UltraAlt

I don't think most people read EULAs, TOSs, or CoCs any more.

... and onto the concrete sidewalk below! Whoops! Did Batman just intentionally break that guy's neck?! Ah, the good old days before the Comics Authority!

Welcome home! I'm glad that you made it back to THE CITY!

Heroes. But this isn't really a complete answer. When I play villains, they are always rogues. I'm playing City of HEROES. Character conception. I have vigilantes based on character conception versus wanting to run missions in the Rogue Isles. And for the villains side, character conception. My villains are always rogues because none of them are subservient to Arachnos. Why? They are supervillains and not minions. The content that fits my character conception or those that I'm pulled into by other players. I don't always play the same content. I try to check out content based on character conception. I'm not sure how this question is related to the alignment system. I really didn't like what the alignment system did to the game. I don't know if I'm really for or against it at this point. I do think that the tip/morality missions are the best part of the alignment system. I think that I don't play them as much as I should with some characters. Without being able to start a character as a Vigilante or Rogue, being able to set a character's alignment from the get-go is nothing more than character creation options that should have been/be part of character creation. A this point these options are no different from accepting fortunes, speed buffs, team teleport, or group fly. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to start as a Vigilante or Rogue with a different training/tutorial mission for each? Break the Law and Break Arachnos? Breakdown and Break Bones? I wouldn't have added it to begin with. When the superhero mythos began, it was very clear who was hero and who was villain. The heroes were clearly in a moral position that they needed to do what they needed to do because the villains were clearly unredeemable villains whose crimes were clearly against the average citizen and/or society/countries in general. If you were a vigilante, everyone really knew you were fighting for good. Anyone nefarious in any way was obviously a villain. Sometimes this was broken for alternate/anti-hero situations during the Silver Age, but it was really always pretty clear if a character was really a hero or villain. Spider-man being one of the early examples of this. Deconstructionists are really the reason for overtly grey areas in retconned and newer superhero comics in America and the superhero medium in general. This really has its greatest impact on on American comics through British authors. I blame this and the television show Heroes for the alignment system and Praetoria. The Devs didn't know which way to go and picked the deconstructionist path. Which lead to the Deconstruction of the City as a whole ... bringing about it's Sunset. The alignment system was added to City of Heroes as another "funnelling" mechanism. In this case, the funneling was directed at giving villains more players to game with and to merge the Black Market with Wentworths (all currencies) in order to stabilize the villain economy (everything cost more on the villain side) ... and most probably the Praetorian economy as well. It came in when the development process was already widening out the options for players by introducing Praetoria and more funneling was required. Additional co-op zones were also added for additional funneling of the Heroes and Villains into contact areas where they didn't even need to change alignment in order to game with each other as the process to shift alignements through tips became fairly necessary as soon as the alignment system was released. The alternate character tutorial in Galaxy could have been done better. It should have allowed gateway options that determined if you were a hero or villain (or vigilante or rouge) rather than asking you if you want to be a hero or villain ... and, if it is going to simply ask you if you want to be a hero or villain, why not ask if you want to be a vigilante or rogue as well? Oh, almost forgot, I would have added a 4th and 5th (and maybe 6th) alignment based on how your characters XP was generated. If a majority of your character's XP was generated in the AE below level 50, you would gain the Door-Sitter Alignment. After level 50, if a majority of your XP pre-level 50 was from the AE, then you would retain the Door-Sitter-Alignment until you gained more XP then you gained during leveling. Once you gained more XP than you did by door-sitting, there would be two paths; 1) if a majority of your post level 50 XP was from the AE, you would gain the Farmer Alignment; 2) if you gained more XP post 50 from non-AE missions, you would be given the option to pick an alignment. Players would not able to use Null the Gull or Tip missions to change alignment from either Door-Sitter or Farmer to other alignements. Door-Sitters and Farmers could only run AE missions or missions in Co-op Zones and would be unable to join non-AE or non-co-op teams nor are they able to get any contacts while they are Door-Sitter or Farmer alignment. The 6th Alignment would be AFK. This would be locked and not removable. If a majority of your character's XP was gained AFK in AE before level 50 (how would anyone even be able to realistically be able to track this), you character gains the AFK alignment. Like Farmer and Door-Sitter, you are neither hero nor villain (nor vigilante, nor rogue), you are teleported to the AE in the Pocket D, locked into the AE area, unable to move, but able to access the auction house and use the email system. You're character's body is directly linked into the AE and can not survive if you are not linked into the AE's systems. You live in a constant virtual reality with no ability to escape.

If I remember correctly, the first time that one of my characters came down the Vahzilok disease (before the sunset), I had to /respec in order to recover from it ... and that meant running the Terra Volta taskforce while still affected by the Vashzilok disease. It was crazy rough, but luckily, I had decent teammates on the taskforce.

I was slowed down with this project during the Halloween even and, honestly, it is getting a bit slow going with long (time-wise) mission as part of arcs. I'm unsure if at this point if I'm going to try to get all 5 characters to the end arc boss before fighting any of the end arc bosses or if I'll start fighting the ones that the characters have already reached. It seems a bit odd that some will unlock at level 16 but other Origin contacts send you away until you're level 19. (I have to make sure to lock them once they reach level 19 so that they don't outlevel their contact).

I have no idea either way. Thanks for the info

Correct. I'm talking about the previously existing Galaxy City that was removed from the game in order to funnel new players into a single starting zone on the hero side. I did play the Praetorian content. I didn't like it. I didn't stay in it very long. And I stopped subscribing a year before the sunset and didn't play any more until Homecoming was open to the public. Honestly, the focus on the Praetorian content was one of the factors involved with me dropping my subscription. It wasn't as great of a reason as other issues I had with what was going on in the game and in game development at the time. I know it wasn't the point that you were making, but I had not heard of it, so I didn't know if it was internal to some mission/task force content or if it was an actual city zone. Thanks for answering that question. So, in fact, it was removed from the game like what happened to Galaxy City. I guess this may be in your characters timeline. Every character's timeline is different. When a character leads a team, everyone is drawn into their timeline. Or I don't understand what you are talking about as clearly players can create characters and start off in Praetoria. I also hear that there is that sewer network that can be used to travel to it (how a sewer network takes you to a parallel world? I have no idea). I haven't played through either First Ward or Night Ward far enough on any character to run a mission where they are destroyed. I thought I had played pretty far into it, but maybe not. Yep. We have clearly both stated our opinions on that point. The things we obviously have disagree on, we have both made our points. If you have information on the other stuff, I would be glad to hear it/discuss it as you are more knowledgeable on the Praetorian stuff than I am. I posted my views. That is what this thread was started for. Discussions to me aren't about agreeing or disagreeing on something. It's about providing opinions and the reasons why you have those opinions and sharing information. The point of asking a question in a discussion shouldn't be to an attack others in a discussion. Asking questions in a civil discussion should be because you think the other person can answer the questions or maybe just hope that they or someone else can. You have answered many of my questions and some have lead to other questions on my part. Some have lead to confusion. Unfortunately, that's bound to happen.

The Galaxy tutorial isn't on the Galaxy City map. You can only go to the old Galaxy City by visiting it's Echo. Was it ever available to players? Other than that map that I posted, there are 2 more Praetorian zones. They are First Ward and Night Ward, and that is where the leveling path goes to from the Praetorian Islands. Though it is the newest and graphically most advanced zones of the game, I don't think they are the best looking. There are different levels of difficulty on other maps and they are a bunch of rectangles like dominos placed side to side to each other. It's lazy.

Honestly, this is one of the reasons that I suggested putting a Null the Gull in Atlas Park (and the other starting zones) next to Ms Victory. When I first make a character, I do several things. I get the Atlas Tour Guide, vist the P2W vendor, go to the Pocket D to talk to Null the Gull (and pick an explore badge), and grab an exploration badge from Talos and Peregrine Island. I didn't do this when I first came back, but I've been doing now since around the start of the Fast Teleport system. When I go to the Gull, I turn off accepting Group Fly, Team Teleport, and Speed buffs. I would think it would be easier to make Group Fly non-accepted by default then adding it to the options menu (which is why it was added in through Null the Gull in the first place). I would like to see it done, but I don't expect any of these changes. I'll just have to keep going to the Pocket D everytime I make a character. Fortunately, a Pocket D van was added to Altas so you don't even need a SG base or hop zones to get there any more.

That about the Hollows?

There is a map of Praetoria as a whole. As I recall, it is basically divided into rectangles and increases in difficulty with each time that you move in the same direction. Paragon City nor Rogue Isles are laid out in this manner. Sure the lower level zones connect to the next higher level zones, etc. but it isn't moving from left to right along the map. It seems to be very lazy design to me. They were done at the highest level of graphics that were done in the game, so they have the most "polish" due to the graphics level when it was built. (You can even see graphic level advancements in CoV for that matter) Praetoria apparently hasn't been damaged by a Rikti invasion and were rebuilt with all the newest construction techniques. Do they even get Rikti Raids over there? Heck, the place is so dystopian that even the sewers are wide open spaces and squeaky clean thanks to clockwork and other automations. (I hear they stick you in an isocube for a 10 years if you drop a bubble gum wrapper in the sewers ... it's 100 years if they catch you throwing your used bubble gum on sidewalks on the streets above!) That do you mean "blow it up"? Did the battle damage it at some point? Are you talking about Galaxy City?! I miss that too. Wait, are they repairing Faultline?! Yes. Entire sequel map divided into rectangles that gains difficulty as you move from one side of the map to the other is pretty lazy map design in my point of view. The rectangle of the entirety of the map is divided into rectangular zones which are each independent island. Here is Paragon City's map from the box Rogue Isles I can't find an image of the box map for Going Rogue show how Praetoria was divided on that, but it can sort of be seen by looking at these images. From right to left as level advances ... and I'm pretty sure on the box map that Neuropoliz was divided into two zone splitting with the bridges connecting the the two islands. Note how the difficulty changes as you cross the bridge. Compared to the maps for City of Heroes and City of Villains, the map for Going Rogue is pretty lazy map design.

I didn't subscribe to a superhero game to play in a dystopian world. The sound of the fluorescent lights are the worst sound effects in game. Why would anyone put such an annoying sound into the game? (I don't know, but there are some pretty annoying sounds in DCUO as well ... far more than in City of Heroes) I really dislike the Praetorian Clockwork. I like the original clockwork so much better. I tried to play it simply because it was the new content and my subscription dollars had going into it being developed. I hope for something that I would enjoy, but even the map seems to be lazily thrown together. Not the map of each zone, but the overall Pretorian map. I didn't subscribe to a superhero game to pay villains either, but Praetoria soured very quickly for me. I haven't even bothered going to Praetoria since I have been back... and I'm not very happy about being "forced"/"gated" to Praetorian contacts in First Ward and Night Ward. Pretty clearly, my experience with the Praetorian content has been ... pretty completely negative. Dystopian and to be avoided. Give it up and focus DEV development on the content played by most players. That's okay. I'm not going to play it. I hope you find fun playing the game the way that you like to play it.

I thought there were well more veteran levels that 59. Perhaps I was mistaken.

Sure. We're talking this out. You are expressing your opinions, and I'm asking questions for clarification. I was asking you to refine what you were asking for a bit and bringing up issues that I see with power-leveling in general. Some player farm. Some players power-level. Some players get power-leveled. Some players do it AFK. I don't play that way. We are all playing the game. (That said, are you really playing the game if you are afk and another people or system automation are essentially playing the game for you?) You seem to be implying that you want a faster leveling path while actually playing the game. I may be wrong about that. I don't think your intent is to promote elitism. However, some people will use your suggested mechanic for elitism. It would definitely be used to circumvent the Name Release Policy - as a side effect. Any method to get to 50 quickly would do that.

If it is a complex tunnel system, it could have enemies at various levels. Lower level near the entrances from the lower level zone and then scale up to higher level enemies in the center or near the entrances from a higher level zone. If it was like a standard sewer or cave map (versus just a sewer network), it would have larger room areas mixed in with the cramped spaces. This seems to be good to mix up the types of combat environment. I'm sure some people would like to see snakes down there.

I've been back for a good while now and I've /respec'd less than 5 times. I'm not even sure I've /respec'd more than 3 times. That's total and not on any one character. I haven't /respec'd any character more than once. I would ask why "100th time" but that's a different thread topic. uh? I'm confused by the title of your thread. We saw the first sequel in CoV, which brought us bases, new archetypes, and the option of life as a villain. The 2nd sequel was GR, which brought graphic improvements, a dystopian, and alignment changes. So I guess we are in the space with what is going on rampantly in comics now - retconning. Yeah, kind of bored with retconning for the 100th time. It does seem pretty clear that there is a good number of players that would like to see a sequel to City of Heroes where they started with all their powers unlocked and they just had pick what they wanted out of the list, slot, and enhance. Maybe not even need to purchase or slot enhancements other than procs for SFX or minor alternate damage type. Maybe get all the incarnates unlocked as well. No street level fighting. Only battles on the cosmic level. I would always like to see a City of Jack Kirby Giants, but I think that would work best with limited interaction with other players and, of course, destructible buildings and terrain ... some of this mixed in of course ... Kaiju PVP!

Well. My first internet RPG experience was on Compuserve. The person that was leading the gaming group felt it was their "job' to create drama to force drama-related interaction between the players. And like them, there are those in RPG groups (on and off the internet) that feel it is there "job" to create/cause drama. That is what is furn for them, and that is how they play. They feel that drama is the whole point of an RPG. Either the other players enjoy the created drama, or they quit gaming with the person(s). I feel that an RPG should have a story. Characters should have a reason to interact. I just don't feel that interpersonal conflict is the fun part of relationships.

I'm not sure what this means. "once you get to my level" No "toon" "automatically starts at lvl 50" I have been playing since about a week before issue 2 dropped. I had over 150 characters before the sunset. I have over 100 characters now. I don't power level (sure. I get some extra levels in holiday events and invasions). I don't farm. I certainly don't afk game. People can play how they like. But I don't understand "once you get to my level". Okay. This sort of contradicts itself. And get gate seems to be set by how many 50's you can AFK AE doorsit to 50 before what? An easier path to level 50 than not playing the game to level up? Is one or more DFBs, Posi 1, Posi 2, Yin, ... and follow the taskforce train to 50 too slow? It's much quicker than mission arcs. What is the time length you feel is acceptable to get to 50? How little effort do you feel should be necessary to reach leveling to 50? Should you be rewarded with a name being locked without logging that character in (forever) for taking the quick route to 50?

The geysers in the Firebase Zulu weren't well received and a Dayjob flight pack was added so characters didn't have to use them to get around. City of Heroes isn't a platformer. I understand where you are coming from, but I rarely see characters jumping around on the current terrain features. I would "lol", but sounds like animal abuse. What is this of which you speak? You seem to have some info on this as some pre-existing plan, but I haven't heard of this one. Sounds like a Praetorian zone to me, but... yeah .... Well-cared-for lawns - well-cared-for by ROBOTS! Yeah, definitely Praetorian... Galaxy City was destroyed entirely. I miss Galaxy City. I would say Marvel, but, these days, Disney. Don't awaken the tentacled beast.

The new areas that I would like to see wouldn't be on the map, so that wouldn't make a difference. Like Cimerora, they would be zones in a different time period. A Western/Cowboy town with rival gun-slinging gangs and law enforcement groups. A Feudal Japan would be fun as well. Korean City/Village area - it looked like they were going to add a Korean City/village area with a supernatural angle. I was looking forward to play in that environment.