Greycat

More D not knowing what he's talking about. Baldur's Gate is not an MMO, for instance. It is an RPG with an (optional) online teaming component. Neither is Warframe. Warframe's as much an MMO as Call of Duty or Overwatch is. Or are you going to claim those are MMOs as well? WOW was and sort of still is a behemoth. It has a long time to come down from its peak population of millions. I seem to recall numbers (and arguments about the numbers and how Asian cafes affected them) in the 7-12 million subscriber range. So them being down to 300-odd thousand? "Yeah, and?" There's no MMO named "Sierra Online." Sierra Online was a game development company founded by Ken and Roberta WIlliams that made outstanding games (like Kings Quest, Police Quest and Phantasmagoria) before they were bought out a few times and finally shuttered. Were you maybe thinking of Ultima Online? (Said game not created by Sierra Online.) There were also more than three MMOs running in 1999 (25 years ago.) Some were simpler, yes. The genre, the ways of accessing the internet and the computers that ran them were much less capable. This is also not an "emulator." Look up the term before you use it. As far as "the gaming population of the world has moved on to..." - so what? COH at its peak - when people could see the boxes in store and buy them retail - was never huge. And most of the people interested in COH are people who played COH when it was live and/or their kids. We're a small, volunteer run server, no budget, no advertising to speak of. Your comparisons are ridiculous. Or is this another post where you promise to leave, but don't? Also "Can't find one player" on Saturday night? I know full well *that's* not true. Maybe not responding to D. That I could believe.

Personally I think there should be two badges. One for doing it the first time, as is. If you fail and get it through Ouro? An "If at first you don't succeed" badge. Badge count wise, you'd only have one or the other. Even if you succeeded and then re-ran it through Ouro (in which case you'd still have the first badge.)

The devs don't accept assets from outside the dev team. See the FAQ:

Other powers that affect others against their will: Transfusion Increase Density Speed Boost Inertial Reduction Transference Fulcrum Shift Healing Aura Heal Other Absorb Pain Fortitude Recovery AUra Regeneration Aura Adrenalin Boost O2 Boost Steamy Mist (Can make an argument for Hurricane, given visual effects and mob placement being affected.) Deflection Shield Insulation Shield DIspersion Bubble Damping Bubble Assault Tactics Vengeance Warmth Thermal Shield Cauterize Plasma Shield Thaw Forge Tangentally, powers like Fold Space and Wormhole .... and the list can go on and on.. I know, nobody complains about a heal... except when things come up that make them problematic (remember Defiance 1.0? There are also other powers that give a boost depending on your lower health.) How about shields? That's a common one. Accuracy buffs? If it was buffing Tohit, then yes, that did impose an unwanted buff if it brought my blasters into Fast Snipe, before that was reworked (and I still long for a "disable fast snipe" IO.) Hell, Sonic Resonance was making people physically ill before the graphics were finally reworked. That was definitely against their will. And yes, arguments pop up (or used to at least) where people *do not want to be buffed at all,* including drive-by buffings, and will complain loud and long about it because it affects them and how well (or not) they can handle the fights they're in. So... "Affecting others against their will" - how far do you want to take that argument? And yet nobody's mentioning Speed Boost here, which (along with team teleport) is also explicitly listed in Null because of the "unwanted movement condition." They just quietly go and see Null. I'm not against making it easier to turn Group Fly off for people. Though the last time I suggested "Hey, put Null in teh zones where people gather for raids, since leaving those zones might cost you a spot if the zone fills" I had reactions that apparently equated it with barbecuing babies and kicking puppies. But this just doesn't really fly (so to speak) as an argument. We have laws against that and punishments for the people who do it. That seems like a universal "Society as a whole has agreed not to consent to it."

There was a book... dragon-something, dragonhenge? - which described dragon fire as a dragon breathing out tinier dragons which breathed out tinier dragons all the way down...

So, couple things with this - 1. Would it be applied to all existing arcs? 2. Would everything *else* need to be tagged, too? 3. Would it be automated? 4. If it's not automated, who's going to police it with our small volunteer dev team? (Especially if they'd have to be reviewed to make sure it's not 'buried' a mission or two deep.)

I seem to recall a little annoyance that some development funding was going towards COH 2 preliminaries without an OK from NC.

The "sidekick run" sounds like some teams I've heard of and played on. (Had friends that did all Shield characters, all Electric, etc. And with the electric we put in the ... forget which endmod set, but the "chance to stun" proc in pretty much everything. It was fun.) I know of people who have done "poolboy" challenges... where pretty much everything had to be a pool power (after the first few levels, where you don't get a choice.) Also had heard of someone doing "only brawl" - granted, sets in everything else and a heavily procced out brawl, which apparently did surprising amounts of damage, but they could only attack with Brawl. The stuff I've done has generally been long term (and probably related to all the alts) - getting one of each control set to 50, for instance. One of each AT to 50, one of each armor set, etc. Even Epic ATs can lead to a number of alts... Khelds? Not just Peacebringer and Warshade, but - say - human, human/nova, human/dwarf, triform, and inhuman (using human form as little as possible, sticking mostly with nova/dwarf,) or SoAs - Widow, Fortunata, Bane, Crab, Huntsman (basically bane but sticking with the rifle versus the mace.)

Meh. Not particularly sold on it.

Eh. Don't really think it's needed, but other than that I'm not particularly against it either. Well its purpose *is* to stick things in place... 😉

DFB offers: SOs. An Accuracy (wel, Tohit) boost 'til 22 (or one week in game play time, for all of them.) A 12% Damage boost 'til 22. A 5.25% Defense boost 'til 22. A 15%Recovery boost 'til 22. I'd have a hard time saying any character "doesn't benefit" from it, especially at lower levels - at the very least the recovery boost is *universally* useful as a character starts getting more powers early on. You're getting a free DO, essentially, in every power that'll take that sort of boost, and you can run DFB and get multiple boosts, though not stacking the same one (obviously.) So... yeah. I don't really buy that this is needed or even particularly an improvement. There's at least one something every AT and powerset can use.

Roughly the same layout I've had since live. That's a combat attributes window. Last link in my signature will give you info on it.

I've only kicked someone once, and they deliberately griefed the team. Caught them running down to the room while we were still in the "upper" area, told them to come back. They did. Reiterated the instructions. Went to pull the boss, they ran forward and started fighting zombies. Kicked them, but not before they managed to kill some. I'll end up warning people about that person if I ever see them on a team, and they will *not* be on any team I run.

There's a link to last year's in the post. I wouldn't expect it to be substantially different. You'll put in a request to be considered for a base for yourself or someone else. People will be building some number of bases of different styles. They'll give them away to whomever they pick. You'll need to be there in person to receive the base (well, code,) on a character without a SG (or one you'll be able to switch to,) so they can join said SG and take over ownership of the base.

I've wanted a Toxic armor set for some time, honestly. AoE effects on top of the armor affecting enemy resistance, some damage, etc. Been a while since I brought that up...

Well...

After the name release? 😄 I'm more curious about how long it stays that way. As for the OP - yeah. I want to see CIT back for HC, basically.

... which again brings up the "How do we consider an SG "inactive?" which I don't think I need to go into detail about again. (And yes, I know, you mentioned "as a thought experiment.") Followed by "How would HC notify the players?" We've had *literal years* to learn about the character rename, and a month of warning that "Hey, this is going live." Logging in to the game, you could see flags on the "at risk" characters. Do we add *another* warning symbol to the login screen - for something which, currently, we can't see on (and I don't think data is passed to) the login screen? Obviously a warning when a character from the SG logs in would be useless... as the character would have logged in and the SG would then be "active" at the most basic (and not necessarily relevant) sort of flag.

... but it doesn't target pumpkins, which it seems the OP is asking about. 😄

So devs! How many new characters were created in the 24 hours after the name release went active? 😄 (I'm honestly just as curious about the first hour or two, too. On top of how many names were "available" just before, since that certainly wasn't 1.6 million with a month to "protect" them.)

Mine that have red triangles on them are *highly* unlikely to ever be taken, unless someone really wants to name their character after a base code for a base they don't own or have some really oddly specific designations/titles.

You want to play that way, you can. Not the first one to bring up something similar, or to do it.

Which, if you think about it, still doesn't really scream "there's a need for this!" I mean, if Everlasting - typically second most populated, and I'd hazard with a *lot* more "non active" bases like I described (RP sets, etc. with a single character) is around 40,000... well, the name release thing they were saying they expected *1.6 million* names to be affected. (Still curious to see how many actually were, plus new characters created in the first 24 hours.) 40,000? I'm *really* doubting a need.

Bases don't really lose usefulness if someone hasn't logged in, especially with passcodes. SO as a metric - this is pretty useless. How many transport hub bases, for instance, do you think have an "active SG member" in them? Barring something breaking or needing updating, once they're built, there's no real reason for the builder to log in, and they can be the only person in the "SG."

Strange that people can keep making SGs if "not a single SG name" is available on Everlasting. They're kind of required to make a SG. I wonder how they're naming them. And "I haven't seen" doesn't really mean anything. I've never seen YOU on Everlasting, and I primarily play there. Does that mean you're lying and you're not actually there? First, you do not have to be level 10 to make a SG. You can make them at level 1. Second, yes, there probably ARE hundreds of SGs with just one character who's generally inactive, especially on Everlasting. I doubt, for instance, any of the several transport hubs have dozens of characters in them - they don't need them, barring other zones being added to add beacons to. Everlasting also has many, many RP bases - pubs, chalets, housing and more. Guess what. Doesn't matter if the character that built those has been "inactive," the bases themselves would still be very active, seeing activity from other players. They get built, MAYBE updated when something gets added to base items that would be helpful or appropriate, but other than that, there's no reason necessarily that those would have "active" characters. For instance, I have an SG base with one character that's designed as a bookstore. It hasn't needed to be updated in at least two years. I highly doubt you want or need the name of it. I have another that was initially meant to try to give a day/night cycle free, neutral lighting space for things like costume contests, and has evolved into a sometimes-use small-RP-set base and travel hub (mostly travel hub.) I have another under (slow) construction that'll be a temple, of sorts. Friend of mine likes building bases, they've probably built 15-20 of them for friends and for themselves for housing, social areas, etc. that don't need updating once finished. Unlike characters or accounts that don't get logged into, the activity of these bases cannot be determined by "has the base builder been active in the last X days." So, no. They do not need to be punished because you're being uncreative with SG names. SG bases are much different than players, when it comes to "activity." The SG name issue is a you problem.