srmalloy

There is another reason why Babbage won't spawn, but it's not a regular enough occurrence to be coded around. If there is a zone-wide event like a zombie invasion or a Rikti assault, Babbage won't spawn.

Heard while standing around in Talos Island: [NPC] Van: Nice to hear about a task force on working in Steel Canyon. Makes me feel safer. The 'on working' feels as if it's either missing something or badly worded.

There's also the blueside mission in the blue tunnels where you encounter two Rikti, Stern and Krantz.

It depends on how the RNG works and how a program uses it to produce random numbers. For example, many system-level RNGs produce a pseudo-random 32-bit integer. One of the more common shortcuts used by coders unfamiliar with how RNGs work to get a limited random number range is to take the generated integer and MOD it to the range they want. This can inherently create bias. For example, if you have a RNG that creates a four-bit random integer from 0-15, and you use it to get a 0-9 number using MOD, you get the following results: RNG Result RNG Result 0 0 8 8 1 1 9 9 2 2 10 0 3 3 11 1 4 4 12 2 5 5 13 3 6 6 14 4 7 7 15 5 Note that 0-5 appears twice each in the result, while 6-9 only appear once each. Now, this is a very simplistic example, and one that would be guarded against by any decent RNG library, but it shows how not paying attention to the generation and subsequent calculation can distort the return.

And there's nothing you can really do by getting out of Pocket D into the space beyond the structure. You can visit the two motherships, the gas station, the TARDIS, and the other rocks floating out there, but you can't affect anything inside the structure except for hovering outside waving at the people inside. I've tried using ATT and Recall Friend (now Teleport Other) to try to help people get outside, and it doesn't work. I admit that I haven't tried pulling them up through the gap in the rock in the tiki lounge, but that's a real corner case and relies on their cooperation, so you can't use it for griefing. All of which makes it a really low-priority issue to be 'fixed'.

While the real answer is likely only known to NCsoft, there are a few things that I think contributed. First, because of the way that MMOs evolved in Asia, they are very group-centric; in many of them it's functionally impossible to do any significant advancement solo. CoH wasn't; its playstyle was foreign to what the people who played Asian MMOs expected, and as a result, the Korean regionalization fell on its face. This greatly lowered the perception of the game to NCsoft management. Second, most Asian MMOs don't rely subscriptions for their income, but rather on a cash shop for better and flashier gear; the design of CoH made it difficult to monetize that way -- think about the costume packs that were released, and imagine having to buy each costume part separately for each character that used it, or enhancements that were better than what you could get in game, but which you'd outlevel and have to replace. This also pushed the perception of CoH down, making it unimportant, since it couldn't be turned into a steady stream of microtransactions. Then, while CoH itself was turning a profit, NCsoft had saddled Paragon Studios with an undisclosed development project, whose expenses made Paragon Studios as a whole lose money. Finally, Paragon Studios was trying to buy itself out from under NCsoft, instead of being a properly subordinate subsidiary (not behaving like a proper Korean business); Paragon Studios losing money justified shutting it down and removing this group of upstart employees who didn't understand their proper place in a Korean corporation. As an aside to this, reading some of the posts on job boards about NCsoft's US component, the primary complaint was that the management was shipped in from Korea expecting to run the division like a Korean company with no understanding of American corporate culture or the business operations they were managing (after all, if you've got an MBA, you can manage any business, right? You don't need to have any understanding of what it does, management is the same). For example, people were expected to put in unpaid overtime, simply because that was how you show that you're dedicated to your job, and were marked down in performance appraisals if they didn't.

I automatically recolor Radiation powers from the incorrect green default (the stereotype of radiation being green comes from the color emitted by the phosphor used in radium paint for illuminated indicators) to the cyan blue of Cherenkov radiation, and this is the way it's always been -- no matter what the color you use for your powers, secondary effects remain the default green.

Once you activate your teleport -- and you have to be careful not to jog the target when you click, or you won't get through -- you wind up on top of the rocks making up the walls of the Tiki Lounge. From there you work down to the edge of the building and drop onto the rock under that corner as you get out. From there, if you don't have Fly, you can't get on top of the building to get to the TARDIS (or over to the gas station or either of the Rikti motherships).

Back before shutdown, there was no Icon in Atlas Park, nor an entrance to Pocket D, so you had to run a gauntlet of one form or another to reach a tailor.

Actually, the trek is less dangerous if you go to Kings Row, schlep over to the west side and the passage into Independence Port, then make the relatively short run from the gate there to the Icon due west of you. Although the trek in Steel got less gulpy after they linked all the tram lines so you could go to the North tram in Steel Canyon rather than having to make your way from the diagonally opposite corner.

In the mission from Debra Costel where you meet Debra Rosenfield, then watch her from the security cameras as she goes into an office map to meet a Skulls recruiter, my character had a path aura... which Debra acquired during her time in the office map. This looks to be a continuation of the relatively minor issue where costume parts that the character whose identity you're assuming doesn't have carry through into the mission (the mission from Matthew Habashy where a female character assumes the form of a Girlfriend from Hell will pick up the character's tail if they have one), as well as other innocuous quirks -- if you summon a buff pet before entering the mission, the buff pet will remain following the character you're portraying in the mission, and a MM with pet(s) out will still have them in the mission. It doesn't really do anything to affect the mission, but it's one more of the things that the game doesn't check for when swapping your character out for a new model.

Bzzzt. There are two versions of long integer -- signed and unsigned. Signed long integers have a range of 2,147,483,647 to -2,147,483,648. An unsigned long integer has a range of 0 to 4,294,967,295. Since you can never have a negative amount of influence, there's no point in keeping the influence total as a signed integer, which allows you to double the maximum influence without doing anything more than changing the definition of the fields for influence from signed to unsigned -- the bit length remains the same. On the other hand, I wouldn't put it past the original devs to have taken a shortcut and hardcoded the database to use signed integers for everything, which would keep this change from working without significant amounts of programming.

I picked Vredefort for that reason with a Seismic/Earth blaster

Not really a good copy of Dr. Ghoti from the Supermegatopia webcomic, but you make do with what you have.

The pool to the right of the SG portal in Echo Plaza (as you're facing the portal), if you use the 'innertube' emote, results in your floating below the surface of the water. The pool on the other side, though, has you floating normally on top of the water. The 'right' pool, if you simply enter it, also has you treading water with your head below the surface.

Nahh. Throw in a bit of trivia and name it "Hathcock's Heir".

Mine -- Badge for Snipers

I always figured that Atta wanted to see Velez's Superadine production facilities so that he would learn where they were, intending to roll over it with a force of Trolls to get rid of Velez and bring Superadine production under his control, reversing the drain on the Trolls' resources from having to buy it.

Remembering the billboards, Cap'n Kraken...

You know, since we're in the holiday event, wouldn't it be appropriate for the boxes to be swapped for presents? Having mobs standing on presents to deliver their harangues would add a festive touch.

It appears to be a problem generically with the 'soapbox' item -- the Lost in Perez Park can be found standing on Scheherezade boxes, as well.

As far as I recall, back to when the Vanguard costume pieces were first made availabhle, the Vanguard jetpack back item was always entirely cosmetic; there was never an active jetpack power offered by the Vanguard, and I don't believe that there's any visible animation from the 'Vanguard Backpack with Jetpack' costume part when flying.

This is true only if you don't have a story arc open with them (the little yellow book icon in the screen shot the OP included). I've gotten new missions in the Clockwork Captive arc at level 25, well past the level range of the contact giving them. The story arc missions are all you get, but you should never have a contact go inactive with an open story arc.

The entry portal in Ouro can be used for 'board transit' missions -- it's common to use it for the last mission in Posi 1 because rezzing puts you back in Ouro right by the rear portal, letting you get back to the mission faster.