Shenanigunner

Well, there are stories of all alts being played badly, especially long ago and so forth. I guess I am still somewhat baffled why badly-played healers killed the breed, when all or most other mucky ATs survived.

This would, of course, be a wonderful addition to base resources. I am not sure why it's not available, but assume it's another database/resource multiplication hurdle.

Well... the exit button is kinda sorta y'know cheating...

I tried quite hard to make sure I saw this as only ONE axis of player types. But we live in a binary world in too many ways., and I see that I seem to have left an intended paragraph or so to that effect out. Sigh.

I would in no way disagree. I am... accomplished in many ways. I have many aspects of my personal, professional and family life that I am proud of and even a bit recognized for. But, y'know, from late 2012 until 2017 or whatever, I felt like an important piece of me was missing, lost to the stupidest elements of chance. HC has been something nearly miraculous, not a word I use once a decade. I'm actually in a sort of negativity-collecting space with CoX right now, but if I happen to wander away, it means a lot that it's here, and will be here, when I wander back.

I think I'm being misunderstood a little (and I tried not to be). I don't mean this to be one, single axis or curve of player types, but one dimension of many. This division isn't exclusive of other viewpoints, although I think it would be unlikely a heavy roleplayer would be an Ooie, or Mad Max(build)er an Immie.

Okay. But if one viewpoint or the other isn't a loose match, how would you describe your 'bond' with CoX?

I thought it unlikely that it was anything like a completely original observation. But, despite having been around since the dawn of time, I've never much hung out in the gaming community, I can't think of a specific origin or source that led me to the notion. It just answers — or helps sort out — some of the fairly incomprehensible arguments about how various players choose to set up their UI. There are always some that make me wonder if they even look past all the trays, to be honest, and while my analysis might be pure cabbage, it answers some of those questions, to me.

I seem to remember a significant DFR - Die For Real - contingent on Live, at least earlier on. Even toons with DFR in their name. It was good community to give them extra coverage on missions.

After years — decades — of observing and interacting with gamers, especially MMO'ers and especially my compatriots in spandex here, I've made an interesting observation about the player population. It divides players into two camps along a line I've never seen, one that explains a lot of debate over other aspects of the game. It's more fundamental than the tiresome division between power and casual players, speed-levelers vs run-every-mission players, gamers vs role-players or any AT-vs-AT divide. And while it's probably a spectrum of sorts, not necessarily a black/white, in/out choice, the idea goes a long ways towards explaining some oddities of the game/MMO/City of Spandex world. The division is between fundamentally different perspectives on the game — literally. Camps that see "the game" as being two wholly different things, with each perspective somewhere between dismissed, deprecated, snickered at or just plain mystifying to the other. Call them Immies and Ooies. For Immies — the 'immersion' crowd that probably has serious role-players as its far end and anchor, but extends to a much less intense group as well — the game is what's on the screen: the world, the alt, the avatars of other players, the mission, the combat. That's you there in your sweaty spandex and clanking shoulder plates, wishing you'd brushed your teet before flipping down your combat visor. Or at least it's your best friend in there. It's important that you find the glowie and beat the boss, because... it's important. It's all about the gameplay as experienced by the alt, and the whole game interface, controls and clunky management of settings is just a hurdle you have to deal with. You don't care how a power is selected or a buff triggered or a door opened; you want the most transparent interaction you can with that alternate world in front of you. If you could do it with completely passive thought control, seamlessly, it would be nirvana. And so far, most of you are nodding and saying, "Yep, that's me. I want to be Mr Master Blaster, right to the core." But. Based on years of discussion, with a focus on the controls and UI, I beg to differ with some largish contingent here, who aren't really as "in the game" as they might think or want to be. They're Ooies. For an Ooie — a UI-player — the screen is just a sort of feedback device and score counter, like the back wall of a pinball machine. Nothing going on there is really important, just the feedback loop for the really important part of the game: button-mashing. Lots of it. Fast, exhausting, hand-numbing, sweat-inducing whackity-whackity-clickety-click, an extended take on hand-eye coordination with that 3D avatar registering all your right moves. These are the players that can't have enough trays of macros and prefer builds that don't do anything unless a button is pushed — no auto powers, no core toggles, no custom binds, no tricks, just Mario-World key and mouse pounding, nonstop from session beginning to end. For them, the game isn't on the other side of the glass; it's between them and the UI console. I'm very much an Immie, although my RPing is very slight; I don't get to the point where I believe I am that fire tank, just that his well-being is my well-being. And if I could write such incredibly sophisticated binds that I merely lay my hands across the keyboard to play that game in there... I'd be happy. That is, I get nothing from the physical activity of finding, pointing, pushing, clicking; it's a tedious barrier between me and the "real" game. As for Ooies, everyone who is spluttering that that's not them and ready to tell me all the reasons they have to have six macro trays stacked left for every alt and drag their dead fingers to bed at night... maybe think on this a while before pounding out the denials. Kinda like the comment in Help I saw just the other day: "I can play on a small screen because the game is all the UI anyway." Not the first time I've seen such a statement, although that one is particularly clear and timely. I don't believe the Ooie viewpoint is particularly rare, but it's gone sort of unnoticed. No judgment here either way. But it's a difference between players I've never seen outlined, and might give an alternate path to harmony and conflict resolution that works better than cramming the situation into "power vs casual player" or "bind vs macro aficionado" or "speed-leveler vs all-mish types." TL;DR Executive Recap: Most players can be sorted into two categories: one that plays the game inside the machine, one that plays the game of telling the machine what to do.

One of my proudest achievements was taking a new roll, without XP point one, from Altas Plaza to Portal Plaza, without acquiring one XP point or a single defeat. In the old days, before there were nineteen different quik-travel alternatives. I think I used the rule of no trams, either... I had to walk, zoning through city gates all the way. One of those things that's been power-creeped out of having any real value. But it was fun then.

I did project work for RS/Tandy over the years. They were a strange, strange, strange company from the top down. Not really evil, like Nemesis. Just sort of walk-into-walls stupid, like Clockwork.

The one thing no one ever comments on about the Carnival is that they really smell bad. Worse than most Vahz, even.

I dunno. I've never really understood why H**l*rs became so disliked and deprecated. I know, it's a trope/necessity/anchor in other MMOs and now, especially with it's not really a useful niche build any more, but in between tanking and bashing and zapping, I really-really-really enjoyed running a first-rate healer, with a killer bind set on the numpad and a "zero drops" goal for myself. But I guess, in the current game, with an ever-rising pyramid of maxed builds starting at Level 3, someone to watch your spandexed ass isn't the asset it used to be. Sigh.

On my first alt (<- that one), I think I leveled four times before I realized I was, you know, supposed to do something about it. Quite a feat, really... I've tried since to reach level 5 without so much as adding Rest, and it's bee-ootch.

I am not sure what topic you're reading, here. I think the OP makes all the issues quite clear, but you keep asking very sideways questions as if you don't quite grasp anything about what it says, or how keybinds are managed beyond typing the odd one in via Chat. We seem to be down to a semantic debate over "export" vs "save" vs, I dunno, "Have Ms Liberty read them from a scroll" or something. I think between the OP and repeated answers to the same effect, I've explained it as well as it can be explained. Maybe if you review the original post in RFC mode, and have some question you really think it doesn't address, I'll do my best with it. Extreme TL;DR version: As of P7, the game no longer exports the full set of keybinds with the bind-save commands or in any other way. This is a problem in at least two ways: it makes essential user information opaque/hard to determine, and it risks overwriting existing bindfiles and losing their content.

You can't export the default binds, of any 'profile,' at all under the new regime. Are you unaware or that or... just sort of arguing to argue, here?

How is any user to know what the binds are if they can't export them? I don't argue that there's no real reason to do it on every save, but completely removing the ability to list the defaults breaks the informational/troubleshooting loop. The profiles are as close to worthless as any leftover element of the game. There are three with extremely minor shifts of the control keys, and one with joystick binds. Fine, great, wonderful... but without that system being expandable, and without profiles that make real changes to the overall UI or can be saved as custom options, it's just fribble-frabble. Removing the ability to export the binds, once or every time, breaks an essential customization process.

I don't quite follow any of that. With the change, the game no longer exports the complete bind set. It exports one "profile" code and any custom binds it happens to be holding. This makes what used to be a simple, open process into a cryptic one that (1) doesn't allow users to see all defined binds and (2) can overwrite an unknowing user's carefully constructed bindfile. It's mostly that latter error, irretrievable if the user isn't cautious enough to keep backup and archive copies, that concerns me. Let's face it, most people don't bother to back up critical reports and homework assignments, much less something as trivial as their custom bind file, and until now you could always retrieve your binds with a save. No longer. As for the first, being able to export all the currently defined binds, whether default or not, whether represented by menu items or not, is an extremely useful starting point for understanding binds and tinkering with them. Blocking this feature cripples both learning and data safety, and doing so to emphasize and stabilize a nearly useless "profile" feature is a very poorly thought-out move. But mostly I'd like to make sure as many bind-manglers as possible know they can lose years of work in one casual move if they're not aware the function of bind_save has changed.

All users who create and modify their keybinds need to know that there has been a signficant change in how the overall keybind feature works with Issue 27 Page 7. It is strongly recommended that you do not use any "save binds" command or feature, whether an Options menu command or the /bindsave and/bindsavefile slash commands. You risk losing some or all of your keybind declarations unless you use caution and are certain to have backup versions saved. Once again — Do not save binds from any CoX command or menu! Background With the release of Page 7, significant changes were made to the keybind system, making the largely unused "Profiles" feature more dominant and all but removing the ability to save a complete record of the keybinds in use, both default and custom. This change accomplishes little or nothing for users and is reportedly driven by a Dev choice to clean up the relevant code and operations that combine keybind assignment and 'profiles.' If you don't use custom binds, you need not read further. (Although if you don't use binds, it's not clear why you're bothering to read this topic! 🙂 ) If you use a few custom binds, entered from Chat, this will affect you in minor ways. If, however, you are an advanced bind user and rely on editing and loading bind files as part of your game, UI and alt management, things have changed in a considerable way and, without care and caution, you could lose all your hard-developed work in one unconsidered move. Bind File Safety, post-Page 7 For "binders," the primary change to the system is that the game will no longer write back the complete set of binds; it begins by writing back a "key_profile" setting, representing one or another set of default binds, and then any custom binds that have been entered. If you have a single bindfile, saving the system binds will overwrite it and potentially erase any binds that are not recognized as custom. If you rely at any point on the complete set of default binds, you can no longer download them. They will all be represented in new bindsave operations by that single profile keyword. If you are an advanced bind wrangler, you should first find any original, raw set of binds you may have downloaded and make sure it is protected and archived; you cannot, as of Page 7, re-acquire it. If you use only one set of binds, it is STRONGLY recommended that you switch to a named file (other than the default 'keybinds.txt' to minimize the chances of a game action or mistake overwriting it with an essentially useless shortlist. If you use named files for your alts or archetypes, it is recommended that you maintain separate upload and download versions. That is, use MrBadBoy-save.txt when you save or download current binds, and MrBadBoy-load.txt as your primary edit, archive and load file. And keep archive copies of everything, with every round of edits. There is essentially no further value to saving/downloading binds except as a limited diagnostic tool, and that should be done with great care. Unless and until this change is reverted or modified, it is best consider binds a one-way, upload/load only process. X <— Here's my one-guy, one-player, one-opinion vote that whatever further changes are made to the bind, bindfile and feeble 'Profile' system, that the ability to download a complete set of binds, including default, 'hidden,' 'system' and custom ones be restored. However irrelevant or "not broken" this change may be considered, it deeply cripples the entire save/review/edit/load/experiment cycle of bind development for all but the most dedicated and prepared players... and that's a significant loss no matter how it's considered.

In the old days, "dimming" one or all windows in the UI meant the background faded out until you hovered over it or clicked within it, in which case it became opaque enough to use. Very subtle and useful feature, the best of fading out or blanking windows but still having them accessible when needed. The menu and slash commands still exist for dimming a selection of windows, or all of them. Windows can be dimmed with either. But windows, once dimmed, cannot be restored to full opacity even with the same commands, and the auto-opaque feature no longer works. Could some part of this be fixed? Ideally, restoring the dimmed/auto-opaque feature to work again? Or making the dim commands work both ways, without requiring a restart or reload of saved window settings? Or just disable the feature until some sunny day when it can be fixed?

You can no longer save a complete set of binds; only those you change. Everything else is swept up into a single, meaningless, "key_profile" setting. (Which doesn't even use the same terminology as the menu.) The entire, longstanding, extremely useful/tutorial method of save/examine/change/load is completely broken in favor of being able to select between three all but identical profiles and one for joysticks. But it's a good thing profiles named "Classic" "Modern" and "Issue 1" tell us everything we need to know about their contents! Although I was informed in no uncertain terms that "this breaks nothing, nothing I tell you!" it means that comprehensive grasp of the key bind set, beginning experimentation with it and even coherent management by experienced binders is now all but blocked. You have to start bllind, with no list of the exact binds used (especially the ones that are not listed in the menu), and then climb a fairly steep learning curve, to do what last month was a much easier, newb-friendly, pro-supporting system. Yeah, I think it's broken. But y'know, that's just an opinion. What do I know, after only 19 years of investigating, documenting and sharing the possibilities of a system that can improve the gameplay and QoL of just about every player. And is now (for no really good or useful reason) boxed and firewalled to be much more difficult to learn and use.

But nothing was broken before, other than (apparently) some grungy internal code that affected no one in 19 years. And it's my understanding that the code is pretty far from perfect across the board. 🙂 I don't think that for a chain of trivial bind changes, and then support for reverting them, and making things tidier in that area of the code, removing the ability to export current bind settings without jumping through hoops is an added-value tradeoff. That is, just leaving the system alone, and not putting so much emphasis on a couple of nearly invisible binding changes that might upset a few people, in return for throwing up a hurdle that makes getting started in bind tweaks and UI customization more difficult, seems more reasonable to me; if you leave the system easy to tweak even for the most casual, fix-one-key customizer, it's better than this now somewhat firewalled, opaque setup. Put a third way, yes, we can still all load bindfiles of massive redefinition and fiendish complexity. But the first step to that is now much, much higher — there's no clear connection between the rather murky presentation of the binding menu and the actual keybind pseudocode — and that will discourage/deflect many who might otherwise learn some of this useful area of tinkering. Thanks for the explanation, though. Que sera, and all that.

As nearly as I can tell, A/D have been strafe in CoX for quite some time, if not always. My only contribution was using Ctrl+A/D to add turning as an option for the few situations where it's useful.

Did we gain some new control over "profiles" that's eluded me, here? Those seem to be wholly internal, Dev-managed constructs to allow that "Classic" setback. For the 73 charter players who will use it.