Luminara

We've secretly replaced @Troo's launcher with Folger's Crystals. Let's see if he notices...

I'm constantly tweaking my level 50 characters. The more I play them, the more I find things I can remove, replace, revise, and there's usually a lot of room for change because I tend to get stuck in a rut when I'm building, using the same IOs on everything, chasing the same set bonuses, making the same decisions even when they don't make sense or serve no purpose. Why do I have the 5% +Res (All) unique on a character who never gets hit because everything is always mezzed? Get rid of it! Do I need a fifth attack for a character with a perfect attack chain using four powers? No! Can I wean myself off of all of this extra Slow Resistance I've accumulated and replace it with a little more Fire/Cold Defense? Yes, I can! It keeps the game fresh, even with characters that would otherwise be "done". And that's a critical retention feature for me. If this were another MMORPG, I'd be at max level and have no real path forward, nothing to do but level another character or wait for an expansion. There are only so many ways you can adjust a "skill tree" build, whereas the flexibility of Co* offers almost endless possibilities, even within a single build. And half the fun is testing theoretical improvements and seeing how they actually perform in the game.

I didn't even know there was a hidden AE, or that it had been nerfed. They really hid it well!

25,000,000 inf* to create rare Incarnate salvage out of threads, plus enough threads to make all of the common and uncommon salvage to combine to the rare. 200,000,000 inf* (4x rare + 100,000,000 inf*) to create very vare Incarnate salvage, plus all of the threads to create the common and uncommon salvage used to make the rares. Each T3 requires one rare salvage, each T4 requires two T3s, so 250,000,000 inf* total to create a single T4 Incarnate ability. Six Incarnate abilities, 1,500,000,000 inf*. Empyreans aren't going anywhere. I'll give the ultimate power wedgie to anyone who tries to take them out.

7.5 seconds (Barrier Radial Epiphany) or 10 seconds (Barrier Core Epiphany), from cast. Drops to 30% for the next 15 seconds (Barrier Radial Epiphany) or 35% for 20 seconds (Barrier Core Epiphany). Then it's 5% for the next 22.5 seconds (Barrier Radial Epiphany) or 7.5% for 30 seconds (Barrier Core Epiphany). The final drop brings it to 2.5% for the last 45 seconds (Barrier Radial Epiphany) or 5% for 60 seconds (Barrier Core Epiphany).

I'm not old, I'm fermented.

I am an unrepentant Agility Radial Paragon junkie. I'll fight anyone who tries to come between me and my zoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. I'll shiv a mofo. SHIV A MOFO. So I was really struggling with my Dark/Martial dominator. I had the build "perfect", but it just wasn't perfect. The more I played it, the less I enjoyed it. I just wanted to defeat +0 critters without having to use one more attack to finish off that 0.001 HP they always had left, and nothing I was doing seemed to make that happen. I respeced into Cross Punch. I respeced out of Cross Punch. I respeced into Spring Attack, and out of Spring Attack. Nothing was cutting the mustard and I was close to abandoning the character and trying a /Martial blaster or MA/* scrapper (really didn't want to do that, because none of the other variations have as much AoE). Until I tried Musculature. Night and freaking day difference. All of those kicks and shuriken throws finally felt right. An absolute joy to play. I love it. It's my second favorite character now. AND I STILL HAVE ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Thank you, Musculature gods!

You can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. They're doing their best. There were things which didn't thrill me in this update. There were things I didn't notice or care about in past updates. This extends to the 7 years I spent playing on the original servers. But I've learned to expect that with every update, in every game. Do I agree with every decision they make? Shit, no. But I also don't disagree with every decision they make, because even the ones I don't like are intended to make the game better in some way. That's all they're really trying to do, make the game better. Where the problem you see arises is how your definition of "better" may differ from theirs. Co* isn't perfect. It launched with serious design flaws and oversights, some of which still haunt us today. It's never been well balanced and probably never will be. And right now, the HC team appears to be going wild, buffing this and buffing that and everything seems like it's spiraling out of control. But they have a game plan (pun intended). They have a goal. They have a direction. They understand that they can't balance anything if there are massive disparities between things which are supposed to be similar. So before they can start grab a level and start working on balance, they have to either bring the over-performers down (which would incite mass riots), or bring the under-performers up. We have a lot more over-performers than under-performers at the moment, but that's because they've been whittling away at the under-performers for three years. Would you, honestly, have even considered taking a pre-I27 Trick Arrows anything along on a Hard Mode run? Or even a basic Incarnate trial? Honestly? I wouldn't, and I've got more experience with TA under my belt than anyone else here. That's what they're addressing now. They're maybe halfway finished. Maybe. Still a lot of work to do before it all starts to come together, but it will come together. We will get there. In the meantime, make your own challenges. Stop playing hyper-powerful builds. Play Kinetic Melee. Play a petless mastermind or dominator. Play something that isn't easy mode, there's a lot of it still in the game. You're the author of your experience with this game. Or leave. Go, play on a server without HC's changes. Whatever makes you happy. Me, I'll be right here, enjoying the ever-loving fuck out of the game for as long as I can, because I had to live through two Snaps. The first when I quit in 2011 and longed for it every day until I decided to come back, and the second in 2013, when I tried to come back and discovered that it was gone. I don't care what the HC team does at this point, I'm not going through that again. I'll be here until they drag me away, kicking, screaming, biting and flailing wildly. The HC team isn't going to meet my expectations every time they do something, and that's fine, because I'm looking three years down the road, not at tomorrow, not at yesterday, and I see it all falling into place. I'm willing to wait, to put up with annoyances, to have faith. That said, I'm also not the kind of player who soloes GMs and AVs, or who builds anything to do so. That shit takes too fucking long. I know because I did it a long, long time ago, when I thought I had something to prove. I did it with SOs. I did it with a 0.55 melee damage modifier and no Damage enhancements in my attacks. II did it without status protection. I'm quite content, now, to take the lazy approach of making builds to play +1/x5 at 50+ and just run around kicking the crap out of minions, lieutenants and regular bosses. I'm happy that the game has finally reached the point of allowing me to do that without feeling like I'm pushing a boulder up a hill. Fuck the days of scrounging and scraping to afford a single purple IO. To hell with feeling lucky to have one reasonably kitted out character. Not being able to make a Greco-Roman character at level 1, or having to grind for weeks to unlock content, or being forced to team in order to make any Incarnate progress can bite my perfect little ass. I'll take a game that allows me to build what I want and not struggle over a "challenge" any day of the week. I can make my own challenges and keep the game fresh for myself, I don't need imposed poverty and arbitrary, senseless restrictions to do it for me. But that's me. You want something else, and that's cool, too. Just don't disappear forever, because you still have friends here.

I leveled my characters to 50 because they were enjoyable. I continue to enjoy them long after I've "run out" of content. There are always tips and scanner/paper missions, RWZ/Cimerora/DA timed missions, etc. Never "nothing to do", only "nothing I feel like doing with this character right now".

The author owns the story itself, any unique characters created and any settings not portrayed or mentioned in the game/film/whatever, but he/she can't profit off of the work without paying the owner of the copyrighted work the story is set in, or that owner's permission (some copyright holders will happily allow others to use their material. some even invite others to do so, for free (or nearly free). Stephen King's famous "Dollar Deal" has launched many directors' careers (Dollar Babies), for instance. and sometimes, they're only holding that copyright to prevent large corporations from swallowing their work, retaining it to ensure that "the little guy" can use it freely. this is why things like the Creative Commons License exist, it's nearly impossible release something and not have it copyrighted, because someone else can pick it up and start running with it without the original creator's permission. releasing it under a CCL or similar license, though, ensures that it's always available for anyone, for free). Continuing the use of Mass Effect, if I decide to write a novel about a Quarian on her Pilgrimage and the ensuing adventures, I'm free to share that with the world, as long as I don't make a dime. If I want to make money off of it, I need Bioware's permission, or whoever owns Bioware's permission, or I need to arrange and sign a licensing agreement with that entity. Anything which has entered common use on a widespread basis can be used, as well. You can refer to someone as a Superman, and intend that to mean exactly what it sounds like. You can use a phrase like, "Superman punch!" (spoken in Glass), because that's calling on a well-known source which is prevalent in the public consciousness. You can refer to Superman when two characters are speaking, or a character is thinking, for the same reason, it's referencing something widely known and understood. Those are legitimate. You can't print t-shirts with the Superman logo and sell them. You can't write, ink and sell a comic and have Superman show up in it (unless it's satire or a parody). Those are strictly prohibited, unless you negotiate a license or otherwise obtain explicit permission from DC/Warner. Going back to the Mass Effect reference, if I publish that Quarian novel for sales, I'm liable to be sued. Quarians are not mine. The Migrant Fleet is not mine. Element Zero is not mine. Omni-tool is not mine. Things I used without permission from the owner and/or without negotiating compensation for the owner make me responsible for damages, court fees, fines and other levies. One of the primary reasons for copyright law existence is to ensure that the owner of copyrighted work is fairly compensated. Now, fan fiction sidesteps all of that because it's free. Or, at least, what I know of it indicates that it's given away for free (i avoid reading practically anything written online, these forums being an exception. most people can't spell, believe punctuation is "SANTANCE SEESINING", and wouldn't be able to properly construct a sentence to save their lives. reading bad English makes me angry, and i don't need to be angry at this point in my life). There's no profit being made, there's no money being channeled away from the copyright owner, so there's no violation of copyright law. The copyright holder can still issue a C&D, but they rarely do because it's essentially free advertising. Some copyright holders will even launch litigation if they imagine their copyright is being violated, having read or seen something with a bare semblance to their work, others just shrug and move on to the next project. But this is also why we have courts to deal with copyright issues, they're dispassionate and unbiased (in theory... sometimes less so in practice). If, or, as often as not, when one is accused of violating copyright law, changing the offending material typically satisfies the legal requirements to avoid penalties. If I change my Quarian to a Zorgoquatoidian, the Migrant Fleet to a wandering planet, Element Zero to refined dostuffium, and omni-tools to universal pliers, I'm in the clear. My story is less recognizable, it'll probably end up with the millions of other bad "Something: A Novel" books languishing at the bottom of Amazon's sales charts, but anything I do make off of it would be mine and I wouldn't have legal hassles to deal with. Does that sufficiently answer the question?

That's copyright law, not trademark law. They're similar, but not the same. However, as with trademark law, owning the goods or services which a third party used to create something does not grant the goods or service provider ownership of the creation. That was the purpose of that section of the EULA: to grant permission for NC to appropriate your creation(s), and they still would have had to register the copyrighted creation(s) for the applicable copyright laws to apply. NC "owns" Statesman under copyright law. NC "owns" Positron under copyright law. NC does not "own" ivanthehedgehog, they own a contract which you "signed" (clicked on the Agree button), granting them permission to use that character and forfeiting your rights to use said character in other mediums. They would still have to register said character to obtain copyright protection, as evidenced by the 1947 decision by the New York State Supreme Court, in which the Superboy character, which was created by Siegel while working at DC, was deemed to be wholly "owned" by Siegel, even though the character was created while under a work for hire contract with the publisher and within the Superman comic. As with trademark law, owning goods or services used in the creation of an original work does not, under any circumstances, grant that goods or service owner sole, exclusive or irrevocable control over the original work, or, in fact, any control or ownership of the original work unless a contract, endorsed by all parties, specifically grants it to them. That is what the EULA says and does. It grants NC the right to claim control of your unique works created within the game and file for copyright and/or trademark protection on those works, if they choose to do so. They don't own all characters in the game, they own the right to copyright all characters in the game. Your characters are still yours until NC actively exercises that option. "Ah", you say, "this means my characters' names are protected, I do 'own' them!". Well, that would be true if you filed for copyright protection on those characters (trademark protection wouldn't apply in that case, because you're seeking protection for the work itself, not the name. filing for trademark protection would require that the name represent a brand), but if you did file for copyright protection, you wouldn't be able to use those characters in the game. The EULA prohibits that, to protect NC. You can't create copyright protected characters in this game, even if you're the copyright holder (re: Marvel coming in and making Marvel characters in the CoH character creator, then filing litigation against Cryptic/NC for copyright infringement, and subsequently admitting in court that they were the ones infringing on their own copyrights, and violating Cryptic/NC's EULA by doing so). That's the other side of the EULA's protection, as applicable in this context. By wording it as they did, they accomplished two things. First, they ensured that they wouldn't have their pants sued off for infringement; and second, they keep your unique works from immediately falling into public domain. The second is key, and highly relevant to this topic. Copyright protection is not inherent, it's not a side effect of creating something, it doesn't automatically apply. You have to register the work to be copyrighted. George Romero failed to copyright Night of the Living Dead (technically, the distributor failed to do so), and, as a consequence, it immediately went into public domain when it was released in 1968. Were it not for the wording of the EULA, this is what would happen to all of your characters in Co*. But because the EULA gives NC the permission to seek copyright protection on all characters, at its discretion, your characters are kept out of public domain. Until either you or NC pursues protection on your characters, they exist in a Limbo between protection and public domain, thereby preventing yet another company from swooping in and "stealing" your unique works from you, because you gave NC permission to pursue copyright status on your works and they have "dibs", unless you revoke permission by deleting the character, at which time you can recreate the character outside of the game and copyright it, as long as you do it before someone else does. Until your works in this game are copyrighted, they're neither yours nor theirs, but also not anyone else's... and the names of those characters also don't belong to anyone exclusively, as they're not actually attached to copyrighted works, and don't represent a brand (for which trademark law would be applicable). Again, that's moving over to copyright law. Used in conjunction with the character, the name is part of a whole creation, thus, yes, subject to copyright law if the character is copyrighted. Used separately from the character, unless the name is part of a copyrighted work, it falls under trademark law. Batman is copyrighted and trademarked. Superman is copyrighted and trademarked. These are identifiable throughout the world and distinctly attached to specific, unique works which enjoy full legal protection. Your level 1 placeholder character with a name you want to reserve, your level 6 character you haven't looked at in 9 months, your level 19 character gathering dust on the 12th page of a character list, those aren't identifiable, they're not universally recognized, they're not copyrighted or trademarked by you, and thus, their names aren't protected by copyright law or trademark law. Nor does NC "own" them, as they haven't filed the necessary paperwork to legally transfer that "ownership" into their hands. All NC owns is that agreement between you and them which grants them permission to do so and denies third parties the right to do so. Nope. There are plenty of multiplayer games which permits multiple people to use the same name. No one person "owns" the name, no-one can claim infringement if someone else uses it, and everyone is uniquely identified in a different way (alphanumeric characters attached, @accountname attached, et cetera). And plenty more games which allow names to be unique, but still require players to perform some action in order to retain them, just like real trademark and copyright laws. Failing to renew trademark or copyright registration at regular intervals results in loss of protection. Failing to log a character in once in a while results in lost of protection. Same thing, for the same reasons. You don't "own" a name here, you control it, and when the name release system is enabled, you'll only control it for as long as you make the token effort to retain that control. If the name is that important to you, log the character in.

I just like ogling butts. And hitting things. While ogling butts. Also, butts.

Also incorrect. In addition to reminding you that no-one owns names, they can only be trademarked, I'll also point out that the provider of a good or service has no native right to what is created from or within that good or service by a third party. NC has no more claim of "ownership" of a name which they haven't specifically trademarked than a pencil manufacturer would. Adobe can't claim ownership of trademarked names, brands or logos simply because they were created in Photoshop. Computer manufacturers can't claim ownership simply because something was created on a computer they made. No-one can own a name, branding or logo created by someone else using their goods or services. No-one. The legal, societal, cultural and financial ramifications of such would be devastating. What NC "owns" is your permission to trademark your characters' names (trademark law) and likenesses (copyright law), which you expressly consent to when you accept to the EULA. And that permission still requires them to file the necessary registration paperwork with the USPTO and comparable agencies in other countries before it has any validity, before it attains exclusivity in regard to ownership of the trademark on the name, brand or logo.

Names aren't property in the real world. Legally, they only receive protection if they're registered as trademarks, and a name has to be associated with a product or service for trademark law to be applicable. It has to have "brand recognition". Trademarks can and do lapse. If a trademarked name or logo is not used for a certain period, if the registration of said name or logo is not filed at regular intervals, the owner loses trademark protection on the name or logo. Within the fiction of the game world, a name does represent a specific character and would be protected, in the fictional game world, but that fiction doesn't apply to real world use. If you create a character with a specific name and then allow that character to languish without attention for whatever period of time the developers determine to be fair, that represents the same failure to use the name that would occur in the real world. Logging in before the name is recycled represents filing of registration, and, like in the real world, if you fail to perform the necessary action (logging in at specified intervals), you can no longer claim infringement, misuse or misappropriation of that name.

It's a movie quote expressing a belief that @Bill Z Bubba will always be with us, even if his posting and play time decrease. Sorry the stick up your ass made it difficult for you to grasp that.

There's been no action taken to remove any characters from any account, as far as any of us know. Click the little arrows below the character list to see if they're on different pages.

There's nothing to check your character's activity and determine whether you're doing something non-Flashback related, there's no way for the game to dynamically revert the exemplar according to what you're doing or where you are at the moment. Putting you into a *F is the only way the game can exemplar you for this content. It can't be done on a per-mission basis. It can't be done as a toggle power which can be turned on and off at the player's discretion. The engine just isn't flexible in that respect. None of what's necessary to change how the mechanics function exists, or can exist without extensive redesign.

No. When Ouroboros was being designed, the developers needed to ensure that the system retained a degree of challenge and enjoyability without sacrificing the flexibility it was intended to offer. That it wouldn't be boring, and as evidenced by the distinct lack of multiple Perez Park instances throughout the entirety of the game's life, players find mass obliteration of grey-cons to be boring. There were two possible approaches to preventing Flashback missions from being boring. The first was to make every NPC in the game "level-less", but that entailed a unique problem: NPCs don't level up. They don't grow stronger in the way player characters do. There is scaling of the effects applied to their powers so they're always dealing an appropriate amount of damage, or debuff strength, or status effect duration, but they have very specific, hand-picked powers assigned to them and no ability to grow beyond that. THey don't have power sets, they don't select powers from pools, they just have a few powers and that's it. Consequently, exceeding an NPC's level by even a bit typically renders them non-threatening, as their limited repertoire of powers present less and less challenge to a player character. That level 1 Hellion might seem like a real challenge to your level 1 character, but it's not even remotely difficult when you're level 6 and have three more powers than you started with, or level 12, or level 20, because that Hellion still only has a gun with one bullet and a knife or fist. That Hellion isn't "fun" to fight any more, even if it's scaled up to your level, because that one bullet is far less dangerous when you have piles of Lethal Resistance, that fist or knife is far less threatening when you're 33.96% likely to dodge it, and they don't have another attack to throw at you. So "level-less" NPCs would never pass the "fun test" in Flashback content. That left only the use of number two, exemplaring. Having previously implemented a form of that mechanic as a means of curbing TF abuse, it was readily applicable and very appropriate for use in Flashbacks. Players could fight critters at the proper level, with a few extra tricks up their sleeves but not enough to render the entire experience so easy as to be a joke. It wasn't an arbitrary decision, they did it because all available evidence indicated that players didn't want to fight combat dummies, and the purpose of Flashbacks was to permit players to experience content the way it was designed, not as tank-mage runs through missions filled with greys. As to why they used the TF locking code, that was necessary because the character has to be locked at the exemplared level for the duration of the Flashback. Without that lock, character level could vary or be loopholed in some way. The TF lock also prevents players from inviting a higher level character after beginning the Flashback specifically because it would be possible to SK to that higher level character (the TF abuse previously mentioned), thereby utterly nullifying the purpose of being exemplared to the mission level. Merits had nothing to do with how Flashbacks work. Merits weren't even in the concept stage when Flashbacks were being created, they were added several issues later. None of the restrictions in Flashback mechanics were designed to prevent players from garnering rewards of any kind, only to ensure that those rewards were obtained within the basic expectation of meeting some degree of challenge. Not necessarily the same degree challenge as it would have been if experienced at native level, but reasonably close. Flashback mechanics are a complex web of intertwined systems all working together, and sometimes against each other, to create a usable framework. Remove one and the whole thing collapses. The locks on Flashbacks will likely never be removed unless a development team redesigns the entire system and/or all of the mechanics it uses. It is what it is because it has to be what it is, or it doesn't work at all.

Well, critters beyond the aggro cap can use ranged attacks and Taunts no longer entice enemies to attack the Taunter, so NPC allies' gruesome suicides are all but guaranteed. You could call that "fixed", if you look at it from certain perspectives. Of course, you still have to wait a year or twenty for the last couple of enemies to return to the spawn point after they run away, which artificially keeps them alive, but many of them can be killed by AoEs going off near them before they're freed, so there aren't actually that many you ever have to deal with.

Add free 10 minute (real time) versions of every costume. Gives players enough time to run outside and hit a few things, grab a scanner/paper mission and try it out in an instanced map, see if they like the costume. A test drive before they buy the car. The costumes are already separated in the vendor interface, so 10 minute temps wouldn't clutter it up.

I'm glad I don't do anything like trials or *Fs. I don't need robot upskirt shots in my life.

The Halloween vendors who only accept Halloween salvage, which is only available to new players when the Halloween event is running or at high prices on the market between Halloween events? Yeah, that's more accessible for new players.