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The MMORPGs given as examples are all gear treadmills, with the game giving the player leveling gear each time they complete quests, with gear constantly being replaced, so having to purchase all of one's gear (enhancements) or get "lucky" drops does present a hurdle for players accustomed to that model of progression. The "problem" is that we don't have a gear treadmill, and acquiring "best-in-slot" gear, set IOs, requires the player to interact with the market or spend merits. They come into the game expecting to be given what they need to progress, rather than being given the option to acquire what they want to progress. And there is no solution which doesn't have game-wide ramifications. If the game is changed to automatically grant all of the enhancements, even if it's just SOs, that a character needs while leveling, the sub-25 content is unbalanced. Most of that content was designed around the expectation that players wouldn't be fully slotted, and what they had slotted wouldn't be at maximal efficiency. If the game is changed to guarantee players all of the inf*/merits they need to be fully slotted, the same balance conundrum is present and the player-driven economy is horse-fucked. And even if there were a way to make Co* more accessible to players accustomed to gear treadmill progression, without alienating the existing player base, it wouldn't be satisfactory because we don't have an end game. A player can have a full end-game build within 5 minutes of hitting 50, by purchasing purples and Superiors from the AH and /respec. We have unlimited content in the form of scanner/newspaper missions, tips, Ouroboros, *Fs, Trials, PUGs, GM hunting and other activities which don't grant material rewards, but the end-game grind people have come to expect from playing other MMORPGs isn't present here, so they don't see anything to work toward. That's the real impediment to bringing players from other MMORPGs here. They're accustomed to a straight path that leads to a mountain which takes a long time to climb. Co* gives players a path that meanders through hilly terrain. It's not a matter of in-game finances, but of expectation and personal preference.

Make a high quality nude skin with jiggle physics that changes to a low quality skin with pixelation over the no-no bits if the character is moved out of the Rogue Isles. Absolutely guaranteed to increase the population there tenfold, and the slogan is catchier. Red side, breast side. See?

Play game. Acquire merits. Notice merit vendor. Click merit vendor. See stuff. Spend merits on stuff. Use stuff to make inf* from AH. No PhD required.

It took me 15 minutes of poking and prodding to figure out how to make inf*. I'd never spent a merit before, nor used a converter, and after 8 years of not playing, I didn't even have a memory to refresh when it came to using the AH. 15 minutes. So no, having experience playing Co* doesn't equate to privileged access to wealth. As for your other point, if they're not interested in playing an MMORPG, how the hell is privilege even relevant? Disinterest isn't disadvantage, it's personal preference.

Canada is a fairy tale land with no days. NOT BUYING THIS LIE.

I can give you that information. $50,000. Wire me the funds. Once the transfer is verified and the funds are in my bank account, which could take several weeks, I'll give you the release date.

Everyone needs an army to conquer the world hobby.

You /jrangered me, didn't you. You did. I know that look. All of that power, and you squander it on chaos and amusement. I'm so proud of you.

Entering the Enhancement display or doing a respec changes the resolution. It doesn't appear to be a driver call, meaning it doesn't blank the screen, but the resolution in these screens is lower than the main game resolution. This is identifiable by pop-ups which appear while you're working in the Enhancement/respec screen, they're enlarged and off-center. The funky pop-ups aren't the only oddity. The tray where enhancements are stored during a respec suddenly loses the scroll functionality even though a couple dozen enhancements are hidden below the bottom of the tray. That's caused by the tray respecting the main game resolution, but being artificially reduced in size by the adjusted Enhancement/respec screen resolution. It'd be really nice to be able to get the full usage out of this screen. There's plenty of space to show all of the primary/secondary powers, but we have to scroll those because of the resolution discrepancy. And the respec tray being cut off is... irritating. It interrupts the flow of respecs by forcing the player to stop working on one power and switch to other powers until he/she has slotted enough enhancements to bring the ones he/she was working with back into the usable tray region. The reduced resolution is unnecessary for a largely static screen, so making it respect the selected resolution would be really nice.

I would. I'm not going to post a list of my characters and offer the names to anyone/everyone who wants them, because I am using them, but if I found a name that someone else had and that person was desperately wanting it back, why not? It's not like I can't come up with more names, or that not having some names makes the game unplayable. And if a name is the only thing notable about my character... well, it's clear that I fucked something up along the way and need to start over. Don't need that name to do that. As long as it wasn't going to you... Kidding. I love seeing that vein pop out on your forehead. 😁

You tried your best, little buddy. You still get ice cream.

You said that even if people know they have to log in before X period, they're going to forget or just not do it, and they'll lose names. You've said that multiple times, so I don't need to quote it. Now you say that people are not going to forget and constantly log in on time to camp names so they won't lose them. No, I get it, you think the "wrong" people will be camping names instead of the "right" people, but you're still contradicting yourself. The new campers will be subject to the same memory lapses, the same inattentiveness, the same lack of interest in putting in the effort, and the same rules which will cause them to lose the names they tried to hoard, or the current name-holders won't forget, overlook, lose interest, lose names. Well done. You managed to dispute your own argument by arguing against a point you argued for. You're arguing with yourself now. Can't wait to see who wins. Will it be you... or you? The suspense is killing me. I know the GM would ascertain the full situation, make a judgement call, reach out to the player who had the name if he/she felt it was warranted and try to find a resolution satisfactory to both parties. So the people who never come back don't have names locked away...

Status protection usable 3 times within a 6 second period and one of the lowest animation times short of 0? I'm the only one who thinks that's a weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee bit overpowered?

2x 3-piece. Bonuses only accumulate for IOs in the same power.

Not what you asserted to be the case. You say right there, "most players don't read them (patch notes) at all". Willful ignorance. That's on them. If choose to ignore the newsletters, the open betas, the forums, the Discord channels, the launcher news, the in-game pop-ups, the in-game chatter and the warnings on characters, they have no-one to blame but themselves. It's not the development team's responsibility to personally visit every player and explain everything they do, nor should the willful ignorance of some players ever be considered an acceptable reason to put the entire game into stasis. The problem with your point is that it's based on the presumption that everyone is going to start camping names as soon as they're released, that the GMs will shrug and ignore players who come back and ask for help recovering a name, that "community" is a word mouthed by self-interested assholes who use it facetiously. We have the most awesome GMs, people who bend over backwards to help players daily and who would go to great lengths to help someone who lost a name after an absence. We have an incredible group of players who are community-minded and -oriented. Players who do almost nothing but give away inf*. Players who run costume contests. Players who organize lowbie PUGs. Players who invite newbies to their farms. Players who log in for no reason other than to find someone and help him/her. 20 years on and we still have people who are excited to be able to play this game and deliriously happy to share it with others, and who would gladly give up a name if a GM reached out to them on behalf of someone else. I don't have much faith in anything. I don't believe in gods or devils or reincarnation. I don't believe in fate or destiny. But I'll tell you what I do believe in: Co* players. The people playing this game are... well, they're like the old man who runs the general store down the road where I live. He allows people to buy on credit, even though he's lost tens of thousands of dollars doing it. He just gives things to people when they really need them but can't afford them. He gives discounts even if it means taking losses. He's been running that store for almost 60 years and he hasn't changed how he does it: with compassion. He doesn't make money off of that store, but he keeps it open, keeps stocking it, keeps doing what he can for the community. He's in his mid-80's, he could've retired a long time ago, but he's there every day, doing what he can to help the people who live in this area. That's the men and women in the game and on the forums. That's the GMs. That's the HC team. That's the Co* community. And I have faith that the name release policy won't change that, because they won't let it change them. Of course I can. Doesn't mean I will.

Don't know. I generally street sweep to level 10 or so, then only do filler missions until I can access Faultline. Yes. Natural enemies always drop Nat/* DOs and pure Nat SOs, Magic enemies always drop Magic/* DOs and pure Magic SOs, and so on. They can't drop enhancements that don't match their origin. Each enemy group has a drop table, and for enhancements, only the relevant origin enhancements are included. All of that should be posted in this thread. Immediately.

Willful ignorance doesn't excuse anyone from anything. Never has, never will. Really? You think a pop-up on zone-in for the first character that a player logs into is the worst time and place for it? That the player would be less likely to immediately close it if it came up in the middle of combat, or navigating through a zone, or while he/she's interacting with the market, or trying to choose a reward, or editing a costume, or starting a respec, or... ...

I figured out how to buy converters from a merit vendor, convert set IOs and make inf* selling them on the market. I didn't read a guide, didn't ask any questions, and I had no experience using converters prior to that. Wealth is not a "privilege" on the HC servers. This isn't the real world, no-one has to be born into it or trained extensively to attain it. All it takes is being smarter than a doorknob.

Enemy groups already drop enhancements for specific origins. Council = Natural, Circle of Thorns = Magic, etc. Been that way for 20 years.

No. He snarkles.