Ukase

I suspect there are a lot of these types of alignment points that may be earned outside of the alignment missions. I need to start making notes, because - for example, while doing loop hero, you have to run that 5x for the badge. 20 merits each run. But, if I can amass a list of all the actions/choices that will give specific alignment points - and then run the appropriate arcs, it'd be pretty nice to just run a morality and get the 40 merits on top - without having to run a single alignment mission. The strange thing about that Loop Hero arc, I can't be sure, because I didn't right it down, but I swear I got a heroic point no matter what I did to Miss Thystle. I'll be taking yet another character through and plan to make notes on what actions give what kind of points.

A little story which might shed some light how easy the zombie badges are to get. As we are likely aware, Adamastor is capable of being summoned 1 hour after his last defeat. I zone in with my ice/dark corruptor. Adamastor can be summoned - but for whatever reason, it hasn't been done yet. I saw the call out in lfg, so quickly logged in my corruptor who is already at the platform. I summon my lore pets, figuring they will summon Adamastor within a couple of minutes. And, the Zombie event begins. I did absolutely nothing but put my lore pets to aggressive. I got all the badges in less than a couple of minutes. Doing nothing but waiting to clobber Adamastor. My lore pets did all the work for that. I didn't even have anything targeted. It probably helped there were more than a half dozen folks waiting on the platform for Adamastor. Pretty sure I don't see those kinds of numbers when I'm solo and nobody else is around.

Appreciate the heads up.

<doh!> Well, that I knew. But I can't take the reward merits and convert them back to VG merits - technically, we cannot send VG merits to our alts. Jus' sayin.

So, I have no beef with expansion of radio missions into any faction. But, if you're just killing time waiting for whatever - tip missions eventually lead to a morality mission which gives 40 merits. Sadly, there's only a couple of these per faction (at least, that's what I see on my SG mission computer) but still, given the repetition that radios are, I would think tips would fall into the same category - except you get PAID eventually.

Pray tell, how do we do this with Vanguard merits?

Yeah, but not everyone does contact missions and story arcs through ouro.

Anecdotally, my passwords tend be Bible verses. It satisfies most requirements for caps, special symbols and numbers. For me, it's fairly simple to remember my "go-to" verses. Alternatively, you might try LastPass, but with any of those programs, you still have to remember the "Master" password. Unfortunately, it's just the nature of the digital world now.

Maybe check with them first. I have a number of characters with AoE. I tend to use some form of buff before I pop in and inferno. If a teammate just dumps a group on me, I'm going to have an issue with that.

For the younger crowd, L33t, or leet speak is a carryover from hackers. Now, there were hackers that were quite ingenious; using a whistle from a cereal box to make a telephone call for free - that was incredibly clever. Illegal, but clever. This ingenuity stemmed from a time when there was a thing called "Long-distance". Long distance would be any call outside of your local area. The further out, the greater the charge. If you wanted to call your grandmother in another state - you had to pay a fair amount, like 31 cents a minute. (seems cheap now, but if you wanted to keep your bills down, it added up quickly!) I remember when I was traveling as a young college student, my parents would have me call them collect and ask for myself. And then they would refuse to accept the charges, but would know I was okay and had arrived at my destination alive. Common practice! That was the extent of any "hack" we ever knew about. Enter the hacker, nicknamed Captain Crunch who discovered the frequency of the whistle that came with the cereal box of Captain Crunch would (details are fuzzy, I read this book in the early 90s) put out a frequency which allowed a long distance call to go through, and neither the party being called, nor the caller were billed. I'm sure Google would have some details. The hackers used this kind of wordplay for a number of reasons, depending on where they were using it. The primary goal was to obscure the actual meaning from eyes that weren't intended to see the communication, whether that was the authorities, or security software. In short, they were up to no good. Today's equivalent could be the folks that scam you out of your money, whether it's by phone, or a bogus gift card. We have a language called English. English is just an old language that has been influenced by a number of other languages, and it's a difficult language to learn, let alone master. But even an idiot will know to not use numbers when we have letters that convey the message more clearly. Some folks use this leet speak because for reasons that don't make sense to me, they think it's amusing or funny. Or whatever. It's kind of like role play, really. For a brief moment, if they want to pretend to be Kevin Mitnick (RIP) or Kevin Paulson, be my guest. Enjoy yourselves. As long as you're amused, fine. Personally, I'll probably throw up a little.

Damn, you're a hero in real life, too! Well done, sir! We thank you!

Precisely. But, I am not sure what it means. I just know it doesn't mean "nothing". It is worth something. But a lot depends on how they got them - and that information isn't available from the character info.

Was selling some common recipes, and spied this. Never heard of this before. I looked it up, turns out it's part of the SG component crafting salvage we used back on retail. Why are people buying this? We no longer need to craft crafting tables to make teleporters and such.

The short version is this: What are all the cool kids using to track their badges now? The spreadsheet? Homecoming Badger? Or just ATC's updated Popmenu? Their own spreadsheet? So, for the past couple of years, I got burned out on badging. Nowhere close to what Voltor was doing, but when page 7 hit, I had Ukase Ukase Fire Ukase Rad Imperious Ukase Humdinger Ukase Mace Gordian Sting Mirth Quake Apache Fire Apache Mace Catabolic All these characters had over 1000 badges, and 5 of them had all the badges at that time. The tedious nature of page 7 was just more than I wanted to deal with. As a result, I stopped badging on all but Ukase. Somehow, I missed the winter badge last year, and I'll presumably pick that up from the candy keeper come December or when the winter event starts, and he'll have all the badges. But here's my problem. The Homecoming Badger site, where I'd check off the badges as I earned them doesn't seem to be updated for the new stuff. I'm not clear on who maintained this one, but real life and/or interest seems to have gotten in the way. It happens, and it's all good. Is there a method for me to add the new badges to this site myself? I think most of the stuff is stored on my system as, I read it. Do I need to take a crash course in some programming language? ATC's newly updated popmenu has been a super big help, but as we know, 1600+ badges is a lot to sift through to find one you don't have, and often it's a praetorian badge name for one I already have. I miss the days where i can just click on the don't show collected badges, and it just shows the remaining badges I need.

So, with the recent addition of Jack in Irons (among other GMs) spawning in the murder room, with him comes red caps. So, Capbuster is certainly a defeat badge you could add if you hadn't already.

For me, the decision is based on whether I'm going to pursue all badges, or just the accolade. If I'm chasing all the badges, well, gonna have to do all that stuff anyway, right? It then becomes a question of which path is most expedient for that character, given what they may have already done. But just the accolade...going red side SFs for sure.

Yes and no. As for what it means, that's really tough to pinpoint with accuracy. We have a fairly generous community, which I think is by design. Arguably, one of the harder badges to get in game is "Avoids the Green Stuff". Unfortunately, if a player has this badge, it could mean anything from them being very observant to the incoming damage on Anti-Matter, to being whisked around by Incan - essentially meaning they could have lucked out by being on a good league. So many badges in game where a player with intention can get them, but it doesn't mean they'd be a great fit for a master run with no temps, no defeats. The only things that I believe badges convey are simply the player is invested in their character. The more badges they have, it suggests they are "Plugged in" with the community. At least some of it, anyway. Mainly because there are so many badges that would be very difficult to get without at least a few friends. It suggests they can cooperate, and at least for a little while, get along with others. The absence of badges certainly doesn't mean anything. But, on the off-chance it could mean the player has never played their character beyond AE...well, that's cause for concern. Is it rude to be so judgmental? Maybe. But when you're an older player, with less free time than you used to have, do we have to take the risk? Sure, we might miss out on one of the better players! But, we might also miss out on an idiot. Clearly the bias against "AE babies" is there for a reason. I don't think the reason is jealousy, or loathing of farmers. (but it could be, I guess, but that doesn't make sense to me) I think some players chose the AE route, left AE and learned things were different. And some of those lessons were also learned by those who hosted those players. It can't be too hard to imagine why some folks are cynical about a low badge count. I think the best solution is to try and team with these folks in trivial content before challenging content. Something as easy as a speedy Miss Lib can tell you a lot. Who has stealth? And who is used to killing everything in their path with the help of the 7 others on the team. And who apparently doesn't really quite understand what a speedy run is. And that clever bastard that knows to ouro out of the mission, instead of exiting the mission and then using an ouro portal. Yeah, you! How dare you be so smart and focused?! Edited to add: I feel I should add this: I know a player. I "met" them first through the help channel. I simply surmised they were new and still learning. I spent at least 30 minutes with them explaining how the incarnate system worked. Why one alpha might be good for one character, but not so good for another, and that everything depended on what they were looking for, and to never forget it acts like an extra slot filled with an enhancement that has the attributes of that alpha. Later, I learned they weren't new. Or maybe they were. But a year later, I ran into them, and despite having a badge count of around 1200, they were one of the worst players I'd ever encountered, before or since. Turns out they were closing in on 70, had grandkids underfoot, and well, the nicest way I can put it, they just didn't learn very well. I even noticed they would ask the same questions over and over. It doesn't mean they were stupid or not a nice person. It just meant they weren't focused. As much as they wanted the badges, they didn't want them enough to get rid of the grandkids and pay attention. So, high badge count certainly doesn't mean everything. This is the last player I would want to take on any kind of badge run. But, I learned this by teaming with them on more trivial things, like some of the ouro challenge badges.

Well, that's a sad day for CoH. The literal "Give me your stuffz" before you go, eh? The good news, he can always re-install. Everything will be right where he left it if he didn't give it away.

I should also add...I just got mark and recall on an alt. So, with the 5 vigilante alignment points, figured I'd try to reproduce these results of getting 5 vigilante points like I did yesterday. I only got one. So, that particular part where I got 5 pts, I don't think that was working as intended. The single point is probably more of what was expected. Not sure if I did something crazy through the dialog choices or not. Oh well.

Anecdotally, I have learned to do these badges within the first 48 hours, or it's unlikely to get done - unless you have some solid relationships in game with a lot of people. Certain SG leaders can just recruit for something, and fill a league within minutes. Whereas someone who doesn't routinely lead would never come close to filling the league. It's just the way things go sometimes. If you have an SG, you might ask your fellow members. If not, during the evening time for most of the US, like 7pm-10pm Central would probably be the best time to try and get something going. Also, some ToT league leaders are pretty good at getting the banners done. I'm not even sure who it was, but I got it done on 4 characters or so, and I wasn't even looking to get it done on more than one. Each time, I was doing the ToT league thing.

Just discovered this: As we all know, mark & recall requires 25 tip missions. So, I'm working on this, and because of Hedgefund's guide, I've sometimes been "buying" the tip missions instead of waiting for them to drop. And I see this: (look at the bottom of the graphic) Use Discount Coupon? I have 9 Invention Discount coupons! It would seem this transaction is viewed by the game as a crafting action, and as a result, it doesn't cost a reward merit!

I should add - those 5 points towards the Vigilante Morality mission - they do not count as alignment tip missions for badge credit, with regards to that multi-faceted badge, part of the mark & recall requirements for the accolade. Sure wish they did, lol. Would save a bit of time.

Well, I have an old hard drive that's not being used; still has Windows 95 on it, maybe. Not sure. It has that character info on it. The program, I think it was called Sentinel. I should probably take a look in there, because I'm pretty sure I had the Blinky Finder program on that drive. A fairly useful tool that doesn't seem to exist anymore. It used Demorecord in some fashion to scan the map, and then would give a display with an x or something where all the NPCs and glowies were, floor by floor. (You had to re-run it at each floor) Very useful back on retail when quantums and voids were a lot worse than they seem to be now. Or maybe I've just gotten better at building khelds, lol.

I've always enjoyed LB3K's trials. He has a way of talking about the Avatar of Hamidon that's pretty strange. It always cracks me up. That and the "Go make a sandwich" if you don't have a snipe. Sadly, he doesn't play much anymore. Or if he does, it's fairly late at night after I've logged.

Short version: Allow the Echo: Dark Astoria (and the other Echo: maps) to be searched for other players. The longer version below: