Abraxus

I wonder if that is what happens when I am in a ToT league, and crash about every 20 minutes. It only happens on ToT league. Not MSR, not Incarnate Trial leagues, not regular team play. Just ToT in a league.

Yeah, I do that too. It's kind of weird, but somehow enjoyable at the same time. I actually have 4 or 5 characters in there, so you're killing them too! 😉😎

I played an Earth\Earth Dominator extensively, and I loved the effects. Especially the sound, which always made me feel powerful.

Looking at the numbers tonight, Torchbearer sitting just over 500. Granted, Tuesday is probably not considered prime-time. But, the summer slide in numbers has definitely continued. 🤔

There are gears turning in an effort for full legitimacy, but we don't know when, or even if, that will be successful. So, for the time being, tell anyone you want. That, and some articles from Massively are where most people came upon the knowledge that the game was back. If the aforementioned efforts are successful, you can bet there will be a full-on shouting from the rooftops by us, the Devs, and anyone else who cares to join in. Until then, it's pretty much word-of-mouth.

IMHO, the argument was not a strong one when the game was driven by profit. Now that is no longer the case, there is precious little grounds to object to how anyone chooses to accumulate XP. If they reach 50, get bored, and leave, there is no threat to profitability, because there is none. Granted, I never want to see anyone leave for any reason. But, I know it happens. Not everyone will stay forever like me. But, to intentionally throw roadblocks in their way to prevent that from happening any sooner than it would anyway? I just don't get why anyone would advocate for it. I mean, if you want to say "Noobs should come up the old fashioned way, so that they actually know how to play when they hit L50". Ok, I get that. It's good advice. But, you can't force them to do that. If they want to be good players, they will. If they just want to blow through levels, and leave all the sooner...well, problem solved either way. 😎

In a free to play game, running on a (currently) non-sanctioned server, I'm not sure there is really any high-ground for determining what's right, and wrong. It's a wonderful game that went before it's time, and we have been given a very rare second chance to live in the world we love so much. Rather than making moral, or any other kinds of judgements about how other play, or should play, how about we just...play? I'm one that thinks that while we are playing, we seldom think of others as critically as we do here in the forums. It's not perfect in Paragon City, but if one were to judge from typical in-game experience, they would probably say that this is a pretty happy place overall. It's only here in the forum that one finds tension, debate, criticism, and lobbying for changes to be made to the game because of (fill in your reason of choice). Things are probably not as bad overall as they sometimes appear to be here in the discussions. But, even here, we could probably do with a little less pontificating on how the game would be so much better for everyone, if it just did (fill in your favorite universal fix). The truth of the matter is, that it is highly unlikely that any "bedrock" level changes are coming to this game. Improvements, QoL stuff, new missions. I could see that. But, for anyone expecting a full graphics overhaul (discreet fingers even?), or titanic shifts in the balance of things with regards to AE, Incarnates, Power Leveling, or anything else, I feel like you are expecting too much from a small group of volunteers, who have day jobs in addition to what they do to keep this place running. I really believe if you are looking for that level of change, keep pulling for the negotiations to be successful, and that the relative popularity inspires the powers that be at NCSoft that there should be a CoH 2 in the planning stages. Outside of that, things will remain pretty much the same around here IMHO.

I'd love to see more mission content too, or revamps of what's already there, to entice folks to go that route, rather than nerfing AE to push them that way. But, that's a huge undertaking that not even the dev team during live could accomplish, and there were more of them (plus they were getting paid to do it).

I guess my response is, why devote time/resources (which are all volunteer BTW) on studying, and possibly changing something that really doesn't need to be changed; when it could be better spent on things that will universally (or as close as anything can come to it these days) make people happy, and want to play more? I really don't care why people farm, and I don't care THAT they farm. My only desire is to see this server continue to flourish, and that folks genuinely want to play here for the long haul. I would like to see us steer clear of things that don't really accomplish that, but absolutely do alienate some players to the point where they would stop playing rather than do so under the new conditions. That will always happen to a certain degree, I suppose. But, there is a very strong, and vibrant farming culture here, and the changes you propose would likely not sit well with them. They would be angered, and probably leave. Then what have we really accomplished?

It's a choice, like every other aspect of the game. The idea is not to foist our preferences for what constitutes preferable game play, on anybody. Whether by disparaging what they do, or by advocating changes to the game, which would make what they do non-functional, or much less effective. I would prefer to see things that add to the enjoyment, and depth of the game overall, as opposed to efforts devoted to changing things that are working just fine, and aren't hurting anyone. Especially in this iteration of the game, which is no longer interested in keeping progression slow, so as to maximize profit. It's no longer a thing, so why do anything along those lines?

They are very similar in their responses.

Agreed! The performance, and reliability vs. traditional spin drives more than makes up for any small difference in cost per GB. It is money well spent.

I said it in another thread, and I will reiterate here. Plenty of room for ALL play styles, and preferences in this game, without the need to alter it to favor one, and prohibit another. It's all up to the individual as to how, or if, they utilize farming, mission content, TFs, or street sweeping to accomplish what they wish for their respective characters.

I think it's been said...heck, I might have even said it myself. Plenty of room in this game for ALL play styles, and preferences. No need to alter the game to prohibit anything.

Like any pursuits that we find preferable, pleasurable, or just plain necessary, it's all about balance. You play in between the "have to" things, and the "should do" things, as this definitely falls into the "want to" category. Some other things in your life that were also in that category likely find this competing for your time, and attention. But, you will feel better knowing, while you might not get to play as much as you'd really like, you're also not putting off more important things, or people in your life. I recall doing that in the original run, and I made a point not to fall into that behavior this time around, and it's worked out pretty well.

All T4's! That's some CoH dedication there! 😎

If that's your thing, absolutely!

One thing I have noticed, is when folks are actually playing, as opposed to taking about playing in the forum, or on Discord, it's a totally different scene. When on a team, even when things are not going well, very seldom will you see accusations leveled at someone specifically, or that their shortcomings are due to a specific thing that was a topic of discussion outside the game. When playing, by and large, what prevails is the joy of playing. It's really only here where we break things down to the theoretical levels which are topics for discussion. But, what would we have to talk about if we didn't. 😉

Yeah, there are situations like this one, where someone's unfamiliarity with the game, their archetype, and their powers due to not learning any of the above on the way to L50, starts to have an impact on my enjoyment of my available play time, or anyone else's; then it's a problem. But, I can't really think of any other circumstances where it is an issue worthy of much notice, let alone critique.

Probably not that many. So, what I stated wouldn't apply to very many, leaving most with my blessing to do whatever the heck you want! 😎

No, you're right. Folks need to first, and foremost have fun. For those who have done this process countless times, with multitudes of archetypes, and powersets, you've earned the right to skip over some stuff. However, I reserve the right to be critical of a team situation caused by a player who knows nothing about his high level character, because they skipped the entire learning process to get there. There is a minimum level of familiarity to not be "THAT GUY" on a high level team.

I have three level 50 characters so far, with a few still coming through the ranks, and I have yet to decide which will be my standard bearer for the long haul. I love that it is such a difficult decision, made even more so by the fact that I love playing them all in different ways.

Absolutely this! I don't want to tell anyone how to play. However, I played the original game from start, to finish. When I came back, I found that I had a LOT to re-learn, and that took actually playing again, as opposed to skipping to the end. One definitely does his/her self a favor by leveling their first couple of characters up the old fashioned way, just to get reacquainted with the game. Then, they will be making informed decisions about how they prefer to play any that follow. It's totally up to the individual to decide how best to approach it. But, new or newly returning players do themselves, and everyone they play with in the later levels, a service by getting to know the game, their character, and their powers before jumping into the post-50 world.

The great thing about this game, in particular, is that it doesn't take a power house PC to run it with all the settings at max. I used to build my own PCs starting with an empty case, and working my way out from there. However, there used to be a measurable advantage to that, which has now diminished to the point where it no longer justifies the time/effort of doing so. These days, I buy an off the shelf mini-tower PC, and replace the power supply with something a little beefier than what they typically come with, and add a discreet video card (I'm an NVidia guy, but AMD is a fine choice these days too). If you can swing making the hard drives SSD, then everything just works faster. All fairly inexpensive as PCs go. However, your other choice is to just buy a gaming PC with all of that already done. That is usually a little more expensive, but all the work is done, and it just works right out of the box. The other advantage would be that, it will work for other games/applications than just CoH, and do very well with them. Dell, and Acer both make very nice gaming rigs (Alien, and Predator are the tags for them I believe). For reference, one of my sons has a Predator, and it is pretty awesome. My other son bought himself a gaming rig from a more boutique company that had more specialized parts. More expensive, but even more awesome. I can't recall the name at the moment, but if you are interested, I could find out. Needless to say, both their rigs beat the heck out of mine. But, mine still does what I need it to do, so it's fine. Especially, since CoH is all I play, or even want to play, anyway. 😎

Absolutely! The music was a copyright issue, without a doubt. But, it worked as part of the soundtrack for the original Spider-Man movie, and it works even better here. Plus, I'm one of those weird people who like Nickelback, despite the fact that it has become fashionable to hate them. 😉