Doc_Scorpion

No, it will never stop. And it will continue to cause problems in every MMO ever, in a large part because that portion of the playerbase is VERY vocal. And it highlights a problem in CoX that goes back at least as far as when I started playing I8, the general lack of content in the lower and middle ranges. Which hurts retention in the "content over power" segment of the playerbase... Thus leading to the ever growing prominence of players at the opposite end of the spectrum. It's a positive feedback loop.

So much this... But I will say, it's not unique to CoX. I saw the same behavior pattern in UO back in 2001/02.

IMHO, his fully twinked out build was still what I would consider high end despite being only middling in level.

You've been vocally critical of it because, as you've told us at great length, it's personally inconvenient for you.

Because I was curious and wondered the name was a reference to the anime Akagami no Shirayukihime (Snow White with the Red Hair). Should have caught she was a tank though, in the anime Shirayuki is an herbalist - a healer.

Does she have red hair though?

Funniest PvP ever... I don't PvP, but I was running a mish in a PvP zone with my 40 ish Earth/Rad troller. Little lame dude runs up and starts attacking Stoney, so I promptly start holding him and let Stoney put the beatdown on him. Little lame dude croaks, so I go back to my business... When suddenly he pops back up and starts attacking Stoney again. (Lather, rinse repeat.) He pops up a third time and (you guessed it)... it happens again. Little lame dude started whining in broadcast about how I was cheating because there was no way a troller could beat a scrapper. About then I'd killed however many of whatever and zoned out...

Haven't read through the whole thread... But definitely a smaller footprint inspiration collector. The current one is way too big for what it does and is screwing with my base design.

That's kinda the OP's point... These aren't folks exercising even basic strategy - it's almost always simply a graceless zerg rush. In the week and a half I've been back, I've seen exactly two team wipes (one Malta, one Carnie). Tactical game play is almost non existent, even at +4x8. That's not the CoX I used to play. The game has changed, and I'm not convinced it's for the better.

They're trialing converting the Mothership raid into an instanced trail - taking away the problem of RWZ population caps entirely.

My Bots/FF mastermind doesn't have a pun or amusing name, but she does have an odd origin... I'd read an article about a girl who had built a robotic arm as a science fair project, and suddenly "first she built an arm, then she built an army" popped into my head. Five minutes later I was logging into Live and Mistress Mechanism was born.

Apples and the thing least like apples you can imagine. This wasn't a change - it was a bug fix. It was correcting a mistake made months ago. There was no need to consult the community or have a lenghty discussion. Give it a rest.

*nods* The stories were some of the best parts of the old forums.

The basic roles and nature of the AT's have not changed to any great degree. There's a reason why you're getting those answers... But you're not happy with an answer that doesn't fit your impossible criteria, so we keep going in circles.

0.o 99% of what you're asking can be answered by simply visiting the Paragon Wiki. The rest is just you going in pointless circles trying to quantify the difference between apples and oranges.

It has already been demonstrated to be possible to successfully raid Hami with the new (old) population cap - both on Live, and last night here on Homecoming. So I stopped reading right there.

Even if it's not a "commercial" game, Homecoming still needs to keep the money flowing. A large part of that is the same ol' bugaboo that every online game faces - keeping the game as interesting as possible to as many people as possible. Commercial or non/not-for-profit, ya gotta have the bodies coming in to keep the lights on. (Honestly, I wonder if I should make that my sig... Because over the week I've been back, I see a lot of people that don't grasp that principle.) Certainly true. But does it change it unequivocally for the worse because the folks that want to gather as many Merits as humanly possible now have a harder time of it? Not at all. Reading the reports in this thread, people are already changing and adapting and having fun doing so. I expect that trend to continue (it almost always does), and those that won't adapt to be left in the dust.

Dramatic changes are a way of life in any living, breathing, MMORPG. You learn to deal with them or you live a life where you're always frustrated and pissed off.

Keep in mind that what we're talking about are trademarked characters, and there is no Fair Use for trademarks. What folks seem to be talking about here is copyright law, which is irrelevant.

It could last for years. Or you could wake up tomorrow to find it gone. There's no guarantee and no reasonable way to predict the outcome. Dive in, enjoy, and worry about tomorrow tomorrow.

I didn't have Num Lock turned on though... That was the first thing I checked. 🙂 The only one who uses Num Lock on this computer is my wife, an accountant, as she all but physically cannot enter numbers except on a 10-key.

OK, the numpad "DEL" key, which I've been using, does nothing... But the "Delete" key (which never occurred to me to try as I almost never us that section of the keyboard) works... Thanks!

Certainly mental gymnastics are part of RPing. Nobody ever said any different. But there are limits. There's a point where it's no longer mental gymnastics and you're simply excusing bad writing. For example: I'm considering having my blueside MM go vigilante. So, when she's running the Clockwork arcs, she's thinking "sure, I'll help out $CONTACT in eliminating the Clockwork. And make notes and pocket a few choice bits while I'm at it". My character, my reasons. My story. But when you're forced to introduce elements like "I'm being mind controlled" (to take an example introduced above) in order to play through an arc... That's not mental gymnastics. You're mentally covering up for bad writing taking away your control of your story. It's OK to choose, it's bad to be forced. "Forced" above is italicized, bolded, and underlined for a reason - it's the key concept in this discussion. One that folks don't seem to grasp. Nobody is asking for the world to suit my character. We're asking for choice. (Choices can be fettered or limited, no problems there - so long as the choices exist.) We're asking to retain agency and control of our own story. That's what makes an RPG different from a VN or choose-your-own-adventure.

OK, I don't seem to be able to delete objects. I'm in the base editor, with the toon with base editing privileges (the only toon in the SG for that matter)... and none of the obvious keys have any effect.

You've posted some variant of the quote above at least twice now... So it seems to me that your whole argument boils down to "I don't have a problem, I don't see a problem, therefore by fiat nobody else should have a problem either". Mental gymnastics is certainly a viable playstyle. But where you're off-base is your repeated suggestion that the rest of us should just live with it or just click through it (or past it).