they're based or from. 🙂 And yeah, I'd love to have just a *taste* of being elsewhere without having to go to another plane. If we can have giant towers in Praetoria to fight on, why not... the Eiffel Tower? Big Ben? We know Gadzul Oil (and the dropped Blood of the Black Stream) were active in Egypt, why don't we end up there for a few missions? Or head elsewhere in Africa to cripple the Banished Pantheon on their old battleground? There are "mystic" sites around the world, and magic plays a not insignificant role in the COH world. How about having to investigate a mesoamerican pyramid? (which... I built up and did elsewhere.) We've gone to Cimerora, why not check out the ruins? Just *maps* would be useful (and nice in AE, as well.) (And yes, it was NC Norcal.)

I'm ... not sure what BB's argument is, or why they would have to 'gut the rewards.' For each individual SSA arc, there's a 6 1/2 day timer for the rewards. Yes, you can run each arc more quickly than that, but the first run would net you (say) 20 merits, but if you ran it the next day, you'd only get 5... until 6 1/2 days would pass. I'm not sure how that would "cater to power gamers," or cost those who play casually or less frequently anything.

I honestly kind of wish I could choose to disable fast snipe all together, but I'm fairly sure I'm in the minority there.

Graaaagh! No! Break out the pitches and torchforks! Far and tethers! 🙂

For a while back on live, I used to do reverse-FOTMs. Ice/Energy blasters a thing? I ran energy/ice. Granted, there aren't really "reverses" of some things (fire/kin controllers,) but it got interesting at times.

It's hard to argue against this, since it's essentially already being done - people advertise their patron arc and others join, often at low level, so they're already unlocked.

Which is why I said, very specifically, "I don't think I'd ever use." Which does not discount other people using or liking it. And I read the other post. I still do not know that it would work the way you think. But that's why I said I don't know.

How are other warning boxes implemented? Do you think there would be a special "no, you must LOOK AT MEEEE" box set up just for this? It is *reasonable* that the OP is referring to a warning box similar to the others that come up in game. As for the second? I'm me. And I did not say "good enough." I said good. Which, by the way, is also an opinion.

The first, I'd love to have, yeah. I know I've missed that changing and misconverted at times. The second... I don't know if it's feasable, since it is a different IO. The third, I don't think I'd ever use. I've run across some "Oh, wait, that would work out nicely!" IOs while trying to convert to something else. I'd hate to miss out on those.

So disable it if it were implemented. It'd be a whole half second out of your life. I'd probably disable it too, but it's not a good reason to disagree with having it. It's brought up often enough that there are obviously people beyond just the OP who would like to have it. That said, there's enough market fluctuation that it'd probably flag at odd times or just be problematic. If someone picked up a run of (say) common IOs that someone listed at 100 inf because they were going for a crafting badge, say, and you bid 50,000, it would be reasonable but "well over" the last few bids. (Not to mention the price display bugs going on atm.)

... I'm wondering how many "just get to 50" folks are from other MMOs. Unless I'm part of a RPing SG, I think I have a sudden drop in how much I play my 50s when they hit that. I don't care overmuch about incarnate content - it's just... meh (probably because we *did* have to grind it, not to mention the game forcing "The Well" on you.) More often than not, I'll continue a character's story with an alt. Either a shift in powers, an alternate version, something. "Loot" for me isn't necessary. Nice to have, sure, but chasing it just sucks the fun out of things for me. There are other MMOs I could go to if I wanted to grind away mindlessly for the next "thing." And none of it is required. As far as X,Y,Z "sucks, not worth playing, why would you play that?" Well, that's pretty much why I don't have General on any of my tabs (aside from other ignorant and/or vile conversation) - other than that, it's mostly an opinion to be ignored.

And, for a bit (and when I had a smaller screen) I was collecting some of the related pieces into wallpapers. This one cost four Bills. 🙂

And one just for fun. While I appreciated the *convenience* when trainers were given the ability to be tailors, too, well... IC, I thought it might be problematic. Here's BABs illustrating one of the issues, with the help of a character of mine and another character run by a friend. I'm not sure it's better with him being outside by a little park now.

Since I'm on ice, here's my Ice/Emp 'troller, who you may have run across on MSRs on Everlasting, Caduccia. Created her back in single digit issue days. The most memorable things with her are... hmm. First - and really only - character I had, from I3 to the end and in all the time I had here, that I ran across someone with a very similar (but not exactly the same) costume. (Not the one shown here.) Also - same single digit issue days, back in the hollows, I got invited to a team. Team leader was fine, second person insisted (after I was invited) that we needed a "healer." And *refused* to believe that Controllers had Empathy... despite me standing right there. Some peoples' kids.

So, since servers are down and I haven't posted here in a while: I had one ongoing character - actually Therra's daughter. Initially in a sg/duo with her brother, decided to make her own way, joined Longbow, went undercover in the Isles, quit LB after that and became a hero of her own. (I had a fairly long bit written up for them, back on live, explaining the whole thing.) Erin Snow (emp/psy) / Caitlyn Haruspica (ice/ice corr) / Caitlyn Snow, all in one:

I started on pinnacle back in the day. Servers falling down drunk with no warning is nothing new to me. 🙂